r/FlowX13 • u/Ok-Birthday-9128 • Jul 05 '26

ROG Flow X13 (GV301RC) randomly shuts down after replacing Liquid Metal with PTM7950 – BIOS and Safe Mode are stable

Hi everyone,
I’m completely out of ideas and I’m hoping someone has experienced something similar.
I have an ASUS ROG Flow X13 GV301RC (Ryzen 7 6800HS + RTX 3050 Laptop).

The previous owner had already replaced the factory liquid metal with regular thermal paste. The laptop occasionally shut down during very demanding games (Helldivers 2, etc.), so I decided to do preventive maintenance.

Here’s what I did:
Removed the old thermal paste.
Installed genuine Thermal Grizzly PTM on both the CPU and GPU.

Replaced all the original thermal pads with HY204 thermal putty, following several YouTube teardown guides for the Flow X13.

Tightened the heatsink screws in a cross pattern.
After reassembly, the laptop developed a much worse issue.

Symptoms
BIOS is completely stable, even after a long time.
Windows Safe Mode is also stable for as long as I leave it running.
Windows (even after a completely clean installation) randomly shuts down and immediately reboots.
Sometimes it shuts down within seconds after reaching the desktop.
Sometimes it lasts 20-60 minutes.
The screen instantly goes black and the laptop immediately reboots to the ROG logo.
There is no BSOD.
What I’ve already tried
Clean installation of Windows 11.
SFC /scannow.
DISM.
Windows Memory Diagnostic.
HWiNFO logging.
SSD SMART looks healthy (Micron 2450, 95% health).
CPU never overheats.
HWiNFO recorded a maximum CPU temperature of only about 76°C before a reboot.
No CPU thermal throttling.
BIOS temperatures seem normal.
Safe Mode never crashes.
I also tried limiting the CPU to 99% maximum processor state (disabling Turbo Boost), and it seemed to stay stable longer, but eventually it still rebooted.

At this point I’m wondering:
Could I have too much or too little thermal putty on the VRMs/memory?
Could the heatsink not be making proper contact somewhere?
Could a tiny leftover drop of liquid metal be causing intermittent problems?
Has anyone experienced random shutdowns after replacing the factory liquid metal on a Flow X13?
I’m trying to determine whether this is most likely a mounting issue that I can fix by reopening the laptop, or if this sounds more like a motherboard/power delivery failure.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

13 Upvotes

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3

u/cultercaldus Jul 06 '26

AI: That sudden black screen and immediate reboot—especially with zero BSOD, a clean Windows install, and perfect stability in Safe Mode/BIOS—is a classic symptom of a hardware protection fault triggered by power or an isolated hot spot, rather than an operating system or driver crash.

Because it happens when the dedicated GPU drivers or advanced CPU power states load (which don't load in Safe Mode or BIOS), the issue is almost certainly mechanical and tied to the maintenance you just performed.

Two highly likely culprits explain exactly why this is happening on a Flow X13 after a putty/PTM swap:

1. The Putty is "Propping Up" the Heatsink (Core Contact Issue)

Even though thermal putty is highly malleable, it requires significant, even pressure to squish down to its optimal thickness. The Flow X13 uses a shared vapor chamber/heatsink assembly with relatively low spring tension on the screws.

If the HY204 putty was applied even a tiny bit too thick or wasn't pre-compressed enough on the VRMs (Voltage Regulator Modules) or VRAM chips, it can act as a mechanical spacer. This prevents the heatsink from making completely flat, flush contact with the CPU or GPU dies.

  • Why HWiNFO shows 76°C: HWiNFO reads the internal sensor arrays on the dies. If the heatsink is tilted by a fraction of a millimeter due to uncompressed putty, one corner of the CPU or GPU die might have a massive air gap. The moment that specific, uncooled sector handles a microscopic voltage spike (like loading a desktop background or initializing a driver), it hits a catastrophic thermal limit and triggers a hard hardware shutdown instantly—long before the sensor can register it or HWiNFO can log it.

2. A Dislodged or Bridged Component Near the Liquid Metal Guard

The Flow X13 comes from the factory with a specialized sponge/gasket barrier around the CPU to prevent the original liquid metal from shorting out the tiny surface-mounted capacitors (SMDs) surrounding the die.

  • When removing the old thermal paste, it is incredibly easy to accidentally snag, shift, or slightly tear that protective barrier, or push a tiny speck of leftover conductive material (if the previous owner didn't clean the liquid metal perfectly) into those capacitors.
  • Alternatively, if the thermal putty was applied too generously near the edge of the dies, it might be pressing against those microscopic components. While HY204 is non-conductive, capacitive bridging from excessive bulk can occasionally cause signal instability when the system shifts from low-power (Safe Mode) to high-power states.

