G531gw buyer beware!

[Galvanized]

Hello everyone, First and foremost I would like to introduce myself.

My names Blake.

I have been an avid Asus customer since early 2000.

I recently bought an Asus G531GW laptop and am very disappointed for a numerous amount of reasons.

The first thing I would like to bring up is the CPU in my laptop was not intels most desirable CPU. First I was hearing this electronic buzzing when it was quiet in the room I couldn't figure out what it was and after days of googling the issue I had finally come across a thread here in the forums that was in depth about how to tweak the CPU by turning the C1E state off with throttlestep. It helped the electronic buzzing sound immensely but its still slightly there. I could get over that but then I noticed It has terrible thermal problems. Of course I didn't know this when I made the purchase. My cpu gets pretty hott while gaming upper 85-90c I have a massive cooling mat that reduced the temperature somewhat but over all still feel like its running way to hott. Ive read in multiple places about undervolting the cpu to deal with the heat problem but my thing is if I spent 1800 dollars on a laptop why should I have to deal with things like that? Also ive noticed that asus has pushed a bios out 305 but yet the website still has no information on what was fixed or what it does. I believe if you released a bios you should let the consumer know what it did. Especially since myasus client streamlines the update. Ive also noticed the soundcard on the laptop pops and distorts while gaming occasionally. Also something worth mentioning during gaming it will be running buttery smooth but then out of nowhere the FPS plummet. This has been happening while playing classic wow and a few other games. Ive always bought asus products love all the desktop stuff ive purchased but this laptop has left me feeling shorthanded.


Another thing I also wonder about is the asus softwares silent/performance/turbo modes

Whenever I use silent the cpu stays cooler then when I use performance or turbo. When I use performance the cpu will thermal throttle itself and we wont even go into turbo mode.

I noticed in the refresh of the G531GW they are putting the new cpus in them now which makes me wonder if they realized the last cpus used was a mistake.

If you are on the fence about buying this laptop I would highly recommend you wait until they figure all of this out.

[xeromist]

Intel believes that is an acceptable temperature, hence where the thermal throttle point is. I don't think it's reason to be concerned.

[Galvanized]

xeromist wrote:
Intel believes that is an acceptable temperature, hence where the thermal throttle point is. I don't think it's reason to be concerned.

Do you think its acceptable? The thought of the chip burning me or cooking an egg seems to make me uncomfortable! I thought the hotter the chip the faster it degrades?!? Maybe things have changed or I am old school but I like my components running somewhat cool being at threshold seems very unsettling.

[xeromist]

Galvanized wrote:
Do you think its acceptable? The thought of the chip burning me or cooking an egg seems to make me uncomfortable! I thought the hotter the chip the faster it degrades?!? Maybe things have changed or I am old school but I like my components running somewhat cool being at threshold seems very unsettling.

It depends. If I had a laptop that was getting hot and performing badly then I would investigate issues with the cooling system. If it's getting hot because it's tuning itself to the limit of (fully functional) cooling then that is different. Laptop cooling is always a limiting factor so if I have a choice between a cooler CPU and a faster CPU, I choose faster.

As for degradation, yes it may shorten the life by some amount. However, voltage is far more dangerous than heat. Electronics already outlive their useful performance life by a large margin so it's debatable whether any of this even matters.

Also, to expand on the above concepts: If there are two brands selling the same hardware in the same form factor then I would use that as a basis for comparison. If one brand is slightly slower but runs cooler and hence quieter then I would probably consider that trade off. If all else is equal but one is cooler then sure I'd consider the cooler one. I haven't compared other machines with the same specs so I don't know how the G531 stacks up to the competition.