[GL702VM & similar] Solution to Performance issues / Overheating / Throttling

[PSK_ALX]

Great results did you end up putting new pads or anything on the chips ? I am not sure how much the 503 differs to the 702 but mine as you could see was really poorly done and I think (no real evidence) that the pads have made a massive difference in temps and performance

I didn't touch the pads. They seemed to be good quality and properly arranged. Just a little cleaning for my peace of mind and the Noctua paste. I don't have photos with the original paste but it was clear that somebody put it with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back. Can't speak about the quality, but it felt similar to play-doh.

[HolographicSun]

Hello there,

I am still having problems with my Asus GL502VM. Undervolted and with Turbo Boost disabled my CPU (i7 7700HQ) still manages to get up to 90-96°C on open world games like Forza Horizon 4 and Kingdom Come Deliverance. GPU is always at 78°C or lower. IDLE temps are fine, around 45 - 50°C. It's weird 'cause I remember around 10 months ago my CPU temps used to stay under 80°C on full load after the -125mV undervolt. I don't know what else to do now. Today I just opened the laptop to clean it but there wasn't really much dust in it. I took the chance to take some pics of the GPU/CPU and the heatsink past. Here are the pics: https://imgur.com/a/CJvIM23

I would like to ask you what do you think about it and if I should repaste the CPU, or both. It would be my first time (re)pasting and honestly I don't feel comfortable doing it, especially 'cause many users who repasted didn't get huge improvements, and I don't wanna use liquid metal. Also, I noticed that there's some sort of film on both GPU and CPU and that the GPU has some kind of orange weird stuff I don't know what it is.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

[FULLMETALJACKET7]

Hello there,

I am still having problems with my Asus GL502VM. Undervolted and with Turbo Boost disabled my CPU (i7 7700HQ) still manages to get up to 90-96°C on open world games like Forza Horizon 4 and Kingdom Come Deliverance. GPU is always at 78°C or lower. IDLE temps are fine, around 45 - 50°C. It's weird 'cause I remember around 10 months ago my CPU temps used to stay under 80°C on full load after the -125mV undervolt. I don't know what else to do now. Today I just opened the laptop to clean it but there wasn't really much dust in it. I took the chance to take some pics of the GPU/CPU and the heatsink past. Here are the pics: https://imgur.com/a/CJvIM23

I would like to ask you what do you think about it and if I should repaste the CPU, or both. It would be my first time (re)pasting and honestly I don't feel comfortable doing it, especially 'cause many users who repasted didn't get huge improvements, and I don't wanna use liquid metal. Also, I noticed that there's some sort of film on both GPU and CPU and that the GPU has some kind of orange weird stuff I don't know what it is.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

If you removed the heatsink you have to put fresh thermal paste on both, so essentially you're repasting. Clean the dies and apply fresh paste. Don't worry about that protective plastic thing.
Mid to high 90c seems to be normal for the 502VM since it's thinner than the VS. If it's not throttling, don't worry about it. People always claim that it would reduce the laptop lifespan, but in reality, it doesn't really matter. The laptop will be very obsolete and probably unusable by then, anyways. It's not gonna burst into flames the next day just because of that. Like I said, if it's not hitting tjmax and throttling causing performance issues, don't worry about it.

You can also undevolt the GPU if you haven't already. It will also lower the CPU temps a little bit because the thermal solution is shared between the two.

[binaryLV]

People always claim that it would reduce the laptop lifespan, but in reality, it doesn't really matter. The laptop will be very obsolete and probably unusable by then, anyways. It's not gonna burst into flames the next day just because of that. Like I said, if it's not hitting tjmax and throttling causing performance issues, don't worry about it.

I don't pay €2000 for a laptop if I'm going to use it for no more than 2-3 years. I expect it to be usable for at least 10 years. Yes, it won't run the newest games after 10 years and won't be any good for video editing (though, I've seen some statements that performance improvements in recent years are not as huge as they used to be), but it should be good for casual daily tasks.

I had to revive my old laptopt every couple of years. Not because it was hitting tjmax, but I guess because of solder cracks which can be result of temperature changes.

