2013 Ativ Book 9 Plus owner's lounge (NP940X3G)

Hey guys wants the best setting for low fan noise best performance I disable bios adaptive brightness. Turn off silent mode and keep my brightness down. I just switch between power saver and Samsung when I need the extra power.

Also is it best to leave it plugged in all the time?

 

I've noticed my Series 9s look slightly blue under certain lighting conditions. The "volcanic ash black" includes a hint of blue. That photo has more than a hint of blue but I would put it down to either the lighting conditions or the auto white balance on the camera doing a colour shift.

Yes. Once the battery is charged then the charging will stop until either the charge level drops several per cent or you disconnect / turn off the PSU.

John

 

Perhaps I was not sufficiently clear. The seller states "the notebook looks exactly the bright blue color shown in the photograph. It does not look like the gray-ish Mineral Ash commonly seen in this model and the royal blue look is not a function of the ambient light or camera settings - it's exactly the color it appears to be."

I have had two 9s and the earlier one had even less "glint" of blue speckles in certain light than my new one, which simply looks a bit more like slate blue than gray. But bright blue? Not a chance.

I'm not sure I agree that having this off-color model would make it a more valuable "one of a kind" and I'm suspicious of the seller in fact using photo editing to make it appear unusually colorful or possibly that this is a gray market model made for a different market or....?

If you assume this is truly an NP940X3G in dark royal blue, would you consider it perfectly fine for purchase or something to perhaps stay away from? It is offered for sale for $1,250 with the top config as 5 mos old and in mint condition, which frankly is a suspiciously low price.

I'm inclined to advise my friend to pass on it unless someone can attest that there was a model run of these in a different color. In which case I'll publish the link and it will be up for grabs!

Jeff

EDIT: I did a further image search and believe I have solved the mystery! This appears to be a picture of the Ativ Book 9 Lite. That model comes in a royal blue looking finish and I found numerous photos that look almost exactly like the photo I have shown you. I wrote the seller to ask if he may have just uploaded a stock photo and accidentally took the wrong one. Unfortunately it flies in the face of his insistence that the actual unit looks royal blue just as in the picture. The specs are all NP940X3G KO5 and the price is 35% off what that unit costs, but double what the Lite costs!

Again, if I am not satisfied with his answer, I'll post the link for everyone else, if you haven't found it already! To his credit, the seller has an excellent 100% positive rating as a seller and lots of very favorable comments.

 

That photo doesn't look like my Book 9 Lite.

I don't remember anyone reporting Samsung offering the NP940X3G in blue but that's not to say they didn't.

How about asking for a photo of the bottom so you can check the model number?

John

 

My Transcend MTS800 512GB SSD (TS512GMTS800) arrived this afternoon. No problems fitting it, but the screws on the ATIV Book 9 Plus are tiny and require care not to damage them. Installed Windows 8.1 Pro again from scratch. No installation issues. All Windows updates and Samsung SW Update drivers installed (with the exception of Intel ME which kept failing for some reason).

I haven't done any power consumption tests. Any tests involving the Windows estimated battery remaining, or Samsung Eco Mode tab are largely meaningless. I don't have time to do multiple run-down tests.

Here's the screenshots for the standard Samsung 128GB SSD and the new Transcend 512GB SSD. I'll post again if I find any problems with the SSD, but all looks good so far.

SAMSUNG:

TRANSCEND:


SAMSUNG:

TRANSCEND:


SAMSUNG:


TRANSCEND:

 

@michaeljean & anyone with AB9+

Can you by any chance download RealTemp and report your CPU temps under various usage scenarios?

It seems that mine always idles at 45'C and with light usage pushes to 55-58'C which seems excessive for simple word processing and video watching.

The fan starts to kick in at 55'C and bothers me non-stop.

I am just trying to make sure that this is abnormal that I should get a service from Samsung.

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks again John. Have to agree, on closer inspection there are details in the seller's photo that are not 9 Lite details.

I've made my decision: advised my friend to purchase an open box model from Blinq.com and to open this link up to the membership with absolutely no imprimatur or endorsement.

(Note: I have no interest in this sale and don't know the seller, though I have had many exchanges with him about the item. I am just passing on what could be an excellent deal for a hard-to-find item, particularly at the price.)

Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus 13 3" 256 GB Intel Core i7 4th Gen 1 8 GHz 8 887276965956 | eBay

Buy It Now Price: $1,250

1) It's a used NP940X3G - KO5US
2) i7-4500U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
3) Said to be still "under warranty" (don't know for how long) but Samsung does not transfer warranties so the seller would have to be willing to cooperate with buyer if latter wanted to make a claim
4) Only one photo - showing it's somewhat unusual color, so hard to make comments about condition, though seller states it is very good
5) Seller has 100% eBay rating and lots of very reassuring comments with most reviews. Came off to me a bit arrogant and "sales-y," and his eBay ID - moneybags007 is not the most heartwarming

So good luck to one and all. Let me know if you want to see a transcript of my interactions with the seller. I may be doing my friend a disservice, but sometimes you just have to go with your gut. One request: I would appreciate hearing from the ultimate buyer/recipient as to how it all turned out.

Best,
Jeff Bellin

 

Thanks for the results.

The read speeds are similar between the two drives but the Transcend has better write performance (as normally happens as capacity increases).

A possible clue on the power consumption is that the temperature of the Transcend is slightly higher.

John

 

I think the higher temperature was mainly because it was charging the battery and installing Windows and all the updates! This morning, after being on all night syncing Google Drive, it's at 35 deg.

Whilst I don't trust the Windows battery remaining time at all, it does seem a little longer than normal (currently says 8h 10m remaining at 98%). If I'd thought about it, I would have plugged in my Kill-a-Watt electricity monitor. It's hard to know what Windows is doing in the background though - any CPU usage or changes in adaptive brightness would dwarf the SSD, so probably not a fair test.

 

35C after being left overnight is promising.

I would suggest two tests:

1. Start HWiNFO > Sensors then run Crystal DiskMark. The maximum SSD temperature will give an broad indication of the power used when under load. As long as it stays under 60C it's not too power-hungry when under load.

2. Reboot the computer, disconnect the PSU, change to Power Saver Power Plan, turn off the WiFi, remove any USB devices, put the display on minimum brightness then start HWiNFO > Sensors and look at the battery charge (at the bottom of the sensors list). Let the computer idle for a few minutes but tap the keyboard at intervals to make sure the display backlight doesn't turn off completely. Then see how the average and minimum system power consumption compare with my results for my X4C. If the SSD idle power drain is good then the system power drain under that test should be around 5W.

John

 

Cheers John.

The SSD temperature test is, of course, affected by the design of the laptop, whether the fans are on and the temperature of the room. During CrystalDiskMark (5 passes), it reached 64C. Laptop cool enough that fans remained off, room is approx 23C, laptop is on hard surface.

For HWiNFO, on battery power, flight mode, Power Saver, screen on but min brightness. Ran test for 10 mins. Charge rate:
Min: -8.375 W
Max: -3.169 W
Av: -4.092 W

 

Thank you for the additional tests which I hope will be of interest to others as well as me.

64C is getting warm but short of the 70C where some SSDs start to throttle themselves. I've just run test (i) on my X4C and the EVO mSATA reached 49C. However, it does have the thermal pad(?) that Samsung put on the original SSD and, I assume, transfers some heat to the base. The SSD is also far from the CPU.

Your idle power test is giving very good results (I'm jealous). Perhaps that's Haswell working properly but it shows that the Transcend SSD isn't guzzling lots of power when on idle.

John

 

Update on my continuing battery capacity story (sigh! I thought it was over!). When I first received my NP940X3g-KO5US my battery read at 94.5% of capacity. After thorough reading of all applicable articles and soliciting valuable advice from this forums heroes (and you know who your are!) as well as obtaining an RMA to send the unit back to Samsung (decided not to since shortfall was low and seemed stable and battery performance was spot-on universal reports. I did one BIOS recalibration and just used the laptop without worrying. Soon after, I noticed the capacity (HWInfo and others) showed 95.9% (up by 1.5%) so I was quite pleased. About a week later, after normal use, the capacity climbed farther to 97.3% - very happy camper . Just today, while looking at HWInfo for other reasons, I noticed the capacity was back down to 95.9% (1.45% down from the peak it reached last week!). In my normal OCD way, I am now suddenly worried that there is some kind of problem that is causing this capacity to fluctuate. As pleased as I was that it was increasing towards 100% - where it should have been and should remain for a year or so - I'm now less concerned with the drop to 95.9% in the absolute than I am in another change in the reading.

