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Anybody tried Razer Blade 15 Advanced 2019?
- Thread starter hajime
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Loud. The thermals are good with respect to running a high end gpu but make no mistake, the fans are aggressive
I loved the razer when I owned it and I still have a pang of remorse but my thinkpad is a superior laptop - at least with respect to my needs
I thought you already settled on a yoga
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New Razer Blade like the majority of new high performance notebooks will likely be perfectly fine for the rest of us, however you'll be needing an optional extra, even comes in Green
Q-6
Loud. The thermals are good with respect to running a high end gpu but make no mistake, the fans are aggressive
I loved the razer when I owned it and I still have a pang of remorse but my thinkpad is a superior laptop - at least with respect to my needs
I thought you already settled on a yoga
Kind of but I keep my eyes open in case of miracle.
Hajime – Lisa is a realist. When she says the thermals are good I believe her. But that does not mean that the fans don’t come on fairly frequently. Which they are going to when you start to load the machine. Given your absolute preoccupation with fan noise I cannot see how any of the thin, light, i7 laptops will satisfy you. I think you are chasing rainbows.
You mentioned in another thread that your replacement C930 Yoga has more fan noise than the one you had originally. I presume you have done all the necessary noise reduction tweaks of course. If I take that to mean you are finding the noise to be excessive, then it is very likely going to be worse if you kick it up a notch and buy a more powerful machine. Is this C930 running the same BIOS as the previous, quieter one? You can also re-set the BIOS, that can reduce the fans.
I am currently using a gigabyte Aero 15-X9. It has the RTX2070 GPU, i7, 32Gig RAM, 4k configuration. It's very nice and I'd say the thermals are quite good. I’ve done my usual tweaks which I’ve outlined to you before. And my laptop is absolutely silent in all normal productivity tasks. The fans start to kick in (as they should) when I am pushing the machine a little, most notably in Adobe Lightroom and other graphical applications. It was exactly the same with my X1E, perfectly normal. The fans are fairly quiet at this level, but they have a high-pitched metallic tone to them which isn’t particularly pleasant, but it is characteristic of that machine (the X1E was similar as I recall). There is nothing we can do about it, this is going to be the case whatever powerful laptop you invest in (notwithstanding the fans varying slightly in pitch).
It sounds to me like you would be better off sticking with the C930 or similar.
You mentioned in another thread that your replacement C930 Yoga has more fan noise than the one you had originally. I presume you have done all the necessary noise reduction tweaks of course. If I take that to mean you are finding the noise to be excessive, then it is very likely going to be worse if you kick it up a notch and buy a more powerful machine. Is this C930 running the same BIOS as the previous, quieter one? You can also re-set the BIOS, that can reduce the fans.
I am currently using a gigabyte Aero 15-X9. It has the RTX2070 GPU, i7, 32Gig RAM, 4k configuration. It's very nice and I'd say the thermals are quite good. I’ve done my usual tweaks which I’ve outlined to you before. And my laptop is absolutely silent in all normal productivity tasks. The fans start to kick in (as they should) when I am pushing the machine a little, most notably in Adobe Lightroom and other graphical applications. It was exactly the same with my X1E, perfectly normal. The fans are fairly quiet at this level, but they have a high-pitched metallic tone to them which isn’t particularly pleasant, but it is characteristic of that machine (the X1E was similar as I recall). There is nothing we can do about it, this is going to be the case whatever powerful laptop you invest in (notwithstanding the fans varying slightly in pitch).
It sounds to me like you would be better off sticking with the C930 or similar.
My Razer had loud fans too while setting up and resetting the machine. I noticed elevating the laptop calmed the fans down quickly though.
As others have said, there are trade offs with thin laptops running these specs.
Just realized I had this exact model in black with the 240 screen and RTX 2070 Max-Q.
It was a sweet machine, but Lisa and @maflynn nailed it with the keyboard. Not only too shallow, but the ?/ key and shift keys were impossible for me to get used to.
Was beautiful and ridiculously powerful. It will make lots of folks happy.
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Thanks for the comments.
How do you like Gigabyte's services? I use their Z390 motherboard. The experience I have with them is that tech support if not very helpful. So I hesitate to drop more than 1K on their product even I am interested in the Aero 15 OLED.
Given that Apple still use that butterfly keyboard, it seems to be that the only good things about the 2019 15" MBP is that they have very good battery life (~10 hours?) when compared with Windows laptops with 4K screen as well as seemingly to be very quiet and very good performance (at least under Mac OS). Buying the machine mainly to run Windows may or may not be satisfactory due to poor GPU drivers. Am I correct?
Regardless, I need to return my C930 because the screw to tighten the SSD is so tight that I cannot remove it. Also the fans turned crazy for no reason yesterday. Under task manager, it just stated that system's power consumption was extremely high. Total CPU load was jumping between 15-30%.
Buying a Mac to run Windows is only likely to offer the worst of both worlds now, with both battery life and performance suffering.
As for 10 hours maybe under Apple's conditions, real world I'd be surprised given the i9 as once the CPU boosts it can easily be pulling a good number of Watts
Q-6
More and more, users will be getting penalized for running windows on a Mac. The 2019 MBP for example, will throttle, the fans will be more active and the battery life will be significantly worse. Apple customizes the hardware and software to work well together and so you'll only get best user experience running macos. As an aside, I've run into minor to not so minor device driver issues with running windows and more headaches running linux. If you're going to spend 3k for a Mac, you're better off running macOS.
