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

Thanks isosunrise. I'll have to get on the phone again

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/760513-bloatware-should-i-remove.html

Do you guys want to use that as a list of bloatware for ATIV Book 9?

 

Today i received new firmware: p05acj

Cannot find the improvements / changes, but maybe nice to know there is new firmware!

 

Hi Kauban,

The performance seems about the same as the Samsung. Far more important to me was reliability and battery life.

Since I bought the Transcend SSD, this laptop has become my main PC and I've used it a lot. I've never seen a crash that I suspected to be a hardware problem. The battery life is still excellent. I can't fault the Transcend SSD at all.

 

Thanks Jamesg for your reply. I am going to load the new SSD with the factory image from a bootable pendrive this weekend. Did you need to install any additional drivers for Transcend?

Regards,
Kaushik

 

Hi guys!

I've just updated my Ativ book 9 plus with the latest firmware p05acj but now on windows my i7 is stuck at 0.77GHz, no more frequency scaling. any idea how can i roll back to previous firmware? or a way to fix this kind of problem?

regards,
Fabio

 

Sounds like Silent Mode is enabled. Check in Settings (Fn-F1) that Silent Mode is OFF (not AUTO or LOW).

The post linked here has more on Samsung Power management.

 

Is the first thing that I've checked, silent mode is in OFF state, from bios I've deactivated cpu power save (i don't remember exactly the full description) but has something to do with power saving. I'm trying to change the min and max percentage of cpu usage from power options but doesn't work. any other idea? I would try to reinstall the bios, where can i download the last version? I've found the p04acj but on install it fails because a "newer bios is installed"

 

Thanks, I see. Which power profile are you using? Also, which app or activity are you using to drive up CPU demand when testing this?

Rolling back to an earlier BIOS, then re-updating to the latest, has indeed been known to solve some problems. You can read about it in our BIOS rollback thread, linked below. It is not a simple process, though, and not without risks either. I recommend you study the entire thread before you start.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/696197-samsung-laptops-roll-back-bios-updates.html

You can also try with ThrottleStop (thread linked below). If it makes a difference, you will know for sure something is throttling the CPU. Again, caution is prudent.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

If indeed Samsung's BIOS update caused this, giving them a call might be wise, so they don't accuse you of messing it up yourself, in case you have to rely on them to get it fixed eventually.

 

I don't know why, but I left the laptop without charger for one night and today it is perfectly functioning.

Thank you all for the help!

 

Thanks for the update. That's good, whatever the explanation.

 

Hey guys, so like a few of you I received the BIOS update today from P04ACJ to P05ACJ, however I have been stuck on this screen (save setting...) for over an hour and a half. I went through SWUpdate like usual. The first time it failed because I didn't plug in the AC adapter, so I just re-ran it. As you can see I can access my taskbar and also my live tiles.

Any ideas what to do here??



Alright so now I had a window pop up saying that BIOS update is not responding. I selected wait for it to respond. And I'm sitting here now. (Gray screen, blue Windows circulating loading icon)




UPDATE: Force closed it. Everything seems to be OK. (Crossed fingers/sorry for the mini panic)

 

Whew, you dodged a bullet there!

If/when you try the update again, make sure you do it outside SW Update, as described in the opening post of John's BIOS Update thread. I would give you a link, but am away from my PC now. It's in the sticky list on top of the Samsung forum root.

 

Here it is.

Use this route and you can see what is happening. But check that it finds P05ACJ. Occasionally the BIOS Update.exe program finds the wrong BIOS.

John

 

Thanks guys. Ill update the post once I'm through with it.

 

Have an NP940XG3A-K05US and am a bit confused by all of the BIOS update discussion of late. I had not previously heard or read that SW Update was no longer functioning properly and it has recently done very smooth and fast updates of: BIOS (to PO5ACJ), Bluetooth, LCD FW and Sound driver. All is working well and Device Manager shows the updates did get installed as SU indicated.

Thus, questions:

1) Is the consensus of the brain trust that Software Update is still a valid and trustworthy tool?
2) I updated my BIOS before having read the precautions re: only update if 3 letters match you current version. Is there any way to find out what your most recent previous BIOS version was?
3) Pretty sure the answer is no, but to be thorough, does Windows Restore undo a BIOS update if you restore to state previous to last BIOS update?

