*** ASUS ROG G703GX-XS71 Owner's Lounge ***

@cucubits just curious if your unit comes with kapton tape pre applied around the cpu and gpu die?
If so, we should just get rid of it before doing any necessary conformal coating and etc?

 

Yes, there was a rectangle kapton tape cutout on both. I took them off because I already had a roll of wide tape but maybe you will be able to reuse them. Yes, I'd suggest taking them off, it's very easy for a tiny bead of liquid metal to get away and there's a lot of tiny SMD components on the GPU right next to the die. I couple coats of coating and a layer of tape should be enough.

I've been playing random games for testing purposes last night and to be honest the LM on the GPU does seem to make a difference. I haven't seen any game so far take it above 75C which is where the fans go too loud.

 

In this case i might take it off then. Bought a roll of kapton tape LOL. Ordered k5-pro thermal paste as well (will use it as a dam around the cpu / gpu die after conformal coating and kapton tape layer).

Everything ordered and on the way to me. Hopefully can get it in hand tomorrow.

Btw, after having some read up on LM application. It seems that it’s important to make sure it is sealed properly as oxygen will induce oxidisation. This is why I choose to get k5-pro. It will act as dam to avoid any bit rolling out should there be any impact on the laptop. And of course hopefully it will seal it air tight.

I don’t have any high hope very big difference in term of temp since kryonaut appears to be working very well at the moment. I believe the temp gonna be around there and slightly lower due to the “fixed” fan curve. Of course the best thing I expect will be even lower fan speed on LM.

So far Kryonaut managed to reduce fan speed by at least 40%. Maybe another 5-10% on LM.

Finger crossed that i wont screw up the laptop and lets see how when I receive everything.

 

Yep, fingers crossed

Take some pics also when doing it. I'm curious of the differences between the 703 models insides.

 

Yeap, i will take some photos. In relation to the internal, it’s exactly the same, at least so far i noticed there’s no difference between GI and GX. GI comes with 71wh battery while GX 91wh if am not mistaken.

 

Hi all has anyone found a reliable keycap replacement for the gx701

 

Sorry wrong thread.

 

Finally, conductonaut arrived today. My laptop was left dissembled for the past 2 days due to the delay of LM delivery.

Applied 2 layers of conformal coating and left it to cure overnight before putting the kapton tape. A layer of K5-pro thermal paste around the cpu / gpu die.

Currently spring in UK with temp as high as 25c during daytime. Average around 15-17c.

Pre LM temp (with Kryonaut) during heavy gaming - hovering around 65-75c for cpu and gpu, occasionally spike to 80-85c

Cinebench r15 x3 run max at low 70c+

Post LM temp during heavy gaming - hovering around 60-65c for cpu, spike to 73c max. 60-65c for gpu. Spike to 68c max. Never go beyond 70c.

Cinebench r15 x3 run max at 56-59c.


Temp during idle pre and post LM are almost the same 36-38/9c.

Fan speed greatly reduced as expected. Temp improvement, i would say around 5-10c?

@cucubits after comparing your heatsink and mine. There’s slight difference where GX comes with an extra shared heatpipe and the middle part of the cpu heatsink is slightly raised.

Meanwhile for GI model (i believe it should be the same with all previous G703) has only 1 shared heatpipe. And lesser vrms. The cpu side heatsink was not raised in the mid but the entire cpu side was slightly offset instead.

I don’t know if the contact was better due to i applied slightly more LM on the die as well as the heatsink. Not pooling but just make sure it is slightly wet instead of merely “colouring” it (very thin) like what i noticed in some of the guides in Youtube.

 

Very nice! Your results make me happy.

In the mean time I've already ordered some K5-pro paste and my plan is to ditch the thermal pads from the vrms and everything else around the CPU/GPU and just use paste. Then I'll give it another shot with LM on the CPU too. I'll make sure the heatsink sits properly this time.

Even like I have it now with paste on CPU and LM and GPU, I do see improvements during daily use. Most of the games don't push the fans to get too loud anymore. We're getting closer.

 

Just wondering how did you apply the LM on the heatsink? Just rub with the remaining on the cotton bud to make it “shinny” Like how most of the guides did? If yes, try apply little bit more. Don’t “colour” it but make it slightly wet. Just a little. Slightly lesser than what you applied on the cpu and gpu die.

I dont know if it helps but this is what i did. Give it a try.

