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NESHAKY · ‎10-19-2019

Hi all,

Bios version: 208
CPU: AMD® Ryzen™ 7 3750H Processor, 2.3 GHz (6 M Cache, up to 4.0 GHz)
Memory amount in GB: 26
GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660TI with Max-Q Design , with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM
SSD/HDDs/Optical drives:
AC Adapter: 512GB PCIe® Gen3 x2 SSD M.2
Operating system: Windows 10 PRO
Original ASUS factory image or clean install? fresh install, product did not come with OS
Drivers Installed (include version and especially any non-ASUS approved notebook drivers):Original ASUS drivers accept accept NVDIA 1660 updated by GeForce experienceV346.48
Any third Party temp/voltage software installed: MSI Afterburner
System Overclocked (provide details)? NO
Any hardware upgraded? NO

I just bought ROG Zephyrus G GA502. Laptop came without OS installed. After signalling Windows 10 and all drivers I am experiencing frame drops in games.

I tried lowering the settings below what NVIDIA GeForece experience suggested but I still get the same issue. the game looks fine and runs fine for firs couple of minutes and the frame rate is decent but then it suddenly starts dropping from 60+ to less then 10 FPS. Games a I tested were COD BO4 and Warthunder. It the same issue with both games but BO4 is harder to play. I moved over from an older i5 and 750ti to this laptop hoping to have better gaming experience.

After some investigation I noticed that CPU temp goes up to 95 degrees C after which CPU clock speed drops down to 400 MHz.

I tired to reinstall windows and all drivers, and to limit Max CPU usage in Windows power settings but I still get the same results. I have run an Aida 64 stress test and I am not able to see the same thing happening.

I am attaching SC of both in game numbers (green MSI graph) and Aida 64 graph (White graph). Fore some reason CPU temp is displayed as CPU1 temp on the graphs

Please tell me if there is something I can do a bout this.

Than you in advanced.

Konah · ‎10-31-2019

Hello there,

I had exactly the same issues as you seem to have. Even from the Windows installation part, the laptop was heating up pretty bad and I was confused of why (worry not, the fix that worked for me is coming).
Sooo this is what I did (it may work for you, it may not, but let's give it a try and hope for the best):

Step 1: Take your laptop and throw it in the garbage.
Step 2: Ignore Step 1

Step 3: I installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Home -even from this stage, I felt the laptop being kinda hot and the fans were spinning slowly.
Step 4: After installing Windows, let the Windows update center do its job. It will find some drivers for you automatically if you are connected to the internet and those drivers are quite stable (also, do the actual Windows updates, so it will be the latest version). -Also, in this stage I experienced frequency drops to 0.4GHz-
Step 5: https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-G-GA502/HelpDesk_Download/
Follow the link above and download the following:

-AMD Graphics, Chipset Driver (Version 25.20.14150.1)
-ASUS System Control Interface V2 (Version V2.0.14.0)
-ROG Live Service pack (Version V1.0.12.0)
-Armoury Crate Service (Version V2.4.8)

Note: Even with all the drivers above, I still experienced frequency drops down to 0.4 GHz which would not get back to normal no matter what I did, until I would restart the laptop. It seems like the Armoury Crate software is mandatory to have on this laptop.

Step 6: Those are the mandatory drivers for this laptop to run well. Now, go on Microsoft Store and download the Armoury Crate software. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/armoury-crate-beta/9pm9dfqrdh3f?activetab=pivot:overviewtab.

Step 7: Give a good restart to your laptop
Step 8: Open a game and try it out.

Little tip no.1: Use the Turbo mode from Armoury Crate when you wanna do some serious gaming.
Tip no.2 : After you start the game, take a look in the graphics settings and try to limit the FPS to maybe 60-70(yes, yes, the laptop has a 120Hz display...But the GPU and CPU are not powerful enough to always push out those frame rates). I noticed that if the frame rate is capped, the laptop does such a good job of giving you consistent performance because the CPU and GPU still have some headroom to deal with complex graphical/CPU intensive scenes instead of trying to always push the frames as high as possible (which kills the consistency).

I was on the verge of returning this laptop, but I decided to give it one more try and now it works like a charm and I'm happy with it.

Please give me a feedback after you do all that. I'm curious if it works for you too.
Cheers and good luck!

rbx9768 · ‎11-01-2019

Hi, pitching in to say that I faced the exact same problem.
CPU regularly drops to 400 MHz while playing games or running graphics heavy benchmarks -- but not when stress-testing only the CPU.

