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Heating issue GL502VS (7th gen core i7) - THERMAL THROTTLING, FRAMERATE DROP

Gam3rNa5h
Level 7
I'm reviving this old thread because I've decided to repaste my laptop. I've never done this before so I need some advice from you guys.
I'm planning on using Arctic MX-4 for thermal paste, since it's non-conductive so it won't cause any shorts if I mess up. I've seen some tutorials on youtube. The main doubt I have is whether I can use the same thermal paste for the vram and chipsets around the gpu and cpu, or should I buy separate thermal pads for them. If so, what thickness should I use? I won't overclock since the processor is locked, but I would like to turn turboboost back on. Can I just not repaste the chips and keep the factory paste there itself?
Can anyone who has repasted their GL502VS give me advice, and tell what other stuff I should look out for? Thanks in advance.



ORIGINAL POST:

Hey guys I'm a new member. I joined the forum to post about the problem I am having with my Rog strix gl502vs-ws71 (7th gen intel i7) laptop. I'll write all I know about the issue so you guys can figure out what it is, but if you don't want to read the whole thing then just skip to the bottom. 😛

I bought it around sept 2017 from a microcenter store in NY. It worked smoothly in the initial two months with most games running in max settings without any throttling. After a while i started noticing screen tearing, initially with GTA V and then with others. I tweaked around with the g-sync v-sync settings but couldn't resolve it. After a while it progressed to full on lagging. The frame rates were abysmal, I was getting 15-20 fps. Even turning the graphics to minimum didn't seem to help. I was playing Batman arkham knight at the time and i noticed that the lag wasn't always present, sometimes it ran normally smoothly and at other times the framerate was absolutely horrible. I did a unigine valley benchmark and got an average 21 fps with min 7 😞 . There was also an issue where the laptop automatically went to sleep mode after 20-30 minutes of gaming (i believe this is probably a safety mechanism to prevent overheating and getting the cpu fried). I initially thought it might be a driver issue (my card is gtx 1070 8gb) with the official nvidia drivers installed by geforce experience, so i uninstalled it and then downloaded and installed the OEM VGA driver from the asus site, but it did not help. I even reset the laptop a couple of times and that didn't help either. I then installed intel xtu so i could monitor the temps. I found that the individual cpu cores ( i have 4 physical cores - i7 7th gen) were getting heated up during the benchmarks in the app and while gaming, and thermal throttling was turning on. The gpu was stable at around 70C. I then disabled turbo boost ( actually the disable button was greyed off so i decreased the boost voltage and duration) and undervolted the cpu by around 10 mV i think. Now i am playing forza horizon 3 and ghost recon wildlands. I can play them in high setting without any issues. When playing forza in the highest settings after 15 to 20 minutes the framerate suddenly drops below 20 fps due to throttling ( I've set max fps to 30 in the game settings). GTA V doesn't lag now but screen tearing is still there, I don't know why. My OS is windows 10 v1709 and i have ESET smart security premium antivirus installed. I also set the fan boost to max (4500 rpm) in the rog gaming centre.

So that's most of what I know. Sorry for the long post 😛 . If you read all that then thanks. So basically what I think the problem is that the cpu isn't getting enough cooling, causing heating and then thermal throttling which causes the framerate drop. There doesn't seem to be any problems with the gpu. All i have done now is put a band-aid on the problem so i can continue gaming. I haven't figured out the cause of the heating and this problem wasn't present in the beginning. I read in other threads in the forum about others facing heating issues too. Is this something all Gl502vs laptops have or is my piece faulty? Do you have any idea what is the cause of this problem and how to fix it? Will it get worse over time? Should i send in my laptop to the service center to fix it or get it replaced?
Thanks. 😉
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24 REPLIES 24

Bourak
Level 7
I would advise you to update your Bios to the latest one (307), undervolt the cpu with -110mv, and crank up the fans to the max if you want to keep the temps low

Bourak wrote:
I would advise you to update your Bios to the latest one (307), undervolt the cpu with -110mv, and crank up the fans to the max if you want to keep the temps low

I have already updated the bios to the latest one available (303). The fans are at max. I don't want to undervolt too much since even now i am getting power limit throttling, though that doesn't decrease performance as much as thermal throttling.

