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

Thank you very much. I have just implemented your suggestions and I will let you know how it works out.

 

Unfortunately, the performance just is not on par with the IE still. It, just not as quick and snappy. Definitely looks like they need to do some optimization for touch and high res still. At least that's my experience.

 

The fix seemed good for about an hour and now the same problems are back.

Ok so I just put the dynamic touchpad status indicator in the taskbar. You know, the thing that lights up when it detects that you're using the touchpad. When I get the issues flare up with the freezing, the indicator stays lit up, indicating that it thinks it's being clicked, even though I'm not touching it. I don't know why this is happening, because I keep the drag and drop setting off.

 

Sorry to hear that... My touchpad used to have issues daily, but since 8/24/14 it has been flawless. When I fist got my laptop in 2013, touchpad was functional... at some point in July 2014 (some bios, driver, windows update???), it started having the erratic behavior. Now, it is good again for a few weeks. The last things I recorded in my notes were those changes I wrote up.

 

I don't have touch so I can't compare. All I know is my url and bookmarks bars are a reasonable size now (and not blurry), but I'm only at 1080p 150%.

 

Another question, is there a way to set the max battery charging to 80% like in the older S9 models to reduce the degradation of the battery?

Thanks

 

Hi John, some good ideas and points there. I had many issues with apps scaling when using the full resolution of 3200x1800 driving me crazy. I tries changing the default resolution down to 2048x1152 and as far as I can tell all the scaling issues I have experienced are now gone.

 

I just tried this driver version 11.7.10.4 and here are my findings. It does appear to be working much better then the latest for this computer 11.7.19.9

One issue I did notice is that I can't turn off the one finger tap which unfortunately I hate as I often times accidentally click on things while moving the pointer. I can uncheck in the touchpad interface in control panel yet it does not have any effect. I tried using the ETDAniConf.exe tool and same, it has no effect at all.

I have tried changing the registry HKCU\Software\Elantech\SmartPadDisplay\

Tap_Activate_Enable
Tap_Enable
Tap_One_Finger_Enable

all to 0

reboot and guess what the

Tap_Activate_Enable
Tap_One_Finger_Enable

gets switched back to 1

 

There isn't. Someone asked Samsung and was told that improved battery technology meant this facility was no longer needed. However, I wonder if they were getting too many support queries from people who expected the Battery Life Extender to increase their battery run time.

So you almost have FHD resolution in order to achieve something usable. I'm now looking at 14" FHD @ 125% scaling (on a Dell E7440) and while many things scale OK some things appear rather small.

I recall accumulating numerous different touchpad entries in the registry after trying different Elan drivers and it became difficult to figure out which ones mattered. There might be mileage in uninstalling the driver then going through the registry deleting anything Elan before reinstalling what you think is the best driver.

John

 

I wonder if this was based on any meaningful science or pseudo science. Perhaps it was correct with older batteries like the memory effect and longer is needed. I did use it on my older Series 9 as well as Sony Z2 and honestly the battery life shortened quite a bit after about 2 years of daily use. I have not timed this new notebook but I think I will just to get an idea as to how much time I can get out of 100% charge in a typical use day for my case. I have been using it now on the train for about 30min and the indicator shows 5h 7m. This is using the Stock Samsung optimized setting and Screen at 100% + WiFi active to my phone's hot spot.

 

Yes, honestly its quite useful and about the highest I would want to go with on a 13" screen. Its great for Outlook where I can have the list of emails on the left and email preview on the right side. Same goes for situations where I have two explorer windows side to side or Firefox open with Firebug interface on the right side. For development work in Eclipse I upped the font size for the code while the rest of the panels are smaller and do not take up much room. I normally close all panels and only leave the code editor active but this is no longer necessary. Now where its very useful is when you have two code editor panels side by side or use code comparing to SVN history or between versions. For reading anything online where its a longer article, I do zoom in a little to make it easier and less stressful on the eyes. This type of resolution on the 15" or 15.6" would be perfect. The existing 15.6" 1920x1080 offer from Samsung, honestly is not very impressive and I think a waste of desktop. I was planning on buying the NP930X5J model to give it a try but the longer I use this one the less I feel the need. Although everyone is different with different needs.

Speaking of the new 15.6" models I hate how they bloated it up for no good reason. Would love the older 15" footprint with a high res screen and a keyboard with a touch pad which give much better utilization of the space. I also own NP700Z5C-S02UB which has perfect keyboard with number pad that uses full width of the case with no wasted empty space on the edges. Not sure why they could not put that keyboard on Series 9 15" models. While it has 15.6" screen and the number pad, it is still smaller width and depth then the new S9 offers.

