Asus ROG GL702ZC owners lounge

Is The laptop available in the USA or is that just a review sample?

 

I don't see any yet. And, his link to amazon doesn't go to a GL702ZC page, and I couldn't tell what site he was on when he showed the online listing - which showed out of stock anyway.

If you are seriously interested, contact some US dealers that carry high end Asus laptops, and ask them to ask Asus how they can order one for you. That works best for these high end laptops with relatively small production runs.

For something so new as Ryzen in a laptop, customer demand will likely cause sellers to order them for sale. If they don't hear any demand, they may never offer them.

Ask nicely, and ask more than a few sellers. I'd ask boutique's and high end retailers, online and brick and mortar locations.

And, please come back and let us know what they say.

 

Use ReLive. Free, installed with the driver, and has the lowest performance impact of any recording solution for AMD GPUs. Basically AMD's version of ShadowPlay.

 

It will be available from Best Buy.

 

I wish i knew when. I keep checking sais sold out with no sign of returning
Shame Such a great one of a kind laptop asus created and not anywhere to be found

 

Did you call BestBuy? Their sales people can call up the buyers and ask details about next expected delivery / etc, if you do call please let us know what they say and how it works out

 

For those of you buying this laptop:
In order to avoid potential problems with Windows updating to Fall Creator update (aka failing to update) and games and software in general having issues making autosaves or saves in general, I suggest you wipe the SSD (but keep the factory reset partition) and do a clean Windows 10 install.

My laptop just underwent a Fall Creator update yesterday, and unlike the pre-installed Win 10, the update on a clean install went without a hitch (on a pre-installed Win, it just kept giving me an error and wouldn't update).
I think Asus botched the install of Windows 10 in some fashion, or they might have installed Windows 8 and then upgraded to 10 (although I don't know if this last theory works considering Windows 10 was available for a while now, but considering how old Asus software actually is and the compatibility issues it has with Win 10, it seemed like a workable theory).
All games are functioning properly in terms of saves (pro software included) on a clean Windows install. The Fall Creator update on a clean install also didn't wreck anything and is functioning fine.

My advice: do a clean Windows install and save yourselves the potential headache.
The drivers are available on Asus support page for this laptop so make sure to download them, and also flash the BIOS/UEFI to version 300 (though check to see if Asus already updated that themselves).
For Wifi drivers, you will need to expand Asus support page with drivers to find the ones you need... it's a RTL8822BE model.
Alternatively, I found the wifi drivers (that were newer than the ones Asus pre-installed) from another OEM vendor who used it in their laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad 370 it would seem).
The driver is here:
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/gb/en/...-laptops/thinkpad-yoga-370/downloads/ds120862

As for GPU drivers and Freesync... Freesync works nicely with the original drivers. They aren't exactly up to date (a few months old), but most games run fine with high FPS (I also activated Radeon Chill and limited FPS to 60 since the panel's refresh rate is 60Hz anyway... anything above that just produces wasted frames and chugs down more power needlessly).
Freesync also seems to work on more recent games... on older ones, not so much it would seem or may need VSync to properly activate (but that kinda defeats the purpose of FreeSync in that case).

If you want updated GPU drivers, then you should download chipset drivers from AMD's website and install everything like that. You will loose Freesync, but if you're not bothered about it too much and prefer updated drivers, then do that.
Whether Asus updates their drivers and everything else is anyone's guess.
I fired off a support ticket asking them about updating the BIOS/UEFI to upcoming AGESA 1.0.0.7 (Which will support Ryzen+, Ryzen 2 and Ryzen 3... and Raven Ridge APU's as well it would seem) as I'm more interested in that.

If Asus integrates that AGESA update, and AMD releases Raven Ridge APU on 7nm with say Navi... I think we could even expect similarly clocked 8 cores/16th with an IGP and a lot better battery life... though making all of that work with existing RX 580 in the system might be... tricky (though not impossible). It will be easier due to the system being an all AMD laptop anyway... so this side-grade to an APU would mainly be there for improved battery life most likey... not sure though how much more battery it would gain us considering that Asus didn't exactly install a powerful one to begin with... but its possible it could vastly increase it.

Other than that... I plan on replacing the thermal paste in this thing and see if I can further optimize cooling to lower the fan noise during games.
Not sure which thermal paste I'll use just yet, so I'll keep everyone apprised of it.
My primary concern right now is getting another 16GB stick and enable dual channel to improve overall performance. Don't think I'll be going for the 3000 Mhz RAM as its too expensive... unless prices drop on black Friday or something (though that's doubtful).

Oh yeah... Mass Effect Andromeda plays really nice on high settings and 60 FPS limited. No screen tearing that I can see at all, fluid gameplay... and the game is actually quite good (running with the most recent patch).
If I get around using ReLive, I will definitely post some gameplay and in-game videos.

