Zephyrus (GX501) - Battery Swell

[Injustice]

Hey, everyone!

First off, I want to apologize if this is in the wrong forum, wasn't really sure where to put it.

In a pretty bad predicament with my GX501-VIK, and am in need of any advice you all may have.

Backstory:
So, I had my battery replaced under warranty back at the end of December. Got her back a week or two into January. Reason being the battery started to bloat. Swelled hard enough that the keyboard was rubbing against the monitor when closed. Mind you, this was after I'd received my machine almost an entire month late, despite having pre-ordered. Eight months later, the battery balloons, again. It seemed to happen overnight. We're almost at the end of the third week since then, and I can honestly say that the battery's ballooned way worse than last time.

I'd reached out to ASUS as soon as I'd noticed the battery beginning to swell, asking for help, as they'd previously replaced the battery for the same reason. The agent who responded told that my machine is out of warranty and they want $510 to do the job, which does not include a non-refundable diagnostic fee of $60.

I tried to reason with them. This was a $3,000 machine, barely weeks out of warranty, with an obviously defective part. I asked if I could just order a battery and swap the parts out, myself. The agent replied, "I am terribly sorry for the issue you are having with the unit and it is with regret that I inform you that in accordance with our policies, we do not sell parts directly to end users as we do not recommend that you attempt to perform repairs on your own. ASUS will not be held liable for any injuries or damages incurred if you attempt to repair your product. What we recommend is that you send in your product to our service center and allow us to service it for you." Needless to say, I shot an angry e-mail back, and haven't heard from a CSR, since. It's been 13 days and change.

The problem/TL;DR:
Has anyone else whose had this problem been able to get a hold of a battery at a reasonable price, or has ASUS helped any of you with this, at all? I'm having a really hard time digesting the fact that I'm legit being bullied into giving up almost $600 to fix a problem that shouldn't be a problem, to begin with. I mean, what's 12 years of customer loyalty, right?

Thank you all for reading, and for your help.

In case you're curious:

[thejebronie]

i had the same issue happen to my zephyrus gx 501 vik asus did replace the battery under warranty about two mount ago , for me it as not swell again but i did notice lot of heat around the wasd key witch seem more than usual hofully it will be ok , am assuming that is the reason the bios 307 just came out i install it one hour ago will see if this battery will last longer / same here now i am out of warranty :mad:

[DJRiful]

Mine is swollen too, I took it out for almost two months now just running on AC power and I recently got 307 bios update via Windows Update. I am not sure if the BIOS will fix the battery regulation? Maybe stop charging when it gets hot while gaming? As far as I read, 307 patch the Spectre securities.

[Injustice]

@thejebronie - Keep a close eye towards the 8 month mark. That's the amount of time it took for the one they swapped in, in January for it to reoccur.

@DJRiful - I was wondering if I'd be able to get by without a battery, since it's not easily accessible like most other gaming laptops. Good to know it's an option until I manage to source a new battery. Thanks for this!

[VixusFoxy]

Mine is currently in for a second round of RMA.
I am shocked that ASUS has not acknowledged this problem, and I'm shocked that they haven't issued a recall.
My thread on this already counts 3 pages and several more people have come forth to report on this. I also found some external sources of people having the same issue, and several losing their warranty status over emergency-removing these battery bombs.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?98509-This-awfully-expensive-GX501VI-laptop-s-battery-is-a...

[Injustice]

Yeah. Fortunately/unfortunately, I couldn't revoid my warranty by removing the battery. Was a good enough solution, at the time. Over the last two weeks, my machine has degraded into a 3000 dollar paperweight. It started running hotter and hotter while gaming. The fan bearing started to fail, my many keys on my keyboard suddenly stopped functioning a couple days ago, and the ribbon cable connector for the touchpad apparently broke (I couldn't even find the fragments... heat stress?). This has just been a nightmare situation all the way around. I really don't feel inclined to drop a other 3 grand on a new one, either, but I'm completely screwed, otherwise. To clarify, my machine was working perfectly fine after the emergency battery removal until this past week.

