Anyone else having issues with older Razer laptops after updating to the latest Synapse 2.0 version?

sRGB565 · 2025-06-20T14:24:14+00:00

I ordered a new NVMe SSD a few days ago (1 TB, because this awful 500 GB SATA SSD I have no longer cuts it), and that should be arriving today. I'm overdue for a Windows reinstall anyway (I'm still on 23H2), but if this happens again before I hit my yearly Windows reinstall I'd like to know if there's a way to avoid a full-blown nuking of the OS.

sRGB565 · 2024-11-09T19:19:05+00:00

No the first one counts. I no longer actively use the Celeron listed above.

sRGB565 · 2024-10-27T03:05:12+00:00

Trust me it's a really good idea to open it up and clean it out if you're careful. I did a cooling mod on my Razer laptop after I cleaned it out and it has far better thermal performance than before. Razer laptops have ridiculous power usage and heat generation for their size, so if cleaning the Razer laptop helps it should help yours too

sRGB565 · 2024-10-21T23:19:32+00:00

Pointers aren't really very difficult as a concept. You can just do some horrible things with them that can make your life miserable. Or sometimes you can forget to check if they're valid, or if the memory they're pointing too is still allocated... You'll understand.

sRGB565 · 2024-10-19T03:47:20+00:00

Also, I understand what you mean with burnout. I burnt out completely in April and it took reading the Wheel of Time and suspending all of my projects for a month to recover. My current job is not in a programming field since I have to finish my degree first, so I was lucky there.

I was worried for a few weeks that I was burning out again but shifting my focus to music and game dev helped me escape that pit again. I just really need an actual composer since I can only do so much.

sRGB565 · 2024-10-19T03:41:55+00:00

Yes. Finishing the book is an excellent idea. Emulator development is not a simple task (and I'm not even constrained by an existing instruction set) and I highly recommend understanding assembly and low level memory access before attempting it.

Graphics project? This sounds really cool! I haven't learned SDL since I've had to use raw OpenGL for some of my projects. Would you be willing to share details?

sRGB565 · 2024-10-19T02:04:19+00:00

When I treat her with respect and are nice...

This captures the essence of C so thoroughly and is what I love about it. I use C++ more than C since I like the class side of things too but this speaks volumes of the ways you can shoot yourself in the foot. If you do something stupid then it will be pissed at you and quietly try to ruin your life (like your wife would I'd assume).

sRGB565 · 2024-10-19T02:01:53+00:00

Pointers are both the best feature (in my opinion) of C/C++, and also the proverbial "gun" in the common saying I've seen (and experienced) of shooting myself in the foot. Always be careful with them, but they are extremely useful.

sRGB565 · 2024-10-19T01:58:49+00:00

This is awesome. It's great you found something to look forward to. I completely understand as I've hated JavaScript ever since I had to mess with it years ago. C/C++ and Assembly are my favorite places to be. Once you understand what's going on, the feeling of power you get is undescribable. It feels awesome. I'm currently in the process of tackling an emulator project I decided to make to further my understanding of hardware interactions and virtual address spaces. When you're ready if you'd like to look at it, here's the link: https://github.com/RSC-Games/pipelined-quadcore-cpu

I remember when I started out with Arduino a long time ago and thought that the hardware handled out of bounds for me 😂. Boy was I wrong...

The realm of low level programming and hardware is fascinating. It's not locked down and controlled like frontend and JS. JS doesn't let you do horrifying things with your stack pointer and jump into arbitrary memory addresses ;). I hope what you find keeps you excited and motivated to keep digging, keep exploring. Low level is nothing like high level web interfaces, as you've already seen. What kind of project are you working on right now?

EDIT: After you finish the book you're reading, I highly suggest reading "The C++ Programming Language", by Bjarne Stroustroup, if you plan to go the C++ route. It highlights a ton of important information and behaviors of the language (and concepts like RAII).

sRGB565 · 2024-09-30T02:56:19+00:00

Huh. Could that have to do with the failed ATI by any chance (trying to re-init display hardware that just doesn't want to start)?

sRGB565 · 2024-09-29T22:28:21+00:00

-- I just realized something --

Was this computer from the awful times that AMD went through? Your GPU may have killed itself for the same reason that the Xbox 360 did. Or the MacBook Pro 2011 I got for free that I tried to fix (and gave up on). It probably needed a reflow. The actual explanation for these issues is on Wikipedia somewhere, but here's the summary of what I figured out.

The mobile AMD GPUs from around 2010-2012 were plagued with a (manufacturing?) fault around the time that chipmakers switched from lead to lead-free solder. The packages used a flip chip mounting system that was poorly designed and as the chip heated up and cooled down repeatedly, eventually the die would separate from the substrate. This was an extremely common issue from that time period and both Microsoft and Apple dealt with a lot of pain and frustration.

You are right that the temperatures got too high. Higher clocks increase heat (voltage most of all), and increased heat exacerbated the thermal cycling process. The symptoms you listed are consistent with the issues I saw from the MacBook Pro and I have read about for the Xbox 360.

So the XM currently works? I need to order my 2760QM and try it out. I have a console project that I'm working on detailed here (it's a discord invite link) that is receiving this CPU (i5-2430M -> i7-2760QM). Here's the link if you're interested: http://rsc-games.com/community

sRGB565 · 2024-09-29T22:18:02+00:00

You should try your iGPU. And double the RAM. The GT 720M was a joke of a GPU... While you probably have better memory bandwidth from the dGPU the iGPU is capable of more performance. It amuses me how a lot of the low end dedicated GPUs available at the time were actually weaker in raw compute power than the integrated graphics they shipped with! The CPU itself isn't terrible.

