*** ASUS Zephyrus M (GM501) Owner's Lounge ***

Hi all, I'm considering buying this laptop so I went through some of this thread (it's quite long) to get even more info. The biggest concern about this laptop is obviously temperature and battery life. I'm fine with the latter.

So my question is - if I buy external graphics card solution and connect it through Thunderbolt 3 port, will I solve the temperature issues?

My thinking is that if internal gpu is not generating any heat, cpu will have better chance to cool down more effectively. Plus now with new RTX 20x0 cards it kindof makes sense to have external gpu and not wait until they build a laptop with mobile version (if ever).

Does anybody have this setup to confirm my expectations?

Thank you!

 

Yes, I have a GTX 1080 eGPU setup and it is a lot cooler when playing games this way. I mean it gets 60something but that is it, normally.

 

Wow that was fast! Thank you! By the way do you see any impact on the performance compared to the internal gpu?

 

Hey. The 1080, using eGPU - I was too lazy to do a benchmark comparison to the internal 1070. However, it wasn’t really great for 3440x1440 and I put the 1080 back in my desktop and just use it (it is a new 8700K system, so not really fair comparison). The problem is the minimum frame rate is a bit lower on eGPU if that makes sense? So you notice stutters and stuff a bit more.

However, I’m sure the 1080 using eGPU is at LEAST as fast as the 1070 and as I said it is a lot cooler. Probably since the heat pipe is shared across GPU and CPU so when you use both it gets hot.

 

I just got my fourth Zephyrus M (first and third had dead pixels, second's HDD was making weird noises). I haven't inspected the screen yet, but I noticed this stuff in the grill. I don't remember seeing it before, but I am not sure.

Do any of you know what it is?

 

Hi guys,

I stalked the forums here for quite a bit before making a buying decision and finally decided for the Zephyrus M GM501GM with a 1060 GPU.
I've just received it yesterday and so far I'm very impressed with the build quality. The laptop feels super premium to me (coming from an early 2015 Razer blade). The keyboard is excellent and blows in my opinion the older Razer one out of the water. I've so far installed all official windows updates, latest gpu and intel drivers as well as an official bios update.

I've seen a few questions here regarding undevolting. After all updates I've reached a stable -78.1 mV core and -78.1 mV cache.
I have not yet tested and GPU stress, still installing games, but here are the temps I've recorded so far

-all on BALANCED fan speed settings with undervolt through throttlestop as mentioned above. All with stock paste, not planning to repaste atm.

Light browsing / Idle on battery:
35-39 deg cpu temps, fans are off - no sound at all.

Light browsing / Idle plugged:
37-41 deg cpu temps, fans are off - no sounds

Medium activity (Installing a new game + watching some youtube at the same time)
about 50deg cpu temps, fans barely audible - for me that qualifies as silent

Stress test Prime 95 for about 20 min with small FFTs for maximum heat and CPU stress
about 76deg cpu average temps, CPU clocks at 3.6ghz, fans spin to the max but for me the fan sound is still very pleasant, pitch not too high, no rattling or metal sounds. However, you'd totally want to wear headphones at this level of fan usage.

Stress test Prime 95 for about 20 min with a blend test
about 66deg cpu average temps, CPU clocks at 3.91, fans are moderately spinning but if you'd play some music over the speakers that'd totally overpower the sound of the fans. Could imagine playing a game at this fan level without headphones for sure.

I'll be testing everything in combination with the GPU over the weekend and try to undervolt the 1060 as well. By the way i did seem to almost reach 4 hours trying to play around with it in battery mode but never ended up fully draining it to see if the predictions were accurate. The display is really good by the way. I do have some minor lightbleed near the bottom of the panel but nothing too serious. I have calibrated the display with the color settings from the notebook check review and the colors look really nice, good viewing angles etc. I'm using a dell ultrasharp 25 (1440p) in my office and the zephyrus display doesn't have to hide in comparison.

Please let me know if you have any questions that I might be able to answer.

 

Between the 1070 Zephyrus M for 2200 USD and the new 1070 Max-q Zephyrus S for 1900 USD, any opinions on which might be a better pick?

