Asus Caught Being Malicious - Zephyrus G15 has fan vents blocked by black paper. Reason Unknown

[Derangel]

As fun as it would be to point fingers at Intel and claim there is some conspiracy, most likely this is Asus being Asus (as others have said). Asus has done monumentally stupid things with designs in the past and there have been a lot of complaints about the quality of their laptops over the years. This could have been something done last minute for some reason and we'll likely never know unless someone from Asus actually acknowledges it and explains, but they'll most likely ignore it and "fix" it in a new iteration.

 

As I recall, they basically created a fake vent on one of the ROG phones so them being a bit weird/shady with vents isn't exclusive to AMD laptops.

[SansVarnic]

To many are people putting way to much thought into this... most likely something that was missed during the manufacturing process since a lot of the process is automatic/robotic. Its happened before and will probably happen again.

[xAcid9]

So both fan intake vents was blocked, and it didn't happen to the more expensive M model which use the same chasis. Shady really, but doubt Intel got anything to do with this.

 

Also, the irony.

Spoiler

 

7 hours ago, Derangel said:

As I recall, they basically created a fake vent on one of the ROG phones so them being a bit weird/shady with vents isn't exclusive to AMD laptops.

Damn, that remind me one of their ROG laptop with "2 exhaust vents" but one is actually fake. I got scold by a customer because of that.

[coasterghost]

Both of my siblings have this exact computer. Albeit purchased months part with the Ryzen 3750. I’ll check tomorrow (later today; 2:20am at time of posting on the East coast of the US) to see if I can see if any of the vents are covered. I’ll let ya know what I see. I won’t do anything internal however, as one was literally bought last week. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Man, those "warranty void" stickers are huge!

[SOLO_AVENGER]

Maybe Asus makes more money if they sell an Intel laptop, so they nerf their AMD laptops to sell more of their Intel ones.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, SOLO_AVENGER said:

Maybe Asus makes more money if they sell an Intel laptop, so they nerf their AMD laptops to sell more of their Intel ones.

If that were the case (which I highly doubt) they would make more more money again by just not making AMD latops in the first place.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 hours ago, SOLO_AVENGER said:

Maybe Asus makes more money if they sell an Intel laptop, so they nerf their AMD laptops to sell more of their Intel ones.

That wouldn't make any sense.Maybe if they were an absolute monopoly, but even then, they would not make the other model at all.

 

A blocked vent would only generate worse outcomes over time, or maybe some lower peak performance in reviews. But there is no way Asus can ensure that people discouraged from buying these Asus models then switch to buying other Asus models. In fact, there is a non-negligible risk of bad models harming Asus' overall sales if their issues are salient enough. Most people may hear "Asus laptops have problems", then a minority may hear "Asus Zephyrus laptops have problems", a niche within that may hear "Asus Zephyrus G15 has problems", and finally some of the people reading these threads will actually remember "Asus Zephyrus G15 with Ryzen processors in particular have cooling issues, although fixable". And even those could shift their demand away from Asus, because their second best after discarding that specific Zephyrus could be anything else (for example, a laptop with the same CPU and GPU from someone else). People who cares more about it "being an Asus" than about the specific components used are also the ones that will have brand-level perceptions changed from bad experiences or reviews, so... not really a sensible strategy at all.

 

 

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a consequence of a design flaw unrelated to the fans themselves: I wouldn't be surprised if some time down the road some other component dies due to heat in these modded-vents laptops, because those pieces of paper were there as a makeshift solution to route airflow over some component whose cooling was neglected in the design phase and it turned out it needed more air.

We see it all the time in desktops, where people measure cooling only through GPU and CPU sensors, neglecting everything else, but typically that's not as much of a concern in desktops as in laptops, where everything is crammed and next to every other heat source.

[Belgarathian]

I suspect it was a last minute engineering/design issue that was corrected with a fix of paper, rather than a redesign of the mold for the base plate. 

 

There may have been concerns about ingress causing longevity issues as so they decided to seal the vent well past final design being signed off. 