[HolographicSun]

If you removed the heatsink you have to put fresh thermal paste on both, so essentially you're repasting. Clean the dies and apply fresh paste. Don't worry about that protective plastic thing.
Mid to high 90c seems to be normal for the 502VM since it's thinner than the VS. If it's not throttling, don't worry about it. People always claim that it would reduce the laptop lifespan, but in reality, it doesn't really matter. The laptop will be very obsolete and probably unusable by then, anyways. It's not gonna burst into flames the next day just because of that. Like I said, if it's not hitting tjmax and throttling causing performance issues, don't worry about it.

You can also undevolt the GPU if you haven't already. It will also lower the CPU temps a little bit because the thermal solution is shared between the two.

Which paste do you suggest me to use? The one they used seems awful, I don't know what that is so I am unable to find the same one.

It never throttles, but that's what worries me 'cause it reaches 97°C easily, wish there was a way to manually throttle it, I prefer a loss in performance than my temps over 90°C. I know it won't die in a couple of days, months or years but I intended to use this laptop for at least 5 or 6 years and not just for gaming. I think the hardware (GTX 1060, i7 7700HQ and 16gb of RAM) will hold until then, but I don't think the CPU will last that much, or some other component close to it.

[FULLMETALJACKET7]

Which paste do you suggest me to use? The one they used seems awful, I don't know what that is so I am unable to find the same one.

It never throttles, but that's what worries me 'cause it reaches 97°C easily, wish there was a way to manually throttle it, I prefer a loss in performance than my temps over 90°C. I know it won't die in a couple of days, months or years but I intended to use this laptop for at least 5 or 6 years and not just for gaming. I think the hardware (GTX 1060, i7 7700HQ and 16gb of RAM) will hold until then, but I don't think the CPU will last that much, or some other component close to it.

They usually apply something like K5pro on the vrms and regular thermal paste on the dies. It doesn't matter which one you use, as long as it is some good quality paste. The thermal compound is not the weak link on this thermal solution, but rather the heatpipes and heatsinks. They're just too small. That's also why most of the times you see almost no improvement when using liquid metal on these things.

It will last a lot more than 5 or 6 years. My old Lenovo y510p reaches 97c on gpu2 after just a minute of gaming, and it's still running absolutely fine since 2013. Needless to say, it's completely obsolete for gaming today. It can barely run GTA5 (which has near perfect sli scaling) and it's totally useless for anything that doesn't support sli.

There's really not much you can do about it. Undervolt both cpu and gpu, raise the back of the laptop from the table, manually set the fans to 100% and repaste, since you already opened it. You could also underclock the cpu and gpu but hell, that would be like buying a 300hp sports car and putting a brick under the gas pedal. Makes no sense having the power there but not being able to use it, imo. In that case you would do better with a 1050ti laptop. Cheaper and runs cooler out of the box.

[FULLMETALJACKET7]

I don't pay €2000 for a laptop if I'm going to use it for no more than 2-3 years. I expect it to be usable for at least 10 years. Yes, it won't run the newest games after 10 years and won't be any good for video editing (though, I've seen some statements that performance improvements in recent years are not as huge as they used to be), but it should be good for casual daily tasks.

I had to revive my old laptopt every couple of years. Not because it was hitting tjmax, but I guess because of solder cracks which can be result of temperature changes.

It's going to last 10 years no problem. If it's not hitting tjmax, it's all good. You're not going to kill the chip by running it on mid 90c. It will be completely useless by then, except for maybe web browsing, while plugged in, because the battery will be totally dead and good luck finding a replacement. Not to mention, you will be only running it at it's maximum capacity up until you can't run games on it anymore and upgrade to a better one. Let's say, like 4-5 years from now? After that, some web browsing, non demanding games, photo editing and stuff like that, maybe. Considering that, it would last a lifetime.

This "solder cracking" thing is something from the mid/late 2000's when they started using lead free solder. It doesn't happen anymore. You can't avoid temperature changes unless you don't use it. It's usually going from 25c when turned off to 90c peaks on full load while gaming. A 5c temperature improvement is hardly going to make any difference on the long run. It's all placebo, but if you feel safer by doing so, go ahead.

[binaryLV]

If it's not hitting tjmax, it's all good.

tjmax is for CPU, not for soldering.

It will be completely useless by then, except for maybe web browsing, while plugged in, because the battery will be totally dead and good luck finding a replacement. Not to mention, you will be only running it at it's maximum capacity up until you can't run games on it anymore and upgrade to a better one.

