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

So I'm still trying to get a sense for how much of the issues that Razers get is from thermal effects vs just design reliability side (motherboard, wireless, etc). Right now I have a RB15 FHD GTX 1070 en route to me from the Microsoft Store. This is to be my replacement "side piece" machine, as I typically just play games on the desktop that I built and can upgrade easier. The laptop for me is what I'll use when traveling for work (hopefully leaving my work issued laptop at home) and when I'll be playing with divided attention in bed or on the sofa watching tv (with a cooling pad clearly). I'm not expecting max performance because its going to be more about using for convenience and comfort rather than full on game play.

Reading through some stuff last night I was read this article talking about how the 1060 runs cooler, longer, and quieter than the 1070 in the Razer. Considering some of my work time is often spent in a coffee shop without readily accessible outlets, having more battery time sounds like a decent trade off for a side machine. The games that I primarily play seem more CPU than GPU bound (Blizzard games like Overwatch, WoW or Diablo), so from what I've seen the difference in FPS will be negligible between the two (NotebookCheck says 103 vs 119 FPS at Ultra on a 1080p). I only last night learned that I can set the 144hz screen to 60hz for some even greater battery gains when I'm doing productivity work on battery.

So now I'm wondering if the $200 price difference makes it worth me downgrading to the 1060 for the non-gaming battery time and reduced heat while gaming. Or will I see the same benefits from the 1070 with just lowering the game settings to match the 1060 performance while still keeping the longer potential lifespan of a 1070.

 

Anyone know what screws are used to attach the bottom cover to the case? I managed to thread one yesterday and want to replace it. Cheers

 

Get in touch with Razer support. It sounds like they are willing to send out new screws to people.

 

Unless you stripped the holes they screw into then you are sol

 

Dropped off my blade power brick today at FedEx for a return. Some of the loudest coil whine I’ve heard. Unfortunate they wouldn’t send me a new one and let me ship this one once that got here. They said 3-5 hopefully that’s true. Assualt do you have any info on this question below? Or anyone else. I was reaching mid 90’s on the cpu and high 80’s with the gpu. I’m wondering if anyone knows what the longevity of thermal grizzly would be vs the stock paste. The stock paste was supposedly pretty good material. I don’t know if I just have a bad factory paste jobs. If anyone knows whether the Fuji pads make a difference vs the stock ones, please let me know. Question is: Thinking of repasting with thermal grizzly/how long does it last and wondering if the Fuji pads make a big difference vs stock pads

 

thermalpaste that looked like a thermalpad at first .. really thick applied, and only squished in the middle

 

oh and btw

i can tell from my device ( 1060 60hz version ) that it has an estimate of around 6-8 hours of batterylife unplugged, and that this is as far as i can tell really acurate ( cpu set to 99%) energysaver on , bluetooth running all time dimmed brightness and dimmed keyboard , and a bunch of windows **** disabled this all was during browsing with vivaldi, watching youtube videos ( multiple tabs open with paused videos and one running) and a constant twitch stream running on another tab

 

Hi all, i just thought i would post my experience here as some of you have had an issue which i was also experiencing.

Charge Issues When Powered Off

I've had this now on two units and I have tried all the fixes that I've found, bios updates, drivers etc etc. I think i finally solved the issue. Well I've manage to charge while the laptop is totally powered off now.

After updating my BIOS to 1.03 and EC to 1.01 i still had the charge issues, until, i applied defaults to the bios. After that the blade seems to charge as expected. Although, there is still no LED indication of anything happening.
Hope this helps somebody.
Cheers.

 

So is the 200w power brick meant for the 1060 version only? Kinda would like a smaller brick for travel if possible.

 

Correct... 230 is for 1070

 

I’m kind want to try 200 Watt ac adapter for my 1070 model, for on go purposes it’ll be nice having less weight. And I think other maxq 1070 and 8750H has also under 200 Watt one. Maybe they made 230 Watt for gaming mode to perform better.

 