Should I just go about my business, keep an eye on this stuff but leave it alone as long as it stays within the 94.5% it had when new and the 97.3% it peaked at last week? Or is the fluctuation something indicative of an issue that bears looking into and, if so, any suggestions for a DIY analysis, or should I send it to Samsung - something I try at all costs to avoid, as I have often received units back (not from Samsung, just from computer repair depots) with scratches at least and other operating problems at worst.

Thoughts? Many thanks. Jeff

 

It's unusual to see the wear fluctuating over a few days.

How much are you using the battery? How low are you running the battery in normal usage and do you then fully charge it?

At the moment I would continue to monitor the battery's health (there's also a much better chance of getting it replaced if the loss of capacity is more than 10% within a month or two).

John

 

Good point about the thermal pad. I removed a small black spacer pad as the Transcend is double-sided, compared to the single-sided Samsung. I didn't think it was a thermal pad, but it might have been. The ones I've seen in the past have been white with one side peach coloured (like a plaster).

Edited to say - actually wouldn't have been a thermal pad in this case, as it was on the unpopulated side.

 

I use the battery most days, seldom down to lower than 30%, if that. Yes, I fully charge it thereafter, though when I can I stop it at 80% or so, but most often it's a full charge and I run it most of the time on AC. I agree that they are more likely to replace at 10% but they were at least willing to take a look at it when it was still 5.5%. Mean anything to you that it went down precisely to the most recent previous reading, 95.9%, not even 0.1% different? Think it might be instructive to run the BIOS calibration routine again? Seems to me it might have been you who said you found it exacerbated the problems with your battery. If I'm going to have a problem, I'd rather uncover it now.

 

Thanks for the clarifications.

Recharging to different levels might explain the fluctuations in the reported wear. You could keep a record to see if there is a pattern.

Damage to the lithium battery chemistry is greatest when operating at the two ends of the charge range and the calibration has to go to both extremes. If the battery has a problem then another calibration could well increase the loss in capacity. So first watch the behavior during day-to-day usage for a bit longer then do another calibration. If that shows a further loss in capacity then you can report to Samsung what you've done and it should strengthen the case for a replacement.

John

 

Is the battery user-replaceable?

 

Officially not, because it involves unscrewing the base of the computer.

However, it's a relatively simple task for anyone with the right screwdrivers.

John

 

Thank you John. It's a bit confusing, no? What would you recommend I do in day to day use for now? IE, should I use it primarily plugged in (i can - actually thought it was better for breaking in a new battery to use it a bit each day, thus going from full charge to 30-50%, then top off, etc. Would you be so kind as to suggest a regimen to follow for the next little while? Note: I don't need to use this unit at all, certainly not on battery, given how many other laptops I have at my disposal Thanks, Jeff

 

Apple have some notebook battery advice here:
https://www.apple.com/uk/batteries/notebooks.html

Personally, I think you're looking too closely at the battery stats. 1.5% of anything is f*ck all. Whatever you do with the battery, it's going to last a few years. In the event you still own the notebook and it hasn't got lost, stolen or broken entirely - then you can just buy a new battery. It doesn't look difficult to replace yourself if you don't want to send it to Samsung.

 

I think some of the cheaper batteries that have not been calibrated during manufacture need to be initially put through some charge / discharge cycles but I don't think that applies for Samsung notebooks.

The more you put the battery through charge / discharge cycles then the more you will wear it out. You should be able to check the charge cycles in the battery properties using HWiNFO. If you want to get the battery suitably worn that you can be sure of replacement under warranty then keep on using it when you could be plugged into the mains. If you hope that the battery won't get worse the just leave the computer plugged in except when you need to use it away from a power outlet.

Thanks for the link. I'm intrigued by (but don't agree with) the stated need to keep the electrons moving.

