Need serious help with a GL502V

[jigglygiggly]

The first 3 paragraphs honestly are just a rant and the journey, so feel free to skip ahead to the situation I am currently facing. I bought this laptop at the start of last year and I've probably opened the lid on it no more than a dozen times, in other words less than monthly - thats how much of a nightmare it's been. Apart from an hour and a half playing Stardew valley and 2 sessions of streaming, I have not been able to play even undemanding games without hitting a BSOD fast. Games like HELLDIVERS, South park, Stardew valley, Tokyo 42, Dead Cells... there is a list of games I have tried, none demanding, most fairly basic indie titles. All BSOD.

This is my first laptop, which I purchased mainly to stream to, but I did want something that at least had some sort of GPU in there (1060) so that if for some reason I was stuck, then it would game okay. But the absolutely endless BSODs from *day 1* meant I have hardly used it. Troubleshooting a laptop is kind of a nightmare, most places are quick to point to overheating. Indeed I did quickly look into the temps and found them to be scary. The GPU wasn't bad, I think peaking in low 70s, but then I would be hit so fast with a BSOD it feels like I never had a good chance to see how it would be after a half hour of gaming! The CPU was really high though (7700HQ), going right into the mid 90s. Despite this being my first laptop, I knew temps were going to not be great as its just a tough job to cool in a small space, but after having looked up tons of threads and videos I took several steps to lower this down. Cooling pads, power management, and under-volting. Now it peaks in the low 80s, but doesn't typically go out of the 70s - much better!

After much fiddling and trying to rule out thermals as the cause of the BSODs, I had run HWINFO and set it to log the temps, but it took a while for me to believe it was not the thermals. As after a crash I would go back in to look at the log only to see nothing alarming and think maybe it just didn't get to save before a spike hit. But the final attempt at gaming a few days ago I had afterburner on screen and I was watching it more than I was playing because I just knew it was going to blue screen as always. I load up two point hospital (first time), I cap frames at 55, I leave the graphic settings alone coz it was already a mix of med-high not 10 minutes in and BSOD. The last temps on the screen were GPU low 60s, CPU low 70s. It cannot be the temps! The error btw was BAD_POOL_CALLER. I think I will give it one more go, but this time lower frame cap and settings more, just to see if I could play like that, barely more than a minute after launching the game and it BSOD. Memory Management. So its time to go back to troubleshooting, coz its not the temps.


SO PRESENT. Here's my problem as it stands. I cannot get the laptop to boot at all. It goes on a loop of auto-repair attempts and diagnosis. Leading to the restore/recover menu each time. Each and every option I have tried has failed. I cannot do a restore, there is none. I cannot reset the PC, it gets to 1% and fails (I've tried all the options, to delete my files, etc). Trying to restart in safe mode causes a BSOD Critical Process Died. Ive tried using a USB recovery key I made from a desktop, and the only difference was it asked me to select a language - otherwise everything is the same, it fails every option every time. On the command line I tried chkdsk (with /r /f options - this fails at the end with "failed to transfer logged messages status 50"). When I tried bootrec /fixboot - it failed with "Access denied", when I tried sfc /scannow I got "windows resource protection could not perform the requested operation".

So... what are my options?

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Download the Microsoft Media Creation Tool from MS website and do a clean install. Don't do a recovery. Wipe the drives and start from scratch. From there you can start diagnosing. If it BSOD on a clean install, it's most likely a hardware issue.

[jigglygiggly]

If I use that tool, will I need my windows licence key?

[jigglygiggly]

Just as a follow up, I used the MS creation tool to do a clean install and managed to do a little gaming without a BSOD. Bit early to celebrate yet, but heres hopin'!

There is various function missing, which I assume was part of the pre installed software. Most of which I dont mind, but something like the backlighting not working isnt great. Still though, if they were behind the BSOD, I know which Id rather.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

Late reply, but you don't need the windows key. It's embedded in the laptop BIOS.
ATK package is responsible for the function keys and keyboard backlight. You probably won't need most of the software on the Asus website apart from that. Install only the necessary. Don't forget to update your graphics driver, download it from the Nvidia website.

