2019 Razer Blade stealth performance

so I got my stealth acouple days ago and here’s a quick video I put together. Yes the fans are on MAX speed! 2019 Razer Blade Stealth 13 4K MX150 Unboxing and Gameplay

 

What brand of screen is that? You can check on devices manager, monitor and generic php monitor property by scrolling down to like devices instance path etc, usually it shows monitor/“display brands name/code“. And is that on right bottom display is backlight Bleeding?

 

No that is glare on the bottom right and the panel code is AUO202B

 

What is noise and battery life like for productivity?

 

Noise is minimal and battery life is 5-6hrs. I’m sure with tweaks and throttlestop it’s possible to achieve 7

 

Hi, Thank you for starting the thread.

I am privacy hound and Synapse 3 is recording keystrokes all the time. I have tried to disable Synapse like did on the the previous version of Synapse but no success. If I go through some hoops with Services I can disable it. It will maintain a single color but if the laptop is turned off it will not retain the color and Synapse will not load. Little frustrating.

Any ideas how to take Synapse offline?

Other than this issue I have been very happy with the machine.

Btw... Swapped the drive to the WD Blue 2TB M.2 SATA. Worked perfectly.

 

Never tried that but I heard previous Synapse could be offline-ed by changing appdata notepad like this guy did. How about trying that?

 

Thank you. I am going to try your suggestion. Hopefully S3 has a similar set of protocols. I am also see going to see if there is an option in the firewall to block S3 from sending data back to Razer.

 

New Bios and EC up on the website.

 

Razer hardcoded a power limit into the EC firmware. It throttles to 25W under CPU load and 15W under CPU+GPU load. That means, after a few seconds of full load, the CPU will be limited to 3.0GHz or less.

After I posted this video, a YouTuber "Talons Tech Talk" commented that you could circumvent the power limits by making it believe it's using less power than actual. He says you could set in the BIOS:

Code:

Advanced/CPU VR Settings/Core IA VR settings/
IMON Slope = 50 IMON
Offset = 31999
IMON Prefix = -

I have already returned my Stealth at this point, so I can't confirm this. Any of you guys interested in testing this out? Maybe the EC listens to this, maybe not.
I've already unlocked the advanced BIOS menus using AMIBCP, so you can just flash the ROM using AFUWIN.

 

I'm starting a thread about this on the Razer Insider forums. Hopefully it will get some attention there. Thanks for the excellent video!

 

Nice video, we did same thing on Blade 15 last year, yes power limit throttling is there as well, and no one so far as I know success ripping Blade 15 bios, it’s accessible but their firmware or bios setting somehow keep always the default. I don’t know how much it would impact video editing but on gaming I was pessimistic about this as well at first actually, but after 9 months owning it, gaming overall performance isn’t bad at all and that power throttle to lower tdp did not effect FPS smoothness in my experience, on lower frequency it still often stay long on max all cores 3,9 (8750H), and I think for staying on that frequency we don’t always need max tdp. I think Blade 15 is still one of the fastest 1070mq laptops, it’s due higher gpu tdp like on stealth 2019 mx150 compared to other.

 

Right. Gaming is GPU-heavy and not that demanding on the CPU. But for video editing and some other things, it is a problem. The bottom line is that if a laptop is not running at near 100°C, one way or another it's not fully utilizing its hardware capability. A waste of thermal headroom.

As consumers, we need to demand more.

 

Did you measure how long or bad compared to other laptops is this power limit things effecting? It’s similar with Blade 15 at first months launch, since then I think due optimization it’s less but still there. I remember some of Razer forum moderator brings the issue to staff, when I’m not wrong it’s for better temperature. And recently from notebookcheck there’s comparison with similar specs ultrabook. If I’ve to choose between two I would definitely go for stealth, look at gaming temperature, other is throttling. So it’s maybe not due wasting thermal room etc, maybe they take the worst condition like gaming temperature.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Razer...st-13-inch-Ultrabooks-available.396601.0.html

 

Yes, even with this behavior, the Stealth is still the fastest 13" ultrabook. As I mentioned in my video, the other ones have it even worse. But take the MateBook 13 for example. I don't have the 13 but I have the X Pro, and its power limit throttling is removable. MateBook 13 with removed power limits is going to be much faster than Stealth. I'd rather have my laptop run hotter and faster than cooler and slower. The Stealth is the fastest but it can be so much faster still! Its cooling system can literally accommodate a 8750H + MX150 or 8565U + GTX1050.

So I'm curious, would you rather have a cooler but slower laptop? I guess people may have different preferences.