I faced this problem even when I manually set the fans to full speed via Armory Crate.

I requested a replacement. Asus has accepted that there is a fault, and agreed to provide DoA certificate. I will update when I get the replacement. First thing I'll run will be Heaven benchmark.

If others are facing the same issue, I'd suggest getting it replaced if possible. Some people elsewhere on the internet have reported that repasting solved the issue. But I don't want to try it and possibly void warranty when I still have the option to return it.

This doesn't seem to be solved via software/firmware updates. Capping FPS as suggested above is band-aiding the problem.

The actually problem seems to be the thermal system. Either the laptop is unable to dissipate the heat generated by both CPU and GPU under full load (maybe due to thermal paste?), or there is a bug in the CPU stepping logic, which causes clocks to drop to lowest level instead of gently coming down.

NESHAKY · ‎11-14-2019

I agree this might be a thermal problem. After some further testing in AIDA 64 I noticed this happened only when I do a stress test of both GPU and CPU. If I do a stress test of CPU only it looks like it is working fine. I did return it to the official service and I was told by the unofficial re-seller I bought the laptop from that the issue is with the thermal paste used on this model. I am still waiting to get my device back from the service.

krabbymeal · ‎01-09-2020

felt that lag using performance / silent mode / all on current up to date
have to use gpu tweak 2 but it has some problem i cannot open it normally i have turn off the pc because it freeze when i open the app then after rebooting the gpu tweak 2 opens
turbo mode makes it a bit faster depends on the game
playing gta 5 / online makes a big difference story mode can go 120fps on high - online cannot only 80 then drop to 40 fps when going on cutscene (lowest settings but with 2x msaa
csgo can play it smoothly above 120 fps on lowest settings

note if you open Nvidia experience > go to Settings > look for Whisper Mode turn it Of > Battery BOOST Turn it OFF because it says you cant play ABOVE 30Fps
so using Performance/Turbo mode your High fps Will Dip to 30 and below

nosoyraro · ‎02-05-2020

krabbymeal wrote:
Got a replacemenet

Cool, after 2 days arguing with ASUS I'm getting my new unit tomorrow... This guy can't do heavy stuff... It seems like it working too hard or something and the CPU goes above 100%.

At first, my unit was so slow, even while installing a program the mouse would go ralentizzando.

Weird thing, none of this happens on battery... I'm wondering why they didn't fix this since it seems quite clear that it's an overpower and heating issue. If it's peaking so badly, instead of going to the point of overheating it should learn from the intensive task, that it's more efficient to keep a steady 60% than trying to go 100% and then drop to like 10% or less... Isn't there a software fix for this?

Anyway, if my second unit is fine, you won't hear from me again (fingers crossed)

a-e-m-9 · ‎04-04-2020

Any updates from the new unit ?

rbx9768 · ‎01-15-2020

rbx9768 wrote:
Hi, pitching in to say that I faced the exact same problem.
CPU regularly drops to 400 MHz while playing games or running graphics heavy benchmarks -- but not when stress-testing only the CPU.

I faced this problem even when I manually set the fans to full speed via Armory Crate.

I requested a replacement. Asus has accepted that there is a fault, and agreed to provide DoA certificate. I will update when I get the replacement. First thing I'll run will be Heaven benchmark.

If others are facing the same issue, I'd suggest getting it replaced if possible. Some people elsewhere on the internet have reported that repasting solved the issue. But I don't want to try it and possibly void warranty when I still have the option to return it.

This doesn't seem to be solved via software/firmware updates. Capping FPS as suggested above is band-aiding the problem.

The actually problem seems to be the thermal system. Either the laptop is unable to dissipate the heat generated by both CPU and GPU under full load (maybe due to thermal paste?), or there is a bug in the CPU stepping logic, which causes clocks to drop to lowest level instead of gently coming down.

Update:

Got a replacement, after I showed Asus the problem. I stress tested the replacement using the same tools I had used on my previous unit (Unigine benchmarks). The frame drops were completely absent. Even during intense benchmarks, CPU did not throttle at all, ranging between 3.5-3.8 GHz.

So according to my experience, this is definitely a hardware issue, likely due to the thermal system as speculated previously.

ROG Zephyrus G GA502 - Asus frame drops in games