GL502VM keyboard replacement and thunderbolt question

[necrophyte]

hi, i am about to purchase the GL502VM-FY292 (only 2017 model currently available here in my part of europe), but before i do so resp. in order to have a confirmation that i likely wont be unsatisfied and return it, i would like to have some points cleared.

1.
since the keyboard layout here is german, but i want a US/UK english one, i definitely would replace it post-purchase. i have already found some suppliers in europe that sell the top covers which keyboards are fixed onto with the english layout; is there also an official asus spare part shop?
there are plenty of instructions/videos on how to open the bottom deck of the notebook in order to perform maintenance on memory, storage, cpu/gpu, heatsinks etc., but i have nowhere found any info about opening the top cover with the keyboard - is it easy to disassemble resp. is there anything that needs to be broken and glued/welded freshly afterwards, or is reassembly the exact reversal procedure as disassembly?

are there any official asus service and maintencane guides that guide one on how to do this (same would be interesting for the display)?


2.
my second question is about a topic that is really getting annoying.... contradictory information on the thunderbolt specification.
official asus GL502VM model page says the usb-c port is also a thunderbolt combo, though it is nowhere else specifically stated. all the vendors selling this notebook in europe do not mention thunderbolt.

though i have read comments from the US that although not specified, the 2017 GL502VM-DS74 indeed has thunderbolt through an intel JHL6240 controller, which is a thunderbolt 3 controller, but only with x2 pcie 3.0 lanes, ie. not full 40gbps thunderbolt specification but only 20gbps.

now i have called asus phone support in europe multiple times, and was really surprised by their incompetency...
first they told me to look at the german asus page for exact specs of the notebook available here.... but the german site still has the old skylake model listed, not the new 2017 kaby lake one
then i asked specifically whether this model has thunderbolt 3 - the answer was "yes, it does"
on this i replied with a question on its bandwidth, and after a minute the reply was "the bandwidth is 10gbps"

....so not only it is contradictory, but if anything is correct on these information, i can conclude that it either does not have thunderbolt, or it has thunderbolt v1, ie. 5-6 year old technology. not thunderbolt 3.

to make things even more complicated and official asus support look even more miserable, upon my second call i asked them to check 2 specific models for a thunderbolt specification: first to check the above mentioned european model GL502VM-FY292 - answer: "no thunderbolt"
then i asked about the US-model that has been confirmed to have thunderbolt through the intel JHL6240 controller (by pictures of the chip itself as well as thunderbolt 3 being specified in bios), GL502VM-DS74, and the answer was: "no thunderbolt"

just for the record, i have also submitted 2 written support requests through their website support form as well, but the 48h-reply-period has been exceeded for the first inquiry by more than 2 weeks, the second by 24h; ie. no answer (yet?).


so asus support doesnt have a clue on the specs of their own products. makes me wanna rethink my intention to purchase my first ever asus product (been using mainly HP workstations and business notebooks so far, whose support also was superb compared to asus support, but also HP's own consumer line support), considering how the notebook might be when the support is so miserable already.

any help on clarifying these two topics?
thanks

[WillyB1337]

Hey man,

For now, without ASUS at your side, you should try by yourself a Thunderbolt device, like a display or an external GPU, if you actually have one.

I have the same exact laptop right now and you just made me wondering about the possible Thunderbolt capability of the USB-C port.

It's possible that It could actually have Thunderbolt capability.

I got to play around in the C: drive and I found a folder called «eSupport» in the root directory.
Upon examination, I found out it's the ASUS installation Wizard, which install all the required drivers and a few software.
Inside each individual folder for the drivers, which is basically the same as downloading the ZIP from ASUS's website.

On my side, I don't actually have Thunderbolt device to try. Well, I might search about what could possibly be a Thunderbolt device.

[necrophyte]

WillyB1337 wrote:
Hey man,

For now, without ASUS at your side, you should try by yourself a Thunderbolt device, like a display or an external GPU, if you actually have one.

I have the same exact laptop right now and you just made me wondering about the possible Thunderbolt capability of the USB-C port.

It's possible that It could actually have Thunderbolt capability.

I got to play around in the C: drive and I found a folder called «eSupport» in the root directory.
Upon examination, I found out it's the ASUS installation Wizard, which install all the required drivers and a few software.
Inside each individual folder for the drivers, which is basically the same as downloading the ZIP from ASUS's website.

On my side, I don't actually have Thunderbolt device to try. Well, I might search about what could possibly be a Thunderbolt device.

hi, i already thought id never get an answer here... so first of all thanks for replying!

i dont have the notebook, yet. i am still contemplating and in case i can get it soon, i may purchase an MSI gs63vr 7rf instead (here thunderbolt 3 is not only specified but also confirmed on *all* models).

so i cannot check for thunderbolt 3, yet. but you definitely can if you have the notebook already. you can either open it and look for the intel JHL6240 chip, or look inside bios (best would be to first check whether its the most recent version and update if necessary). if you can find either, it definitely has thunderbolt, since the intel chip is a thunderbolt controller, and in bios it wouldnt be specified if it werent available because of the presence of the before mentioned (or another thunderbolt) controller

[necrophyte]

need to bump this...
really nobody here that can give me a somewhat firm answer?

[necrophyte]

just for the record, here is the official GL502VM kaby lake specification site on asus.com.....
offering GL502VMs without thunderbolt hence is consumer misleading through misinformation and sueable in some countries, even though there are footnotes stating that specifications may differ from country to country and are subject to change, as non-firm specifications would need to be recognizeable/marked as variable, but here it is absolutely obvious that "1 x Type C USB3.1 GEN2 Thunderbolt" is meant as a firm spec

https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ROG-GL502VM-7th-Gen-Intel-Core/specifications/




the written reply i finally received after more than 2 weeks fits perfectly to this as well, saying "neither the GL502VM , nor the FY292 nobeook have thunderbolt", while FY292 is just a sub-variant of the GL502VM notebook. such abysmal support incompetency, not knowing about their own products and their respective specs, mixing them up etc. really makes me wonder how such a company even can survive at all.

[necrophyte]

this is becoming a rant thread about asus' ****ty support, but since it is that bad it really needs to be documented...

i have now called them to ask whether there are any physical dimension restrictions for the HDD in the GL502VM, since the model i might be interested in comes without a HDD so i would buy one to install it post-purchase and hence need to know whether it doesnt matter whether it is a 2.5in 9.5mm or 7mm thick drive.

they simply did not know it. they told me to ask the vendor i would buy the laptop from what the restrictions are for their own laptop they dont know this information about.... and they asked me for a serial number which i of course cannot have before having purchased the laptop. as if the size of the HDD bay would differ between different serial numbers of the exact same 2017 GL502VM model...

now i found out in a forum entry somewhere else that it was wise to ask this since the HDD must be 7mm because 9.5mm is too thick; but official asus support wasnt able to provide me with this information which is crucial since if it didnt matter and i bought a 9.5mm one, i would need to return it after the failed attempt to install it in the GL502VM.

this is really the worst support experience i have ever had, by far, and i have had a lot since more than 13 yerars..