Razer Blade 15.6" (GTX 1060/1070, 2018 edition) Owner's Lounge

Sigh....USB-C and M.2 are such a mess with one physical interface being able to carry such a varied array of logical protocols over it

 

LG and AUO, both is being used by Razer, I think I saw user also reported AUO panel on Blade 15, if I’m not wrong.
This similar LG display with Blade is also being used by Aero 15X and XMG (Clevo Germany I think) according notebookcheck review devices. Good to know they’re using those screen. On Blade 2017 early production Razer used AUO, but due Backlight Bleeding) issues they seems changed it back to LG which is used on late 2016 Blade (at least mine was), LG one on Razer Blade is less BLB than AUO (some users RMA it because of really bad BLB), even AUO i heard more appropriate for professional usage (I think it was due color accuracy), though as casual user I prefer brighter and less or no BLB display.

 

Few pages back I posted about my first machine being a lemon and couldnt run anything or play anything without temps hitting 99C+ on all cores and cpu package pretty much instantly. I was able to exchange it and happy to say this machine is amazing, glad I exchanged it instead of returning it. Everything is running fine on the replacement and I have incredible temperatures. Here is my firestrike score with the gpu overclocked 200/600 look at these temps!! I have yet to undervolt, I do have the laptop raised up and my room is pretty cool. Going to start undervolting and see if I can continue to raise the overclock.

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15769610 1st Run 200/600 overclock
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15769698 2nd run 220/600 overclock
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15769791 3rd Run 230/600 overclock
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15769925 4th Run 230/650 overclock
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15769968 5th Run 230/700 overclock

 

It's funny one of my first firestrike scores was over 15k and since then I haven't been able to replicate it. I'm usually around 14700.

 

Sweet!

Sweet scores mate, looking forward to see how you can push it when undervolted, or even overvolting the GPU and pushing that sucker harder. EDIT interesting that the second run didn't give you much more gfx score despite the extra 20 on gpu clock.

I just ran an undervolted 195/600 and broke 15k for the first time (just!):
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/27181373

Overall 15,004, gfx 17047, physics 16581, combined 7350
Max CPU temp was 87C (one core, all others in 80-83 range)
Max GPU temp was 70C
Ambient temp 74F
CPU undervolt -140mV

 

For all of you doing benchmarks, are running the paid version of 3dmark?

 

Here is my final run in firestrike, I was able to push the gpu to 230/725 anything higher would cause artifacts.

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15770041 230/725 overclock.

Overall Score = 15323
Graphics Score = 17400
Physics Score = 16540
Combine Score = 7642

CPU Undervolt = -125
Cache Undervolt = -125
GPU Undervolt = -100

None of the CPU cores ever exceeded 80C and GPU never exceeded 64C. I am sure I can still go lower on the undervolt but at this point I think I have a winner on my hands. Will continue to update as I test different games, im sure my highest overclock wont be stable in every game so ill have to find the sweet spot.

 

Amazing temps with those scores. What's your fan setting for these runs? Also, what's your peak power package and PCH max temp according to hwinfo?

 

Here is a screenshot of the CPU Package Power, I was also able to push it a bit more, temps are climbing a bit now. I have the fans running at max speed. PCH max temp was 69C.

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15770244

 

Ok so hopefully someone has a good idea for me. I have TWO stripped threads on my Blade. It had one from day one but when I pulled it apart tonight to mod the SSD, just like that it would not screw back in. Any ideas on what I could do? I have my two end screws holding the back on out of the 4 that span across. Really sucks...

 

I noticed when I was unscrewing mine that it had this like blue plastic stuff on it, I figured that was to minimize gradual unscrewing of the screws. I would suggest going to a hardware store or if you have a radio shack or something - I know there are materials that do what you're looking for, I just don't know what they're called or whether they're fit for purpose in a laptop.

How did they strip - did you tighten them quite hard when you put the back on?

More importantly, how did the SSD mod go?

 

One was stripped from literally day one. I went to take off the back to replace my SSD and when I went to unscrew it nothing happened. Just kept spinning until it was the last one in and I just popped the back off. Then tonight when I went to take the back off to mod the SSD... screwing them all back in there was a second one that would no longer tighten. I was very careful with each screw.

Edit: Temps are amazing.. no higher than 55c when I was hitting 85c before. Truly amazing.