[jigglygiggly]

Thanks for the help 🙂 I am happy to say I spent 4 hours or so more with it and no BSOD. Ive never been able to do that with this thing before!

Yes the GPU drivers are updated, its one of the first things I did, behind uninstalling some of the bloat that comes with windows (games, skype...)

Its a pity it took this long to get here tho, I was too fixated on temps and it wasnt behind the BSODs in the end. Speaking of which, I ran the little benchmark in intel XTU at default and the CPU hit 97C peak. I tried to see if I could find a setting that could keep some turbo without hitting the 90s, but I cant. So Ive reduced the max power in the windows power profile to 99% to stop turbo. Pity about the low speed, but 76C peak is a much nicer figure.

There is 1 more thing, which I am hoping a driver/codec will resolve, but the sound is kind of crackling from time to time, I dont recall that happening before. Originally the worst thing was that if there had been a period of no sound, upon the first sound playing there was a tiny pop - which I hated, but it was a fairly infrequent occurrence. But now even with constant sound there is the odd distortion.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

97C peak is fine as long as it's not maintaining that temperature at all times, like when playing games, encoding videos, etc.. You can undervolt the cpu instead of limiting its power. It will give you the same performance as stock but lower temperatures.
As for the sound, you can try the drivers available at the Asus support website.

[jigglygiggly]

Update, still no BSOD! Actually started to get some confidence in the device.

The temps thing is more about the fan noise (aside from originally thinking it could be the cause of the instability). I am really used to desktop tho, which I know is not a fair comparison. I have an OC 9700k and its both quiet and stays typically in the 60s when gaming, and thats even a known hot chip. Anyway, happy the laptop is stable, its currently with an offset of -0.105v (100% power state), which can find itself poking into the 80s when gaming.

I downloaded the ATK package and the audio drivers from the support page. Backlighting and some other functions are back. The sound still has more crackling than I remember it having. Ive tried the various suggestions Ive found elsewhere, like keeping the CPU on max performance state, disabling audio enhancements (they were already disabled), lowering the quality - its at its lowest.

[FULLMETALJACKET]

jigglygiggly wrote:
Update, still no BSOD! Actually started to get some confidence in the device.

The temps thing is more about the fan noise (aside from originally thinking it could be the cause of the instability). I am really used to desktop tho, which I know is not a fair comparison. I have an OC 9700k and its both quiet and stays typically in the 60s when gaming, and thats even a known hot chip. Anyway, happy the laptop is stable, its currently with an offset of -0.105v (100% power state), which can find itself poking into the 80s when gaming.

I downloaded the ATK package and the audio drivers from the support page. Backlighting and some other functions are back. The sound still has more crackling than I remember it having. Ive tried the various suggestions Ive found elsewhere, like keeping the CPU on max performance state, disabling audio enhancements (they were already disabled), lowering the quality - its at its lowest.

Laptops run hot and loud because their thermal solution is tiny compared to a desktop one. And to be honest, it's kind of crazy how they can cool a 7700hq AND a full GTX11070 chip with just two tiny heatsinks. Don't bother about the temperatures, it's not gonna kill your machine, unless its going at 100C constantly, then MAYBE you could have problems down the road.
You can also undervolt the GPU to achieve even better results, but that can be tricky. It involves a LOT of trial and error and patience. Mine went from 85C @ 1580mhz on full load to 75C @ 1810mhz full load. Could go even higher but it's hitting the power limit. It's a 1070 by the way. Only reason why I undervolted was the free performance gain.
CPU is running at -110mv with temperatues peaking around 90C at full load on CPU and GPU at the same time. Full load on the CPU alone brings it to around 85C peak.
Fans on auto, stock paste and no cooling pad. I can barely hear the fans when gaming and using a headset.