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GX531GM Uneven Core Temperature (i7-8750H)

peperon321
Level 7
Hi, I'm seeking advice/opinion/help here regarding uneven temperatures on different cores of my mobile CPU: i7-8750H.

Currently using Asus Zephyrus S GX531GM (GTX1060 variant, 2018 model).

Problem: Core #1 and #3 have higher temperatures as compared to others. Core #1 is around 94 degrees Celsius while Core #4 stays cool at 70 degrees Celsius.

A short Prime95 stress test with AVX turned off:
Before testing I have tried using Throttlestop to:
1. Undervolt (-175.8 mV core, -125.0mV cache)
2. Capped Turbo Ratio to 38
3. Set PL1: 40; PL2: 45

And the laptop was repasted by an Asus Certified Serice Centre just 6 months ago.

Has anyone encountered this before? If so what did you do? Did you go back to the service centre and request a repasting or did you buy your own paste and did it yourself? Thanks.
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14 REPLIES 14

flikr96
Level 7
I have a similar problem. My GX502GW used to overheat and shutdown. I got it serviced in ASUS certified service and they changed the thermal paste. The laptop is not overheating anymore, but the temperatures are still very high. Idle is around 60-70C. Results after short Prime95 test below.
87993

Blake1
Level 10
Dear both,
Please don't worry about it.
If it does not exceed 95 degree and have any issue like lagging or overheating, the device can endure the heat.
Thank you.

peperon321
Level 7
Dear @flikr 96,
I see, thank you for the information. Does yours throttle as much? Or does it never throttle ever since repasting?

Dear Blake@ROG,
Thank you for the assurance. However, mine overheats and throttles heavily. I have to limit my clock speed to just 2.8 GHz for games like Dota. When it comes to Watch Dogs 2, I could only play it around 2.2 GHz.

The thermal paste used by ASUS is mediocre garbage. And ROG Blake here is gonna keep lying straight to your face telling you your machine isn't thermal throttling. Went three times to the service center, same problem after only two days 2 cores heavily throttling the whole CPU. Honestly just repaste it yourself, i'm planning to do it myself when i have the chance.

peperon321
Level 7
Dear fbajjar,

Thank you for your reply. Are you using the same rig/design as well? I couldn't agree more about the paste. I'm planning to use GC Gelid Extreme paste and also some 0.5mm thermal pads for the VRMs in the future. As I don't game now, it's more or less meaningless for me to repaste it now. What about you? What paste/pads are you gonna use? Do you have any other recommendations?

I have the Zephyrus S GX502GW and based on my own research what works on your laptop works for mine too since the difference in thermal system design isn't that much that it requires different thermal pad thickness. For my repaste, I'm gonna use the same as you 0.5mm thermal pads (and I DO NOT RECOMMEND anything thicker because according to many people who've done it that makes the temps even worse, it's why ASUS is using some kind of thermal putty instead of thermal pads in the first place) but for long term peace of mind, I'm going with thermal grizzly carbonaut (a high thermal conductivity thermal pad). It is worse than high quality thermal paste but only by 1-2C (that means it's light years ahead of ASUS garbage stock paste) and after a successful application I won't need to ever look at it again because it theoretically won't ever degrade.

peperon321
Level 7
Dear fbajjar,

Thanks for the recommendation. I will definitely look into repasting it myself during summer breaks. Kinda worried about bending the heatsink and ruining the whole rig as I've never done anything similar in the past (and this is one problematic rig with its "compact & powerful" design, didn't even have the chance to meddle with desktops. If you don't mind, could you please briefly share your experience when you're done repasting yours (things to watch out/take note of/not to do)?

Oh yeah after doing some research on your laptop it is much harder than mine since it has an inverted motherboard design where if you want to access the motherboard ports and the thermal solution you have to remove the upper side of the laptop, which is kind of a painstaking process because you have to be very careful with the RGB logo ribbons, the touchpad and keyboard ribbons. Watch these three videos in order to get a better idea of what are you going to deal with (sadly couldn't get a full disassembly video for your model, only for the newer gx701):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pqIrtzytFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xwsNJle_0E&t=276s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNuH1xj6aho&t=39s
Yeah i'll definitely update you in this reply when i do my repaste. But do keep in mind the disassembly of our laptops is widely different, we are only similar in the thermal solution as shown in the videos above. My laptop has a standard motherboard where all you need to do is remove the backplate and you have your thermal solution in front of you.

peperon321
Level 7
Dear fbajjar,

Thank you for the tips & links! It would definitely help me in repasting mine. I see, I thought all the Zephyrus S before 2019 utilise the same inverted mobo design, guess I'm wrong. Honestly, the exterior design is great though, but not sure why the same isn't done to the thermal design (perhaps there's flaw/bad paste used). There will be answers when I repaste mine in the near future. I'm definitely looking forward to your reply & all the best 🙂