I bought my ROG Asus Strix Gl503GE-(EN169T) gaming laptop just two months ago. And already it went to the service centre two times. I am shocked that a brand new laptop bought just two months ago has already had two visits in the service centre. Now let me explain the issues. At first there was extreme coil whine problem. The sound was very irritating. There was no way which i knew of that could stop it or atleast decrease it's volume. We bought our last laptop 8 years ago and it had become very important to get a new one has the old one (also an asus) had become outdated and was very slow. But the coil whine in the new Asus Strix made doing work quietly almost impossible. So i had to use headphones ALL the time. Coil whine wasn't an issue while playing games because of the high fan speed. My gaming experience with this laptop was good for the first two weeks. Although the performance I was getting was a bit lower than I was supposed to as i had checked similar benchmarks online, I neglected this because I felt I could deal with the minor performance issues. Also the coil whine was less than before so i was happy and thought it will lessen with usage. Themperatures stayed around 75-78° C and although it was hot, there was not thermal throttling (atleast for now). Soon I noticed that the performance fluctuated on a very large scale while playing games after more than 30 minutes. I couldn't find where the issue was. I reinstalled my games but it still didn't fix. I noticed that if i continued playing after the performance decreased ( frame rates dropped in games) the drops in frames became more and more frequent untile finally they would drop from 120-130 straight to 25-35 and not rise again. I noticed that the laptop was running hot. Temperatures were around 88-97 °C on all cores and the laptop was thermal throttling causing the cpu to lower it's clock speed from 3.8GHz to 2.7-2.9 Ghz. I sent the laptop to the service centre close to my home and told them about the issue. They kept the laptop for three days after which i told them to immediately return it in whichever state it was because of these reasons. 1. I needed it urgently as i had to fill up forms, print some documents, and give mock tests. 2. I told them there was a heating issue which caused the huge drop in performance. They reset the pc and when i asked them if they had fixed it, they said they could not find any problem. They reset the pc without even running the games that were on it to check why the laptop was getting a hit in performance. They just simply reset it without any reason not knowing where the issue was. When i told them the laptop was running very hot under load(88-97°C) in just under 20 minutes o[censored]sage, they said they had some games and would run them in it check for the issue soon. I realised just how good technicians they were when a customer(me) pinpointed the problem himself the they couldn't and moreover they reset it just like that, without even knowing where the problem was. How can overheating be solved by resetting a pc? Moreover they kept it for 3 days and still said that they would look for the problem. How could they find the problem if there wasn't anything on the pc to check for the problem as they had erased everything without thinking even once.
I also noticed that they were very inexperienced. They had taken out the HDD for some reason and forgot to put it back. Luckily when i recieved the laptop i turned it on to check everything and saw that the hdd was not inside as "This pc" showed only the ssd. They took it back again only to return it after making me wait for 15 more minutes. I took it back home reinstalled all softwares i had before and my games and to my utter shock they performance was even worse due to some reason. Even after just turning the laptop on when the temperature was not so high the frame rates i was getting were around 30 which i had previously got after temps rose to 88-97°C . I was utterly disappointed and very shocked and realised that giving my laptop to the service centre was a huge mistake and buying an Asus laptop in the first place was the biggest blunder i had done. Because of my exams i was not playing games so i let the issue be for a few days. But one day when switched on the laptop i noticed that the keyboard wasn't working although it was a few hours ago. I could type in the password but after getting in the keyboard just wouldn't work. I restarted it a few times but it didn't solve the issue. So i thought of resetting it and fortunately resetting the pc fixed the keyboard problem. Another problem which was fixed was the constant dip in performance the laptop had taken after brought it back from the service centre. Instead of starting straight from 25fps in games it would give 60-70 then dip to 20-25 later due to the thermal throttling issue which still persisted and was NOT FIXED BY THE SERVICE CENTRE. Temps would still be over 90°C on all cores under load and 60-65°C on idle.
I decided to give the laptop to a different service centre after my exams but unfortunately a new problem suddenly came up. The battery was not charging when plugged in. I tried a different source but still it wouldn't charge. I said PLUGGED IN, NOT CHARGING. And the battery kept dropping. I tried to look for solutions on the internet. I updated battery drivers, tried switching it on and off, uninstalled and reinstalled battey driver. ( These were solutions as per the internet and these had worked in case of most of the people facing this issue.) But in my case nothing worked. I did not want to fiddle with BIOS as i had no knowledge of it and it would have only worsened the condition. Lastly i tried resetting the pc which was the last resort as it had solved the keyboard not working issue last time. But unfortunately the reset failed and when i tried to get into windows in wouldn't let me. I tried self repair and troubleshoot and reset pc options provided on a blue screen but none of them worked. So i had to give it to the service centre as i had no other option. I wouldn't open it wouldn't charge.