I want to know if there is faulty hardware issues with my lap, if so then i need to send it to the service centre. The issue wasn't present when i initially started using it.71468

FastM
Level 8
lots and lots and lots of info and solutions to the heat problems your describing on this forum.

i’ll start by saying it’s the GPU you need to undervolt, its causing most of the heat under the hood. poke around the forums you’ll find everything you need.*

FastM wrote:
lots and lots and lots of info and solutions to the heat problems your describing on this forum.

i’ll start by saying it’s the GPU you need to undervolt, its causing most of the heat under the hood. poke around the forums you’ll find everything you need.*

I did read other related threads and that's how i got the idea to undervolt the cpu. I've only tried the software modifications not the hardware ones. I don't want to take off my back cover like onjax did since then it will be very risky to transport ( i bought a gaming laptop since i am in college and i want to use it in hostel and also take it home... Otherwise i would have bought a gaming desktop pc which would have had better specs for the same price and probably woudn't have heating issues like this, even if it did i could just install a liquid cooler). I also don't want to drill holes in the back cover and void my warranty in case i want to replace it. I haven't undervolted the gpu since it doesn't seem to have any heating issues, it stays stable around 70 degrees. Its the cpu that's bottlenecking the gpu and causing framerate drop. The gpu is able to render the frames in the highest settings but the cpu isn't allowing the frames to be displayed fast enough.. at least that's what i think. I have already compromised on the cpu, i don't want to undervolt my gpu too and get way less power than what i paid for. Reading other threads it seems many other people with gl502 and gl702 have this issue. Am i facing this problem because of poor designing or is there something faulty with my laptop?, because the heating issue wasn't present since the beginning which i think would have been the case if it was a design flaw. In the first 2 months since i bought it i played and finished just cause 3 in a week and i played 4-5 hours at a time in highest settings and didn't have any issues. Does the thermal paste degrade over time if not applied properly? This is my first gaming laptop and i don't know a lot about computers, especially hardware wise so i can't figure out the problem myself. Undervolting just reduces heat production by reducing power, it doesn't help me find why the cpu is overheating, why the heat isn't getting dissipated properly and how to fix the cause of the problem. I obviously haven't scoured the entire forum for solutions 😛 so if any of you guys find a better solution in any other threads or find problems similar to mine and have found the cause of it then please do mention it. Thanks 😄 .

I have another doubt. After i initially thought it was a driver issue and installed the OEM driver i then never updated it (ASUS didn't release any new oem vga drivers). Should i reinstall geforce experience and update to the latest driver from nvidia? Geforce experience did not come preinstalled and i had downloaded and installed it to update the gpu drivers. After resetting the pc i didn't reinstall it so that the driver wouldn't update. So now should i update to nvidia's official drivers or stick to the oem driver?

Gam3rNa5h wrote:
I have another doubt. After i initially thought it was a driver issue and installed the OEM driver i then never updated it (ASUS didn't release any new oem vga drivers). Should i reinstall geforce experience and update to the latest driver from nvidia? Geforce experience did not come preinstalled and i had downloaded and installed it to update the gpu drivers. After resetting the pc i didn't reinstall it so that the driver wouldn't update. So now should i update to nvidia's official drivers or stick to the oem driver?


NVidia drivers, apart from drivers like chipset and sound ones, are universal. You should always install the latest from NVidia web-site (or let it update itself), it will work according to your hardware.

TL : DR update, don't use Nvidia OEM.

I want to open up the laptop and see if i can find any hardware problems like if the screws on the heatsink is loose or there's something blocking the vents... but will opening it void my warranty?

FastM
Level 8
there are no hardware modifications required, the only physical change that can be done is adding holes in the bottom cover but it is not required.
*
undervolting doesnt limit performance. The CPU will always try and go as fast as possible. If you’ve undervolted too much your system will crash/lockup because of unstable voltage.

Although the GPU temps seem under control the shared heat pipe is causing your CPU to heat up more than it should. Undervolting the GPU is a little different because you are modifying the actual voltage/mhz curve and not just a average reduction in mV.

I have a thread that talks a lot about undervolting the GTX1070, i suggest you take your time and read through it.*

Gam3rNa5h
Level 7
I know this is quite late but just wanted to give an update, i'll share what i've done so others who have this issue can try my fix, and judging from what i've seen on the forums a lot of GL502VSs have heating issues. Poor design i guess.

1. Undervolted my CPU by -90 mV. Higher than that and my lap BSOD under load. Silicon lottery i guess.
2. Underclocked my GPU with curve set to max at 1800MHz x 900mV.
3. Turned off Intel TurboBoost by setting Maximum Processor State to 99% in advanced power settings. Didn't have any noticeable decrease in performance by doing so, but does reduce heating.
4. Set fanboost to max in rog gaming centre.

Can play most games in high settings now without much problems. Best to keep fps locked to 60 to reduce unwanted load.