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Lightweight Armoury Crate alternative for Asus laptops. A small utility that allows you to do almost everything you could do with Armoury Crate but without extra bloat and unnecessary services. Works on all popular models, such as ROG Zephyrus G14, G15, G16, M16, Flow X13, Flow X16, TUF, Strix, Scar, ProArt and many more! Feel free to try :)
- Don't forget to Read FAQ
- If you like this app, please star ⭐ it on Github and spread the word about it!
- Seamless and automatic GPU switching (without asking you to close all apps, etc.)
- All performance modes can be fully customized (with fan curves and PPTs)
- Very lightweight, consumes almost no resources, and doesn't install any services. Just a single exe to run
- Simple and clean native UI with easy access to all settings
- FN-Lock
- Doesn't need administrator privileges to run (*)
- Performance modes: Silent - Balanced - Turbo (built-in, with default fan curves)
- GPU modes: Eco - Standard - Ultimate - Optimized
- Laptop screen refresh rate 60hz or 120hz (144hz, etc.) with display overdrive (OD) and mini-led multi-zone switch
- Custom fan curve editor, power limits (PPT) and turbo boost selection for every performance mode
- Anime matrix control thanks to Starlight + some tweaks from my side, including animated GIFs, clock and audio visualizer
- Keyboard backlit animation and colours (including sleep animation and support for TUF models)
- All basic and custom Keyboard hotkeys (M-keys, FN+X keys)
- Monitor CPU / GPU temperature, fan speeds and battery discharge rate
- Battery charge limit to preserve battery health
- NVidia GPU overclocking
- XG Mobile Control
- AMD CPU Undervolting
- The app remembers the last Mode used on the battery or when plugged
- Optimized GPU mode - disables dGPU on battery and enables when plugged
- Auto Screen refresh rate (60hz on battery, max hz when plugged)
- Keyboard backlight timeout on battery or when plugged
To keep auto-switching and hotkeys working, the app needs to stay running in the tray. It doesn't consume any resources.
Modes are same as in Armoury Crate as they are stored in bios, including default fan curves
- Silent (minimal or no fans, 70W PPT total, up to 45W PPT to CPU) + Best power efficiency setting in windows
- Balanced (balanced fans, 100W PPT total, up to 45W PPT to CPU) + Balanced setting in windows
- Turbo (intense fans, 125W PPT total, up to 80W PPT to CPU) + Best performance setting in windows
PPTs are shown for G14 2022; for other models, PPTs will differ as they are set in bios.
- Eco : only low power integrated GPU enabled, iGPU drives built-in display
- Standard (MS Hybrid): iGPU and dGPU enabled, iGPU drives built-in display
- Ultimate: iGPU and dGPU enabled, but dGPU drives built-in display (supported on 2022+ models)
- Optimized: disables dGPU on battery (Eco) and enables when plugged (Standard)
Stop the ArmouryCrateControlInterface
service under the Windows Services app, or stop all Asus services altogether from Extra
-> Stop services.
Ultimate mode is supported (by hardware) only on 2022+ models.
Some older models (for example, G14 2020) don't support disabling GPU on the hardware level; therefore GPU section makes no sense for them and will be hidden.
You don't have to, and it's purely optional. From my experience, built-in (in bios) performance modes work well. Limit your power or apply custom fan curves only if you have issues. When you click Apply in the fan + power section, bios will consider the fan profile as "custom"! (no matter if you modified it or not)
It doesn't. Your bios does (same as in the case with armoury). What G-helper can do - is (optionally) set a custom fan profile to the current performance mode consisting of 8 pairs of temperature + fan speed % via the same endpoint Armoury seem to use.
Click on them
Most probably, either you are using Eco / Optimized mode and your dGPU is simply off, or your windows has put the dGPU into sleep (to preserve power). In this situation, G-helper won't be able to reach your GPU and get readings.
