13.3" Samsung NP900X3C with Ivy Bridge CPU

Hello guys ´n girls,

I´m new to this forum, followed this thread for quit a while, but have just registered to ask u lot a couple of questions.
Sorry if they have been asked before!!!

First off all I love this machine, the best present I´ve bought for my self ever!!

I have bin visiting the Samsung support site for this model (NP900X3C-A01SE) and in the "firmware" section there is an Windows 7 update v. 1.0.0.3. Now, I have asked Samsung what this is and how to check if I allready have this update installed. They answered very vague that is has something to do with my pc´s ability to get the latast updates over the internet!?? As to if I have the update allready I should ask a windows support forum they said.

Now my hope is that I could get a better answer from u lot!

Also, following some advice in this thread, I have tried to start services.exe from the start search but nothing happens. I tried to start it as administrator and directly from the "sysstem32" folder with no luck!?
Do any of u know why this is the case...?

Thanks a lot in advance to all of u sweet people..

 

Are you using Windows Media Player?

I had the same problem myself yesterday. You have to set the earphones
as preferred device in WMP, as in:

Tools->Options Select Devices, the in Device list select Speakers
while the earphones plugged in. The click the Properties button
and select earphones as Sound device.

Translated from Swedish Windows 7 so there could be some
mis-translations.


regards

Per

 

{DeadHorse}
If they don't offer 8GB of RAM on the 13.3", it is dead on arrival.
{EndDeadHorse}

 

helo Ralf,
No , it does not fit with the power adapter plugged in. The SanDisk Extreme is 21.5mm wide, and another USB stick which just fits was 19mm wide.

 

Not sure what they think they mean by "available immediately"....Best buy doesn't have it listed. When Apple says available, you can go on their site and buy it. Keep learning Samsung

 

Blanket statements like this are bound to scare off some less-technical users. Not everyone needs more than 4GB RAM, and it's a phenomenal model for those who don't.

(Also, generally, the black is sexier. Raar.)

 

How Apple does business only matters if you want an Apple product,
but...

I am beyond confused about S9 USA availability (and I have an A01US now)...

As was stated, BB does not even list the 13.3" S9, when they have it has said "sold out" which is nuts.

Amazon had it, pulled it, had it again, now they say "3-5 weeks" for the A01US and A02US.

I have interest in an A04US...
Looks like they will be out late in the month, through CDW (horrible ratings, would never do business with them), Insight (same consideration, horrible), and Zones (never heard of).

1.) Does anyone know where a legitimate pre-order for an A04US can be placed in the USA?

2.) Why have the A01US and A02US briefly appeared and virtually disappeared? Amazon only shows the 01 through J&R and Beach as being "in stock" which is still doubtful.

 

Run Easy Software Manager which should know what is already installed and offer you any new updates.

If I type "services" into the search box I get 3 hits. Clicking on the one with a cog wheel icon gets me to the list of services running on the computer.

Google for "NP900X3D".

John

 

CDW is an outdated company with a horrible order management system, but if you call them and order over the phone with a salesperson (like entering a Hot Tub Time Machine), they are OK to deal with. They certainly have horrible resellerratings, but not as bad as Best Buy! They always seem to have random hard-to-find items in stock at decent prices. Last week I got my Crucial M4 256 GB mSATA drive from them at a decent price with no problems. They were the only place I could find that had it in stock at the time.

 

Considering the press release was written in Korean on their Korean website, I'm going to go ahead and guess that its available immediately ... in Korea.

 

Well, with Best Buy B&M I can drop it on their counter in 29 days and get an immediate refund. Their .com I can not speak for.
I did pre-internet business with CDW when they were Computer Discount Warehouse - that is going back a long time - and they were fine then.

Other than that:

1.) Any other legitimate vendor stocking Samsung in USA

2.) Any TRUE knowledge of why the S9 13.3" hardly exist in USA, and don't exist at BB, for example, something beyond just a guess?

 

This is the same as the A01, just in silver, correct? Or are there other upgrades I'm missing?

 

1) Microsoft Store

 

They do not carry current models, Sandy Bridge only.
In fact, most of the laptops they carry are old models.

 

That is incorrect. I am typing on an X3C that I picked up at Microsoft Store last week. They also have the Ivy Bridge 15" in stock. They also have the new Vizio series on display and in stock along with a bunch of other laptops. In fact, their retail locations do not carry many of the clearance models that they sell on the website. For example, the retail stores don't have the $1499 Sony Z deal in stock.

