Asus ROG Strix GL503GE SCAR - wrong ram slot, coil whine, fans a bit loud

[vacs]

Hi,

I want to share my experience with this notebook to see if others have the same issues and maybe Asus would address the CPU issue with a bios update. I already filed a RMA to my seller and now waiting for them to aprove it, but I still want to share this.

I bought the notebook yesterday, installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro 1803, downloaded and installed all drivers from the official website and then updated Windows until no updates were avaible. Also I installed Chrome, Aida64 and nothing else and these are my problem:.

1. The notebook comes with a single 8GB ram stick which should be somewhere on the motherboard and not accessible through the ram and ssd expansion bay so that the other ram slot in the extention bay would be empty and when you decide to upgrade the ram you won't have to dissasembly the whole notebook and lose warranty (image attached). BTW on all youtube videos their slot was empty.

2. The notebook makes a scratchy noise almost the whole time while connected to the charger. The only time it doesn't is when you're in the bios, or not doing anyting (not even moving the mouse). I attached a video to see that I opened just chrome and that the noise appears as soon as I move the mouse. The system load varies from 4 do 13% so that's means no background proccesses are causing additional load, and even if they where a notebook this price range ($1350) should not make this noise as I had ROG notebooks before and none of them made any other noise than the normal ones produced by fans and hdd's.

3. When I run Aida64 I see that my CPU clock is always between 3.8 and 4.1GHz, when I start the stress test the clock goes down to the base 2.2GHz clock which is not normal, it should be the other way around.

4. After installing all the drivers from the link below one device remains „unknown“ so when I run windows update it downloads something called „asus – firmware...“ (I don't remember the whole name). After rebooting it updates my bios to v306 even if the last version on asus official website is v303. I thought that this bios caused the cpu clock issue as there must be a reason asus pulled back the v306 so I performed a downgrade to v303 but the issue remained. It's weird that windows would do a bios update as I never seen this before.

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ROG-Strix-GL503/HelpDesk_Download/

[helix400]

So I was wrong in one thing. The registry fix doesn't downgrade performance in any way, it just turns of Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) intel C states, which help lower power usage when the computer is idling.

I ran a benchmark test with the registry fix applied and without it, and they were almost identical in performance (couldn't tell that one was better than the other, any minor variations in timings seem to be the usual variance in testing.)

Further, the noise *mostly* goes way, it is similar to setting the processor usage to 99% or unplugging the battery. Instead of a constant screech intermixed with a high pitched whine, it's much better. I'll still hear a few "taps" a second, and occasionally I'll hear a high pitched whine for a few seconds, but overall, it's much better than before.

Further, I believe APCI can be used to disable intel C states in Linux, I just need to research exactly how. I'm almost half tempted to open up the case and put a dab of hot glue on the offending part, I read that it sometimes helps. Ultimately, ASUS should be replacing this motherboard. They claim their warranty covers coil whine, but they won't fix the part that causes the coil whine. They want me to ship it back for a third RMA, and I have low expectations they'll fix it...

[vacs]

Asus released a new set of drivers for this notebook but nothing changed, bios options are still locked (no C1E toggle to disable coil whine), the fans are still too noisy (they don't go lower than 1900rpm)

another thing,the ROG Aura Core is only avaible on the MS store which I don't have (deleted with destroy windows spying) and I don't want to make a MS account so is there a way to get the app sideloaded? I have the older 1.0.4 version but as ROG gaming center needs the Aura Core to work and Intel XTU need ROG gaming center to works I would like to update the Aura Core also and see if it help to lower the fans via Gaming centre

btw this MS store **** is the stupidest thing I've ever seen...If you want to control the keyboard light and undervolt your cpu you need a "core" which shouldn't even be connecting the keyboard and cpu but ok, there is surely a reason why they employ monkeys to make our life difficult

[vacs]

I'm using the throttlestop fix to get rid of the coil whine since I bought it 3 months ago and so far so good, I'm not experiencing any heat or battery issues regarding the dissabled C1E so the problem would be gone if asus made a bios update that lets you dissable the C1E in bios like many other manufactors do (I recently serviced a dell notebook of $300 and had many options in the bios and a C1E toggle aswel)

the other thing that bothers me are the fans, my GL503GE runs under 50°C on normal light use (web, office, music and movies) but the fans never go off...on battery it's around 42°C and they do turn off the moment they go under 45°C so another thing asus should do is to set fans to go off under 55°C because my old GL552VW had one fan with wrose thermal specs and was mostly quiet under 60°C

[guuustavo]

About the noise issue, i bought a G703GS and have the same problem, check the sound here (5 sec mouse movement) : http://ge.tt/162boJt2 )

I have sent a complaint today.

[FarleyCZ]

Yeah, I'm slowly comming to terms that I just bought it as it is. Iľl use throttlestop to turn it off as well, if it gets too annoying.

But it doesn't stop me from writting angry e-mails. Already made a clickbaity topic about that on Linuses forum. I'll include that in the e-mails as a proof that I won't give up untill they admit they messed up. I would expect this behaviour from greedy corporate companies like Apple. Asus seemed way cooler to me before this.

[DvvDROG]

Hi, same problem G703GS GTX1070..

