GL502VT fan nightmare

[Venumz]

Hello everybody,
I own a GL502VT model, and what a nightmare, the cooling fan goes crazy many times even though the CPU is below 42 C.
No matter the OS, both linux and windows behave the same.

Under linux, the operating system I work with, I can't use the nvidia graphic card unless I wanted everybody around me complaining all the time.
Using the intel graphics make things better, but not much.

I have updated my bios to the last available one but this has changed nothing, I tried everything (I mean everything) to solve the issue without success.
Indeed I wasted so much time trying to figure out how to solve my problem, I'm so disappointed and I do not know what else to do.
In conclusion, I have spent very good money in a laptop that I actually despise deeply.

I need help, but please don't make me waste my time asking for feedback about my operating system, logs or anything like that. The software I have installed is not the issue, the firmware is, so please produce a bios update with a solution for this nightmare I'm typing in.

I have also a question for you, how come the bios settings are so limited in a laptop that is supposed to be used by gamers?

Well, I suppose this post is going to be a waste of my time, but just in case....

Regards

[Eleiyas]

Venumz wrote:

I need help, but please don't make me waste my time asking for feedback about my operating system, logs or anything like that.

We always ask for more information as it helps us debug the issue and find a fix/answer quicker.

Venumz wrote:

The software I have installed is not the issue, the firmware is, so please produce a bios update with a solution for this nightmare I'm typing in.

I haven't seen many people complaining about fan issues on their GL502, so how can you be sure that it 100% isn't an issue stemming from your installed software?


My honest opinion is that you may simply have a faulty fan controller on your mainboard.

[Venumz]

Eleiyas@ASUS wrote:
We always ask for more information as it helps us debug the issue and find a fix/answer quicker.




I haven't seen many people complaining about fan issues on their GL502, so how can you be sure that it 100% isn't an issue stemming from your installed software?


My honest opinion is that you may simply have a faulty fan controller on your mainboard.

This happens also while rebooting (even at bios stage) , I have a dual boot and restarting from one OS to the other changes nothing, that's the reason I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with my software.

Having a faulty fan controller is not an option for me as I need this laptop for my daily work and I cannot be without it for the time needed for the reparation (that I guess is going to take more than a month).

I guess my only option left is to try to tamper the hardware myself.

[Eleiyas]

I know you said you tried everything, but did you try simply resetting the BIOS to default? (seeing as you didn't say exactly what you did do)

Some times we get units here that have the fan blocked on max rpm and a simple BIOS reset fixes the issue right away.



Do you have the ROG gaming centre installed on the unit?

I ask because maybe there is an issue in that where a weird fan curve has been set, therefore causing your issue.

[Venumz]

Yes, I have reseted the bios to default many times.

The fan is not fixed at max rpm though, it starts going crazy no matter the temperature (because I have seen 4900rpm even a 41 C) and after a variable while, without no reason it goes down to 2100rpm. It happens no matter the load average of the cpu.

I have noticed that when the craziness starts, rebooting changes nothing, but if I enter the bios and reset it to default, the fan stops suddenly.

Thanks for your time.

[haihane]

I need help, but please don't make me waste my time asking for feedback about my operating system,

devil's advocate:

i want to help, but what makes you worthy of my help when i'm going to be spoken to in such manner before anybody does anything?
in my culture, there's a saying that goes like: your time is gold, my time is ****?

i'm essentially a free tech support in ASUS' forum helping out because i like it. they owe me nutthin, and i owe 'em nutthin. and BECAUSE i have no responsibility with ASUS to actually help you (well to be honest, i'm more afraid of Eleiyas@ASUS slapping me with you don't be naughty here warning,)....

but i could feel her irk when she saw that tone from you, perhaps! i'll be the devil and say what i feel:
-if anybody wants help: Be polite, don't be a jerk. you're not entitled to my help.



(i'm so into trouble for this post, crap. but #YOLO)

[Venumz]

haihane wrote:
devil's advocate:

i want to help, but what makes you worthy of my help when i'm going to be spoken to in such manner before anybody does anything?
in my culture, there's a saying that goes like: your time is gold, my time is ****?

i'm essentially a free tech support in ASUS' forum helping out because i like it. they owe me nutthin, and i owe 'em nutthin. and BECAUSE i have no responsibility with ASUS to actually help you (well to be honest, i'm more afraid of Eleiyas@ASUS slapping me with you don't be naughty here warning,)....

but i could feel her irk when she saw that tone from you, perhaps! i'll be the devil and say what i feel:
-if anybody wants help: Be polite, don't be a jerk. you're not entitled to my help.



(i'm so into trouble for this post, crap. but #YOLO)

I feel you man, but I have left so little patient since this laptop is a replacement for an MSI that had even worst issues.
The fact is that I could spend less than a half in a ****ty laptop from Acer, but I prefer to pay much more than I should in a laptop from a reputable company hopping for a better quality. This Is the second laptop in a row that is giving me headaches, so....

[Eleiyas]

haihane wrote:

her

I'm physically a male actually 😛



Well @OP, the only other thing I can think of is a total refresh of everything. Reflash the BIOS, reset the BIOS, complete fresh install of Windows.
If you really don't want to RMA, then there's nothing more I can offer you in terms of advice.

[Venumz]

Unfortunately I cannot afford being without my computer for so long, so RMA is not an option for me.
There is only one thing I haven't tried yet and that is reflashing an old bios. I have just done that and right away I have reset the bios.

For now is working well, but is too son to tell, because the issue happens randomly and lasts few minutes or hours...it has no sense.

Thanks anyway for your time.

[Venumz]

OK, I have done some progress and it seems that I have been able to bypass the issue.
Since this may help someone, here it is what I have found:

Facts:

- I'm running Gnu/Linux Mint 18.1 and the cpu is cold (42C), suddenly the fan goes crazy, load average is low so there's no much sense in pushing the fan so hard
- rebotting does not change things, even at bios stage the fan goes crazy and even booting windows 10 changes nothing.
- shutting down the pc and booting again solves the issue momentarily. It starts with full fan speed and as soon as the bios hits, the fan slows down. (after a while the fan goes crazy again).

This 3 facts together make me suspect that the issue is not related to the operating systems, but with the bios.

Today the issue was very annoying and working in a quiet space with other people around me has proven difficult so I have tried something new, this is installing a kernel upgrade (4.2.12) and trying to control manually the fan with a Linux utility called fancontrol. This didn't work with my old kernel and that is the reason why I have upgraded it.

With fancontrol I have been able to set a scale of temperatures between which I can set the speed limits of the fan.
Fan control just monitors the temperature of one core and writes a number from 0 to 255 in a file that is used to set the fan speed. This number represents the speed of the fan, and you don't need fancontrol to do that, you can do it manually, fancontrol just do the work for you.

This worked great, and I was very happy with it, but Murphy's law hit me so hard when suddenly, no matter what, the fan started crazy again (the bios seems to be overriding fancontrol and any manual intervention).

So, this procedure is not making things better.

Fortunately, looking out for solutions regarding skylake + fan speed, I have found one guy that did solve the issue installing the kernel 4.6.0 that somehow manages to not being override by the bios.

I'm using that kernel right now, without the help of fancontrol and things are going great so far.
I am not using the nvidia graphics card but the intel graphics card, otherwise the temperature gets high enough to hear the fun, even though in this case this would be the normal behavior.

That's all, I hope this would help other people.