Razer Lycosa Backlight Illumination |
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| March 13th, 2008 |
We’ve been getting quite a bit of queries on our Razer Lycosa’s backlighting features recently so we cooked up a few quick videos to show you how the backlighting feature works in both bright and dark conditions.


March 13th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thats nice and all, but the first batch of Lycosas have horrible lighting compared to those videos. Those ones you showed us look very very bright and also are different color then the ones us consumers have.
I don’t have a problem with mine though because i play in a dim to dark area and I love the keyboard. Hopefully in future driver sets you guys can give us an option to make the lighting brighter or just make it a bit brighter by default.
Keep up the good work,
küsh
March 13th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Confusion! Where can we get one with red backlighting? I thought they only came in blue.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Sugestion for the Razer Salmosa Flash Minigame Contest that should list the top 10 or 50 scorer beside it. People need to know how is the score going on in that game so they can compete for the TOP 5. This is a sugestion only and depends on razer to make decision. We dont have a bottom line to cmpete for the top 5 scorer. I hope they will fix this up. Thank you.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
To get more customers to buy the lycosa, I really think you need to make the light brighter, and make a video of them in blue, because thats the colour customers get it. Im looking to buy one of these keyboards, but I would be very happy if you could make the lights brighter by the time comes to buy it.
Dan
March 25th, 2008 at 11:53 am
The Keyboard has a beautiful design and all the features are great. Exactly what I expect from a Razer product.
However…
In WASD mode the brightness of the back light is perfect, but in Full keyboard mode the lighting is very poor.
I’ve exchange my keyboard for a new one. Hooked it up to other PC’s .. same issue.
Browsing the Internet and found many customers with the same critique ..
When or where can I Expect or Find a fix?
Best Regards from an owner of many fine Razer products.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I agree that the lightening have to be more bright, because i almost can’t see what keys i’m hitting, when it’s day.
April 12th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I almost can’t see what keys i’m hitting, when it’s day ROFL, guess it’s time for a visit to the optometrist !!
April 15th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
this is the best keyboard i ever had but it need better drivers
so much people have troubles with the actual now
it’s so long to wait…
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Red keys oO about time xD been waiting for you lot to sell it with red keys where does the que to get one start my saitek is ready to go in the bin
May 6th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
It’s interesting how there is simply NOWHERE that Razor will own up to how crappy the lighting is on this keyboard. You guys don’t know how to Google? There aren’t thousands of disappointed customers? Keep ignoring whole sections of your customer base and eventually you will get around to everyone.
Mine Lycosa sucks. It could be very nice nice - if I could see the keys and if it worked all the time. The LAST thing I would ever do is trust this thing in a serious game.
Give us a fix for this thing guys. You owe us.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:05 pm
This keyboard is buggy, mine just keeps “going crazy”: sometimes the light starts flickering or some media keys get stuck. I am reading on the web that is a very common problem, It is quite clear there is something wrong with the internal desing and I think you should fix it soon. With the money it costs I demand a working keyboard!
This time I am a bit disappointed.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
So, my lycosa has a problem. His backlight lights are stronger on the left side and keep decreasing when moving to the right. So i cant almost see the keystrokes in the night. I’d like to have some help for it maybe, my email is tiagobuhr@gmail.com because i dont want to just have wasted 80 euros =X
June 27th, 2008 at 12:50 am
hi, where I got that problem, sometimes when I play or talk with friends on xfire or something, or when I do anything else ( typing ), after a while some keys got stuck, for example “a” stoppes working.. then I have to plug it off and again on.. it helps, but mostly after a few mins another key ( this time space or “d” or “i” ) again stucks. I dont know why is that, but as I have seen some of u had same, well I just wanna know if that’s that kb’s bug or just something wrong with my one. Well it’s annyoing cause while playing cod4 some of “wasd” keys got stuck then I cant move and it really f***s my game. I tried everything, installing razer prog, uninstalling it ( only kb plugged in ) and etc etc. nothing helped. Actually it’s weird cuz it happens like once in 20 mins. ;s hope u fix it, otherwise I will have to give it back.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:30 am
bonjour,
je voudrais savoir quand le clavier lycosasa être en vente avec la couleur verte ?
merci.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Hi ,
i just bought the Lycosa keyboard , and iam really pissed of about the lighting.
when i set the lighting to wasd , i can see it perfectly , when i switch over to full keyboard. i can’t see all the keys, even when its night.
please razer , if you can fix this with drivers, do it, because this thing cost me 80 euro’s and i think this should be fixed.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:43 am
I would really like to hear of a fix for the poor lighting. Bought this keyboard, and was really disappointed because I can’t see lighting unless directly above keyboard.
