Razer Blade Pro 17" (1080 GPU/late 2016) Owner's Lounge

Shoespc. Thanks for the info, I'm going to do this too. I know Hwmonitor only shows the max temps so I may have only hit 89C for a second only, or maybe for an hour straight. I'll try the intel XTU as well. When undervolting you have to run that program constantly correct? Like start it every time you boot up?

 

You could switch to hwinfo64. hwinfo64 has logging so you can see a sample of all statistics / measurements every N seconds, default is 2 seconds. Then you can compare the measurements against temperature to get a better idea of what's what.

HWiNFO64 v5.44
https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

 

awesome thanks man!

 

Yooo can also use GenericLogViewer for HWINFO as well https://www.hwinfo.com/addons.php
You can create multiple graphs / stats similar as the pict.

 

I am going to get Intel XTU and undervolt right now. Going to test it in game for a bit. Shoespc- What undervolt value are you using? I am thinking i'll start at -80mV. Does that sound about right?

 

Installed and ran Intel XTU and played Division for a few hours. Max temp I saw was one single hit at 80 C and the average was 75-77 C. This was with an -80mV undervolt. I guess I can push it more. The tutorial video on youtube had an i7 6700HQ running at -160mV. I may try increasing the undervolt 20 mV at a time and see if it is still stable. I did not run HWmonitor in the background so I don't know what my GPU was doing but hopefully it would be a degree or two cooler since it shares a similar space with the CPU. There was zero thermal throttling and I never noticed any performance dips.

 

Went with -100mV today and ran HW64 in the background. Average CPU temps was 75C and average GPU was 73C. Super happy with these results. I was getting closer to 75-76C on the GPU before so I'm thinking the cooler CPU is helping keep the GPU a tiny bit cooler as well. I know that the GTX 1080 in the RBP is a little under powered but I'm very happy with these temperatures. The fans actually were noticeably quieter, although still loud lol. I was hesitant before undervolting but I've had a very good experience doing it. I may bump it up another 20-40mV on the undervolting to push it a little more. Thanks for all the help guys, especially Shoespc!

 

I lose brightness control when updating the latest NVidia drivers on my pro. Does anyone else have this problem? Only the drivers off razer's site seem to work. Any ideas anyone?

 

Seems to be a problem om some laptops, revert back mate.

 

Figured. Thanks for the reply.

 

Can you guys tell me what idle temps you are getting for the CPU/GPU after the undervolt.

 

I'll have to check a little later when I've got mine up and running but I'm pretty sure my GPU sits idle around 63C. It starts out at like 43C or so right when I boot up but I think since there is no Optimus it's running constantly. I can give you a better answer later when I have it on.

 

Thanks for the info. I planning to pick one up if the idle temps were <= 50C but I guess not anymore. 63C idle is insane imo it's basically equivalent to a desktop card's temps running a full gaming mode with a delta of 2-5 degrees depending on the cooler..

 

About the same temps here at -123mV undervolt, with some games it lowers the fan speed considerably but running at 100fps in 4k it still has to run them at full speed most of the time and average temp is lower 70's.

 

My gpu and cpu are at 43c while browsing the internet and posting this, could be the NVidia settings. I have optimal power on with the latest driver and the gpu never goes north of 70c at full load.

 

Just ran Prime95 small FFTs (maximum heat) test while gaming at 4k/110 fps avg. temps were 82c for CPU (100% usage) and 70c for GPU. With the same game and prime95 disabled temps were 71c for CPU (45% usage) and 70c for GPU.

Even with a maximum heat test running while gaming the CPU stayed nice and cool.

 

HWinfo is reporting an average of 51 for the CPU and 48 for the GPU with just some web browsing for the last hour or so.

 

Thanks for the replies again. I think I'm going to wait a few months on this one & make my decision when computer comes around. I want to see if any issues pop up within the next few months for this laptop and also computex 2016.

I'm probably going to compare this to the AW15 if Aorus+EVGA continues to not put TB3 in their laptop

 

Out of interest what firestrike are you getting on the RBP guys?
Anywhere near this?
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/11717854

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What's the overclock on the gpu? Looks like you are at a Core clock of 4,250 MHz?? Is it stable at that high an o/c and what are your GPU temps?

Graphics score is almost 20,000 on the RBP with no o/c and Core clock of 1,848 Mhz. I did o/c this a while back about 10% and got a 21,500 graphics score but it wasn't close to how much you have tried at 4,250 Mhz.

Also, is that the 1440p screen? I had it and the horizontal banding was a big problem with the Alienware 17r4.

Current Firestrike score with v-sync/g-sync disabled and Nvida settings to high performance. No OC on GPU. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/17575434?#

Graphics Score: 19,799

 

Man my GPU floats right around 60C when I'm just surfing the internet. I haven't been concerned though because when I Play division at 4k for 2-3 hours it only raises to 75C max. I'm pretty sure I've got all my setting to max performance, is this probably why my GPU stays so toasty?

