Razer Blade 14" (1060 GPU/late 2016) Owner's Lounge

The firestrike score of the GTX 1050Ti in an Acer pre production model on the notebookcheck site came at 6654, which is 20% ahead of the GTX 1050 or the GTX965M....which is pretty damn good. But still 40% below the gimped gtx 1060 in the RB and about 50% behind the GTX 1060 in other models.
The XPS15 will come with the GTX1050 and not the Ti due to wattage limitations.

 

Yeah, it's not like I didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to go with the Razer, I just wished there were more options that (imo) had the same build quality and materials as the Blade, but from other manufactuers that offer better support. I have said many times I am very happy with my laptop I get scores in the 9300s with no modifications made and it handles anything I throw at it on the go like a beast. Hell I went to watch the UFC fights last weekend with some friends and we all took one car to a buddies house and we sat in the back seat using my hotspot to play rocketleague on battery for maybe an hour or so and I still had ~50% battery left at the end of it. I love my laptop, I just wish there were more/better comparable options than being forced to support a company that treats its customers the way Razer does you know?

I guess after seeing those 1050 scores and results, maybe it would have been slightly lackluster from what I would have hoped for out of a portable "all in 1" work and gaming laptop, and if TB3 is limited that would upset me as well. There's so many laptops that come close and are missing one feature, or lack in another one it sucks lol. And yes I know...something else/"better" is always right around the corner. Life sucks.

 

So after upgrading EC (trying again gives a message that the upgrade has already been done), making sure cooling is on cool mode, trying every windows tweak I could find, and finally doing a fresh windows 10 install ... the computer is STILL choppy. It's comparable to a friend's dual core laptop from 3 years ago. My 4 year old 3610QM crushes it in system responsiveness. Firestrike still 400-500 points lower than it should. SSD benchmarks are fine.

Thankfully this is my gf's laptop, she can't tell the difference so she's using it and liking it anyway (what razer is counting on? IT illiterate customers like Apple?), but I'm furious, and since I shipped this overseas shipping back and back again is a few hundred bucks.

 

Considering their fans @ Insider forums, they are counting on illiterate rich people, not just IT illiterate.

At least Apple customers are more like "heyyy I can browse Facebook in less than 10 seconds since when I open the lid, can't I? I'll ask for a fix!" while Razer ones are often about "look at me, it's black, oh and it's green, it's stylish and you barely see this one around, I'm so gamer cuz black and so hipster cuz black-macbook, mum, gimme some more money for gaming, this game will run better on next refresh model!!!".

Wouldn't it be like this, we'd have probably seen a few good fixes for all of the small bugs people are facing and some more long-term support; they'd have had to work to keep their customers.

 

I also noted some lag at certain times but not very much....once in a while opening a menu or something. I also have a clean install. It doesn´t seem to happen as often as yours. Returning mine is not an option any more since I am back in Brasil. What is your firestrike score? 400-500 points lower than what it should be, like in the RB or in other laptops? Mine is coming in normal for a RB with the gimped GTX 1060 around 9200-9300 no OC. Which of course is about 400-500 lower than other laptops with the 1060.
Did you unistall the killer suite? keep just the drivers?

 

If you are noticing microstuttering doing various things in Windows (like opening the battery indicator from the task bar), apparently this is due to Windows 10 kicking in the NVidia GPU, and the stuttering you are seeing is Optimus switching.

This has been discussed a lot in the MSI owners lounges and also the Gigabyte Aero 14 lounge, where Gigabyte included a piece of software called "emptyproject11.exe" which prevented the laptop from switching to the iGPU, this removing the stuttering as the NVidia GPU was always enabled (at the cost of battery life).

I would presume such microstuttering issues the Blade 1060 has is a similar or identical issue, as it seems to be common across all Optimus-enabled GTX10 series laptops as far as I can figure.

 

Thanks CedricFP for the insight. So instead of selecting the 1060 for constant use in the nvidia control panel to resolve the microstuttering, perhaps disabling it instead in the device manager might have the same effect. Then I can enable it when I need it and still have battery life. I will check it out. Although the microstuttering I observed has been minor, like you mentioned, clicking on the battery indicator and having a 1 second delay or so, or other such similar instances. Not a big issue, in my case, but strange nonetheless in a quad core, full of ram, nvme ssd and such.

 

I have no idea if this is a working solution, but yes the battery indicator seems to be one of the major culprits. From what I understand the theory is, certain actions in Windows 10 recruit the NVidia GPU instead of simply using the iGPU.

I highly recommend doing a search in the following two MSI owners threads for a possible solution. They have been talking about microstuttering for a long time on account of being the first few laptops with the 1060 to hit the market, and they may have resolved the issue there:

GS43 Owners Lounge: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-gs43vr-phantom-pros-owners-lounge.793376/page-93

GS63 Owners Lounge: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/msi-gs63vr-stealth-pro-owners-lounge.795498/page-54

Also in the last few pages of the Aero 14 thread, there was some talk on the stuttering and the "emptyproject11.exe" file preventing it so you may learn more there too.

