Does Windows 11 break Blade 17 (Mid 2021) 3080 model?

I got this response from Razer so far...

To avoid any confusion from my end, please allow me to reconfirm that you are having an issue with Razer Blade 17 [SN: BY2131M55300898] that you are having a concern if you are going to update into Windows 11, am I right?

 

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this, and I understand how frustrating this issue can be. I will exert all my effort in resolving your worries today.

 

We appreciate your details and letting us know that some issue occurs after get the laptop updated into Windows 11.

 

However, as per checking by our senior technical support team, this is not a known issue or common issue that is currently happening.

 

We suggest that you laptop may stay put in Windows 10, without update into Windows 11, to avoid those information provided by you.

Not really satisfactory because I will *have to* update to Windows 11 at some point, and this model was an extremely expensive absolutely top of the range model in (late) 2021. It would surely be catastrophic product support, if just over a year or so later the computer was rendered useless by updating to Windows 11

I was running Windows 11 without issues for a few months. 

Then my Razer-installed NVME drive suddenly failed to boot (I was able to access all the data, but it was no longer recognized as a bootable OS drive). 

I won’t hazard a guess as to whether or not that was Windows 11-related. I have reinstalled Windows 11 on a new NVME drive, and Windows does recognize the NVIDIA GPU in the device manager. 

(Razer Blade 15, i7, 3080, mid-2021)

Interesting, and it doesn't just recognise it, but also actually uses it? I've seen some other threads where people have said it's in device manager, but not actually used any more?

 Next response from Razer

a) Will updating to Windows 11 *at the moment* cause me to have the same issues others have had, or have you done something to prevent the Windows 11 update 'bricking' this model as it has for all the other people I quoted.

Those links you provided are mostly a year ago or few months back, at the moment we did not have the issue for Windows 11, David.

 

As you may know the latest Windows security patches fix the vulnerabilities and errors in Windows and associated software, and they occasionally add new features. This essentially summarizes why you should regularly run a Windows Update.

 

In this case, Razer always working on any future issue that might occur for updating Windows.

 

b) If you haven't done anything to prevent Windows 11 update 'bricking' this model, will you ever do anything to fix this issue? If not why not? It really is pathetic that a top of the range, luxury, *extremely expensive* (late) 2021 computer is destroyed by updating to Windows 11

 

I have answered in point a), as we did not get any issue at the moment for your laptop model Windows 11.

But I have asked for more detail, because that all sounds a bit vague, and does not appear to acknowledge there ever was a problem, which either there was, and the threads on this forum would suggest, or *they know* that the 5-6 cases I have found here are complete outliers, because tens of thousands of people with the same model updated to Windows 11 just fine (do tens of thousands of people ever buy Razers top of the range model? I dont know)

Assuming the problems people have had are not just ‘freaks’ caused by viruses or dodgy software or something, I want to know that Razer *knows* there was a problem, and that they either a) have fixed it (what roughly did they do, so I make sure that software/BIOS is updated on my machine) or b) are fixing it (when roughly can we hope it will be fixed)

In Task Manager > Performance, I have GPU 0 (integrated: Intel) and GPU 1 (dedicated: NVIDIA GFRTX3080). 

When I’m gaming, the GPU 1 shows all the activity, while GPU 0 drops to nearly nothing. 

Hey!

I've seen mixed experiences with this model and Windows 11 as well. Some users have had no issues, while others report serious performance drops or dGPU recognition problems. It could be driver-related, so checking for the latest Nvidia and Razer BIOS updates might help.

If you're considering the upgrade, I’d recommend creating a full system backup first just in case. Hopefully, more users can share their experiences to see if these issues are widespread or just isolated cases.

#TomiWatch ⌚