Razor Blade 15 Periodical Black Screen

I'm currently experiencing the same issue with the Mid 2019 2080 Max Q. Randomly goes black and I have to put the machine to sleep and back on again.

I've currently downloaded and installed the latest drivers from Intel's website. In order to install it you need to turn off the internet and go to device manager and uninstall the intel UHD 630 device under display adapters then reboot your machine. Once rebooted it will allow you to install the driver.

Still testing so fingers crossed the latest driver gets rid of the flickering to black.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/126790/Intel-UHD-Graphics-630

Hi Manfred -

I have the same machine with the 2080 card and I have the identical problem. Screen goes blank (not off - I can still see the black background is on) and the rest of the machine remains active. I can keep typing and the text is present when I cycle the screen on and off (I have set the power button to screen on/off in the Windows power settings as the problem happens so frequently).

I contacted Razer support and followed these steps with no improvement in the behavior - if anything it is more frequent now:

Connect to an external monitor / Blank or dead screen

If you are able to, try to connect the Razer Blade to an external monitor and observe if the behavior is replicated on the external display, or if it only affecting the display on the Blade. Simply power on your Blade, and connect the external monitor to the system. If the display works fine using the external monitor, it is possible that the display may be faulty. If the display does not appear on the external monitor, it is possible that the laptop itself is faulty.
NOTE: If the system is not detecting the external display, you might want to try hitting FN+F4 twice or three times to change the display setting


Reinstall Intel Display Driver

- Go to the following page: http://support.razerzone.com/gaming-laptops

- Download the Intel HD Graphics file available for your model

- Open Device Manager (right click on the Start menu)

- Under Display Adapters, locate the Intel HD driver

- Uninstall the Intel HD Graphics driver

- Once done. run the downloaded and complete the installation

- Restart upon completion

- Download and run the Intel driver updater to check for updates. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html



Reinstall NVIDIA Display Driver

- Go to the following page: http://support.razerzone.com/gaming-laptops

- Download the GRAPHICS driver that is available for your model

- On install of the NVIDIA driver select custom install, then check the clean install box

- Upon completion, restart the system



Turn Off Panel Self-Refresh

1. Go to Intel Graphics Settings (right click on desktop)

2. Head over to Power

3. Under the Graphics Power Plan, choose Maximum Performance

4. Choose either On Battery or Plugged In, and ensure that the Panel Self-Refresh is set to Disable

5. Hit Apply and OK on the next windows that popped up



Run Windows DISM Tool

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type command prompt, press and hold (or right-click) Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator > Yes.

2. At the command prompt, type in the command line:

dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

(note the space between "dism.exe" and "/" and each switch (/)).

3. If DISM finds corrupted files and replaces them, restart your PC and see that improves performance.

None of that worked.

Connecting to external monitor fixed the problem - the external display worked perfectly and the screen on the laptop stayed on.

I have noticed that the screen now flickers from time to time (as if it is about to go blank but then recovers) and that the problem may be more common when the GTX card is also in use.

I am now waiting to hear back from Razer regarding courier pick up to send the machine back to them for repair/replacement.

As you seem to be having an identical problem I am guessing this may be a known problem which this device.

Kind regards,

Chris

Thanks @aamcclary for guiding @nirerlich.

Hey @nirerlich! Feel free to send me a PM together with your laptop's serial number should you need further assistance.

I purchased a mid-2019 Blade 15 Advance FHD w/RTX 2080 on Sept 6th, so I still have some time to return it. I've also have been experiencing this issue. Would be great to have some answers on this issue before completely throwing in the towel. As with the post above, the issue is extremely random. All my drivers are updated and I've followed the directions that previous posters have relayed from Razer in this thread. I've even upgraded the Intel UHD 630 driver direct from Intel as it's the newest version of the driver as well as disabling the power saving features within the Intel Graphics Control Panel. For me the issue occurs regardless of being on battery or plugged in and after a fresh restart or not. On battery, I've tried the various Windows and Synapse power plans as well as try to use the screen at different angles as well as opening and closing the screen to check for a possible loose connection. I'm willing to look the other way regarding the unconventional transposed keys/layout, but this screen blanking is definitely a deal breaker. It's incredibly temperamental as it'll sometimes blank and doesn't come back until I close the lid and reopen it, other times it'll just blank every other couple of minutes but return like I had blinked my eyes.

_crashbandicoot
@ThomasHedegaard and @SJerc, are you run Windows 1809 or 1903? you can check by hitting the windows key and searching winver, then pressing enter.

1903

Update this morning. It's been 36 hours and I have not heard from @Razer.Speedcr0ss yet. Additional update, I was just watching a video and my screen cut out again. Sound and video was still playing in the background for another couple minutes until I decided to power down and reboot. I'm assuming this means this is a GPU issue. Would appreciate a reply to my PM.

