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bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Sucks to say, but my G15 is going back to Best Buy this weekend.

The CPU fan not working has progressed beyond an occasional thing to something that happens whenever the fan goes beyond 3600 rpm or so or seemingly if the GPU fan is spinning really fast.

If I was confident it was just a bum fan and a replacement fan would fix the issue, I would exercise warranty on it. But I'm still within the 45 day return period that Best Buy Elite allows so I think it'll be better to just return it and re-buy when it shows up again.

I really was hoping this was some sort of software glitch, but I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling the armory crate software and jumped through a bunch of other hoops with it and no dice.

If I help the fan spin up via canned air, it tends to stay running on Silent and Performance until things get a little too stressed and then the CPU fan just drops to zero. It then goes through cycles were it tries to spin up, gets there for a second, and then spins down. Turbo tends to kill it fairly quickly.

Looking at it with the bottom off, it's strange. The fan spins backwards sometimes. Again, this is what made me think that maybe it could be a software issue since a backward spin seems like it would be some sort of dust response. But maybe it's something related to the resistance it's feeling starting to spin and does a reverse to try to fix things up.

The other odd aspect about this is it seems more likely to die if the GPU fan is going full tilt, but I don't know if it's a cause or effect type of thing. If I let it sit in the bios, I can see the fan start to spin down slowly over the course of minutes from 1000rpm to zero all the while the GPU fan is spinning up more and more. I don't know if it's because some of the heatpipes are shared and the CPU is heating up the GPU and the GPU fan is just trying to pickup the slack of the CPU fan or if something about the GPU going full tilt kills the CPU fan (voltage drop of some kind?) That's the one bit that makes me concerned about just getting the fan swapped.

Really bums me out. Otherwise the thing is perfect.

The best part about it is the MyAsus software has a self diagnosis that includes fans and even though the CPU fan refuses to spin up, it passes the test.

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MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"
Always sucks when people get bricked stuff, poo poo sucks man.

And Jesus, I was even about to order the G15 because it came back in stock today with Best Buy but decided to drive to the only location around me that has a demo model because I absolutely cannot fathom picking up a laptop without literally at least picking up the laptop and looking at it/gauge how it closes/etc. The fact that the vents seemed.. aimed at the screen was... highly unusual to me, let alone even the demo model being pretty hot in temperature, but I actually was about to get the clerk over to get the G15 ordered but he was like "actually it sold out pretty quick today online. In fact, we are usually sold out of all of these gaming laptop models in store these days, dunno why we still have displays out."

At this point I'm weighing between "get the HP Omen from them for $1,699 and upgrade the SSD card yourself by getting one on Black Friday or something and just suck it up and deal with the Intel CPU" vs. "just order the Ryzen 9/3070 RTX one from HP and just try not to think about anything laptop related for a month and don't orbit the planet if they end up cancelling your order for some reason."

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Near as I can figure right now, there must be some sort of self protection bit around the fan circutry in that if there's too high of resistance load across the fan, it tries to go through a few rounds of reverse and then frontwards a near max RPM to see if it the fan is stuck. If it can't resolve the problem, the fan shuts down completely until the fan controller cycles power to it altogether.

So, right now I have a manual fan curve on with the GPU fan at 100% (around 6300rpm) and the CPU fan set to the highest I've been able to get it to consistantly perform (3400). It's been sitting like that for awhile without issue. Now, you can't keep the CPU at that level across the whole temp profile. Once the temp of the CPU climbs past 90c or so, the fan will increase. I can see it flirt with 4200 rpm for awhile and then it just drops to zero. Then spins up again, then drops to zero. That repeats for several cycles until it just stays at zero.

Then if I move the thing to silent profile and let it settle, I think it eventually shuts off power to the fans altogether and the error condition clears. Then I can put it back on manual profile and get the fans pegged at 3500/6300 cpu/gpu again.

The issue is, load (even just GPU load) will eventually take the CPU over 90 degrees and the CPU fan trips.

So, I really think this could be resolved with just a CPU fan replacement (assuming the new one wasn't defective), but there are zero replacement parts for these notebooks right now and I really wonder how long it would sit waiting for it. One other nugget I found out this afternoon is the Best Buy models apparently have a thing worked out with Asus in that Geeksquad does warranty work on them. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, no RMA and shipping, on another hand, it's geeksquad doing the repair.