Lastly as i explained everything to the technician in this other service centre just like i explained it here, i asked if he had a benchmarking software. I asked him multiple times and he didn't give any answer. Or maybe he couldn't. I asked if they had FurMark, 3D mark or CPU-Z or any other software to test the pc and he said no they didn't.
It seems Asus hires inexperienced people in its service centres. If i had known that Asus provided such horrible after sales service i would never have bought a laptop from them. Another thing from the first service centre which is to be noted is that- there was this pdf which was present in the 'desktop' of my laptop. It was named "csc_report" . I opened it to see what it was and to my surprise it had this-
FurMark test - 0 times
Time spent - 59seconds.
These and a few other infos which i dont remember. Rhey were alpha numeric strings resembling what i dont know. But one thing was clear. The technician from the first service centre hadn't tested the laptop and they lied to me and wrote all tests passed no issues found on a paper that is the proof of me lodging a complaint in the service centre regarding my laptop.
A few things which are crystal clear are that Asus Service Centres are run by people who are highly incapable of servicing laptops. They can fool people who have little or no knowledge regarding computer software and hardware. And Asus itself makes faulty product. It's products are flawed and have little or no longevity. Complete wastage of money. I would not recommend anyone to buy any product from Asus. Their phones are the worst products they make. This i know as i spoke to a few people(2 people with same issue in asus m1 phone) while sitting in the service centre and they said that their phones were submitted for over a week and still were not fixed. My motorola phone (although very faulty) had to go to the service centre once and came back in 2 days. This proves how incapable the technicians are. It is entirely Asus' fault.
Regarding my laptop, i will not accept a laptop which had to the service centre 2 times in two months and which comes packed with so many problems. Rs66990 is the amount i paid for it and the product i received is not worth the money i paid.
What i want is the faulty product replaced with a newer one. I will not accept this faulty laptop. God only knows how many times it may have to go the service in the next few months. I don't want such a headache. I want MY LAPTOP REPLACED WITH ONE IN PROPER WORKING CONDITION.
Below I'm providing a photo as proof of the thermal issue. Idle temps resemble min temps and max temps are recorded during gaming.
This photo was taken after i brought it back the first time from the service centre and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with my laptop.
Also it has been taken after just 15minutes of gaming and 5minutes of idle. Min temps resemble idle temps and max temps resemble temps under load.
The software used is : CORE TEMP
Laptop was in an air conditioned room. With the little knowledge of laptops i have i know that idle temps for laptops in an air conditioned room is around 35-40°C. My friend also has a powerful laptop and these are his temps while using in air conditioned room.
Since Asus service centre was unable to fix my issue I'm liable to a replacement according to their own policy.
Laptop SN CODE- J8NRCX03R80934A
Asus gaming centre app was crashing so unfortunately i couldn't record temps from it. Gamefirst V also crashes and brightness control from Aura core doesn't work. These were some minor( don't affect performance but still shouldn't be there) errors which i have faced in this laptop.
Asus India customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
Apr 15, 2019
Updated by Ronojit Issue still not resolved even after returning from service centre twice in two months. Battery shows plugged in not charging. Cpu clock speed is stuck at 796 MHz when base clock is 2.3Ghz and boost clock is 3.8Ghz. This should not happen. Battery is only discharging and not charging. Because of this games are not running as they should even on lowest possible graphic settings. My laptop specs are well above minimum system requirements. Also technician is saying battery not charging issue is normal lagging is normal. If every problem on their Laptop is normal then why does ASUS sell laptops? What use is a gaming laptop which cannon run games? Utterly disappointed. They are harassing me continuously and saying problem is in the game and not in the laptop after being unable to fix the issue twice. Asus does not deserve our hard earned money. Shame on Asus for such horrible service and shame on their employees for harassing us customers. I feel very sad after getting such service because it feels my money has gone to waste. I bought this laptop for 66990/- which is a very big amount. It is my earnest advise to everyone to not buy Asus products any further.