The rock has fallen on my hard, lemony place. The best part is I've been a loyal customer since the G2S-A1. At this point, I'm thinking it might be time to take my hard-earned money elsewhere. :mad::mad:

[VixusFoxy]

Injustice wrote:
Yeah. Fortunately/unfortunately, I couldn't revoid my warranty by removing the battery. Was a good enough solution, at the time. Over the last two weeks, my machine has degraded into a 3000 dollar paperweight. It started running hotter and hotter while gaming. The fan bearing started to fail, my many keys on my keyboard suddenly stopped functioning a couple days ago, and the ribbon cable connector for the touchpad apparently broke (I couldn't even find the fragments... heat stress?). This has just been a nightmare situation all the way around. I really don't feel inclined to drop a other 3 grand on a new one, either, but I'm completely screwed, otherwise. To clarify, my machine was working perfectly fine after the emergency battery removal until this past week.

The rock has fallen on my hard, lemony place. The best part is I've been a loyal customer since the G2S-A1. At this point, I'm thinking it might be time to take my hard-earned money elsewhere. :mad::mad:

Woah, cascading thermal failure or something?
Holy dog bollocks, those machines are only about a year-and-some-change old by now.

Maybe you should indeed take your money elsewhere. I've seen that Lenovo has given making a gaming laptop a try and it seems to be quite decent!
There there is Razer too, but depending on geographic location you might have a hit / miss experience with their customer service if anything happens to those.

Best of luck.
Please keep us updated, I'm curious to see what you end up with.

[Injustice]

It could have very well be the worst-case scenario playing out in its entirety. I honestly do wonder if the battery served as an additional heatsink, as the machine seemed to get progressively worse after the emergency battery removal (I'd waited it out so long that the machine looked like it were literally ready to burst at any moment, and could not run that risk as I do work a full-time job away from the machine/apartment).

I've been scouring the internet for reviews, comparisons, and so far, I have to say I'm fairly disappointed with the lack of rave reviews (that don't sound like they were written by sales/marketing people) and/or highly competitive machines (spec/dollar-wise).

So far, it looks like the top contender is the Zephyrus M (GM501-XS74) for its thermals and full GTX1070. However, given recent experience and non-existent customer service, this one feels like a pretty big gamble. My current runner-up is the MSI P65 (8RF-450US). I'm not particularly fond of the chassis being white, nor the fact that their 1070 is the Max-Q version, but there seem to be very few bad reviews on this line (GS65) on Amazon, and appears to be one of those, "most bang for your buck," situations.

I'd looked into the Razer laptops, and feel they're quite overpriced, especially considering performance. And despite the price, I don't know I'd give Lenovo a go due to dated hardware.

I'm relying heavily on the extremely detailed and well-put-together reviews that I'd stumbled across on YouTube via Jarrod'sTech. Haven't come across any others, yet, that truly show/let the machines speak for themselves. The thermal imaging is probably my favorite part of his reviews, as this is crucial information that everyone wants but usually won't find.

Options out there for 1080 laptops seem to be getting scarce, but I can't justify spending the extra $550+ on one, given my current financial situation. And with the 20- series around the corner, paying full price for that premium upgrade seems rather iffy. I really hoped the GX501 would've lasted, because I wasn't planning on a new machine for at least another year or two. I mean, my G750JZ-XS72 isn't the most reliable (nor can it keep up with current games that I tend to play), but it's still usable as a backup workstation (or afk/background-box), even after all this time. Bit off track, but I don't recommend Amazon's WarranTech service. They sent my G750 back short my m.2 screws, and did not fix my intermittent GPU-related BSOD-while-gaming issues.

As much as I hate it, at this point, I'm most likely to just suck it up and give ASUS one final chance, unless someone can give me a strong/compelling enough opinion to give the MSI machine a go. It may also just finally be time to give up the freedom I've grown so accustomed to these past 10+ years, and go back to building anchors.

[Injustice]

Update: After weeks of waiting around to resolve issues with ordering the new machine, I finally received it, today. Brand new ASUS GM501. Get home from work after a longer-than-usual day. Carefully unpack everything, admire the workmanship they'd put into packing this thing, as well as the new design, and guess what happens!! NO DISPLAY.

Like, seriously. What the fut? I'm absolutely livid.

Should I take this as a sign to take my money elsewhere, or do you guys think mulligan?

EDIT: Just realized the newer ASUS machines come with a noisy boot-up screen. When I hit the power button, the keyboard lights up, fans start their idle spin, but nothing else happens.