So far, I prefer the M's gsync, more powerful GPU and likely better keyboard but

I prefer the S's lighter weight, smaller size, thinner bezels, better build quality, lower price by 300USD and potentially better cooling (Asus are claiming that factory shipped units will have sub 80degree temps on both CPU and GPU during gaming/stress tests)

 

This is so irritating.

 

Hi guys, just bought this laptop -- 1070 version and stock paste.

So far still testing it but it does get very hot up to 95c but it doesnt stay there when fans kick in.

Undervolting did reduce the temps a lot..I'll let you guys know after some more tests.

Do you guys use balanced or overboost mode for fans? Which is better?

Also the lower right side of the laptop often gets hot, is it because of the hdd?

Thanks!


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Greetings,
can somebody share 3Dmark like Firestrike or timespy, I don’t think notebookcheck review is the best result that this machine can achieve.
Thanks

Yes you’ll have better cpu temperature with egpu setting, but egpu gaming experience on gaming Laptop isn’t great, since dgpu will perform more stable. I’ve 1080ti egpu but on some games like overwatch and Far Cry 5 on 1080p, 1070 maxq on my laptop performs better. If I play on 4K (which is the reason I got that egpu setting), I’ll get decent the FPS difference (bump), almost twice, and cores temperature in low 70ish which is also nice compared playing on laptops dgpu that sometimes hits high 80ish. Btw I ordered 2080 and see the performance and new tech advantage over current 1080ti, if there’s nothing special I’ll keep 1080ti.

 

has anyone undervolted the GPU on the laptop yet?

 

Finally got my laptop yesterday from HID! Had to wait for it to get back in stock, but the wait was very worth it.

Props to @Donald@HIDevolution for setting me up!

@Phoenix could you please hook me up with those tweaks?

 

I just joined the club . Am about to unbox mine - so excited. I didn't get mine from HID Evolution though, as I don't live in the US.

 

sup all
so, reading through all the pages i'm a bit wondering if i just found a really bad silicone, or if anyone else has the same experience. i'm reading about basically everyone using the undervolt settings of -125mV core and -50mV cache.
if i try and more uv than -80mV core and -50mV cache, one of the workers within p95 pretty immediately stops. even -85mV on core fails one worker.

i know every chip is different, but i'm still wondering if it's just mine or if there's other people with the same lottery winning ;-) haha

cheers

 

Hey @_deadbydawn_ I initially undervolted quite a bit higher and got nice stress test results running p95. However, once i started gaming i got several blue screens and needed to move the undervolt back up and am now at -68.4 mV on both core and cache. I might be able to go lower on core but atm no interest because performance and heat is just great for my needs. Maybe you might be able to go lower on cache too? I was never able to go below -78 mV on core without prime crashing immediately.

Edit in case somebody else cares who is reading this: I'm mainly playing WoW and I'm happy to report that i can comfortably max out all settings to ultra and wow with a constant 120 fps in most zones in the latest addon (BFA). In the large city hubs it might drop to about 80 fps. All this while running the machine in SILENT fan mode, it's nice and quiet enough. Heat stays around 60-70 degrees even after 5+ hours of playing. This is with the 1060 version and a slight undervolt on CPU (no GPU undervolt yet). And i can't emphasize enough how great the screen is to look at with g-sync and good colors / contrasts. If you just setup the machine, make sure to get a good screen color calibration file.

 

i see. thanks for your input!
well i just tried with core -80mV and cache -55mV (5mV lower on cache) and that darn worker #12 stopped again. so i guess there's no more room for me to play with ;-) and this with powerlimit-throttlling. not sure yet if i like this cpu haha ;-) before repasting etc. i wanted to see how much the machine is tunable.
right now i got away with -85mV (core) in p95, which crashed in an earlier run...

 

Just to make sure, did you install the updated bios? Maybe that might affect the base voltage and possibility to undervolt?

 

unfortunatley it came with the 304 bios. "unfortunately" because therefore i can't update it ;-)
does one of your two drives also show temps above 75 degrees celsius in hwinfo? i think its the 256 ssd according to the hwinfo naming of the device


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Where to get a good calibration file ? Could you please share a link?