NP700Z5C-S02UB 15.6" 1600 x 900 5.29 lb 14.20 w 9.30 d 0.94 h
NP930X5J-S01US 15.6" 1920 x 1080 3.92 lb 14.74 w 9.84 d 0.59 h
NP940X5J-K02US 15.6" 1920 x 1080 4.40 lb 14.74 w 9.84 d 0.63 h

 

Right now I'm running again 11.7.19.9 which is the same version that was originally installed when I just re-installed windows and that was giving me all the issues with scrolling and moving panels etc. I have no idea what was the reason but all I did was uninstall it and try the Windows 2006 driver, then I tried he 11.7.10.4 driver. Uninstalled and re-installed 11.7.19.9 driver. I turned off all the 'One finger' options in the interface under Control Panel and so far so good. I did not yet reboot to see if they 'stick' but if they do not, I guess I will have to keep changing this after every reboot. Honestly I reboot maybe once every two weeks anyway and only use the sleep option. I just have too many apps, servers and browser instances / tabs running to allow 'easy' reboot.

 

The general thinking about Lithium batteries is that much of the damage to the chemistry occurs towards the extremes of the charge range. ie when charging to full or discharging to empty. Samsung (or anyone else) can improve the battery longevity by programming it to think it is full when it is only at 80% or 90%. The risk then is that it will be more frequently drained towards empty. I think one reason that my X4C's battery is still very healthy after 2 years is that it was a generous capacity so I didn't often charge it to full and rarely needed to use it on battery for long enough to get near to empty. Haswell's in use (as opposed to idle) power efficiency isn't good enough to give the same freedom with a smaller battery.

You can check the health of the battery using BatteryInfoView (except that the real wear is 100% minus what it reports). The wear is how much the actual capacity is below the designed capacity. This will progressively increase although a recalibration will sometimes recover some of the reported wear.

I prefer the centrally mounted keyboard without the numpad at the side but I suspect an element of fashion went into the design. The Dell XPS15-9530 / M3800 is even worse in this respect because it lacks the column of navigation keys on the right side of the keyboard.

John

 

The new SW Update has new Windows 8.1 common patches... see if it helps fix anything.

 

Need Help. My two finger scroll is not working anymore.

Any advise?

 

Sounds like it could be the issue mentioned here (that was a link) where the touchpad driver doesn't load properly after sleep. If so, Restart should help. Sometimes another sleep/wake cycle will do it too.

Also, study posts in this thread over the last week or so. There has been much discussion and good advice posted about the touchpad.

 

I apologize for taking so long to respond to this

I just tried disabling One Finger Tap using Elan driver 11.7.10.4, and for me it does indeed stop responding to taps when I do, and start responding again when I re-enable it. Of course mine is a different model (NP700Z3A) and maybe a different Windows version (Win8, not 8.1) but at least it's not like they forgot that feature entirely in this driver version.

I still find much better general behavior with this version than with the later versions I tried -- across many Restarts, Shutdowns (Win8 Fast Startup) and sleep/wake cycles.

As previously noted, I do occasionally experience the issue where the Elan driver "forgets" to load after sleep/wake, acting in plain mouse compatibility mode, and requiring another sleep/wake cycle or Restart to fix it. Member isosunrise made some great suggestions in this post (that was a link) that may help with that. I think you already saw it, but I include it here for completeness.

I can certainly understand if these touchpad frustrations might trigger other One Finger gestures, or even Fist Pounding gestures that could be damaging to the device itself

 

I want to repeat a "fix" that may or may not have any technical logic behind it but its been recommended by several mfrs (reason enough to suspect it ), including Sony and HP, and I have used it successfully on my AB9+, and has worked for me at least 50% of the time, and nearly always permanently (= at least a week, lol!) The procedure is:

1) go to Device Manager
2) select "Keyboards" (yup, not mouse or HID!)
3) select likely the only keyboard (disconnect any USB or BT kbs), "PS/2" and uninstall its driver

4) Reboot - the std keyboard driver will reinstall itself
5) Either the trackpad is behaving normally, or this is not your lucky day

A few caveats:

A) I don't know why this works (thoughts, brain trust?) and that's less than reassuring, but the electrical overlaps between the two devices (keyboard and trackpad) suggests that if the trackpad driver becomes corrupted, the keyboard "reset" may remove garbage from the trackpad sftwe.
B) This has only worked for me when the trackpad went haywire and became virtually uncontrollable. I have never tried it when a specific function wasn't working right. Cant say if it would or wouldn't work if one feature only malfunctoned.
C) If you have a bad trackpad driver version with known problems, this will not help with those problems

Bottom line: with the above provisos in mind, this is so easy and fast there seems to be no reason not to try it. I'm virtually certain it can do no harm.