Most of what you put are solvable if you wish to put the effort into learning your system. As for the fans, no matter what laptop buy (with the exception of the Mac), will have periods of time that the fans ramp up. People have been providing you with advice and help on what to buy, but you go your own route, which is fine because its your money, but then you complain that the fans are noisy
You risk being banned from buying a Lenovo, this is what you're fourth or fifth Thinkpad you've sent back? I'm not saying you should return it, but we all have consequences for our actions and constantly buying/returning has its own consequences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For Lenovo, I tried to find out what happen as this always happen. However, support usually just say it is a hardware issue, here is the case number for you to return it without bothering to spend more time to solve the issues.
@hajime: I’m afraid I don’t have any direct experience with Gigabyte service. They operate on a much smaller scale than other manufacturers and from what I’ve read it can take a few days to get a response from them. As was the case incidentally when I emailed Lenovo with the problem relating to my X1E. Being in the UK, from what I’ve seen Lenovo service is not particularly well-regarded here but I suspect it is better across the pond and probably in Canada. Lenovo does also offer the option (I believe) for you to purchase on-site service for machines which don’t come with that already. Gigabyte do not offer that option nor an extended warranty beyond two years as far as I am aware (I’m open to correction on that one).
UK gigabyte customers don’t have to send their laptops overseas since Gigabyte uses a fairly well-regarded repair establishment in England. Perhaps Gigabyte have local service centres overseas as well. That may cut down a little on the time it is away. I hope I don’t have to put it to the test. I got my Aero from Amazon so in the first year I also have the option to send it back if I’m unhappy, without too many complications.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on any Mac related functions.
It seems odd that the fan on your C930 has recently become active. It sounds like you’ve done this already and have checked to see if there is any errant process or service running in the background. You could also start in safe mode and disable all services apart from essential Microsoft ones. If that solves the fan problem you can gradually add back your necessary services until you identify one which has caused the issue. I have had that problem in the past when I’ve had excessive CPU usage on my Dell. However not being able to undo the screw on the SSD is unfortunate. I would be gently persistent on that one, just in case it does eventually free itself. A different screwdriver of the same size but with a better ‘point’ can sometimes do the trick.
If you do decide to get rid of your C930 there are other similar options and I think Dell has just brought out a new two in one which looks nice but is far from cheap.
To labour an already exhausted point ..... as I and others have demonstrated it is absolutely possible to enjoy silence on a powerful laptop for general productivity such as web browsing, emails, Office applications and such like. But if you expect silence when starting to load the machine and undertaking graphical work then you simply will not get that - even on the models which offer the ‘U’ class processors. My Lenovo L390Y is super quiet (in my opinion) but when I’m working in Lightroom and similar the fan does come on (as it should) but it is pretty quiet and to my ears it is very acceptable. My Aero is identical, other than the higher pitch to the fans. I did have a brief period when the fan noise escalated on my L390Y and that was thanks to a BIOS upgrade - a subsequent new BIOS released a month later sorted that out as did a routine reset after installing the new firmware. But as we have all kept saying if you cannot stand ANY kind of fan noise, even if it’s fairly quiet, then you are absolutely on a road to nowhere.
When thermals are described as ‘good’ in reviews that does not necessarily mean the machine is quiet. It simply means the machine’s cooling system is effective - and that can involve any amount of fan activity.
UK gigabyte customers don’t have to send their laptops overseas since Gigabyte uses a fairly well-regarded repair establishment in England. Perhaps Gigabyte have local service centres overseas as well. That may cut down a little on the time it is away. I hope I don’t have to put it to the test. I got my Aero from Amazon so in the first year I also have the option to send it back if I’m unhappy, without too many complications.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on any Mac related functions.
It seems odd that the fan on your C930 has recently become active. It sounds like you’ve done this already and have checked to see if there is any errant process or service running in the background. You could also start in safe mode and disable all services apart from essential Microsoft ones. If that solves the fan problem you can gradually add back your necessary services until you identify one which has caused the issue. I have had that problem in the past when I’ve had excessive CPU usage on my Dell. However not being able to undo the screw on the SSD is unfortunate. I would be gently persistent on that one, just in case it does eventually free itself. A different screwdriver of the same size but with a better ‘point’ can sometimes do the trick.
If you do decide to get rid of your C930 there are other similar options and I think Dell has just brought out a new two in one which looks nice but is far from cheap.
To labour an already exhausted point ..... as I and others have demonstrated it is absolutely possible to enjoy silence on a powerful laptop for general productivity such as web browsing, emails, Office applications and such like. But if you expect silence when starting to load the machine and undertaking graphical work then you simply will not get that - even on the models which offer the ‘U’ class processors. My Lenovo L390Y is super quiet (in my opinion) but when I’m working in Lightroom and similar the fan does come on (as it should) but it is pretty quiet and to my ears it is very acceptable. My Aero is identical, other than the higher pitch to the fans. I did have a brief period when the fan noise escalated on my L390Y and that was thanks to a BIOS upgrade - a subsequent new BIOS released a month later sorted that out as did a routine reset after installing the new firmware. But as we have all kept saying if you cannot stand ANY kind of fan noise, even if it’s fairly quiet, then you are absolutely on a road to nowhere.
When thermals are described as ‘good’ in reviews that does not necessarily mean the machine is quiet. It simply means the machine’s cooling system is effective - and that can involve any amount of fan activity.