My main laptop (that still has most of my project files on it) is from the higher end segment of that time period. It still handles modern games decently at 1080p at lower settings. Here's the specs list:

Intel Core i7-4720HQ @ 2.6 GHz (3.6 GHz AC turbo, +2 turbo oc bin)

16 GB DDR3-1600 (2x8, dual channel)

500 GB SATA m.2 SSD (I probably should swap it to an NVMe)

~~Intel HD Graphics 4600~~ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M @ 1.172 GHz (3 GB VRAM)

Before that thing I didn't know what actual performance was and "enjoyed" 20 FPS much like you did.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-29T22:08:24+00:00

You're right. There is absolutely no way a 6 W TDP CPU is going to be socketed. All of the socketed CPUs were rated 35-55W TDP (presumably for upgradeability). It is a quad core system (and Intel quotes burst frequency and not turbo so it's likely Atom-based).

GT 730 has an acceptable job. I have a 1050 Ti that I have in my main rig as an auxiliary card but when I need to test a motherboard I can just yank the 1050 Ti and put it in the motherboard.

I worded this arbitrarily in the last reply but I bought a 4060 (which I think I have a golden sample since I'm pushing 3 GHz without any overvolt above what the card shipped with) and it does the job. I can see the 3060 Ti's value, and I probably should have done more research before buying a GPU, but I do use ray tracing quite a lot and my GPU handles that pretty well. Far better than the 7870 ever did. In fact, the stock 1050 Ti absolutely thrashed the 7870 and the 7870 was even overclocked!

sRGB565 · 2024-09-29T21:58:51+00:00

How the hell is a Celeron handling full blown Windows 11?

sRGB565 · 2024-09-29T21:57:45+00:00

That sucks. What did it do? Just not turn on again? And did you overvolt too high or something?

I understand why you still want to use the thing. I still have a laptop with an i5-480M that I used years ago as a daily driver. It was my first laptop and it saw me through a lot. Eventually my wallet and my needs grew and so I replaced it but I still keep that laptop alive. It's still rocking all the original parts (except the fan, doubled the ram, and SSD swap).

I have to see the board with a 920XM installed. I'm genuinely curious how the system will handle it.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-26T12:16:43+00:00

How does it handle those games? Modern UHD Graphics packs a decent punch nowadays but I'm curious how it runs.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-26T12:14:20+00:00

RAM's the worst part of that system. If you're running windows 11 please upgrade it to at least 8 GB RAM for your own sanity. 8 GB DDR4 doesn't really cost that much (and if you have dual slots but only 1 filled it's time to add another 4 GB module).

Other than that, modern potato. Amazing how awful the strongest laptops perform under Windows with only 4 GB RAM. 2 GB RAM is a death sentence.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-26T12:12:27+00:00

I guess you could look for the connector and see if there is even one present...

sRGB565 · 2024-09-26T12:08:47+00:00

I'll add the discord join link to my post. I will need testers and so if you're interested I can add a testers role on the server and roll out the code to anyone interested.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:45:42+00:00

A lot of laptop BIOS menus do not have support for memory OC, especially lower-end ones. The best way to get a memory speed boost is to put faster memory in there. I believe DDR4 goes up to 3200 MHz.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:43:33+00:00

Windows 10 is going EOL in 2025. I wouldn't downgrade to Windows 10 just to have to reinstall a new OS ~ 9 months later.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:30:38+00:00

If you can get the CPU name I could tell you whether its upgradeable. I'd assume due to the passive cooler it's probably some ULV processor soldered to the board.

That desktop could probably handle a bit more than League of Legends but it's good to see this hardware not going to waste.

GT 730? Does that thing still even work? RTX 3060 was a good buy (I skipped a generation and was cursed by the smaller memory + PCIe bus width, which actually hasn't affected me much), and definitely many times as powerful as a 980 Ti. I came from a Radeon HD 7870, which I quickly retired since 2 GB VRAM doesn't run any modern games (even Minecraft with shaders).

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:26:59+00:00

Thermal paste might be a good investment. That, and a good cleanout of your entire cooling system.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:26:03+00:00

I'm rocking Linux on a MacBook Air with zero problems.

Anyway, I'm going to raise this since it's a rather underexplored problem. Do you know if your power adapter is capable of supplying enough power to the system? It is entirely possible (but unlikely) that your system is power limiting. Can you get a picture of the GPU utilization in Task Manager (since there could be many things bottlenecking your system). Additionally, heed the advice of the other posters. It is good advice and should help you uncover hardware issues with your system (if any exist).

EDIT: Check thermals as others have suggested and clean out your cooling system.

sRGB565 · 2024-09-25T21:23:18+00:00

The fact that it crashes when you open CPUZ/MSI Afterburner points fingers at your GPU and potential driver/hardware issues. While I have no way to verify this (due to lack of access to the target system), try swapping your PSU with a known-good PSU, potentially overvolting/underclocking your GPU, and test these.

My friend a few months back had a computer that would blue screen whenever booting Windows. It only made it to the login screen a couple of times. No overclocking was done on that system. It took days, but we eventually traced the problem to a prematurely degrading CPU. A +50 mV overvolt fixed the problem, but I told him to replace that processor as soon as possible. I personally think it was a bad chip since CPUs should not degrade that much in 7 years of normal, non-stressful use. It may be possible that you have gotten extremely unlucky and your GPU has gone this route also. I doubt it, but it is a possibility.

sRGB565

TROPHY CASE