[G752VL] CPU Temperatures

[ComradeTito]

Hello all!

I've bought my ROG G752VL brand new in February 2016. With the original BIOS (303 I think) and several reinstallations of windows, it worked fine until one day I couldn't turn it on at all. Since then it has had a malfunction of the motherboard in late 2017, I believe it somehow got fried since the malfunction happened over night and the unit was completely unresponsive.
Luckily it was under warranty and I could get it serviced free of charge.
The authorized service technician noted it was a "Moisture" problem. (I've got a vocational HS diploma in IT, and was trained to service and diagnose PCs as well, and I didn't believe that - I do live next to the river where the air is pretty moist but I've never used my laptop outside nor spilled anything on it.)

The motherboard got replaced completely with a new one. Since the laptop was still under warranty, I couldnt've opened it to check what was done inside.
A few months after, I noticed an increase in temperatures. I asked the service whether they performed a repaste (or put any actual thermal paste while changing the MB) to which they didn't reply. Sometime after that , the battery completely went out, but by that time the laptop was no longer under warranty.
The temperatures culminated somewhere this year when they were going up to 60-70C idle, and fairly over 90 when doing medium intensity gaming (think Battlefield 2). The fan sound was unbearable.

I decided to take a look inside and after a tedious job of opening up a broken and stuck nut and bolt (yes, the serviceman likely used an electric screwdriver and broke it). I cleaned it and dusted it thoroughly.

After cleaning the temps and fan sounds came back closer to normal.

Idle: ~40C to ~46C
Browsing using Chrome: ~60-~70C

*Low intensity gaming

• Doom (1993): 59C-67C
• Battlefield 1942: 71C-76C

*Medium intensity gaming

• Fallout 3: 74C-79C
• Battlefield 2: 72C-76C

* High intensity gaming

• GTA V (Gameplay, Ultra settings): 70C-77C
• GTA V (Benchmark, Ultra settings): 77C-80C
• Fallout 4 (Modded, Lowered shadows but everything else on Ultra): 79C-89C

If anyone has the same, or similar laptop, can they say are these temps normal?
I've researched the internet far and wide and I could only find a few answers which said "they were normal".

Things I could do to lower my temps now:

• Repaste - I will do that in the following few days.
• Update to version 307 BIOS - Read somewhere it might help. Honestly I'm afraid to do that, and it won't let me due to my battery not working. I've heard some workarounds by typing "RISKY" while the flash utillity is on. I haven't tried it, and even when things are all done correctly - people have reported getting their machines bricked.
• Install a cooling pad - Tried this with a This hama cooling pad with some very mild improvement (2-5C) without removing the dust guard. I might try removing the see-through plastic dust guard under the fans and running the cooling pad and noting the results.
• Disabling turbo boost - I tried it with ThrottleStop. My OS freezed when I tried to run fallout. I don't recommend that.
• NoteBook FanControl - Makes the fans blow way louder but it really barely helps. It might wear down the fans. I don't recommend that.
• Uninstalling ROG Gaming Center - Apparently that "helped" a few people but I don't see how. Didn't see any difference.
• Uninstalling GeForce Experience - Helps with framerates and the GPU, whose temperatures remain normal even while high instensity gaming (Stable Around 60-69C).

I'd appreciate any help on this matter. And I'm sorry if this post is too long Cheers.

[ComradeTito]

Update:

I've tried removing the plastic dust guard and applying the cooler pad.
Temperatures are now ~25C - ~30C idle and 65C-75C when gaming (tested on Fallout 4). I've also noticed an increased framerate, from 40 to 50-60FPS.

[AtGrigorov]

Repaste + ThrottleStop. Both(!) make wonders. Your laptop freezed, because you didn't set the TS properly. If you update BIOS to a more recent version it's possible to lose the ability to undervolt.

[ComradeTito]

Thanks for replying!
I'll try for a repaste these days. I understand the BIOS update is a bad idea.
How do I set ThrottleStop properly? I've followed the instructions on a youtube video, but to no avail.
I think it's not useful on my system because it decreases performance when I turn off TurboBoost.

[AtGrigorov]

[ComradeTito]

I got this paste https://gigatron.rs/kuleri-i-oprema/...yp11-2g-377000 , It has a -50 to 200+C working temperature. I still haven't applied it but I will.

[Super Gnome]

You very likely know this already, but in addition to a heating pad there are gizmos that you can slap onto the side of your laptop. These things have fans in them and can pull the air from your side vent, and hence add a little more cooling. They do take up a fair bit of space though, and if they go where you mouse pad is, it is not ideal.

Also, and you're probably aware of this too, but changes to you in game settings can make a huge difference to temperatures without sacrificing much or even anything you would notice when playing games. You can also play with your fan curves, etc. with Tweak II if you use that software.

Another thing you can do is use a paper clip in your fans to stop them from spinning and blast air through with a leaf blower. I do that once a month or even once a week. That works wonders to get the dust out.

Good luck.

[ComradeTito]

@Super Gnome, thank you for the info.
I don't really have much space and money for buying additional stuff so, I've left that option aside for now.
I use the same game with the same settings I used before (2016). But before, the temps weren't this bad. It's been a week or so after I've added the cooling pad and it does work wonders. I'm heading for a repaste soon and I'll see how that works out.
I clean out the fans mostly using small art class paintbrushes leftover from school. They really work wonders to get all the dust out with a vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately I don't live in a house, I live in a flat, so I don't have access to a leaf blower haha.

[ComradeTito]

Update after repaste:

The repaste didn't go quite as smooth as I expected. While removing the motherboard there were quite a few screws that were broken by repeated use of electric screwdrivers...
However, I managed to do it. I was very surprised when I opened up the cooler. There were sticky pads of paste on some chips which I decided not to touch since I didn't have pads myself and I wasn't really sure if changing them with paste would work. So I decided to just open up the CPU and GPU cooler and... was I surprised! The repair technician put so much paste inside, that it even slipped underneath the protective plastic cover around the IHS and onto the contacts! There was an INCREDIBLE amount of thermal paste inside and it took ages to clean, especially due to it's proximity to the contacts.

The old paste was of a somewhat grey-pink color and it was incredibly sticky. It had that "big tub of bulk paste" feel.
The new paste I put (I put a link to it several posts up) did improve the temperatures.

Fallout 4 without a cooler is now around 75C on average and peaks at about 85C.
The rest of the usage is prettymuch the same. Browsing the web keeps it at about 40C-42C (As I'm writing this) , without a cooler.
The good thing is that the fans work more efficiently now they are cleaned thoroughly and the repaste has been done. Fan noise level is back to what it was when I first bought my laptop in 2016.

The cooler itself is no longer an option. I've linked it before and the thing that happens is - running the cooler with the lower plastic fan mask off heats the low quality plastic of the cooler up so much that it starts emitting an odd scent of burnt plastic. Maybe I should invest in a better cooling pad when I have enough resources at my disposal...

Thanks for the good advice all! What is your opinion? Are these temps OK now? How do they compare to yours? Feel free to write below