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/

[jurosora]

I recently bought an ASUS Strix Laptop (GL503ge Hero Edition), after a few days of use I started to hear the noise "coil whistle", I can say that it is the same problem as you describe, The laptop produces the sound when the load exceeds 2.6 ghz and while it is connected to the charger. I have been looking at forums and many customers have the same problem.
I was looking at forums and many customers have the same problem.
The solution is to disable the Turbo Boost from the power configuration - changing the use to 99%. I have not installed the programs that you use, I updated all the drivers and installed the BIOS version to 308 (this BIOS version does not exist on the official Asus website, it was updates from Windows update) and the problem persists. I can not believe it, this should not be, we are buying a limited product in performance.

ASUS should receive these criticisms and tell us if it is a manufacturing problem.

[vacs]

@jurosora

I used this fix that Passion64x posted and I don't have to disable Turbo Boost, mine runs on full performance and without thermal throtteling, just he fan noise now bugs me

Passion64x wrote:
[1]. Free slot could be under the existing ram , try removing it .
[2].THE GUIDE - COIL WHINE
Workaround described here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/975530

Perform only these steps as Administrator:
1. At a command prompt, run the following command:
reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Processor /v Capabilities /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0007e066
2. Restart the computer.
3. Run ThrottleStop v8.3 or above and uncheck C1E. Click save.

[r-rig]

No official fix for this problem?

This sound is getting more annoying by the day. No, I do not want to replace the sound with fan noise when applying the tips on this page. Please give official solution to GL503GE coil whine.

[helix400]

So I did a lot more digging on my issue. It wasn't a speaker issue. It's not an SSD issue. It's coil whine. Specifically, there is some part above the processor socket that's causing it.

I've tried two RMAs so far. No luck, they keep fixing an unrelated part and not checking if the fix worked. Someone from ASUS support reached out to me to see if the problem is fixed, I responded, but I haven't heard back yet.

I tried the "suck it up and deal with it" attitude for a while. I just couldn't handle it. It drives me batty. The other proposed fixes literally reduce your CPU usage 30-50%, and in my case, are finicky, sometimes lowers the whine, but sometimes the problem comes right back. Downgrading my laptop for a partial fix isn't enough.

It's at the point where if this issue can't get fixed, I'd go out and buy a replacement laptop and let this ASUS laptop gather dust. I figure I'd use my laptop all day for three years, so a laptop costs me about $2 a day, and I'd gladly pay $2 a day to not hear that coil whine.

[SithV]

jurosora wrote:
I recently bought an ASUS Strix Laptop (GL503ge Hero Edition), after a few days of use I started to hear the noise "coil whistle", I can say that it is the same problem as you describe, The laptop produces the sound when the load exceeds 2.6 ghz and while it is connected to the charger. I have been looking at forums and many customers have the same problem.
I was looking at forums and many customers have the same problem.
The solution is to disable the Turbo Boost from the power configuration - changing the use to 99%. I have not installed the programs that you use, I updated all the drivers and installed the BIOS version to 308 (this BIOS version does not exist on the official Asus website, it was updates from Windows update) and the problem persists. I can not believe it, this should not be, we are buying a limited product in performance.

ASUS should receive these criticisms and tell us if it is a manufacturing problem.

*

I've been trying to reach their tech support for 2 weeks, all i got is standard BS about how Asus strives to provide great products. Never answered is this was a typical issue for the whole Strix series. I got my second gl703 unit and it also has the same issue! But im definitely returning it, pretty sure its the way they are built, you cant fix it with software updats.. and even if you could, limiting a fairly expensive piece of hardware is not exactly what you would expect from a device with that price tag...

[ssc134]

After a week of digging about the weird scratching sound coming from my GL503GE found out it was coil whine. The laptop's a month old. And I can't return it to on Amazon either. That sound gets on my nerves. Can't work in a silent room without a pair of headphones. Very bad design by Asus. Didn't expect this on an ROG.

[FarleyCZ]

Ok, so quick update about my laptop. They had it in the czech official ASUS service for over three weeks. They changed the motherboard and updated bios. It got a little bit better while idling, but still gets annoying when I move a mouse in Chrome or something.

The serious part is that the report includes a beautiful description about how this behaviour is essentially normal and if it's quiter than 10db, it's not a faulty product.

On the one hand I appreciate them for replacing my motherboard when they didn't have to, but it makes me even more sure that designers of this GL503 refresh just f**ked up big time and service centers all over the globe are trying to avoid a major recall. I'm extremely dissappointed in ASUS. That laptop would be amazing if it wasn't making this noise.

Is there any way we can fight back? I don't wanna cause any problems to that little service center, they just fix crap, they have no power over bad designs. ...but this is just not acceptable. Is there a contact directly into some ASUS operation center or HQ? I am really tempted to threaten them with making this a public matter.

[FarleyCZ]

...also there is another possibility. There might be something wrong with 8th gen Intels. There are reports on the internet of similar coil-whine horror stories concerning not only ROG laptops, but also ZenBooks, latest Dell XPS 13, latest Inspiron gaming series, I think I also saw even a HP Envy one. In quite a lot of cases there is a common detail and it's 8th gen i7 or i5 inside.

If that's true, that would be worst news we can get. ...in that case manufacturers can't do anything about it and Intel is too big to care.

[TommyBoyTommy]

ssc134 wrote:
After a week of digging about the weird scratching sound coming from my GL503GE found out it was coil whine. The laptop's a month old. And I can't return it to on Amazon either. That sound gets on my nerves. Can't work in a silent room without a pair of headphones. Very bad design by Asus. Didn't expect this on an ROG.

Haha, welcome to Asus. I hear this from my old TUF FX504GD and yet more silent but still hear coils from ASUS ROG G531GU. Why we buy Asus?

[FULLMETALJACKET]

TommyBoyTommy wrote:
Haha, welcome to Asus. I hear this from my old TUF FX504GD and yet more silent but still hear coils from ASUS ROG G531GU. Why we buy Asus?

You will be surprised that most gaming laptops have coil whine. Not just Asus.