Good luck. @John Ratsey, dannemd, love to hear your thoughts.

 

Definitely ROLL back your driver for the wifi card!! I have been getting abhorrent speeds recently just on my laptop and I had no idea what was going on since all my other wifi devices were working just fine at home. After I rolled back the drivers my card was back at its regular speeds and no more issues.

 

Thank you for sharing this.

Trying to answer your question of why it works, my first thought (and please don't take offense now ) is that the reboot in step (4) could be the fix in many cases. This is certainly true if the problem is that one where the Elan driver "forgets" to load itself.

I realize that I am sounding like a broken record on this issue, but I've seen so many reports here (for all models, in all threads) where that diagnosis fits: (A) The touchpad suddenly starts behaving strangely, where it was working well previously; (B) It happens after a sleep/wake or EVEN after a could boot; (C) No amount of tweaking the touchpad settings will fix it.

When this issue occurs, the touchpad runs in plain mouse compatibility mode: Acceleration and sensitivity will be different; Elan gestures (such as two-finger tap, scrolling etc) don't work; and tweaking the Touchpad control panel (or ETDAniConf) has no effect.

Surprisingly, a Shutdown may not fix it, since Win8.x simply hibernates and reloads the machine state when Fast Startup is enabled (which is default), so the Elan driver may still not load properly. Only an actual Restart is guaranteed to load the driver, although often a sleep/wake cycle will fix it too.

The Elan driver has another issue, where it takes forever to load after startup or login, causing the touchpad to run in mouse compatibility mode until it does. This is particularly common in Win7, due to the Samsung Fast Boot Mode of Easy Settings (a nefarious software feature described in our Settings/Easy Settings thread, NOT to be confused with the Fast BIOS/Fast Boot firmware feature). But I have seen it happen in Win8 as well (even though Settings thankfully doesn't have that nefarious feature).

The solution to this issue is a full roll back of all touchpad drivers in Device Manager (keep deleting the device, checking "Delete the driver software for this device" as long as it shows) followed by a reboot and re-install of the Elan driver. On models with HDD, defragging can help (NOT on SSDs of course). Deleting Old Prefetch data with CCleaner can sometimes help as well. What we try to accomplish, is have the Elan driver load early instead of late after Windows startup.

So while I am not ruling out that a different keyboard driver can have an effect, I would recommend testing for the above mentioned issues BEFORE taking the step of uninstalling the keyboard driver.

BUT, all that generic troubleshooting advice aside, you and member dariusf may be on to something important here with that PS/2 driver: The keyboard and the touchpad communicate through the same internal PS/2 port, so a bad PS/2 port driver could conceivably affect the touchpad. I believe the Elan driver runs all its advanced stuff through the SMbus ( System Management Bus) and the PS/2 port is only used in mouse compatibility mode. But maybe the problem here is that sometimes that PS/2 driver doesn't properly hand off to the Elan SMBus driver, and that's when the touchpad won't behave.

Here is what puzzles me: On my Sammy (Win8, and Elan driver 11.7.10.4) my PS/2 Keyboard device already uses the old Microsoft driver from 2006 (see below). I haven't done anything to achieve that, it is presumably what Microsoft included with Win8. And as noted in other posts, I have very few touchpad issues.



If you were able to "Delete the driver software for this device" when you removed your Keyboard device, that means some other driver than the original Windows built-in one was running. Do you happen to know which driver it was? A newer Win8.1 driver maybe (if your installation is a Win8-to-8.1 update)? Or a 3rd party driver? Or maybe even a malware keyboard logger?

In any case would it be interesting to hear from other members which PS/2 Keyboard driver they have, and whether they have few or many touchpad issues. Please include Windows and Elan driver driver version as well -- and if Win8.1 whether it is an update or clean/factory install.