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further

Hadlock posted:

Pretty much everything at ninite.com is a wonderfully useful tool and effortless to install

That's pretty interesting.

So I only have a few days to return this Asus G15 (or not). I actually went to the only Best Buy in the area which had the thing in stock (at least had a display model) and the rep told me it was the fastest laptop they had in the store and she wouldn't return it, if it was her decision.

Also - she mentioned they were actually sold out and that was the last one left. I asked about the MSI GS66 stealth and especially the MSI Raider and she said "nah"... the G15 was better in almost every way.

So the MSI Raider they had was around 2100 I think and had 32 gigs of ram as well as ports on the back (and upgradable to 64 gigs of ram) but as she rightly pointed out, it is last year's model with last year's gpu and bigger and heavier by quite a bit. Not to mention costing more than 300 extra.

Then there was the GS66 Stealth which was no longer on sale and cost exactly as much as the G15 at 1800. It had been on sale a few weeks ago for 1500.

Anyways, long story short, I am pretty happy with the G15 except for one glaring issue which is a glitchy HDMI out. It makes my Vizio 4k TV flicker and glitch out randomly. It seems completely random but happens A LOT. Too much to use for my job which is completely a deal breaker. I am hoping maybe a different cable or a different port on the TV might fix it but I don't think that's it. I think it has to do with color profile or something since the tv keeps flashing HDR10 every time it glitches out. So frustrating... It has happened a half dozen or more times since I typed this. I may try the USB C to HDMI approach and see if it has the same problem.

In every other way the laptop delivers as promised. Super light and powerful with a very good battery. Surprisingly good sound and screen.


bull3964: That sucks about the fans. I think I mentioned earlier that I thought it was pretty loud (especially compared to the MSI stealth) but really it's the HDMI glitchiness which is driving me bonkers ATM. I keep my laptop plugged into my TV most of the time to run it out to nice speakers and watch movies etc.

EDIT:

I plugged the HDMI into the HDMI to USB C adapter and then plugged that into the powered USB C port. Haven't had a single glitch since. Not sure if I should be happy or sad about this. This implies that the HDMI port is either faulty or maybe connected to a GPU I am not currently using (?) Not sure. Also not sure if I want to return the computer over a faulty HDMI port if I can still make the video out work just fine via USB C. Hm.

sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 8, 2021

roomforthetuna
Mar 22, 2005

I don't need to know anything about virii! My CUSTOM PROGRAM keeps me protected! It's not like they'll try to come in through the Internet or something!

bull3964 posted:

On one hand, no RMA and shipping, on another hand, it's geeksquad doing the repair.
On the third hand, the people doing the repairs for RMA'd things are also incompetent, so you might as well have the local incompetents.

Uziel
Jun 28, 2004

Ask me about losing 200lbs, and becoming the Viking God of W&W.
Looking for some help picking a laptop for work. My company is buying but didn't give me a budget other than "Let me know what it costs". Not sure how to interpret that.

I'm partial to Lenovo. My current laptop is sitting on my desk connected to a big monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. It's a Lenvo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th, Core i7-855U 1.8Ghz, 16gb of LPDDR3 memory.
It's really starting to show its age with my new job.

I typically have a ton of programs open: SQL Workbench, Slack, Visual Studio Code, multiple browsers logged into multiple tabs for testing and support of our custom web-app. I sometimes do some light gaming and I'd love to play this game but my current laptop chokes running it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000360/Hellish_Quart/

I checked the OP and it seems super out of date. Are there still any good Lenovo codes? I looked and I don't see configurable ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 laptops with Tiger Lake?

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

You might look at the Lenovo P series thinkpad which I think can handle way more than 32gb memory, also has a xenon processor which might help if you're actually cpu limited by a 6th gen i7

Intel cpu stock is short due to the pandemic which might be why you can't find build to order stuff with the CPU you want

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"
Just as a heads up, the ASUS ROG G15 Strix is up on BHPhotoVideo and maybe some other retailers online.

I went ahead and just picked that up because, poo poo, might as well if I was so close to picking up the Zephyrus literally 24 hours ago.

