Razer Blade 14: Uses battery power despite being plugged into charger.

I've been toying around with my Razer Blade 2014 for 2+ months now. I've been using it primarily to play FF14. I'm running into an issue where the laptop will often have to draw power from the battery despite being plugged into its charger. It is as if the power brick is not supplying enough power. Sometimes after gaming in FF14 for a few hours with the charger plugged in, my laptop will shut off automatically, only for me to boot it back up and see that the percentage of battery power remaining is at <8%. Is this a known issue, or is there a fix for this?

I've gone through several months worth of posts on this forum, and so far the only possible fix I have read is to set the CPU scaling in the power options to 99%, as the turbo boost may be causing the CPU to overheat (I'm guessing this is the source of the excessive power draw). Any help or information will be greatly appreciated.

 

I got my Razer Blade 14 2014 sometime mid July. It wasn't until last month that I started using it on a more regular basis.

I noticed the charging was intermittent and the battery depletes within two hours while surfing on Chrome. Hardware issue: 2014 Razer Blade 14 512GB - YouTube
If I plug the charger in and surf on Chrome, the battery level will somehow just manage to stay on the same level and sometimes even depletes a few percent.

Sent it in on an RMA. Got it back yesterday. They said they replaced the battery after confirming it wasn't a software issue by resetting the laptop. The battery was fully charged then.

I started using it today, updating all Windows updates, Nvidia updates, Synapse updates. Installed all my Blizzard games. Battery was almost depleted by then. Plugged it in. And was disappointed to see the issue happening again. It wasn't solved. Unresolved charging issue - YouTube

Kept it plugged in and shut the laptop down. Switched it on much later and its on full charged. Logged into Diablo 3. Walked around town for a while. Exit game. That was like less than ten minutes. Battery dropped till 86%. That is with the charger plugged in!

I sent a follow up email to Razer. Hope to hear from them soon. I cannot afford to keep taking off from work making trips to the service centre. I own 3 other cheap laptops and a Chromebook. They do not give me simple issues like this...

 

I bought my Razer on 11/25 and I'm having this same issue after less than a week of owning it. Can you update on what you hear back? I've contacted support myself, and I'll do the same for the benefit of anyone else who experiences this. Depending on their response, I'll probably just return the laptop for a refund and look for something else. What a disappointment given the price premium you pay for these systems.

 

I was pretty sure I cannot be the only person to have this issue. I keep my Blade in tip top condition and never install any other suspicious programs. Mainly the Window, Nvidea, Synapse updates, BNet Client with my Blizzard games. I already sent it in for repair once. An underutilized 3 months old, pristine, SGD4K laptop should not be giving simple issues like this
Still in email correspondence with Razer.
Actually I just want the laptop to just work. Its beautiful and powerful, but this problem is really a deal breaker...

 

Razer support wants me to send in the system to them. Since there's no diagnostics to run, or other settings to check that might explain the issue, I'm just going to return this for a refund. It's a great system on paper, but in reality it seems plagued by too many issues. And it's not reassuring that you've already sent it in once for repair and they sent it back without resolving the issue. What good is a warranty if they won't fix the issue?

I don't know if a refund is an option for you at this point, but you might consider talking with your credit card company if you paid via that method on options to do a charge back if they can't resolve this for you asap. Good luck getting this sorted out.

 

I was told to try the following again.

Please try the following:

1st Click Start and type device in the search field, then select Device Manager.
2nd Expand the Batteries category.
3rd Under the Batteries category, right-click the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listing, and select Uninstall.
4th Restart the computer.
Please do the following:
Turn off the Blade
Allow it to charge overnight while powered off (not sleeping/hibernating)
Unplug the Blade
Turn it on
Use the Blade off of battery until it powers down
Charge the Blade fully again.

This will calibrate the charging sensor. Overnight = 8 hours

I did this the first time round before sending the laptop in for repair. Will try this suggestion again.
Hopefully it will work this time round...

 

I ran into the same issue and after lots of testing, I tracked it down to my DC-In connecting power to the Motherboard (just posted about this in a new thread).

I tried different Razer adapters, tested the battery, etc. but nothing seemed to be wrong with those components. The symptoms were the same as you were describing : gaming seemed to drain the battery while using Windows applications allowed the battery to charge, or at least stay steady. It ended up getting worse and worse until the battery wouldn't charge at all. When I removed the DC-In piece it looked like the wires had overheated and burned the protective rubber sheathing around them. I was able to finagle the wires into a position where my laptop would charge, but it wasn't a permanent solution. I sent in my laptop for repairs as Razer doesn't sell replacement parts and I couldn't find a suitable replacement around the internet.

Good luck!

 

The fact that these wires apparently can't handle the current without overheating is a specification failure. They should fix it for free.