 

I will, thanks for the tip! I'll also make a small paste barrier around it this time.

...or would some foam barrier cut-out work? I've seen a thread around here talking about that, foam being better at catching tiny LM beads.

 

I applied the K5-pro around the die (made it like mini sand bags in bf v LOL) near the edge of the chip as i do not what it to cross contaminates with the LM when the heatsink compresses it.

I think the paste (if it is thick enough) should be able to hold any LM from rolling out. In fact, my real intention is to “seal” the LM so that no / less oxidisation to our copper heatsink.

 

I've finally got around to take it apart last night. I've cleaned off all the thermal pads I've put on before and applied K5 paste on vrms and everywhere around the CPU/GPU where it was needed. I've topped off LM on the GPU and pus a fresh batch of LM on the CPU too.

Also, just as a bit of extra help to take the heat away from the dies, I've put some little copper heatsinks around there. Not sure if they really help but why not

So far I do see some improvement, temps are a few degrees C lower. Need to run some more load but it looks promising. Way better than before where LM would make CPU worse. For sure the thermal pads around were messing up the seating.

I think we're getting close to the max efficiency of removing the heat from the dies. Apart from improving the airflow (enlarging input vents below the laptop) I don't think there's much more I could do to keep it cool AND quiet.

 

Great to hear positive feedback from ya. Lol, you just tempted me to get some copper heatsink to add on.

In relation to the airflow, i noticed that the input vent is just at the right place (underneath the fan intake) as opposed to strix / hero version where the vents are totally somewhere else

 

Just a quick update. The improved cooling with LM is holding fine.

CPU temps very rarely go above 70C. On the other hand I would like to squeeze somehow just a bit more cooling performance for the GPU. The most graphics intensive games keep it at a toasty 80C (metro and anthem). I don't want much, if I can get it below 75C I'd be happy. That's where the fans go too loud. I'm open to any suggestions on what to try...

 

The downside of cpu getting “too cool” is the gpu temp gonna be slightly higher throughout my repaste with kryonaut, undervolt, and LM experiences.

I noticed that the fan for gpu kicks in slightly slow and I don’t really likes that. So far I’ve yet to get any useable software for fan control.

Just curious if you have undervolted your gpu?
Tweak the graft. Ie force the gpu to clock at stock / slightly higher clock speed but lower voltage? IMO, That helps a lot. At least for me. So far i managed to find a stable point 1948mhz @ 0.950v temp 68-71/3c depends on which game am i playing. Clock will go down and stabilised at 1911mhz throughout gameplays.

Edit: ironically, the higher cpu usage game (higher cpu temp forcing fans to kick in earlier) will have lower gpu temp as the gpu fan kicks in much later.

 

I’ll take two games for example. PUBG and BF V. PUBG hardly stresses the CPU as such i will have lower cpu temp 63/6c max and gpu 71/3c+ max. Meanwhile BF V which can sometimes squeeze 80% from the cpu tends to give me “balance” temp 65-70c for cpu and gpu at around 1/2c higher.

 

Makes sense.
I will try to tweak the GPU graph in MSI Afterburner. Right now I have it quite the other way around. I just lowered a bit the clocks (by about 200Mhz) from the main controls. I'll try your suggestion, increase clocks a bit and lower the voltages.

 

Its not about lowering the clock but it is the excessive stock voltage that our laptops came with. To test stability of your undervolt. Just go for some benchmark for first stage and then gaming in the most gpu intensive game you have. It might be stable in benchmark but fail in game. So it will take some time to get the borderline (lowest volt @ highest clock) you want.

I used to get a stable undervolt of 0.925 @1911mhz until recently after LM application. Where i keep on crashing during gaming. No idea why. But so far 0.950v @ 1948mhz managed to stabilise for hours of gaming and stress test.

 

I see. Would you mind posting a pic of your Afterburner graph? I'm trying to make some sense in my head how to move the dots compared to the default line.

 

I am currently working so can’t snap any photos at the moment. However, here is a guide from Bob. My graph is almost the same. Just make sure you smooth out the graph on the left instead of allowing it to spike.

 

Ok, testing with something like this:

 

@cucubits here you go. This is mine before and after.




citibank atm finder

 

Did you stress test it? Gaming? How’s the stability? I can see thats around 0.830+? It will be great if your gpu can stabilise at that low volt.

