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

[Fireblade_92]

2 weeks later, and it seems that either the Windows 10 20H2 upgrade or the latest System Control Interface update (2.2.32.0) broke CPU load balancing (power plans) as well. Battery life gone in 1.5 hours with AC profiles (used to get more than 4 hours out of the Silent one), can't get the CPU to operate at under 3,4 GHz anymore either.

Something is terribly wrong with this range of devices and it's getting worse by the update.

And not a single word from ASUS tech or support desk, except the one 'RMA it, you never know' email.

I have bought a power plant which has no way to prevent a nuclear meltdown. Painful.

[criskoe]

Fireblade_92 wrote:
2 weeks later, and it seems that either the Windows 10 20H1 upgrade or the latest System Control Interface update (2.2.32.0) broke CPU load balancing (power plans) as well. Battery life gone in 1.5 hours with AC profiles (used to get more than 4 hours out of the Silent one), can't get the CPU to operate at under 3,4 GHz anymore either.

Something is terribly wrong with this range of devices and it's getting worse by the update.

And not a single word from ASUS tech or support desk, except the one 'RMA it, you never know' email.

I have bought a power plant which has no way to prevent a nuclear meltdown. Painful.

Yeah I tried to contact asus regarding the matter and got absolutely no where. Just the typical copy paste response from support and links to support pages suggesting things like "Dust build up in fans" or "heavy applications running in the background" or "Please check for updates" If doesnt fix please RMA. I wrote them out a huge long list of things that Ive tried yet they still suggest things I mentioned i already checked. I even linked them other threads showing that others are having this issue.. Its like they dont even read what you send to them. Its almost like AI bot just links pages due to support words like "overheating". So silly. Dont expect to get anywhere with them on this matter. ****s just broken.

For a while I was pretty sure this was Windows S0 modern standyby causing the issue. Now not so much... After updating to windows 20H2, I had found a way to disable sleep state S0 and restore old windows power plans like older windows via a reg edit. I can now confirm that S0 is disabled via powercfg /a in cmd.. It shows that S0 state is now not available for the system. Yet when the screen turns off, the system fans will still shut off shortly after.

I was really hoping this would be fixed by now... I cannot believe that something as simple as the screen turning off and killing the fans would be such a hard thing to get support staff to remedy and stop. I guess they just want you to set the screen to never turn off cause that seems to be the only 100% way of stopping your device from possibly cooking itself alive.

I have a strong suspicion that rmaing the device will end up being a huge waste of money for shipping and most importantly my time. I think at this point Im just going to catch my return window and just return for refund and try something different.

[Desani]

It is really disappointing that we are facing this issue in this day of age. I can understand sleep issues on windows XP, but this is windows 10 in 2020, I have never had an issue with my computer being able to sleep or overheating with the screen off in my history of buying laptops. I rarely upgrade my laptop and when I do, it's a big deal for me to get a new gaming laptop. I bought a G732LWS with a 2070 super, upgraded from a G75VW with a 660m, it was a major upgrade. I love this laptop and the gaming power but it seems like a step backwards in stability. I never once had any issues with sleep or overheating on the G75VW. With this new laptop, it feels that if I don't closely monitor and tweak it for heat issues, it is going to cook itself to death. I have resolved to no longer allowing the screen to shut off in fear that it will overheat and burn out a component on the motherboard. I have to sacrifice the lamp life of my screen just to keep the laptop from burning up. In this day in age, it is really unacceptable. It has overheated and forcefully shutdown at least 4 times since I purchased it a few months ago. I really like this laptop but it really feels like a glass canon. This is probably going to be the last ROG I buy.

[ShadowButton]

Still no Fix from Asus or workaround. The problems just keep going on. I also made a new thread at the forum specific for my laptop model here:

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?121829-ASUS-ROG-M15-GU502LW-Overheating-When-Display-On-Sl...

But still no response there. Surely it cannot be that so few people have experienced these problems with their device.
I really regret that I can no longer exchange it to get my money back and buy another brand.