 

But if that's the case, Razer should have picked this up when I sent in mine for repair.
They just told me that they replaced the battery.
I just finished charging the laptop over night.
Will continue with the solution they gave me tonight with fingers crossed.
It's going to take alot of faith.
I am pretty sure it's hardware. But they keep choking me with the Microsoft ACPI battery controller driver solution... which didn't work previously already.

 

Could definitely have been the battery as well. In fact, I would suspect that's usually a more likely cause then the problem I had. Took me awhile to track down the DC-IN issue but Razer confirmed the problem during the repairs. Hopefully yours was just the battery and it's fixed!

 

Same solution given the first time didnt work the second time as well. I am pretty sure this is more than a driver conflict...
Replying their email...

This is exhausting...

http://youtu.be/qVrYrwl8imE

 

Hmm. My laptop is beyond Amazon's 30 day return policy. I will say that the 99% CPU scaling in the power options did seem to alleviate the issue with battery drain while plugged in. Looks like I can only hope this problem doesn't get any worse from here.

 

No response from them till date. Hope to hear from them soon.

 

Heard from them again today. Was told to send in a Battery Report again. Will do so tonight.

I tried experimenting with the Nvidia Battery Boost yesterday night.
Upon activating it, in the Games Tab, under each game there is a new tab called 'On Battery' for game optimization.
With my current issue of intermittent charging, I can physically see the "Plugged In" tab and "On Battery" tab alternating every few seconds.
When the charging is on going, the "Plugged In" tab will be green and the "On Battery" tab will be grayed out. Then after a few seconds, the charging will cut off and the "On Battery" tab will turn green and the "Plugged In" tab will be grayed out. And this keeps alternating throughout.

Not sure if you guys have this same phenomenon or not. I will let Razer know of this as well so they can hopefully understand the situation better.

On a sided note, I disabled my Fast Startup on Windows 8.1 to observe if there is still battery drain while the laptop is shut off. There is another thread on it here. Did that yesterday night before heading to bed. Will update the results when I reach home today. If it works, I will reply that thread on this as a solution.

 

Sorry to hear it still hasn't been fixed. It still sounds exactly like my internal DC-IN issue where the failing wires were causing my laptop to constantly cycle through "charging" and "on battery" for no apparent reason. If you're comfortable opening up the laptop, you can check yourself (if it's still under warranty don't do it, as I believe it will void it). Good luck, hope you figure it out soon, I know how frustrating that issue can be.

 

Was told to send my Blade back in again.

As for the "battery drain during shut off period" test. There is no change even after I disabled Fast Startup. I still get around 4% drop when I boot it up again the next day. This is around the same amount of decrease (4 to 5%) per day when I had Fast Startup ON. 2 days of shut off period usually result in around 7% drop, so the decrease seems linear so far. I will update the other thread that switching off Fast Startup wont work.

Tried to play more games today, Hearthstone, Diablo III, Starcraft II... all resulted in battery decrease even when plugged in.
Infact I was at around 36% when I first started playing at around 11pm. I was in SCII when I was forced out of the game when the Windows Low Battery Warning came on and asked me to plug my AC in. That was at 11:40pm with battery level 7%.
I had the AC plugged in since 10pm plus at 17% battery life.

 

Just to wrap up the case.

Got back my Blade today.
They mentioned Charger went faulty and was replaced.
So far I have tested it out a little. Looks good.
Will have to continue to monitor. Hope it stays good that way.

Its been close to a month since I first contacted them about the issue.
Many frustrations but glad it is now solved and my Blade seems to be working as it should.
Will I still buy from Razer? Most likely yes (Leviathan). I am a fan of Min after all, and I like what Razer is doing to the gaming scene.
Will I recommend a friend to get Razer? Probably not. Coming from Quality Operations, this experience has left a rather sour taste in the mouth.

 

I'm actually currently having the exact same problems! Just sent an email to support.

 

I have just purchased a 2015 QHD model less than 24 hours ago and am facing this issue. The scary part is that I am only in the country I bought it from for a few more days and will be flying back to thailand (which is where I work) and there's no Razer laptop support there since no of the laptops are being sold there.

I just sent an email to Razer support and will contact the authorized reseller tomorrow. I hope I don't end up having to send it back and forth with no quick resolution to the issue before leaving the country.

should I assume the issue is the charger and push them to replace it as quickly as possible?

 

Always got this battery power usage when asleep on all version of Windows. I was enraged because I knew it was Software related.

Since I have installed Windows 10 the problem have disappeared entirely. The culprit was the razed drivers IMHO.

I am on the latest beta build 10240 of Windows 10. Everything works fine. Getting to sleep when I close the lid. No more wake up by itself. Battery stay where it was for days.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Had the same problem starting exactly a year after purchasing the laptop. Sent it in they told me the problem was a "spilled beverage" and quoted me 700$ to fix it. Its a systemic problem through multiple users and they know it so i refused to pay them what they asked for.

