ASUS Rog Strix G512LW: Fans stop on screen off, eventually overheating notebook

[Fireblade_92]

Hello fellow ROG'ers. I decided to split off my discussion about an issue, which I had reported in another thread.
(https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?120543-ASUS-ROG-STRIX-SCAR-15-G532LWS-Sleep-settings-speak...)

I have a quite similar issue concerning fans not working, albeit in a slightly different scenario. Notebook model is G512LW.

My screen off/standby settings are 5/30 minutes. Inbetween the screen turning off and standby kicking in, the fans completely stop and the notebook heats up all the way until it force shutdowns.

I tried to contact ASUS support, which sent me an Armoury Crate patch. Installed the patch, which broke pretty much everything else so I had to reinstall ROG Live Service Package, AC Service, Armoury Crate app itself and eventually Windows, rinse and repeat, before I could get the patch to install without breaking things like, for example, itself..

Result of the patch:
1. The notebook now not only shuts its fans off on screen off, but standby mode doesn't even work as it should anymore (at random times, the notebook comes out of sleep mode for no reason AND with disabled fans..)
2. The patch partially broke MyASUS. (Update: Actually, the problem is with Armoury Crate Service, as a restart of the service restores functionality)

On the second support request, ASUS asked me to return the notebook. Because no new BIOS is available. I'm sorry, say that again please? Did you just tell me to return a perfectly functional computer which has a software/firmware issue?

I need that computer for my IT job. What about, try to fix what you broke a few weeks ago, ASUS? You had a scenario in which everything worked, you're a computer tech company, and I can't be one of only 3 people having this issue, right?



Follow-up 2020-10-04:

After experimenting with downgrading/upgrading BIOS for a bit, I think we can exclude the BIOS itself as being the culprit. Some strange things happened when doing so, though.

I followed the mini guide at https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/commen...eb2x&context=3. Results:

1. Downgrading the BIOS is as EZ as upgrading it.

2. "Go to control panel, go to system, go to system protection, go to hardware, click on device installation settings, and then click no." <-- After following this step, in Device Manager, the firmware was successfully set to be 309.

3. The downgrade did nothing, but caused one logged error:
"Het stuurprogramma heeft een controllerfout gevonden in \Device\Harddisk1\DR1."
(Roughly translated: "The device driver reported a controller error in \Device\Harddisk1\DR1")

4a. Because the fan sleep issue was not solved, I re-applied BIOS 310. Because of step 2 in this post, the device driver firmware was not automatically upgraded from 309 to 10.1.2.310.
4b. When restarting after step 4a, I opened Armoury Crate and saw that the CPU speed, temperature, memory speed, .. could not be retrieved, but the GPU monitoring showed up correctly. I'm not sure if this could be related to the issue?

5. When manually updating the device driver firmware to 10.1.2.310 by using Windows Update and restarting, CPU information showed up again and the HDD controller error from step 3 did not happen anymore.

6. However, the original issue (fans and RGB turn off on screen off, notebook overheats) remains the same.



Also, since the latest ASUS software updates, I had to create a script which restarts the Armoury Crate Service 1 minute after logging into the computer. I found out by accident that this solved another issue with the current software.

The reason for this, is that since the latest update, hotkeys seem to have stopped working on startup (no FN + hotkey functionality, no Energy Profile on-screen indicator). But what is curious is, that after restarting the service, the on-screen profile indicator shows up again and all hotkey functionality is restored.

I'm not sure how all ASUS components like ROG Live Service, Control Interface, Armoury Crate etc. intercommunicate with each other, but I'm pretty sure something is quite off in the way it does at this moment.

Hope some of the information is useful. Can someone from ASUS maybe help us this way instead? If a log file needs to be generated, I'll gladly provide one.

Thank you very much in advance.
Best regards

[KorosuKivy]

ShadowButton wrote:
Furthermore, I cannot explain why it suddenly works better after 3 reinstallations than before.

3rd times the charm 😉

[Fireblade_92]

Hello fellow enthusiasts,

I have installed the newest 311 BIOS a few moments ago, updated ASUS Core SDK, then updated Armoury Crate by using their new simplified installer, and lo and behold, the fans keep running again when the screen is turned off! I have tested this by using a freeware tool 'Screen Off 2.1', which I have been using for the last few months for quick "testing", after implementing any ASUS firmware/software update.

It seems the issue has finally been resolved, at least for me.

The only side effect is that I seem to have lost the ability to read the CPU temperature in Armoury Crate. Anyway, I think I'm never updating core software again.