First time posting here but I’ve been doing some testing and undervolting with my 1070/144/512 model to see if I can get some decent temps while gaming. This is my second RB15, first one had some lightbleed and constant issues with synapse/keyboard freezing. Both are 07/18 builds from the Microsoft store. So I’ve come to realize that this laptop does not have the room or thermals to hit its 4.1ghz boost for long periods and I’ve come to accept the fact that some sacrifices must be made wether it’s downclocking/undervolting the CPU or locking the FPS or dropping quality settings. My go to game is BF1, it’s pretty heavy on both CPU and GPU usage and one of the best looking games still to this date. On stock PERFORMANCE mode my boost clocks were all over from 2.8 to 3.8ghz, cpu temps in the high 90s and gpu temps in the mid 80s with everything on Ultra settings with an AVG FPS of 95! After seeing another owners throttlestop experiment I decided to follow in his footsteps and set core clocks to 3.2ghz, with a -125 undervolt and speed shift set at 64. With the same graphic settings my temps were now in the high 80s for the CPU and mid 70s for the GPU with AVG FPS at 100. I was able to overclock the GPU using afterburner to +200/600(doubled the performance mode oc) and gained about 3-5fps with temps staying in the mid 70s on the gpu and high 80s on the cpu. I then turned off the OC manually using afterburner but left synapse in performance mode and temps dropped to low 70s gpu side and mid 80s on the cpu with AVG FPS in the low 90s on the same Ultra settings. My goal is to keep CPU temps around 80 and GPU temps around 70 because I like to game for acouple hours at a time and want this laptop to last me longer than a year lol. CONCLUSION: I decided that 60fps wasn't that bad of an experience in BF1. With the same throttlestop settings as before, FPS locked at 60, Graphic Settings on Ultra, Resolution scale set to 150%(much more game detail imo) and BALANCED MODE with Auto fan mode I was getting max temps of 82 on the CPU and max temps of 72 on the GPU. Fans noise is a lot more bearable and temps are right where I wanted them while still enjoying a good looking game experience. so yes sacrifices had to be made but so far im happy because the build quality and portability along with the 5-7hr battery life is topnotch on the blade, plus I know I always have the space to ramp it back up and game with higher fps If need be. My next test will be on Fortnite. I wanna get 100+ FPS on this game with temps around the same 80/70 mark. it shouldn't be too hard seeing as graphic quality settings is the least of my worries on this title.

 

I saw roughly max 4c difference off stock paste when using Kryonaut. On top of that, Conductonaut (CPU only application) dropped another 4-6c. During games (screw benchmarks) like fortnite, I'm in mid 80s at 3.8ghz still. I prefer around 80 so I limit my clocks to 3.5ghz.

Short answer, I don't recommend LM. the limitation is the ability to extract heat from the heatsink. Lower the clocks to 3.2 - 3.4ghz and be thankful this isn't a base clock MacBook pro. I know some people don't like limiting clocks, but if temps are primary concern it's beneficial with not much impact. Hope that helps!

 

If I'm not mistaken, the voltage or amperage was different. Wouldn't try it

Or at least check with tech support

 

Different amperage, they will be the same voltage. No reason the 200w can't power the 1070 model although the bios will likely cripple the CPU performance to keep the laptop from overdrawing power (that is what Dell does).

 

Now that it seems like Razer is offering more and more wireless mice I wish they would add the proprietary connection for their gaming mouses such as the Lancehead

 

Thanks! You rock. I was referring to the Kryonaut. Didn't make that clear, my bad. I definitely won't be using liquid metal/Conductonaut. Sorry, so you do think the Kyronaut is worth it?And do you think it'll last as long as the stock paste? I already limited the clocks into 3.4ghz range and was still hitting low 90's on CPU and High 80's on GPU. My fans are always ramping up and down when not gaming too.

 

Interesting, I'll try some benchmarks on battery in battery saver vs normal mode and check if I get similar results, in which case battery saver might be worth putting on all the time when plugged off. I invite others to test this as well

 

Add me to the list of people with a buzzing Power adapter. Did they just get a bad batch of these?

 

That's too warm, is that using a custom fan setting or auto?
As far as I know, Kryonaut lasts a long time. If your temps were better I wouldn't recommend using it, but what you're reporting is hotter than usual..somethings up

 

Soo... I contacted Razer support and they are sending out a new adapter overnight. I told them I was traveling this weekend and the support staff I guess is aware of the bad adapters. Kudos to Ken Michael of Razer System Support for helping me out.

 

please .. guys .. when you post stuff like that ALWAYS post the AMBIENT TEMPS ! .. i also have fan ramping up and down in normal use, but my ambient right now is 32c

 

About the battery test video I posted earlier. I don't have the time to go in depth atm, but I did a quick test:

(Balanced mode, no point using gaming mode this test is about battery life)

CPU Turbo OFF (using throttlestop):

• Cinebench in normal mode: 705
  
  
• Cinebench in Battery saver: 714

CPU Turbo ON:

• Cinebench in normal mode: 1094
  
  
• Cinebench in Battery saver: 1077

This tells me that at least for short CPU bursts battery saver offers basically the same perf as normal mode, as the video suggests. Assuming the data is correct and Battery saver does increase battery life, it might be worth using it all the time when on battery.

 

My new power brick that I bought just arrived - it's nice and silent. I will RMA the first - buzzing - one now, so I can have two silent ones.

 

Thats great to hear, how long did it take to get the new adapter?

 

Ok perfect. Maybe I’ll just return it and try for a new one. I am using the auto fan setting on balance mode! I thought it was very strange as well. My previous launch blade 15 never hit these temps.

My ambient temps are Frosty. About 72F. I wish that was the issue :/

 

Thanks for running the test. I saw that video and was wondering what others might be getting.