Recent notebook batteries should last for several years. Two years ago Samsung were advertising "the inclusion of Samsung Battery Life Plus technology means that the battery will retain 80 percent of its original capacity for up to 1,500 charges" although "up to" is a vague term where lower values might be more typical. Nonetheless, there's likely to be a small proportion of batteries that fall substantially short of expectations and this is likely to show up in the first year when replacement can be requested under warranty so my standard advice is to run the battery calibration after about 9 months.

John

 

NP940X3G-K03US upgrade to 256gb ssd - samsung say yes but what drive model/make and is there any trick to getting the system copied over?

 

Hello,

This is a long thread. I want to buy a laptop with high pixel density. Some of the choices I have been considering is the Toshiba 4k computer, Dell M3800, and MBPr.

What would be advantage of the Samsung Book 9 over the others?

 

Well I think the AB9+ is the lightest, or maybe the toshiba? The Dell and MBPr are kinda of in the same category, but remember they use more powerful quad core chips. So if performance is necessary they would serve you better, conversely the Samsung and Toshiba should get better battery life and portability. The Dell XPS15 is essentially the home edition of the workstation with gaming as opposed to professional graphics. Should also be cheaper, but I've also heard it tends to have a high-pitched coil whine, I'm not sure if dell ever fixed that. I believe the AB9+ is very well received, the one complaint being the yellow coloring of the display. I think most users have successfully applied the fix.

You should make sure you understand the consequence of 3-4k resolution. I'm very excited about having a 28" 4k desktop display when they become affordable. But I think if I had a 4k laptop, I might just run it at 1080p as everything's blurry with my eyes these days anyway.

 

That's really good advice, but I do have some qualifications to suggest regarding the screen resolution. At worst, the 3k resolution does no harm because W8.1 does indeed scale well for nearly everything and I believe the software developers will soon all be writing/fixing for FHD+ because they are becoming so popular - on phones, tablets and, finally, laptops. One thing I will say is that as more QHD/QHD+ content for Windows is available, having the additional res on your screen will be a true asset you will really enjoy, even on a 13" screen. There's a good bit of 4k content on YouTube and it looks so mind-thrillingly gorgeous it is something you will certainly want to have that capacity the more of this content there is in use. But I own 13-14" laptops with resolutions from 1600x900 to FHD, QHD and QHD+ and on virtually all applications - with appropriate scaling, or just a tad of zooming, the Samsung (IGZO) 3800x1800 looks the best of all in terms of character and image crispness no matter what the native resolution of the content (few archaic exceptions noted). So don't fear the high def screen, though I will say that on the Samsung it's brightness, contrast and color gamut are more what I'd call "above average"/B+ but again, it's a comparative thing: I have several laptops with 400 nit screens 95% aRGB color gamut, 1500:1 contrast yet for everyday usage (not photo or video editing) none of those specs beat the incredible crisp in-your-face appearance of the screen on the AB9+. One last thing I'm pretty ready to debunk - for all time: high pixel densities do not appear to exact a meaningful toll on battery life, and this is from a lot of A/B testing even on identical models with different screens. I'm getting 6-9 hours on my NP940X3G with an i7-4500U, 8GB RAM and the QHD+ screen, as I did on an HP Spectre 13 QHD. I'm not aware of the other Haswell models doing better than that other than Macs, which are an entirely different animal.

EDIT: The "mustard yellow" problems this screen had on battery when first released has long been fixed with firmware. As I said above, colors are not superb in the class (among some giants!) but they are quite accurate, realistic and bright, and there are even multiple pre-set adjustments Samsung provides, that don't make the screen better, but sometimes improve the particular kind of content you are viewing.

The only other thing I will add to go45cvi's excellent analysis is that while the Toshiba Kirabook (and a few others) are almost 0.5 lbs lighter than the AB9+, the nearly perfect design, engineering and product quality makes the Samsung the most enjoyable ultraportable laptop I've ever owned or worked with. It's kind of like the Lexus or Audi of laptops. You can't do more with them, but it feels so good just to open and close them, push their buttons, look at their near perfect construction. May sound nutty, but consider my screen ID Best, Jeff

 

I'll let others speak to the different drive choices.

The post linked below summarizes the four options you have to get software on the new SSD.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e-422.html#post9581054

 

You need an M.2 2280 (22mm wide x 80mm long) SATA SSD and a set of good screwdrivers.