Cheers

[noalero]

Fireblade_92 wrote:
Hello fellow enthusiasts,

I have installed the newest 311 BIOS a few moments ago, updated ASUS Core SDK, then updated Armoury Crate by using their new simplified installer, and lo and behold, the fans keep running again when the screen is turned off! I have tested this by using a freeware tool 'Screen Off 2.1', which I have been using for the last few months for quick "testing", after implementing any ASUS firmware/software update.

It seems the issue has finally been resolved, at least for me.

The only side effect is that I seem to have lost the ability to read the CPU temperature in Armoury Crate. Anyway, I think I'm never updating core software again.

Cheers

YES, FINALLY, its working for me too. It took them long enough but the fans are working with the screen off as they should. The CPU temp and voltage readings are broken for me too on Armoury Crate but i use other programs for that anyway.

[JossiCat]

Fireblade_92 wrote:
Hello fellow enthusiasts,

I have installed the newest 311 BIOS a few moments ago, updated ASUS Core SDK, then updated Armoury Crate by using their new simplified installer, and lo and behold, the fans keep running again when the screen is turned off! I have tested this by using a freeware tool 'Screen Off 2.1', which I have been using for the last few months for quick "testing", after implementing any ASUS firmware/software update.

It seems the issue has finally been resolved, at least for me.

The only side effect is that I seem to have lost the ability to read the CPU temperature in Armoury Crate. Anyway, I think I'm never updating core software again.

Cheers

This is great news and a great start to a proper fix.

Now if Asus had communicated with us that they acknowledge there is and issue and are working on a fix with regular reports it would have save people a lot of stress.
I for one would have stuck it out and still have the system I bought.

Campanies both big and small are getting worse at communicating with customers and clients.

[xpclient]

For those of you with ASUS laptop on Intel platform with Modern Standby, can you check one thing?

Expand Device Manager, expand System Devices and check for some driver which says "PEP" (PEP stands for Power Engine Plugin). Let me know there is one in Intel-based systems too.

I found a way in AMD-based machines to disable Modern Standby but the PEP driver there is supplied by AMD, whereas on Intel, it is supplied by Microsoft. It is this driver that causes Windows to not immediately and quickly enter low power sleep as it wakes up automatically and repeatedly.

The trick is to replace this driver with "Standard Power Management Controller" driver. Then the laptop still has Modern Standby (no way to get good old ACPI S3 sleep because ASUS just didn't implement it in the firmware). But with that driver, the laptop enters low power mode almost immediately within 15 seconds.

I actually measured the power consumption with a power meter/killawatt style device and found it was 2.5W-3W or max 4W. It was not shooting up to 15-30 and 40 Watts.

Also thereafter how much power it consumes in Modern Standby depends on your power profile. If it is Quiet or Balanced in Armoury Crate, then it consumes roughly 3W. If it's Turbo, it consumes 4W.

[criskoe]

Happy to find this thread. I couldn’t understand what was going on with this new Zephyrus s15 GX502L. I just got it a week or so ago and everything has been great. Been playing with it constantly. And pretty much have always been in front of it when it’s on and have turned it off when not using it. And for the first time I left it unattended for a little while cooking dinner. When I returned. Waking it up it sounded like a jet engine and touching just above the KB was SO HOT. I had HWiNFO open in the back ground and it recorded 100C across all the cores. I’m surprised it didn’t shut down. Kinda scary actually. I’m not sure how long it was sitting like that. It sure was hot. I could feel the heat radiating from it immediately.*

So right away I began researching why and found this thread.

This sucks man. I don’t want to have to leave the dam screen on all the time. * And now I scared leaving this thing unattended. Lmao. It’s like I purchased a little child.*

Anyone out there have any new updates? Did you fix it with fresh install? *

[noalero]

I think the problem comes from Disconnected Modern Standby in Windows 10, or in this case a borked implementation of it from Asus. The laptop enters this mode everytime the screen shuts off, https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1043537/
"2. If your computer supports Modern Standby mode, it means that the symptom is normal. Due to Microsoft’s design, Modern Standby mode had been implemented from Windows 10 announced. The system will enter Modern Standby mode after the screen turns off, and it means that the system enters a quick sleep."
I measured it myself and the laptop enters a ultra low power mode but it keeps running, but because the fans never power on the heat keeps accumulating.
I am pretty sure that this happens to every modern laptop from the ROG lineup. Still waiting for a fix from Asus.

[ShadowButton]

Well after my last report , the problems still occurs even more problems pretend to be after every new software update that came in past weeks from MyAsus (Refresh rate service => completly broken on my system, Armory crate "performance" powerplan guaranteed to overheat the system when left alone and more bugs)


What noalero says is correct, after the screen shutdown the system goes in some kind of sleep mode where the cooling of the system is not taken into account. I am still not sure if it's Asus or Windows related .. I tried an old windows 10 version during my reinstallation attempts where the same problems kept occurring even with and without Asus software and drivers.

