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

How do you set throttlestop to chang,.e the profile automatically when you unplug?

 

there is 4 separate profiles performance game and battery i forget the other one but you select the battery profile and adjust it to the settings you want when you are on battery, then go to options and on the top right there is default profiles, change those to the profiles you want when on AC and on battery

 

Do you also hear a coil whine on your blade if you listen close to your keyboard when idle ?

 

yep you are not alone. i believe every unit has that. im hoping for a bios update that will silence that as ive heard they have done that with previous models. tbh it doesnt really bother me at all unless i put my ear a couple inches from the keeb

 

Yes I have this too if I stick my ear a couple of inches away from my keyboard but....who the heck cares? Who uses their laptop like this?

 

Great work on the battery profile. Battery gauge shows over 7 hours of usage on this profile for me. Thumbs up!

 

Anyone try to undervolt the 1070 maxq? It seems to always pull less than 800mv so MSI Afterburner won't be able to do it?

 

I think additional 10c is worth it. Obviously we're both talking opinion. The only fact is additional 10c. Up to the owner to decide what's good enough or not.

 

Hey guys, it's been a little while. After gaming with Conductonaut, I've settled around 3.5ghz clock speeds simply because i have NO power throttling there, and my temps are how i like them in the mid to high 70s under long gaming sessions.
Has anyone peeked in on how the LM looks after a few weeks yet? I still worry about tugging my Blade around knowing LM is inside it lol. Hope everyones doing well.

 

It's not always 10c reduction from re-pasting. It's been reported many times that some laptops don't benefit much from re-pasting, just a few degree's, not 10c.

It's not an automatic *need* to re-paste, especially when software tuning ends thermal throttling and power throttling.

It's not opinion, it's just common sense. Weighing the cost, time, and on going support required after repasting - which can take a number of attempts to get right with best technique for hardware reassembly and paste for the job, vs functionally useful benefits.

 

My EVOC had some LM when I purchased it from hidevolution. there was zero leakage. I recently reapplied conductonaut everywhere, checked with a flashlight I still see zero leakage. ymmv of course.

 

So you're saying he's lying about getting an additional 10c drop or that it's not typical?

 

It should work with an unlocked BIOS, increase power limit to 45W and set IMON Offset to -21999 or more, IMON slope to 50. If someone manages to unlock the bios for Razer blade 15 this laptop would value more, now its just like a heavily locked down laptop.

 

That's a pretty aggressive attempt to put words in my mouth when I clearly didn't say that, or even refer to him specifically.

No, I didn't accuse him of lying, and yes I am saying that reports from many people are that they got less than expected results from re-pasting, seeing the same or only slightly better results back from re-pasting.

 

i have the 1060 max q version, i know i know what a newb. my main games i play most often are cs go and rocket league so it seems to be plenty but i just wanted to note even with an overclock on the gpu my temp never goes above 72/73c on the gpu. this is stock paste so i guess if its done right it works. cpu touches 80 tho with no undervolt. these temps are with gaming mode on default fan curve
-also btw i live in so cal so ambient temps are pretty high here in the summer

 

Sorry you said "not always" and I didn't get your edit text.. again just up to the user to decide if performing the task is worth it. You seen to be pretty staunch on thinking no one should do it. I think people should definitely undervolt first, but go forward with LM if they have confidence in themselves.

I hate loud fans or fans that hide their perceived volume behind what seems like a sensible db value with an annoying frequency pitch. Just changing frequency at the same db level can make or break the perceived volume. Anything I can do to go one step lower on the fan curve is worth it to me. Hell the GPU and CPU can run at the brink of throttle at 90 for all I care. Within spec. Anything I can do to put more W/mk between the die and heat sink to reach that point with a lower fan speed the better.

 

It's has nothing to do with confidence in themselves, it has to do with costs vs benefits. I am confident in my ability to re-paste the laptop without issues, but unless it's going to actually improve performance, it's not worth it.

And, further to that point, if the laptop performance is affected by high temperatures and I can't tame it with undervolting and software tuning, then there is something wrong with it - and I didn't pay $xxxx to get a laptop I have to waste time pulling apart to make work right.

I'd take it back and get another one, tune it, and enjoy it for years to come.

Starting on the road of re-pasting requires a commitment to waste time not just re-pasting once, but re-pasting a few times to get it right the first time, and then a commitment to re-paste again and again over the lifetime of the laptop to keep it running.

Then when I want to sell it I'd have to explain to the buyer that he / she will need to do the same, repaste as needed over time. This usually leads to the question "why did I repaste it in the first place, was there something wrong with it...?"

No, I just felt like doing it, ya know, pull apart my brand new $xxxx laptop to get the fans to run slower.

"So it gets hot?"... etc etc.

It's just not worth it, and when I stopped "requiring myself" to be a slave to re-pasting, returning those units that I couldn't tune with software, I got back a lot of time I had been wasting, and haven't had a single regret from stopping wasting time re-pasting.

There are so many that constantly push re-pasting, given my experience finding it's not necessary and after seeing so many basket cases from people that tried and failed, I've found it helpful to others to point out the counter point, that re-pasting is a waste of time and let the manufacturer build it right, or return it.