 

The blue material is low strength loctite. It's supposed to keep the screws from randomly loosening.

 

That's awesome. What layers did you use in the end - single layer on outside, full double, or single plus stub second layer (and what thicknesses)?

 

I used 1.5mm across whole top and 3mm on top of the controller at the end. I also made sure to take off the sticker for direct contact.

 

Cool, so double 1.5mm layer on the controller. Glad it works so well!

 

Does the thermal pad touch anything to transfer the heat from the SSD to the chassis or other large metal part? Usually adding mass to the cooling only delays high temps, as there is nowhere for the heat to go. Did this somehow create a path for the heat transfer, or is there air movement providing cooling over the pads?

 

The reason you double down on thickness on the controller side is that it gets hotter on that side and also raises the pad to touch the chassis.

 

I had one of the screws "strip" on my Blade before I returned it. It was not the screw itself though, the threading it goes into stripped out of the bottom of the laptop so the screw would just spin but the thread it was going into was stuck on sandwiched to the bottom cover.

 

That is exactly what happened. The screws themselves are fine.. its the thread that no longer grips the screw. Any idea how to "fix" this? I hate to have 2 screws doing absolutely nothing.

 

Unfortunately, unless you have a threading drill bit, and slightly larger screws, then no.

You could send it back, but I have to say that razer does suck about trusting the people who bought their 2500 dollar machines. I will openly say that I'm not a fan of the fact that I have to send them my current charger and have it inspected before they will ship me a replacement. Which means my laptop will be dead in the water for like a week.

plus they would just send you a new blade, meaning you could get a defective one and you would need to redo your mods.

 

I'm reallyl oving the blade, even if it gets a bit warm its not uncomfortable, and the power in this thing! its crazy man.

has anyone liquid metalled their blade yet? or just repasted in general? I want to know if it made a difference. because as far as I can tell the blade is suffering from the inability to transfer its heat as quickly as it is being dispelled.

I can tell because my fans are pushing out cool air even though the laptop is hot. I feel like a lm would really cool down the temps.

 

I took this from another forum that Uncle Webb commented on UV the Core you must UV the Cache equally in order to get proper results.

*
You have to undervolt both the CPU Core and CPU Cache equally. Your screenshot shows only the CPU Core has been adjusted. That will not do anything by itself.

When playing with your voltage, it is best to use the option, Save voltages after ThrottleStop exits. If you use Save voltages immediately, when you hit Apply and your computer crashes, those unstable voltages will be saved within ThrottleStop. You do not want that.*

 

I'm going to buy some loctite and see if I can get the screw to stick better... Next move is I may bring it to a hardware store or computer center and see if they have tools to help me out. I'm very frustrated about it.

 

Oh I wanted add something else fun that happened last night... I'm about 1 hour into playing path of exile with my newly modded ssd. It was running in the low 40c so I was super happy. Then all the sudden I get a BSOD. Laptop wouldn't load back into windows and I was stuck on the bios screen. Tried rebooting like 15 times and nothing. My last effort was the pull the 2tb 970 SSD and put the original one back. Just like that it booted into windows....

So what the actual hell? Did putting thermal pads on my SD somehow kill it? That would make absolutely no sense... Coincidence?? So I went to Amazon and requested a replacement. I'm absolutely pissed.

 

But did'nt you pull the sticker from the drive?

 

It's undamaged I can just put it back on

 

Careful, I noticed when applying heat sinks to the ICs of my M.2 SSD, that the PCB was precariously thin and would bend easily under pressure (960 EVO). This is how touch disease happened on the iPhone 6. A slight PCB bend caused a BGA to crack a few solder balls, and away it went.

 

Well these are just pads and were installed very carefully. I just don't understand why it happened. There's been several other's that have done this simple mod with no issues. Maybe it was just a coincidence? I'll have the replacement on sun thanks to Amazon.

 

Maybe the pads + chassis applied too much pressure? I know some vendors include thermal pads of the right thickness (Dell), but for the rest of us, there is a bit of guesswork involved. I'm out of ideas, though.

 

It is possible that there's no hardware failure and that when Windows crashed and some system files got trashed. Do you have another laptop or desktop with a 2nd M.2 slot to check the SSD? Does the BIOS report seeing the drive?