 

Hi, just go to device Manager >Firmware > System Firmware --> Right click and Update Driver. Then you will download the FW directly

 

now i feel dumb, i didn't even know ^^ thanks, so that's updated now will do some further testing!

btw, check the screenshot, that's what i was talking about concerning drive temps. edit: just checked which one it is, it's the m.2 drive.:

 

Mine shows around these temps too and I think there is no need to worry, this is samsung S.M.A.R.T measuring. Unless I'm mistaken this is to be read as the difference from 100 degrees. So it's actually at about 30-40 degrees not 70. And just hwinfo not displaying it correctly. Have a look here: https://kb.acronis.com/content/9125 maybe you can check with another tool to get more detailed info? Here is another example that drive temperature 2 just means that hwinfo has no idea what that sensor means: https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-What-is-drive-temperature-2-on-a-SSD-drive

I'm not 100% sure though,maybe I'm mistaken and someone else can confirm.

Notebookcheck had one in its review. Direct download here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/uploads/tx_nbc2/GM501.icm (taken from review at https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-...-GTX-1070-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.293956.0.html)

 

Awesome, thank you! Will try later at home. Before I will do a repaste with LM. This pushed my "old" GX501 a lot. Much better temps and higher clocks.

I was wondering that in balanced mode the GM501 is quite loud. In silent mode e.g. in Monster Hunter World (Ultra Settings, 60FPS cap) it is very very quite. I was really impressed by how quite it was. Is there any setting between? Capping the GPU in silent mode is a bit drastic...from around 1800-1900mhz to 1100-1300mhz is quite a lot. Overboost is not an option for me because I don't want to have a starting Jet in my living room

 

Answers I can provide:

Yes.

With an external display connected to the GPU, definitely. I cannot confirm if it will work with the internal display.

Probably not. Also, that would be a bad idea. The bottom plate is in place for better airflow and should not impede your day to day use of the laptop.

Plastic.

Some. Linustechtips review does mention this in passing, but only with considerable load applied to it such as a downward press at the middle.

Knowing Asus' history of abandoning their hardware and software a few years down the road, I wouldn't bet on it. Asus should seriously consider putting a BIOS setting for that instead of relying on software.

 

I have a request for these with the GM501:

In your BIOS (EZ mode), navigate to Advanced > Graphics Configuration.

Post a screenshot of what you see in that submenu.

See this position (taken from notebookcheck)



Also, if possible, show me what's under the Thunderbolt Configuration Menu under the same Advanced page.

Thanks.

 

@Donald@HIDevolution Hi Donald, recently I bought a deeply customized GM501 from HIDevolution, and I chose the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on my CPU+GPU, I am curious about what kind of protection you guys take to make sure liquid metal won't seep out and fry my board. Though I bought a 2-year protection plan from HIDevolution I don't want my system fried anyway..

 

Regarding your concerns about the safety of liquid metal thermal interface material, yes applying anything metal conductive to a piece of electronic equipment has its risks, but we have a proprietary means of application to prevent leakage. Also, you can rest assured that any upgrades that we perform will be covered under warranty. Regarding its long term effects, we have been offering liquid metal thermal compound for over two years with no ill effects or reports of issues from users. On the contrary, we found liquid metal thermal material to be more effective and longer lasting than traditional thermal interface material over the long term.

 

Hello there,

Has anyone tried a BIOS unlock for the Asus GM501GS/GM series?

The current AMIBCP (v.5.x) is able to open the BIOS image and allow for modifications. Take a look.







Endless possibilities...

 

Temperature on the right part of the palm rest is relatively high to the point that it is annyoing. I think that is the place where it is the SSD. HW monitor tells me that temperature of SSD is 49 Celsius Degree. Matter is that I am not doing nothing particular heavy for the SSD right now. HD light is barely staying on. I am just surfing and having a virtual machine on. That is since I bought this PC.
Any suggestions ?

 

I'd have a look at task manager to see what if anything is running in the background, Especially when new, a lot of updates run silently, or Anitvirus scans etc,

 

SSD does not require much usage to heat up and in your case 50C may be a normal temperature at idle.

 

Wow, was on the fence between this laptop and the Alienware 15 and gotta admit just reading the two owners threads made me decide on the Asus Zephyrus M real fast.

