It's super early, but I just received my Razer Blade 15 from HIDEvolution and so far so good. It's quick, seems to run cool during benchmarks. Max temps were in the 70s and 80s for CPU during Port Royale, Firestrike, and TimeSpy. But for the averages they were in the 60s. Most of what I did today was get it set up for work. I haven't quite had the chance to play games on it yet to see what temps I'm getting. It'll happen though.
I was thinking this was a bad buy and was gonna return it simply because the WiFi card wasn't working. I irrationally thought it was a defective piece of hardware. It was an easy fix though, I had to get drivers to fix it.
Sadly I don't know what the temps should be stock, so I can't speak to how much the cooling mods helped. I kind of wish HIDEvolution would print out CPU and GPU temps on stock benchmarks then what they are after. Just an extra touch of white glove service they could do to give a better experience.
All in all, I think I'm happy.
***Update***
My temps increased as time went on. In about 20*C ambient my idle temps rose from acceptable numbers to about 60-80 C and during gaming I'm now thermal throttling and temps constantly hit 95-99 on all cores.
I don't know what happened but it's very frustrating. I called HIDEvolution and long story short it's going back and they're charging me 10% restock fee. Which I think is unwarranted since I believe it's their fault. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
I will stick to Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg from now on.
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Report back temps after 15+ minutes of gaming. I imagine that cpu tell will rise quite a bit. It seems like the 15 and 17” models now have the same maximum spec options. If the cooling systems are similarly effective, I might seriously consider ditching the 17 form factor for a more manageable travel size.
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I may need to do this myself as I am not happy with the 85 degrees I see when I play Mortal Kombat 11.
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. Isn’t my preferred temperature as well but it doesn’t melt in a year gaming usage...yet
Wishmaker likes this. -
But you can push the fans a bit to go lower.Wishmaker likes this. -
I am still at work. I will go home in 1 hour and play a bit with undervolting and see the temperature change. If I can shave 10 centigrade I would be happy.
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Razer has done a frankly incredible job with the temps this time round.
You have to consider what these machines are packing for the size. -
My previous 'gaming' laptop was a 15 inch Acer. Three times thicker than my Blade and sporting a super fancy 970M.
The laptop would not exceed 75 centigrade when gaming. It also had a cooling system that would benefit from my Antec Dual Fan cooling pad.
Now that thing was abused to a point where the keys have started to fall out. It has been working overtime and back in the day when I helped another forum with Folding it was doing that for days. Battery died 3 years ago and it was always connected to the wall. Having experience from this machine, I was surprised to see the Blade jump so high.
I was playing with throttle stop last night and dropped the laptop between 3200 and 3500 MHz while at the same time decreasing voltage. I also created a custom graphics preset for MK11 as the game automatically maxed out everything to a point where I did not believe it was necessary. High detail should suffice for this game as it looks amazing even this way.
Original temps with default Razer Settings with Content Creation preset : 80-85 centigrade with spikes at 90 degrees.
New temps with Throttle stop, vcore decrease and turbo changes : 70-75 degrees.
I noticed that my Antec Cooling pad is not helping the laptop and having a book which is perfectly snug between the fans when placed in portrait mode yields better temperatures than when I place it on my pad.
Does anyone have any experience with a good laptop stand or cooling pad which works with the Blade 15? -
As far as stands go, this would be the obvious choice:
https://www.razer.com/gaming-accessories/laptop-stand-for-razer-blade-stealth
Stands with built-in fans are generally a gimmick.
Personally I'd love to use something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H4265LD/
But I'd worry about there being enough heat dissipation. -
Last edited: May 16, 2019
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rinneh likes this.
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cfe likes this.
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Thanks for the recommendations.
I ordered the Coolermaster.
The Razer one is classy but too expensive in my area.
If I want a hub i need to pay for the Chroma which is 120 euros.
No gracias. I spent too much on Razer products this month -
***Update***
My temps increased as time went on. In about 20*C ambient my idle temps rose from acceptable numbers to about 60-80 C and during gaming I'm now thermal throttling and temps constantly hit 95-99 on all cores.
I don't know what happened but it's very frustrating. I called HIDEvolution and long story short it's going back and they're charging me 10% restock fee. Which I think is unwarranted since I believe it's their fault. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
I will stick to Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg from now on.
Edit
Oh I forgot to add these newly increased temps we're with an UV of -0.145v and -0.100v. -0.100v was set by HIDEvolution and I increased (or decreased) it to 0.145v and nothing changed.
Something happened from first days to now. Not sure what, but I don't think they did enough stability checks.Last edited: May 30, 2019 -
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Some modules of razer synapse seem to cause random trouble for people like high cpu loads for no reason and throttling due to that. I had massive issues in overwatch thanks to chroma SDK (i have a razer mouse and headset) and after uninstalling that, colossal higher minimum fps (210 instead of 150) and no more lagging when a browser is open on my second monitor.
