[SOLVED] Strange CPU temps on new ZenBook 14 Pro

[Vaunttu]

Hi folks!
I just recently bought this Asus ZenBook 14 Pro. I'm liking it, but there is a problem regarding thermals. I am getting some really high CPU temperatures - I am talking about 60 to 80 degrees Celsius high just idling on the desktop. There are also some very weird CPU temperature jumps, for example from 61 to 96 and then back to 61 in just a second. Here's a graph to show what I am talking about:

When the temperature starts lowering, the fans kicked in. During the recording period I wasn't doing anything else but staring at the graph. I had steam open in the background though but it wasn't doing anything.

This is how the CPU temps look when downloading a game from steam:

And the fans are spinning quite fast but still not exactly like a jet engine. The laptop doesn't actually even feel like it is just around the boiling point of water. Sure you can still feel some heat.

Then I did 3DMark benchmark. Here are the results:
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/37348425?

CPU temps a short while after doing the benchmark:

The temps were pretty high and you sure could feel it. Almost burned my fingers touching the metal edge.. Temps started to lower pretty fast although - probably due to the jet coolers.

The laptop has been sitting on a table all this time so the airflow has not been restricted. The problem seems to be with only the CPU. GPU temps look pretty normal, ~50 C idling and around 70 to 80 under load.

So, what should I think about this? To me this doesn't feel normal. Should be in contact with Asus? This is really frustrating since I paid over 1100€ for this laptop. For that money you'd expect just plug and play.

 

[anotherdrew]

Here is a lovely picture of the heatpipe arrangement used to cool your laptop (thank you laptopmedia.com). With this kind of arrangement it is clear that there will be a lag between when the heat is produced and when the heat is the heat is removed from the system. Short bursts of activity will cause spikes (95 ish) in the CPU temperature and that's fine. Sustained activity (like running prime95) should produce a high temperature, but not as high as the spikes (85 ish). As the CPU gets hot it will throttle back to mitigate the heat buildup.

As far as idle temp ... with modern computers it's harder to define idle. Just because your not doing anything does not mean the system is not doing anything (especially new computers ... lots of updates and stuff). The best thing is to watch the package power in HWmonitor in conjunction with temperature. Package power should drop to 2W ish when the system really is at idle and then you should see your lowest temperatures (50s ... maybe 40s). If power keeps jumping up and down, then you are not really at idle.

Hope this helps. If behavior is outside these parameters, I would contact ASUS.

 

[Vaunttu]

Here is a lovely picture of the heatpipe arrangement used to cool your laptop (thank you laptopmedia.com). With this kind of arrangement it is clear that there will be a lag between when the heat is produced and when the heat is the heat is removed from the system. Short bursts of activity will cause spikes (95 ish) in the CPU temperature and that's fine. Sustained activity (like running prime95) should produce a high temperature, but not as high as the spikes (85 ish). As the CPU gets hot it will throttle back to mitigate the heat buildup.

As far as idle temp ... with modern computers it's harder to define idle. Just because your not doing anything does not mean the system is not doing anything (especially new computers ... lots of updates and stuff). The best thing is to watch the package power in HWmonitor in conjunction with temperature. Package power should drop to 2W ish when the system really is at idle and then you should see your lowest temperatures (50s ... maybe 40s). If power keeps jumping up and down, then you are not really at idle.

Hope this helps. If behavior is outside these parameters, I would contact ASUS.

Okay, thanks for the info. I lowered the performance slider on the battery settings. After that I did some testing and just generally used it for a while and the problem seems to have faded. There are still some pretty high temperatures but as long as the laptop doesn't sound like a jet I'll take it. In the future I might try to undervolt the CPU to get better thermals. Thanks anyway and have a great day!

 

[Singh47]

Okay, thanks for the info. I lowered the performance slider on the battery settings. After that I did some testing and just generally used it for a while and the problem seems to have faded. There are still some pretty high temperatures but as long as the laptop doesn't sound like a jet I'll take it. In the future I might try to undervolt the CPU to get better thermals. Thanks anyway and have a great day!

Where is the performance slider???