Preventing a battery swelling issue in a Razer Blade? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: akasaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2025, 09:33:47 am
content: So, I have a very specific set of needs for a laptop:- No brick chargers, Type-C is the way to go- Specifically Intel + Nvidia chipset to develop for a specific embedded Windows platform with vendor-specific shaders- Ability to run Logic Pro for an occasional song or two by booting into a reasonably new MacOS- Lack of Win11 support (and thus enforcement)- Ability to run all sorts of electronics stuff (mostly PlatformIO and DipTrace)- Ability to run non-cloud versions of Photoshop et al- Swappable SSDAs a result I've picked up a Razer Blade 2019 back in the end of 2020. It is pretty crap at times, the Type-C implementation is full of bugs, but at least it does all of the above well enough. But then there is the elephant in the room, quite literally: the battery.It loves to do something to the battery that results in it degrading near instantly. By the end of 2021 I had to buy a replacement. Fine, I thought, maybe the old one was old (the laptop was secondhand). In early 2023 the replacement goes as well, I get a new one. Today I notice the trackpad clicks very poorly, so I pop the lid open, and sure enough, this one is puffed again.Due to the aforementioned TypeC bugs running it just as a desktop is a royal pain in the butt — I have to replug the dock a few times for it to see it after boot, but if I plug the dock only after the thing has booted then it's fine. (Only happens in Windows and Linux, btw — never on MacOS)OK, I thought, this thing belongs in the trash, I'll just go get a MacBook for $1k and be done with it. One trip to the Apple Store and I realized that my budget is exactly 1.5 times less than a baseline MacBook Pro (and I don't believe in cooling by magic rather than at least convection, so the Air is out of question).So far I've identified potential causes for the issue:1. The battery gets cooked inside the thing during use2. The battery gets constant trickle charge being used as a "capacitor" (the power input circuitry in this thing barely sustains it — without a battery I have to use two chargers for heavier workloads, e.g. Traktor or Photoshop, or it just cuts out at random)3. The battery doesn't like being always plugged in while being cookedRazer doesn't provide a charge limit tool for this specific model as well, which doesn't help either.Thus I have come to an idea:Drill a hole in the side of the laptop and put in a hardware level battery cutoff switch.So, here's a few questions for the crowd:1. Are LiIon batteries fine with being cooked while not plugged in? I don't have a thermal imaging tool, but I presume the battery area can go up to ballpark 50°C in the thing, judging by how it was when I took the lid off — at least, with the battery connected to the motherboard. If this temperature damages the battery even when unplugged, then the mod would be pointless2. Are there sufficiently compact MOSFETs that could pass the current needed from the battery to the laptop? I don't believe there are any small enough slider switches (the thing is about 9mm thick) that can pass the amps needed both ways, not to mention potential arcing. Maybe readymade all in one chips for the task? (Tiny SSOP-ish solid state relays?)3. Do hi-temp rated LiIon square pouch cells exist? Maybe I could just invest in those and plop them onto the existing driver board and all will be hunky dory.Very much this is polishing a turd with an industrial grade sander tool at this pointbut the laptop fits my usecases all too well to swap it out for something. I don't like any of the newer offerings in store these days so far.

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2025, 12:13:20 pm
content: Quote from: akasaka on April 03, 2025, 09:33:47 amWell Sir, welcome to the brave new world!!Back in 2014 - 2015 I've replaced a ton of batteries on iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, I even replaced a battery on my iPhone 4. Guess what, that iPhone 4 still works and the battery still has great capacity -- 10 years later!Then I did replace batteries on iPhone 5 and 6 and those things would come back like crazy. One customer came back after a year, telling me that his battery would discharge quick. I brushed it all off. Until when I replaced battery on my iPhone 6S...I used my iPhone 6S since it was brand new, since 2017. The original battery lasted me two and a half years, by that time it was already down to 50%. I replaced it with brand new unit from aliexpress. The new battery lasted about 10 months, and by that time it was down to 50%.Moral of the story, new batteries are crap.So here you are with your laptop. You had an old battery to begin with. It was already dead. Then you got a new battery and what you bought was crap. That's where you are at.What you need to do is find out which battery is good for your notebook and buy that one -- if there is such a thing out there.

