Razer Blade 15 Battery inflated/swollen.

[iBoolGuy]

Hello, I think it's obvious at this stage that my battery needs a replacement. But I wanted to discuss it here to hear your experiences and see if I can avoid damaging the battery like this again.

 

So I've had my Blade 15 Advanced Model 2018 for 2 years now, it's been an absolute beast, gaming and work, home theater laptop, renderer, mf been put to work.
Mid its lifecycle, it began to run naturally hot, I remember it for the first year running the CPU and GPU at temps in the low 40's Celsius at idle. And those temps has risen up gradually over time. Nowadays it runs high 60's-mid 70's. GPU is always locked around 74C. Those are idling temps or with minimal CPU load, like chrome and Visual Studio Code.

 

That's heat, the major issue is the inflated battery though, the battery is so inflated that, 1) the touchpad doesn't click, and has horrible sensitivity, 2) the chassis itself is bent upwards and downwards, so the bottom of the laptop is bent out like its pregnant with a fat battery, and the lower part of the keyboard too, is the same way. 3) The laptop lid doesn't close comfortably, like, the magnets do not hold it from both right and left ends because of the pregnant battery.

 

Discussion: yes, obviously I'm replacing the battery, but is the sucker going to die out again soon? Is there anything specific I can do to prevent future battery from doing this? Should I not even bother and just take out this battery and work the laptop batteryless? Does the heat cause the battery to inflate? or vise-versa? the inflated battery causes heat?
I'm down making this a double topic, the battery and the heat issue, what can I do about the heat? Undervolting for example, I do not mind at all losing half my current performance for reducing the heat (and noise).

[jaslion]

You still have warranty? May wanna try that and contact razr anyways. But their support is crap so don't expect too much from it. Either way remove the battery asap and dispose of it safely immediately. If not possible put it in an airtight container that is not flammable. Razers laptops quality is too put it simply just bad. Sure they are nice in the first few month but a lot start breaking around the year mark and almost none live beyond 3 years. They cheap out on everything a lot to get the maximum profit and it shows. In the future just avoid them. You can put in a new battery from a third party that has good reviews and most likely you'll have it last longer than their standard one. Or go batteryless should be possible on it.

 

Your temps are hot so clean it out from dust thoroughly as every blade gets incredibly thermally crippled by just a little dust.

[iBoolGuy]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

You still have warranty? May wanna try that and contact razr anyways. But their support is crap so don't expect too much from it. Either way remove the battery asap and dispose of it safely immediately. If not possible put it in an airtight container that is not flammable. Razers laptops quality is too put it simply just bad. Sure they are nice in the first few month but a lot start breaking around the year mark and almost none live beyond 3 years. They cheap out on everything a lot to get the maximum profit and it shows. In the future just avoid them. You can put in a new battery from a third party that has good reviews and most likely you'll have it last longer than their standard one. Or go batteryless should be possible on it.

 

Your temps are hot so clean it out from dust thoroughly as every blade gets incredibly thermally crippled by just a little dust.

You made me worried.... I did not consider the dangers at all tbh, I was more worried about the laptop than safety!
 

I have two more days at work before I can remove the battery, guess I'm throwing the damn thing..

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, iBoolGuy said:

You made me worried.... I did not consider the dangers at all tbh, I was more worried about the laptop than safety!
 

I have two more days at work before I can remove the battery, guess I'm throwing the damn thing..

Make sure you dispose of it at a correct facility. Batteries should not be thrown into the regular trash. Another thing you want to look out for is sudden expansion from the battery when the pressure of the laptop is removed. So try to be safe and have something on hand to stop a chemical battery fire.

 

I know it sounds like I'm trying to scare you but this is the steps I take when having to do this sorta stuff. I've had a good few razer laptops to fix in the past and battery swelling was not uncommon. Usually I had the worst cases in older macbook airs and some did indeed burst.

[mariushm]

The battery is swollen because there's a bunch of gas and maybe a few drops of liquid inside the foil/ plastic that covers the battery. The gas is a result of the battery getting damaged over time from heat or from manufacturing defects (particles of metal or other crap between layers of material that makes the battery, doing damage over time)

 

If you break that foil the gas will be released, but then the battery will be very sensitive to humidity... a drop of water and the battery may actually ignite ... even humidity from the air may in some cases be enough for the battery to actually burst into fire. 

 

So you should definitely remove the battery from the laptop... and be careful about it when you handle it, if you break the seal it may release smoke or start flames and could burn your hands.

You could very carefully try to use a sharp blade to make a cut in the plastic foils to release the pressure and then use some electrical tape or something to seal the battery again.... but it won't be safe and the battery will have much lower overall capacity, won't hold as much charge and will probably swell again. 

 

[jaslion]

Just now, mariushm said:

The battery is swollen because there's a bunch of gas and maybe a few drops of liquid inside the foil/ plastic that covers the battery. The gas is a result of the battery getting damaged over time from heat or from manufacturing defects (particles of metal or other crap between layers of material that makes the battery, doing damage over time)

 

If you break that foil the gas will be released, but then the battery will be very sensitive to humidity... a drop of water and the battery may actually ignite ... even humidity from the air may in some cases be enough for the battery to actually burst into fire. 

 

So you should definitely remove the battery from the laptop... and be careful about it when you handle it, if you break the seal it may release smoke or start flames and could burn your hands.

You could very carefully try to use a sharp blade to make a cut in the plastic foils to release the pressure and then use some electrical tape or something to seal the battery again.... but it won't be safe and the battery will have much lower overall capacity, won't hold as much charge and will probably swell again. 

 

For a regular consumer I would not advise the "fix" at all. Far too dangerous.

[traumesser]

Just jumping in here to +1 the issue. I replaced my Razer Blade 15 Base Model 2018 battery not even a year ago due to battery bulging, and now it's the same issue. I won't bother replacing the battery once more, I'll just use it connected to power. I've kept my Razer in super good shape, cleaning the vents regularly, but apparently this was not enough to keep the battery from bulging.
Sad.

[Csscsv]

On 2/3/2021 at 10:24 AM, traumesser said:

Just jumping in here to +1 the issue. I replaced my Razer Blade 15 Base Model 2018 battery not even a year ago due to battery bulging, and now it's the same issue. I won't bother replacing the battery once more, I'll just use it connected to power. I've kept my Razer in super good shape, cleaning the vents regularly, but apparently this was not enough to keep the battery from bulging.
Sad.

Hey, I had the same problem with razer blade 15 2019 model with rtx 2070 MAXQ. I removed the battery yesterday and connected directly to the power source. However since then my GPU card is not recognized by the device. I have tried updating the windows, nvidia drivers and all sorts and still it's in vain. The message I get is that nvidia gpu is not found. Any advice on this issue?

[jdcbranco]

The battery for my Razer Blade 15 (2018) advanced model is so swollen that it has deformed. I only learned it now that it was the battery. Thanks for your posts. 

While the laptop was great in performance and looks, its thermals are really bad, and when doing anything that demands a little more power, the region around the battery has always been very hot to the touch, so I am not buying Razer anymore. 

[noone606]

Just replaced a swollen battery in my 2018 advanced only to find the keyboard now only has a few keys working laptop boots okay RGB lights all working just doesn't recognise most of the keys as presses FFS

 

Thinking I'll pull the battery and try just mains power but thinking it may be a goner sadly

 

[Alfresco11111]

Did anyone get a reply from Razer? Had a friend that had a 2020 Razer battery explode and Razer will neither own up to or do anything about! It's not like its the end user's fault and most likely bought the laptop to last more than a year....