Recommendation of the week is the Transcend. The Crucial SSDs are easier to find but it can be a challenge to get their idle power consumption under control.

The easiest way to get the system copied over is to buy an M.2 to USB adapter and then clone your current SSD onto the new one (Samsung Recovery Solution 6 has an option for this).

John

 

Agreed. Stay away from crucial. I recently did a comparison and my M500 increased system power consumption by 15% compare to a Samsung EVO. I don't know how much a drive typically uses, but I imagine 15% equates to anywhere from 50-100% more power consumption for the drive. Unacceptable. And you shouldn't have to jump through a half dozen hoops to try to get a better number, I'm not sure if anyone actually has either. Crucial are pricing the M550 series higher than the EVO which is ridiculous as well. Hopefully Samsung gets an M.2 EVO out the door soon.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crucial-m500-1tb-ssd,3551-12.html

 

Is anyone aware of any protective skins for this notebook? I still have the plastic cover that came on the lid because I don't want to scratch it. I know it sounds terribly OCD, but I'm clumsy and I have cosmetically damaged every prized laptop I've owned that I didn't cover in some way. I guess I should also ask if the lid is particularly prone to scratches or if it will weather minor scrapes with zippers, paper clips, etc. Thanks. Feel free to poke fun at me.

 

Someone must have been reading the recommendation:

Overnight the price on Amazon UK has increased from £199.08 to £278.05.

John

PS: And a few hours later it's back down to £199.08.

 

How do you get chrome to look good? If I disable scaling (on the exe) it looks crisp but the toolbars are pretty small at 1080p, I can't imagine at 1800. If I leave scaling on everything is appropriately sized, but blurry.

 

About a week ago a noticed a small crack had formed on the bezel - this computer lives in a Samsung sleeve nested in a Tumi bag with a laptop compartment and I have never dropped or given the laptop any shock/drops, etc. I called Samsung as I figured this is an obvious manufacturing defect with the screen and bezel and that they would replace - no such luck $400 repair - and it took hours to figure out how to handle locally vs. me sending in and waiting two weeks (at which time I would have been presented with a $400 bill).

I will never, ever buy a Samsung product again - I'm going to pre-order the i7 Surface pro 3 now and wash my hands of this - so disappointed.

 

Is that the crack just below the top right corner of the display?

I don't recall anyone else reporting this problem and I'm not sure how the bezel could get cracked my mishandling without there being any other sign of damage.

My initial reaction would be to challenge Samsung's position.

John

 

I've seen people recommend toggling High-DPI scaling under Compatibility settings for the Chrome executable. I don't have a High-DPI laptop myself, but I did notice that setting on the Compatibility tab of Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts.

 

yep - you can see the white line just below the top right corner. I sent Samsung four pictures that showed that the notebook is in absolutely perfect condition and I thought that they were going to make the swap but it didn't go in my favor. I spoke to their executive relations team who made the call - i guess if i want to challenge I would go the legal route (i.e. they are not honoring their warranty) but thinking too much hassle.

 

Based on the way Samsung handled my warranty request (they decided not to honor their warranty) I would go with the Toshiba or Surface Pro 3 i7 - my kids have the Surface Pro 3 i5 and it is really compelling this time around.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure that's what I tried and it does remove the "blury-ness". Although I can change the zoom for webpages inside chrome settings, the url, search and bookmarks bars are no longer scaled and get pretty small. Wasn't sure if there were any other solutions? I'm "only" at 1080p on 13", but I still have to have windows scaling dialed up to 150%. Firefox and IE look fine. I'll have to check some of my other legacy apps. At least the good ol' CMD scales well.

 

Easy: I don't use Chrome, lol . Seriously, I've been a FF devotee for years - and of course I is fine - so I it's no sacrifice for me. That does indeed make my quoted comment inaccurate, but it seems I referred to a few apps that lag behind. Seems Google has elected to be in that minority though it's hard to fathom why nor that it can maintain for long. Sorry for not pointing out that major exception. I've read of several workarounds for Chrome but don't know how well they work. Jeff

EDIT: Sorry, on Tapatalk it wasn't clear how many responses there have been before mine.

 

As of a few days ago, the standard release Chrome is blurry, the beta channel Chrome is blurry, but... the dev channel Chrome is hi-dpi!

