i bought my laptop in 2020. Asus Zephyrus G14, 2019 version. I had been cleaning the fans and thermal vents on my own for all of my devices previously and so i did for this one as well. its been 3 years now and had no hardware issues on this device, its a freaking beast. i travel constantly from KTM to PKR on bike and never faced any issues. it doesn’t have any dents or nothing on the chassis and frame.i was thinking of re-applying the thermal paste for the CPU and GPU covers cause its been more than 2 years already, i hadn’t been gaming a lot so it wasn’t heating up too much. so a while ago, in August 2023, i decided i had to do the thermal paste replacement. however, i had never went so deep with disassemble with this laptop, it was a bit technical than my previous laptops so i got a bit concerned and decided to take it to a store to avoid any risks. i watched videos regarding the topic as well and i didn’t have proper tools as well. so it seemed like a logical decision to take it to the professionals for the job. so i searched for stores online. i got in contact with Ripple device, my brother has a ripple device and he is a regular customer so i got in touch with them. i explained my situation and they were helpful/polite enough to help me. so i dropped off my laptop there, i’m not going to explain the office interaction there. i’ll leave it for a different story. there was just one lady, who was opening the office when i got there, at around 11. so i dropped her the laptop, explained what to do with it and left. then after maybe 2-3 hours, they called me back mentioning the works done and to come pick it up. i went there, asked if they applied thermal paste, asked to make it clear to me what they did, however they were ambiguous about it and i could find the related technical person who was in charge with my laptop. i work, so i was on a clock to pick up the laptop. so i made the payment, took the laptop back and it was normal for some time.
i asked ripple device the moment i got home just to re-assure that the thermal paste were applied. the contact didn’t had proper knowledge regarding my laptop or didn’t seem involved in this process quite much. at first i thought it was fine as i was in the impression that it was a personal number of an important member of the company, but then i found out it was a company number. regardless, i checked with him in the next morning, still he had no update regarding my laptop, which was just yesterday. he asked me to message on messenger, i did that. i asked them about my laptop, double checked if they did what i asked them to do, to which they replied that they did. so i reassured and stopped thinking about it.
then, about 2 months ago, i travelled back to PKR for Dashain and Tihar. and i was working remotely for the time being and i use earphones most of the time so i don’t get distracted while working. so maybe 2-3 weeks after i got to PKR, i was working with android studio + emulator, opera on the foreground with slack, whatsapp and discord in the background. and i had to take a breather so i took my earphones of, that’s when i heard a weird fan noise. so i felt my laptop, since i use external mouse and keyboard for the coding and it was hot, like insanely hot for the task i was doing. previously i used to get 80-90 max while gaming and discord on the background while streaming and 40-60 on programming usage. but this was with just android studio + emulator, opera on the foreground with slack, whatsapp and discord in the background. and this was not the first time i heard this noise either, but previously i thought it was just construction noises happening in my house. we were having room addition on the top floor of our house so i thought the noise were just that. but this time around, the constructions were over, so i noticed it right away. then i ran system diagnosis from the ASUS control center. then i saw that there was in-fact an issue with the fan, the right side fan to be precise as the noise was only coming from the right side. so i got worried. maybe there might be dusting or maybe there was some obstructions during the re-assembly of the device like a wire or something from the last time it was opened. and the last time it got opened being the time when i dropped it for thermal paste replacement. however, there were no obstructions or debris of any kind, there were some dusting so i cleaned it. however it didn’t resolve the issue. it did however reduce some sounds. but it returned after a while. maybe an hour or something. so i decided to run the diagnostics again and same thing happened. so i opened the laptop, still on, to check the fan noise and couldn’t find any obstructions causing the sound. the noise was coming from inside of the fan, not the blades, the core of the fan. it was like someone pressed the fan a bit much so it was wiggling from its socket a bit more than it should. i could see both the fans working and the right side was wiggling a bit too much and had a bit much flex/play to it from the socket than it actually should. i got concerned with it and so decided to ask one of my friend, a tech-savvy friend. he had a gaming laptop a while ago and he had the same issue. what happened with him was, he was cleaning the fans with air-blower, but the pressure was a bit to high than it should be and it damaged the fan core (socket) part and ended up with the same noise issue i faced.
now i know Ripple Device are new to the scene and trying to make a name for themselves and i mean no disrespect to them, but this is a bitter experience for me as a customer. i/m trying to contact them via messenger and i just get this bot message and that’s it. maybe they’ll respond in office hours, but for now i had to ask if anyone else had any issue with Ripple Devices and their services or is it just me who faced issue with them?
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[conversation with the contact my brother\(ripple device customer\) gave to me](https://preview.redd.it/doom15k4ef1c1.png?width=1369&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff01a4ccdef5f23a7502ba70d34152e20f0162de)
[follow up](https://preview.redd.it/rt53d0k4ef1c1.png?width=1370&format=png&auto=webp&s=38f7cb9552da5300951fd97d4e967fcbaad7c07c)
[follow up pt. 2](https://preview.redd.it/206xa0k4ef1c1.png?width=1490&format=png&auto=webp&s=9eb7936337c5a93769f1d5c1066c7fdc7bbbbd49)
[system diagnostics for the fan noise](https://preview.redd.it/zvkffyj4ef1c1.png?width=1266&format=png&auto=webp&s=c57591e1c2eccd0ed59878286c66777587c9a95b)
[thermals after the noise got noticed](https://preview.redd.it/45svbyn9ef1c1.png?width=1538&format=png&auto=webp&s=3ede335419c69c0fed7ad6e9e64e0ecaa834262c)
View on r/Nepal by pepepopomanPrime
TLDR?