 

I did tried to oc mine to slightly more than 2k mhz @1.0v but i dont like the temp. Lol. Although 1.0v is technically lower than my stock voltage.

 

For now just one round (about 20 mins) of Ring of Elysium. GPU usually stayed at around 75C but now it seemed to be stable a bit lower. Need more game time to make sure.

 

Yeap. U need sometime to test the stability of undervolt. Let it get some real heatsoak. And game for a few hours.

How i test mine? I just idle in the BF V menu. If its unstable, its just gonna crash out after 15-30 mins. My gpu is running at 99% in the menu itself. Lol imo better than all those stress test that I’ve been through.

I said so as my past experience is running stress test for hours and it appears to be stable until i start gaming. Crash nonstop and i get fed up. I even noticed it crash when idling in the menu when i am away for less than 15min. As such, i started to use the “menu” as a new stress test for stability instead. So far, It never fail me. No crash during gaming or whatsoever.

 

You know, I noticed this too in other games. The menu completely kills the GPU and when the game starts loading, it all goes quiet Wonder why.

 

LOL, that shows that the undervolt is too low. Bump up in 0.025v and try bit by bit until you reach the borderline

 

@cucubits so i bought 2 sets of mini copper heatsink + fujipoly extreme ultra thermal pad for it. put few of those mini copper heatsinks on the cpu / gpu heat pipes. I even took it on and off at least 3 times and my conclusion is it's gonna interfere with our cooling system. I noticed that it took some time to cool down after gaming. Maybe it causes heat soak in that entire area? since there's no direct air flow there. LOL. Anyway, at least i tried.

You might want to monitor your temp as well. it might be different from mine since I am abit greedy. I put 4 on cpu heat pipes, 4 on gpu heat pipes, 2 on the gpu vrm area. LOL

 

Yeah, I was worried about residual heat staying on longer too but so far I haven't noticed anything bad. I did put on only one set and I just stuck them on with the tape that came with them, no additional thermal pads.

I did tweak the GPU clock/voltage curve a bit and I think I found a sweet spot. I see a few more degrees lower temps in Ring of Elysium and Anthem even during extended sessions. Currently I'm at around 70C max in RoE (before it was consistently over 75C and fans would go loud) and 75C in Anthem (before it would stay at 80C).

I'm pretty sure I can squeeze out quite a few more degrees by 'improving' the intake grill cutouts on the bottom but that's about it. I have to say I'm getting happier with how it works now. Can't believe how much different it is compared to how it came out of the box.

 

I am glad that it works for you. I am happy with it as well, especially the undervolt thingy. LOL, that’s a devil, seducing us to lower the voltage as far as we can. So far, i do get random bsod (i mean all sorts of bsod) from undervolting. But it happens once in a blue moon and the only thing i need to do is shut down instead of logging into windows after restarting from bsod. On it like normal without undervolt and shut down again. And then it will run normally after the 2nd reboot. Restart wont help and it will endup bsod > restart loop infinitely. LOL.

I do look around for those bsod code but most of them linked to drivers and etc. No idea why but that will only happen when in undervolt. Ignored it since am enjoying the low temp and no issue in gaming.

 

I wonder how is it possible for me to migrate my os in raid 0 to another raid 0. Was thinking whether it is possible for me to clone the os raid 0 to an external ssd > replace the two intel ssd with two larger capacity units > clone the os from the external ssd to the newly installed raid 0.

Sounds complicated, at least to me. And no idea if its gonna work since its technically from Raid 0 > single external ssd > Raid 0.

 

Sorry, can't help there. I haven't been messing with raid 0 setups. I'd assume you could clone your drive (save one large image file and move it). There must be a way. I only have a raid 1 setup in a NAS.

I bet if you ask google or the duck, a solution will come up

 

Yea, I’ve been looking around for information and so far the there’re a lot of approaches and my situation is kinda different here as i do not have extra two slots for the new ssd to migrate straightaway. I noticed that Raid 0 to a single drive is doable but assume it’s migrated to my external single ssd. How am I supposed to boot before i can migrate the os stuff to the newly installed ssd(s) in raid 0. LOL. I know clean install will be the easiest but am trying to avoid the hassles of getting all the necessary things to be installed again.

