Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Owner's Lounge

I've been busy lately but I managed to successfully shunt mod my G14 last Wednesday.

Since I wasn't sure of what would fit best, I decided to purchase 0,02Ω in three different sizes: 1206, 0805 and 0603.



I decided to weld the resistor next to the 0,005Ω resistor. Due to some contact pads next to the resistor, the size that fit the best was 0805.



I know I didn't do the best of the job (yes, it's lead free solder), but it works and I haven't burned anything. The gap between the shunt mod resistor and the contact pad is enough (the voltage difference is about 17mV at the most between these two exposed areas, not enough for an arch. To be safe I might paint over it to prevent particles causing problems (although that area is covered by a sheet of plastic).

I slowly started doing tests to see how the laptop behaved. First boot toke a while since the battery and RAM was disconnected, but eventually the laptop booted up like normal. I ran Valley to see what the power consumption was under battery. My calculations said that it was ~34W instead of 30W, so that was a good sign.

Since the laptop was stable, I decided to plug in the charger. Immediately the frequency rose to a point I never before saw. I took a measurement again, and as per my calculations the GPU was pulling ~80W (right on target).

Seeing that everything was good, I decided to assemble everything back and start doing some tests. My first Timespy run (with OC applied) was 7034, about 350 additional points from before the shunt mod with same OC settings. My best result so far, after much testing is 7157

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/51400578?

Unfortunately I won't be able to beat @thesacredmoocow since I have a 4800HS (&40GB) instead a 4900HS (also for some reason his 2060 does 7400 in Timespy), but for my scope of use, this is enough for me (I don't want to risk the longevity and usability of the device past certain point).

The big question is: Is this mod worth it?

Obviously, it depends on what you are looking after. If you don't want to risk the warranty, and if you have a full on dedicated gaming machine, obviously not. But if this is your main PC (provided you have a back-up PC) where you game on, then this might be an interesting mod. In essence, you are bumping the G14 a performance tier, and that might be enough for a smoother gaming experience or higher details.

Now, why I haven't shunt modded the 2nd resistor: Because I don't know exactly what it does. I don't want to start just welding everything I find to end up doing something that could damage the laptop. In addition, pushing the memory past 13560MHz I'm experiencing stability issues, so even if the 2nd resistor was for the memory, there is no point for me to shunt mod the 2nd resistor (YOUR MILEAGE WILL VARY).

Finally, no temperature issues to mention of, and the PD USB option still works just fine (althought the battery might discharge under combined load). Idle power consumption is exactly the same, so no penalties on battery life for entertainment and productivity (until the dGPU kicks in).

 

Forgot about Userbenchmark... my shunt modded RTX 2060 MQ is not even in the same postcode of performance from other users! LOL

 

I ended up taking my shunts off haha. I had some weird issues where sometimes if I was capping the fps in a game, it'd use low utilization but wouldn't max out the frame cap either. I had some instability with it boosting too high actually, had to adjust some curves in msi afterburner. Either way, it's plenty enough for me at the 65W so I didn't feel the need to keep it in.

In the future I may put it back, who knows, but I'm also looking at replacing the wifi card with an external gpu. I'm pretty sure I can fit a pcie slot underneath the hdmi port by printing a small enclosure so that the bottom of the frame doesn't taper upwards in that section. Similar to what the power button area looks like. We'll see once I feel the need to do that. This cpu probably won't cause bottlenecking unless I go higher than 3070 haha.

 

Egpus are a massive waste of money. with a 3070/2080ti you will only get 2070 performance due to the 4x PCI-E lane bottleneck

 

How did you do the shunt mod? I haven't experienced any kind of issue so far.

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I mean, sure the performance isn't as good, I think it's like 10~20% performance degradation. But 3070 + $30 adapter is still cheaper than a desktop with 2070 in it. and both are a hell of a lot better than 2060mq. Granted, if there's a 2021 refresh with zen 3 and rdna2/ampere along with pcie gen 4 and thunderbolt I'll probably sell this and go that route instead, but as is I don't see an issue with anything.

 

0.007 ohm resistors on both the shunts. I think it has something to do with the boosting algorithm where the voltage control is kinda skewed by the inaccurate amperage readings. as far as I know, people usually give it an extra 30% or something, not straight up double the amp draw lol. I didn't put too much thought into it, I don't particularly need the extra ~10% or whatever performance right now anyways.

