How to Setup Razer Core for the HP Spectre X360 13

How to Setup Razer Core for the HP Spectre X360 13
I've seen a number of videos where people are using the RazerCore with their HP Spectre X360's. I was excited by this prospect, but I ran into problems, and there was no clear explanation on how to get the thing to work. I figured it out based on various posts from around the internet and I put this video together to show you how I got it to work. Essentially, you need to ensure you have the latest BIOS, but not only that, you need to uninstall and reinstall the Thunderbolt 3 driver. Yes, there is one already installed, but it doesn't work on the first go around, but a re-install works.

[@ehyouman]

Sweet hope to be trying this when I pickup the spectre, good video

[@jameskennedy9025]

Thank you for this helpful video. Finally made it work. Thanks

[@WhiteShadoww1995]

Is the process similar for the akitio node egpu ?

[@berrrrrrrrry]

Hi, does razer core works on a hp elitebook 1040 G4?

[@therealshanelee]

How does it handle Premier Pro? A 5 minute video usually takes mine about 45 minutes without an egpu. Wondering how much faster it'd be worth the egpu attached. Thanks.

[@yamanmalik_]

45 minutes? do you edit on 4k? i rendered 1080p with premiere pro on my 13 inch spectre and it took 6 mins

[@adosq]

How good is this combination? Is it works great?

[@Apollon0077]

Hi there :) I just installed a gigabyte 6900XT OC in my core X (major overkill I know), my spectre recognizes the core when I look at the attached thunderbolt devices, but the card does not appear on device manager.... help??

[@youtube_yt1wy56]

Hi. Will it work for my HP Pavilion 15 CW1038AU which has USB-C port ? If yes should I follow same steps ? I hope you will reply anytime soon :)

[@youtubeyoutube4855]

Can i use this for hp i5 6th gen laptop

[@a.m4958]

I have a specter X360 apo-12dx that has a type C port but does not support thunderbolt 3, is there still hope that I could use the Razer Core by downloading the driver like in this video? Thanks

[@dowerchin]

Unfortunately no. Thunderbolt has a larger bandwidth which is important/required for a device like the Core to operate.

[@jackmeoff7099]

i would absolutely love to use this with my spectre laptop. but my spectre has been so very unreliable that i have tried for weeks in a row to make my wifi work after it upgraded itself to win 11 and to no avail. so i dont think with all those problems i have had that i would ever be able to make this work. but anyways i just put my video games at 60 frames limited vsync and 1080p definition and thy run really good on the factor nvidia gtx 1080..

[@14navi]

I started playing fortnite on my Spectre but it gets hot quick. I'm wondering if adding this razor core would benefit?

[@aubm713]

Ivan275 yes the game would then run through its gpu with its own cooling fan .

[@Hypnobreast]

Hi, I have a HP Envy x360 15-bp101na and a 4k dell up2718q monitor. My laptop has a lightening bolt symbol next to the usb symbol on the usb-3.1 port (does this mean it has thunderbolt 3?) My main question is will this Razer eGPU work with my laptop, and improve the picture quality on my dell 4k monitor?

[@dowerchin]

If this is your laptop: support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c05708348, you probably can't use the RazerCore... Since there is no Thunberbolt 3 connector on the laptop. I don't own a 4K monitor, so but I imagine if you hooked it up via the HDMI cable it should be ok.

[@Hypnobreast]

@@dowerchin Thanks you for the reply, I thought the same as you, however next to the USB-C connector is the following symbol www.onlinewebfonts.com/icon/503529 which I understand is the thunderbolt symbol, and the connection is the same shape as thunderbolt/usb-c type 3.1

[@dowerchin]

@@Hypnobreast True, USB-C and Thunderbolt can be awful confusing, since they both use the same connector type. The only thing I would suggest is see if you can buy a RazerCore or other EGPU enclosure that has a return policy and give that a shot. I've also experienced an issue with some computers with Thunderbolt 3 that didn't quite work right with EGPU enclosures too. My Dell XPS 15 9550, for example, will NOT work with the RazerCore, which was a real bummer.

[@ericyoung7930]

It would be awesome if you could do a follow up video of gaming on the devise with the core

[@dowerchin]

That's good idea. Any particular games you want to see?

[@laughatmydeath]

Dower Chin Will it handle the heavy demands? I don't know what games to suggest. Maybe the last Fallout or Call of Duty. And will the Razer also handle a lot of the load from Adobe Premier Pro, say editing 4k?

[@NickthaGeek]

If its anything like my i7 7500u spectre with hp omen acelerator and evga gtx1070ti then its dogshit. Games run shit on it. Nvidia EXPERIENCE is optimizing games to run sub 1080p and not even getting 60fps on medium settings with loads of screen tearing. Played around with drivers etc and everything is in order. Guess my expensive laptop is actually shit. So poor infact that i dont know why they even made the egpu device. My spectre is the 4k screen 16gb ram model too so assumed it had balls enough to play games as good as or better than my xbox one x. Massive disapointment.

