I hate to post a rant thread as one of my first posts so lets start with positive things 🙂
After owning middle tier Asus Notebook and the marvellous 2012 Zenbook ux52vz I purchased my first true gaming laptop going with Asus once again.
Recently got my GL502VMK laptop with 8 GB RAM, 250 GB m.2 SSD and no OS installed. So far pretty happy with the machine and performance BUT
after installing Windows 10, newest drivers from Asus site and Windows updates I noticed 3 things:
- ROG Gaming center has unlabeled icons and is useless in terms of functionality. It only shows frequencies and temps. Thats it, no options to change fan profiles, CPU or GPU frequencies what so ever. It can only disable windows key etc for certain applications and open a shortcut.
- No audio controls: WaveMaxx setup (from included driver disc) says it isn't compatible, the Realtek icon that should open Audio Wizard does nothing and this programs aren't available for download in the internet. Tried both included driver and latest audio drivers from Asus support site.
- very noticable buzzing sound when in idle. I blamed the Micron SSD / controller first, after swapping it with another SSD however and trying fresh Win10 install it immediately came again. Turns out it's coming from CPU power delivery / VRMs which is most likely a mainboard issue (poor isolation)?
After further examination and experimenting with different power profiles in Windows I have found very interesting things:
- energy saving mode: almost no buzzing, much better; but reduced performance (you don't say?)
- balanced mode: noticable electric buzzing
- high performance: very disturbing high-pitch buzzing
Modifying these profiles to "max CPU load": 99 % instead 100 % reduced the buzzing noise. Further reducing the max CPU load eliminated the buzzing but of course it isn't a viable solution. I have trained ears but even my mother could hear this abnormal noise very well. Have read about similar issues withsome Asus desktop Formula boards, but not in their laptop boards.
Am I the only one with this problem? Going to RMA it ASAP and wait for replacement. Will report back after testing the replacement. I REALLY like the features of this laptop but this issues I can't ignore.