Was there little to no testing with the product?
Please email me if there is a hack to get the leds brighter.
good concept, but really missed the market need.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Oh, just watched the videos. No suprise you didn’t put a blue backlit model on the video. Likely because the keys wouldn’t show up. Try posting a BLUE backlit video.
sonofdust
July 14th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Why have no Razer staff replied to any of these inquiries? The questions go all the way to March… You can hardly even see the keys at all because the blue is dimmed down so low. What gives???? Is this issue fixable?
July 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
July 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
If you want a personal reply to your questions please provide a real email addy along with your posts.
Here is hopefully my final comment on this string:
As I mentioned before the light spectrum or intensity of red and green LED is much greater than blue which is a very cool or lower light spectrum. The red and green versions are planned for distribution launch in the near future. There is no imminent fix for the blue model.
If you read our product testimonial pages you will see that there are a great number of Lycosa owners who are completely satisfied with this product and the lighting. While we like to please everyone that unfortunately is not always possible. We are aware of the comments regarding lighting and will certainly take this into account when developing our next keyboard.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Will the tarantula come out with green back light?
July 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
idd razerguy, i love that blue lighting. btw wtf u buy gamer kb chris and u dont know keys yet? i dont need to watch what I type so it’s not a big deal if there is uberlight shining or just simple light lighting.
btw I had that prob with keys got stuck and I gave it back to service, they get me new one and it’s without this defect so im really pleased now.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you RazerGuy when you say it’s a limitation of the blue backlight. How come the gaming mode of WSAD is nice and bright? It shows it’s possible, no?
Dissapointing keyboard for £50. Can’t help the feeling I’ve been ripped off. Might have to send it back to the store within the 7-day cooling off period unless there is a driver fix.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
I’ve been using my blue version of the Lycosa and Copperhead a few days now and I’m quite satisfied so far. I do understand peoples reaction about the lighting, though. I just always use it in the dark myself. But even in the dark, the light of my 24″ LCD makes it harder to read the keyboard.
It is logic that the red and green leds would have a higher intensity than blue ones consuming the same amount of power. However it seems the problem is not that the leds in the blue Lycosa could not be brighter; in ASWD mode the keys are like three times brighter than normal mode.
I assume the reason you do not let the blue leds consume full power in normal operation is that the keyboard would take too much power from the USB port. Is this the actual reason? If you could verify this please, I’m going to look into modding this keyboard.
Furthermore I have only one thing in mind that could be improved. Most people are right-handed and use their mouse on the right side of the keyboard. It is often I would want to hold the mouse and at the same time change the volume/playback options available through the buttons on the topright of the Lycosa. It would have been more comfortable if those buttons would be on the left side, closer to the left hand, which makes you able to mouse/browse while changing volume/playback options.
Thanks for this wonderful keyboard,
Albert Kok
The Netherlands
July 26th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Well, I too have a razer lycosa keyboard with blue backlighting and like everyone’s already posted, it’s not to great. I’m just here to say that maybe razer should take responsibility for this sense razer is such a highly respected gaming hardware provider it would only make sense for all of you to possibly make this up to your loving customers. I think if these customers can provide proof of purchase for these keyboards, razer should be willing to recall the lycosa’s and even if we were forced to pay shipping charges it would certainly be worth it because I honestly don’t know why razer would let something like this go and disappoint so many of these valuable customers that rely on the razer name. Another fact is these lycosa keyboard’s with the poor backlighting hit the stores and ever sense I’d have to say 80% of the customers were crushed. The worst part is razer has already announced there is no firmware they can release to fix it, although there may be self-coders out there that plan to fix this problem it would only make sense that if razer wouldn’t produce the firmware, it would only possibly harm the keyboard itself if you do any self modifications. Like I have stated before, a recall on these specific models with proof of purchase of course would in my opinion make alot of these highly unsatisfied customers once again respect the Razer name.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:51 am
http://www.artage.de/2008/03/10/razer-lycosa-problems-and-how-to-fix-them/
That particular user-end modification fixes a lot of problems but not the notorious disco light issue. Not only does this make the keys unresponsive but opens up your default media player; this is ****ing irritating when in game!