 

Never! I have pretty thick skin (developed over 58 yrs!) and besides, you are a minor God in my (tech) life. :hi2:

The only reason I differ with this advice is that - as you discuss below and as I have experienced purely with dumb luck and the advice of questionable sources - uninstalling, ( not deleting, as you refer to below (more on this later) is so simple and quick that if, as you suggest below, this procedure may achieve the same full reboot that is not otherwise achievable through more conventional means of resetting, is so easy and fast that, like a simple reboot without the PS/2 uninstall, would instinctively seem like the first thing to try, rather than the list of steps you suggest trying first - though it's not entirely clear to me if you feel the keyboard uninstall/reboot can't possibly help without those precedent steps which, if so, would cause me to say "never mind! But if you think, as I believe you suggest below, that the keyboard uninstall/reboot (automatically reinstalling the same 2006 MS keybd driver as was just uninstalled) might work because the keyboard and touchpad communicate through the same PS/2 port and a corrupted PS/2 driver could cause the touchpad to malfunction, then this incredibly easy, fast step would seem to me to be the first thing to try, applying the principal of Occam's Razor [/QUOTE]

Just to clarify again that one point, I do not "delete" the keyboard, I uninstall its driver, the same 2006 Windows generic PS/2 driver you illustrate above and which, btw, is the only keyboard driver I have seen on any Windows 7 or 8 notebook. FWIW, I have found the same approach "fix" problems with other hardware problems, especially wifi - Intel 623x especially - in which a simple uninstall, reboot reinstalls the same version of the driver with the same settings I had but instead of malfunctioning, it just works! Here again, it may be some combination of Occam's Razor and/or dumb luck, but the one obvious thing it would do is potentially reinstall an uncorrupted driver for one that had become corrupted. Ya think?

Ironically, I have only once had an issue with the touch pad of any Sammy computer - more so with HP and Sony - so I keep harping on this approach not because I personally have problems with Sammy touchpads, but because the one time I did - and it was similar to the standard scenario you describe above - this approach cured it, as it has on other brands' products in the past, suggesting your theory of the PS/2 Keyboard driver becoming corrupted, though it doesn't necessarily affect the keyboard performance, is enough to foul the touchpad performance due to the shared port and handoff to Elan.

By the way, dannemd, thanks for addressing this. After two unanswered posts I was beginning to think everyone thought it was such a dumb idea that it didn't deserve responding to! It may prove to be just that (so far, no one has posted: "hey, it worked for me!"), but it was offered in sincerity to help our brethren (and sistren!) with this very vexing problem. Would that most issues were so easy to fix! Thanks again for your amazingly helpful and prompt responses. :thumbsup::hi2:

 

Thank you!

I should have been clearer in my post: My advice to first try a simple Restart or re-install the Elan driver was not so much directed at your specific situation or advice, but more a general recommendation. The issue where the Elan driver "forgets" to load is very common, particularly for members who use sleep most of the time. But it can even persist across a Shutdown, because Win8 doesn't actually Restart after Shutdown, but merely hibernates/resumes the machine state. I just want to spare users from elaborate driver surgery if all they're seeing is this particular issue.

BUT what you and member dariusf reported about the Keyboard and PS/2 drivers, respectively, may lead us to the actual cause of some of these Elan touchpad issues. So I was very interested in your reports.

On the matter of "uninstalling" vs "deleting" in Device Manager: When you Select Uninstall from the right-click menu in Device Manage it deletes the device key in registry. In fact, you can also just hit the Delete key to invoke the same action. This does NOT uninstall any driver software. As you mention, it can often be a beneficial cure if a device has become messed up, and is usually harmless (though not always).



When you said you had uninstalled the Keyboard driver in Device Manager, I understood you had used the "Delete the driver software for this device" option, which DOES, in fact, uninstall the actual driver for a device. This option is only displayed when an updated driver has been installed at some point, it will never permit Windows' built-in driver to be uninstalled. (As a general note, it is a rather forceful uninstall, and generally should only be used AFTER a driver has been uninstalled using the Programs and Features control panel.)



So I assumed you had had a newer Keyboard driver installed (since you were able to uninstall the driver) when in fact you simply meant you uninstalled the device (deleted the device key). Indeed, your Windows was using the same 2006 driver all along. I apologize for the confusion

With that misunderstanding out of the way, we're back to what you've been saying all along: That deleting (uninstalling) the Keyboard device and having Windows re-detect it, has solved (or significantly improved) your touchpad issues. Did I get it right this time?

That's a great, and very simple fix. I cannot think of a reason why anybody with touchpad problems shouldn't try that. And I will be VERY interested to hear the outcomes from other members

Thanks again for sharing it!

 

Is anyone's touchscreen always set to off in the Input settings section of the Samsung Settings? My touchscreen is always on and works fine, but that setting is always turned off and changing it to on doesn't do anything.