You can also buy it on their website
Buy Samsung Series 9 900X3C-A03 - 13.3 inch notebook PC, Intel Core i5 processor, sleek design, HDMI - Microsoft Store Online

 

i noticed that their was a new BIOS update today.
before i update it, i was curious if anyone knows what it does.
hopefully it improves my trackpad, but the bios probably has
nothing to do with it.

 

Thank you.
I like to be wrong!

 

If it the same as the X4D then the silver is magnesium alloy. I would expect the internals to be the same until we discover otherwise.

John

 

What is the ashgray made of? Which is better? :9

 

YES! This makes my MacBook Air decision ever harder as I MUCH prefer the silver color...

 

Rumor is that they'll also sell a 8GB model.

 

Where are you seeing or hearing these rumors?
I have not found any reference to an upcoming 8GB 13.3" model.

 

Not sure if you said it correctly, but "mineral ash" that's on all the S9 right now are made of aluminum, and the upcoming "titan silver" is going to be made of magnesium.

I doubt aluminum vs magnesium will have any difference in weight though, since the current aluminum is already so thin and hardly weighs anything.

 

I'll take an NP900X3D with 8GB and 256GB SSD, I guess. meh

 

At the moment it's a uncorroborated rumor. If I get confirmation from other sources, I will point you to them.

 

Thanks John for your reply!

I uninstalled "Easy software mgr." because it kept popping up advising me to install Norton. I could not find a way to shutdown "Easy software" and only run it manually! Do anyone know if it's possible to only run manually?

I only get 1 hit when typing in "services" but I went to file location and found the one your talking about and launched it from there, thanks for that!!

 

Try customizing your notification area icons to set the ESM agent to "hide icon and notifications". Maybe it will pop up less often.

John

 

@ pjakesson

Thanks for the hint. I have no idea which mediaplayer settings I had on sunday evening because I already had the system reset in order to send it back. But your post got me to check this issue again an now it worked from start. What I noticed is that I have to puch realy hard to get the headphone plug in completely. So maybe I just didn't push hard enough on sunday.

So in the end it's working and I'm very happy that I can keep this notebook.

 

Has anyone seen benchmarks of the ADATA SX300 SSD? On paper it's even better than the crucial m4.
The adata is on stock here and as the price difference is not huge I'm wondering which one to get.

 

Where are you that the ADATA is in stock? Read the review of the MyDigitalSSD SMART at ssdreview.com. IIRC it's the rebadged ADATA SSD.

John

 

Thanks John, I will check the review.
I'm in Germany and the adata is available since today.

 

I just ordered the SX300. Am I right that the following steps should be the right ones to switch the current setup to the new ssd:

1. create a disk image with arconis on a usb drive
2. replace the ssd
3. boot from usb drive and apply the disk image

 

We can only hope. But I have no faith after seeing the samsung memory roadmap with Q2 2013 release for 8GB DDP. Mineral ash is tastier.

 

Yes, that's one way. Another is to use one of these adapters to put the new SSD into a 2.5" USB enclosure (preferably USB 3.0 for extra speed) and then clone the old SSD onto the new one. Afterwards you may want to delete the recovery partition in order to get maximum space for yourself.

John

 

I have that adapter and it isn't designed properly to go into most enclosures. It will however work with a sata cable.

 

One of the latest reviews here:

Samsung Series 9 Notebook Review (13″ | t-break: Tech @ Its Fastest

Any comments, particularly about the screen quality?
I have found something that there is something that bothers my eyes
when looking at this panel, but I have no idea what it is.

 

Viewing angles are good compared to TN panels (even compared to great TN panels eg the one in the dell e6500). The only issue I have with the Samsung panel is that the colours are quite cold. I already applied the colour profile John has posted but colours are still cold compared to my other notebooks. I guess you won't be happy with the Samsung if you want to do image processing without an external display.

 

These reviews were very positive about the screen (X3B):
Samsung Series 9 NP900X3B Review: An Ultrabook With A Great Display
Samsung 900X3B-A01 (Series 9) Laptop Review - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

When tbreak publishes CrystalDiskMark results, without even mentioning which SSD is built in, I have serious doubts about their reporting.

 

The review says "Poor screen viewing angles"??? Compared to 99% of laptops on the market, the viewing angles are superb. Especially the vertical angles. I'd love to see his list of laptops that have good viewing angles. It must be very short.

I agree. But when I tried to put in John's X3B color profile, my X3C was way too warm and yellow. I'm still waiting for my new Spyder to perform a proper calibration.

 

Yea. He's the first person I've seen this year call the screen average. What does that tell you?