 

The bios does see the drive yes... And I think I have a spare slot in my desktop I can toss it in. I'll probably do that just to see if the drive can be formatted. In the end I'll end up keeping the replacement because I have never had a drive just die like this before.

 

Reposting what I put up earlier regarding the questions of thermal pad touching chassis. As you can see by the little spot in the first picture the doubled up area definitely touches the inside of the bottom lid. The stray thermal pad is the one that connects the chassis to the PCH area of the heatsink.

I don't believe you need to remove stickers from retail drives. I think it's been said before that the retail stickers are thermally conductive.

 

On my Blade both the male and female threads were fine and intact. The receiving threads on the laptop base, are a metal piece nested into a plastic slot. The metal piece broke loose from the plastic and I had the metal threading still locked around the screw with the bottom cover in the middle. I could have removed the threading by grabbing it with pliers while unscrewing the screw.

 

Ok so I put the ssd in my desktop and it booted into my Razer OS.... Now I'm really confused. Going to try putting it back into the Blade now.

 

I actually removed the threadlock from my screws after I pulled them out of the laptop. I was having some trouble getting them to screw back in, so I just took the blue stuff off the threads and used some canned air to spray out the holes.

I carry a wiha t5 in my laptop bag so if I ever notice a screw getting loose I will just tighten it.

 

Only one screw of mine ever gave me trouble. I just screwed it in and backed out little by little, blowing away the debris til it seated fine. Haven't have any other trouble.

 

I think 3mm on top of controller maybe too thick, and it creates too much pressure on the PCB of SSD. I can't say this is the cause, but worth to know. I think 1.5mm is good enough for dissipate heat from SSD in my case. It keeps the my 960 evo 1TB around 50s most of the time without any problem.

 

This is an interesting point. I wish there were a way to figure out the actual clearance between the SSD and the chassis. You would want there to be some pressure to keep the contact, but too much pressure could be a concern. That said the fujipoly stuff is fairly squishy.

I'm tempted to pop mine open again and to see if I can tell if the thermal pad stacked on the ssd is taller than the battery.

 

Well it is back in the Blade and working again.. I have no idea what the heck happened when it BSODed on me but by swapping it to my desktop and back to laptop it worked. At least for now? However my thread problem has worsened as it seems 3 of the 4 on the trackside side of the back cover no longer are good. Its basically being by 1 screw.

 

Windows Fast Boot aka Fast Startup, which is enabled on most all laptops these days including the Blade 15, saves state (more akin to hibernation) and that can be a bad thing when coming out of a BSOD- it might return to the same unstable state. Swapping the drive (or other major components) forces it to do a full cold boot. Probably what happened for you. I often disable fast startup and live with the few seconds extra it takes to boot- not that I often have your sort of major problem, but I have often seen a driver become unstable and rebooted it to clean up the issue, only to find that fast start reboots it into that same unstable state.

 

Lisa do you have any thoughts on the 3MM v 1.5MM pads on the ssd?

 

You have the little tab under the lip of the back cover right? I didn't one time and the screws nearly failed on me. Caught it pretty quick though.

 

Thanks Lisa good call, I will give it a try if it happens again. Any advice on the stripped threads? I'm pulling my hair out over here!

 

I would consider putting a pad between the MB and the SDD and fairly firm.
This would absorb pressure from the bottom of the laptop pushing on the SSD and help stop it breaking as the bottom has some give in it..

Actually, is it worth trying just to put it underneath to spread on to MB.

I know it sounds daft as that's why the palm area gets hot but that's because there is no air flow or thermal spread so it just bakes.
Maybe put a loop between the top and underneath but enough to leave clearance to the razer bottom

 

Has anyone tried using a combination of 1.5mm and 1.0mm on the SSD? (2.5mm vs 3.0mm)

 

Either way it adds up to 3mm, and that's all that counts in my book. I only had 1.5mm Fujipoly handy, so that's why I went the double 1.5mm route.

 

You definitely want 3 mm.. it barely sticks up past the battery and that's the perfect height to make to correct amount of contact.

 

Unfortunate problem with the female threads being the issue rather than the screws. I'd use a non-permanent adhesive- it's easier than using an extremely small tap and die set to rethread the holes a little larger and find matching screws for the new thread size.

 

Thanks for the advice! If you have any products in mind I would love the input. This is very frustrating as it is all along the bottom of the back cover minus one still tightening.