I saw this touched lightly on in the thread, but couldn't find a full procedure. I will be taking out the two drives that come with the laptop and putting in my own m2 and 2.5" ssd. It would be really helpful if someone could walk me through the best practices on doing this so I can get all their drivers and the lighting system working properly. Is it:

• Get windows license key from bios. Is the Windows license hard wired to the laptop motherboard, meaning I can get the key from that and don't have to rebuy windows?
• Create windows USB boot to install windows and place all drivers from Asus Zephyrus M website.
• Install windows then boot and install all drivers
• Install Aura sync from windows store

Two other quick things I'm wondering about before purchasing:
Blocking out the top lids ASUS led logo; would a pry tool be able to pop that lid off and I can disconnect the cable or black it out with a film?
Anyone know the timing of the 16GB ram stick that comes with the laptop? I was going to put in another 16GB stick to make use of dual channel, but unsure which one to pickup.

 

I'll be in the same shoes as you soon, swapping in my own storage on the GM501GS-XS74.

For assembly, see Bob Of All trades video here:

For installation:

1. If the storage medium already has an active Windows 10 installation, boot up from it, and within the OS, hit refresh and reset. You can opt to keep your files or start afresh.
That will allow you to reinstall Windows 10 without having to prepare fresh installation media, if so preferred.

2. The alternative: If you have nothing to lose, simply install Windows 10 from installation medium prepared through the Media Creation Tool.

And a few notes:

I cannot confirm if Asus, at present, issues an OEM copy of Windows 10. Perhaps a reseller, such as @Donald@HIDevolution can confirm if this is the case. In the past, BIOSes did store the activation key in a table entry known as the SLIC (the Software Licensing Description Table). Most systems that came pre-loaded with Windows 7 relied on this method for Windows activation for OEM installations.

In the present, Windows 10 will activate via a so-called activation right, a grant based on the system's UUID on a PC linked to a Microsoft account used to activate the Windows 10 license. On re-activation, and signing in to Windows with the same account, your PC will re-activate.
However, in your case, where a new motherboard is detected, signing in to the same Microsoft account will not automatically activate Windows 10. You'd have to run the Windows 10 activation troubleshooter to transfer the activation right to the new machine as shown in the link.

For the Aura sync installation steps, as taken from the driver download page FAQ:

Ensure that you've downloaded and extracted both archives (zip files) for the Aura Core component app and the Aura Lightning Service app before proceeding. Then:

1. Go to MS store to install the latest version of ROG Aura Core.
2. Navigate to the extracted folder and double click the Setup.exe to install the Aura Core Component app.
3. Navigate to the extracted folder and run install.bat as administrator to install the Aura Lighting Service app.

On to the other queries:

Some resellers, such as HIDEvolution, offer a "stealth upgrade option" that disconnects this light. See Bob's video above on how that's done.

For RAM timings: 2666MHz, unless otherwise stated.

 

I'm going to give the order for Zephyrus M tomorrow from the MS store which they are selling it from 1.999$.
I wonder how are the temps with underwolt but WITHOUT the thermal repaste? I'm a bit scared doing it by myself.
Being in LA narrows down of my choices because of tax. If it wasn't for tax I would just place an order from HID with the thermal repaste. But tax makes the price insane.

Edit: off-topic but I just checked... I'm a member since 2008 and I was using ASUS N53SN back then. Last month, I came to LA for studying and I'm typing this post from the very same laptop

 

I have it with stock thermal paste and undervolt. Getting ave temps of 79c , 2 hrs gaming witcher 3, it reaches 91c but goes down fast when fans kick in

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Oh this is with room temps at 26-27c. When I have AC on its much cooler.

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Is there a noticeable boost with upgrading the memory? Should I just buy the same memory to get dual channel or should I upgrade to G-Skill or other brands?

 

From single channel to dual channel, regardless of the amount: Yes. This will result in noticeably better minimum framerates and frame time consistency in gaming.
CPU intensive games such as Battlefield 1 will also see a marked improvement in raw performance. See this video by Bob Of All trades:

When you upgrade RAM, ensure you use matching sticks. Always, no exceptions.

 

@Dennismungai thanks for all the info. To follow up on @Laths question, does anyone know what exact ram comes with this Asus laptop? So I can just order the ram now so it's here when the laptop shows up. I'm going to do a re-paste also, should be fun. I think it's a bit funny when people say why should I spend $2k on a laptop and have to do this. But a few years ago I spend $400 on a processor, put it in a vice grip, set a piece of wood next to it and slammed it with a hammer to do a delid before delid kits were made!

