Razer Blade Pro Early 2017 CPU & GPU Tweaks (Some tweaks apply for Late 2016 model)

Let us begin with why this thread is important,

Problem #1: A lot of Razer Blade Pro owners of the late 2016 and early 2017 models experience so called "random" shutdowns while gaming. These are in fact not random at all and are caused by the machine drawing more power or attempting to draw more power then the Razer Blade Pro can supply. Symptoms of this can be your backlight dimming, your keyboard and other led lights dimming all happening while gaming usually following this a complete shutdown of the system.

Problem #2: Overclocking the CPU (2017 model only) is extremely limited with Razer Synapse and trying to modify these values within other programs like Intel XTU is impossible due to how Razer Synapse modifies these values constantly.

With the two most important problems of the Razer blade pro outlined lets list out some solutions,

Background for the solution to problem #1: Power draw is affected by things like how high the brightness of your screen is, how high your volume is, if your led's are on or off, how high of brightness these led's are and finally clock rate and voltage settings of the GPU and CPU. If these values are high enough, your Razer Blade will most certainly attempt to draw far more then the design spec of 250W (which is the limit of the PSU that comes with our Razer Blade's) to check this out in motion why not see how much power your blade is drawing by buying something like this: Watt Meter regardless I can tell you that it indeed draws around 250 to 255W and any further the laptop shuts down.

Solution to Problem #1: First we want to control power draw the ways we actually can with our systems. Also we wish to do this with items that are feasible. For instance we do not want to play with no volume or no brightness on our display or keyboard do we? So in this case we can adjust the voltage and clock rates of our GPU and CPU.

GPU: First you are going to want to install this MSI Afterburner and this HWINFO. MSI Afterburner will allow you to adjust clockrates for the GPU and thus lower power consumption. To do this you will open MSI Afterburner and once in in the program press the CTRL key and the F key at the same time on the keyboard to get to the voltage curve configuration. Then simply match those values on screen with mine below. You will also want to be sure and open HWINFO which I linked to monitor items like temperature and power usage.

GPU Configuration:


CPU: First you are going to want to install this Intel XTU and install it. This will allow you to overclock (not on the 2016 model) and underclock your CPU. However for this section and usage we are going to simply undervolt our CPU this will save on power consumption and allow the laptop to always stay powered on. Once the program is installed simply open up Intel XTU and try a core voltage offset of something like -100mv (please note this should also change the cache voltage offset, if it does not you can set that as well to the same value). Anything more than this could cause instability, but you are welcome to try.

CPU Configuration:



These above suggestions should allow you to now play games and do anything on your razer without terrible shutdowns or dimming. If you have questions or suggestions for problem #1 please let me know. Otherwise let us now move on to the solution to problem #2.

Background to for the solution to problem #2: Overclocking your CPU in an unlocked machine such as the Razer Blade Pro should be an easy and featured filled process, in reality it is far from it. As Razer Synapse has a scanning service that disables you from changing settings within Intel XTU and due to this settings in Intel XTU are reset occasionally and are not reliable.

Solution to problem #2: To allow for our Razer Blade Pro's to be properly overclocked and not have Razer Synapse constantly change our settings we must simply disable the RzPerformance service in windows. To do this simply open up the services menu in windows and right click the RzPerformance service press properties and then once in properties stop the service and disable it. After this restart your computer.

RzPerformance Service:



These above suggestions should allow you now to overclock your Razer Blade Pro how you see fit without Razer Synapse interfering. If you have any questions about the solution to problem #2 please let me know. Otherwise we can now discuss in this thread about other problems regarding performance of the machine...

 

With all factory settings, I only very rarely saw system shutdowns, but they were almost certainly due to excess power draw. Under normal circumstances, I have the lid closed, and the video output going to an external monitor. This saves a pretty decent amount of power on its own. On top of that, I do have the CPU undervolted 100mV and have the GPU underclocked in a very similar fashion to what you outlined above. The GPU underclocking has little to no penalty in-game or during various benchmarks as the clock rate tends to hover around 1750-1850 in most situations. After these changes, Neither the CPU nor the GPU will exceed 80C very often and fan noise is greatly reduced (a nice bonus).

I'm glad you've dug in to the relationship between Synapse and XTU. I've been running with Synapse in balanced mode, which calls for near-factory multipliers for the various core load states. I would not recommend leveraging the performance mode as this simply jacks up all of the multipliers to a flat 43x. In balanced mode, at full CPU utilization during an AIDA64 FPU stress test, the CPU draws just under 44W AFTER a 100mV voltage offset. Before the offset, power will hover around 50W, thermal throttling will likely take place and/or the system will cut power to the CPU to get under the 45W maximum after 20-30 seconds.

Now, benchmarks being the "dyno runs" of the computer world, they do not necessarily represent how the machine will perform in real life. No game on the market utilizes a CPU so completely like a stress test and thus, no game pulls anywhere close to 100% power even in a full core load state. For example, at various resolutions and frame rates, my CPU will rarely, if ever pull more than 20W in PUBG, at factory CPU settings. I'm free to overclock the living daylights out of the CPU for this and other similar applications since there exists 25W of power headroom and 25C of thermal headroom.

