13.3" Samsung NP900X3C with Ivy Bridge CPU

So guys just thought i'd update you wtih my samsung.

I bought a NP900X3C-A01US and have had 2 problems with it since June.

1. the screen has had a loose connection and every now and then loses half its quality (the pixels seem to shift out of place is the best way to describe it - i've attached a photo that doesn't do it justice). anyway, only way to fix it is to close the lid, open it up again and let the screen refresh. anyone else have similar issues? Photo Album - Imgur

2. my SanDisk 128gb ssd drive got severely corrupted. I have over 2000 bad sectors and i can't even format it. I put it in a caddy and tested it on my home pc and the s.m.a.r.t test still says it works fine which is strange. Here are some results. bare in mind it was plugged in via usb 2.0 so the speed test is fairly slow. Photo Album - Imgur

Anyway spoke to samsung and they're gonna come pick it up and run some tests. but before my hdd properly crapped out, i had a bout of 6/7 BSOD's the day before. Luckily most of my documents weren't corrupted but still sucks, especially for a 5 month old laptop.

 

As a follow-up to my last question: How does the NP900X3C fare under Linux with only 4GB RAM?

I already know about the working / non-working hardware features under Ubuntu 12.10, but I am curious about the actual working experience with such limited amounts of RAM. In my experience, Linux requires more memory than Windows 7 (I tested this by booting the same machine with both OSs and opening my Eclipse, Thunderbird and Firefox using the same workspaces/profiles).

Also, since the 4GB are shared with the integrated graphics, how much RAM is there actually available (Windows/Ubuntu) when the usual desktop effects are not disabled?

 

yeah, has anyone actually managed to upgrade the ram on the laptop? 4gb is just not enough for me so i'm very interested in putting in 8gb however i can.

 

linux will deliberately use free ram for caching purposes so it is not easy to compare across with windows as to basic requirements.

 

Not possible.

 

Even if you have the equipment to unsolder the supplied RAM, we have yet to identify an 8GB DDP RAM package to use as a replacement. If you really need more RAM then look to the X4C/ X4D.

John

 

Well, you can list how much memory each process uses (virtual/reserved/shared) and the eclipse process (well, actually its java process) takes much more memory allocated than its Windows pendant. I agree with you though, that simply looking at the overall memory values for free and used is meaningless.

 

so guys... i am receiving my brand new 900x3c-a02us tomorrow and I am already debating selling it and getting the Acer s7 13.3 with 1080p touch IPS screen.....

My concerns.... backlight bleed, inferior u100 ssd, no touch screen and lower 1600x900 screen.

Thoughts?

 

Check reviews on the Acer S7's battery life.

 

thats the only dept where the s7 is weak with 4 hours of regular use.... but otherwise what i am reading is that it is much superior.....

 

I think you should not have purchased the Series 9.

Mine doesn't have bleed, I could care less about the U100, I could care less about touch, and I love the Samsung PLS 1600x900 screen.

 

read for yourself .... Review Acer Aspire S7 391 Ultrabook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

With the first NP900X3Cs appearing in online stores with Windows 8 preinstalled, I was wondering if anybody knows whether Samsung upgraded (or downgraded) anything in the notebooks. At least they feature a different number after the A.

Oh, and before I forget: What is the difference between the models with Win 7 Pro and Win 7 Home. The Pro versions seems to have some feature or chip that the other one does not have. But I don't have any idea for what it is good.

 

Samsung UK decided to save some money on the Win 8 version of the X3D by putting Sandy Bridge inside.

John

 

Sir, what about the following indicated you were talking about Acer backlight bleed? It sounded like you were second guessing the Series 9 purchase.

 

The NP900X3D-A02US I received last week is Ivy Bridge and came with Windows 8 Pro.

 

The Pro models include a TPM chip. This can be used in a number of enterprise security scenarios. It's actually required for our corporate machines.

 

So guys, can someone please tell me if their Series 9 shows some minor bleed during boot up? When in Windows, and brightness set to 5/8 I don't see any bleed at all. However, when I boot up, I see some minor 'green spots' at the bottom (and one small green spot upper right). This is on a brand new NP900X3C (manufactured in Nov 2012). I already exchanged one a few days ago, had the same issue, less spots, but the spots I did see were more prominent. During normal Windows usage it's unnoticeable unless of course I run at full brightness and have a complete black background.

If this is considered normal, I'll keep it, however, if others have perfectly black screens without any of the 'green spots on the bottom edge of the screen", I'm going to return this one too and get a refund.

Thanks!

Edit: Decided to just get a refund. I can't justify spending EUR 1600 on a laptop and it has these type of issues. No more Samsung Series 9 for me at this point in time, unless I have the opportunity to physically check it in a store.

 

I just bought an NP900X3C-A05UK (i7 3517u) with Win8 home premium installed. Must say I'm very pleased with every aspect of it, though it could have shipped with Win8 Pro and a 256GB SSD. For those interested, it's shipping with a Lite-On LMT-128M3M which is hopefully faster than Sandisk.