 

You got it exactly right! Thanks too for explaining the difference between deleting the device key and actually deleting/uninstalling its driver! Why would Windows want to make that distinction clear if they can keep it ambiguous, lol! It was truly a joy to toss this issue around with you and both learn so much and, due largely to my ignorance, use up a lot of white space to clarify how minimal my recommendation really was. All modesty aside, though, one does learn to gravitate to what works and my main contribution to NBR forums over the years has been either in dealing with companies on business issues (my "expertise" or repeating the advice others have given me that were successful in curing a problem.

That said, I do really enjoy the learning I gain from both reading and participating in these forums. I've split my membership time about evenly between HP and Sony, as I owned many machines from each over the past 4 years, but this year has been the "year of Samsung" for me (owned the Ivy Bridge NP9xxxx but sold it due to clacky space bar and inferior keyboard and took the plunge on this machine when I tried it and found the keyboard had improved, the battery life had doubled, the sound was even better and the screen - hmm, combination like/annoyed; wish they would have kept it at FHD and put the $ into better color quality, a little more brightness and, of course, a matte finish (Thinkpads, HP Elitebooks and Fujitsu tablet PCs have had matte touchscreens for years and they performed perfectly, I don't get the touchscreen = glossy in the W8 era!) Still, I love this machine (NP940X3G-K05) and usually run it on FHD/150% and everything scales perfectly and FHD and below content - including text - look as sharp and vivid as it does on native resolution. (I will say that when I check out 4k videos on YouTube this screen at native resolution is just spectacular and, as I keep notebooks for 4 yrs+ I expect I will be glad this has the ability to handle what should become more widely available content in the future.)

Oops - buried/skipped the lead of the previous paragraph! As was the case particularly with the Sony Z NBR community, my comfort and enjoyment of my NP940X3G is as much due to the fantastic community support as to the virtues of the machine itself. I know that there are others making very substantial contributions, but the incredibly fast, responsive and informative support from you, dannemd and from John Ratsey not only increase my security that this mfr-unsupported machine (whether or not they stop making notebooks, I wouldn't notice a change in support because it's so bad now! I had the same experience when Sony exited the business!) will not become unusable, it's also so gratifying that there are folks who truly enjoy educating and assisting as you two - and others - clearly do. There are so many excellent notebooks out there today at absurdly low prices (my net cost for this machine to remain unpublished in the event I have reason to sell it in the next year ) so that choosing comes down to some intangibles and for me, the quality of the NBR support community has become a primary one of those intangibles. The more people who participate and add to the discussion, the better it gets. I hate to think it primarily falls on the two SuperMods :thumbsup: we have, but I can tell you that the only thing short of a sudden meltdown of the hardware that would cause me to sell this phenomenal piece of kit would be if the two of you retired this gig!

Thanks again,
Jeff

 

DIY support is a skill learnt in the days when the internet didn't exist. What were you doing then? My anti-virus updates arrived on a floppy disc every one month or 3 months depending on how much I paid.

Unfortunately, our skills don't extend as far as modding BIOSes which is one area that needs attention. Unfortunately, Samsung people aren't very good at modding BIOSes either.

John

 

It was definitely NOT my intention to marginalize your observation and advice. On the contrary: Now that I understand what you meant, I can absolutely see how it might be possible that many Elan touchpad issues (particular the one where it doesn't wake up after sleep) could be related to a messed up PS/2 Keyboard device. AND that deleting the device and having Windows re-detect it might be a fix. The fact that it is such an easy and (as far as I can see) harmless fix, just makes it better.

I am eager to hear from other members who suffer from this issue whether it will help them. Once we (hopefully) have confirmation, you should post it in our general touchpad thread:

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

 

Hmm....where was I during those days? Oh yes, I remember, those were the days when most PCs were desktops and hardware was easiest to "diagnose" by pulling out a card and replacing it! As for software, particularly OS-level, back in the x86 days I don't recall encountering many sftwe issues. Oh, and back then I had an IT department - or at least an "IT guy" to call on anytime I couldn't figure things out for myself. (I had my own administrative assistant in those days too, and a staff, and a large office....ah, those days! )

But getting back to reality, do you really feel the BIOS on the NP9xxxxxx models are so screwed up that in lieu of continued support and updating by Samsung (a less and less likely scenario it seems) is so screwed up it may limit key functionality going forward? I'm not aware of any BIOS-related problems I'm having at present, but I'm not taxing this machine very much, not doing anything even so "exotic" as running VMs. Comes down to a key question: would it be smart to consider selling the AB9+ while mine is still mint and it still fetches a nice price and going with a Dell bus. class or a Thinkpad and not be kept up at night worrying that I'm hitched to a soon to be defunct machine? See my comments below about advisability of sticking with a Samsung NP9 series given your concerns about the BIOS and everyone's concerns about Samsung's future making and supporting laptops.