 

Yeah, basically you went too far. Really, 80W works really well. 90W might be possible, but 120W is just way too far.

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alrighty I think ima do 0.014 on just the bottom shunt and see what happens sometime soon maybe. should be ~88w

 

If i had the G14 you bet I'll be trying to push 150w

 

Anyone have the base model with the Ryzen 7, GTX 1650, and 60 Hz display? Best Buy is selling them open box for $765.


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If you just need "a dGPU" to work with an external 4k+ display, that's actually a pretty good deal.

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In all honesty with a good cooler and lm it could probably handle it

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Hi,

Does anyone know how to enable wake on lan on this machine? I tried the bios, the software, the driver power management and no luck. The option is grayed out on the power management tab for the driver. Do i need another wifi card?

Thank you in advance.

 

Anyone?

 

Anyone running HWInfo to report on VRM temps? Hopefully HWInfo captures VRM temps...curious to see what they are under max power draw conditions....

 

As far as I can tell, HWinfo doesn't report VRM temperatures on the G14

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Has anyone had the chance to look at the feasibility of lapping the heatsink? Both CPU/GPU surfaces? Looks like the CPU is raised from the rest of the heatsink surface so you should be able to get at the surface with a glass plate and some sandpaper to lap it...the GPU is what I'm concerned with...Looks like the GPU heatsink is recessed and so having the chance to rub the GPU heatsink surface with some glass is going to be next to impossible...

 

My heatsink has fantastic contact with the CPU, and lapping it is pointless. The GPU in the other hand, is not very good, but still temperatures are amazing despite the shunt mod.

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I don't have my G14 yet but do you have any pictures from the side on the heatsink? I'm trying to see if the GPU surface is recessed or if its above the rest of the components where I could potentially lap it?....

 

Just use a sponge with sandpaper, it will help distribute the force evenly across the heatsink.

 

That won't actually make the heatsink perfectly flat...that's my goal. The GPU surface is convex and so it presses more in the middle than the edges...I was hoping to get it perfectly flat...I've done so on my desktop coolers and it makes a world of a difference...can't imagine how much better it'd be with a small laptop cooler...

Just picked up the G14 this Am! Best Buy has their black friday sale going now, $250 off the R9/2060 version.

 

You will need a small piece of glass since the pressure brackets get in the way. However, as mentioned earlier, unless you experience awful GPU temperatures, not worth it in this device.

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do people recommend this machine? I'm thinking of getting one and best buy has a sale that looks killer to me.

 

At most you'll see a few degrees' worth of difference, and the gpu isn't thermally limited anyways, I don't particularly see why unless you're going for hardcore overclock?

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I just bought one, I think it's pretty awesome.

Main complaints seem to be the screen response time (pretty slow, 30+ MS grey to grey) but the colors are pretty good.

Also 8gb of the 16gb is soldered on. You can use 16gb in dual channel, but if you pop in a larger stick anything beyond 16gb will be single channel. Not a big issue unless you're doing stuff that really eats up ram.

The cpu is a beast.

I'm considering the gpu shunt mod and a repaste, maybe to LM. Gotta do some more testing first. Getting Cinebench r20 495 single/4350ish multi without the fans getting too loud (turbo profile). Havent done much GPU benching yet.

If you have the extra money then the Eluktronics Max-15 is a good option. Also considered the RP-15 which is a very good price.

 

Best buy screwed me over and now my order isn't going to be here today at all...maybe not even next week... Plus with thanksgiving and travels at this point I won't be getting this till Dec 1...who knows... I've been on the phone with them practically all day and no resolution...nice...guess i'll just have to wait longer now...

 

For what it is worth...we have plenty of them in stock. If you get it stock, it will ship within 1 business day, and with Customization, it will ship within 3 business days.

 

that sucks. I guess i'm lucky to have 5 of them within 20 minutes of me.

 

Guess 2020 claims another casualty

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It'll be here Monday but unfortunately...out of town for thanksgiving...guess it'll have to wait a week...lets hope it actually stays at the fedex location and isn't stolen since you can clearly tell its a laptop on the outside...

With after 8 calls to best buy and fedex and about 4 hours down..lets hope this is the perfect unit....

Edit: I'll be replacing the stock 1tb drive with a SK Hynix Gold P31 1TB drive. Apparently that's one of the best ssds on the market right now for pcie3. Can't wait to experience that speed!

