z70va Problems

Hi,

I have z70va and I had lots of problems with it lately.

Whenever I play Steam based games like Counter-strike, my FPS drops down very drastically and my screen becomes choppy. I checked my CPU fan, but had absolutely no dust in there. Then, I came across this one guide where I can make my notebook quieter and cooler. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=31808&highlight=quiet+cool

On the program SpeedFan, I noticed that my Fan2 which is my GPU fan is ALWAYS 0 RPM. My GPU temperature goes beyond 110 degrees Celcius when I'm playing a game. Could it be that my GPU fan is not working anymore?

Also, my battery won't charge up to 100% anymore. Now, it can only charge up to 5% to 11%.

Please help!

 

There are cases in which programs like Speedfan and other programs just totaly interfer with the laptop. For example of the cases was that SpeedFan for some reason on some laptops can cause the FAN for some components to stop working.

I suggest remove speedfan for the time being, play CSS via STEAM, and see what happens. In regards to the battery, it can either be a battery problem or a motherboard problem/circutry. I suggest you contact your reseller ASAP and let them know what it happening. From there your reseller and ASUS will help you out.

 

Well actually, this issue was occuring BEFORE I installed speedfan which was like about a month ago. I just left it alone because I needed my laptop until this semester.

 

Danny is absolutely right but if you noticed it before....
Have you ever cleaned your cpu? If so how many times? The gpu is inherently hard to clean so the dust collects and remains. You can try to clean it with a straightened paperclip and canned air. Overheating gpu due to clogage is surely possible

 

CPU is easily accessible, so I clean it almost every week. That's why I'm guessing GPU is the problem because it has 0 RPM according to my SpeedFan.

Is there a guide to cleaning GPU safely?

 

if you have this thing on 24/7 cleaning once in 3 months is recomended. once a week is just crazy. Reason i asked is becuase you can tell how much lint built up in the gpu by looking at the cpu. In your case that is not an option. Shape the paperclip like a hook and try to pull lint out while blowing. Otherwise back to your dealer it goes if your dealer is able to even help you.

 

Is there anything I need to becareful about while i'm doing this such as make sure I don't hit this or that part? Also, where am I supposed to stick that paperclip into?

 

stick it into the backside exaust for the gpu. Be carefull not to use a thick "hook" as you can damage the copper fins of the heatsink

 

I realized that my fan doesn't have any lint, or could I be mistaken...
I tried putting in a thin metal hook inside the vent, but I couldn't get anything.

 

There is no way to tell. You can shine a light in there you should be able to see a fan past the fins. If you cant see past the fins then its clogged. Becuase you clean the cpu so often it is impossible to tell how much stuff acumulated on the gpu.
Have you tried other games? Have you tried 3dmark? What scores do you get? is this behavior common to all 3d apps?

 

Wait, you are talking about the ventilation on the bottom of the laptop, right?
I've tried other games too such as Prey and Doom, but they made my computer shut down by itself. As with the 3DMark03 I got 5778. I'm not sure if this behavior happens to all 3D apps because other games were quite choppy.

Also, I just recently tried Counter-Strike again, now my Speedfan says that the GPU fan is spinning at 160 RPM. Isn't that kind of slow?

EDIT:
Okay, now my GPU fan is spinning at around 2000 RPM. This started happening after I flipped my whole laptop over to see if the fan was spinning. I have no idea what's going on lol...

 

My friend....Make everyones life easy and format your laptop. If you got a normal 3dmark score i dont see why your game's would not be working. Format, reinstall the os and load only the drivers on the cd top to bottom. Do not load after market drivers and most of your games will work. Also avoid hacks and modding utils which will undervold overvolt or whatever else you crazy kids like to do. What i am trying to say is REINSTALL THE WINDOWS...You can try updating your vga card drivers, bios and anything else you like but i think you already did that. The fact is z70va out of the box works just fine. If you had a hardware defect it is very unlikely that the laptop would give you a 3dmark score. Let me know how a new o.s. treats you

 

So, what you're saying is that my GPU fan might work properly if I just reformat my computer?

 

My z70va has similar problems. The fan has always been loud, I've had the laptop for just over a year. Recently it has heated up pretty hot, due to video encoding. Now the GPU fan has gotten worse, it sounds choppy, like you can hear every rotation. I've checked the CPU fan, and theres virtually clean. I've tried the paperclip thing, but I can't seem to tell if I'm doing it right. The GPU fan winds and squeals, I don't know if it might be failing, or if theres build up in the gpu fan/ radiator. Can someone explain the Paperclip method of cleaning the GPU fan?

 

I ordered a replacement fan and heatsink from ASUS (eStore). The heatsink was different, the original one had a seperate heatsink pad,that directly covered the ATI chip. The replacement fan didn't have the extra piece of heatsink. So i just switched the fans, and problem solved. The fan is no longer make unbearble noise.