ASUS TUF Laptops With Ryzen Are Now Patched To Stop Overheating On Linux

[Shevchen]

I have read on reddit that all Ryzen laptops have problems on linux. So I don't think its ASUS specific. Lenovo and others have same problems.

My ThinkPad E585 is fine - no overheating, good fan behavior (maybe even a tad bit too aggressive) and nice performance. You have to follow some guides to get it up and running and sleep doesn't work. But with boot times of blow 5 seconds, I don't care about that.

[andre30correia]

[QUOTE=eggbert;n1153242]Gaming laptops are ridiculous. Never understood the appeal. Inferior gaming performance, flakey drivers, poor battery life, and searing heat. If you want to play video games, why not use a desktop computer? Your games will run better. Not to mention it's more affordable, more comfortable, and just an overall better experience.[

I have 3 system a ultrabook, a tuf and a desktop pc, when I need batery life I use the ultrabook, when I need batery for some hours and horsepower out of my home I use the tuf (not for gaming but for some heavy design apps and virtual machines, the laptop cost 679€), when I'm home I use the desktop.

[leonmaxx]

I thought all Ryzen + NV laptops are a dead end, but now I'm certain. Have Linux people not learned from Bumblebee? Cross-vendor on Linux will never work. Windows WDDM solves a lot of issues.

Hello, I'm author of mentioned patches. Manjaro user https://forum.manjaro.org/u/Swagglepuf helped me with testing patches on GA502DU (Ryzen 3750H + GeForce 1660TI), he was able to get both Vega and GeForce working with Mesa and Nvidia closed source drivers.

Here is his guide: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/asus-rog...17-2020/118392

[Brillus]

Also have the laptop, disabling the boost also solves the problem (echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost) and still all games I use are running fine.

[aht0]

Of course they are only going to have download links for Windows drivers, i don't know what does that demonstrate. I was just pointing out that not all those laptops come with Windows preinstalled, as you implied. But in any case, I don't agree that this laptops are having issues with *Linux*. These are $1000 products of abysmal quality. Just check some of the links of Windows users suffering the same issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/commen...g_down_to_400/

https://community.amd.com/thread/244625

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic...rops-in-games/
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...formance-issue
https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/commen...ssive_thermal/

Regarding the BIOS, they have released more versions than what you see there. Take the link of 208 and change it for 206, 205... you can download them even if the links are not public. Some people have had luck with older versions. I'm on 207 because for me 208 is completely unusable, getting to 400MHz even with the laptop idle. They know they have an issue when half of the reviews are 1 stars and when they are getting an ton of returns of these models. The cherry on top of it is contacting support to ask them if they are going to fix it and getting a dumb response on how to reset Windows.

I could go on and on, but basically, ASUS are covering themselves in shit.

Well, I looked information piled behind links you provided. Sounds like an engineering issue, thermal heat dissipation is sub-par, causing all sorts of grief (I noticed somebody claiming that during repaste he/she noticed that original paste wasn't covering even half a die and multiple claims of having fixed issues by forcing lower clocks through Ryzen Master control software and/or replacing thermal paste [Kryonaut to be precise, which is 12.5W/mK paste - 2x-3x better than average stuff sold as "thermal pastes"]).

I would tear it apart and replace thermal paste with graphite sheets (like AMD did for some of it's Radeon cards). These have thermal conductivity in excess of 30W/mK - it should drop the temps in your laptop like rock, only liquid metal pastes are better heat exchangers than graphite pads (over 70W/mK) but those pastes are dangerous as all fuck due their el.conductive nature. It should fix all throttling you are seeing unless you happen to live in desert environment or something.
Link https://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Co...1AY35924ZX2J6V

I've personally have have least issues with BIOSes from Asus. Have had bunch of rigs based on Asus boards.
My most recent RMA'd board was from Gigabyte (B450 Aorus-M) and that refused to boot most non-Windows stuff I threw at it. ASUS ROG Strix B450 board I replaced it with on the other hand has had no issue in that department, be it Linux, BSD or Solaris.
Asus eeePC I used to own, I used for running Android (x86) on it, it also had no issues with anything else I threw at it.
Asus Z87-Pro Haswell board, still serving net nearly decade later.. running FreeBSD.
Used to own beastly LGA1366 workstation rig based on Xeon W3690 nested in Asus(again!) Rampage II Extreme. Hell of a rig, that Xeon had open multipliers and Asus board made overclocking that combo past 4GHz a breeze.. also no issues with Linux or BSD.
Had Asus Sabertooth 990-series AM3 board with FX8350 that ran alternatively BSD, Linux and Windows, off PCI-E RAID controller which was it's boot device. Asus BIOS had no probs enabling ECC and having PCI-E boot device..