No worries. I don't feel marginalized in the slightest - least of all by you. Glad to have stumbled on something that may save some grief for others.

What's your opinion on whether BIOS problems will prove fatal if Samsung has issued its last revision? Is it you or John who moved to a Dell Latitude 7440?

I seem to have a habit of "discovering" great products that manufacturers decide to abandon shortly after my acquisition. The HP Spectre 13t was a lovely AB9+ alternative that I purchased loaded to the gills (much like my NP940X3G-K05) for $1,000 with generous HP discounts. There was much about the machine to love as well as the AB9+ but, having been released in November 2013, it was gone from HP's CTO pages by May 2014 and there is no successor. I own a lot of laptops and mobile devices as an indulgence/hobby but I like my daily driver to be something I can count on to develop (or have) a good sized installed base and the promise of ongoing support. So I returned the HP and bought the AB9+. I don't really need the durability or upgradeability of a bus. class machine (though I've owned many) and have become seduced lately by the sleekness and light weight of the premium class Ultrabooks. But hearing people having problems that the two of you have layed off on peculiarities of the Samung BIOS(es) makes me wonder if a Latitude or Precision might be a better choice. Thoughts?
[h=2][/h]

 

The good news about the BIOSes is that Samsung stop doing updates then users won't have the risk of BIOS updates breaking anything new. The one residual BIOS bug that directly concerns me is the update nearly a year ago that made some Series 8 & 9 very fussy about the type of RAM modues they would accept (not an issue for those notebooks with soldered RAM).

If you are happy with your notebbok in its current software configuration then it's likely to continue to give you good service and a backup image of the complete SSD might be advisible to avoid the possible issues that sometimes bit people when they try clean installations of Windows.

It's me who has the E7440 which came with Windows 7 and without UEFI enabled (although it has a Windows 8 key). Perhaps this leaves me in the computing stone age for a while longer but it's also my comfort zone. The E7440 was the nearest I could find as a successor to my NP900X4C (I was primarily looking for a better display). I had my money waiting for the NP930X5J but it failed to show up in the UK. My NP900X3B is also in daily use and feels like it will keeping running for a long time.

John

 

Thanks John.

New problem:

Suddenly (I'm pretty certain) when I enlarge a YouTube (only) video from partial to full screen size (on my AB9+) the image colors get entirely whacky - way over saturated, over contrasted, distorted hues and pretty much unwatchable. It's only happening on YouTube videos and only in full screen mode. I noticed it first yesterday and am pretty sure it's a new issue. I haven't done anything to the computer lately. I've tried using all the different color settings on the Samsung Settings control panel and nothing fixes the problem. If I go to the Intel Graphics control panel and turn the saturation way, way down and fiddle with a couple of other settings, I can get the YouTube full screen image looking fine, but then everything, still and non-YouTube videos (full and partial screen) look nearly black and white.

Help!

UPDATE:

Played around and found:

1)This only happens with YouTube set to Flash, and only on Firefox. No Problem when set to HTML5. Also, no problem on Chrome or IE. (But Firefox is my massively preferred browser!)
2) Don't have this problem using Flash-based Amazon Instant Video (vs. Silverlight option)
3) Setting to HTML5 on Firefox, highest resolution available drops from up to 2100 to 720p ???

So, at least I've got a workaround, but wondering if anyone has any ideas about why FF flash-based videos on full screen suddenly became unwatchable and why HTML5 videos - on FF only - only support as high as 720p?

Thanks, Jeff

 

In the past (before Win8.1) Microsoft did a great job of making sure new Windows versions were backwards compatible with old hardware and firmware. Even Win8 (which made the big switch to UEFI) is perfectly compatible with old legacy BIOS computers.

In such a world, I wouldn't be too worried about keeping a computer in service for several years, even without support from the vendor, relying on OEMs (Intel, Nvidia, AMD etc) to provide drivers, and on Microsoft to keep Windows backwards compatible.

