ASUS Laptop - Issues Galore, Help Appreciated

[joeltech]

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a better afternoon than I am.

 

So my laptop, an ASUS Zephyrus G (2019 Base Model) over the last month or so has been an absolute NIGHTMARE. Now, this isn't the first time it's happened but Armoury Crate has just STOPPED reading all CPU info (Voltage, Memory Frequency and most importantly, Temperature...) while still showing all the GPU info! I wouldn't be as worried about this if the device didn't (evidently) rely on Armoury Crate for fan control. While this issue persists, the device will NOT spin up the fans past 2800RPM for the CPU fan, and 2500RPM for the GPU fan, which as you can probably figure out, does not lead to a "cool" device. If I want the device to not die of overheating, I have to set the fans to manual and run them at 45%+ so that the system doesn't just speedrun hitting 100c.

 

Curiously, other programs such as HardwareMonitor and NVIDIA performance monitor read the CPU temps and show them fairly accurately (from what I can tell without a thermal camera). The only fix that works most of the time, is to reset the device completely and try again. A feat that I've had to do 10 actual times in the 3 years I've owned this device, but am no longer going to do because I just don't have the time to do it every few months.

 

Thankfully, Armoury Crate being stupid is one of the bigger issues. The next few are just... dumb, but here we go:

- Often the keyboard backlighting brightness cannot be controlled (not a huge issue, but it's still annoying when I'm trying to save some battery)

- Randomly the top row of keys (Volume Up/Down // Microphone Mute Toggle // Armoury Crate Button) will stop working for as long as 1 week

- Screen Brightness will often not allow me to adjust it AT ALL (usually fixes if I connect an external monitor, adjust it, and unplug where it'll work fine from there)

- Battery Drain is significantly worse than even a few months ago. (Could be battery degredation, but I've babied this thing pretty hard so I don't know)

and finally...

The responsiveness... oh. my. goodness...

I mentioned previously that I've had to reset this device a bunch... and whenever I do, the system is (understandably) at it's peak of responsiveness. But the level of sluggish-ness that I have to deal with on this device BLOWS MY MIND.

What used to be a ~20 second boot time, now takes as long as 5 minutes on a bad day. Basic windows functions (opening the start menu, alt tabbing, opening programs, general OS navigation) are a NIGHTMARE, with sluggish animations, outright failure to register inputs and very RARELY keys ghost and only stop pressing when I restart the device. (These issues happen both on Windows 10 & Windows 11)

 

So, understandably I turn to google. As it would turn out, with a simple search "asus armoury crate not showing cpu temp" that returns over 220,000 results, you can imagine how SHOCKED I was to learn that hundreds (thousands potentially) of other people were having this issue, even on devices that cost LITERALLY twice as much as mine. And every single "fix" either doesn't work or is outdated due to how they've updated Armoury Crate.

With none of these fixes working, I've had to borrow a laptop from a family member so that I can do my work in school (the whole reason I have a laptop ATM) while I'm trying to fix these issues.

 

Bit of an off-topic bit here, but how is NOBODY talking about this issue. AFAIK ASUS hasn't publicly acknowledged these issues, or made any attempt to rectify/fix them... wow...

 

Anyways, If there is anything that you guys can think of, don't hesitate to let me know, as I'd love to continue using this device.

Thanks so much for your time,

-Joel

[Bombastinator]

So there’s no bios fan control?

 

ive never heard a single good thing about armory crate.

[joeltech]

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So there’s no bios fan control?

 

ive never heard a single good thing about armory crate.

Nope, Just checked and it's super basic stuff like USB modes & Virtualization control

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, joeltech said:

Nope, Just checked and it's super basic stuff like USB modes & Virtualization control

Weird, The only company I’ve ever so much as heard of in the last 30 years that didn’t put at least some fan speed control in bios is HP, and they only did it on low end office/appliance desktops. I’ve never seen an asus bios that didn’t have it.  You were mentioning 3rd party control systems that don’t have the problem armory crate does there is one callled speedfan that does have fan controls. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Bombastinator

[BiotechBen]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Weird, The only company I’ve ever so much as heard of in the last 30 years that didn’t put at least some fan speed control in bios is HP, and they only did it on low end office/appliance desktops. I’ve never seen an asus bios that didn’t have it.

Brand new HP Victus, 5800H, 3050Ti, barely a difference with BIOS between this and my older Pavilion with 3700U APU, and the Omen Command center is really just monitoring with very little control over anything ( fan control auto and blowie level of air moving but not whiney fan), Nvidia control panel is a joke, and believe it or not: Radeon Settings is the most robust of the three, but no active monitoring of metrics? I love the laptop so far, but more BIOS outside of blue and grey W95 would be nice. 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, BiotechBen said:

Brand new HP Victus, 5800H, 3050Ti, barely a difference with BIOS between this and my older Pavilion with 3700U APU, and the Omen Command center is really just monitoring with very little control over anything ( fan control auto and blowie level of air moving but not whiney fan), Nvidia control panel is a joke, and believe it or not: Radeon Settings is the most robust of the three, but no active monitoring of metrics? I love the laptop so far, but more BIOS outside of blue and grey W95 would be nice. 

That would be literally more expensive.  Bios is soldered to the motherboard as flash rom. More eye candy means more memory which means more money.

[BiotechBen]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

That would be literally more expensive.  Bios is soldered to the motherboard as flash rom. More eye candy means more memory which means more money.

Oh, I agree, I mean like literally if it was just straight black and white vs blue and grey it would look way nicer and not W95-esque. I am all about function over form, I will pay more money for a similar product to NOT have "gamer aesthetic" and RGB everywhere. and in theory B&W should take less memory than blue and grey right?

[Bombastinator]

49 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Oh, I agree, I mean like literally if it was just straight black and white vs blue and grey it would look way nicer and not W95-esque. I am all about function over form, I will pay more money for a similar product to NOT have "gamer aesthetic" and RGB everywhere. and in theory B&W should take less memory than blue and grey right?

True.  Sometimes it’s hard to resist that sweet sweet 8-bit color though /s. That may be a left over from CRTs and monochrome monitors though.

[unclewebb]

@joeltech

If you are running Windows 11, open up Windows Features and check to see what virtualization features are enabled. Some of these can block monitoring and control programs from accessing some of the CPU registers. This can create a lot of problems.

 

Post a screenshot if you want some suggestions about what might need to be disabled. 

 

The Core isolation - memory integrity feature can also cause problems.

[joeltech]

On 5/17/2022 at 9:10 PM, unclewebb said:

@joeltech

If you are running Windows 11, open up Windows Features and check to see what virtualization features are enabled. Some of these can block monitoring and control programs from accessing some of the CPU registers. This can create a lot of problems.

 

Post a screenshot if you want some suggestions about what might need to be disabled. 

 

The Core isolation - memory integrity feature can also cause problems.

This reminds me of something that comes up semi-frequently when opening/closing armoury crate. A little notification often comes up saying "CPU information will not be displayed if "Memory Integrity" under "Core Isolation" is disabled."

 

But even with memory integrity enabled, it still doesn't show the temps