[@MrPacMan36]

@@dowerchin I wished you would have followed up with this idea. I've been looking at this, and this is my exact PC. Thank you if you still would!

[@dowerchin]

@@MrPacMan36 I apologize for not doing these. I ran into personal issues that took me away from doing videos for a while. I plan to get back to doing video's this year. My wife has taken this laptop away from me now... I'll see if I can convince her to let me use it again. :)

[@tohirbahriddinov804]

Hi, I have hp envy x360 convertible 15-cn1073wm , and just with intel graphic card, what do you think can I use gaming box like that?

[@dowerchin]

I don't think so, I looked up your model and got this page, support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06325432, it doesn't appear your laptop is equipped with a Thunderbolt connector, so you're not going to be able to expand your graphical capabilities. Unfortunately the only option to get better graphics will be to get another laptop.

[@tohirbahriddinov804]

Dower Chin thanks for response

[@TNVR69]

I have the hp spectre x360 2018 one . I am trying to connect my laptop with external monitor (which is HP pavilion quantum dot 27 ) through thunderbolt usb c cable but it is not working. It keeps connecting and disconnecting. Any help?

[@dowerchin]

My only thought is, if you have the right type of cable, an actual Thunderbolt cable, not just a USB-C cable. The other thing to try is downloading the latest Intel Thunderbolt drivers.

[@TNVR69]

@@dowerchin thanks for the reply. I have Anker USB-C to USB-C Thunderbolt 3.0 Fast Charging and Data Transfer Cable (19.7 in), Compatible with S10, MacBook Pro, MacBook 2016, Google Pixel, Nexus 6P, Huawei MateBook, iPad Pro 2018 and More www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076D76DRQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ODh7DbGRZZW2V

[@TNVR69]

My monitor has usb ports as well if i try to plug my mouse and keyboard on those ports while the monitor is connected to the laptop it works for a bit but the display doesn't work at all. Also my laptop display keeps flickering when i connect it to the monitor

[@dowerchin]

@@TNVR69 Is the HP plugged into it's own power supply? Or are you running all the power from the Core? Is the battery on the HP low? I found it worked best if the HP was powered by it's own power supply and not trying to charge from the Core.

[@aayushmaharjan3521]

can we use in apple macbook pro13 inch

[@dowerchin]

I'm not sure. I've seen some videos on youtube that show it working. I don't have a new Thunderbolt 3 Macbook, so I can't test that. I suppose it depends on how the drivers from NVidia are on OSX and what the gaming scene is like on the platform.

[@onesodope]

My Spectre has no problem detecting the core and the gpu inside of it. I just can't get my games to run on the discrete card as it seems to favor the integrated graphics. Any ideas? I've even set "Preferred graphics processor" to "High performance NVIDIA processor" in the NVIDIA control panel. My goal is to run games using the laptop display.

[@dowerchin]

That's an odd problem, if the system sees it, it should use it... I have no issues on mine. Have you updated the Thunderbolt Driver and installed all the Nvidia Geforce experience software?

[@onesodope]

Dower Chin my thoughts exactly. I have updated everything to double check. I’ve even tried disabling the integrated graphics in the Device Manager forcing the egpu to drive my laptop’s display. I thought that would solve the problem, but when I run games it still uses the integrated graphics. It’s very odd. The whole process is rather straightforward. It’s this minor issue that is rendering the core useless in my case.

[@dowerchin]

Does it make any difference if you ran the core with an external monitor?

[@onesodope]

Dower Chin with an external monitor it runs fine since it’s connected specifically to the core. For true portability, however, i would like to use the core to drive my laptop’s display when gaming. I’m not home at this moment to try again, but I will update you when I spend more time with it! Appreciate your response, by the way

[@seanwalter4619]

Michael Vu Did you ever find a solution to your problem? I think I am having the same problem that you are/were having with my setup. However, connecting the core is also causing my laptop to give me the blue screen of death after a little while.

[@stone67]

I'm using the spectre 360, the serial number is 5CD7115JG4, I couldn't find the bios F31, I downloaded and installed the f37 instead and follow your guide, still couldn't read the Razer core v2.

[@dowerchin]

Have you tried installing the latest Thunderbolt 3 drivers from Intel? Does the laptop even register a new Thunderbolt device is attached?