 

That's good news for UK purchasers. The Liteon SSD is much better than the Sandisk.

John

 

I previously read somewhere in this thread that the Samsung NP900X3C doesn't off the best WiFi experience. Now, I was wondering about the WiDi experience of this notebook. After all, WiDi will use the same chipset an antenna to transit its video signal. Did anyone already use their Samsung to stream Full-HD via WiDi?

 

so I am almost done configuring my new 900x3c.... but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to reverse to the finger scroll so it scolls how touch devices scroll or scroll on windows 8 works. Anyone have any idea how to do that on windows 7 ? running latest touchpad driver from samsung.

Thanks

 

Do you see the ELAN tab under the Control Panel | Mouse properties?

 

Today I had the opportunity to play around with the NP900X3C a bit more in a local store. To my dismay, the touchpad experience was a lot worse than what I remembered from my last testrun. So, now I am wondering whether anybody else has experienced some of these effects and if they are only the result of an old touchpad driver:

- Sometimes, the touchpad woud not register my finger movements. I had the impression, that it thought another finger was also resting on the touchpad. After rubbing over the whole touchpad and clicking it several times, it started working again.
- Sometimes, clicks would not be registered at all while cursor movement was still possible. At first, I thought this happened when opening some system tools (EasySettings, Intel WiDi,...), but I couldn't verify it.
- Finally, the sensitivity of the touchpad (when to register a click when touching and when not) seemed to be inconsistent, especially while performing other actions such as scrolling. Sometimes, a tap that was meant as a click was not registered and sometimes putting two fingers on the touchpad to scroll would register as tap (probably one finger did not register or one hit the touchpad later than the other).

Independently of these problems, I found out, that there is a dedicated area in the lower right for right clicks. Before realizing this, I thought the touchpad would register my click the wrong way. But evidently this is expected behaviour. Regarding this, I have two more questions:
- Can you remove this dedicated right-click area? The simple elan drivers did not offer this option (the full version was not installed)
- If you can remove this dedicated area, can you set two-finger-clicking to right-click? Again, the simple elan drivers only offered middle-click for two-finger clicks.

 

The machine when setup properly does not reflect that experience, at all. In fact, the ELAN touchpad is very good in my opinion. Not as good as the Apple glass touchpads, but probably better than anyone else. And the machine you used at the store clearly didn't have the proper drivers installed.

When they are installed properly, you'll see a Touchpad tab in the Control Panel | Mouse properties. On that tab is an options button that brings up the following for controlling two finger tap (off by default), scrolling inertia, and other settings.

The ELAN touchpad rocks.

 

Thanks for the answer and the picture.
I also located that touchpad dialog in the system settings. But on the store model the options for two-finger tap do not include the right mouse button, only to the middle mouse button. I didn't look at the driver version, but I assume it is an old version, since stores usually never update the drivers. But good to know that it can be set with current drivers.

Also, with your driver version, is there still an area in the lower right of the touchpad dedicated to right clicks? I would really like to see this gone.

Finally, do you know if there is an advanced option to set a three-finger tap for middle mouse clicks?

EDIT: Also, do you need to use Samsung's elan driver, or can you install the official ones from elan direct?

 

I have a question regarding the touchpad - I have Windows 8 installed with the latest drivers. I have made adjustments in the trackpad settings dialog, but can't find anything for the single-finger tap (i.e., left-mouse button) where the sensitivity of the "tap" can be changed. The trackpad seems a bit too sensitive for my in-sensitive fingers! Is there any way to change the single-finger tap sensitivity?

bert

 

There's only the overall sensitivity button under the Advanced Settings (a new addition in the latest driver package). See what works for you.

John

 

Hi,

Can you provide the link to the latest driver set ?

Thanks

 

That's not a valid test: Linux makes heavy use of memory for a disk cache, so if you have opened those programs, they would all (with related libraries, but with Eclipse, that's most of the JVM) end up being cached in memory. You need to run "free" in the terminal and exclude "buffered"/"cached" to see how much memory you really got left. In conclusion, 4GB should be enough unless you know you need more (eg. running multiple VMs, keeping your computer on 24/7 for weeks where memory leaks in things like Firefox get even more exposed, etc).

Note that memory used by the Java process is predetermined with the "heap size" argument: I am sure you can find the eclipse executable (likely to be a script) and lower the heap size it starts up with, though it can definitely start misbehaving then.

 

Link here to version 11.7.2.1 although Easy Software Manager / SW Update should also offer it.

John

 

Thanks John, although I don't see a difference yet with the lowered sensitivity.

bert

 

I've been experimenting for the past week to see what works best for me and haven't yet reached a conclusion. It might be possible to change the overall range in the registry - I haven't looked.

John

 

When using the Windows 8 touchpad drivers from Elan, is it possible to re-assign the "one finger swipe from left" and "one finger swipe from right" to something else than the Charms bar and switching Metro apps? I don't use the metro stuff at all and the Charms bar is useless, but I don't see any option in the Samsung-supplied drivers to do a custom setting.


