[GL702VM & similar] Solution to Performance issues / Overheating / Throttling / Whine

[onjax]

Hi guys, I bought GL702VM and was upset with its ability to handle games and high load. I had immediate temperature jump to over 85 jump and throttling / frame drops in games. So I decided to understand how to improve things, even though, I already lost my warranty due to my experiments, but at least I can answer for everyone, that:
- the main problem of this notebook is inefficient, insufficient cooling system with too thin fans, too small heatsinks, vent holes in a wrong places (aside, not above the fans).

To prove this, I first changed the thermal interface to liquid metal. That doesn't solve the issue. This proves, the thermal contact is ok, but heat dissipation is bad. Second, I ran stress tests with back cover removed - helped a lot, about 15-20 degrees off. The proves that air intake is wrong in this system.

I also removed an antidust tape with holes covering all the intake holes. That helped by around 5 degrees and also brought down air noise.

Then I came to idea of downvolting CPU and GPU, thanks to devs of ThrottleStop and MSI Afterburner, we can do this with relative ease.

The result: Fan noise reduced by half. Temp drop is huge. More speed due to ability of CPU/GPU to properly boost to max speed.

For your information - CPU is responsible for about 30% of heat, GPU - for 70%. So best idea is to undervolt the GPU, but for best results go for both.

THE GUIDE - CPU
Variant A - Install Intel Xtreme Tuning Utility

• Go to Advanced Tuning tab and Change Dynamic CPU Voltage Offset to negative value (move slider to the left). -100mV is a good starting point. Leave Mode to Adaptive.
  
• Apply changes.
  

My CPU holds -150mV well.

Variant B - Install Throttle Stop 8.3 or above

• On main window click FIVR button
  
• Under CPU Core Voltage move Offset Voltage slider to the left. -100mV is a good starting point. The lower value the less heat.
  
• Click Apply. On the same window you can save settings to make them apply every time you start the app.
  

THE GUIDE - GPU

• Download and Install MSI Afterburner 4.3 or above
  
• In settings turn on Unlock voltage control and Unlock voltage monitoring
  
• Close MSI Afterburner
  
• Download my Voltage Profile for GTX 1060
  
• Extract profile to some folder and then copy file to "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\Profiles". Click continue as Administrator when Windows asks permission to write.
  
• Run MSI Afterburner, click on profile 1 (out of 5). Then press Ctrl+F. (1 - least heat, but may be unstable for some... 2, bit more voltage etc till 5.)
  
• You will see my Voltage Curve (screenshot). What you'll see that it's flat until 1050mv. that means. 1050 will never be used, so will never be used any voltage except 831mV @ 1860 MHz and below.
  
• Click apply to test this curve
  
• If this curve is not stable for you - edit it to your taste: Click on 831mV dot and move it lower, so that lower freq will be used for that voltage, and for 1860 freq next available voltage will be used. Etc. Work with leftmost voltage dots to make everything stable.
  

This curve drops heat of GPU by at least 30%, which is huge.

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.

In theory, it will make CPU a bit hotter while system is idle, because it disables some advanced C-states, but i didn't notice that in monitoring app.
That solved like 99.9% of the noise, and in addition, disabling C1E in ThrottleStop solved noise issue completely.

[binaryLV]

Repasted my GL702VMK today. Looks like stock paste didn't do well on CPU. I don't play games, only Entropia Universe occasionally, but it's annoying when fans spin like crazy when they shouldn't 🙂

Idle temp before repasting - 49°C, after repasting - 46°C (stable temperature after some load, when the system has warmed up already).

Entropia Universe, low grahpic settings, minor CPU load, "before" and "after".
Edit: Not sure why I have higher GPU temperature now. I also get couple of FPS less in cinebench after repasting. Maybe 1mm "grizzly pad" was too thick for memory chips which resulted in some gap between GPU and heatsink?


Entropia Universe, very high grahpic settings (windowed mode, 1152x864), minor CPU load, "before" and "after". It's a bit weird that GPU temp jumps between 86°C and 87°C all the time. Before repasting it was constant 86°C.


Needless to say that CPU thermal throttled in EU with high graphic settings before repasting. After repasting - much lower temperature, no thermal throttling, fan speed almost 2x smaller.

When running cinebench, CPU started thermal throttling in the first run before repasting. After repasting I could barely reach 88°C temperature after few benchmarks, with only one core being thermal throttled for short periods of time.

[binaryLV]

Here's how stock thermal paste looked in my GL702VMK (before cleaning). It looks like memory chips and inductors(?) also had some thermal paste on them (similar to the paste on CPU and GPU), cleaned them with toilet paper with no issues. Looks like those samsung chips and R22 components didn't have too much cooling.
I'm not quite sure what did Asus do with the thermal paste. There's a lot of it under the "transparent stickers" on CPU and GPU. The paste on R22 components and heatsink also looks weird.