Aero 14 Owners Lounge: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-aero-14-w-gtx1060.797689/page-44

 

First time laptop owner here. Also experienced the micro stuttering on my razer. it's less now after I've set my preferred GPU on nvidia control panel to the intel GPU and set the high performance gpu specifically on application I need it on i.e. games (OW and SF5). don't recall any other steps right now that I did to further help with the issue.

still in the phase of doing benchmarks, finding best configurations for battery/plugged in and slowly transition work from desktop to laptop. really happy having my own work/game machine again since my wife took over the desktop.

however I am experiencing keypress drops occasionally. it might be just me coming from brown switches and getting used to light presses. putting a lot more strength into using the keyboard and see if that's it. hopefully it is.

 

I disabled the GTX 1060 in the device manager and it seems like the microstuttering is gone....I need to test it longer to be sure, but so far so good. I will enable the 1060 when I need it, such as playing games or using HDMI.

 

Are there any side effects to disabling the card in device manager that you've noticed? If you try to launch a game with it disabled, does it just recruit the iGPU?

 

Most likey, this is only a solution for my daily use when I am not playing games or using HDMI. Also, the microstuttering isn´t really that bad on mine, a bit frustrating considering the components, but this solution works for me for now.

 

Has there been any talk of Razer updating the 14 with Kaby Lake? I am in the market but do not need one immediately. Anyone have an opinion on when they will update? Seems like they will probably deplete their current inventory.

 

I think Razer will take their time to refresh to Kaby Lake....as you said to deplete their inventory first. Perhaps April or so? It is not a huge performance gain considering the gpu would stay the same. Perhaps by then they will have sorted out the issues with the skylake model, which are relatively minor in my case.

 

I noticed just now, that on battery consumption goes way up to -20,000 mv...instead of the -12000 mv range during light use. So I enabled it again, the microstuttering is not so bad on mine....tolerable. It was a test.

 

That's definitely a weird side effect. So does the microstuttering only occur when doing very specific things (like opening battery indicator) or can it just happen randomly when browsing a website?

 

CedriFP, the microstuttering seems to happen only in windows menus such as opening control panel or clicking on battery icon or opening task bar and such...sometimes up to a 1 second freeze.

 

Razer Blade Late 2016

 

I get the microstuttering most noticeably when waking my screen up from being black as I have it set to a minute or 2 to black my screen out and everytime I move the mouse to "wake it up" the mouse freezes for a second. It's not the end of the world but it is extremely annoying. I wish there was some type of official word or acknowledgment from Nvidia about it as it seems to be happening on any computer using the new 10 series cards (that I have read reviews or peoples experiences about) and saw some posts on reddit that the new Dell 7000 series laptops with 1050s have the same thing happening.

 

Hey all,

I just picked up the FHD model from the Microsoft store and it arrived on Friday. The stuttering issue in Windows when clicking on the battery icon/changing wallpapers etc. is very noticeable and annoying.

Looking through this forum and the MSI/Gigabyte forums it's fairly obvious that I'm not the only one having this issue. I've read pretty much every review on this laptop out there, user or otherwise, and none of them mention it. Is it just a case of a defective 1060, and most users don't experience this? Should I RMA the laptop and hope to get one that doesn't have this issue when they get more in stock?

Razer wants me to send it to them for repairs but who knows what they'll do to it...

 

Seems to me that Nvidia is more focused on G sync now and does not care for Optimus anymore.

base-ex...I also haven´t seen it mentioned in any review.

 

new nvidia driver is out...378.49, doubt it will resolve optimus issues....since it might be a windows issue, who knows.

 

Good, this is how laptops should move forward from now on.

 

It baffles me that the stuttering isn't acknowledged in any "real review" yet anyone you talk to with one of the laptops seems to be experiencing it, sometimes to different degrees but it could just be peoples perception of it and how much it actually bothers and affects them.

 

I guess my question then becomes is there anyone with this laptop that doesn't have this problem?

Still debating about whether to exchange mine and see if a new unit has the same issue.

 

Hey guys, knowing that most of you in this forum owns a blade or is planning to buy one, do anyone know if there is a store in Europe that sells the new blade 14 and ships the computer to most country's in Europe? I'm from Portugal and it seems that this laptop isn't available here
I'm also planning on buying one in the future...

Cheers

 

I think it's also a question of sensitivity. I've never noticed this on my laptop and have tried to recreate based on what has been described here. It may be there, but I sure dont notice anything off.

 

That's a good point. The most consistent way to reproduce the issue for me is to just click the battery icon and try moving the mouse. The entire computer locks up for about 1 second, and sometimes audio cuts out if you have anything playing. Same thing happens on wallpaper change. It happens on battery or otherwise, though I suspect it's worse on battery. Does that sound similar to your experience?

 

eugh. not at the cost of less than 6 hours of battery life...

 

I don´t get the slight freeze when clicking the battery icon, but I do have a slight freeze when clicking on next background picture....or opening the control panel. It is slight but noticeable.