I've spoke too soon regarding my situation . The blanking came back for me and I was plugged in. In the past, I have seen it either on battery or plugged in. Reflecting on my case when I didn't experience the problem, I was mostly using programs that really didn't trigger the gpu. I've reset my laptop to prep it to return, but now I want to know if anyone has tried to use the Nvidia control panel to manually select gpu's versus letting Optimus automatically figure out our needs. My gut is that Optimus is playing up as other laptop manufacturers get the same issue here and there because of it.

SJerc
Hah, we're all expecting it to blank at any moment because we've been conditioned like lab rats. If it doesn't reoccur for a long while then it strongly points to Nvidia's Optimus. What version on you on? I'm on 436.48 and I have noticed that Nvidia has been releasing recent updates for stability issues in a few game titles almost as bad as iOS 13 releases. The screen blanking didn't really occur much for me, but I was running 2 different laptops through the paces to decide on a winner to keep. That means, I was rebooting, shutting down, and restoring the factory image pretty often which would make any memory leak issues less likely to show up. When the issue did show up, it was during times of leaving things running long enough to use the laptop like an actual laptop versus a test subject. lol

I'm on 436.48 as well. It was occurring pretty often for me, usually right after I woke up my laptop from sleep. Restarting usually helped for a while, but after 15-30 minutes of use it would start blanking again. Occasionally it would just blank randomly while working on something, but that didn't happen too much. I'm just hoping this is finally the fix, I've been trying to fix it for a month or so now

the2parker
I think this fixed it for me, I went into Nvidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Preferred Graphics Processor and changed it from Auto-Select to High-Performance NVIDIA Processor and haven't had a black screen for the past couple of days. After dealing with this issue for so long and trying so many different fixes, I still find myself expecting the screen to turn black any second now. Hopefully this helps the rest of you who are having this issue as well, I'll update here if I start seeing the issue again

I am trying this today and will post back later if it seems to fix it.

ThomasHedegaard
So 8 days ago(exactly 8 days as I've been logging this, but waiting to confirm anything until at least a week had passed), I went into Razer Synapse, and turned the refresh rate from 240 down to 60. Ever since, i.e. during a whole week of using this laptop extensively without an external monitor, I can confirm that the random-black-screen-issue DOES NOT HAPPEN. It truly sucks going down to 60 herz when one was getting used to 240, and it obviously sucks even more, when one of the main reasons for buying this machine, was the 240 refresh rate selling point, and then giving into this kind of price tag!

Anyway... @Razer.Speedcr0ss thank you for the update earlier, that is exactly the kind of message I've been requesting as well, just to let people know what's happening from Razer's side(even if nothing new has happened yet) - please keep them coming. Also, please pass this information on the the escalation team members working on this case. It seems it's somewhat related to refresh rate. Again, ever since I changed settings to show 60 instead of 240hz(using Razer Synapse to change this setting), the issue stopped happening, while before when on 240, it used to happen anywhere between 10 - 40 times in a day...

Can more people please try this approach and let us know whether it changes the situation on your side?

NB: I have not tried the steps @SJerc suggests above, yet.

You're welcome! Feel free to send me a PM or post your feedback here.

@SJerc sure, but trying to narrow down the issue I kinda had to go this 60hz for at least a week to be sure. Is your approach still working for you? I.e. have you had any black-screens yet after your suggested steps?

ThomasHedegaard
So 8 days ago(exactly 8 days as I've been logging this, but waiting to confirm anything until at least a week had passed), I went into Razer Synapse, and turned the refresh rate from 240 down to 60. Ever since, i.e. during a whole week of using this laptop extensively without an external monitor, I can confirm that the random-black-screen-issue DOES NOT HAPPEN. It truly sucks going down to 60 herz when one was getting used to 240, and it obviously sucks even more, when one of the main reasons for buying this machine, was the 240 refresh rate selling point, and then giving into this kind of price tag!

Anyway... @Razer.Speedcr0ss thank you for the update earlier, that is exactly the kind of message I've been requesting as well, just to let people know what's happening from Razer's side(even if nothing new has happened yet) - please keep them coming. Also, please pass this information on the the escalation team members working on this case. It seems it's somewhat related to refresh rate. Again, ever since I changed settings to show 60 instead of 240hz(using Razer Synapse to change this setting), the issue stopped happening, while before when on 240, it used to happen anywhere between 10 - 40 times in a day...

Can more people please try this approach and let us know whether it changes the situation on your side?

NB: I have not tried the steps @SJerc suggests above, yet.

--- I can confirm going down to 60 worked for me as well. Might as well buy a HP then... Try changing your power settings to never letting the computer sleep or letting the screen turn off while plugged in. Tried it and so far no issues. And I get to keep my 240 =P

JF

You set your computer to never sleep and never turn the screen off?

If I have one more black screen Amazon is getting a refund request. Way too much money invested to be having these kinda problems. Razer should be pretty embarrassed as a company right now for releasing a faulty product. Just another result of corporate greed. Why QA a product when you can just push it on the public immediately for higher profits and let THEM deal with the problems??? Annoyed? Yep. This is my second $3500 lemon.