Which is certain I NEVER buy an Asus ROG Gaming laptop again. With all these problems and instability, I don't think these devices should be sold as a gaming device on the market. And also where is the support from the community and Asus for the people who do have problems with their device.

[godest]

Having the same issue and the Asus support really sucks, no help what so ever. If they dont patch the software soon il reconsider buying Asus hardware next year when i build my next rig.

[Jam31337]

Hi, on December 30th of 2020th I've bought myself an Asus ROG STRIX G15 G512LW-HN084T, I loved the design, specs, 3x M.2 slots and the price on the market is also great for these features. I've built previously a monster PC with Asus ROG Maximus XI Gene mobo on 9900K and Asus ROG STRIX RTX 2080Ti OC which was great, but I've decided to switch to a laptop. For more than 15 years I'm a devoted Asus customer and will keep my choices to the ROG products against anything else on the market.
I've seen plenty of laptops during last 2-3 years having the Intel CPU's of 8th, 9th and now 10th Gen which are overheating on simple tasks and this isn't about Asus, all the manufacturers in this price range are faced to the thermals for this speeds and productivity.
As a workaround for this issue, please set the sleeping timer to 1 minute after the screen off. Don't worry about the static picture on the screen making its life shorter, you can use a background swither app to change pics every 15 mins for example, and keep the screen on for hours and hours without fearing to shorten its quality.
Of course, I hope the Asus Engineering department will take a deeper look into the process architecture and either create a logic to monitor the temps in sleep mode and handle it with fans or something more genius.

[godest]

Jam31337 wrote:
Hi, on December 30th of 2020th I've bought myself an Asus ROG STRIX G15 G512LW-HN084T, I loved the design, specs, 3x M.2 slots and the price on the market is also great for these features. I've built previously a monster PC with Asus ROG Maximus XI Gene mobo on 9900K and Asus ROG STRIX RTX 2080Ti OC which was great, but I've decided to switch to a laptop. For more than 15 years I'm a devoted Asus customer and will keep my choices to the ROG products against anything else on the market.
I've seen plenty of laptops during last 2-3 years having the Intel CPU's of 8th, 9th and now 10th Gen which are overheating on simple tasks and this isn't about Asus, all the manufacturers in this price range are faced to the thermals for this speeds and productivity.
As a workaround for this issue, please set the sleeping timer to 1 minute after the screen off. Don't worry about the static picture on the screen making its life shorter, you can use a background swither app to change pics every 15 mins for example, and keep the screen on for hours and hours without fearing to shorten its quality.
Of course, I hope the Asus Engineering department will take a deeper look into the process architecture and either create a logic to monitor the temps in sleep mode and handle it with fans or something more genius.

Or they can just not turn off fans when the screen sleep. The cheer stupidity of this by Asus baffles me. You should not have to do these retarded workarounds for such a simple thing honestly. What i did was just to add a black screensaver and lock the computer together with this. And just avoid/skip the screen sleep since these amateurs cant fix this.

[JossiCat]

I Purhcased the ROG Strix G15 G512LW-HN038T for just over $2500 AUD on December 12th from a Melbourne, Australia retailer with high hopes.
I was drawn to the fact that it could take another 2 NVME drives if I wanted to put them in it. I could care less about the fancy lighting and just wanted a backlit keyboard.

Saying I was disappointed is a understatement.

Heat issues and a flaky track pad.
Track-pad gets laggy at times. Bad enough to be very frustrating.

When the screen turns off all the fans stop as in no cooling what so ever.
I set all my computer's to put the display to sleep after 10 minutes and the actual computer to sleep after 1-2 hours depending on my usage so the fans should not have stopped but they do.

Further investigation, when I discovered the fans turn off with the screen, showed that processes we're still running with CPU cores reaching temps of 97-98 degrees Celsius. It appears to be that the system is deliberately turning the fans off yet running in some sort of semi sleep while still running programs and creating heat and no way to dissipate the heat.
Not an ideal way to design how a laptop runs at all and definitely not fit for it's purpose.
I tried a reset windows. It failed twice. On the 3rd attempt I sat watching to see it fail at 6% completion. The machine just shut down. I pressed the on button and nothing. I lifted the laptop and felt underneath. Yep. It was hot. Did all the troubleshooting after contacting Asus .
Took it back to the retailer for assessment.
Faults were confirmed and a replacement has been given.