~Coxy
Dec 9, 2003

R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD
T15g is a new model T series thinkpad with a 10th gen H CPU and a Geforce GPU.
I'd buy one except you can't get the model with a 10750 model in my country right now, and the Xeon W is too expensive.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


I actually managed to order a replacement G15 today from Best Buy, though I won't celebrate until it ships. They claim it will be here Tuesday.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

One of my PCs is an XPS 15 (9th gen intel/1650, forget model number). Its never dropped or had any traumatic experiences and I don't have any weird programs or downloads that run on it- its mainly used for browsing, discord, and like, the occasional steam game or whatever.

Out of nowhere the finger print scanner stopped working? It doesn't even register that its trying to be used anymore. Windows doesn't detect any problems with it, etc. I don't think it did any sort of BIOS updates recently? I pretty much woke up one morning and it just stopped working.

Any ideas on even where to start? This is one of the most "came out of nowhere" little issues i've ever had with a laptop

E: well, i ran the dell support utility and then it did do an update, and now it works lol

Worf fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Apr 9, 2021

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


My XPS 13 2:1 did the same thing recently. I think a Windows update messed it up or something.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Yay, my replacement G15 shipped. Now I just need to return my original this weekend and hopefully the new one will remain free of issues.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Uziel posted:

Looking for some help picking a laptop for work. My company is buying but didn't give me a budget other than "Let me know what it costs". Not sure how to interpret that.

I'm partial to Lenovo.

Uziel
Jun 28, 2004

Ask me about losing 200lbs, and becoming the Viking God of W&W.
Thanks!
Should I care about 10th gen vs 11th gen for Intel at all?

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

11th gen will be marginally faster, if your office is paying for it just get that

Or if it's a rush pick whichever ships fastest

halokiller
Dec 28, 2008

Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves


I'm looking for a laptop with the emphasis of lightweight and portability with a budget up to $2000. Specs are secondary, but I do want at least 16 gb RAM and won't die if I browse with like a million tabs. What research I did, the LG Gram series fits that bill, but wondering if there are other brands I should be looking for. No Chromebooks though.

Argona
Feb 16, 2009

I don't want to go on living the boring life of a celestial forever.

Anyone have experience with using the HP extended warranty? Got tired of getting refurb acers that die in 3 years and ordered the new envy x360. Goodbye stimulus money...

e: Actually doing a bit of research suggests that hp will give you a rebate if you buy the warranty and dont use it, anyone actually do that and get the rebate?

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

halokiller posted:

I'm looking for a laptop with the emphasis of lightweight and portability with a budget up to $2000. Specs are secondary, but I do want at least 16 gb RAM and won't die if I browse with like a million tabs. What research I did, the LG Gram series fits that bill, but wondering if there are other brands I should be looking for. No Chromebooks though.

I had the same requirements and budget and went with an XPS 13 from Dell with no regrets

Bofast
Feb 21, 2011

Grimey Drawer

Argona posted:

Anyone have experience with using the HP extended warranty? Got tired of getting refurb acers that die in 3 years and ordered the new envy x360. Goodbye stimulus money...

e: Actually doing a bit of research suggests that hp will give you a rebate if you buy the warranty and dont use it, anyone actually do that and get the rebate?

I have worked at places that had the 3 year HP on-site repair warranty and that worked very well. I've never tried anything similar for personal use, though.

~Coxy
Dec 9, 2003

R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD

Uziel posted:

Thanks!
Should I care about 10th gen vs 11th gen for Intel at all?

There's no 11th gen -S (yet.)

mancalamania
Oct 23, 2008
Does anyone know how the current XPS 13s compare to the XPS 13s from like 3-4 years ago? I may need to replace mine (XPS 9360) somewhat soon. I really liked my 9360 but it seems like in the past 3 years Dell has lost their minds trying to shrink it down to a microscopic width and I worry that the build quality may have suffered a bit in the process. In particular I've read some anecdotal reports that they are much more prone to overheating now although I don't know if this is a real widespread issue or just a few people complaining online.

ROCK THE HOUSE M.D.
Oct 9, 2003

I've got a case of malt liquor stashed in the trunk, Mr. Marvin Gaye on the CD. We are gonna get all the way down.


I am in the market for a new laptop and think I landed on this guy, if it ever becomes available again....