 

Thanks for all the detailed info from use and living with the new Ryzen CPU / GPU laptop, it's been very helpful, and I appreciate your suggestions, all of them

Having said that, and meaning it, I've never seen a "clean install" make any performance difference, and to blindly erase the OS partitions "leaving the recovery" partition does nothing except kill the ability to do a recovery restore - and waste the space of the recovery partition that is no longer of any use.

You need to original OS install state to use the restore partition easily using the documented methods for boot recovery.

If you want to play around with a new OS install, first create a backup of the original boot image - the whole drive with all partitions - a bare metal backup / restore - I use Macrium Reflect Free to make a backup image and a USB 3.0 restore boot flash drive.

Usually Asus and MSI have recovery boot creation programs - BurnRecovery for MSI and Asus Backtracker - and I use those too if available. It's possible for new OS, laptop, releases that their recovery backup creation tools aren't available at first shipments so that's why I use a 3rd party option too.

That way you can completely erase the partitions and make all the storage space available for your clean install.

I've seen no performance improvement from clean installs, I've seen claims of this working "better", but doing it myself does nothing except waste time trying to improve on the work done by the vendor.

It's much easier to disable startup of tools you don't want, and later when you figure out you really wanted them, you can re-enable them

Erasing installs of tools doesn't save much disk space, and for many new tools for new laptops they won't be posted online, and old versions available for download won't have support for the new hardware.

It's best to keep options open than delete them right and left for little or no good reason.

 

For the record, I never claimed I gained performance from doing a clean-install.
I only said that a clean install removed my issues with games being unable to produce saves, or other programs producing autosaves (this was before the attempting to update to Fall Creator update).
It's a rather critical issue which also created problems for installation of various software (that produced errors in final stages of installation).
This was happening before the forced fall creator update... so I'm just relaying my experience in getting seemingly botched pre-installed Windows.

I also never deleted any other system partitions. I simply quick formatted the OS one, left everything else (even extra ones initially created for system, etc.).
For the Factory Reset to work, Asus mentioned a procedure which involves hard shutting down the laptop several times during POST sequence it would seem which should trigger the factory reset (I have detailed response in my email and can post it here if need be - but I don't intend on using it).
My issue was that the factory reset never worked to begin with, and pre-installed Windows was seemingly broken (didn't function correctly because major Windows updates refused to install, and games/software wouldn't produce saves).

One also cannot access Asus Factory reset partition easily from the get go... you need to download a separate Asus utility that will force windows into restore menu, as pressing F8 during boot-up doesn't work (don't know specifically whose fault this is... is it Windows 10 that botched this or Asus simply not keeping up to date).

As for hmscott's recommendation to make your own backup image of the system when you get it... by all means, do so, but be advised that should you try to do a factory reset, it doesn't seem to work as intended, and you 'may' (or may not) experience problems with games producing saves or autosaves by other programs like I have, along with inability to do major Windows updates.

The usability of other Asus tools is limited at best (not that there's a lot of them). I never ended up using them, and the fan control was shaky since the fans would just ramp up beyond a given setting regardless of the manual input.
We need updated ROG Gaming Center from Asus that does the work as intended with new hardware to regain fan control (that actually works?), and that depends entirely on Asus.

It's a powerful laptop that's definitely worth getting if you need a productivity powerhouse also capable of 1080p gaming at Ultra settings... all I'm doing is relaying my experience with it and how to deal with them should same problems arise on other units.

 

Others that have done as you did weren't able to make use of the recovery partition afterwards, even though it wasn't touched / moved or other partitions were deleted. There is something in the C partition as part of the Asus image that is required to access the recovery partition, and it also fails via the BIOS recovery.

Until you've tried it, actually done it, you don't know if it works.

So, it's best to use the BurnRecovery MSI tool, or the Backtracker Asus tool, or whatever they provide now as a recovery backup - and if they are between versions that work then use Macrium Reflect Free or some other bare metal restore image backup / restore tool.

There is no benefit of a clean install, speed, convenience, time, features, nothing that I have ever seen.

One guy thought installing TrueColor jacked the system image such that it needed a clean install that never had the TrueColor installation done to get a uncorrupted color map. I had no problems with it, and neither did anyone else, so I don't think that was a real thing either.

Save yourself a lot of time and use the provided system image, disable what you don't want to have running, and build from there.

 

This is one of the problems with erasing the original OS install and trying to do a from scratch OS install by downloading tools and installing them.

Often when a new laptop gets released the versions of tools installed from the vendor are the newest, and not uploaded anywhere else. So if you blow the OS install away, you've got nowhere to go to get the newest version, unless you restore from the recovery volume.

New hardware like the Ryzen CPU and GPU, with no other laptop shipping, is the prime candidate for this to happen.

Try doing a restore and see what version of tools are on the original image, compared to what you can download now from Asus. A good thing to check before erasing the original OS install as well.