Thank you (you know who you are!) for always making me feel secure in my choice of this awesome piece of kit by answering every beck and call from users in distress!

All the best,
Jeff

 

SW Update is the only way to get Samsung's recommended updated software and drivers. However, sometimes even newer drivers are available direct from the hardware manufacturers. I do not recommended doing a BIOS Update within SW Update because there have been too many reports of people been left hanging when the process starts but never ends. Instead, if SW Update advises of a newer update then run the separate BIOS Update program which will check for any newer BIOS and give you the option to download it. You then run the downloaded BIOS installer and it will give you a progress dialog.

The BIOS releases are usually, but not always, in numerical sequence. One forum member wrote a program to help trawl through Samsung's BIOS database to search for a particular version. If like me, you use the executable BIOS update and keep the file then you will accumulate a trail of older versions.

You are correct. Reverting to a previous Samsung BIOS is a challenge as discussed in this thread in contrast to other manufacturers such as Dell who make all the released BIOS versions available and allow the user to overwrite a newer BIOS with an older one.

John

 

Hi Jamesg,

I have completed installing the Transcend 512 SSD. The performance & battery backup is same as Samsung ---

1) While installing this, I came across a rubber padding that would be to rest the Samsung SSD as it has chips on only one side unlike the Transcend where it has chips on both side. If I left that, that was actually causing a bent in the SSD which was not ok. So I had removed that rubber padding. Did you also do the same ?

2) The other thing which I noticed the Transcend heats up a little more easily or as it shows in Crystal Disk Info. The Samsung usually started with a 27 C and would get stable at 35-38 C in normal operation. The Transcend would easily move to 35 C in few minutes and shoots to 47-49 C and sometimes to 53 C when there are some data transfers happening from an external drive. Is this normal ? Is this something to worry about...

 

Hey guys

So i received my NP940X3G-K06US ultrabook 9/2/14 it was awesome until friday 9/5/14 when i noticed when i had it plugged in while doing some work on it the battery level would still be used up, and eventually go all the way to 5% and auto shut off (which is another question i had about how to turn that feature off). the next day (yesterday 9/6/14) i noticed i was having trouble trying to charge the laptop and that the light wasnt even coming on to show it was charging on the computer, but the led on the power adapter was. I unplugged the power adapter and after about 10min plugged it back into the laptop, and it started charging again. I talked to samsung support about this and they wanted me to do a bios battery calibrate. which i said ok, but i told them i would do it later as i just charged it up and saw it was going to take 15 hours it said. before i went to sleep i noticed that again i was having the problem of charging the laptop, and noticed i was at 20% so i did the battery calibrate right before i went to sleep. once waking up today im still having the problem. the laptop wont charge and i cant even turn the laptop on. the LED on the power adapter turns on, but the led on the laptop itself to show its charging never comes on.

hopefully this all makes sense as im rushing as i have an appointment to go to and was hoping to take the laptop with me. any help is appreciated thanks.

 

Hi Shark Bait, congrats on that lovely AB9+.

A Battery Calibration won't hurt, but it should still pick up charging long before the battery drops to 5%. IOW, even if calibration is significantly off, it should still begin charging when the charge drops to, say, 90% or 80%. I doubt calibration is the problem.

Unfortunately it sounds to me like a bad connection in the power connector or socket, if it randomly loses the connection, but regains it after unplugging/re-plugging. Did you buy it at a store that can give you a simple swap to another unit?

Do note that on Samsung laptops, the power jacks often have to be pushed surprisingly hard into the socket to be firmly seated and make a proper connection. Many users have wondered why the jack was so lose in the socket, only to find that it wasn't fully pushed in.

 

Hi Kauban,

1) Yes, I removed the rubber padding too. The Transcend SSD has chips on both sides of the board, so the spacer isn't required.

2) Sounds fine to me.

 

Yes. That is the first thing to check - a few people have been caught out by this.

When the plug is fully pushed in there should be no significant gap between the plastic on the plug and the computer.

John

 

i already pushed the power jack into the socket the furthest it could go, but nothing. I bought the laptop from amazon, and they are willing to give me a replacement. Although the problem now is being that it has some personal information on it as well as some (i think) one time use codes for like webroot antivirus, and microsoft proffesional plus 2013 (word,excel,pp, etc).