[@stone67]

@@dowerchin thank you for replying, The thunderbolt 3 port does work on a hard drive or sell phone, but it doesn't work on the Razer core

[@dowerchin]

Do you know what model of Spectre you have? The only thing I can think of, if it's an older model, the Thunderbolt may not work well with the Razer Core... Do you even get the Thunderbolt Popup Window when you plug it in? I have an Dell XPS 15, 9550, which won't work with the Razer Core... It kept disconnecting, I found out later that there something about the port that just wouldn't work... Have you tried plugging in the Core with the power adapter plugged into the laptop? Technically the Core should be able to charge the laptop, but the draw could be too much for it, so it did work better with the separate power adapter plugged in. The other thing you can try doing is pulling up the Windows Device Manager and see what changes when you try and plug the RazerCore in, see if there are any errors.

[@stone67]

@@dowerchin thank you I will definitely try it tonight, thank you so much

[@grisanty007]

Bro. you should get the mouse speed up!

[@RoamingnomadRN]

for some reason I still can't get it to work. I downloaded everything but when it comes to the controller it only shows up drivers for a dock. I really dropped 300 for nothing at this point

[@dowerchin]

These are very fickle devices. I've not played around much with mine lately. What GPU are you trying to run in it, also what system do you have? I know some laptops don't have thunderbolt ports that work well with this, ex, I have a Dell XPS15 9550 that doesn't like this.

[@RoamingnomadRN]

@@dowerchin i have an hp envy 15m-ds00xxx. i was going to use a 1650 on it but i just wanted to make sure its functional and i can atleast use the dock. The thunderbolt software doesnt show up and when i go to the site it only shows up dock for this model no controller drivers.

[@RoamingnomadRN]

@@dowerchin i think i might have to switch to an intel spu because ad does not have a tb3 option because it only shows up docks rather than controller for the bios updates. really not liking that since it is more cost effective than its counterpart.

[@denseslide366]

Will this also work with the HP Spectre x360 15 as well?

[@dowerchin]

I suspect it will, so long as it is a Thunderbolt 3 port. I think the X360 15 has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

[@beaujanssens7146]

Hey Mejova, any follow up on if this works with the x360 15?

[@OpenUrEyezz]

Dower Chin what if my laptop without thunderbolt3 ? Only HDMI & USB inputs :/ ???

[@yogu2191]

@@OpenUrEyezz you can try pcie method

[@unknownindividual3741]

It can work on acer laptop? 🤔

[@dowerchin]

If the Acer has a Thunderbolt 3 port it should work.

[@BullyMeBoy]

How's battery life on the 4k? How many hours do you get?

[@dowerchin]

I did a test today, and my battery only lasted about 3 hours... Not great. I had the battery saver turned on. I was on Wifi, using a bluetooth mouse, screen brightness at 75%. I was streaming KZbin in the background and browsing on and off. I did have Marketwatch.com running in Chrome (with several other tabs running). Now, my system is loaded with a ton of stuff, so there might be background processes that have built up over time that are just eating away at my battery life. I might try and revert my system back to factory to see if it makes a difference; I'll need to see about moving my work to another system before I do that though, since this is my primary work system now...

[@BullyMeBoy]

Dower Chin oh wow I just pre-ordered the new hp spectre x360 13" with i7 8th gen, 16gb, 512ssd, 4k display, fingerprint reader, etc. I pretty much do the same, browse with 7-10 tabs, KZbin, Netflix, vpn, and documents open, use a wireless mouse, etc. hp claims this new spectre is supposed to have 16 hrs of battery lol but I highly doubt it. Would you think that I can get at least 10hrs with all the stuff I do mentioned above ? Or should I exchange for fhd model ( also includes privacy screen :D )

[@dowerchin]

Battery life is a tough one, because so many factors can play into how long a laptop can last. Most manufacturers like to pad their numbers for extreme power savings. My system is probably a bad example of power savings, since it's already loaded up with so much stuff... Dropbox, OneDrive, 3D Connextion drivers, printer monitors, logitech drivers, Adobe's Creative Cloud, Autodesk stuff, NVidia stuff... I suspect those are partially to blame for my poor battery performance. HP is making pretty big claims with their update X360. If you have a return policy on your purchase, I would give the system a try and see how it works for you. I'll admit that iPad's are quite good at power management, and if long run times are important, you might want to look to see if you can accomplish the tasks you need done on one.

[@AlexJon14]

BullyMeBoy I have that exact model. Moderate use gets me about 8 hours of streaming KZbin and Netflix, note taking, surfing, writing papers etc. It's not as amazing as what I hear about the 1080p model, but battery life is no slouch on this model.

[@AlexJon14]

BullyMeBoy the 16h is for th 1080p

[@michaelosinowo226]

is this V2 or X

[@dowerchin]

Hmm, I got this before it was labeled anything other than "Razer Core". Looking at Razer's site, mine appears to be the V2, since mine has the USB and Ethernet Ports.

[@Maximas991]

Play some games in the video bro!!!