 

That's assuming the provided system image isn't badly installed for other units in the first place (aka suffering from same problems mine had).
I had 0 use of the factory reset partition from the start because it stopped at 40% and simply threw me back into Windows.
Games refused to produce saves (some refused to flat out install), autosave from software didn't work, and Windows refused to install Fall Creator update.

By eventually nuking that failed Windows install and making a clean one, it solved all my problems. As I said, doing a clean install is a necessity if the original image is bonkered to the point mine was and use of recovery partition is non-existent in the first place.
If on the other hand the original system image works, then by all means, make your own copy as you get the laptop and keep using it.

Also, the original factory reset image was placed there so the system can be restored to the defaults in case of large issues. One is NOT obligated to create another backup (assuming you even have an extra USB stick to spare). Point is, it was broken from the factory. Not my problem, and if someone else encounters that problem, make sure to mention it to the re-seller and Asus just in case you need to send the laptop in for potential repairs or should you decide you don't want to keep the unit (when it works though, it works fine).

A clean install as we already established does not provide any intricate advantages in terms of performance, features, etc. No need to keep repeating that 'hmscott'.
What it DOES provide are unhindered operations in case the original doesn't work as intended (if it doesn't, then forget about normal workflow, installing large Windows updates like Fall Creator update, or any software without issues, or even playing and advancing in games without saves).

 

You might be correct, but right now, I don't want to deal with yet another reinstall.
Doing a clean Win 10 install solved my issues.
I may not have use of ROG Gaming center, but I wasn't using it in the first place beyond toying here and there with what appeared to be not fully functional fan control.

 

Windows does that at times, that's why we keep restore points, image backups, and recovery boot media, to restore back to a point where things were working before.

As first thing do the media creation for the recovery flash boot USB 3.0 32GB flash drive, before allowing any Windows updates to screw things up. So you have a clean out of the box backup.

If Windows update broke recovery restore from the installed OS / recovery partition you could still restore to the out of the box image restoring from the USB media you created.

That's why it's so important to do the recovery backup right out of the box, have the flash drive purchased and waiting when you get your laptop, and don't even connect the laptop to the internet until you've created the recovery media.

I actually test the laptop at the vendor in the customer service area by doing the media creation before I leave. I buy the USB 3.0 32GB drive from them and use it there - takes about 10 minutes - then connect up to the internet, check the other ports, etc - before I drive away.

If Asus restore is broken out of the box that would be another thing to test for, and find out before connecting to the internet.

Now you are stuck with what you can download.

Weren't you going to ask Asus what they can do about this? Ask Asus if they can provide recovery media to send you, and/or send you zip files for the app versions provided on the image (or a special download) and not publicly available for download.

I'd tell them the restore failed, and you couldn't use the recovery volume.

You shouldn't be stuck without what you need to function on the new hardware.

 

There may be other apps and drivers that were only on that image as well. Not available from Asus or MS for download / update.

 

Not really. As far as I can tell, all of the drivers I have for this laptop are present, updated (besides the gpu ones for freesync obviously) and working fine.

I have none of the issues that I had with the original system installation.

As for contacting asus about supplying me with usb recovery media, they said they don't do that.

 

I emailed XoticPC, below is a copy of the transcript

From what I can get the resellers are in the dark too and I can Imagine this is the case for most of them

 

Small update on Asus ROG Gaming center.
Regained use of Fan control, etc.
Needed to install ATK drivers (which light up the keyboard led lights when in use).
The Gaming center is now detecting the GPU and its temps, but in the CPU portion, it only gives another identical set of GPU readings for some reason - odd.
Anyway... I mentioned I don't really use the Gaming center and the fan control is not reliable to keep the fans at specific speeds under load because they just ramp up regardless under what could be seen as 'heavier loads'.

As for availability of GL702ZC in EU... this is something of an oddity. Usually laptops get released in the USA at an earlier time frame. EU gets simultaneous release date as the USA or has to wait a bit for releases... so I am genuinely surprised that this laptop is not available in USA as of yet.
If it does get there in December though, it might reach a wider audience of course and who knows, Asus might want to upgrade the BIOS/UEFI with AGESA 1.0.0.7 from AMD (here's hoping they do).

 

I just got an email back from HIDEvolution, below is a copy of the conversation

Hopefully, it arrives sometime before cyber Monday.

 

I'm looking to best laptop for virtualization and will love to buy this laptop, but i heard the problem is a problem amd-v virtualization with G702ZC

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?97241-G702ZC-AMD-V-virtualization-possible

Please let me know if that does still not work or BIOS update did fix?

 

I'm experiencing a strange problem with my gl702zc.
I was playing mass effect Andromeda and suddenly, my fans kicked to 100% for unexplained reason. Temperatures were nominal, so was gaming.
The laptops fans just started working on max without explanation.
I shut down the game and waited to see if the fan speed will drop... It didn't.

Restarted into bios/uefi... And fans are still running at 100% there.