author: andy2000
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2025, 02:03:11 pm
content: Unless your replacement battery was name brand from a reliable source, I would strongly suspect you bought a defective battery. Cheap, no name lithium polymer batteries tend to fail quickly, and puff up. Almost every time I've purchased a cheap battery from ebay or similar, I've regretted it.There isn't really any such thing as trickle charging a Li-ion battery. Once it gets to the maximum rated voltage, charging stops. If they get over charged, they tend to catch on fire.

author: akasaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2025, 02:12:32 pm
content: Well, Razer does not officially sell spares, so the sourcing is dubious indeed. They had a Razer wrapper on them, but I can print the word Razer on my brother printer and slap it on my ass — it would look extremely similar but still won't be an official Razer battery.The fact that the first one died so quick was very weird.And the abundance of pics of those laptops with swelling batteries on Razer's reddit and wherever else does induce confidence in the design just being flawed. I mean, come on, an Nvidia GTX1650 and a 10th gen i7 inside a sub-1cm case is just asking for cooling trouble.

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2025, 05:10:56 pm
content: You gotta connect your thingy to some software, similar to 3uTools for iPhones and read the manufacturer of the original battery. I guess ask someone or dig some info up. That will set you on the right course which battery to purchase.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2025, 10:05:27 am
content: You might find that if you look into the charge controller in use in your laptop that there are third party tools that allow you to control the charging rate. Linux for instance can implement a stop charge control on some laptops that don't "natively" support it. I am not sure if it is possible in Windows without writing your own kernel driver (good luck on that given the low level stuff is under a pile of NDAs.) But maybe some 3rd party software can help.Another option would be reading the laptop state of charge and then controlling a smart plug connected to the charger like a home automation routine. Charger switches off when battery goes over 75% SoC.It's worth noting that even a LIB charged to 100% (4.2V/cell) should survive 5 years/1,000 cycles just fine... it will have more capacity fade than one charged to 80%, but outright failure by swelling indicates a crappy battery or overcharging. I know some OEMs charge LIBs at up to 4.45V now which gets extra capacity, but the consequence is much greater degradation.

author: akasaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2025, 10:58:49 am
content: I looked around for a datasheet of the chip it uses — the ISL95520 — and only found a 2 sheet leaflet everywhere, which didn't mention anything about having voltage limits. Nothing when looking for limits on the specific model of the laptop either, albeit the later revisions can do it.Anyway, I've ordered a Macbook Pro now, and this one can get a new battery and serve someone else a better job (without exploding the battery hopefully, given the track record)

author: deadlylover
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2025, 11:59:14 am
content: If you mainly use the MBP plugged in, useAl Dente(free) to limit the charge to ~50%. It's only a few clicks to increase the limit back to 100% if you need it for travelling soon or whatever, you can always just have a power bank ready as well.Though if all you do is light work then 50% battery is still good for 6-8 hours use if in some emergency you couldn't charge it up.If you already have a desktop PC then you can look into using sunshine + moonlight to stream to the Mac. It's made for gaming but it'll work superbly for desktop use as well. Good if there's some native software you can't workaround.

author: akasaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2025, 12:02:53 pm
content: Thanks, this is great advice. I know the Macbooks clamp to 80% when they see lack of battery cycling, but this is even better.I wonder if I can convince the IT admin at work to use that app as well, 'cause the M1 Pro they gave me just 2 years ago is at 120 cycles but 80% health — not good at all!Sadly I cannot justify a desktop PC right now, but I will need to RDP into the aforementioned embedded Windows platform, as I'll be using another instance of that to develop basically right on it (it's super cheap, runs Windows and VS2010 just fine, and for my use case of powering it up for bugfixing every once in a blue moon...)I'll look into using Sunshine if it can work on Windows 8.