[bob345]

On 5/2/2020 at 12:22 PM, Tog Driver said:

Yeah, they could.

Ever heard of sabotage? Do you’re job just good enough that people don’t suspect you, but when no one is looking throw some metal dust into electronics or something.

 

not saying this was sabotage (just dropped by the thread out of curiosity, haven’t read the whole thing) but it’s possible for unhappy workers to Be productive.

We are not talking about sabotage by an assembler. The kind of change we see on this computer would require a documented ECO before it would make it in to any production part if the company knows what they are doing. Stuff like that will go through a design review, prototype revision, and then to production. Its not something a single worker can do on a whim. What likely happened is there was a issue/flaw with the design (EMC?), management didn't want to miss their deadline, so engineering had to come up with a band-aid solution to make their target ship date.

[Tog Driver]

27 minutes ago, bob345 said:

We are not talking about sabotage by an assembler. The kind of change we see on this computer would require a documented ECO before it would make it in to any production part if the company knows what they are doing. Stuff like that will go through a design review, prototype revision, and then to production. Its not something a single worker can do on a whim. What likely happened is there was a issue/flaw with the design (EMC?), management didn't want to miss their deadline, so engineering had to come up with a band-aid solution to make their target ship date.

As I said:

On 5/2/2020 at 2:22 PM, Tog Driver said:

not saying this was sabotage (just dropped by the thread out of curiosity, haven’t read the whole thing) but it’s possible for unhappy workers to Be productive.

I have no idea what happened in this case, I merely gave 5x5 an example of unhappy people still working.

[TH1813254617]

Methinks this may have something to do with dust entering the fans? A more proper solution would be to have proper mesh, maybe they decided in the last minute that having proper mesh was a bit more expensive, so they use paper instead, since the component would still operate to spec (temps, base clock) anyways.

The reason they didn't so this with Intel may simply be Intel chips running a bit too hot when they did that.

[xAcid9]

1 hour ago, TH1813254617 said:

Methinks this may have something to do with dust entering the fans? A more proper solution would be to have proper mesh, maybe they decided in the last minute that having proper mesh was a bit more expensive, so they use paper instead, since the component would still operate to spec (temps, base clock) anyways.

The reason they didn't so this with Intel may simply be Intel chips running a bit too hot when they did that.

Explain this?

 

 

 

Different model, similar practice. Lower end model get shit ventilation despite similar chasis. 

[5x5]

1 hour ago, TH1813254617 said:

Methinks this may have something to do with dust entering the fans? A more proper solution would be to have proper mesh, maybe they decided in the last minute that having proper mesh was a bit more expensive, so they use paper instead, since the component would still operate to spec (temps, base clock) anyways.

The reason they didn't so this with Intel may simply be Intel chips running a bit too hot when they did that.

Why does the intel based M15 not have fan blockers then? It's the absolute same chassis. Funnily enough that M15 runs hotter despite much better ventilation

[Trik'Stari]

I've seen similar paper on both dell and lenovo laptops.

 

Specifically Latitude models for dell and Thinkpads for lenovo. They were not AMD models either. Not sure what it's supposed to do. I always removed it, as it was usually half falling apart by the time I opened the laptop anyways.

[xAcid9]

34 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Specifically Latitude models for dell and Thinkpads for lenovo. They were not AMD models either. Not sure what it's supposed to do. I always removed it, as it was usually half falling apart by the time I opened the laptop anyways.

Same, usually on the exhaust vent though. Never really on on the intake. Probably trying to redirect the airflow or creating air pressure.

[Bombastinator]

Deleted.  Previously noted info

[cj09beira]

On 5/2/2020 at 3:51 PM, mariushm said:

Same reason why some power supply fans have plastic over a part of the fan...

 

 

The plastic directs the flow of air in the direction of some parts that actually need the cold air , or cause some "vortex" inside, preventing pockets of warm air from forming in some areas of the power supply (and that warm air gets stuck in that area and doesn't move).

not sure about that specific case but i seen in my 2 power supplys that the plastic was there to prevent things inside from hitting the blade, if i am not mistaken it was were the bundle of cables exits the power supply 

On 5/2/2020 at 5:46 PM, CTR640 said:

Can't we all boycot Asus? They have really stupid the past years and it seems they don't care at all.