@Hackintoshihope great suggestion for disabling RzPerformance. It's tiring having to go back into XTU frequently to ensure that the settings are persistent. Synapse was occasionally resetting my voltage offset as well.

 

RzPerformance was reseting everything for me and causing my overclocks or underclocks to be useless after a while since no of my settings would stick. Anyway hopefully this more extensive right up will help others having similar issues.

 

I would suggest you use ThrottleStop instead of XTU. It has more fine grained and advanced settings.
So you can circumvent instability of undervolts lower than -100mv. XTU sets Core and Cache, which actually is the Ringbus, voltage simultaneously. Since the Ringbus(CPU Cache) is responsible for connecting all parts of the CPU, it is not a wise idea to cause instability by undevolting it too much. Throttlestop can individually set Core,GPU,SA,Ringbus and Analog I/O voltages.
A nice bonus is having multiple profiles.
Below you see my settings, which in this combination also reduce latency. Give it a try


But in my opinion the right way is to modify the Bios to allow for such changes. So it applies to all OSes and sticks in every situation.

 

Oh and please disable Monitoring since it causes the system process to use 10%Cpu. That i true for all hardware monitoring tools. It is because of optimus. As soon as the dGPU gets disabled they poll it like crazy. Using the GPU instantly stops this behaviour.

 

Throttlestop and Intel XTU both do the same as the core voltage offset both changes the cache offset as well. Also you still have to disable the RzPerformance to get any of these changes to stick.

Our systems do not have optimus...

 

Throttlestop does not change them together. You can set them individually. I have tried and checked with various monitoring tools.
With more than -100mv in XTU my system did crash. With -125mv Core only in Throttlestop it did not. Primestable 8-4096k FFTs 15min interval for 10h. Disabling RzPerformance is interesting.

My bad, did not read your title properly. I thought you were talking about the RB14 2017

 

Not a problem, however it does change them both as I monitor it as well. Also on the program itself (Intel XTU) it says it has a -100mv on the core voltage offset but I will add that as well to original post to avoid confusion.

 

Hm that is odd, in my case they are individually set. Maybe bios limitation ?

Yeah that would probably save a few people some headache
XTU locking them together, is a design flaw in my opinion. Even the most basic desktop boards these days allow for individual settings of those parameters.

 

Well again it’s preference. Also for simplicity sake using XTU will cause the least confusion.

Not to say they cannot take your advice and try for more undervolting. However -100mv on both is stable for most. As a good middle ground setting.

 

Okay you are right it is preference.
I have undervolted and overclocked quite a few desktop cpus, and by doing so I learnt that having full control over as many settings as possible is a must for good results.
For beginners XTU will absolutely suffice though.

As for the Cache, as I said it is in fact Ringbus. And undervolting Ringbus by a high margin is not good for overall system stability. It might not result in outright bluescreens, but can also cause sluggishness and other unwanted effects in certain load situations.

But lets leave it at that.
I did not want to highjack your thread.

 

Not at all a hijack very informative and helpful to anyone wanting to do some modifications to their systems.

 

meme/10

@D2 Ultima @bloodhawk

 

Why not uninstall XTU and install ThrottleStop, surely RZ Synapse won't disable it. If it disables TS, then disable or put Razer Synapse service to manual.

 

I am glad you like it.
But nonetheless I will open a new thread in the near future to discuss such matters.

Isn´t this going to disable all Chroma functionality too ?

 

It doesn’t “disable” it. It scans every 3-5min and rests overlock settings. To the razer defined defaults so you must set the RzPerformance service to disabled so it won’t run, not the entire Razer Synapse.

This is why you simply disable the service I mentioned.

 

Why on earth they would do that just baffles me

 

Razer is the new apple xD.

 

To ensure "Best possible User Experience"

 

Maybe Apple -2.0 w/ lights.

 

ECKS DEE

 

Hello guys! I read this thread with great interest as it may be the solution to my problem but I'm still not quite sure.
I undervolted cpu by -120 v. CPU and GPU are often at or under 80 during moderate gaming but while playing triple a titles maxed out, they hover around low 80s.
Back to the issue...playing these high demanding games, occasionally the screen dims (to the brightness set on power saver or balanced im not quite sure) and the keyboard lighting switches to the "on battery" setup from Synapse. I think it has to either do with the power adapter disconnecting or the power profile switching to power saver or balanced.
So is this the problem everyone is having or am I on a league of my own??

Also, how do you underclock the GPU?

Thanks in advance

 

Please follow the instructions listed at the start of the thread:

 

What are the XTU defaults for the RBP (2017)? Tried both tweaks from the initial post to fix my unexplainable FPS issues and it didn't really make a difference.But still, for any game I play I frequently get drops down to 10-20FPS then it normalises again

 

Check PCH temps whilst gaming using HWINFO.