 

I may go this route as well, but I wish it was available in 2gb

 

2TB is available by XPG and Samsung 970 EVO PLUS M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive.

Either will be virtually the same performance, or better, than the SK Hynix.

 

Best Buy is so incompetent... its staggering they're still in business...

I'm away so supposedly Best Buy is the only one that can put package holds on their products being shipped...so nothing I do with fedex will hold the package... Apparently Fedex will try 3 times then return the package to Best Buy...so tried on chat and over the phone to have Best Buy contact Fedex to change the shipping...they can't figure it out...so they just instead flat out are shipping ANOTHER G14 laptop to me...no extra charge..LOL so now I'll have 2 G14 laptops in route to me being held by Fedex and probably will both be undelivered...haha this is awesome!

My only hope is that it take Fedex a few days to ship the 2nd G14 being shipped out on Wednesday.. I'm pretty sure by the end of this I'll have no laptop...no refund...and no more sale that they won't honor...that's my luck in 2020... or... I end up getting both for the price of 1..lol

 

This seems like more of a problem with FedEx. I've had lots of issues with them in terms of getting stuff delivered (or not as has been the case sometimes). It seems odd they won't let you put any sort of hold on it because it should be possible at least after the first delivery attempt has been made.

 

I just paid $11 to get it delivered when I'm back in town in a 2 hour window.... lets see if it actually goes through...lol maybe I should do the same thing with the 2nd G14 or see if that'll be delivered once I get back home....Who knows...maybe I'll be able to pick the one with the least amount of issues..hehe It's crazy..worst buying experience ever....well no...buying a car from a dealer is worse...

Edit: Looks like the package is finally held! Guess throwing money at the problem fixed it...hmm...metaphor for life... I'll likely have to do the same thing with my 2nd laptop coming..which hasn't shipped yet...so fingers crossed on the 2nd...

I'll do a full teardown after a few tests with both units and determining which unit is better if I do indeed get both....

 

Alright! Time to post an update!
I ended up getting only 1 unit the other day. Got everything installed...mostly... did a bunch of testing and ended up taking it apart already and doing a repaste job. Glad I did because the thermal paste on the G14 is awful. It's like caked on and baked in...hard as a rock and pretty thick between the CPU/GPU and heatsink. Unfortunately I did a super quick job and probably didn't do the best...which I think you'll see in CPU temps over GPU temps. I currently have a custom fan curve in AC and right now I max out around 83C on the CPU and 62C on the GPU. I'm still in the process of overclocking and tuning the GPU... looks like there's quite a bit of voltage headroom... Right now I'm trying to get stable at 1605MHz and 0.713V which I believe might be stable ATM....

Here's a link to my Flickr album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30149337@N04/albums/72157717119290976

One thing that did concern me abit was the GPU heatsink surface...there was a knick in the surface which was raised and ended up making an indentation in the GPU surface...now there's a coating between the GPU and actual transistors, however, it does appear to be enough that my fingernail catches on it...so I just flat out went right away and ended up doing a fast lap job (not dirty) on the heatsink... as you'll see the surface is WAY smoother with a near mirror finish now... I didn't take much time on it as I wanted to get it reassembled quickly.


This is after my lapp job:


I'm giving Thermal Grizzly Kaundanaut or whatever its called a try...
I added 1.5mm thermal pads to the CPU/GPU tops in hops of creating additional surface pressure on the dyes...not sure they're actually making contact... I think they are because I added another 1.5MM and it was too much...started to bow the back cover.


Overall super happy with the CPU. It's a beast! I'm getting 1935 in CinebenchR15....
GPU is crippled with the 65W limit... I have 4 shunts and once I get some down time I'll do the shunt mod on the GPU TDP for around 85-90W...

 

Kryonaut is only good for 1 or 2 days and doesn't spread very well. Best for laptops are Nanogrease, Mx-4 and Hydronaut.

Did you add thermal paste to the memories and VRMs?

Please remove the thermal pads ontop the heatsink. That doesn't improve thermals significantly and will en up cracking a die due to the additional pressure (specially when you thumble the laptop around)

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• Kryonaut will be temporary..just wanted to give it a go since I have a tube... MX-4 will be the replacement...I should be getting that for Christmas...lol
• I'm not really worried about the pads adding unnecessary pressure...in-fact I don't really think they're barely touching the copper tape on the bottom of the frame.. I'm hoping that I can transfer some of the heat to the case..since I've got a cooling pad underneath it at almost all times.