Oh, that's what I already do most of the time, when I'm not developing (programming) or playing with SketchUp - no gaming, mostly web browsing, sometimes some youtube videos. And yeah, 99% of time it's plugged in. I've always used my laptops as "desktop replacements".

This "solder cracking" thing is something from the mid/late 2000's when they started using lead free solder. It doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah, and weak applications of thermal paste is also from mid/late 2000's, and it doesn't happen anymore because everyone already knows how to apply thermal paste properly. Oh, wait... We all know how factory paste looks in these ASUS boxes.
Btw, I also have a phone that died just 1 year after I bought it. Maybe that's because of those "solder cracks", maybe because of some defective IC (could be MT6351V).
In my experience, modern electronic devices often don't last as long as those from mid/late 2000's.

[FULLMETALJACKET7]

tjmax is for CPU, not for soldering.

Tjmax is the maximum temperature a cpu can reach before throttling or shutting down. I never said it was related to soldering. If you hit tjmax too often you will kill the chip on the long run, plain and simple. Nothing to do with soldering.

Oh, that's what I already do most of the time, when I'm not developing (programming) or playing with SketchUp - no gaming, mostly web browsing, sometimes some youtube videos. And yeah, 99% of time it's plugged in. I've always used my laptops as "desktop replacements".

Then don't worry about your cpu peaking 95c. In that case, your laptop is going to work and be useful for you for an entire lifetime, most likely. Lowering the temps by ~5c ain't gonna help. At all.

Yeah, and weak applications of thermal paste is also from mid/late 2000's, and it doesn't happen anymore because everyone already knows how to apply thermal paste properly. Oh, wait... We all know how factory paste looks in these ASUS boxes.
Btw, I also have a phone that died just 1 year after I bought it. Maybe that's because of those "solder cracks", maybe because of some defective IC (could be MT6351V).
In my experience, modern electronic devices often don't last as long as those from mid/late 2000's.

Weak thermal paste applucation? What are you talking about? Every enthusiast knows how to properly apply thermal paste since it became a requirement for cpu's and whatnot. I'm sorry but I kinda missed your point there.

Thermal paste from the factory looks messy but that makes no difference. It's good quality paste. Too much is not gonna hurt, and they never apply too little. Nothing to worry about there.

And about your phone, yes, most likely because of a defective component. It happens. Nowadays manufacturers use something called "underfill" on all mobile chips. That's to prevent BGA damage, specially if you drop your device.

And you say devices today don't last as long as the ones from the mid/late 00's? Remember the capacitor plague? Yeah, that was between late 90's to late 00's. They're more reliable now than they were before, specially considering they pack a LOT more punch now.


Bottom line is, don't hit Tjmax.

[HolographicSun]

They usually apply something like K5pro on the vrms and regular thermal paste on the dies. It doesn't matter which one you use, as long as it is some good quality paste. The thermal compound is not the weak link on this thermal solution, but rather the heatpipes and heatsinks. They're just too small. That's also why most of the times you see almost no improvement when using liquid metal on these things.

It will last a lot more than 5 or 6 years. My old Lenovo y510p reaches 97c on gpu2 after just a minute of gaming, and it's still running absolutely fine since 2013. Needless to say, it's completely obsolete for gaming today. It can barely run GTA5 (which has near perfect sli scaling) and it's totally useless for anything that doesn't support sli.

There's really not much you can do about it. Undervolt both cpu and gpu, raise the back of the laptop from the table, manually set the fans to 100% and repaste, since you already opened it. You could also underclock the cpu and gpu but hell, that would be like buying a 300hp sports car and putting a brick under the gas pedal. Makes no sense having the power there but not being able to use it, imo. In that case you would do better with a 1050ti laptop. Cheaper and runs cooler out of the box.

Thanks for the reply! I am not really experienced so Idk which one can be considered a good quality paste. Do you have any suggestions about it? Do I have to put a different paste on the vrms and a different one on the CPU/GPU? If so, why? Do I have to put it also on the heatsink? I am actually scared 'cause I never repasted anything and it was my first time opening a laptop this way.

Also do you think the factory paste you see in the picture is dried out? If so, could that be the reason of my CPU temps getting higher?