 

I don't click the battery icon much if at all so I don't notice that but when I click the start button my computer will typically lock up for a second.

 

I noticed this morning that the 1080p versions aren't even in the configuration drop down anymore. They were there yesterday.

 

I can confirm, no freeze or stutter on clicking battery (whether plugged in or on battery).

 

Hi everyone, first post!
(And soon to be Razer Blade 14 user!)

I know this isn't Razer support.. but just looking for people with experience as it's my first purchase from Razer directly.


Basically I've ordered a Razer Blade 14 512GB FHD and it's been "in process" since the 24th at 2am, haven't had any further updates or anything or informed of any sort of delays. My money is on hold as well so just not sure weather the order has messed up, I just don't know really. Have emailed Razer but they aren't very helpful in their replies.

 

Cancel it if you can and order from Amazon or Microsoft Store ...

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

I live in the U.K. And MS don't sell it here neither do Amazon

 

Ah bummer, sorry I missed that.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

They've removed the promo link on the store front page that links to the 1080p version too...

Looks like they might not be making any more?

Thanks for checking! Though if the above is true I might not get the chance to try an exchange, unless there's already a new batch of 1080ps on their way to MS.

 

Hi guys. Can a couple of you share temps you get running Intel XTU (CPU only) and FurMark (1080p 4xMSAA) for 10 minutes w/ Quiet Mode? I'm looking to do some comparisons. Honestly, so far I've been pretty impressed with this 1080p gtx1060 system.

These are with EC FW 4.00. (No under-volting for this test) I get no throttling / thermal limits. Ambient temp approx 20C:
Open Air Bottom: CPU Package Max: 86C, GPU Max: 71C
Sitting on hard flat surface: CPU Package Max 91C, GPU Max: 77C

Mine has a build date of Sep, 2016, and I can confirm the stutter when clicking on battery. Also, yes even when my CPU is down to 20C... the fans will never idle... or even step below a pretty audible level, but it's acceptable. The system unfortunately hibernates unexpectedly as reported, when trying to use the NBFC XML profile here.

Lastly, I have figured out no way other than the device manager to disable the built-in track pad to avoid accidental hits... does anyone know a better trick? I miss the Fn+F6 or F1 I had to get rid of it quickly on my previous machines... from 10 years ago. Didn't think that was a new thing!

 

Here's another tip to help with lag on this computer I just figured out (was driving me nuts)! Press Start > Open NVIDIA Control Panel, and in the menu bar at the top, click on Desktop. Uncheck "Add Desktop Context Menu" & "Run with Graphics Processor".

Holy Cow-- opening file explorer no longer takes 3 seconds to respond, the start menu is faster, and when I right click on a dang .txt file, the computer doesn't go out to lunch for 10 seconds. Sheesh! This isn't Razer's fault. We're looking at you Intel / MS / Nvidia.

>.>

 

Didn´t work for me...unfortunately. The solution that worked best for me was to run the gigabyte solution on startup, the emptyproject11.exe....it activates the gtx1060 permanently, but not in the sense that it is being constantly used by programs....it works well as a band aid....it impacts battery life a lot less than I thought. Yet there is a impact...30min or more...I opted to living with the micro stutters once in a while until a better solution is found.

Edit: Instead of automatically running the emptyproject11.exe at startup, I put a shortcut on desktop and I run it when I´m plugged in ...to have a smooth experience....then on battery I opt not to run it to have better battery life and I can live with the slight stutters once in awhile.

 

Indeed it is not, most likely a windows 10 bug....I think Nvidia would of done something by now if they could, considering laptops from all brands present this issue....including Alienware, MSI and Gigabyte.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/860554/geforce-mobile-gpus/windows-10-and-optimus/15/

 

I would just like to see it addressed and acknowledged that they are aware of the issue and looking into or working with Microsoft to solve it. Whether it's 100% Microsoft's fault or not it's Nvidia's products and customers this is seriously affecting and they should at least acknowledge there's a problem no?

 

Since there is no easy way to search this particularly long thread I'll ask the question...

Has anyone repasted their CPU/GPU? Have the temps improved at all? I'm not saying I have gotten any specifically high temps, but if it's worth doing I'd be interested in information from those who have undergone the process.

 

Repasting is hit and miss but sanding the pipes improves temps massively.

 

They just released the refresh for the Razer Blade 2016.

Notable changes are in bold in the PDF I attached. They also renamed the older model to v5 and gave appropriate models lower V titles. I am also curious to see if this new refresh will have the same fan curve issues we have seen on this forum, as well as flickering, and graphic switching (optimus) issues.

Let us know in the forums if you purchase the new refresh!

 

Curious if the refresh will have poor power circuitry.

 

I guess my PDF does not want to show up on notebookreview

 

Seems like the basic version, full HD 256GB is $100 more than the skylake version. It does come with 2400MHz DDR4 instead of 2133 besides the kabylake upgrade.

 

probably the same as usual.