The same people over and over push re-pasting, so here I am saying it's alright, tune it with software instead, you don't have to become a DIY laptop mechanic just to get a good performing laptop.

 

The original text was actually even further from his configuration, I specifically mentioned Asus laptops, and he has a Razer - and we are in a Razer thread, so I removed the mention of Asus from the original text:

"hmscott said: ↑
It's not always 10c reduction from re-pasting, especially Asus laptops and others that have optimal cooling already. It's been reported many times that some laptops don't benefit much from re-pasting, just a few degree's, not 10c..."

 

Can someone please verify if these tools will work to make cloning an NVMe drive into the Blade possible? :]

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...qid=1531877851&sr=8-3&keywords=nvme+enclosure

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=H8SJZ7PQCKC73EKXWMX5

 

The first one is completely wrong, it's a U.2 connector to M.2 NVME interface, not a SATA III - which I am assuming you thought it looked like - read the name, and the text of the options selected to choose this model:

"StarTech.com M.2 to U.2 Adapter - M.2 Drive to U.2 SFF-8639 Adapter - Works with M.2 PCIe NVMe Drives"

You could use Macrium Reflect to create a USB bootable recovery flash drive - 2-GB-4GB is large enough for just the boot environment, and put the backup image on another USB drive to restore from.

That way you can backup the current M.2 drive to a restorable image placed on that external USB storage, and boot on the flash drive to restore to the new M.2 NVME drive you install.

Macrium Reflect Free
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Click on "Home use" to get the download.

 

Thank you for pointing that out, I've never seen U.2 before. One last thought, would I be able to clone onto an external drive, replace the nvme, then boot off the external drive and clone back over to the new internal?

 

It might be problematic going from internal M.2 bootable to external USB bootable to internal M.2 NVME bootable, but I guess it's worth a try.

It's cheap and easy to use Macrium Reflect Free to create a backup image onto a non-bootable USB external drive, then create and boot from a USB flash drive and restore from that non-bootable USB external drive.

 

Got it, thank you for your help bro!

 

It's not a lot of effort, really. Disassembly takes minutes, not hours. The cost is minimal. Also I've got other systems I LM'd a year ago. Never opened them up. They are running fine (and cool).

I can't help but feel you are overstating the complexity here...

 

The BIOS is very easily altered on the RB15, and you can enable the IMON settings. When changed, they did in fact work, but I found that it also subsequently lowered the TDP, thus negating the desired impact.

 

I can't help but know that you are understating the complexity and dangers to people without any wrench time, that hear it's so easy and try it, only to bring them to me in a basket of parts - would you please save me and fix this??

It's easy when you know what you are doing, it's not easy for everyone else.

 

Just installed the sata western digital 2tb. With thermal pads it maxed out at 40c while gaming vs the stock sm961 and evo 960 1tb which maxed 66-67c with thermal pads. Very noticeable difference on the left side palm rest.

 

Great temperature in use for that M.2 SATA drive.

That's why I recommend running M.2 SATA for the power, thermal, and cost savings, and most apps make little use of the storage after loading.

If laptop vendors would put positive air pressure cooling and radiators on M.2 NVME storage areas things might be different, but those things heat up and hold heat - pushing their heat into the rest of the laptop over time.

My GT80 had 4x M.2, with 3x on top of each other on 1 side of the CPU, and 1x M.2 on the other side of the CPU. CPU benchmarks would raise the temperature of idle M.2 drives! And, individual and RAID benchmarking on the M.2 drives would raise the temperature of the idle CPU.

Heat is the enemy of laptops, you need to do all you can to expel heat and devices making that heat out from the inside of the laptop. Put drives / storage into external cooled enclosures if possible, especially HDD's and NVME drives that generate and hold heat.

 

To add to this - I can’t tell a difference in performance vs the nvme at all.

 

It lowered the TDP?? That’s very interesting.. we need to get the bottom of this while im waiting on Razer. I feed this thread to them and the/software teams. So hopefully we get somewhere!

 

Thank you for that testimonial, it really does help others to hear independent confirmation.

 

Hello all, this is my first post on the forums here. I have a concern about the durability of this laptop that I'll outline below (note that mine works fine at present).

Persuing my youtube feed, i noticed this guy's video:


Feel free not to watch it, but, the guy's display stopped working abruptly (other components seem to function to some degree as the keyboard lights come on when he tries to boot it).

Now, it has been noted that the routing of the display cable on this laptop is somewhat odd. It runs right across the surface of the (hot) vapor chamber cooler, out the chassis, where it is visible between the display and the base of the laptop for a short distance, then into the display. I've been a little nervous that the heat from the vapor chamber would damage the display cables. When I saw this video (and he alludes to other owners with the same problem), I immediately thought of the cable again and opened up the notebook to look for damage. I'd opened it before to install an NVMe drive.

To my dismay, I saw what appeared to be damage to the cable, near the back where it exits the laptop. I've linked a picture (I added a red box around the area in question). The insulation in the cable seems to be worn/melted off in that area.