Also i just bought a samsung power adapter at best buy a few mins ago hoping it was just the power adapter. well it looks like it might be that pin :/ as the new power adapter i just bought didnt charge/ no battery indicator lights turned on.

 

If you have enough power remaining then you could use Samsung Recovery 6 to make an image of the SSD onto an external drive which you can then restore onto the replacement machine then afterwards restore the factory image on this machine.

John

 

You would lose windows activation and will need to reactivate with the key from the replacement laptop. You will also probably have to reactivate Office. It should be painless, but I always had activation issues after samsung replaced the MB on my old S9. This is a little different situation, but you should probably activate windows on the replacement before you do the restore so MS knows what machine (MB) the license is tied to. Then extract the key so you can reactivate the migration.

 

Plextor SSD. Looks like it might be a good fit and a bit more performance than the Transcend. M6G-2280

 

I am having ongoing issues with the touchpad on my NP940X3G - K06US. Samsung wants me to return-- even though I am convinced it is a software issue related to one or another updates that have been issued by either Microsoft or Elan or Samsung. Any thoughts or advisement gang?

 

Different Elan driver versions do indeed perform differently on different models, and can cause degraded sensitivity and erratic behavior. I recently reverted to version 11.7.10.4 because it behaves better for me than later versions.

Even so, I am also convinced that the Elan touchpads vary quite a bit between units of the same model, with some being borderline, but not so bad that users suspect a hardware defect. I personally returned two different units of my Series 7 due to touchpad quality issues, before getting one that was perfect. I have often advised members to do the same instead of hanging on to a unit that is only barely good enough. These Elan touchpads can be excellent when they work right.

Most of our Elan Touchpad advice is in the thread linked below, though there is also quite a bit earlier in this thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...hronos-np700z5a-trackpad-discussion-only.html

 

Thanks Dannemand for the advisement and discussion link. Where would I obtain older driver versions with which to experiment? Oh also-- when I use the the Fn + F5 -- the light comes on, but this has no effect whatsoever on the touchpad's functionality. That can't be normal can it?

 

You have to use the Find Model feature in SW Update to hunt for them, then save them locally.

With some googling for a specific version number (such as 11.7.10.4) you may be able to locate a post that tells you under which model to find it.

 

I have had this notebook for over a month, plan to switch from my trusty old NP900X3C-A03US

The last couple days I managed to find some time to continue with the setup (development tools etc.)

On several situations I almost THREW the damn thing across the room! Never mind the massive piece of crap this windows 8 is. I spend what amounts to hours modifying and hacking this stupid sorry excuse of an OS just to make it usable.

The latest drivers for the Touchpad are something that should have NEVER BEEN RELEASED. It's utterly unbelievable that something like this can ever be released. Have they even tested this with this computer? It makes it completely unusable. Constant issues when trying to scroll or expand panels, constant missed clicks. How many times do I need to click on something before it registers? You click and the pointer jumps 2 inches, try to scroll and can't grab on to the scroll bar... the list goes on.

I tried varies versions of the Elantech drivers I found online. Most did not work at all, installed but windows would not switch to them and manually changing the drivers did not work for some reason.

I was ready to give up and go back to my old S9 and last thing I tried was to rollback the driver back to Microsoft PS/2 Compatible Mouse from 6/21/2006 !!! Guess what, the freaking touchpad is perfect. No more issues at all. Works great just like it should. Yes you give up some of the bells and whistles that honestly are not needed. I mean what good are all the extra features IF THE MAIN functionality is completely broken?

If the touchpad works perfect with 2006 Microsoft driver then its NOT the issue with the touchpad. Its the issue with complete crap drivers that should never be released to the public. I can't believe Samsung would put themselves in this position. I bet there are MANY people completely disgusted with this computer due to the drivers.

Next quest, force windows 8 to let me do what I want when being a member of the administrative user group!

 

Not sure what to tell you about all that. I did a clean W8.1 install on my X3G with only touchpad+settings from samsung, wifi+graphics from intel and classic shell. I really have few gripes with W8 now. The only issue I have is the wifi seldom reconnects after sleep, but this is possibly related to my netgear router. The touchpad is also not very receptive to two finger tap right click.

 

Perhaps as already suggested, there are multiple versions or revisions of the touchpad and some of these do not work well with the fit all drivers?