Only gripe I have with Asus - they don't allow RMA process where client would send their faulty piece in straight by mail. You have to go to place you bought it from.. and when they decide your claim about that 3rd year of factory warranty is something they don't want to be bothered with - you are out of luck.

[funtastic]

Well, I looked information piled behind links you provided. Sounds like an engineering issue, thermal heat dissipation is sub-par, causing all sorts of grief (I noticed somebody claiming that during repaste he/she noticed that original paste wasn't covering even half a die and multiple claims of having fixed issues by forcing lower clocks through Ryzen Master control software and/or replacing thermal paste [Kryonaut to be precise, which is 12.5W/mK paste - 2x-3x better than average stuff sold as "thermal pastes"]).

I would tear it apart and replace thermal paste with graphite sheets (like AMD did for some of it's Radeon cards). These have thermal conductivity in excess of 30W/mK - it should drop the temps in your laptop like rock, only liquid metal pastes are better heat exchangers than graphite pads (over 70W/mK) but those pastes are dangerous as all fuck due their el.conductive nature. It should fix all throttling you are seeing unless you happen to live in desert environment or something.
Link https://www.amazon.com/Innovation-Co...1AY35924ZX2J6V

I've personally have have least issues with BIOSes from Asus. Have had bunch of rigs based on Asus boards.
My most recent RMA'd board was from Gigabyte (B450 Aorus-M) and that refused to boot most non-Windows stuff I threw at it. ASUS ROG Strix B450 board I replaced it with on the other hand has had no issue in that department, be it Linux, BSD or Solaris.
Asus eeePC I used to own, I used for running Android (x86) on it, it also had no issues with anything else I threw at it.
Asus Z87-Pro Haswell board, still serving net nearly decade later.. running FreeBSD.
Used to own beastly LGA1366 workstation rig based on Xeon W3690 nested in Asus(again!) Rampage II Extreme. Hell of a rig, that Xeon had open multipliers and Asus board made overclocking that combo past 4GHz a breeze.. also no issues with Linux or BSD.
Had Asus Sabertooth 990-series AM3 board with FX8350 that ran alternatively BSD, Linux and Windows, off PCI-E RAID controller which was it's boot device. Asus BIOS had no probs enabling ECC and having PCI-E boot device..

Only gripe I have with Asus - they don't allow RMA process where client would send their faulty piece in straight by mail. You have to go to place you bought it from.. and when they decide your claim about that 3rd year of factory warranty is something they don't want to be bothered with - you are out of luck.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had seen that comment, but same as opening the vents for the fans, I think those are just workarounds. Most laptops get throttled while playing videogames, but getting throttled to 400MHz and never recovering from that? That is plain dumb, and while different people have more or less success with different workarounds, it does not grant me anything. I'm most probably going to return this one.

[blackshard]

Gaming laptops are ridiculous. Never understood the appeal. Inferior gaming performance, flakey drivers, poor battery life, and searing heat. If you want to play video games, why not use a desktop computer? Your games will run better. Not to mention it's more affordable, more comfortable, and just an overall better experience.

Because, also for gaming, you can use them as workstations?

They have:

- full hd IPS panels
- 35W/45W CPUs (not the hindered -U models with power limit of 15 watts)
- Discrete video chips with enough power
- Plenty of memory

Just some use cases that pops in mind are architects, 3D rendering, ...
Of course desktops are better in terms of price/performance, but they can't be moved easily

[eggbert]

Because, also for gaming, you can use them as workstations?

They have:

- full hd IPS panels
- 35W/45W CPUs (not the hindered -U models with power limit of 15 watts)
- Discrete video chips with enough power
- Plenty of memory

Just some use cases that pops in mind are architects, 3D rendering, ...
Of course desktops are better in terms of price/performance, but they can't be moved easily

True, but the same could be said for these "workstation" use cases. Desktops are better suited for these uses as well. Anyone serious about 3D rendering is going to be doing it on the proper hardware... The only advantage these laptops offer is mobility, but even this is not that great as these "gaming" laptops weigh a ton, have giant power bricks, and often have crappy TN panels rather than sharper, more accurate, IPS screens. Not to mention they are marketed as "gaming" laptops and even include the stupid RGB lighting to boot. But I guess to each their own.

[nomadewolf]

Unbelieveable that these days there are still manufacturers releasing laptops without checking for linux compatibility prior release and - even worse - not helping customers immediatly once first reports emerge. Asus decided not to care at all, instead they let their linux-using customers suffer for *months*.

Actually I was thinking about buying a Zenbook as soon as Ryzen-4000 powered models would appear, however I am actually reconsidering now.

Asus used to be my favorite brand, because they had the most quality.
But in the last years they really skimped on the quality side and now i prefer other brands, like HP.

[Azrael5]

The other AMD users are safe rom this issue?