Considering that you have a repasted, repaded and undervoltet machine, it's probably a similar issue. Can't imagine why else you'd have good temps first and then suddenly a microwave. -
VoodooChild Notebook Evangelist
My experience with Hidevolution is also absolutely horrendous. Their customer service is very good, no doubt about it and dealing with Donald was great.
Unfortunately their thermal services are absolutely dreadful and overrated like crazy. I've a delidded 9700K from Hidevolution on my Area 51m and it ran super hot right out of the box. I paid for their premium services with LM and Fujipoly and all that jazz.
When I eventually received the system, I was told that its normal for a laptop to run at 100C within 2mins of AIDA64 stress test. The communication between their technical team and their customer team is also dreadful. I was told that my system passed all their thermal test including a "43 minutes AIDA64 run" at their store and I am doing something wrong with my "settings" and its a user error.
What was the tipping point for me was when I ran Division 2 at stock in my Area 51m at stock with FULL fan speed, the CPU reached 97C and GPU hit its threshold of 85C within 10 mins of gameplay and at that point I knew that the thermal upgrades was just a scam! Nothing more! I was told not to open the system until they check remotely and I knew the system is beyond fixing remotely. I then cut off all communications with them. I also knew about the 10% restocking fees so decided not to return the system and shipping from UAE to US is another $300!
I bought some Gelid extreme and did the thermal application myself. What I saw inside was absolutely unbelievable! I will not bother going into the details but let me just say that the screw of the back panel of the laptop was tightened so hard that ended up cracking up the panel while opening it the first time.
After my own thermal application, the CPU has never exceeded 80C and GPU is running at acceptable levels too.
It's fair to say that I'll never recommend Hidevolution to anyone else in the future. Stay away from their upgrades. I paid $170 for a generic QLC based 1TB nvme drive which runs at 1600Mbps and $120 for a out of date 16GB Kingston DDR4 ram which is the slowest DDR4 Sodimm I have ever used! And they're say its "Hidevolution approved". What a joke!
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They were nice about it but I never got any assistance. It was like they were delaying on purpose so that I would get past my return window then be stuck with it.
I get people can be busy but it's not that hard to get a response in 5 business days IMO. So I initiated the return.
I ended up buying the Razer Blade Pro and the thermals were so much better. I restored from an Acronis backup and the performance on that was significantly better.
I even overvolted the RBP by +150v on accident and the results temp wise were still better than the RB15 with their mods. I undervolted the RBP -150v and it's stable and the RBP never goes past 80c in 26c ambient on load. When I was testing the RB15 we had freak snow in May and it was cold and cooler.
I just think their service is hit or miss. After talking about my experience to a lot of people from various forums there's complaints and happy customers.
At the end of the day I've given up on them.
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I went ahead and backed up my system using Acronis True Image and then reinstalled Windows 1809 from USB clearing the partition. I installed Steam and drivers and downloaded 3DMark and HWInfo and ran some test and it was still high. At this time I didn't install Synapse as it didn't occur to me.
That's when I just cleared everything and decided to return.
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My experience with HID was good regarding repaste. After the first round of battery bloating, I sent my RBP 2018 (GTX 2080) to them to get a new battery and to add in the LM/Fujipoly upgrades. I noticed a solid 10 deg drop in both CPU and GPU temperatures after the repaste. For safety, since getting the unit back, I've elected to undervolt everything and I no longer push the machine for max performance. On the most demanding of games, I'll hit 75C max on either chip. Sacrificing 5-10% performance gives me the confidence that the unit will hold out for another year or so.
The other reason I've chosen to reduce the power a bit slightly is that I never want to send this unit back to HID for repairs. Despite the fact that I knew they were simply going to forward the machine to Razer for the battery replacement, the HID portion of the turnaround time was complete ****. I know the unit sat in their facility for weeks on both ends of the Razer repair. The unit was in their hands for almost three months. Three months!!!
I felt like a broken record with my constant messages to their support team to get status updates. To their credit, they always responded, but it didn't improve turnaround time... -
@VoodooChild I just looked at the specs for the new RBP 2019 on HID's website. Check out the storage "upgrades":
The RBP 2019 comes with a Samsung PM981 from Razer. This is a VERY fast SSD. (The 2017 version came with a PM961, also extremely fast). HID will charge you MORE for a significantly slower 860 EVO SSD. "HIDevolution Approved" doesn't carry much weight for me. -
vahdyx likes this.
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VoodooChild Notebook Evangelist
Sent from a Galaxy S9+ -
VoodooChild Notebook Evangelist
Sent from a Galaxy S9+Terreos likes this. -
VoodooChild likes this.