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VDPWBMN/

ASUS G15
15" QHD 165hz display
Ryzen 5900HS
RTX 3070 max-q
40GB 3200mhz RAM
1 TB SSD


It WAS available a few days ago for $2199 which seems very reasonable for the specs.

Anyone wanna steer me in a different direction? I'd like at least a QHD if not 4k screen. and at least a 3070. preferably ryzen. debating how much RAM to get.

great big cardboard tube
Sep 3, 2003


That's an $1800 MSRP laptop a reseller just replaced one of the 8gb ram sticks with a 32gb stick and marked up by $400.

It's really awkward since one 8gb stick is soldered on that model but even if you want the maximum lopsided 40gb you can buy a stick and replace it yourself and reuse or resell the other 8gb for much cheaper.

Lockback
Sep 3, 2006

All days are nights to see till I see thee; and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.
Yeah the G15 is a great machine but you don't need to overpay for a memory upgrade that will probably be unnoticeable unless you're doing some pretty specific things.

ROCK THE HOUSE M.D.
Oct 9, 2003

I've got a case of malt liquor stashed in the trunk, Mr. Marvin Gaye on the CD. We are gonna get all the way down.


any idea where might have the $1800 16gb ram model in stock?

MechaX
Nov 19, 2011

"Let's be positive! Let's start a fire!"
Unfortunately the G15 was in stock on Best Buy for an hour or so early this morning.

With that said, Best Buy has randomly got them throughout this week (I myself missed one window). If anything, I would make sure to hawk their website a bit for it. Keep a finger on r/GamingLaptops and check Newegg as well.

I'd suggest BHPhoto, which also might be highly reputable, but my jury is out on them until I get the G15 Strix I ordered from them in my hands

MechaX fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Apr 11, 2021

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


Yeah, they've been in and out of stock randomly. I was able to get an replacement order in on Friday and it did actually ship.

ilkhan
Oct 7, 2004

I LOVE Musk and his pro-first-amendment ways. X is the future.

MechaX posted:

I'd suggest BHPhoto, which also might be highly reputable, but my jury is out on them until I get the G15 Strix I ordered from them in my hands
BHphoto is a legit site, and regularly handles lenses and cameras and other things far more expensive than a gaming laptop.

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

BHPhoto treats their workers like trash but probably not any worse than Amazon so I made my peace with it for now

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

B&H, also lovingly referred to as Beards and Hats, as a business probably predates Amazon, unsure if their website is older than amazon's, but to call them an institution of online commerce would not be totally out of line

Also they have a mail order service if you want to avoid sales tax, if that loophole is still open, which can add up if you live in a high tax state

Hadlock fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Apr 11, 2021

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

BH photo collects sales tax now afaik. For awhile they were reimbursing people what they paid in tax via a credit card rewards program I think or something, after they started charging it.

Idk if they still do anything like that. And yeah theres plenty of reasons to dislike B&H photo, but none of them really have to do with how theyre going to handle your commerce

ROCK THE HOUSE M.D.
Oct 9, 2003

I've got a case of malt liquor stashed in the trunk, Mr. Marvin Gaye on the CD. We are gonna get all the way down.


Well best buy has the 3070 model of the G15 in stock right now for $1800, but now I have decided I want the 3080. Hopefully that one comes back in stock soon.

Lockback
Sep 3, 2006

All days are nights to see till I see thee; and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.

ROCK THE HOUSE M.D. posted:

Well best buy has the 3070 model of the G15 in stock right now for $1800, but now I have decided I want the 3080. Hopefully that one comes back in stock soon.

By all means do your thing, but the 3080 laptop IS NOT the same thing as the 3080 desktop (it uses the GA-104, same chip as the 3060ti, 3070, mobile 3070. Teh desktop uses the GA-102). The 3070 vs the 3080 on mobile is really not that much of a gulf, and since they use the same TDP in the G15 the performance difference is really small.

Lockback fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Apr 11, 2021

ROCK THE HOUSE M.D.
Oct 9, 2003

I've got a case of malt liquor stashed in the trunk, Mr. Marvin Gaye on the CD. We are gonna get all the way down.


Lockback posted:

By all means do your thing, but the 3080 laptop IS NOT the same thing as the 3080 desktop (it uses the GA-104, same chip as the 3060ti, 3070, mobile 3070. Teh desktop uses the GA-102). The 3070 vs the 3080 on mobile is really not that much of a gulf, and since they use the same TDP in the G15 the performance difference is really small.