Several windows install package services also stopped running as I couldn't remove asus rog gaming center or ryzen master... Kept getting an " error error 1720. There is a problem with this windows installer package. A script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Custom action remove AMDRMservice script error - 2146828218."

I tried installing latest chipset drivers, etc, no change.

I also just reset windows completely. No change. Laptop fans are at 100% inside and outside windows (bios/uefi - they are running at over 6650 rpm and not powering down... The CPU and gpu are dow below 30 degrees Celsius and still the fans are running at 100% inside bios/uefi)

What the heck is causing this?
Could gaming have caused the thermal paste to dissolve or something?

Earlier today we had a small power surge from a toaster which forced the main electricity switch (which operates the mains) to shut down. But this fan issue didn't start until much later and prior to that, fans were running fine by adjusting themselves to the load.

Any ideas?
This seems to go beyond Windows going corrupt.
I could try to install a previous bios/uefi version and see if that changes anything... But maybe I should contact asus technical support first

 

Maybe try resetting the BIOS to default, usually an option you can choose in BIOS to reset everything to default - perhaps this will reset whatever bug has arisen. Also, often times strange behaviour can be caused by unstable RAM, although that's normally associated with program errors & bluescreens, but might be worth checking your RAM using Memtest86 v7.4: https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

 

I already tried resetting bios/uefi to the default and no success.
I shut down the laptop for the night and went to sleep. I'm just up and will try activating it to see if the fans decided to calm down, if not, I'll need to call Asus.

As for installing the older bios/uefi version, i forgot about the fact that Asus never put up the older version on the website. Only the new one.

Besides, I don't recall making any changes in uefi/BIOS that would cause this behavior. It happened without obvious explanation while gaming and persist outside of windows without cpu or gpu being stressed at all.

I can try memtest later and see what happens

 

Sigh... just turned the laptop on after hours of it being shut down (I've been sleeping) and disconnected from the mains.
No change... fans went up to 100% as it powered up (and yes, this is also inside BIOS/UEFI).

I honestly don't see how this kind of hardware problem could have been caused by Windows - unless chipset drivers became corrupted somehow, but would that really cause the fans to spin at 100% in BIOS/UEFI?

Btw, resetting the Windows got rid of that annoying MSI installer error. I can easily remove AMD and Asus programs, but the fans being on 100% from boot (and in BIOS) is a continuous issue.

I could try another clean install and see if that would change anything, but I sincerely doubt that.

ROG Gaming center reports CPU and GPU info normally now, but the fan boost is only showing 'MAX' without displaying any RPM values.
Changing the slider doesn't affect the fans - I also supplied snapshots of Asus ROG and BIOS.

And of course, Asus customer service is not responding as all their lines are busy it would seem (go figure).

I sent off a support ticket with this issue to Asus due to the inability to contact them over the phone.

EDIT: Scratch reinstalling the BIOS/UEFI.
Winflash refuses to do it because it says the file I'm trying to use is older than the one currently installed (this is using the same V300 [latest] UEFI... and Asus never uploaded older BIOS/UEFI version.

EDIT2: As I mentioned before, someone online stated that their laptop fans running on 100% all the time inside or outside Windows (completely different machine) didn't spin down until they opened it and re-pasted the GPU and CPU.
But even if the paste has been 'used up'... why would the fans be spinning up to 100% from the moment I power up the laptop? This doesn't make any sense, unless yesterday afternoon's power surge from the toaster shorted something out... but wouldn't this manifest itself at the moment of the surge and not 4 to 6 hours later?

Btw... I tried using the laptop connected and disconnected from the mains... no change in fan behavior... still running at 100% all the time, inside or outside of Windows.

 

Hello @Deks, @hmscott,

#1: Thanks for checking and reporting back. Really appreciated!

#2: :-( If they don't support ECC out of the box (at least with the necessary BIOS/UEFI settings) then it's pretty much a game stopper for me. Too bad because this laptop would otherwise be wondrous...

Thanks, but I think it would be wasted effort (but see below).

This would really be great! Please do it, not only we (me and anyone else interested in ECC) would have an "official" response from ASUS, but perhaps there's some "trick" to activating that support which isn't outright visible in the BIOS/UEFI? If there is, they should certainly know it.

I don't have a GL702ZC handy, much less the necessary ECC memory modules, for such a test... in fact, I would only purchase them if I get some positive confirmation that it works.

If @Deks, or anyone else, would be so kind as to ask ASUS that (and they comply and we get an "official" test and response), then it would be even better.

Thanks in advance for your further help, @Deks.

Cheers,
--
Durval.

 

Yup, someone needs to ask Asus and get an answer, but if they don't know it needs to get escalated to Engineering.

I am always optimistic and try things even if not showing in the BIOS. ECC detection and enablement might be automatic, supported by the hardware so it may not need a BIOS setting to enable it.