I doubt Asus doesn't have interest in AMD otherwise they simply won't put AMD in their laptops and starts self-sabotaging. There is a more chance of Intel bribed Asus to make AMD look bad, that's the only one possibility I see it for now. Asus is not dumb to design it this way. It's just Intel doing shady stuff again like they did in the past and they are simply willing to do that over and over again. Intel knows they are in deep shit, Intel knows they have been sleeping and way too arrogant and greedy. Why is it only Asus so far and not other brands?

from destroying the TUF brand, to reusing nvidea coolers made for large dies on small die amd cards, to overcharging for their products, to not wanting to support x470, they are indeed in need of a shakedown 

[Bombastinator]

This seems like there may or may not be something up here.  There are apparently reasonable reasons for covering vents and quite questionable ones.  Making cases takes time.  They have to be molded for one thing and the mold making itself is a not fast multi part process.  I wonder if this is an issue where a case designed for an intel part was repurposed and the results were odd and inefficient.  Wouldn’t be the first time asus has had situations where it was slower off the mark than other makers and had to do odd things.  Particularly with the tuf brand stuff.  There seem to be reaction time problems there.

[D13H4RD]

This is far from the first time ASUS has gimped the cooling system on their laptop.

 

Anyone remember the GL502? That laptop had a cooling system that I still question to this day, being that I owned one. For starters, the intake vents are very restrictive and don't cover the fans, only the heatpipe. While one could argue that this helps inhibit dust, I could also make the argument that they could've done something real clever and incorporate a fine mesh design or something similar. My old Lenovo Y410P (which died a short-circuity death) had something identical, so it is doable.

 

There's also the fact that the bottom display bezel blocks the exhaust vents when opened, which is resolved on the newer GL503, but still something that should not have passed the design stage.

[Tenma White]

Is the block vents the only reason of the heating problems? What about the thermal paste? I heard that the M15 has liquid metal while the G15 has normal thermal paste.
 

[xAcid9]

Props to Hardware Unboxed for this follow up video. 

 

 

TL;DR
by cutting more holes to allow for better airflow and make the laptop boost higher/longer, the VRM temp will go up or even overheat. 

[ravenshrike]

30 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Props to Hardware Unboxed for this follow up video. 

 

 

TL;DR
by cutting more holes to allow for better airflow and make the laptop boost higher/longer, the VRM temp will go up or even overheat. 

The VRM temps only go up enough to overheat if you chop giant holes in the bottom. If you only open it up directly under the fan intake the increase is marginal. What's more, the majority of the increase is not due to airflow changes, but due to the greater power usage since the components boost higher. So because they couldn't be bothered to design the laptop for the CPU used, they artificially restrict the components by inducing thermal throttling.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, xAcid9 said:

Props to Hardware Unboxed for this follow up video. 

 

 

TL;DR
by cutting more holes to allow for better airflow and make the laptop boost higher/longer, the VRM temp will go up or even overheat. 

That video and this thread reminds me of amateur car modifiers,  all the newbies claiming they can improve the performance or fuel efficiency while ignoring the unwanted side effects.

 

Basically Asus have settled at a point that gives consumers the most reliable experience for a price.

If you don't like it buy a different laptop.  There has to be something out there with better cooling giving users the full CPU/GPU without VRM throttling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

24 minutes ago, mr moose said:

That video and this thread reminds me of amateur car modifiers,  all the newbies claiming they can improve the performance or fuel efficiency while ignoring the unwanted side effects.

Basically Asus have settled at a point that gives consumers the most reliable experience for a price.

If you don't like it buy a different laptop.  There has to be something out there with better cooling giving users the full CPU/GPU without VRM throttling.

i still think they should have mentioned those side effects on the box or a warning sticker inside as to why those vent shouldn't be removed.