GL504GM built-in speaker volume fluctuating loud/soft

[Ashenx]

Hey everybody.

This laptop is a little over a month old, and I think the problem has existed since I had it. Basically when listening to audio, movies, youtube, etc, the volume will suddenly drop very low only to randomly spike again for a short burst before dropping back down, as if it's being equalized in the absolute worst, random possible way.

Here's what I've tried so far:

-Uninstalling Realtek driver and updating to the newest version
-Uninstalling Realtek driver and updating to previous versions (04/18 and 08/18)
-Sound>Communications>adjusting for sound calls to "Do Nothing"
-For the hell of it, attempted to change the sample rate and bit depth
-Also for the hell of it, did not allow applications to take control of this device
-Again, for the hell of it, disabling the NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (I'm not even 100 percent sure what it does, something for HDMI?)

So far, not so good. The problem does not occur when I use headphones, leading me to believe it is only a realtek problem.
There are no enhancements in the playback device properties, so nothing that would be equalizing it there.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[x75dollars]

lipemon wrote:
Guys.. I've tried everything here with no resolve but, the other day noticed by accident, that when I opened up my laptop to upgrade to 32GB RAM the right hand side speaker was missing one of the orange rubber rings that holds the speaker to the base --- seems its all purpose is to absorb/cushion vibration.

Did some research and found the rubber ring, installed it and seems it has finally WORKED!! so far a couple of days have passed with no issues... Wanted to share asap.. maybe it was a bad batch of notebooks that had that missing piece... who knows... anyway,

I'm super HAPPY! Please share your findings if you have that rubber missing too. Good luck!

Hi there! Thanks for your help.
I'd love it if you could share a bit more information about how you fixed the issue (does it still work by the way?) - such as where you bought the rubber ring, and how exactly you put it in place? The issue's driving me crazy!

[lipemon]

x75dollars wrote:
Hi there! Thanks for your help.
I'd love it if you could share a bit more information about how you fixed the issue (does it still work by the way?) - such as where you bought the rubber ring, and how exactly you put it in place? The issue's driving me crazy!

YES!! it still works!!! I love it / finally it works!!

My IT guy at the Mexico office found the rubber band for me in downtown Mexico... don't know how he found it but he did... apparently you can find anything you can think of there... I'll ask him to get me some more if needed but if you can't wait you can buy the whole speaker... its inexpensive @ $29 bucks and it may solve your problem.

https : // www . asus-accessories . com/ right-speaker-for-rog-strix-scar-ii-and-hero-ii-63644-66843. htm

That little rubber orange band was all it took for my problem as ridiculous as that seems after frustratingly trying everything --- so I suggest just open your laptop first and check you're missing that rubber band, check connections, check the cable is not crooked or pinched in any way and take it out and position speaker back in place into its slot as Zerenx suggests...

Let me know if you have more questions and hope this helps -- 🙂

[zerenx]

lipemon wrote:
Guys.. I've tried everything here with no resolve but, the other day noticed by accident, that when I opened up my laptop to upgrade to 32GB RAM the right hand side speaker was missing one of the orange rubber rings that holds the speaker to the base --- seems its all purpose is to absorb/cushion vibration.

Did some research and found the rubber ring, installed it and seems it has finally WORKED!! so far a couple of days have passed with no issues... Wanted to share asap.. maybe it was a bad batch of notebooks that had that missing piece... who knows... anyway,

I'm super HAPPY! Please share your findings if you have that rubber missing too. Good luck!

Hi,

I am chiming in to hopefully help others who had this same problem as I did.
It's been a few weeks since I last had the fluctuating volume problem.

I have an Asus GL504GM Hero II, and it has been having this volume problem after the first 3-4 months. I don't know what triggered it exactly, but I had suspected because of an automatic driver update, it used to randomly annoy me to restart my Windows because of a driver update.

I had changed so many drivers, from the original Asus ones, to Microsoft's ones, all the different version from old to newest. Changing the driver provider from generic UAD, to Nahimic ones, to HDA ones. Upgraded my BIOS, upgraded my Windows. Anything I can think of, short of actually reformatting/restoring the Windows, because I need this laptop for work.
But the fluctuating volume always came back one way or another.