 

I own a G703GX with the i7 8750H CPU.
Temps are not to bad on my CPU. It doesn't go above 80 in full load but with fans going fulll speed it is a little noisy. After many repaste jobs with trial and error the CPU is staying below 80 and the GPU around 75. It is still a bit too hot for what I am confortable with.
I was thinking about doing some moding and make bigger intake air holes for both fans and cover them with dust mesh.
If anyone has tried I would like to know if that has made some thermal improovements.
Also I ran some syntetic benchmarks without the plastic cover on the bottom and I the temps were 5 degrees lower in full load so air intake might be an issue.

 

I am planning to do exactly this in the very near future. I can't believe how small the stock intake air cutouts are.

 

Did you tried to undervolt? So far my personal result with undervolt + liquid metal is around 73C max for cpu and gpu. Hovering around 65-68C most of the time during gaming.

Biggest difference after Kryonaut repaste is the fan noise. Even lower fan noise with liquid metal. I believe by raising the laptop with cooling pad or maybe something else might assist in better airflow thus lower your temp.

 

I wish we could test the temps with it running with the back cover completely off, but it's not really easy to do as several screws through the cover hold the heatsink too. Also all the feet are on the cover...

 

It is possible to do it temporarily but the ssd and sata gonna be hanging there.

 

My CPU doesn't undervolt it seems. After fresh install and using just the drivers without any ROG software that might conflict with undervolting the clock and cache options are not greyed all software I used to undervolt. It gives me control over the CPU but when I try to aply any setting it does't do anything.
Last option is to just make bigger holes for air intake.
Liquid metal though I know it is the best thermal conductive solution I am hessitant to jump into.
Does anyone have any long term use of liquid metal stats? Does it eat through the copper heatsing in time or just make it more insulating?
That is the only reason that kept me away from liquid metal. I don't know what long term does to internals.
I am not planing to open my laptop every year to repaste. I am too lazy for that.
I was really hoping undervolting will work and be done with moding. I does seem it need more work...

 

Undervolting is unlocked simply by a windows sleep/wake cycle. It's very strange but it works. Just put windows to sleep, wake it up and check again throttlestop settings. Won't be greyed out anymore.

Still digging around to find the cause for this.

 

I will give it a try later. It's a good if it will stick. However do you think it can go to shutdown and at startup I can just do sleep/wake to reaply? I doubt I can just leave it in slep for too long. I sometimes don't use it for a week and don't want to leave it in sleep for that long.
edit/
And also is it safe and does the undervolt work with Armoury Crate installed? I have no control on fans nor other things without it.

 

I tried all kinds of scenarios. After a shutdown - you need to sleep/wake to unlock. A straight up restart does not need it, it still works.

It doesn't seem to mess with Armourycrate. I just leave it with the balanced profile active, keep the CPU clock at 3.1Ghz all the time and about -120mv undervolt. I usually just put it to sleep and do a full shutdown like once per week or if I install something major.

It's a bit of a hassle with this startup routine and I'm sure it's 100% Asus's fault for not doing proper QA testing and releasing ****ty software (Armoury crate is complete garbage).

 

Does it no stay stable at default 4.0GHz core clock? I was going for -125mv not more but if it it stable I will like to have it run at default core clock. Does it hamper performance at 3.1 Ghz?

 

I haven't noticed any difference or performance drop in gaming with the CPU at 3.1Ghz. I chose that number just to have it run a bit cooler. I really see no need to keep it at 4Ghz. It was stable but it got the fans running loud very quickly.

 

By undervolting, your core clock shouldn’t be affected unless you go too low on core voltage. It is possible to push core voltage way lower than cache voltage.

Mine running at -172mv core and cache. Technically not really stable especially during idling. Sometimes it will BSOD when i restart with undervolt applied. But it is rock solid when under load. No freeze or BSOD. Am enjoying the low temp thus reluctant to tune the voltage up.

 

It works. Sleep/wake does the job nice. Thank you.
I will run some tests to see if it's stable enough. I don't mind a bit of fan noise as long as it is running smooth.
If I see temps going too high again I will go for 3.1 Ghz.

 

3.1 is not the only option, you can go higher or lower, I just eyeballed that with the 'sounds about right' rule

 

Nice one. Try some stress test. If its okay then dial lower until you reach a point it starts to BSOD. Then dial back up. You might end up like mine stable while under load but not when idling. If it bothers you, dial up slowly and test, until you reach a point where it’s stable while idling, restart, sleep, resume and so forth.