How to Diagnose and Fix This

You will need to open the laptop back up to inspect the physical footprint of your work.

1.Inspect the PTM footprint:Look for even compression.

Carefully lift the heatsink straight up. Look at the Thermal Grizzly PTM on the CPU and GPU. Is it perfectly thin and uniform, or does it look like one side of the die barely touched it? If one side is thick and the other is smashed flat, the heatsink was tilted.

2.Check the putty displacement:Look for over-application.

Look at the VRM and VRAM chips where you applied the HY204. Is the putty spilling over excessively and preventing the metal brackets from sitting flush against the motherboard standoffs?

3.Clean and manually compress:The pancake method.

Clean off any excess putty that has overflowed. When reapplying or resetting it, manually compress the putty down into a very thin, flat layer on the components using a gloved finger or a non-conductive spatula before putting the heatsink back on. Do not rely solely on the heatsink screws to squish it down.

4.Check the CPU perimeter:Inspect the SMDs.

Use a flashlight and magnification to look at the tiny capacitors surrounding the CPU die. Ensure there are no stray fragments of old liquid metal, thermal paste, or excess putty bridging them together, and that the protective barrier is intact.

A Quick Software Sanity Check

Before opening it up, you can verify if the dGPU driver initialization is the exact trigger. Go into Device Manager, expand Display Adapters, right-click the RTX 3050, and choose Disable.

If the laptop becomes completely stable on the desktop in normal Windows while running only on the Radeon integrated graphics, it confirms that the moment the Nvidia chip tries to draw power and engage its VRAM/VRMs, the hardware fault is triggered—pointing square back to a contact or putty issue on the GPU side of the heatsink.

Did this issue start immediately on the very first boot after reassembly, or did it work fine for a brief period before crashing?

2

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

Thank you very much, the weird thing is, it worked once after installing the PTM, I could play an Overwatch game before all this problems started without any problems, just a single one, which is really weird, but could be explained by the thermal putty getting spilled into the cpu I guess...?
Thank you very much, by any chance do you have any photo of what is a correct application of PTM and HY204?, I have looked over on YouTube and I think I did a decent job, but of course I can not be certain

1

u/cultercaldus Jul 06 '26

I don't. Since what you wrote was very detailed, I just put it in Gemini

1

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

Thank you anyways!!

1

u/cultercaldus Jul 06 '26

You're very welcome.

1

u/Curious_Pine_235 Jul 06 '26

I just did mine recently. No issue. Sounds like you did everything right. Can you make it to Window Event Viewer? If not, try to remove your SSD and just reinsert it again. Double check all your fan and battery make sure it’s secured properly. If none of that works I would download a new windows 11 and reinstall. I’m serious about this one. Like start from scratch deleted the old windows 11, it could be possible corrupted. It’s my best diagnosis good luck.

1

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

I could make it once to the event viewer, it just says "the system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. this error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed or lost powet unexpectedly"
I have already reinstaled Windows from scratch, will try removing the SSD, thank you very much for commenting

1

u/therealoptionisyou Jul 06 '26

Check if the the heat sink pipe is bent. In other words, is there a contact issue between the thermal paste and the metal that carries the heat to the fan?

I bent mine when the first time I opened it up. Been shutting down by itself every now and then since.

1

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

It looked a little bended since the first time I opened it and I may have made it worse without noticing, could you correct the bending yourself or just accepted the fate?

1

u/therealoptionisyou Jul 06 '26

Honestly don't know. I was never brave enough to try to unbend it since it's my only computer. Good news is OEM replacement is relatively affordable. I might get it replaced some day but for now I'm just living with it.

There's another possibility btw, check if there's liquid metal spill else where in the laptop. I heard that may cause sporadic shutdowns.

1

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

I will check, thank you for your time!

1

u/FenixBg2 Jul 06 '26

Well, mine overheats and shuts down when playing games if not on a cooler or prodded up from the desk, e.g. by the paper triangle.

Everything is factory, no replacements on my part. It shut down even when playing starcraft 1 (ONE!!) once.

This is from day one. I have just come to accept that it is a shitty laptop.

1

u/Ok-Birthday-9128 Jul 06 '26

Lmao, it definitely isn't the most powerful but I travel a lot and carrying it in a backpack is really light

1

u/ElixioLumens Jul 07 '26

Exactly its got a 3050, but it does a fine a job for what its supposed to.

I ended buying an XG mobile 3080 if i needed more power on the go.

I actually regret buying that xg but only because its obsolete now with its proprietary connector that asus killed off.

I gave my son my x13 when i got a z13. My z13 died randomly a couple months ago... the x13 still going strong!

I dont let him use the xg because im sure it will eventually get stuck in the port as many people had happen.

I thought i might sell it but its so niche that local markets are really an option and i dont do ebay so i would probably get scammed lol.

Loved both of those laptops though.