I had previously read lipemon's post, and originally discarded the idea as ridiculous. But since I was at my wit's end, I thought what the heck, it's worth a try.
I opened up my GL504GM live, while it was playing a music in the background. Checked the right-hand speaker. The rubber rings in the right speaker wasn't missing and everything was in the right place. It didn't have the same problem as lipemon posted.

So for good measure, I just took it off it's place inside the laptop body and let it dangle temporarily while I put the laptop back and keep playing the music. To my surprise, even after a good 30 minutes or so, the volume did not fluctuate anymore. Previously it would have fluctuated within around 5 minutes of continuous music play.

So I put the right-hand speaker back in its place inside the laptop body, made sure that the speaker cable was positioned correctly and not crimped in any way. And I put the laptop back together again, live.

It was about 2-3 weeks ago, and until this minute I am typing this, the speaker has been fine with zero problem on the fluctuating volume. Doesn't really makes sense but there it is.

My best guess is that there's a defect or some sort in the right speaker? Perhaps the cable. As we use the laptop, possibly a bump or some sort would disturb the signaling? Now when I put the laptop back to its backpack, I always take extra caution to always put the right side of the laptop facing up, to avoid any bumps.

Worth a try, especially if you went as crazy as I was trying to fix this for months.

FWIW, here is my current BIOS and drivers specs, in case this also matters in the fix :
BIOS : GL504GM.308 (Auto updated by Windows)
Audio Driver : AUDIO_Realtek_HDA_ASUS_ROG_v6.0.8746.1 (Downloaded from here)
OS : Windows 10 64-bit 1903 (Build 18362.267)

Hope that helps! If it does, please post here so others can benefit from the information.

PS: Major THANK YOU! to lipemon for posting his fix

[xarot]

I also opened up my laptop. I had all the rubber rings in place though, but I loosened the speaker cables and then pushed the connector in as far as I could. It looks like this really fixed the issue. At least for now.

Maybe the first drivers were actually lacking some sound enhancements and later drivers were bringing more features and introduced then this issue.

Too bad that when I opened up my laptop, it seems the quality of ASUS kicked in again, as one screw didn't loosen at all and it had taken a standoff from the laptop with it. I didn't use any force. I guess it was overtightened at the factory already. But then again, snapped one clip when carefully removing the cover. Oh well....this is the first time such thing happens, even back in the day when I worked at a computer repair department for 3½ years doing these things every day, the computers were a bit more durable.

[x75dollars]

Well... Major thanks to lipemon and zerenx!
I also opened up my laptop two days ago - I had all orange rubber rings in place, both speakers seemed plugged in just fine. What I did is simply unplug them both and plugged them back while pushing as much as I could. Turns out I haven't experienced sound issues since then! Fingers crossed it'll stay that way.
Cheers!

[katja]

I did the same thing with openning my laptop and just strengthen the connection. Meanwhile bios 310 come along. I am not sure which helped, but now its working without sound fluctations.

[silvergem]

This one works.

katja wrote:
I did the same thing with openning my laptop and just strengthen the connection. Meanwhile bios 310 come along. I am not sure which helped, but now its working without sound fluctations.

[voightkamfferro]

Holy cow guys, I could Seriously kiss you. IMHO my Scar II had two flaws from being perfect to me. ONE: the keyboard RGB is kinda dim. i'll get over that. TWO: what the holy hell is going on with the audio? I actually do sometimes use my built in speakers and care about the sound.

ITS FIXED!!!!!!!!!!!

[dafty]

katja wrote:
I did the same thing with openning my laptop and just strengthen the connection. Meanwhile bios 310 come along. I am not sure which helped, but now its working without sound fluctations.

I did mine and it's working perfectly right now (with no crazy correct driver hunting!!). Strengthen wire connection between the speaker and mainboard does the trick!!!

Anyway, I think it will come back soon if you always use 100% volume ( the vibration at that level might loose the wires)

[san1]

Hello all,

I've been having this issue ever since I bought this model. I've tried every imaginable solution but without luck. I'm also very confident, that this is a hardware issue. I sent mine to ASUS and they decided to replace the whole motherboard. Now it works.

If anyone else should land here after a search on Google, don't waste many hours trying to solve it. Just send it back to ASUS for RMA.

Greetings.