Any update on how the hell to solve this? My temporary is to put a coing or bit of blu-tac on the lighting key but that renders the media keys unusable
July 28th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hello.
I own a combination of the Lycosa and the Lachesis since 4 month.
The blue light intensity is OK. With drivers 1.0 and Firmware 2.02 the keyboard works fine for me.
But there are some things I realy miss, and I don’t understand why it is not possible right now. The hardware design and feel is better than that of most other manufacturers, but the key features and driver/configutil are only half baked in my opinion.
The Background illumination should have 4 modes: Off, Normal, Game and maybe “Work” with all keys have the brightness like the game cluster. In game mode it is realy confusing that only WASD are illuminated… did you ever tried gaming in darkness? Why can’t I make a custom profile with my desired keys illuminated? A Firmware update would be realy nice.
It also would be nice to make macros for sending messages in in-game chat, but the key hits are limited when recording a macro with the canfigurator.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:52 am
I agree with this back light problem. Can you shed more light (no pun intended) on this problem razer. I’m interested in buying a keyboard from yous and other products but the lack of support for this and the total disregard for your customers needs make me assume your company is garbage. I hope you show some respect for your customers and fix this problem cause this is totally ridiculous.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 am
I just bought the Lycosa last night but was very disappointed with its lighting once I tried to use it. Even in a semi-bright room, I can barely see the letters.
The lighting feature of the Lycosa was the reason why I chose it instead of the Tarantula after taking over an hour to decide at the store. If I had known that the Lycosa had such a problem, I would have bought the Tarantula instead since it cost just a bit extra. But now, I’m stuck with a very disappointing Lycosa.
I had always trusted that Razer products were top-notched and would never disappoint, so this really is quite a blow for me. It would have been okay if I could return the Lycosa to the store I bought from and exchange it with a Tarantula, but apparently that’s not possible.
Is there really nothing you guys could do about it? As a few others mentioned before, in the WASD only mode, the lighting is a lot brighter, can’t it be implemented with the other keys as well with a firmware update?
I really don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted the money I saved up for this and while everything else about the keyboard works great, it really does take one single bad apple to spoil the bunch.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Razerguy Says:
March 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
No official dates as yet but both the red and green LED keyboards are coming. Better info to come.
So whats going on with this… 4 and a half months and you can’t even bother to give a simple update on this??
August 11th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I would love to get the green on to match my CH.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I just got the board today, my lightning is fine! but my touchpanel doesn’t work :> man i have read all the above comments if i knew this before i would never had bought it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 am
hey…
i was wondering if razer could release some driver update or firmware fix to be able to light individual keys… i dont use the wasd keys and its buyying that i have to have thw whole keyboard lit to use the arrow keys.
thanks.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:51 am
forget it… its impossible,
if u take of the D and the F key’s you’ll understand why the WASD keys are much brighter than the other keys, they are not lit by the global key lighting but by led’s specific to those keys.
imo.. big mistake by razer but theres nothing to do about my lycosa
dont get me wrong, its a brilliant keyboard anyway
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I have blue illumination model and i’m satisfied with intensity of these LEDs
you can make a driver which will have “custom illumination” option wich will able to illuminate these keys you chose:D i hope you know what i’m saying?:)
and i have a “little” suggestion
P.S: I dont know if someone was writing about this suggestion - I’m sorry, i dont read these all replies it’s boring:D and sorry for my english :)(if its not understandable or something xD)
September 4th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
The ‘cool blue spectrum’ argument from Razor is a wash.. As mentioned before, the wasd is the was the keyboard is SUPPOSED to look, but when the full keyboard is lit, it is barely visible in a normally lit room..
The gamers that are likely happy with this keybaord are probably your typical hermit gamer that keeps the list off in their gaming room. In normal lighting, no one can use this lighting feature.
If I could exchange this keyboard I would for a brighter one, but at the very least I’m warning all my friends and co-workers to KEEP AWAY from this crap.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Still waiting on that red lycosa to become available… (and red lachesis while you’re at it)…
September 20th, 2008 at 8:45 am
And we’re waiting… Need a new keyboard soon, and I would like it to be a red Lycosa
Hoping for some info soon.-