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VoodooChild Notebook Evangelist
No more liquid metal for me, I've tried it twice and quite frankly, it wasn't anything life changing... it worked better than my long time favorite Arctic MX4 no doubt but I don't think the hassle is worth it for 2-3C difference. I would rather undervolt the CPU and GPU on my Area 51M than risk short circuit using LM. I'm a big fan of Gelid GC Extreme so I'll use those instead. Also, Fujipoly thermal pads are also highly overrated as far as I'm concerned. They break so easily and cannot be reapplied. And is crazy expensive especially for overseas buyers like me. I have some of these and they work just like Fujipoly and can be applied many times over:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UYTTLI4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bvCbDbKAVG05A
Sent from a Galaxy S9+Terreos likes this. -
And anytime someone says "Don't get me started" I always want to know. Lol. You can Pm me if you care to elaborate. If not I won't press.
You're an MX-4 user too? I thought I was the only one! Everyone talks about IC Diamond or Thermal Grizzly. MX-4 has always served me well and it's affordable. I'll definitely try those pads you linked as I've never tried using after market pads. For my next project I'll give them a go.VoodooChild likes this. -
VoodooChild Notebook Evangelist
The RAM "upgrade" to 16GB(8*2 sticks) was Kingston generic ram modules which I cannot find anywhere else on the internet. Like quite literally! I cannot find the exact 8GBs sticks anywhere else so I'm not being able to upgrade to 32GB RAM unless I discard the ones I "upgraded" from Hidevolution and get a separate kit. So, I'm stuck there as well.
The machine ran at 99C within 2 mins of Aida64 with FULL fan speed and I was told that these was acceptable and should be "ok for the system". Earlier, I was told that the machine had passed a 43 minutes stress testing session which max temps never crossing 85C for the CPU and the GPU and the "user" was operating on the wrong "settings" I was told... this was after paying for a delidded CPU and LM paste and Gelid Extreme and the Fujipoly non sense and all that jazz... wrong settings they say... as it I cannot change the fans speed from Balanced to Full Speed after paying $4000 for a damned computer!
What hit the hammer on the head for me was playing Divison 2 on this machine. The CPU was reaching 96C and GPU 85C within 5 mins of gameplay and the FPS was throttling down to 20fps every 2 minutes as soon as the GPU hits its 85C thermal limit. I knew that I was duped badly. So, I broke all communications with them and did my own service on the laptop. The temps dropped by 8-12C on average while using a simple Gelic Extreme repaste.
One last thing, I had asked them to transfer my warranty to the UAE one week ago, got a email saying "someone will get back to you" and nothing has happened ever since.
This is the exact content of that email:
Hello,
I have informed the person who takes care of the warranty transfer to process your request.
Best,
Juan C.
With best regards,
Zoltan S - Tech Support (+1-562-485-6541 ext 200)
Now, my laptop is dead and when I claim my warranty with Dell, I am being told that I'll have to wait for the transfer of warranty first before any servicing can take place. I'm currently waiting for the transfer of warranty before a system swap takes place.
So, ya, they are good in taking your money, not very good in respecting your customer relationship. And "Hidevolution Lifetime Tech Support Guarantee" seems like a distant dream now...
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Warranty transfer will also take up some time with dell itself. For my past refurbished AW17 R4 it took more than two weeks after I have raised the request...ask HID if the request has been raised first.
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I would like to add that they "forgot" about my refund and when I called them they put me on hold for 20 mins then told me they'd call me back in an hour. Never received that call but did get an email saying they're processing it that day.
I just think they're a "new products must go out" but "avoid returns if any kind" type of shop.
When they warranty a product for life they essentially lose money and there's no incentive for them to do that. I don't know how many repeat customers they get but I would think that would be their goal.
But I make laptop purchases regularly and I could have been that guy for them but I'll stick with big box retailers.
Literally I had $8,300 against my savings account for three laptop at one point. Lost $300 for my restock fee at HID ($3300) and my Razer Blade Pro failed on me from Razer ($2500) so I went NewEgg and got an Asus GX502 ($2500). Once my Razer is refunded then I'll kind of recoup.
I'm not rich but I save. This just happen to come from my desire to get a Tesla. So repurposing of funds when I decided to not get a Tesla.
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***Edit***
It's too loud, it went back and I ended up buying the MW RB15 2070 from Best Buy.
Last edited: Jun 21, 2019 -
Personally I do not believe in resellers, I try to buy the machine I want at the lowest possible price from either the manufacturer directly, or a brick and mortar store where I can take the laptop back immediately with no restocking fee if something goes wrong. Manage thermals yourself, it is nerve-wracking the first time around but you'll save yourself money and know you did the proper job. I was debating getting a RBP with gtx 2080 inside and give it the liquid ultra treatment.
rinneh likes this. -
Darkhan likes this.
HIDEvolution 9th Gen Razer Blade 15 RTX 2080 Fujipoly Thermal Pads and Re-paste... So far so good.
Discussion in 'Razer' started by vahdyx, May 9, 2019.