The sound is very annoying, and it started a few weeks ago. any information on how to solve it?

[TopOkay]

[SOLUTION SEEMS TO WORK WITH ALL i7-8750H ROGS]

Hi all guys.

Thanks to this forum I'm using a solution (sort of) for get almost rid of the scratchy/coil whine noise using only Windows power management settings.
Mine is a GL703GE-GC033T, but I think this can work on others models.

However, little preamble: my unit comes with 302 BIOS and Win10 ver 1709 build 16299.15
At begin I've used the pc without connection to prevent it from updating, and I'm almost completely sure that the noise wasn't here.
It comes after updating Windows to 1803 and BIOS to 310.
I've contacted Asus and they answer they are working on the problem... I hope so...


However I've created and modified some power plans as Passion64x said and done some tests with Passmark.

Main problem is that Windows use 2 types of power settings:
1) basically there is one power plan called "Balanced" in the "old" power settings windows and then the new slider with 3 power state (4 when on battery) that is shown doing left-click on battery icon
2) the old-way power setting option with power plans, if you create and set a new power plan the slider disappear

Now, the scracth/whine/noise is related to how cpu frequencies are managed (high freq = high noise, mid freq = intermittent noise, low freq = almost no noise or very low), indeed if I set the slider at MAX PERFORMANCE (or use a High Performance plan) the cpu stuck to max freq and the noise is "loud" and consistent. If I set the slider to better performance or better battery is intermittent and the freq will vary.

What I've done:
1) with balanced power plan active, I've set the slider in the center state (better performance, i think)
2) created some new power plan, one High performance and others starting from Power saver plan, and called them "Power saver", "85% cpu", "99% cpu".
85% and 99% max cpu will disable turbo boost as said in others posts.


These are the results with Passmark CPU tests and HWINFO monitor:

> default Balanced power plan with slider at max performance:
11188 pt --> max values: T 75C, supersonic jet-like fans, 3992ghz, cpu package power 59.962w, Power Limit Exceeded YES on all cores
= continuous scratching with high pitch noise

> default Balanced power plan with slider at better performance (slider at middle state):
11336 --> max values: T 75C, supersonic jet-like fans, 3991ghz, cpu package power 59.900w, Power Limit Exceeded YES on all cores
= intermittent scratching with low pitch noise

> High performance plan:
11128 --> max values: T 77C, supersonic jet-like fans, 3992ghz, cpu package power 59.935w, Power Limit Exceeded YES on all cores
= continuous scratching with high low/medium pitch noise

> Power saver plan:
10358 --> max values: T 64C, airliner-like fans, 3591ghz, cpu package power 54.075w
= very low intermittent scratching, tolerable (for me)

> 99% cpu:
7480 --> max values: T 51C, quiet fans, 2095ghz, cpu package power 28.253w
= continuous scratching but hardly audible

> 85% cpu:
6494 -->max values: T 48C, quiet fans, 1797ghz, cpu package power 24.795w
= intermittent scratching practically inaudible

...max freq of 99% and 85% are indeed the 99% and 85% of 2.2 ghz, the base frequency.

The power saver plan (in green) for me it's very good: noise doesn't bother me, cpu go almost at max performance and good temps under full load.
And if I want max power I can put balanced plan with better performance (in orange) and go at full power when needed...


I've searched the 302 bios for downgrade and do some tests but I didn't found nothing online. 😞

[FarleyCZ]

I have to give kudos to Czech ASUS service, because guys are being really helpful in my case. Essentially I'm in a situation right now that if I send the laptop for another RMA, there is high probability I'll get the money back.

Thing is ... there is not much else to go instead of it. Dells at this pricepoint are ugly and have awful screens, MSI's have really small batteries and/or plastic build, Predators and Omens are extremely ugly. .... and all of these have some horror stories about coil whine too.

I'm clueless.

[FarleyCZ]

My main question right now is if there are gl503ge's without coil whine or it's somewhat common. My second mobo suggest it's a design problem, but dunno.

I'm really tempted to go to store tomorrow, locate the same laptop on display and check if it's quiet. I'll be looking wierd, but whatever. If there is a possibility to have perfect gl503ge, I want that before anything else. 

[JMarvic]

FarleyCZ wrote:
My main question right now is if there are gl503ge's without coil whine or it's somewhat common. My second mobo suggest it's a design problem, but dunno.

I'm really tempted to go to store tomorrow, locate the same laptop on display and check if it's quiet. I'll be looking wierd, but whatever. If there is a possibility to have perfect gl503ge, I want that before anything else. 😥

I tried this out.. to my surprise the display unit has the same issue! You will just hardly notice it because its inside a mall.. unfortunately they wont return my money for this laptop although I haven't tried harder as im still satisfied with the performance.. It's just that coil noise I wanted to get rid of.

On the other hand, all i can do now is a hot fix and no idea if its safe or not in the long run. Kindly see reference screenshot below:


So basically im just creating power plans that limits the maximum performance of CPU. This also somehow helps on the overall temperature.. The only downside I get is switching Power Plans every time you wanted to crank up your processing speed and returning it back when you are back to a peaceful silent place. Let me know if this works..

But still a fix from ASUS will be entirely great than this!