 

Try this (unless you're resigned to using that PS/2 mouse compatibility mode driver):

1) Download Touchpad driver version 11.7.10.4 (SW Update - Find Model - NP880Z5E-X03CA - Windows 8). Notice that it's under Win8 drivers, NOT Win8.1. Try that specific version.

2) Uninstall your existing Touchpad driver using Windows Programs and Features control panel. Reboot.

3) Delete the touchpad device in Device Manager (it may show up as a mouse).

4) Install the touchpad driver version 11.7.10.4 which you downloaded. Reboot.

5) Tweak settings to your liking using the standard Touchpad control panel and, if needed, the "secret" ETDAniConf (see here and here).

Do note that Elan drivers have an issue where they sometimes "forget" to load after wake-up from sleep. When this happens, the touchpad will work in mouse compatibility mode, not using any of the Elan settings or features. Many users have pulled their hair out trying to make the touchpad work right, when in reality, the driver just isn't loaded right because of this wake-up problem. Usually, another sleep/wake cycle will load it, but other times you have to Log out and back in -- or even Restart Windows. I see it happen from time to time, and it can be quite annoying. There is more talk about it here.

 

Hey everyone,

I just purchased this laptop and have been enjoying it greatly for the past week and a half. I have noticed though that I am getting really poor battery life compared to what I have read and seen about the atb9+. I have gotten a max of 4 hours off charge, and my estimated time of life is also really poor. Please see attached image -- when I took the screenshot it was with 50% brightness.

Has anyone had a problem like this? Any suggestions?

 

First, look at the CPU utilisation in Task Manager. Ideally, for long battery time you want that to be less than 5%. If the utilisation is higher than this, which processes are loading the CPU.

I would suggest that we do a little scientific research: (Re)start the computer, pull out the mains power and run BatteryInfoView so you can see the battery discharge rate. With programs running (other than BatteryInfoView and whatever loads when you start the computer) and the display on minimum brightness what is the lowest discharge rate you observe. It will keep changing but I would expect it to get below 4,000mW at times. Then increase the display brightness a few steps and see how the power drain changes, then a few more steps of brightness, etc, up to maximum brightness (which probably doubles the idle power consumption).

You may also want to try the Samsung Optimized power plan. This may include a few tweaks compared to the default Windows balanced power plan. It should be in the power plans. If not then reinstall Settings (which loads the power plans among all its other configurations).

John

 

I feel your pain, truly! Others (below) have more practical advice than I do (most of what I know I learned from them, lol), but I did struggle for a while with my trackpad and still have days when I could swear it is acting less responsive and more whacky - but for months never unserviceable by a long shot - and I've learned a few things beyond the more scientific approach suggested below. First, keep the surface of the trackpad clean with a product made for this or even one made to clean LCD screens. Do it daily, even more than once if you have been using it a lot, it is warm, and, - forgive me - your hands may not have been crystal clean all day! Second, in Device Manager, uninstall the keyboard driver - not the trackpad driver, but the keyboard driver, which is an old 2006 MS Windows relic like many of the core drivers on Windows machines today. Then reboot. The old keyboard driver will automatically re-install itself. On both this Samsung laptop and several others by different mfrs I have found this "trick" to often "right" trackpad wonkiness. It was recommended to me several years ago and I pull it out of my bag of tricks when my trackpad becomes uncharacteristically out of sorts - IOW, not just acting a little poorly, but totally whacky. Others can tell you what doing this might achieve, but clearly, like any driver uninstall/reinstall, it appears to re-sort things electrical in that area of operation and in the software architecture of windows laptops for many years the seemingly meaningless keyboard driver seems, when un/re-installed, to put the trackpad back in order, and I mean from all but useless to absolutely perfect.

Beyond this, see below (above in the actual thread) for sage and highly knowledgeable advice. Don't give up, and don't throw the machine against the wall!! This machine really only has a few software quirks - which are occasionally created by crappy driver updates - and otherwise it is both a hardware and software masterpiece. Just takes a little patience and reaching out as you have done.

I've found this process to be successful the ONE time I've needed it. If my trackpad was working fine and suddenly got weird, I have found the approaches I mention above to be faster and easier and often effective, though I believe there may be a correlation between the load-from-sleep problems and the keyboard driver re-load. As with all computers, best to have a bag of tricks to employ hierarchically when old issues crop op, IMO.