I'm wondering if any other owners note similar damage to the cable in their system (or would be willing to open their own up and look for it), or have noted issues with the display failing. I haven't read the entirety of the preceding thread due to its size, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

 

That's some good news, was it done through some key combinations or had to flash an unlocked BIOS? Could you post a screen shot of the IMON page? If your voltage is fluctuating a lot at 100% load, maybe you could change AC loadline and DC loadline to 1. What it does is to minimize the fluctuation, AC loadline for the positive side, DC loadline for the negative side.

 

A few reviewers have raised a similar question (as did the users), regarding the durability of the display cable running over what is essentially the thermal solution of the laptop. Apparently the senior tech of razer responded to the question as saying it shouldn’t be a problem because it is very well insulated. See post 1200 in the current discussion

 

Idk about my display cable since i don’t open it yet. But that youtuber Blade 15 issue is not new, i saw some users having similar problems on previous Blade 14 and stealth before, those laptops don’t have such displays cable right. It was mobo failure or synapse issue from what I saw.

 

Or put your lappy in refrigerator like dave2d doing on his new i9 MacBook Pro review for performance Test lol

 

Did you set IMON slope to 50 and negative offset to 31999? And then do a stress test with 100% load and monitor package power and power throttling with HwInfo? If the IMON settings in the BIOS under VR IA DC is working correctly, this should bypass the PL1 and PL2 limit and allow the CPU to run at higher turbo clocks with only thermal throttling as a limit, or maybe current throttling.

Enviado de meu Pixel 2 usando o Tapatalk

 

Razer doesn't use any Bios signature check so is actually easier to unlock than MSI. It can be unlocked by dumping with Afunwin or FPTW and modded with AMIBCP 5.01, then flashed with Afunwin or fptw. Also Razer BIOS doesn't use AC DC Loadline to counter vdroop like the MSI BIOS does.


Enviado de meu Pixel 2 usando o Tapatalk

 

Yeah, sticking an i9 into the Macbook is just stupid......well for that matter Intel i9 is just stupid for the premium they now charge, compared to the HK of the past, and the fact that very few laptops manage to cool it enough to actually overclock.

 

Intel hoped the OEM could make the cooling good enough to keep temp below 50C on one single cores load. They charged premium for the 4.8GHz moniker feature who almost can't be used in any lapbooks.
Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) - Intel - WikiChip

 

The damaged cable is not the display cable. That is the USB cable bundle for the webcam and microphones and Razer lighting. The wider cable is the eDP cable for the display.

 

Fair enough- I wondered about that as well. Nevertheless- I should be concerned about the damage, no? If not heat, what is causing the loss of insulation?

I am thinking of applying a patch with some high-heat resistance electrical tape to try and protect the cable further. Not wild about the impact of that on my warranty, but not wild about just waiting for the system to fail either.

https://imgur.com/a/IuqRmMB

 

Does this look like a RAM stick failure? I've seen this in my own laptops in the past. He cries too much in the video, but I seriously think popping out 1 stick of ram, trying to boot, then if that fails rotating that one stick out could net him a boot. Just sayin.

 

My guess would be a combination of heat and constant bending of the cable is what led to the insulation getting weakened.

 

If one opens the laptop to do upgrades or a repaste and disconnects those cables or simply lifts up the securing tape, be sure to tape the cables back down in a manner that gives the cable room to flex without stressing it (the weak point would be the one in the OP's post).

 

I don't want to blame the dude, he paid $2600 for a laptop and it should just work but I've read his comments and he said he doesn't even want to open the laptop. He is a veteran tech youtuber who had to deal with his watercooling loop basically exploding and spraying his living room, what is he so afraid of? Just open the thing and troubleshoot, this might be a super basic issue like you suggested.

PS: Razer please fix your QC issues, you'd sell twice the laptops if people weren't scared of ending up with a $2500 paperweight.

 

THIS IS WHY YOU BUY THE PROTECTION PLAN PEOPLE< MICROSOFT MICROCENTER BEST BUY WHATEVER. THIS CAN HAPPEN WITH ANY DEVICE

 

how bad of a choice is the 1060 60hz version now ? thermals ? battery life, fan noise ? performance difference to a 1060 non max q ? im gonna sell my 14inch blade with the 6700hq cause i want the bigger screen ( im used to having a 15,6 inch ) but i can barely get the money to buy the 1060 60hz version ... also razer blade is actually the cheapest here in germany compared to msi , gigabyte, and asus

 

i didnt know they had a 1060 60 hz model. but i have the 144hz 1060 maxq model and it is great for me. good temps and for the games i play which are cs go and rocket league. also gta 5 ran great. i really like the 1060 max q especially on gaming mode

 

ok im most likely gonna play rb6 maybe csgo , mostly indie games something like hollow knight or ori etc less demanding but i also like to play doom arcade mode from time to time or racing games like redout so i guess the 1060 maxq should be good enough ?


also yea razer blade 15 , 256gb 16gb ram 1060 maxq and fullhd 60hz panel