But with Win8.1 Microsoft seemed to have abandoned that virtue: This is the first Windows update in a decade to trash installations unless you remembered to update your BIOS first. XP SP2 had some issues as well (changes in AHCI support, problems with some BIOSes) but that mostly affected new installs, not updates. Win8.1 actually bricked several computers, both during updates and new installs. Many also found that it trashed their Samsung Recovery during clean install, making it impossible to factory restore.

We don't know if this was a one-time oversight on Microsoft's part -- and/or caused/exacerbated by Samsung's firmware being less than standard in its implementation. The fact that Samsung hasn't bothered to update their BIOS to fix the RAM issue mentioned by John would indicate that the latter is a contributing factor.

If Windows 9 proves to be nicely backwards compatible, I think we should be fine for a few years.

 

Some subtle difference between the browsers might be affecting whether the system recognises the Youtube movie as being a video.

My first thought is to check the Movie Color Enhancer option in Settings (Fn+F1) > Display. If it is enabled then try deselecting it.

Next is to try to change the hardware / software acceleration of the Flash video player (right click on the playing window, IIRC).

Finally, the Intel graphics control panel contains various video options but I get the impression that you might have been there.

John

 

Just upgraded my BIOS and graphics card firmware.
This annoying auto-dimming "feature" is back and I don't know how to get rid of it!
I was able to get rid of it before by going into
Graphics properties -> Power -> On battery -> and turning off "Display power saving technology"

Now after the update, I no longer see "Display power saving technology" this option.
Anyone know how to disable this annoying feature?

 

I need to digest these posts. I have been back to ELAN 11.7.19.9 and still have same scrolling and clicking issues. From time to time I click on the scroll bar of a window and try to move it and nothing happens. In other times it jumps. Its driving me crazy and I need to try some of the suggestions here or just get back to the Windows 2006 driver and forget about it. I need a way to use this computer

 

Ordinarily I would say this sounds like a latency issue where some other process (poorly written driver or software, or even some malware) is monopolizing the CPU and preventing the touchpad driver from responding in a timely manner. You can study the thread below for an example of diagnosing and pinpointing such an issue (in that case caused by an HDD defect):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/750256-samsung-5-series-laptop-freezing-issues.html

But the fact that it works fine with the 2006 PS/2 touchpad driver would indicate otherwise. I suggest you try thoroughly cleaning out all previous Elan driver versions, followed by deleting the Samsung PS/2 Port Input Device in Device Manager and checking Delete the driver software for this device (if it is still there). Then definitely try member lovelaptops' suggestion and delete the Standard PS/2 Keyboard device in Device Manager as well. You can also delete leftover Elan keys in registry as previously suggested by John. Then Restart.

Now re-install Samsung's Elan driver version 11.7.10.4 (which works best for me, and I believe you said worked more smoothly for you as well). You may want to create an image backup or Restore Point before you re-install the Elan driver. That will make it easier to revert to this "clean state".

The logic behind lovelaptops' advice is that it can affect the PS/2 port which is shared by the keyboard and the touchpad. The related logic that probably explains why the old PS/2 driver works so well for you, is that that driver ONLY uses the PS/2 port, whereas the Elan driver uses an SMBus interface for its advanced features -- or maybe for everything.

 

Turned out to be option # 3: Turn off hardware acceleration from Flash player. See, I need you; I didn't find that in 30 mins of searching and I don't know when/if I would have come to it on my own :thumbsup:. Curious: does anyone know why YouTube with HTML5 player maxxes out at 720p? Also, any thoughts as to why the oversaturation with youtube flash player only occurred with Firefox browser with hardware acceleration toggled on in Flash player? Also wonder why only recently, though I'm guessing most recent FF update could be culprit. Thanks again. Not only did you get me 1080p back, but also 2100p so I could marvel at how great my currently inapproriate resolution screen will make most content look in a few years

 

Wasn't that #2 on my list? IIRC, hardware acceleration support in Flash has only been around for 2 or 3 years so it's probably still a bit buggy (as is the whole of Flash). But it's quite possible that a recent update to Firefox or the Intel graphics driver has messed something up so it would be worthwhile checking from time to time if the problem has gone away.

John

 

Well, third paragraph if not third option! While we're on the subject (of Flash), for several years it's been "common knowledge" and heavily publicized that Flash is heavily flawed, essentially unfixable, soon to be dropped for support by Adobe and much replaced by HTML5. Why then does it persist as by far the most common video and graphics engine on the Web with no sign of abating and, for that matter, still supported and updated by Adobe, if to mediocre effect at best?

