Razer Blade 14 (2015) - Repaste log

I bought a Razer Blade 14" (2015) in January 2016. I wanted to re-apply thermal paste to this laptop, for three reasons:

• Typically, laptop manufacturers have sub-optimal thermal paste application in both material (low quality paste) and method (too much paste).
• LVNeptune's experiences made me want to give it a try (thread link)
• I have an OCD compulsion to play with my computer gear to "maximize" it

So, here it goes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I bought Tuniq TX-4, because people reported it to be pretty decent in HDT configurations (heatpipe direct), like what the Razer Blade 14 uses. It is also non-electrically conductive thermal paste; which is very good since there's a decent chance of applying too much in this type of HDT setup.




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the stock heatsink & heatpipes, after removing from the CPU & GPU. I used a black marker to outline the borders of where the CPU & GPU would touch the heatpipes, to help me when I was applying new paste.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cleaned the heatsink / heatpipe assembly, CPU, and GPU of thermal paste using 90% isopropyl alcohol.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I filled the "gaps" between the heatpipes / heatsink assembly with Tuniq TX-4 thermal paste, and spread it out using a plastic card. This gets thermal paste into the "gaps" between the heatpipes.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Applied thermal paste directly to the heatpipes, in the "line" method commonly recommended by thermal paste manufacturers. This is where the black marker outlines help, to identify where the borders of the CPU / GPU are.

 

Overall, I got the operating temperature to drop by 6C from stock configuration, between thermal paste and undervolting.

Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, after running CPU Stress Test for 15 minutes:

• Default thermal paste: 89C
• Re-apply thermal paste: 85C
• Re-apply thermal paste + -70mV undervolt: 83C

Overall, I don't think there is practical benefit to re-pasting a Razer Blade 14 that doesn't thermally throttle. The temperature difference isn't noticeable without actually measuring CPU temperatures in an artificial / synthetic stress test scenario. And the fan noise is still as loud as it was before.

However, if you have an OCD desire to play with your computer gear, just because you find it fun, then it might be a fun little project to dig into one day.

 

Are those peak or average temps? 89C peak with turbo is quite good.

 

Uhm, I've been getting peaks of 99-100 C on my 2015 Blade 14, with core set on 99% on Windows Power Plan; I'm now wondering if it's as common as I thought it is.... Idle temps are around 50 C with youtube videos playing though Chrome with 3-4 more tabs opened and just Origin/Steam in the background.

The notebook is just 3 months old so no dry paste problems might be occuring, I guess.

Can anyone help me understanding how normal it is, please? Thanks

 

100c is too high. It will kill your laptop in the long run I am afraid.

 

I think so...

What I've done is lowering multipliers to x30 in 4 cores and 3 cores mod, used to be 34; it now doesn't throttle nor reaches temperatures higher than 90 C.

I woul'd have wanted to lower voltages too, to minimize the downclock but I have NO CLUE how to do it though XTU; used to overclock stuff through BIOS on my desktop and it wasn't as hard/easy as it looks on XTU, can anyone guide me through the process, before I end up doing something wrong, please?

If needed I'll just open a new thread btw, ended up talking freely in here since Kent posted his temps.

 

I'm not a fan of XTU because it doesn't reliably re-apply the undervolts for me. YMMV but I wrote a guide for undervolting with ThrottleStop here: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10167-laptop-undervolting-overcloking/


edit: also, the 99% power setting doesn't seem to work on the razer blade 2015. There's a bug in the bios that doesn't allow clock control properly. Multipliers below x17 work, but not above. Weird, I know. You can just check the "disable turbo" on the TS profile for whatever temp you deem to be too high (90C for me)

 

Thank you very much, I'll do that in the next few days and will post the results.

 

Doublepost but had to say it works ****ing great.

Any cluye how to reduce Throttlestop to icon in the tray tho? The "minimize on close" thingie will just reduce to windows taskbar, not just system tray icon and this sucks, to be honest.

Thank you again!

 

Sweet! Report on temps now for gaming/max load and what multipliers?

To fix the tray issue, go to the throttlestop folder and open a shortcut "cleaning the icon cache". It will open a webpage with a .bat at the bottom that you can run. The issue is related to the icon cache.

 

Sure, here is the report:

-61 mV to both CPU Parameters
-32 mV to iGPU
+125 MHz to dGPU Core
+ 280 MHz to dGPU Memory Clock

Throttlestop profiles:
1) Standard, x26 multiplier and turbo on
2) kicks in at a CPU temp of 90° C, x24 and turbo off
3) kicks in at a dGPU temp of 89° C, x22 and turbo off

-1hour long prime 95 test didn't bring it over 90° C
- 10' long prime95+furmark brought CPU to 95° and dGPU to 70° top
-1 hour long Star Wars Battlefront session, everything on ultra at FHD with rocksolid 60 Fps brought CPU to 92 ° C and dGPU to 82° C.

Will do BTW, thanks again!

