How reliable has your RB15 been?

Seeing as there's so many questions around reliability for us people looking to buy, I thought I'd ask the question!

The razer blade 15 is only a few months old but I'd love to see (let's face it no one ever posts to say it's awesome) if it's worth buying. I seem to see too many issues with power bricks, charging, stuttering, and keyboards that it scares me off! Even tho the firm factor is exactly what I want!
And someone even posted an issue with some plastic clips on it today! Then there's the warranty issue given they don't have local engineers like dell do.

I'm pretty much ordering a razer blade 15 advanced or Alienware m15 on black Friday!

Cheers for all the votes and comments!

 

First Eu batch, June unit, no hardware issue, minimum backlight Bleeding. Most known issues are ac adapter buzzing and high cores temperatures but I think it’s addressed, idk about keyboard and stuttering things, thought keyboard and trackpad is best on its category, stuttering may be not hardware issues. You can buy from Amazon and try 28 days if your unit is fine, I usually can address my new laptops hardware issues or its possibilities within that periods. New Alienware m15 isn’t out yet, if there’s issues you don’t want spend your holiday with RMA do you?

 

No issues at all with mine but i also got a Razer Core for mine so i don't run my GPU all that much..

 

I like mine so much I cancelled my m15 and ordered a Mercury silver just too have that color also.

 

Thanks so far guys! Great to see people liking this model! It has a better footprint than the m15. So there's still 50% of me that wants that chroma goodness and perfectly formed aluminium body! But 50% still likes the idea of the m15 as the Alienware has 4cm more depth and 5mm thicker for airflow. But if people are saying the RB15 isn't as bad as we think and the reviews are right about it then this might be my new laptop! Yay!

But let's wait for some more thoughts!

(No mercury white in the UK)

 

Though I do not have RB15, I love my RBP 2017 FHD. No issues, but I have repasted with liquid metal and undervolted to keep temperature under control.

 

I just picked up my RB15 base model a couple of weeks ago. I have upgraded both the 128gb m.2 ssd and 1tb 2.5" hdd with a 2tb m.2 and 4tb 2.5" ssd. I upgraded memory to 32gb as well. So far my RB15 has performed exceptionally well. I am not a gamer so I will not be taxing the performance of the machine as much as many who own one. I was looking for a mobile workstation but wanted a light laptop since I travel for a living. The RB15 was one of several gaming platforms I was looking at (MSI and Gigabyte were also looked at). In the end the RB15 won out for build quality and ease of upgrading internals. No issues with fan throttling or heating so far. However, replacing thermal paste might be the next option (not sure I will go the liquid metal route). Probably stick with Artic Silver.

 

I've heard people talking about Phobya nanogrease? Not sure if thats good for the blade?

 

I used it on my blade 2 weeks ago and dropped temps a good 6c on cpu and around 10c on GPU, easy to apply, But that is first time I repasted the 15 after almost 6moths with stock paste.

 

After a month and a half of steady/heavy business use I have had (knock on wood) no issues whatsoever with my RB15 base model. It has performed very well. So far my max GPU temp is 43 degrees, m.2 ssd max temp is 33 degrees and 2.5" ssd max temp is 31 degrees. I'm certainly not pushing my RB15 as hard as gamers.

 

What are you doing, bought a Ferrari for going to supermarket

 

But what a beautiful Ferrari parked at the supermarket!!!

 

I have two. One is going back for it's 3rd RMA and the other hasn't had a single problem. The one that is going back for the 3rd time was a launch day purchase. The one that hasn't had any problems was a purchase from Microsoft in late July.

RMA unit issues are as follows:
1 - 100+ core temps on first unit received, sent back and received a new one. Temperatures still high, but more like 95 max when gaming. Ultimately simply disabled turbo boost to get the thermal levels to where I want them and to make the fans not spin up at random. I did the same thing on my "working" model as I don't know that I see a need for turbo boost with this CPU for my needs.

2 - One of the fans began to rattle and I grew tired of the fact that the X key is basically flush with the case at the top left corner. Sent back in. Fan was fixed, but the X key was not.

3 - About to go back because now one of the screws in the back has stripped and I want the X key to be actually fixed. The stripping is an odd term because it didn't happen when opening the bottom up. Instead it just seems to have happened over time and now the bottom pulls away from the rest of the laptop if you insert a fingernail and pull a little bit. Doesn't happen on the other side or on the other Razer 15 I have.

 

The only complaint I have is random BSOD every other week.

Already mem tests, disk checks, verifier.exe on for like 2 days and it seems I can't find the culprit.

No undervolt or so and with stable temperatures.

 

Download and install Whocrashed to see if you might be able to isolate the source of the problem.

 

Done that, nothing relevant shows up.

Most of the times is ntkrnlmp.exe but this generic as it is kernel stuff.

The only thing I can think of is drivers issues. Got some driver issues related to visual studio sensors ( look at device manager) which I uninstalled yesterday. Let's see how it goes from now on.

By the way, the issue is almost always DATA_STRUCTURE_DATA_CORRUPTION.

Cheers

 

No issues with mine. Would love to keep it but unfortunately selling it would be cheaper than the inevitable divorce. Eyeing the new Fuji 50R and some lenses...lol

 

No issues with mine that I bought in July from the Microsoft Store. Bought the one with the 60Hz panel and Razer swapped it out with a 144Hz panel when I dropped the laptop (was reimbursed by my credit card insurance). Was a nice surprise.