 

Dear All, I hope this is the right place to ask this question. Probably it has already been answered in one of the 164 pages in this thread so I am sorry for asking again but search option was no use to be honest.
1. Can someone report what is the measured battery life? I read so many reviews and numbers varies from 5h to 10h. I would like to know what can I expect in normal office usage (brightness 30-50%, wifi on, browser on etc.)
2. Does anyone know how Samsung battery life compares to Acer S7-392 6411 (HD res model). Again I read various reviews which point that Acer can last up to 9h when Samsung under the same conditions "only" 7h 50min.
3. Screen resolution, is it possible to use HD res in Ativ Book instead of QHD+ (ok i know it is but how things will look like, will everything be a bit blurred?) Is scaling still a problem in Windows 8.1? Also about a screen I read Samsung released a patch to fix "yellows" which caused 30min less battery running time, can anyone comment on this one?
4. Has anyone have CrustialDiskMark result for 256 SSD version ?
Thanks for your help

 

You want to disable Adaptive Brightness -- which many Samsung owners have found tricky. Check the posts here and here.

 

Sooo... I have not been able to use the full 3200x1800 resolution since I updated to Windows 8.1.
I have the NP940X3G-K05US.
Have tried different drivers including the Iris ones straight from Intel website...
Also tried the ones from Windows Update... No luck It seems I'm stuck on 1920x1080p even though resolution claims to be 3200x1800.
IS this due to the so called re-scaling I've been hearing about? Can it get disabled?
Why would I need that much resolution you mean?
Well I connect to a regional server via remote desktop, use multiple windows of Avionte software for hiring purposes and check a company wide updatable google doc on browser.
I need that screen real-estate that is why I bought this computer to begin with!!!
Any idea how to get the overkill resolution again? It ran like nothing on Windows 8.
Currently reinstalled SW Update to try the exported drivers will see how it goes....
Samsung support as always isn't much help... So please any help would be greatly appreciated...
Thanks!!!

 

Are you sure that display scaling isn't set to 175-200%?
Control Panel > Display > Check "Let me choose" box to see/change

 

Has anyone tried any Anti-Glare film on the screen?

I really need to stop that reflection as its very hard to use in many situations.

Here is one option I found on ebay

Anti Glare Screen Cover for Samsung NP940X3G NP900X3E NP900X3C NP900X3D NP900X3F | eBay

Any other suggestions? I did disable the touch screen by the way so its not a concern if it interferes.

 

Who is going to put Windows 10 on their ATB9P ?

 

I'll probably try it on an X3D this weekend, if there's time.

 

Hey everyone, i recently got a AB9+ used and I'm running into some problems:

- How do I reverse the touchpad scrolling?
- I can't seem to align my desktop icons to the bottom right on top of the taskbar, there is a row of space between the taskbar and where the icons align to.
- My right USB port doesn't seem to work at all. I tried multiple devices and they don't appear to get detected at all. No errors under device manager.

All drivers/bios were updated through SWUpdater (it looks like theres no individual drivers available for this laptop online?)

Hopefully you guys can help out. Thanks in advance!

 

See this thread regarding the touchpad configuration.

Did you look in Device Manager to see if there are any device problems? If there's nothing there then maybe the port is dead. The ultimate test would be to try to boot from a device connected to that port which would then exclude any problems in Windows configuration.

John

 

Thanks John for the response,

Definitely seems like a dead USB port after further testing. Regarding the other issues, Samsung told me there is no official touchpad software to adjust the scrolling, and as for aligning the icons - doesn't look like it's possible either.

Looks like it's going back.

 

This is false. If you go into programs and find the elantech folder their is a GUI to control the touchpad options. Some of them do not have the reverse scrolling option, so you may need to download another version. But definitely exchange first so both usb ports are working, 2 is already pretty limited.

 

As member go45cvi posted, Reverse scrolling can definitely be configured, and so can dozens of other touchpad features that are not visible in the official (and very simplistic) control panel.

This post has the basics (in the touchpad thread linked by John). And this discussion elaborates (earlier in this thread).

Definitely have that USB port fixed. But you can verify the workability of your touchpad first, if you're considering returning the laptop altogether.

That should be the same as any other computer with the same screen resolution running the same Windows version. But I recall Samsung's bloatware includes a Launcher of some sort, and I wonder if it is taking over part of your desktop, preventing you from placing icons there. Member TheCracker recently created this useful list of Samsung bloat. Use that list to remove anything not strictly necessary (using the Programs and Features control panel).

 

Thanks for the response. There is indeed a trackpad GUI (though it did not scale with the resolution ) and it sorted out the scrolling - good for future reference!