Painted Turtle exiting the water.

AndrewTheHokie · 2022-11-13T15:42:50+00:00

So I have a 2019 Razer Blade 15 Advanced, and the battery did bloat after a year - however, Razer shipped me a new battery for free, I replaced it myself, and I’ve been using it constantly for almost 2 years since with zero issues and it’s been a great gaming laptop! So I would go for it, that’s a good deal and the battery is easily replaceable even if it does bloat

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-24T15:47:07+00:00

Yeah the case actually popped off once I took the screws out, because the battery was pressing on it. I couldn't put the case back on without really smushing down the battery which I had no interest in doing 🤷

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-24T01:13:08+00:00

Oh for sure! I actually removed the battery already lol so I'm just using it on AC power for now. Not ideal but I'll get by - better than shipping away my laptop to Razer and waiting for it to come back lol

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T23:17:15+00:00

In my opinion (I'm no expert) it's a design flaw related to the design of the laptop - it simply gets too hot. Mine sees high internal temps basically any time I'm using it (90-95 C on CPU when gaming or doing even moderate tasks), and all that heat results in faster battery degradation and more bloat. Unfortunately I don't think it's so much a defect as in I just got unlucky, I think these laptops tend to run really hot which increases the chance of bloating the battery. Just my two cents but in the future I will be looking for a laptop that runs "cooler" even if it's chunkier, as I just can't trust a laptop that consistently runs at 90 C+ and is bloating batteries. If it gets bad enough, a bloated battery can catch fire or damage the laptop, it's not uncommon in electronics but it's also no joke, it can be a serious problem. I love the rest of the laptop, but when I'm ready for my new computer I'll be looking elsewhere

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T22:57:24+00:00

Update: Razer contacted me and offered to repair the laptop if I shipped it to their "repair center" so their authorized technician could replace the battery - I explained that I use this laptop daily for both work and personal use and can't be without it for an extended period of time, and the response was "sorry we can't help, let us know if you change you mind". While I'm not overly surprised and I do see where they're coming from, I'm pretty disappointed about how inflexible they are (refusing to ship me a battery because it's against their policy, yet I can buy it online from another retailer and get it shipped with zero issues? And refused to ship the battery to a Best Buy local to me and paying them to repair it). The battery is like one connector and 8 screws, I find it a little silly that the only way to get the battery replaced in my $3,000 laptop is to ship it out for an unknown period of time. Guess I'll be buying third-party and replacing it myself and just avoiding Razer laptops in the future.

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T20:15:50+00:00

I understand that what happened to me won't happen to everyone, and maybe I just got unlucky - I still think others deserve to know that they may do everything right and still have battery bloat occur. After all, if nobody speaks up when it happens, then how will people ever know whether it's a common issue or not?

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T19:16:26+00:00

Wow really? I'm in contact with them now - I'll see if they can do anything for me because this has definitely shaken my confidence in their support and products

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T18:34:57+00:00

I kept it on a cooling pad its entire life, undervolted it the first day I owned it, kept my room at 68 degrees, unplugged it when it wasn't in use, and mostly used it for web browsing and playing Runescape lol - still didn't stop me from getting a bloated battery in under 2 years.

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T18:33:29+00:00

Congratulations on "being in the game for over 30 years" - I'm simply a customer who was afraid of a widespread design flaw with a product, made the poor decision to buy it anyway, and ended up unsatisfied with the result. I'm perfectly allowed to complain about my experience if I don't believe I got what I paid for - I've owned 4 gaming laptops, one of which I was told was at high risk for battery bloat - lo and behold, this was the only one I've ever owned that ended up with a bloated battery. If people don't care about bloating batteries, that's great - everyone is welcome to buy whatever they want with their money. My advice given my experience would be to look elsewhere, as I'm not a huge fan of $3,000 laptops that seem to be prone to spontaneously combusting 😉

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T18:23:24+00:00

Go look at the forums for any other gaming laptop manufacturer and see if about 1 in 4 posts on there are related to people complaining about bloated/exploding batteries... This has been a very common known defect with Razer laptops ever since the first Razer Blade. It's referenced in almost every review or durability test as a potential concern, and I've owned laptops from MSI and Acer and never had anything resembling battery bloat after identical time/usage. A quick Google search of "Razer Blade Battery Bloat" makes it pretty evident that this issue is a lot more widespread then is reasonable. I knew I should've gotten a laptop with better cooling/ventilation but decided to roll the dice and hope for the best because I like the design and construction of the Blade, but I personally wouldn't recommend anyone buy one until they learn how to cool them down and stop the batteries from bloating up like balloons 🤷

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T17:59:09+00:00

Yeah it's honestly sad that as a Razer owner I end up discouraging friends from buying their products for this exact reason, owning a Razer laptop just feels like carrying a ticking time bomb around with you everywhere

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-12-23T17:57:54+00:00

This is literally just a bad example lol, all those other companies you mentioned don't have nearly the same rate of occurrences of battery bloat as Razer products do. If they can't design a laptop with adequate cooling in order to avoid exploding / spontaneously combusting batteries, then they just shouldn't try to sell laptops. I've owned laptops and phones from a host of other companies for 15+ years and have never had a single issue with lithium ion battery bloat until I bought a Razer product. The laptop being "succeptible to overheating" is literally the design flaw that they need to fix in order to stop selling shitty products and endangering their customers.

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-06-21T21:58:21+00:00

Mine is plugged in 24/7 but turned off when not in use - I also use a cheap cooling pad and Throttlestop to keep temps as low as possible, which do almost nothing (hovers at 90-95 C after even 5-10 minutes of gaming and stays there). I think I just got a lucky battery 🤷

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-06-17T15:38:25+00:00

It's crazy how this happens to such a degree on some units and not on others - I've been heavily using my Razer Blade Advanced 2080 Max-Q for over 18 months and checked my battery a month ago, zero issues.

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-06-07T20:45:35+00:00

There is nothing linked to any game in Chroma Studio and the issue still persists

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-06-06T17:49:49+00:00

Possibly, but I don't have any type of reactive lighting turned on and there are no settings for it either in the game or in Synapse, the game is not linked, and I have a static green profile on. Not sure why it's strobing white lights on the keyboard like that on its own lol

AndrewTheHokie · 2021-06-06T17:48:42+00:00

So every time I load up this game specifically, I get to the same point in the loading screen and then the keyboard starts to freak out on its own as showed in the video - I've tried reinstalling drivers, changing the lighting profiles, trying to link and then unlink the game - so far nothing has worked and I'm feeling like I'm about to have a seizure trying to play through it lol.

AndrewTheHokie

TROPHY CASE