 

With the latest driver, Nvidia optimal power works well for me. Idle temps are 38/39 for CPU and 39 for GPU right now as I type this.

 

Yup, if you change the Nvidia Control Panel Global 3D setting "Power mangement mode" to Adaptive or Optimal Power from High Performance the GPU will downclock and run cooler, and still upclock when you load it up. It won't benchmark as high but in real world performance it should be fine.

Some have noticed better frame-pacing in some games keeping it on High Performance, but you can set that "Program" 3D setting for that game only to High Performance and leave Global 3D to Adaptive or Optimal Power for normal use.

 

I'm getting a decent amount lower than you. I wonder why. I have it set to high performance in the Nvidia Control Panel. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/18052113

 

What about dividing 4,250MHz in two?

 

This was with the January nvidia drivers from Razer's site, I will download 3dmark again and report the score with current drivers. However, with any test the best benchmark is actual game performance.

Overwatch at 4K with all settings on ultra runs at 110 avg. fps and is around 135 a good portion of the time. Running the same settings on my desktop which is a 7700k with Asus Gtx 1080 I can't tell the difference.

Point being that unless you just like to benchmark there is little value in the numbers until you actually see how it performs in game. The i6700hq is not going to score high but in game I can't get it over 50-60% peak and it averages around 35% usage running titles at 4K.

 

Ok cool thanks for the advice I'll set it to optimal next time I boot up. Question for you guys, do you keep you machine on all the time? I have been shutting down every time I finish using the laptop, usually once or twice a day. Is there anything wrong with doing this?

 

Any luck getting brightness control back? I installed the previous driver and still have no brightness control.

 

Hi mate thanks for sharing your figures I'll answer your questions. The overclock on the GPU was +220/700 and its max temp was 52C, in practice I never run more than +210/400 but both are rock steady and stable. CPU was clocked at 4.4GHz and its max temp was 68C in the benchmark however for gaming I drop it down to 4 and 4.1 GHz to keep the actual voltage per core down to below 1.3V (also it's not 100% stable at 4.4 in games for me). At 4GHz the same bench is only <500 points lower

See below I actually tweaked a bit more and got a better score since!



Yes I have the QHD 120Hz G-Sync 400 nits 4ms panel. It's absolutely brilliant for gaming, butter smooth. Don't notice at all the horizontal lines but they are there if you go a couple of inches from the display

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Haven't tried the old drivers again, goes to show how often I actually adjusted the brightness. My guess would be that it will be fixed with the next driver release.

 

I shut down now every time and this thing boots up as fast as most machines resume from sleep mode.

 

Brightness worked right with the previous NVidia driver version (37633), except that you had to add RBP support to it in the inf file, then disable driver signing to get it to work. NVidia just did put in RBP support on this new release (37849) except it also just did break brightness with this version. I have some instructions posted somewhere in this thread on how to install 37633 if you are interested, otherwise you need to get the old version off razers website.

37633 instructions:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...16-owners-lounge.797308/page-33#post-10411611

 

Here is my driver history:

2016-11-26 09:05:40, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7574 this is what the computer came with and what was available on this install date on Razer's website (looks like their website now has 37620)
2016-11-30 08:17:48, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7609 needed to mod inf and disable driver signing to get this to install, but brightness worked as expected
2016-12-06 06:18:35, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7619 needed to mod inf and disable driver signing to get this to install, but brightness worked as expected
2016-12-15 04:31:46, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7633 needed to mod inf and disable driver signing to get this to install, but brightness worked as expected
2017-01-26 03:21:06, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7849 installed as-is, breaks brightness!
2017-01-26 04:15:29, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7633 needed to revert back to this version to fix brightness
2017-02-18 15:45:52, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7866 installed as-is, breaks brightness!
2017-02-18 15:54:03, INSTALL Driver Version: 3.7633 needed to revert back to this version to fix brightness

Why the f**k is NVdia trying to beak brightness to punish us $4k+ computer purchasers! Most people probably don't want to screw with the inf/driver signing hack I posted on here as it probably seems "security scary" to the common joe, so the only option for many users is to go back to an older version from their website and lose some potential new game supporting features. It almost seems as if NVidia is purposely trying to cause some sort of buyers remorse with whatever they are doing with their last two driver versions.

 

I ended up installing the one from Razer's website and it works now. The previous version was working just fine and updating to the newest version broke it. When I rolled back to the previous, it still didn't fix it, so not exactly sure what that's about. Oh well.

 

Another interesting little side effect from this driver fiasco is the driver install doesn't force a reboot. You only realize you lost brightness after you reboot yourself.

 

Another surprise for me was that there is no bloatware at all on this laptop. This is my first blade system and I will be buying another one when I replace this one.

Already had synapse on my other machines for peripherals and find it works great outside of the fact that they patch too often.

 

I actually see a small improvement in fps with the Jan. Drivers from Razer so going back may be best bet for now either way.