FYI, for those who complain about this trackpad, don't give up, try to tweak the settings. This is by far the best touchpad I have ever used on a Windows PC and IMO it's almost as good as on a Mac, it works very consistently for me.

 

Hey alltogether,

I recently bought a np900x3d in switzerland. So far I am very pleased with the looks and the feel of the laptop. However unfortunately it feels like the performance is somewhat lacking behind. Especially I think it takes a bit too long for web sites to build up. Can this have to do with the graphics? Because I think there might be something damaged or not functioning properly because if I use the windows 8 experience index test I get the following results:

CPU: 6.9
RAM: 5.9
Desktop graphics: 4.5
Gaming graphics: 6.2
Primary hard disc: 7.5

I get a value of only 4.5 on desktop graphics, that seems quite a bit too low for me if I compare it to results of np900x3c.. However I haven't seen any experience indexes on np900x3d although I don't see a reason why there should be a difference.

What do you guys think? Should I send it in for repair? Or is this normal??

If somebody has a np900x3d it would be helpful if you could post your experience index.

Thanks, and best regards

Stefan

 

Send id to repair because experience index in windows ty benchmark is low? Search for newest graphic drivers. Maybe you set Intel Graphic drivers to 'power saving mode' or you made benchmark on battery?
My 900x3c in gaming graphic has 6,4. So... 0,2 difference. Not so much.
Look how much RAM windows is taking right after booting and how many processes starts with Windows. I have ~55 processes and 1,10GB of memory taken (Win 7 x64), this can make windows a bit slower.

 

On battery the laptop processor is throttled to 50% power I believe, at least it was on mine and had to change that in the power plan. Also, in easy settings make sure "eco-mode" is off.

Even if you got the Sandy bridge model 900x3d, it should not feel slow at all.

 

Thanks for your replies.

Of course i checked that the processor is running at full speed! And fyi it's not possible to run windows 8 experience index if the power is not plugged in.

@xMorfx: I was not intrested in your gaming graphics index but rather your desktop graphics.. Or did I misunderstand something completely and there is no difference between those two?

@pardes3: I've got the ivy bridge 900x3d and of course all drivers are up to date!

I can also do an cinebench benchmark test if that one is more representative.

 

I see Amazon has the NP900X3D (silver) for $999 plus it comes with a $200 gift card making it really $799. What I don't understand is that it has a second gen i5 at 1.4GZ. Is this new, old or satan's child?

Amazon.com: Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D-A01US 13.3-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver): Computers & Accessories

 

It has the older Sandy Bridge CPU and GPU.

 

Those are the exact same scores I have for my NP900X3D-A02US and it is running perfectly fine.

 

4.5 is low: My X3B can manage 5.6 for the desktop graphics. Perhaps there is a driver issue but sometimes WEI needs rerunning once or twice in order to get a stable score. If you want to run other benchmarks consider the list used by notebookcheck, so you can see if your results are within the normal range. The Intel HD4000 is currently at #206.

John

 

You're making an assumption I am not. I am not assuming the score means anything nor is it correct, and correctly displayed,

 

three questions:

1. is this truly solid? as in throw it in a packed rucksack and not worry about panels buckling inward
2. is the KB backlight bright enough? several pictures online seem to show the keys as barely visible
3. does is still have the on/off fan whine if vents are obstructed? has six months of bios updates corrected this behaviour

kind regards

 

1. I don't remember reading any reports of broken Series 9 displays. Mine (X3B and X4C) get squeezed into a bag (but I'd use a sleeve before putting in a rucksack and place the bottom against any other hard objects to reduce the risk of damage). I have had grease from the keyboard transferred on the screen of my X4C when the notebook gets squeezed (this bigger 15" screen is inherently more flexible).
2. The display backlighting is subtle. It doesn't glow like some backlights but is fit for purpose and makes the keys legible under poor lighting conditions (I recall reading that thickness considerations caused Samsung to use electroluminescent backlight instead of the brighter LEDs).
3. I will leave others to comment on the X3C fan noise but have to wonder if the problem has gone away - there's not been much discussion about this recently.

John

 

cheers john.

good news on the first two.

the last is somewhat important, as half the attraction of this is that its so light you'd always have it to hand to use on a whim, whether you're sat on the couch or reading in bed, etc. be a pain if the on/off of the fans turned out to be really intrusive.
and a shame, as this problem obviously won't happen with a macbook where they sensibly kept all vents hidden in the hinge.

 

I use it in bed all the time and I almost never hear the fan. It's a non-issue IMO.

 

The irony is that the Microsoft store has the NP900X3C with Ivy Bridge for $699.

Why did they go with the old CPU again? Trying to hit a lower price point? Supply issues?

 

Seems they made this solely for Black Friday sales in the US. Amazon has already dropped the $200 gift card because of its popularity and unfortunately I waited too long to do anything about it. Making it in silver did the trick as you can't get any other 13.3 from them that way. Do you have a link for the MS store version. All the links I have found recently show it no longer available.

 

Have a link?