The only in between solution that worked for now is setting up the powerplan so that after the screen turns off, the system will go to sleep around 10 minutes.
I think that this gives the laptop less chance to overheat by the auto turned off fans.

The Asus software is really annoying at this time .. as a user you do not really have control over the system, things are being carried out or just not without you being aware. I don't understand why this system can't run on it's own. more software is more instability probability.

I hope we will get by early next year a clean software fix so our laptop models will function as they should.

[ShadowButton]

criskoe wrote:
Happy to find this thread. I couldn’t understand what was going on with this new Zephyrus s15 GX502L. I just got it a week or so ago and everything has been great. Been playing with it constantly. And pretty much have always been in front of it when it’s on and have turned it off when not using it. And for the first time I left it unattended for a little while cooking dinner. When I returned. Waking it up it sounded like a jet engine and touching just above the KB was SO HOT. I had HWiNFO open in the back ground and it recorded 100C across all the cores. I’m surprised it didn’t shut down. Kinda scary actually. I’m not sure how long it was sitting like that. It sure was hot. I could feel the heat radiating from it immediately.*

So right away I began researching why and found this thread.

This sucks man. I don’t want to have to leave the dam screen on all the time. * And now I scared leaving this thing unattended. Lmao. It’s like I purchased a little child.*

Anyone out there have any new updates? Did you fix it with fresh install? *

the fresh installations helpt me with some system instabilities but after all the problem is still present. The things I do to prevent overheating:

1) Never leave the system alone when the armoury crate powerplan "Performance and Turbo" are enabled. If I leave the system I keep it at the windows powerplan.
2) To enable screen shutdown and sleep setup your battery powerplans to disable the screen after 3 minutes and let the sleep mode kick in at 5 or 10 minutes ( you will need to check this the first times because you really cannot rely on the behavior of the system at this point ) Just play a little with the settings. and make sure when the real sleepmode kicks in if the system equality is sleeping.

3) If you leave your system for a while turn off any very high demaning GPU or CPU program (Like a game or in my case Unity with gamemode enabled)

4) Optional I downloaded all the crap Asus drivers and software from Windows auto update (during the reinstallation) and finaly the Armoury software directly form the Asus web site. (No driver package or windows store UWP or installation or MyAsus). I also use Intel driver check tool to update intel based hardere to the latest versions. The drivers that Asus offers are usually outdated.

I thinks this are the best 3 tips I can offer you. before I took this into account I had like 3 overheating shutdowns a day and now when follwing carefully none

[criskoe]

ShadowButton wrote:
the fresh installations helpt me with some system instabilities but after all the problem is still present. The things I do to prevent overheating:

1) Never leave the system alone when the armoury crate powerplan "Performance and Turbo" are enabled. If I leave the system I keep it at the windows powerplan.
2) To enable screen shutdown and sleep setup your battery powerplans to disable the screen after 3 minutes and let the sleep mode kick in at 5 or 10 minutes ( you will need to check this the first times because you really cannot rely on the behavior of the system at this point ) Just play a little with the settings. and make sure when the real sleepmode kicks in if the system equality is sleeping.

3) If you leave your system for a while turn off any very high demaning GPU or CPU program (Like a game or in my case Unity with gamemode enabled)

4) Optional I downloaded all the crap Asus drivers and software from Windows auto update (during the reinstallation) and finaly the Armoury software directly form the Asus web site. (No driver package or windows store UWP or installation or MyAsus). I also use Intel driver check tool to update intel based hardere to the latest versions. The drivers that Asus offers are usually outdated.

I thinks this are the best 3 tips I can offer you. before I took this into account I had like 3 overheating shutdowns a day and now when follwing carefully none

Does your laptop still heat up during sleep mode? Cause my does. I havent tried on silent profile yet. But preformance mode sure does... Honestly I dont want to have to constantly be switching to different modes to walk away from the laptop... LOL. I know after a while Ill forget... And honestly is so dumb to have to do that.. LOL...

Test I did was I just set screen off in 1 min and set standby 2 min after screen turns off. I left HWiNFO open on desktop. Temps were 32c across all cores. Laptop was doing nothing. Zero.. Just idling and normal windows background services. I set a timer for 17 minutes on my phone and let it sit.

Screen turned off after 1 min and then the laptop definitely went to sleep after 2 min cause the power light went from solid light to slow pulsing. But it’s still heating up in standby. Lol. Wtf. The area above the keyboard was nice and cool to touch just before I started this test and as every min passed, It got warmer and warmer. I woke the laptop from standby after 15 min. And when it woke up. Fans shot up and HWiNFO recorded cpu temps as 87c across all cores.....

So not only can’t I use turn off display after. I also can’t use standby. Lol. Jokes.