I set-up the replacement system on Monday night and attempted to create a recovery USB.
I set the screen to sleep after 5 minutes and the machine itself not go into sleep.
Not trusting that it was a fault in the previous laptop and is more of a design flaw, I sat and watched to see what would happen.
The screen turned off then after about 20 seconds the fans turned off.
The system then gets hot with temps in the 90s to a max of 100 degrees Celsius and the bottom was hot after approximately 10 minutes.
I shut the laptop down, packed it into its box and have returned it to the retailer for a full refund.
Unfortunately I was told it would take 2 days.

What are the chances of getting two fault laptops one after another?

I placed a complaint with Asus detailing the issues and received a typical generic response about having it looked by their Service.
It's the second machine I have personally had this issue with and clearly is a design flaw.
Just recall the laptops and give people their money back.

I not impressed at all as I have been without a laptop for nearly 4 weeks and feel as if Asus is just ignoring the issue.
I had hoped I just got a faulty machine because if it didn't have the issues I've experienced it would be a good laptop.

I'm hoping for a positive outcome and will have my money by Friday, although I will probably lose the money I spent on upgrading Windows 10 Home to Pro.

If I don't get a refund I will be forced to go to the government consumer protection bodies to escalate this further.

If you haven't placed a direct complaint with Asus yet I suggest you do it asap and in detail.

The biggest joke is all the reviews I have watched and read rave about this laptop yet they do not mention this issue which suggests the majority of reviews have not fully tested the laptop.

Cheer

Chris

[JossiCat]

So. I returned the laptop to Scorptec for assessment.
They claimed there is nothing wrong with it.

It turns out that they did not even test the laptop when the screen is set to sleep while the system is set to not sleep. I told the customer service person the issues when i dropped it off.
When I asked if they had tested it when the screen is set to turn off the tech then proceeded to lecture me on closing the lid and using an external monitor.
he also started saying i need to by a cooling pad, raise the laptop off the work surface or implement some other work around.
Why should I have to spend more money to sue the laptop the same way I have used laptops in the past?

The laptop should work straight out of the box as intended without the need to by more equipment or put in place a work around.

When went to collect the laptop I explained to the customer service person the issue, I had explained this to him when I dropped it off, he then started making excuse and eventually blamed the Asus software.

He then removed the software claiming it will solve the issue so i may have the screen turn off and the system still running with the fans running as needed.

It did not.

I'm starting to feel as if this is a something that is known by all yet they are trying to sweep it under the rug.

I will not be buying Asus hardware ever again if I can avoid it.

[godest]

JossiCat wrote:
So. I returned the laptop to Scorptec for assessment.
They claimed there is nothing wrong with it.

It turns out that they did not even test the laptop when the screen is set to sleep while the system is set to not sleep. I told the customer service person the issues when i dropped it off.
When I asked if they had tested it when the screen is set to turn off the tech then proceeded to lecture me on closing the lid and using an external monitor.
he also started saying i need to by a cooling pad, raise the laptop off the work surface or implement some other work around.
Why should I have to spend more money to sue the laptop the same way I have used laptops in the past?

The laptop should work straight out of the box as intended without the need to by more equipment or put in place a work around.

When went to collect the laptop I explained to the customer service person the issue, I had explained this to him when I dropped it off, he then started making excuse and eventually blamed the Asus software.

He then removed the software claiming it will solve the issue so i may have the screen turn off and the system still running with the fans running as needed.

It did not.

I'm starting to feel as if this is a something that is known by all yet they are trying to sweep it under the rug.

I will not be buying Asus hardware ever again if I can avoid it.

Sounds like you got about the same response I did from Asus service rep. Yeah, having to do stupid work arounds for such a simple feature/thing is retarded when you spend 2000 dollar on (20 000 sek for me in sweden) a high end laptop. I wont be supporting Asus either. Thinking of giving MSI a chance when i build my next machine.