Razer Blade 14 RZ09-0370

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Hardware	PCI/USB ID	Working?
Touchpad		Yes
Keyboard		Yes
GPU (AMD)	`1002:1638`	Yes
GPU (Nvidia)	`10de:249c`	Yes
Webcam	`13d3:56d5`	Yes
Bluetooth	`8087:0032`	Yes
Audio	`1022:15e3`	Partial
Wireless	`8086:2725`	Yes

This page contains information about the Razer Blade 14 RZ09-0370 (mid 2021) the first Razer Blade notebook to have an AMD Ryzen processor. Currently the information on this page corresponds to the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 QHD 165 Hz display versions, but should apply to other versions.

Installation

In order to boot into the installation it is important to disable modesetting by adding nomodeset to the kernel flags. Disabling only the nouveau modset using nouveau.modeset=0 can work but is unstable.

You can also opt to install while running the proprietary nvidia drivers.

EFI partition

The computer comes with an EFI partition from the factory that is used by Windows. The partition is only 100 MiB in size and can cause problems holding both a bootloader and Arch kernels. Please resize this partition, create a new EFI partition, or reformat the disk before installing.

Accessibility

The appearance of the BIOS is pretty simple and not very colorful, so it might work well with OCR software.

The BIOS can be navigated via the keyboard. Left and Right to select the screen, Up and Down to select an item. Enter can be used to enter a menu or change an option. + and - can be used to change options directly without open a dialog. F3 can be used to load defaults. F4 save and exit.

The keyboard layout defaults to QWERTY in the BIOS even if the computer itself has a different keyboard layout. For example with the AZERTY version, keys such as - must be accessed using Shift+) instead of the regular - key.

Note: Blind users should request the help of a sighted person to change BIOS settings.

Firmware

fwupd does not support this device.

Razer statement on the LVFS website: Updating firmware is only supported on Windows

SecureBoot

The BIOS does not seem to support custom keys.

Audio

The integrated speakers work perfectly. The microphone array works perfectly. The headphone jack produces a muffled (only high frequencies), low volume and apparently mono output. Tested with the 5.12 kernel.

Backlight

Note: On latest Linux kernel (5.13), the backlight seems to change without problem, but one may still need the systemd fix.

The backlight controls do not work after installation and is caused by a bug in amdgpu driver. As suggested in the OpenSUSE forum, adding the amdgpu.backlight=0 kernel parameter would solve the issue.

To make systemd save and load brightness settings after restarts, one may need to enable systemd-backlight@backlight:amdgpu_bl0.service

HDMI Port

The external HDMI is bound to the discrete NVIDIA GPU. Reverse PRIME can be used to allow for using the iGPU for rendering.

RGB

Warning: OpenRGB is a unofficial software based on reverse engineered protocols, please read the documentation and the following warning before using it.

The keyboard RGB lights can be controlled using openrgb-git^AUR. The logo illumination can be controlled using logo-control.