Next up will be the shunt mod... I think I'll need to file down the tip of my soldering iron a tad since the shunts are soo tiny. But man, I can't wait to unlock the full potential of the GPU... I'm running benchmarks all day and, obviously dependent on fan speeds, but I'm barely hitting 60C on the GPU after the repaste while hitting the TDP limit...Soo much thermal runway that 80-90W really should be nothing for this laptop.

You're going to hate me...lol when I get carried away I thermal pad everything in sight...lol

 

There is no reason to get MX4 nowadays, it was a good budget option a few years back but now it either performs worse than top pastes like CM mastergel maker/gelid GC extreme or is worse value than chinese pastes that cost far less and perform just as well like the GD900.

 

Dude, it's not hate, just concern.

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Does anyone know the size of screws the back cover uses? I'm looking to switch the screws out for torque heads since the Philips is already getting worn down...by taking it apart twice...by the time I get done with all my mods the screws are going to be destroyed....

 

They're M2.5, but I don't know the length.

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Mod is in! I was SOO nervous this AM trying to solder the wires to the shunt on the mobo... I ended up soldering both shunts on the motherboard together by accident. Thankfully I was able to salvage it and everything is all set. I was hoping HWINFO would pick up the additional watts but unfortunately it does not...so basically I have to add an amount to get the real wattage... Still trying to figure out what the real TDP is with a 0.015mOhm shunt....anyone?

I'm surprised how little clock and voltage that actually adds... I guess since its a desktop chip getting anywhere near desktop speeds would easily require >100w on the GPU...

I'm now #2 in Time Spy: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/15887179
#1 in Firestrike: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/24214388

This is freaking awesome! I was SOO nervous booting for the first time...
Now I need to tune in my overclock.

Edit: I think I've finally honed in on my overclock. It's odd that Firestrike actually crashes when the GPU boosts to 0.950V based on what I had for my overclock...I was going bases on the charts from Techpowerup on clock profiles of standard desktop RTX2060's... I figured my clock speed at that voltage was plenty stable but apparently it isn't...

For temperatures: It's interesting that the CPU still runs hot...getting upto 88C in benchmarks...definitely still lower than stock and lower in Cinebench...maxing out at like 72C in those benchmarks. GPU temps are incredible...with like a 30% fan I top out at 67C with the shunt mod... Super impressed by the temps!

Power Draw: Using my Wemo plug, I've seen upto 140W on the entire system but mostly settles around 115-120W when gaming/benchmarking from the wall.

Thanks to @Biker Gremling for the bolt size! I ordered the last one of M2.5 x 10mm since I measured the longer screws and they're all 10mm. They're button top hex head screws so that'll be WAY more reliable when I have to get access to the laptop internals!

 

So just FYI.. I truly appreciate all you guys scaring the crap outta yourselves testing all these new ways we can eek more power and performance out of this laptop. I was so excited when I finally found a laptop small enough to throw in my backpack that would play decent games instead of using a long battery life ultrabook with poor performance. My hats off to you all and thank you!

So I just recently bought an open box g14 and it was plagued with the dreaded black screen of death where it wouldn't wake up after sleep. I exchanged it for a new one and have not had a single problem with it.. at all.

What I'm curious about is heat dissipation. I'm not really looking for a performance boost as much as I am just wanting temps to go down. I saw a post somewhere talking about liquid metal, so I started reading about it. I haven't seen anyone use it on this G14 yet. Why is that? What's more concerning to me is how rough the heatsink plate is and how gobbed of thermal paste (probably toothpaste haha) that's all over the board when removing the heat pipes. Isn't too much paste as bad a not enough?

So here are my questions:

1. How do you remove the extra paste off the board once you remove the heat pipes? Is alcohol residue conductive? What would work best?

2. This liquid metal.. is it really as good as they say? How do you put enough on without the heatsink pushing the extra out on the pins of the board causing a short and messing up the system board?

3. Does anyone know of a drop in replacement fan that's of better quality than what's in here now? They seem to do their job well, but at low speeds, there's the high pitch noise that's driving me up the wall. I'd rather pay a ton for good fans (like noctua fans for desktop cases) and know they will be quiet and work great.