Not ever buying a razer product again. Paying 3 grand for a premium product then being told to shove off by their tech support and pay for it myself when it is clearly a flaw in the wiring or the system itself is ludicrous.

I highly recommend no one purchases their laptops, I know I wont be buying a single other product from them ever again.

 

Try a 180W universal adapter (~19V). Seems like they skimmed on costs here;

Add more powerful wifi and 'poof'; not enough juice.

One of the tips needs to match, though. If not; just solder on old tip to new adapter.

 

Razer Blade 2014 stated "plugged in, not charging" or "charging" but when games are played. it drained faster than it could charge. I tried to uninstall the battery method, all of that is pretty much garbage from the razer tech. My suggestion is amazon has a $45 aftermarket charger. The Razer Blade can now be fully charge without any error on high performance playing games. Battery isn't draining and it's definitely charging.


Notes: The old razer blade came with a 150W charging brick. The latest one available is 165 compatible with 2014-2016 on their site. Perhaps the old 150W bricks were giving out and they updated their charging brick due to problems? I'd recommend using their OEM unit as I've ordered it also. Aftermarket may ruin your laptop.


Aftermarket charger:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GDHT6YK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

OEM charger:
http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-165w-power-adapter

Power failure occured in 2014 , 2015 , 2016 Razer Blade and Razer Stealth units.

 

PSU's lose some of their strength overtime. They have not accounted for that. Proudly bragging about how small their PSU is, while they just shaved of some extra insurance of longevity is quite sad. There is a reason why most charger with the same power output are a tad bigger.

 

Hmm ... they haven't changed the package, only swapped a few components, increasing voltage output by 0.8V and amps by 0.4A. Preferably, you'd want to leave voltage alone and increase maximum A. The 20V mark is a common upper limit for passive smd components, so it makes sense to stay a little under that threshold. The 165W's 19.8V is cutting it awfully close, probably because they couldn't get the +0.8A required without adding extra components (and, hence, having to increase its size ).

Either way, if the old adapter suffered from overheating and the concomitant reduction in lifespan and decreased maximum draw then this 165W version will see the same effect, only magnified.

This questionable trick did put them back on top of my little watt/dm³ list, so there's that ... :

Code:

adapter                                       w    d    h   v in mm³  v     a     watt   watt/dm³  

Razer 165W                                    150  60   22  198000    19.8  8.3   164.9  833        
Aorus X7                                      150  70   25  262500    19    10.5  199.5  760        
Razer 150W                                    150  60   22  198000    19    7.9   150.1  758        
König Slimline LCD Notebookadapter 120W       125  58   26  188500    19    6.3   119.7  635        
Kensington 120-Watt Ultraportable (K33336US)  142  79   20  219049    24    5     120    548        
Cooler Master’s USNA 120                      156  65   21  212940    19    5.8   110    517        
180W Dell JVF3V                               155  76   30  352683    19.5  9.2   180    510        
Dell PA-9E 240W                               200  95   25  475000    19.5  12.3  239.9  505        
Dell 180 Watt AC Adapter 74X5J                155  75   30  348750    18.5  9.5   175.8  504        
Dell TW1P0                                    155  76   30  359860    19.5  9.2   180    500        
Dell/Asus FA180PM111                          164  75   30  369000    19.5  9.2   180    488        
NB Q120 PLUS 120W                             156  74   20  230880    19    5.8   110    476        
ASUS(N180W-02)                                165  76   31  382470    19    9.5   179.9  470        
HP 230W Slim (H1D36AA)                        200  100  26  520000    19.5  11.8  230    442        
HP slim 200W (693708-001)                     170  80   35  476000    19.5  10.3  200.9  422        
Delta ADP-120MH D                             148  79   25  292300    19.5  6.2   119.9  410        
LG PF1500 adapter                             135  55   35  259875    19    5.6   106.2  409        
P65xSx/P157SM-A 180W (Delta ADP-180NB BC?)    169  85   36  517140    19.5  9.2   179.4  347        
HP VOODOO PC Omen DNA                         165  165  38  1034550   20    17.5  350    338        
HobbyKing 540W                                208  139  60  1720264   18    30    540    314        
Cooler Master Notebook NA120                  167  65   37  401635    19    6.3   120.1  299        
Eminent EM3966                                165  66   41  446490    19    6.3   119.7  268        
lite-on PA-1131-07                            164  68   41  457232    19    6.3   119.7  262        
Chicony CPA09-022A                            209  114  50  1198540   20    15    300    250        
Delta ADP-330AB-D                             262  163  53  2268494   19.5  16.9  329.6  145         

These things really ought to be torture tested; full-load, hours on end and see whether they can keep up an acceptable voltage level without too much distortion. Found a nice comparison, but no site that does something like this periodically. A shame, that ... perhaps NBR could pick that up and start filling a database.