For example I have had BIOS's not show VM support, but for consumer BIOS sometimes they enable it but don't have a handle to disable it. It does work the other way, and I had to return a laptop once that didn't enable VM support or have BIOS settings. It took Acer 4-5 months to get it added to the BIOS.

With ECC Asus needs to answer from Engineering, and owners that need it should feedback to Asus that it's a feature that needs to get added to the BIOS, if it's actually needed - not automatic ECC detection.

Maybe AMD would know? You could ask in their community forum. I don't have time right now to get into it, so maybe you can dig around - I did a quick search for Ryzen ECC and got a bunch of hits, this being the first one - it's a little old now from Feb, no time to even read much, but right away some interesting info:

https://community.amd.com/message/2782270

Here's the top level where you can search the support forums:

https://community.amd.com/community/support-forums

Please, if anyone knows, post what you learned!

 

Was disappointed to find that SVM was disabled in the BIOS meaning no virtualization, had a look in the bios file and found there was a setting for it so I enabled it, opened the laptop up, connected my raspberry pi and flashed it. Working great now.

 

If you have time it would be nice if you could put together a simple how to, as I am sure others would like to have SVM enabled, are the VT-? options showing? Did you enable those too?

Can you also check for ECC options?

Thank you!

 

I'll do a write up in the morning.

 

Ok so, you will need the following:

Raspberry pi model B or another similar device with GPIO pins exposed.
Pomona 5250 clip (costs £10 or so I think)
Female to female breadboard jumper cables (cheap, normally £1-£2 for 30-40 or so).
Another machine to ssh into the raspberry pi from, or a spare keyboard etc that you can hook up to the raspberry pi.

Step 1: Install raspbian or another OS on your raspberry pi, and afterwards install flashrom. If you search google for 'coreboot raspberry pi' you'll find multiple posts on how to install rasbpain and flashrom etc.

Step 2: Connect your jumper cables as so.

PIN # on Pomona Clip --- Raspberry PI pin
1 --- 24
2 --- 21
3 --- Not used
4 --- 25
5 --- 19
6 --- 23
7 --- Not used
8 --- 17

If you have a raspberry 1 v1 or v2, you will have 26 GPIO pins. If you have v3, you'll have 40 GPIO pins. Odd numbered pins are on the inner side of the board, even on the outer. See the following


The clip numbering is as follows

8765
----
| |
----
1234

Step 3:

Disassemble laptop. After removing the heat sink you'll find a Winbond flash chip, this is 512kb in size, and I think TPM rather than where the BIOS/UEFI is stored. Continue disassembling until you've removed the motherboard, and on the underside of the motherboard near the bottom you'll find an almost identical chip to the one mentioned previously. Connect your Pomona 5250 clip to this (note: make sure you get a good connection). If your rpi powers off you've connected the clip the wrong way round, turn it and re clip.

Note 2: If your cable pinout is incorrect, or your clip is the wrong way round, or not connected securely, you will get a 'no flashchip found' type error when trying to read the chip.

Step 4:

On your raspberry pi open a terminal and load the spi module.
sudo modprobe spidev

Now read the contents of the chip twice (note will take a while)
sudo ./flashrom -c "MX25U12835F" -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -r test1.rom
sudo ./flashrom -c "MX25U12835F" -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -r test2.rom

Now diff the dumped roms to check for differences (there should be none).
diff test1.rom test2.rom

If nothing returns, both are the same and we have stable readings from the chip.
Now copy either test1.rom or test2.rom to another Windows machine (preferable, you'll either have to do it via WINE or a VM on the pi if you can't), download and install AMIBCP. Open the rom file in AMIBCP and you'll have a directory tree of the BIOS on the left side of the window. Expand the root directory, expand Setup and expand the first Advanced folder. Click on CPU configuration from inside the Advanced folder. On the main window you'll see various options to enable/disable, SVM mode being the only disabled. Enable this, save and exit rom.

Copy the modified rom file back to your raspberry pi and flash it back to the chip.
sudo ./flashrom -c "MX25U12835F" -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev0.0 -w /path/to/your-rom-file.rom

Flashrom will read old chip contents first, then flash the new contents, and then verify for a successful flash afterwards.

Step 5:

Reassemble laptop, turn on and boot to BIOS. You will have to manually set time/date. Now boot to OS and you'll have virtualization enabled.

 

Wow, mhdvt, that was quite a hack

Thanks for the writeup, I was not aware that this kind of thing (reading/reprogramming a flash chip in-circuit, without desoldering it first) was even possible, much less that there were reasonably inexpensive tools to do it. For an old electronics hand that grew up hearing that "you must desolder any component (at least N-1 of its "legs"), even a single resistor or capacitor, before doing any measurements on it, learning this is quite a shock

Do you perchance still have this GL702ZC bios flash image file around? Can you please share it? I'd love to go through it myself using the AMIBCP utility to see what else I could find...

Cheers,
--
Durval.