I have SO many other questions like - Does anyone know of a good write up on undervolting and the correct way to set that up? Why does the Armory app have its own cpu/throttling/performance/battery saving settings when there's another Windows set of those same settings in the o/s - and which one do I use? OR - why doesn't the Armory app stop the fans in silent mode, but I can go get an app like atrofac and change the curve manually? I'm confused why I have to juggle three different apps to do what one should in regards to performance/throttling/temps.

Does anyone have a real simple list of what they've done to get the most bang out of this as well as the most battery life? I just don't know what i should be setting in Windows vs. Armory. Most of my changes are to quiet the high pitch in the fan. Seems to me this would really be the holy grail of a portable gaming device (aside from this said ghosting I haven't seen myself yet) if we could just get these settings all configured and everyone agree and share it

 

IF you want to silently game...get MSI Afterburner and undervolt the GPU... I can game at 1440p no problem with the GPU capped at 1515MHz and 0.715V... CPU I use the Ryzen Controller and limit my TDP to 10 and boost to 20...that seems to keep the CPU from going over 70C which is great for this unit.

I still have a few thermal tweaks up my sleeve including COPPER tape that I plan to cover the heatsink heatpipes with to promote thermal migration. I have to wait for the new screws to arrive as mine have basically worn out with taking the back cover off 4 times already... I ordered m2.5 and m2 type screws so I'll let you know which ones they are... apparently on a parts retailer for asus they're saying they're M2 both 9mm and 4.5mm in length... tbd on that.

I also cannot recommend more a 4k monitor... I've got a 28" 4k ASUS TUF monitor and it's simply a game changer for a laptop/computer... Photo editing etc is just so much easier and I don't lose out on DPI with the 4k.... the laptop is butter smooth at 4k also.

The one thing that really bugs me about the laptop is that there's no thermal monitoring of the VRM...or at least not in HWINFO yet.... I knew the XPS 15 was like that for awhile then HWINFO updated and we were able to monitor VRM temps...but even though it's actively cooled VRM it'd be nice to see that number... especially with the shunt mod...

FYI I'm able to upp the TDP of the CPU to 75w and get 1961 score in CinebenchR15...lol I was hoping to break the 2k mark but sadly I don't think that'll be possible with the cooling.....which I'll hopefully fix at a later time...

I also wish that memory timings could be changed... I get that 8GB is soldered but it'd be nice to tweak timings and upgrade the expansion slot to faster memory... that'd probably get you over the 2k hump in CB.

 

Well well well....probably the worst mistake of my hobby/career... lol

I was an idiot and before I had all my coffee I ended up RUINING the JST connector for the GPU fan....absolutely destroyed one of the pins inside the socket...what an idiot.


soo...after 2 hours of trying to fix it with a needle... I ended up just pulling up the JST connector and soldering the fan wires directly to the mobo... it works...thank god!


I created a perfectly flat heatsink that I glued some 2k grit sandpaper to... I used that to lap the CPU and GPU heatplate.... the GPU is actually more convex then you'd think...
I haven't really noticed any benefit from this on the GPU but it would appear on first benchmarks that the CPU is benefiting from the lap job.... more to come....

To give you an idea on temps:
GPU locked at 0.713V and 1515MHz - Plenty for gaming at 1440p - 60C on the GPU and around 63-65C on the CPU
GPU unlocked to 0.856V and 1818Mhz - 66C and around 70C on the CPU...

I think my temps won't be getting much better than this...at all...no matter what I do
\
hehe....cinebenchr15 slightly better now:

 

i just tried to add a 0.015 ohm to the resistor closest to the ssd, but i cant tell if it worked or not, i dont notice anything, also theres a few different kinds of shunt resistors i found, like the one i used is a thick film resistor 1206 smd 1 watt 15 mohms 1% from vishay, i got it from mouser, i have a back up incase i screwed up but i dont know if i did or not, besides that it's still capped at 65watts, also what do you guys use to see wattage? i use gpu z does that work? i'd really like some help if someone can

 

You won't be able to see a change in the tdp cap. The best way to see if the shunt mod is working is to run a gpu benchmark and see if your scores have improved.

If scores are higher (+10%) , Its working. If there's no change/small change, it's not working.

 

i just got 6123 for the gpu in timespy i dont know if that's good for a shunt modded g14 i have the 4900hs with the 2060 maxq, do i even need to over clock it? does it just use more power cause it can? i dont understand lol