 

How does your power limit removed x Pro perform? Do you have any number like cinebench or 3Dmark to proof your statement, I’m curious about that since on 3Dmark physical score stealth 8565U surpass quad core 7700HQ with 45Watt tdp.
Most poeple want cooler and faster laptops but that’s a Fantasy on thin light categories. If cooler and slower means longer lifespan than faster and hot one, I prefer then have slower one, i hate hot laptop, heat is biggest enemy especially on this category, having it running hot may invite tons issues. Idk the performance on video editing but even my dual core stealth to me it’s still fast enough running all my needs from work to gaming, I can even playing BFV, Vampyr in 4K with Core help and hitting playable 60fps. When this stealth 2016 is dead, I’ll probably get something like stealth 2019 cpu ultrabook.

 

I can see what you're getting at. But, many people want something that is reasonably quiet and powerful. And while I agree high temps on a cpu wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would mean more wear and tear on the components. Plus I think the Macbook Pro 15 proves that just because it's running hot doesn't mean it's fully utilizing the max performance of the CPU.

 

This right here perfectly illustrates the situation. Different people have different preferences.
Now the question is not why it's done in one way or the other, since it's obvious there will always be unsatisfied customers, but instead why is the decision taken away from the users instead of providing it to them. We could easily have a "cool and slow" option (by default even, if it were to "protect the unknowingly masses from themselves") and a "hot and fast" alternative (for the knowledgeable people out there).

 

No, I think everyone doesn’t want their laptop dead right after warranty end
So maybe Razer try to avoid that by this. Like nowaday Apple book that lock everything that made users hardly tweaks it, hardware and software wise and should waiting from their bios or firmware update for optimization.

 

As much as I agree with you, I can understand why they don't give us a choice. The average customer is stupid. Plain and simple. So companies make their machine run the way they want that would appease the average customer.

We're a minority sadly. So we won't be to concerned about making us happy.

 

FYI, here's BIOS 1.02 and EC 1.01 for the Stealth 2019. Are these new by any chance? Didn't see them around.

 

Where did you get it? I didn’t see on official website, they took it.
http://drivers.razersupport.com//in...XlsY8g6ujtOxM2pPN5X-N1HG1heO-PTgaAr-jEALw_wcB

 

I was looking for new hidden updates for my Blade 15 and stumbled upon it. You'll see that the category that the file is in is erroneously "Razer Blade 15” (2018) Advanced". The file is not actually in there of course, because what file gets shown is dependent on the downloaditemid parameter in the URL. The itemids are incremental. Each time they upload a file it gets not a random number or string, but an increment of a number.

Take the link for the BIOS for example:

Code:

http://drivers.razersupport.com//index.php?_m=downloads&_a=viewdownload&downloaditemid=3059&nav=0,350,765,766

See how the itemid is 3059? Change that to 3060 and you have the EC file. The newest file is 3063 btw.

The link that the download button leads you to is:

Code:

https://dl.razer.com/drivers/BladeStealth2019/RazerUpdater_v1.1.1.0_L1-BIOSv0102.exe

Which would be the direct download link for the file. From that file we know that Razer names the 2019 Stealth "L1" (the Blade 15 2018 is C1). If they don't update the RazerUpdater, then you'd be able to eventually find BIOS 1.03 by changing the BIOS version in the link. It's how I found the Blade 15 1.07 BIOS for example.

 

They seem take out stealth bios update due some issues that users reported I believe. Anyway it’s a great find. I’m good actually with 1.05, did you find anything new on 1.07 advanced btw.

 

Nope, nothing different for me compared to 1.06. But for @HAMSTERS it fixed something. Quoting from the thread.

 

Okay, I don’t have those issues on 1.05, battery fine, web cam fine, maybe I’ll just hanging with this for a bit longer till I feel uncomfortable.

 

I believe they just released these to address the coil whine and battery discharge issues some people were experiencing with the 2019 Stealth.

We'll see. I might be returning my Stealth because of these performance caps. There's no reason for me to not just stick with my 2017 Blade 14--it's only a little bit bigger, is much more powerful, and still has excellent battery life. I was hoping the Stealth would be able to outclass it in at least a couple of those categories.

 

Because some spoiled 5 year old will let the CPU take 60W because they are a "1337 G@M3R" and then complain online when it dies a year later

 

N00b, do you also have a Stealth 13? 1.06 gives me intense camera flicker which destroys the usability of this laptop for me. I'm looking for a 1.07 bios for this or earlier to solve this problem. Can you help?

 

Nope.

Unfortunately, not really. The only thing I can tell you is you could try to downgrade and see if the issue persists. I never had a new Blade Stealth in hand, but if the construction of the Blade 15 is anything to go by, then there's a possibility of the display/webcam cable having a bad connection due to being routed too tightly and opening and closing the lid. Open the machine and see if there's any heavy kinks (to a point of it breaking) in the webcam cable and if it's connected correctly.

I didn't follow the Blade Stealth, since I don't have one, so now either they have deleted some previous BIOS and EC versions from their server (but the 1.02 download works just fine, so I doubt that), or I'm just not able to find 1.05. They have some inconsistent naming for the files and update the updater regularly, but any and all combinations that make sense don't seem to work. You can still give 1.02 a try.