 

FPS issue resolved (certain games just required a setting tweak here and there). But I was wondering if an update of some sort broke everything today. Any game now cashes and causes a complete system shutdown almost minutes into any game. I've double checked I have the tweaks right and the Rz Performance service is still disabled/stopped. Doesn't look like Windows update has downloaded anything either :/

Edit:
Resolved the issue by reinstalling the Intel drivers via Razer's site. All resolved, what is odd is I have three separate Razer laptops/models and all three got this problem at the same time and none of them have had anything new installed or any system level changes.

 

i guess this laptop is meant to be designed to cripple performance in order to reduce performance & heat, thus reducing in thickness. good thing i didnt spent any money on this underwhelming of a laptop.

 

*Slow claps* Sorry but I don't quite follow the purpose of your post?

 

Any odd looking options in Performance tab in BIOS? I mean, CPU fan speed or performance limit or something!?

 

Good thought! I'll have a check on all machines. I cant shake the oddity that it's happened on all machines at once, I've reinstalled the nvidia drivers (after removing them and using a DDU in safe mode) but I ran out of time before work to check if it helped or not so I'll update this post later today once I've checked.

Edit: Here is a screen cap from HWInfo when I got an FPS dip everything is in black aside whats shown below, similar results across several games, I can start listing games and settings but I feel like it might be a single problem that's impacting all my games.

 

I'm trying to help my mother whom just got a Razer Blade Pro 2017 Model and i have followed the steps but XTU or Throttlestop is not allowing me to go negative on the Core Voltage. She plays World Of Warcraft and this is the 3rd time for the random shut down any information would help I've looked every were. Also she is having problems with her internet disconnecting every once in awhile which i have tried legacy software but there are so many and i'm not sure if i'm installing these things correct. I've read a lot of your posts Hackintoshihope and you seem knowledgeable in the RBP isle. Also a call in to Razer support confirms this is the latest 2017 Series available right now.

 

You are not wanting to go negative on the Core Voltage, rather you want to set a negative voltage offset. Also you want to combine this with a GPU underclock and undervolt. Please see the beginning of the thread for more help but in essence to do the GPU undervolt you would need to install MSI afterburner and CTRL + F to adjust voltage tables.

On another note I had posted a request for getting my lost ICC profile for the THX certification back for the display would you be able to possible get this file for me if you work on her computer? It’s located in this file path: "C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color" it should be called THX or something like this .icc.

 

Does this forum allow messaging, i did not see a file path posted. I will help you as much as i can if i can figure this out for my mother. https://imgur.com/a/VirKv

 

Does this forum allow messaging. Here is what ive done Via your post https://imgur.com/a/VirKv

 

i found the Blade_THX file how i do i get it to you? Is there messaging or what do you suggest?
Also here is were i am at with my mothers computer https://imgur.com/a/VirKv

 

It does allow messaging. You should be able to direct message me? But if you can just zip that file and you should be able to attach it. Also I’ll take a look what you have done and report back. I’m at work right now but would be happy to help as I experienced these same problems.

 

I have the file ready for you but there is no way on here to attach it is in a zipped file on this platform. And i do appreciate it a lot my mother is extremely upset about this situation. All i see is Images, Media, Insert (Code, Spoiler, Code, Strike-Through), Media Galler Embeded, Drafts. That is all i see on the top of this chat box.

 

You’ve provided me with MSI afterburner but no pictures of what you are seeing in intel XTU. Can you show me that?

 

As the (mostly happy) owner of the Late 2016 model Razer Blade Pro I have 2 more tweaks that I needed to implement in order to *fix* the machine. First, I did need to un-RAID the drives which fixed the random crash to BIOS issue that I was having (like many others have reported). I haven't had a single crash since and I use this device all day, every day for work (and play). I also needed to add the "Keyboard Chattering Fix" which loads on startup. I don't know about others here - but I've found this keyboard to have issues with both chattering (multiple key registers for 1 key hit) and the opposite extreme, hitting a key and not having it register at all. The chattering fix has almost completely solved the multiple registers - leaving me with only the aggravation of the opposite (occasional non-registering keystroke). However - with the tweaks suggested by OP, and the ones I've outlined here, this has really been an excellent device. Admittedly - gaming is not my primary use for the RBP - but I will occasionally run titles like Skyrim at 4K without any issue (other than noisy fans). I think many people were quick to RMA or return the RBP 2016 without implementing some basic fine-tuning and troubleshooting. Believe me, I get the argument of "I shouldn't have to do that on a $4000 laptop" - which I totally get...but if you want the power with the form factor, you need to just tough it out and make it right because there's really not much else out there (at least not a year ago).

 

I cannot get the images you posted on the CPU & GPU settings, Can I view them some other way? Clicking them, they simply wont open for me to view.

 

Same here, I can't view the images on the guide. I just bought the Razer Blade Pro 4K 7820hk 1080, and opening any game shoot the fans too high, the machine always run hot, so I want to decrease temperature and avoid fans go that loud...

 

Are the "random" shutdowns while gaming still ongoing?