 

I'm glad it worked! Not to be spammy, but could you do me a favour and post your results here in the bottom of the article? Just so people can see it's worth their time.

BTW: if you have trouble with overclocks not being set, try making a task that simply opens nvidiainspector.exe (no command lines applied!) BEFORE the timer for the one that applies the actual clocks. This has been the failsafe (but slightly annoying to close the window manually) way to get overclocks to set without fail.

 

No problem man, you've helped me a lot, I've posted it already, thanks again.

BTW I think I'll pass on it, too annoying to close a Window every time I boot up, ahah!

BTW do you think my Temps are safe now? Haven't had any experience with notebook ever, used to be behind a water-cooled desktop.

 

I would say that 92C as a peak is ok, but I wouldn't like to run it there for hours on a machine I'd want to keep around for years.

 

I might just disable turbo once and forever then... Thanks!

 

That's what I did! Gaming peaks around 83C with both GPU and CPU loaded.

 

Alright, could play a bit of Crysis 3, Titanfall and Talos Principle today and ended up finding out my GTX 970M reaches 85 C peaks (while CPU doesn't go over 87-88 C which is finally good enough).

Should I be worried about 85 C on a notebook GPU?

 

I did that on my 2014. Set cpu max state to 99% in control panel, keeps it from using turbo. I don't notice any difference in game performance.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

Uhm, as I said it's GPU and we've been talking about CPU tweaks for a while, me and Eason, and Turbo is disabled already.

Take a few minutes to read the whole conversation, just in case you wannna share some knowledge with us

Thanks btw!

 

85C is okay I think. 88+ is very hot. I think they have like a 5C lower thermal threshold than most CPUs today.

 

85C is fine for a laptop GPU. Its a bit higher than I've seen on mine, but you should be fine. Your fan is probably running full blast, so make sure that there isn't anything blocking the fan intakes or exhaust (near bottom of laptop screen).

Your CPU and GPU will both throttle if the temp gets too high, so I wouldn't worry about temperatures doing damage to your gear. What I consider to be more important is that the temps aren't causing your CPU / GPU to thermally throttle for performance reasons. But since it's pretty clear you know how to monitor temps and clock speeds, I'm sure you'd be able to identify if that was a problem.



Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

Well, I wanted to make sure it could be safe in the long term, throttle happens while the part reaches Temps which are risky in the mid/close terms, so it isn't safe enough yet.

Googling didn't help letting me know what is the operativity range for this GPU; Nvidia releases such infos regarding desktop parts only...

Also the Blade is too conservative, noise wise, since the fans turn full power while CPU is at some 90-95° C already and theres noway that I know of to manually control them.

Anyway, thanks for your post, I'll leave my GPU overclocked as it is, hoping you are right saying 80°'s C are safe enough.

 

Sweetness! Just finally created an account to post my results. After repasting and undervolting by 80mV, my 2014 Blade 14 now sits at 81C on the cpu and 83 on the 870m MAX!!! Very happy! Thanks so much for your guide.

 

Hi I'm really new to underclocking and I read the guide and followed the steps, but Im still a little confused with the program. As u and Makyura were talking about the benefits he made what are other specific settings do I need to apply for the best results. Do I change the multiplier and what settings do I put if I do need to change them, and do I check disable turbo on all profiles? And how do I apply the settings Makyura posted,

-61 mV to both CPU Parameters
-32 mV to iGPU
+125 MHz to dGPU Core
+ 280 MHz to dGPU Memory Clock

Throttlestop profiles:
1) Standard, x26 multiplier and turbo on
2) kicks in at a CPU temp of 90° C, x24 and turbo off
3) kicks in at a dGPU temp of 89° C, x22 and turbo off

Like I said I'm really new to it and I want to make my Razer Blade 2015 last a long time and don't want it to keep running as hot as it does when gaming. I just don't understand the lingo and where to go to set his settings. If u could walk me through specifically on how to do it. I don't want to trouble anyone, but I'm really interested in learning Underclocking. Also where do I find +125 MHz dgpu core and +280 dgpu memory clock? Does the program need to remain open 24/7 for it to underclock? Sorry for the dumb questions but I really have no idea about this stuff.

 

Did you read the article I posted? Which steps are unclear?

 

Well I found another post about Throttlestop and it made it more clear, so it kinda cleared up things for me. The only thing im not sure about is +125 MHz to dGPU Core, and +280 MHz to dGPU Memory Clock. What is he talking about and is that in ThrottleStop? Sorry about the dumb questions again, I just want to be sure about messing with this.

 

Lol, I wrote the article, FYI. That is the GPU you are overclocking for extra performance. It is done in nvidiainspector, not throttlestop. Again, it (and the links to the programs) are all in the article. Look at the overclocking section.

 

Lol sorry man, thanks again for the article and I feel dumb asking the newbie questions. I just didn't know how to word what I wasn't sure about. I didn't go into the overclocking section since it wasn't what I wanted to do. I'll read that part as well.