 

You can download the bios from ASUS's website, rename the file to .rom extension and it'll open nicely in AMIBCP. When flashing we only use what we've dumped from the flash chip so it's as close to like-for-like when flashing back to the chip. And there are many chips out there you will have to solder the jumper cables to, luckily SOIC-8 type (like on here) are most common and there's a handy little clip for them available.

 

IS there any way to unlock the BIOS for GL702ZC?

 

Unlock as in unlock extra options? Sure, but you'll still need a raspberry pi to flash it back though.

 

Here's a review of GL702ZC from Hexus:
https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/laptop/112583-asus-rog-strix-gl702zc/

This somewhat confirms my suspicions that Asus apparently cheeped out on the battery, SSD (though I have to say that the SSD is plenty fast for what it does), didn't include a dual channel RAM (or faster RAM for that matter) as options to modify the system prior to purchase (customisation), and of course the cooling solution (not to mention the fans) seems like an afterthought.

I still like the laptop for what it is, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be ignoring how Asus made critical (and probably easily corrected) errors for what is essentially a 'poster child' of mobile computing for AMD using latest technologies.
They could have and SHOULD have done better (for the same price).


Why do reviewers still see the RX 580 as too power hungry?
This mobile version is limited to 68W... its more efficient than the mobile GTX 1060 which is limited to 80W and performs pretty much the same in games.

If Asus worked to limit the RX 580 to 80W as well in mobile space (and implemented proper cooling for it like they did for the GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080, not to mention 1080 SLI), it would likely be able to stretch itself further performance-wise (still, it's good to see that benchmarks are misleading and that actual gaming performance is well on-par even with lower clocks - but somehow no one is mentioning this).


It seems very odd to me that Asus would intentionally ruin what could have been a perfectly GREAT laptop with these issues (main ones being the inferior/integrated battery, and of course really noisy fans).
I wouldn't mind a bulkier laptop if it meant better cooling and superior battery (for the same price - no reason to overcharge on these things).

Or, they could have done so intentionally to prevent the laptop from outselling their Intel+Nvidia counterparts - not sure if this can be substantiated at all, but it wouldn't surprise me.

They still seem to be bending over to Nvidia and Intel as those laptops seem to have better overall cooling implementations (with higher TDP's to boot when you take into account the higher end GPU's like the 1070 and 1080) that are quieter.


I'm sick of OEM's shafting AMD like this repeatedly (Ryzen at least changed things around and we have more AMD options at least), but options alone are not enough. Quality is important. AMD's components are not to blame here. They are efficient... it's the OEM's fault for high noise and less efficient cooling.

They have no issues putting high TDP Intel and Nvidia components or cooling them with acceptable noise levels, but will completely ruin the AMD system in turn.


It's actually a good thing I sent my laptop back to Asus for RMA, and I specifically asked them to have a look at what caused my fans to suddenly start running 100% all the time from boot-up and that they should look into redoing the cooling if needed to avoid it from happening again (since it looks like a hardware fault caused by gaming - or higher thermals).
I also told them about higher than acceptable thermals and noise levels (which are headache inducing and make it impossible to work around people if I need to use professional software).
They 'might' do something about that, but I doubt they would go redesigning a whole cooling assembly just because I mentioned these issues - who knows though - at the very least it could force them to admit they cheeped out on the cooling and might need to redo it.


Would I still recommend the laptop for purchase?
If you're keen on getting an all AMD portable workstation for content creation with decent graphics... yes.
But bear in mind that the 'caveats' I mentioned are entirely OEM related... nothing really to do with AMD as such.
In such an instance it would be good if another OEM did an all AMD laptop (properly) or Asus fixes up this one.

Also, the existing cooling and noise levels could likely be improved through simple re-pasting of the GPU and CPU by using higher quality thermal compound (and possibly Fujipoly thermal pads where appropriate).
It might be worth investigating the use of Liquid Metal Conductonaut given Asus cooling implementation (or at the very least GeLid GC Extreme which seems to perform pretty much like Liquid ultra and Liquid Pro).

 

Btw... Asus received my unit.
They said:
"We would like to inform you (my RMA number) has arrived in the repair centre for assessment.
You will be kept updated on the progress of your repair.
If you have any further concerns or queries please do not hesitate to email our support team on:
[email protected]"

Considering I mentioned the issues of higher thermals and noise levels in the note I supplied, any recommendations to emphasise these problems again and make them consider redoing the cooling?

I'm really disappointed that Asus would cheepout like this on cooling in what is otherwise an efficient hardware (it could be what damaged the fan control circuitry in the first place).

I'm open to suggestions if you have some good ones to write back.
Obviously, it might be too much to expect of Asus to improve the battery considering its integrated, etc... however, it might/should be doable for them to redo the cooling.

Hmscott... I know you have some good suggestions.
Would you consider raising these concerns again with them in an email to emphasise them?

 

@Deks, it sounds like you want to get rid of the laptop for good, but instead they're repairing it for you?