 

Got it. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you'd tried that. Users of the 4K Lenovo Y50 have also mentioned using Chrome Canary (beta) instead. But maybe that's no longer working as @jamesg was pointing out.

 

Ok thanks, maybe I'll try that if it becomes irksome.

 

hey guys - is there any way to get three simultaneously displays? internal screen + two external monitors? i have two monitors connected through usb and micro hdmi but i can only get both to turn on with the laptop screen closed. if i open the screen, i can only view the internal display + one external monitor. is 2 the limit or is there a way to get all 3 enabled at once?

 

I just saw another post in the Y50 thread about High DPI in Chrome. Looks like it's worth checking out:

Those who find it useful, please thank member pf1z3r who posted it.

 

Except for models with DisplayPort, Samsung laptops have traditionally only supported two simultaneous monitors: Internal + external (HDMI or VGA, but not both) OR two external (HDMI and VGA, but no internal). But owners of newer models (such as the 2013 Ativ Book 8) have reported driving three simultaneous monitors (including internal) even without DisplayPort. I do not remember confirmation from other AB9+ owners, though, and cannot guarantee that it will work.

But that is just using the HDMI and VGA ports (the latter requiring a proprietary dongle) and the internal LCD. If you add a USB display adapter, I would think you can get to four monitors. If you are finding that you can NOT, I wonder if the limit is in the max size of RAM that can be shared as graphics memory.

Is this a 4GB model?

 

i have the current 4gb edition of the AB9+ and just got it to work. One monitor is connected through a micro hdmi to vga converter and the other through a DVI to usb converter. For some reason it wouldn't take all three simultaneously before but I missed with some settings and now I'm all set. Thanks.

 

OK, good, thank you for the update.

Are you saying you use the Micro-HDMI port (with a VGA converter) to drive a VGA monitor? And the USB port (with a USB graphics adapter) to drive a DVI monitor?

If so, you may be able to get significantly better picture quality by using the Micro-HDMI port with a straight Micro-HDMI-to-HDMI or Micro-HDMI-to-DVI cable since that avoids the analog conversion of VGA. This is particularly true of higher resolution monitors. Of course if you are connecting to a VGA-only monitor or projector, you have the perfect connection!

And you may be able to get faster performance by using the Mini-VGA port compared to the USB adapter -- but likely at the expense of lower picture quality due to the analog conversion of VGA.

In any case would I be very interested if you (or anyone) can confirm that the AB9+ can drive three simultaneous monitors (without using a USB adapter). That is Mini-VGA (using the proprietary dongle), Micro-HDMI and internal LCD simultaneously. Also at which resolutions. Thank you in advance

 

I have 2 peeves that seem to have developed spontaneously. While relatively minor, they are irritating and I would be grateful for suggestons

1) My trackpad is suddenly very reluctant to register single finger taps as double click to activate any screen icon/link. I have single taps set on, sensitivity at maximum. It's not totally broken, but it registers correctly no more than 1/5 of the time, more in certain apps or even web pages than others.. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling driver. One thing I haven't tried is rolling back to the driver that was originally installed in the system. Thoughts?


2) I'm finding the cursor seems to get a mind of its own at times and just moves all over randomly. This only happens about 20% of the time, but it's annoying. Fortunately it doesn't tend to do it when I'm typing, so I don't have that "flying cursor" issue (have setting on max palm rejection), but often after while I am working on a page of an app or web site I suddenly find the cursor as moves as much as from one corner to the opposite corner. I did fairly recently set the trackpad to scroll with one finger on the right edge of the trackpad. I can't say this started when I made this change, but wonder if it may be correlated. Not a major problem, but I would appreciate any ideas.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

Sounds like 1) is caused by 2)

Go into the bios and see if the mouse wobbles, to see whether it's a hardware problem or a driver problem.

 

Hey guys, I was just wondering if I should go out and get the NP940X3G-S03US or if I should just be safe and go with the 4GB RAM models. I've read a few pages in this thread and saw that there is issues with the recovery mode and the touchpad.

Is it worth the RAM boost or will it just give me more problems? (I don't technically need the RAM but 8GB sounds a lot better than 4GB).

Thanks in advance.