Please check the system tray for a (G) icon. By default, windows are keen to hide all icons, so you may need to click ^ to see them all. I would advise you to right-click on Taskbar, select TaskBar Settings -> Other System Tray icons -> Mark G-Helper to be always ON.
Open "Event Viewer" from the start menu, go to Windows Logs -> Application and check for recent Errors mentioning G-Helper. If you see one - please post a new issue with all details from this error.
It could be that Asus services are overwriting this limit after. You may want to stop them by clicking "Stop" in the Asus Services section (under Extra).
You can, and the only problem is that MyASUS may override the battery charge limit you set before. My advice in such a situation would be to set the same limit (i.e. 80%) in both MyASUS and G-Helper.
If you have the Asus Optimization Service running, it's controlled by that service (therefore, G-helper doesn't interfere with or touch this function). Alternatively, you can stop that service and bind M3 to anything you want.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of them, as they make colours very inaccurate. But if you want so - you can adjust display colours using either the Nvidia Control panel or AMD Adrenaline (appropriate display sections). If you really want, you can also use own ASUS utility from MS Store
Make sure that your dGPU is enabled (i.e. it's not in Eco mode). Open the Fans + Power section and adjust core/memory clock offsets. They work the same as in the armoury's manual mode. Please remember that (unfortunately) you need admin permissions for that, and the app will ask you for them. (*)
False positives from Windows Defender (or any other similar system that uses machine learning for detection) are possible as the application is not digitally signed with a certificate. You can always download a version below or compile the app by yourself. All application sources are open and can be monitored from A to Z :)
You can find them under the %AppData%\GHelper
folder. Please include them when posting a new bug report or issue.
Open the app, uncheck and check again "run on startup". If it still doesn't help (for some reason), you can try to manually edit the "GHelper" task in Windows Task Scheduler and add a couple of seconds of delay to start.
G-helper is a single exe, and it doesn't install anything in the system. To remove it - you can simply delete exe :) If you have applied any custom fan profiles or PPTs - before removing I would recommend selecting your favourite performance mode (for example, balanced) and clicking "Factory defaults" under Fans + Power.
Currently, you can undervolt AMD CPUs. If your model supports that - you will see an undervolting slider under Fans+Power -> Advanced
. If you don't see a slider there, it means your CPU doesn't support undervolting. Complete list of models that support that can be found here
It seems to be an issue in older BIOS versions. As users report - latest BIOS 312 (installable via MyASUS or G-Helper -> Updates) resolves all issues :) So please update.
G15 2022 is known to have a notoriously bugged BIOS (last one 313). Multiple users have reported that problems can be solved by rolling back to a previous BIOS 311 from the Asus Support website.
Check your NVidia Experience settings and make sure that you have Whisper Mode set to OFF
. Also, you can go to reset all settings Nvidia Control panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Reset to defaults
All Asus laptops have the option to do a hardware reset, which can be handy sometimes. It doesn't touch your data but resets all main hardware-related things (enables your dGPU, wakes up wifi/bt adapter if it hangs for some reason, etc.). Turn OFF the laptop. Press and hold the "power" button for 30-40 seconds. Then boot normally (it will take a bit longer to boot)
G-Helper is a lightweight Armoury Crate alternative for Asus laptops. A small utility that allows you to do almost everything you could do with Armoury Crate but without extra bloat and unnecessary services.
Paypal in EUR | Paypal in USD |
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- Download latest release
- Unzip to a folder of your choice (don't run exe from zip directly, as windows will put it into temp folder and delete after)
- Run GHelper.exe
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Microsoft .NET7. Most probably, you already have it. Otherwise, download it from the official website.
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Asus System Control Interface v3+. This "driver" from Asus should be installed automatically by windows update or along other Asus apps. If it's not the case for some reason - you can download and install it manually.
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It's not recommended to use an app in combination with Armoury Crate services because they adjust the same settings. You can uninstall it using AC's own uninstall tool. Just in case, you can always install it back later.