I not only strongly endorse this approach, I also want to give extra kudos to John for recommending the tool, BatteryInfoView, that is almost a ghost among power management utilities! I have been using it for over a year and it provides a wealth of data on your power usage and is the only tool I know of that enables the kind of approach John suggests here. I strongly recommend everyone to download this tiny utility and pin it to your taskbar. It uses very little power itself, but it doesn't self-activate so I try to make it a habit to turn it on manually whenever I start to run on battery. Other than lacking a persistent screen indicator of remaining battery time or %, it is far, far superior in every way to Battery Bar, which samples so infrequently and uses a crude algorithm to predict remaining battery time that it rarely conveys useful information and is often misleading. Good on you, John!

 

Thank you guys for the suggestions on the touchpad issue. I will try that version in the next couple days. The 2006 Microsoft driver has been working well and I'm mostly happy with it. This made a huge deference to be actually able to use the notebook.

Another set of issues I has was related to the high resolution and the way Windows handles or better say NOT handles the scaling. Many apps would freak out and load with super tiny text. This was very evident during program installation. For example when installing the latest MySQL database, the installation screen are super small and part of the content gets cut off and no way to scroll to it or expand the window. This means that some of the configuration settings can't be changed! Another issue was when using VNC or remote desktop to another machine. the resulting view was not usable at all and would also not scale to the size of the window. What has mostly resolved the issue was changing the resolution to 2048x1152. Now both the installation screens as well as the VNC or Remote Desktop works fine.

 

In Device Manager for the Intel Dual Band Wireless N 7260, disable the "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." With newer intel wifi drivers, this is more of a problem. The original intel driver if you roll back also does not have this issue.

 

Thanks for the reply John. I'll try out your suggestions and let you know how it goes.

 

Rolled back to 2006 mouse driver still having same issues. Its a bit less of an issue only because of less functionality but the same issues exist for me. Glitchy, locks up, freezes ect.... Example if I just swirl the mouse in a circle on the screen eventually it just starts to hang or stop. That is my quick and dirty test. Has anyone fired up Windows 7 to see if this issue exists?

For those who rolled back are you completely glitch free?

 

It was someone in this forum who alerted me to BatteryInfoView. I agree that BatteryBar is unsuitable for close monitoring of the battery drain.

I used to recommend HWiNFO > Sensors for monitoring battery drain but this program has the disadvantage that its monitoring of many sensors increases the CPU load.

John

 

This may have solved it. Thanks. Now if only I could get two finger tap for right click to work better on the touchpad.

 

Just a heads up, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on this forum yet, but Chrome finally supports high dpi monitors. That means it finally looks good on high res screens like the ab9+! I was very happy to stumble upon this because I can finally switch back to chrome as my primary browser.

 

I tried this trick and unfortunately my problems popped up again within 5 minutes. I'm at a loss. The laptop is nearly useless with the touchpad freezing up completely at least once or twice per hour, necessitating me putting it to sleep and waking it back up. Really disappointed.

 

Hello guys,

My sincere apologies if this question was asked already. Is the i7/8GB/256GB version available in Croatia? I was in most major Samsung stores in the country but failed to find it. I also contacted Samsung support but they were not able to help me. Is it available anywhere in the Europe? I will not mind if I will have to order it from the UK. If it is available in the UK, can somebody provide me with some website links that sell this beast? I really do not want to order it from the US. Thank you so much in advance!

 

Finally.

Thanks for the news. Looks like it's working for me (and I didn't have to do anything which is always good).

 

Samsung seem to be running down their notebook stocks in Europe. Notebook.de used to have a good selection of Samsung notebooks (and Germany had more versions of each than any other European country) but now there are only two on that website.

Someone is offering what claims to be a Netherlands version (NP940X3G-K02NL) of the NP940X3G with the specs you want on Amazon UK but clicking on the details shows it as a US version.

You may well find that the only stock of the top spec NP940X3G remaining in Europe is open-box or refurbished and that will take some searching for.

John

 

Onj2, my touchpad issues have gone away for a few weeks now... try this and let me know if it works. Most important, keep Bios Fast Mode off and reset the touchpad drivers after re-install.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...-owner-s-lounge-np940x3g-152.html#post9758076

 

John, thank you for the information. It makes me wonder why is so hard to get top notch laptop of theirs in Europe. Like it is small market and not worth it or something. I am sure there are plenty of IT and other professionals who would gladly buy the specific notebook.