Well you talked me back into the 3070, and I managed to sneak an order through while best buy had it in stock for all of 30 seconds.

Tactical Grace
May 1, 2008
Hi everyone, I bought a new laptop a week ago and when I've been playing various games I've had a recurring crash to windows 10 BSOD code: UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION

I ran SFC and chdisk and SFC did replace some files (chdsk was clean) but am still experiencing crashing when playing games (mostly Total War: Warhammer 2 and Three Kingdoms - it might crash with other stuff but that's what I've been playing) and also just using Windows, less frequently but still occasionally.

Apologies if this is the wrong thread, say and I'll edit my post. I've opened an RMA as the research I have conducted doesn't seem to be convincing me that this isn't a hardware fault and I've taken reasonable steps to diagnose and fix the problem. Still it would be less annoying to fix the issue. Then again if my RMA was easy going I'd probably upgrade to the 3070 model.

Any insight?

Lockback
Sep 3, 2006

All days are nights to see till I see thee; and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.

Tactical Grace posted:

Hi everyone, I bought a new laptop a week ago and when I've been playing various games I've had a recurring crash to windows 10 BSOD code: UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION

I ran SFC and chdisk and SFC did replace some files (chdsk was clean) but am still experiencing crashing when playing games (mostly Total War: Warhammer 2 and Three Kingdoms - it might crash with other stuff but that's what I've been playing) and also just using Windows, less frequently but still occasionally.

Apologies if this is the wrong thread, say and I'll edit my post. I've opened an RMA as the research I have conducted doesn't seem to be convincing me that this isn't a hardware fault and I've taken reasonable steps to diagnose and fix the problem. Still it would be less annoying to fix the issue. Then again if my RMA was easy going I'd probably upgrade to the 3070 model.

Any insight?

You check the system log in Windows?

SFC picking up things is a concern. It might be a GPU driver screw up or even something that went wrong on the Windows image. I'd probably first try to DDU your Nvidia driver and re-install and see what that looks like. Then maybe a clean install of Windows.

Since its brand new a RMA is also totally reasonable. It could be a failing SSD or bad memory. That's a super generic error without more detail.

Bofast
Feb 21, 2011

Grimey Drawer

Tactical Grace posted:

Hi everyone, I bought a new laptop a week ago and when I've been playing various games I've had a recurring crash to windows 10 BSOD code: UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION

I ran SFC and chdisk and SFC did replace some files (chdsk was clean) but am still experiencing crashing when playing games (mostly Total War: Warhammer 2 and Three Kingdoms - it might crash with other stuff but that's what I've been playing) and also just using Windows, less frequently but still occasionally.

Apologies if this is the wrong thread, say and I'll edit my post. I've opened an RMA as the research I have conducted doesn't seem to be convincing me that this isn't a hardware fault and I've taken reasonable steps to diagnose and fix the problem. Still it would be less annoying to fix the issue. Then again if my RMA was easy going I'd probably upgrade to the 3070 model.

Any insight?

It should most likely have to do with RAM or the SSD in that computer, or possibly some storage related driver.
Microsoft has some troubleshooting tips a bit further down on this page that could maybe help you figure out if a specific application or driver is the cause, but a lot of the time it might require a minidump and someone who knows how to read them to look at what exactly goes wrong.

It could be that a BIOS and/or chipset driver update would resolve the problem, but since it's such a recent purchase an RMA might be the best way to go depending on how much you feel like troubleshooting.

Tactical Grace
May 1, 2008
Thanks all for your feedback. I kinda expected it to be a bit of a slog. As you can tell I'm a novice when it come to troubleshooting and all of the troubleshoots seem to recommend trying changing little things and then running the system and seeing if it happens again. Considering it can take a few hours of use for the crash to happen this would equate to many, many hours of messing around in the OS and I think, if possible, it's gonna be less painful to go through the RMA process. Thanks again!

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Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

Do a full long memory test and if that comes back clean (if the memory test fails, it's a RMA/warranty on the laptop), check out one of the several windows threads and do a driver troubleshooting. If still nothing comes back bad, contact mfg and see if this is a driver/warranty issue, I guess? My money is on weird windows driver shenanigans, which is outside the scope of this thread. Good luck

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