Wait, that’s awesome. They wouldn’t do that for me. I was told they needed the old power brick before they could send out the new one. I made it clear I needed it for work. I guess I should’ve tried a different representative.

 

I bought it on I think Thursday last week and it arrived today, Monday.

 

I have two waiting for me when I get back home on Wednesday. That said the one for my second Blade 15 was completely silent to begin with, but does make a little noise under load now. Only if you press against it though and it doesn't get picked up by headphone cables like my original 15's brick did.

 

Update on LM: 2 Cores slamming 90 at only 3.3ghz, disassembled laptop tonight. The Conductonaut dried up. Now I gotta clean it off and go back to Kryonaut. -_-

 

Dang that's really unfortunate. It seemed like you set it up perfectly. I'm surprised it dried up so soon. Hope the repaste goes well

 

Ikr what gives, I thought Conductonaut didn't do that! No matter, I'm back to a well behaved 80c CPU / 72c GPU. Now there's an ugly silver stain on the heatsink but we polished it and it's doin better now than ever surprisingly.

 

Typical with low pressure and not top fits from heatsink on die.

 

NICE! Glad to hear you achieved those temps with the Kyronaut. Excited for my repaste. I'll post a screenshot of my original/repaste temps when I get my RMA power brick back. Did you replace the stock pads as well with Fuji?

 

Yes I did. Keep In mind I was running 3.3ghz in fortnite. I get my 144hz that way and lower temps.

 

Poor contact with Heatsink and die? Never seen that happen.

 

I was told repastws weren't worth it for non liquid paste as reviews have said it makes little difference, is very hard due to display cable and the stock paste is already good quality .

 

Can you turn / force quiet mode or power down for normal use? Is it loud for normal?

 

Yes you can by making profile on throttlestop disabling turbo boost or limiting it to
3,6Ghz or lower, and change it back if you need cpu power. Or using it under battery it’s quite quite, for my 1070 model on battery it performs still similar with 1060 Blade 14 2017.

 

I wouldnt risk it even with a thin vapor chamber like Razer uses. It still penetrates copper and the copper layer in this case is very thin. You might cause a leak within the vapor chamber with LM.

But you will always have a silver stian with LM, Thats jsut a natural process of using paste like this. Even if your heatsink pressure is good.

 

Thanks man.
Will throttle stop switch profiles automatically when going from battery to ecdc?

Also what's the stock /OEM storage space taken up from windows / Razer / recovery partitions?

I ordered the 256gb version thinking of getting a 500gb pro evo upgade maybe I won't need too. I have an external 7200 drive for storing non essentials.

 

Hey! I'm curious, what settings are you using (Throttestop, in-game, balanced/gaming mode?) to have these results?

 

No, I think you should select the profile manually.
256gb is just to small imo, yes I’m also using 2,5 HDD but I’ll put anyway 512 or 1tb exchange original 256, still considering 512 960 evo for €122 vs 1tb 960 evo for €269...Last Blade with 512 was just fine for my needs, but kind want 1tb. Forgot how much space oem took, did cloning 2 days ago but It took quite space from 256gb storage so that you can’t install to many things inside.

 

So I just received my RB 15 this morning, everything runs nicely, but I noticed that sometimes a fan will trigger and does quite a strange noise. It comes from the top left-hand corner, it seems like it starts when I run a program (ie Visual Code), I recorded a video for it (sorry it's been treated like vertical, dunno why :x ), is this kind of noise normal? Does anyone know what could triggered this fan?


Edit: The fan does not do this noise anymore after blewing on it gently and pressing slightly where it was, I guess it was just at assembly it was not put properly, now it's all good

 

Hmm, no that's not a normal sound. I mean you could remove the backplate and see if you can take a peek in the fans a bit better or give them a blast of condensed air (if you have some or want to get some from a hardware store). Otherwise I'd be calling support or considering a return, but it's definitely not a normal sound. Sorry man.

 

Sigh.. Thanks for the answer, well I guess I'll send it back to Amazon and exchange it for a new one :/

 

So I read ~100 of the first posts. Just wanted to say thanks for all the good info on here. Love my RB15. Switched to ThrottleStop from XTU and don't think I'll go back, my battery profile has seriously increased battery life for day to day mobile stuffs. Thanks for that.

So just in case I missed something in the last 80 or so posts:

We determined a repaste really isn't worth the effort for either LM or high quality paste and thermal pads?

 

Would anyone be able to provide me a copy of their vBIOS? I would appeciate it if so. Thanks

 

these are my normal settings while gaming. I use balanced mode between 4500 - 5000 fan speed since I use headphones.
fortnite settings on high, no shadows, max view distance, medium anti-aliasing.

 

Awesome, thank you!

Btw, has there been any solution found for synapse not starting anymore at boot? I found as well that the task I scheduled for Throttlestop is not starting, and the config for keyboard layouts is not loaded immediately too (like I can't switch layouts right at the start)