Hi everyone,
I'm having a strange keyboard RGB issue with my Razer Blade 15 Base (2020) after the latest Synapse 4/Chroma update.
I'm currently running:
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Synapse: 4.0. [removed by moderator]
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Chroma: 4.0. [removed by moderator]
A few days ago, everything was working normally. I usually use Spectrum Cycling, and the keyboard would cycle through all the colors as expected.
For some context, I recently had to reinstall Windows 11. I completely cleaned both SSDs using DiskPart and performed a fresh installation using a Windows 11 Media Creation Tool USB. After the clean Windows installation, the keyboard lighting and Synapse worked perfectly at first.
However, starting yesterday, my keyboard lighting suddenly stopped working correctly whenever Synapse 4 is running.
The strange part is that the keyboard RGB works perfectly when Synapse is not controlling it. During boot/restart, Spectrum Cycling works normally. If I completely kill Synapse, the keyboard immediately goes back to normal Spectrum Cycling.
As soon as Synapse takes control, the RGB breaks.
The behavior is especially weird because the lighting settings seem to be one command behind. For example:
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Spectrum Cycling will get stuck on a single static color.
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If I select Static Green, the keyboard may change to a different/random static color.
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If I then switch back to Spectrum Cycling, the keyboard becomes the Static Green color I selected previously.
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Selecting another color/effect often causes the keyboard to apply the previous setting instead of the current one.
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Effects such as Spectrum Cycling and Breathing don't actually animate.
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Sometimes the keyboard becomes extremely dim or the lighting turns off completely.
I've already reinstalled Synapse 4 three times, but the problem persists.
Since the keyboard works perfectly when Synapse is killed, this doesn't appear to be an LED/keyboard hardware failure. It seems like something goes wrong specifically when the current version of Synapse/Chroma takes control of the Blade's keyboard lighting.
I also noticed that the latest August 5 update included changes/fixes related to keyboard lighting/brightness on newer Blade models. I'm wondering if there could be a regression affecting older Blade models such as the 2020 Blade 15.
Has anyone else with a Blade 15, especially a 2020 model, experienced broken keyboard RGB after updating to Synapse 4.0.86 / Chroma 4.0.63?
I'd really like to avoid completely reinstalling Windows again, especially since the RGB hardware itself appears to work normally without Synapse.
Any help or confirmation from other Blade owners would be appreciated.