 

It tells me he (the reviewer) may be incorrect.
Also interesting that he blasted the use of dongles,
especially when Samsung includes an ethernet dongle
and Apple makes you buy one for the Air!

Besides, I have a X3C sitting right here, my own opinion on the display:
I agree, the vertical angles are very good, better than MBA with LG
panel, the horizontal angles poor, compared to MBA with LG panel.
Compared to the same MBA, it is much brighter.
Colors seem a little more accurate than the same MBA.
On the MBA, grays are blue and they are actual gray on the S9.
The whites and blacks are also better.
Minimal backlight bleed in lower-right corner only.

There is some harshness to my eyes that I have not determined the cause of.

It is funny that the MBA with LG panel has much better contrast, even though
the black and whites are much better on the S9.

Other than that, sorry to use the MBA as "gold standard", since it is not a true
Windows PC by any stretch, but the ultrabooks are destined to be compared to them.

 

Does anyone know why the fans are running constantly when this notebook is charging. I can switch them off by using the silent mode but I dont understand why they are running at all. They turn off as soon as I unplug the psu.

 

Could you post your colour profile when you have caibrated the screen?

 

Because I'm getting desperate for the SS9 with 256GB...

Apparently the Russians have it (and in-stock): NP900X3-A01RU
And the UAE (but with an i5): NP900X3C-A02
And Israel: NP900X3C-BG1IL

(It's known that HK and South Korea also carry the i7/256GB SSD models.)

It seems Samsung US has added a couple new retailers to their page for the A04US, too!
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/laptops/NP900X3C-A04US-buy

 

Samsung lists all of these sites as having it "In Stock",
but none of them have it.
From my checking with all of them, the best guess is
somewhere between the 20th and the end of July, and
with how Samsung has been not getting the other models
out readily, I think it is a stretch to assume anyone will get
an A04 in their hands this month.
Hope I am wrong.
If you find anyone with actual, real stock please post after
you place your order as I will.

 

A couple of the sites do say in stock:

• PC connection / Express
• Insight (7 in stock - it was 8 earlier)

Also: you write like a poet.

 

OK, I called the main sales number for Insight, and yes, they did
show to have "actual stock." Having never ordered from them, I
pulled up their score at resellerratings.com and it was not impressive.
However, a good credit card should protect anyone fine.
Also, their price is over $1,699.99 which should be retail.
If a few dollars does not matter, and you can get one to Canada from
them, I would go for it. They have been around a long time, just a
bit stunned that they have bad ratings.

As for your choice of the A04US vs the Zenbook, having had one of
the Zenbooks for a couple of days, I found the 1920x1080 ridiculous
in a 13.3" notebook. You end up setting Windows 7 to 150% and then
other programs get messed up.
I think the display and overall build quality of the Samsung is better,
the keyboards and trackpads are a tossup, but again, unless you
have laser vision the high-res of the ASUS is just too much.
Also, it was thought that Windows 8 would improve scaling with new
high-res displays, but nothing has changed from Windows 7, a big
disappointment. It is nice to have zillions of pixels, but you need to
be able to use them day-to-day.

Well thanks.
If you mean that I post "in stanzas"
I just find that shorter lines are easier for people
to read in forum posts.

 

Or he using that damn Mac !

 

Woo hoo! But I still need to sort out the best way to get things from point (US)A to point C(anada). I think it'll be 2-3 weeks before I make the jump.

Brilliant - thanks so much for your input on this. I'm not too worried about Window's poor scaling as I'll be using Ubuntu mostly anyway. I am a bit worried about what I've been reading about build quality (at least in comparison to the SS9 - I'm 95% swayed towards the SS9.

I think it's the placement of
the line breaks which confuse me. It sure
beats those who write in one
long sentence but I can't help but imagine
you taking a breath before saying each
line.

:laugh:

 

okay, so i'm not sure if this is a problem my end or other's are experiencing it too... but im getting CPU spikes whenever i use google chrome (no extensions, just signed in to my google account). I've noticed it whenever i try typing in something to google search or the address bar at the top that it becomes quite laggy.

i just typed a random but of letters in several times to the address bar and took a screenshot of the task manager to show you guys what i mean.

i have nothing else running apart from flux.exe and avgtray.exe. I am not sure if this is because of the 4gb ram or the cpu or what... but I feel it should really be performing a lot better. I've also uninstalled as much bloatware as possible but there are still loads of processes running in the background. I am tempted to just do a fresh install of a minimal version of windows.

pls help! http://i.imgur.com/lhjMq.png