You talk about hoping that Asus redoes the cooling for this laptop - do you mean you hope they repaste your RMA'd unit or that you hope they make improvements to the design of the cooling in this laptop model. Are you expecting them to redesign the cooling system & then send you back a redesigned laptop - sounds unlikely?

It's a pity this laptop has been such a pain for you. As for the conspiracy type ideas behind Asus doing a rubbish job on cooling AMD parts in relation to NVidia - I sure hope that's not a thing, but with only an 85W TDP on the AMD GPU they should be able to tame it no worries, so strange they haven't done so. Although I don't think Asus would risk purposefully tarnishing their brand & reputation by spewing out sub-par AMD products, so I'm thinking conspiracy is not a thing.

 

Oh, I never said I wanted to get rid of the laptop... I was merely expressing disdain for Asus shoddy cooling and really high fan noise (along with the pitiful battery and lack of dual-channel from the get go - I can let the SSD one slide though as its fast enough).
It seems they went cheap-o with this laptop in relation to how they treat Intel+Nvidia ones in the same price range.

Yeah, I know its unlikely that they would redesign the cooling.
However, I have sent them my own GeLid Extreme paste and Fujipoly thermal pads which I requested to be used in an effort to improve existing cooling and to repair and of course examine what caused the fans to suddenly start spinning on 100% at all the times (no down cycling at all), and continued doing that outside Windows (and from boot-up) and to prevent such a problem from occurring again.

Because, if the issue was caused by the heat emissions during gaming (it DID happen during gaming - which might have damaged the fan regulation hardware), it could be considered a design flaw (incorrectly placed hardware for example, or improperly shielded from waste heat, etc.).

You have to admit that in such a scenario, I'd want Asus to examine the thing thoroughly and make sure it's not a design flaw, or if it is, that they fix it (otherwise I might have to request to get a refund) or recall all units until they can fix the problem (if it is a design flaw).
I don't intend on using the laptop for 1 month only just to end up sending it back to Asus for repairs like this time.

I'm sorry, but I won't end up paying large money to Asus and let them get away with shoddy/lazy engineering in the process for making a supposedly 'gaming' laptop that can't even live up to it's name in terms of cooling and performance.
You don't design a 'gaming laptop' with cooling that cannot even sustain maxed out CPU and GPU without encountering thermal throttling (which admittedly only happens if you max out the CPU and GPU via synthetic benchmarks and professional software capable of using the CPU and GPU together... but even so, the cooling should be designed to handle it).
That's an example of inadequate cooling and false advertising at best (which of course makes it a legal problem as well).

I wasn't suggesting a conspiracy (although I could have worded it differently)... only that we have clear examples of how OEM's continuously produced laptops with insufficient cooling for relatively low power AMD hardware, but have no trouble with cooling much higher TDP Intel and Nvidia parts (and even sticking DESKTOP grade high-end hardware in laptops with sufficient cooling).

Anandtech made a huge article on this a while ago and provided clear examples of how laptops with AMD APU's ended up with poor design choices, inadequate cooling, no SSD's, low quality screens, and of course no high frequency dual-channel RAM (on which the iGP was dependent on for better performance) - all of that priced at same levels as more expensive and higher performing Intel+Nvidia parts.
Not a conspiracy, just dirty business practice on Intel's end in cohorts with OEM's

To my knowledge, Asus was not taking part in making laptops with AMD APU's to date, so the GL702ZC might be their first real attempt at a full blown AMD laptop.

I am being open minded to accept the possibility they might have made an honest error... but seriously, who pairs a 76Wh battery with a high powered laptop and makes it non-removable?
It's a gaming machine yes, but you are likely to be using it for productivity on the go as well given the 8c/16th CPU.

Here are the links to a shorter extremetech article and a long one on anandtech detailing the fiasco with APU's :
https://www.extremetech.com/computi...igns-single-channel-ram-sabotage-amds-carrizo
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-user-experience-amd-carrizo-thoroughly-tested

Also, the RX 580 in GL702ZC is limited to 68W (not 85W)... but even if it was 85W, Asus should have been able to easily provide proper cooling without ridiculous fan noise that induces headaches when spinning on maximum.

 

If they can't fix up the cooling and fan issues to your liking, are you gonna try and get a refund, or you have probably owned the laptop too long to get a refund?

 

I don't know.
I would prefer to keep this laptop if possible, but obviously, I won't settle for a laptop that keeps breaking down all the time.
The fan noise I can manage with earphones for example, and eventually re-paste (if Asus doesn't do the repaste using my thermal compount and thermal pads properly).

I got the laptop from Laptopsdirect, and they have a policy that you can get a full refund if you decide to return the laptop within 14 days of purchase.
Obviously, it's been a month and a half now, so I'm well past that point... however, since the problem has a technical fault that's basically Asus' problem (not to mention Windows issues), I should be eligible for a refund...