 

You're welcome.

You might be better served by a reseller or a user who bought the stock model and can provide this from tools such as AIDA64, CPU-Z, dmidecode, etc. Perhaps @Donald@HIDevolution can help you with this information.
My best guess, touch wood, points to RAM specifically cheap enough for bulk use by OEM channels.
Ruling out Samsung, this leaves us with one very likely vendor: Crucial.
The most likely candidate for this seems to be the part number CT16G4SFD8266.

See this listing on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC4-21300-SODIMM-260-Pin/dp/B071KP8CGJ

Product page: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ct16g4sfd8266

Take my answer with a grain of salt until a reseller OR an owner with the machine ordered with the default RAM can confirm this.

 

Especially NVMe SSDs. SATA SSDs will definitely run a bit cooler.

What heats up on the NVMe SSD is the controller. It's literally a multi-core ARM-based microprocessor with a f*ckton of circuitry feeding into it. Hard to cool, and even harder to maintain low ambient temperatures with virtually no airflow in a laptop chassis to speak of.

 

We don't advertise the brand or model of the ASUS Approved RAM because they don't always use the same ones, and they don't want to be locked in to any particular brand.

You should wait to receive the unit to determine exactly what is in yours.

 

Yup, I agree, surprisingly though that many lasted a long time without cooling.

 

Indeed, I see a lot of variance in what's available. See this dump from userbenchmark.

 

I've received my Zephyrus M. Great laptop but I'm having a interesting problem with the Black ops 4 promotion.
I've followed the official re-seller links from their official BO4 promotional page, ordered from Microsoft Web Store.
Some of the ASUS apps was missing among with the "promotion app". ınstalled live update and through it I installed promotional app.
Pop up for the Black Ops 4 promotion appeared. When I verified my system, it said "not eligible".

Contacted ASUS Support on reddit. They said my model number is GM501GS-US74 which is not eligible. They said it must be XS74.
I search the model number and couldn't find anything.
Also my model came with BIOS version 306. Where as the latest one is 304 at the official product page and the automatic BIOS update tool.
Also Zephyrus M was out of stock last whole week on MS store. So I'm thinking that this must be a new model.
Therefore ASUS needs to acknowledge this model number and add it to their verifying system.

I know after paying 2.200$ to a laptop and complaining about 60$ game. but I feel cheated somehow.

 

Enjoying the laptop so far. Just was playing Rise of the Tomb Raider and the GPU and CPU were holding steady and not temp throttling at around 120fps. Great stuff. I'd be really disappointed if I spent $2k on a laptop and saw the performance decrease because it can't cool itself and it seems like this is the only laptop in the category that can.

I'll be doing a repaste next weekend too. Not going to go with liquid metal as I don't want to risk anything leaking out. Not worth the extra few degrees on a laptop.

 

My system runs well too. It's not throttling either. CPU temp is around 80C during gameplay on several FPS games. But I still struggle with ASUS, just because of that I would return this beauty soon.

While using the device, maybe because of my age (35), the screen looks too small for me. I thought a 17" narrow bezel model of Zephyrus M would be absolutely fantastic.

 

Has anyone had any experience with the following issue.

I turn the GM501GS on, it receives power and lights up but doesnt reach the ASUS logo, it then makes a click sound and restarts before powering on.

 

Sounds like faulty RAM. Open her up and replace the RAM sticks, then retest.

 

Trying not to be that guy, and trying to get the search button to work but I cant seem to find the answer to my question.

While everyone else is talking about the actual cpu and or gpu temps, which im sure in an air conditioned room should perform just fine. My question is actually about surface temps of the laptop its self.

I have had the MSI ge62 for about 2 years now, the laptop gives me an option to max out the fans to optimize cooling. While gaming with the fans off, I have measured a surface temperature of up to 45c. This temperature was taken on the keyboard itself, the area immediately under the keyboard where your wrists usually sit hit up in to the 40-45 at times as well. Skin to metal contact at that temperature for any extended period of time is not enjoyable.

Is the gm501 any better?