 

This is why DDU is such a good idea, start with a cleaned up base upon which to install the newer - or older - version.

Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 17.0.5.3
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

 

Stack DDU with Revo Uninstaller on advanced mode first.

 

Has anyone with the brightness issue had definitive success by using these uninstallers first?

Also is there any benefit to adding this software over using the "Perform clean installation" check box on NVidia's driver installation? And what I mean is provable artifacts left behind that break a new install such as registry entries or sys files.

 

I consider myself to be patient enough to even "prove" said scenarios. I was in a fight with MSI tech support over hardware vs software (they were adamant that a driver could fix the issue). I even went so far as to take an image of the entire HD and do a recursive hash on each file and the registry itself and use this as the basis for showing/proving diffs.

 

After reinstall of latest Nvidia drivers (clean install) from Razersupport.com brightness control is working.

http://www.razersupport.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro/#

 

So I'm at the end of my 14 day return period and I've decided to return my RBP. It's been mostly great, but I'm just not sure I can justify the price for myself. I think the concerns over poor customer would probably have continued to linger in the back of my mind as well.

I've ordered an Aorus X7 v6 from HIDEvolution with liquid metal repaste to replace it. Upon doing some research, it seems like Gigabyte/Aorus has improved on basically everything I dislike about my P37W, the keyboard, trackpad, and chassis flex.

Some closing thoughts on the RBP:

I really like the display. It and the trackpad are likely what I'll miss most about this computer. The multitouch gestures on the trackpad are very good. I hope the Aorus can come even close to as good as this. It's supposedly been improved...fingers crossed. I've never been a Mac user really, but the trackpads on Macbooks have been the only thing I really lusted after as I use the computer quite often without a mouse and Windows PC's tend to overlook the trackpad for whatever reason. I really couldn't care less about the touch functionality on the display. The keyboard seems to be one of the more polarizing parts of this computer. People seem to either love it or hate it. I think I'm leaning more toward the latter on this one. Maybe I'm just too used to the cheaper laptop keyboards, but I just haven't really been able to get used to it over the last couple weeks. It just feels weird to me. Lastly, the audio is quite good, which is also something I'll miss. The Aorus, according to Notebookcheck, is not very good in this department.

Some of the things I wish it had that my older Gigabyte has:

Auto brightness. How does it not have auto brightness? This is probably my biggest disappointment with this thing, and that should tell you how good it is if that's my biggest complaint. Gigabyte also has quite a bit of software included for managing computer-specific stuff. Some people might put it in the "bloatware" category, but I found it pretty useful. You can see which driver versions you have installed for the various hardware and what is the most up-to-date version and download and update from within the software. I think Synapse is better looking aesthetically, but not as full-featured as Gigabyte's stuff. Not really a deal-breaker, just would have been nice. I also wish it had a standard HDD slot for all my libraries. Cheap storage is good for videos, music, pictures, and the like, which don't require super fast loading speeds. I don't really like having to plug in an external drive to watch a video.

Anyway, hope this can be useful for somebody looking at potentially buying one and hope that all you who have ordered one continue to be happy with your purchase!

 

That is actually 376.20. I am currently on 376.33 and brightness works. It is the two versions that came after (378.49 and 378.66) where they added support for the RBP, but broke brightness in the process.

 

My main concern is that that this brightness bug doesn't seem to affect everyone, which suggest to me that there is more than one version of the GPU hardware out there and Razer/NVidia is only supporting their driver updates based on one version of the hardware and the other hardware version will just get neglected because NVidia/Razer's GPU support developer can't reproduce the issue

 

I tested this and any setting other than Optimal Power would result in the increased temps. at idle.

 

nvidia inspector multi display power saver will fix that

 

Shoespc- So after reading your post about using optimal mode I enabled it the next time. I enabled it in global settings and then put performance mode for The Division. I rebooted the system to make sure it would take. The GPU temps got back up to 63C at idle just using firefox. I then played The Division for a bit and had the same issue I used to have when I first got the system where the fans would stop and restart and I would get major FPS lag. I put it back to performance mode and have had zero issues in game. I am going to leave it as is since I mostly just game on this machine. I still boot up XTU everytime I boot up and run a -.123V undervolt. About half the time when I boot up XTU it says it quit unexpectedly last time and dumps my inputs. Is this normal for you? After hours of gaming average GPU is right around 73C and 75C for the CPU. Very happy with these results, also noticeably lower fan noise, it doesn't seem to ever go into full blast mode. Thanks guys!

 

Hey man how come you didn't go Alienware, hid evo offer a repaste service on these too I believe!


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XTU is good for monitoring temps and that's about it. For undervolting use Throttlestop and Startup Delayer to launch it at startup. Using both of these programs I can shutdown/restart and the undervolt is always on, you can also setup ac/battery profiles with different settings. Max. Undervolt with TS is -125 so can't really go too far either.