I don't want to accept a unit with 4c/8th Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU... that's not what I want.
I wanted this laptop because it has 8c/16th CPU, all AMD hardware and FreeSync... so I'll probably give Asus two choices: they either fix the fan issue and improve the cooling, or I might have to request my money back directly from Asus.

 

Well there's 6 core Intel CPU's coming to laptops if you can't get a decent AMD based laptop:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/li...-i7-hexacores-for-laptops-surface-online.html

 

I am aware of that, but I also don't want to support Intel either exactly due to their dirty business practices in the past to cut out AMD out of the loop which resulted in present state of affairs.
I think Intel needs a big time-out (and Nvidia isn't exactly better considering their preference for closed-source software and large amounts of devs optimising for them).

Mind you, AMD is just another corporation that also wants to earn profits (so I'm not trying to glorify them), however, they made a really efficient design with Ryzen and also with Polaris (considering the manuf. process they used is suited for low clock speeds), not to mention future compatibility for Ryzen+, Ryzen 2 and Ryzen 3 (which indicates potential for easy upgrade path - especially if Asus releases that AGESA BIOS update for GL702ZC).

Otherwise, I was considering a potential option to get an all AMD desktop and eventually get myself a Raven Ridge laptop (or wait for laptops with Ryzen refresh and Vega GPU's - the 12nm LP process will likely enable much higher clock speeds at same or lower TDP levels and correct Vega's issues with power draw as the 12nm LP is suited for high performing parts after all - much like the processes used by Intel and Nvidia ).

 

1060N and this underclocked mobile RX 580 are both around 65W/80W TDP/TGP.

NBC recorded 72W (GPU core only) in Heaven at 100% GPU load for this RX 580 (listed at 65W TDP):

Spoiler

 

Even so, the offset from 68W limit is by 4.2W... not a large difference - or the GPU-Z software might be reading it wrong (because the GPU is an unknown for the software - despite it being essentially downclocked RX 580 - it still registers as a new hardware configuration) - and the cooling should still be able to easily handle it without massive noise.

 

Microcenter has them in stock (updated 12/15):
http://www.microcenter.com/product/481879/ROG_GL702ZC-WB74_173_Gaming_Laptop_Computer_-_Black

 

ASUS ROG Strix GL702ZC Ryzen Laptop Review
Published on Jan 5, 2018
”ROG Strix GL702ZC is the world's first gaming laptop featuring the AMD Ryzen™ 7 processor - Learn more at https://goo.gl/vbwscr
Available at Amazon- https://goo.gl/7Tgfa2

 

Any updates on your RMA?

 

My RMA you mean?
If so, that's already been resolved.
Got my laptop back just after boxing day (2017).

I also upgraded the RAM to 32GB and now have dual-channel operational.

If Asus updates the BIOS on this machine for future Ryzen CPU's... then potential upcoming upgrades will be: Ryzen+ (12nm) or Ryzen 2 (7nm), and 32GB 3200 MhZ (provided the RAM prices go down).
I might also replace the Wifi card eventually and SSD to a larger capacity one (and of course, better HDD - or high capacity SSD for the secondary drive if prices go down significantly).

Who knows.
If AMD makes a nice APU on 7nm that's comparable or better than 1700 in performance (it's likely going to be better at that point), but also has a Vega iGP, then I will probably upgrade to that... as igp inclusion might enhance battery life on the go.

 

So in all, you would still recommend this laptop. Also, do you people ask questions when you pull out the power brick in public?

 

I received this laptop last week and its performance is amazing, the only thing that I didn;t like is that it only has a single audio jack so you can't connect headphones with mic jacks unless if the splitter actually works, also mine came with a single 16GB memory stick which hampers the CPU performance by a noticeable margin instead of having it dual channel. Ordered a pair of 8GB X 2 Crucial sticks and replaced the single 16GB with them and the bandwidth sensitive scores are up by a decent margin.

Also another funny thing. If you install AMD's official drivers for the GPU, it would automatically recognize it as AMD RX 580 series and Freesync will stop working. It would detect the videocard with no problems. After several troubleshooting steps, the fix was to select the driver manually as Radeon (TM) RX 580, don't choose AMD Radeon RX 580, Radeon RX 580 series or AMD Radeon RX 580 series, otherwise Freesync will never work, does not make any sense lol.

Ah and the Power Efficiency option on AMD's Radeon settings does work amazingly well, no performance drop and when you are watching videos or surfing the web, the GPU will stay downclocked longer. If you don't enable that option, the GPU would be ramping up so often that the fans would be constantly on for no reason. Ah last note, with the latest BIOS update 303, the fans totally turn off when the temps are below 35C on the GPU and CPU. Right now my CPU is idling at 23C and my GPU is idling at 25C and no fan is spinning (My Room is at 18C)

Make sure that the very first thing to do once you get this laptop, is to update the BIOS to 303.