 

Blade 15 since launch. 230Watt power brick popped after roughly 4-5 months, replaced with warranty.

 

Wow! That would be a noticeable nice surprise!

 

Coming up on 3 months of steady business use. No issues so far. RB15 performing excellent.

 

Hey Guys,

How has the build quality of your Razer's held up? I have heard some rumours that they tend to fall apart? Is this true?

 

Fall apart I saw Blade Stealth 2017 screen falls apart due weak glue, but so far I didn’t see Blade 15 fall apart correct me if I’m wrong, I saw even user dropped it but seemly fine. I use tight sleeve for MacBook Pro and bring Blade 15 anywhere, thought first time that the rubber gums won’t hold but after 8 months it’s still fine.

 

So far i'm 2 months into ownership and other than the SSD screw getting shredded, which i managed to then removed with a special tool, its been a lovely laptop to live with!

The footprint is amazing, and more often than not its a productivity machine for me. Web browsing, downloading, watching youtube, etc. Happily getting 6 hours plus on battery with the screen on 25%, keyboard scrolling colours, 60hz screen and battery saver mode. Which is exactly what i wanted!

Then when i need to game, whack it on power hungry mode, switch the screen to 144hz and play wolfenstein 2 on uber leiben mode at 100+ FPS!

Yes it gets toasty as all hell. The GPU hitting 80C + and the CPU hitting 90C +. Its noisy, but about the same as my old GS60 tbh. And once you finish gaming it cools down really fast.

Obviously 2 months isnt a long term test, but so far really happy with it! (Just need to get used to this Shift key!!!

 

OK so I've had my Razer Blade for several months and it's holding up like a champ but the battery life isn't what I would like it to be for some reason. I'm not doing too much but then again I'm coming from a Macbook so perhaps that's expected. It's a great thing that I have two power adapters but I will say that the laptop can charge up to full quite quickly which is nice.

Other then that I have no issues, I'll definitely keep my laptop but it's just the only con that I'm currently seeing.

 

Damn things are built like a tank. I don't think they'd fall apart easily or without trying.

 

It’s build like this, i heard that all advanced model, not sure about base use same material.

 

The screens of the stealth's falling apart (heat melting glue that held it into the top case) is the only major casing issue I've seen. Most of the problems are internal/component level.

 

Saying that you should mention the model and link Reddit post that mentioned about that, yes i saw that but not a lot, I bring my stealth almost every where and when playing games and pairing with the core always 45 degrees opens maybe closer to Keyboard with temperature cpu on 80ish, the screen still sticking for 2 years already.

 

They were the 2016-early 2018 models, IIRC. The latest stealth is too new (I'd hope) for any issues to pop up yet.

 

Nope it’s on 2017 13 inches model and not all user having that, i think on Reddit I saw only 2 or maybe 3 users reported that, never saw model 2016, I’ve 2016 model btw and there’s no 2018 Stealth actually, only two 13,3 2017 mordel and one late 2018 which is stated as 2019 model. You’re a writer should be more specific about your comment.

 

If I didn't know better, I'd say it looks like everything I said was actually correct and you're trying to find ways to excuse a brand you personally have identified yourself with for whatever reason. But that's none of my business.

 

Then please link the screen fall apart on 2016 model, i may missed that. I didn’t excuse Razer, I just like offense someone who write something without any proofs. I paired even 2016 model on egpu.io, 2 Years using so, no parts fall apart.

 

Well , before Razer went public with their IPO they released a document on all their ventures, the earnings, etc Razer laptops have shown dreadful reliability according to their own documents. I am incredibly curious about the Razer 15 models, I can see issues developing over time with the flat display cable that they use. Apple does that too and those seem to show huge problems over time.

 

It didn’t directly answer my question above regarding screen fall apart, from IPO it didn’t state the return reason. From that ipo i know only huge loss from return which may similar with other gaming laptops manufacturer and note as well Razer is smaller than other, that and low sales unit from Blade Pro, it’s also because it was just announced in late 2016 and limited Production. No offense but I have Razer Edge that I dropped a lot Times, the screen never fall apart nor break, only display cable messed up from that, and easily fixed by arranging and tighten it back.

 

But that is anecdotal, for me Razer products werent reliable at all, except for the Razer Mako speaker set that I have now for 10 years (which was actually rated as problematic).It did state the return reason by the way, that repairs where needed on a large amount of units.

Razer is not that small by the way, I think when it comes to laptop shipments they are on the level as Gigabyte, but that is when I compare older Gigabyte data.

 

No, Gigabyte is bigger they have tons models from Aorus gaming to Gigabyte, Razer only three. Razer maybe shutdowned their Edge tablet, project Fiona, for concentrating on the laptops, Gigabyte make even gpu, there’s a big scales difference. And I heard that before Blade Laptops is made by them as well. About the return reasons maybe I skipped that, didn’t read all mostly read from users post who read all. Again I commented about screen fall apart above and a user said all stealth model before latest one, which isn’t right because it found it only on 2017 model when they changed it to 13,3 inch from 12,5, it may be the cassis isn’t developed for heavier and bigger screen.

 

I am speaking purely about laptops. Gigabyte is also not as widely available, you cant find Gigabyte laptops for example in the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries, the whole of South Europe and South America. More models also does not mean they have a higher turnover.

But hard to find credible numbers ofcourse if companies choose to hide a lot of their data. I doubt Razer will release more numbers now after they have gone public.

Regarding screens falling apart. Cannot comment on that but it is a common issue for a lot of brands, so it wouldnt surprise me.