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It's not recommended to have the "ASUS Smart Display Control" app running, as it will try to change refresh rates and fight with g-helper for the same function. You can safely uninstall it.
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You can stop/disable unnecessary services: Go to Extra in the app, and press "Stop" in the Asus Services section (former debloat.bat). To start/enable services back - click "Start" instead (former bloat.bat)
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It is strongly recommended to run the app with Windows default "balanced" power plan
Designed and developed for Asus Zephyrus G14 2022 (with AMD Radeon iGPU and dGPU). But it could and should potentially work for G14 of 2021 and 2020, G15, X FLOW, and other ROG models for relevant and supported features.
I don't have a Microsoft certificate to sign the app yet, so if you get a warning from Windows Defender on launch (Windows Protected your PC), click More Info -> Run anyway. Alternatively, you can compile and run the project by yourself using Visual Studio :)
GENERAL NOTE: "Power user" settings require some config edits. Before making any changes to config.json
- quit G-Helper. Make your changes. Rerun G-Helper.
By default, the app will use your Windows language setting. But you can set the language manually (if it is supported, of course)
Add the following line to %AppData%\GHelper\config.json
: "language": "en"
(by replacing "en" with the language of your choice)
In %AppData%\GHelper\config.json
you can manually add a custom power plan (or power mode) GUID. It can be either a "real" power plant that can be switched or an "overlay" power plan like the one's G-helper sets by default.
Format is following : "scheme_<mode>" : "GUID"
Where mode = 0 (balanced), 1 (turbo), 2 (silent)
Default behaviour is :
"scheme_0": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
"scheme_1": "ded574b5-45a0-4f42-8737-46345c09c238",
"scheme_2": "961cc777-2547-4f9d-8174-7d86181b8a7a",
Make sure to keep json structure (i.e. not to break it with extra or missing commas, etc.) - or the app will fail to read it and will just recreate a new config instead.
The app supports custom actions for M3, M4 and FN+F4 hotkeys. To set them, select "Custom" next to the appropriate hotkey and do one of the following:
-
To run any custom application - put a full path to exe into the "action" text field, for example:
C:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2042\BF2042.exe
-
To simulate any Windows key - put the appropriate keycode into the "action" field, for example
0x2C
for Print Screen. Complete list of keycodes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/virtual-key-codes
In some rare cases, G14 2023 seem to have issues enabling/disabling dGPU - i.e. Eco mode. Till we wait for a fix from Asus on the BIOS level, one of the proposed solutions is to always shut down the laptop in Standard mode (then everything seems to work fine). To enable "forced" Standard mode on shutdown, add the following line to %AppData%\GHelper\config.json
"gpu_fix" : 1,
You can disable the app's OSD (for performance modes, keyboard backlight, etc.) by adding the following line to %AppData%\GHelper\config.json
"disable_osd": 1,
Ctrl + Shift + F5
- Toggle Performance ModesCtrl + Shift + F12
- Open G-Helper windowCtrl + M1 / M2
- Screen brightness Down / UpShift + M1 / M2
- Backlight brightness Down / Up
If you don't want these bindings to work, you can add "skip_hotkeys":1,
to %AppData%\GHelper\config.json
By default, the app will toggle performance modes with Ctr+Shift+F5. You can change this binding by adding "keybind_profile": 116
in config.json (under %AppData%\GHelper
), where 116 is numerical code for desired key. Put 0 to completely disable this binding.
Libraries/projects used
- Linux Kernel for some basic endpoints in ASUS ACPI/WMI interface
- NvAPIWrapper for accessing Nvidia API
- Starlight for anime matrix communication protocol
- UXTU for undervolting using Ryzen System Management Unit
Disclaimers "ROG", "TUF", and "Armoury Crate" are trademarked by and belong to AsusTek Computer, Inc. I make no claims to these or any assets belonging to AsusTek Computer and use them purely for informational purposes only.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. MISUSE OF THIS SOFTWARE COULD CAUSE SYSTEM INSTABILITY OR MALFUNCTION.