I have no idea what this thing is, but it doesn't look like it belongs there. Wasn't able to remove it without breaking anything.


While cleaning old thermal paste, I managed to break the frame of the heatsink. Lesson learned - when cleaning the paste, don't forget to support the heatsink with your hand. Doesn't seem to affect CPU temprature in a bad way, though.


I also noticed that one samsung chip isn't fully covered by the heatsink. Instead, it's 1/2 under the heatsink, 1/2 under the third fan.

[binaryLV]

I've read that many use Prime95 when stress-testing CPU after undervolting. It didn't seem to give any reliable results to me, though (i.e., when Prime95 can run for many hours without issues, other loads may crash system in minutes or even in seconds).

Here are my undervolting results:
-150mV - crashed immediately.
-140mV - crashed in few seconds.
-130mV - Prime95 worked fine for 7 hours, with and without additional load (web browsing, youtube videos, Entropia Universe game with high graphic settings). When only Prime95 was running, stable temperatures were 67°C for GPU, 87°C for CPU, no thermal throttling. Stopped Prime95, changed graphic settings to low - crashed.
-125mV - 3DMark "Fire Strike" benchmark crashed during first test ("Demo").
-120mV - 3DMark "Fire Strike" benchmark crashed during second test ("Graphics test 1").
-115mV - lots of 3DMark benchmarks with or without delays between them. Survived 3 continuous runs of "Fire Strike" and "Sky Diver" benchmarks (with delays between series of runs). Crashed on second run of "Time Spy".
-110mV - to be tested…

GL702VMK, 7700HQ, GTX1060.

[l337g0g0]

What else you want me to test?

Play a game of CS GO, and BF4 today, same ****, different day.

This is the frame dips were all seeing.
Mind you, I'm notice a correlation with new stuff in sound or on screen and these frame dips.
Not concrete on this, but usually like when a music kit plays in CS GO at the end of the round that can trigger a frame dip.

puzzling.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Did you disabled "fast startup" in the power options?

Also, this stuttering could have something to do with the windows 10 standby cache bug, specially if you only notice it after a while you booted up windows.

[l337g0g0]

FULLMETALJACKET7 wrote:
Did you disabled "fast startup" in the power options?

Also, this stuttering could have something to do with the windows 10 standby cache bug, specially if you only notice it after a while you booted up windows.

I just disabled it, I'll try tomorrow afternoon.

Thank you.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Try updating your sound drivers and also make sure all sound enhancements (like spatial sound and sonic studio) are turned off.

[l337g0g0]

Hi,

So, as it stands, I'm really not feeling the throttling, it's only there at the start of the game and its super minimal, like new stuff being introduced into V-ram or what ever, but at 30 seconds I feel no throttling for the rest of the game.

The thing I did before I lost the throttling was delete Nvidia sound drivers, it stopped the throttling, then A new Nvidia driver released adding a new sound driver back, but it didn't start throttling again.

Maybe the sound driver was not installed properly, or data corruption???

So All sound enchantments are off,I already had the latest Realtek audio drivers, Audio_Realtek_Win10_64_VER6017874, Version V6.0.1.7874 2016/07/20.

I think I'm in the clear now, thank you all for all the help.
I'll send in this last afterburner picture, it shows super small dips in FPS, I do not feel those what so ever.

Last question, are those dips normal? or are they apart of that existing problem that's now fixed for me not feeling throttling? or is there still a problem, it's just so small now I don't feel it?

Thanks again every. 🙂

[l337g0g0]

Look what I discovered after realizing this is a Nvidia sound driver issue.


https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/832686/geforce-drivers/the-lag-stuttering-issue-a-ton-of-pe...

WOW

https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/4a78ho/nvidia_audio_drivers_may_be_causing_lag_or_st...

"hat amazes me is this issue has been around for so long, some of the links like the one on steam, is from 2014 and the guy had issues with Watchdogs cause of the Nvidia HD audio."

Nvidia, shame on you man... 😞

EDIT: update: Look when G-force experience launched, and how long this problem has been going on for...
"GeForce Experience Officially Released, By Andrew Burnes on Thu, May 23 2013"

[FULLMETALJACKET]

I would say those dips are not normal, specially for a non demanding game like CSGO.
Do some testing in some other game and see if it's better now.

Also, I don't know if I already suggested this, but go to nvidia control panel and change the "power management mode" to "prefer maximum performance". Sometimes when you GPU changes power states, it can cause stutters. See this: https://imgur.com/a/GwIokZK