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

Are you having difficult in getting ETDAniConf.exe to run or does it not show the 3 and 4 finger options? You could go into the registry and look at the settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Elantech and try some changes.

John

 

I can still run ETDAniConf.exe and I think that allows me access to everything, although I cannot remember what the 3-finger swipe options were in the Control Panel to match them up - obviously not that big of a deal. What is most frustrating is how installing one version works fine, installing another works fine, but then I cannot make the first one work at all anymore.

 

Anyone else notice the flickering issue pretty much go away after the 8.1 update? Its been a few days and I haven really noticed it again.

 

is it just me, or does this model not seem to be selling that well? there seems to be very few owners here after many months of lead-up discussion to its release.

 

Many of us like me are still waiting for the pre-order to ship!

 

I believe I have 2.1.20 installed. I was prompted to update settings, which I did. After that, my Bluetooth no longer worked. I went to troubleshoot devices, and it prompted me to reinstall the Bluetooth driver and the IWD bus enumerator. The Bluetooth driver was successfully reinstalled, but the IWD bus enumerator driver update failed. Not sure what that even is, but obviously not happy something is not working. Besides for that, the only real substantive issue I'm having is that the touchpad won't save settings after restarting.

At the end of the day, this is really embarrassing for Samsung. Amazing that they are able to manufacture such great quality products, but are so inept at product launching and customer service.

 

There has not been any marketing push for this laptop - even Samsung sales reps were clueless about it immediately before and after the presale. Nothing sells well without marketing. My guess is that they wanted to get the device out as early as possible, but knew any significant investment in marketing would be lost as the device was designed with an OS update not yet released. Since we know the 8GB/256GB is coming, I would expect any marketing push to come with the official release of that model, and in time for the Holidays.

 

I noticed that I had two IWD Bus Enumerators in my device manager. The second referred to a problem of it already existing. I first disabled the second IWD, then deleted it, and it appears that it may have solved that issue. Not sure what the issue was to begin with.

Another issue I am seeing is that the Intel Experience Center won't run, as it says something like "more driver are necessary to run this program." I downloaded a program from Intel to search the computer to see if all drivers are up to date, and it did not read any of the drivers. Something is clearly not working properly.

 

Speaking of which Samsung has changed the shipping for the NP940X3G-K04US from " 1 to 3 days" to " Preorder...will ship in 2-3 weeks"

 

they better do something, especially since this is their only model that incorporates Haswell.

meanwhile the Yoga 2 Pro with the same QHD+ display was just released and there's already a ton of new owners and buzz about it. it'll be hard for Samsung to ignore that.

 

has anyone tried this pouch on ab9+?
Series 9 NPC Sleeve AA-BS3N13B - OVERVIEW | SAMSUNG

I want a authentic pouch for mine but only can find ones for series 9 on samsung website.
any good suggestions?

 

Same preference for authentic brand accessories here. Had this pouch for a few days and although it looks great on the pictures, it isn't protective at all. See it as a stylish cover that prevents scratches, but won't protect against bumps and the occasional pressure from things next to it in e.g. a schoolbag. Example: I put my notebook on a daily basis in a school-backpack with several books/notes/stuff. I noticed that at times the books/stuff would 'bump' into the notebook when I walked on stairs etc. while walking with the bag on my back. Moreover, each time putting the bag on the floor would 'bump' the lower side of the notebook on the floor too. I don't think the notebook will get warped anytime soon, but I can imagine that these bumps could damage the sides and corners (just like my sister's Macbook Air, who has been using a Paul Smith Saffiano Sleeve for a few months now).

I returned the leather pouch and exchanged it for a Be-ez LA robe for the Macbook Air 13" (the AB9+ fits perfectly with nearly same dimensions as the MBA), which solved the above issues.

 

Has anyone here been able to upgrade the SSD on their AB9+ to a 256 or higher? If so could you please specify what brand/model you used.

Thanks!

 

The SSD is the M.2 (gumstick) format which is hard to find as a spare part.

I don't think anyone has yet managed to locate a source.

John

 

Has anyone tried running Linux on the AB9+? Does anyone know how's the support for this machine and whether the scaling works ok?

 

memory4less has 128gb to 480gb m.2 but it aint cheap.

 

At my local best buy I tried to put a B9 Lite into this sleeve but it simply would not fit. The B9 Lite was too wide. I don't know if the B9 Plus will fit, but officially Samsung says it is not compatible. FYI:

B9 Lite 12.76" x 8.82" x 0.69"
B9 Plus 12.58" x 8.78" x 0.54"
Series 9 12.3" x 8.6" x 0.51"

If you go to the accessories page for the B9+ on the Samsung US webpage it links the AA-BS8N13B/US, which it claims to be a "slim pouch for ativ book 7/9 13" - Black". However, when I found this at Best Buy the package says for B5 and B7 13" models, not B9 models. Also, when I put the B9 Lite into it, the pouch was clearly over-sized.

I hope that Samsung will eventually have pouch specifically for the B9+ and B9 Lite.

 

Geeeezz the new Macbook pro retina starts at 1299 now. Got one on order, even thou the last gen. did not impress me. The Ativ Book 9 dropped to 1299 here in Sweden last week so I still think it will be the better choise. Still loving mine btw.

 

Latest Ubuntu boots up but you would need to run it at 1080p for it to be usable. But from what I hear, the super latest version of Gnome has support for proper DPI scaling, so if you find a distro with that, It should work well with the native resolution.

 

I wish someone was able to try this sleeve with the AB9+. I know it was designed for the previous Series 9 (AB9) model, but just going over the dimensions, I see some potential for it to fit despite the AB9 Lite not fitting as you found. It's not just that the AB9 Lite is almost .5" wider, it's that it is .18" thicker - that means that as it slides into the sleeve, the sides of the sleeve are getting rounded and the ends are being pulled in toward each other by a total of about .36". Add that to the .5" of extra length and you can see that the AB9 Lite needs about .86" more room than the older AB9. The AB9+ is basically the same thickness as the AB9, so it only needs .34" more room than the AB9 - there could be a much better chance of the AB9+ fitting... theoretically.

 

I'd love to see some pics of the AB9+ in this sleeve and where did you get it?

 

Thanks for that info. I'm having a hard time finding the right part on the memory4less website though. Any chance you could share a specific link with a 256gb ssd that would fit the AB9+ ?

Much appreciated!

 

Greetings.

Two questions:

1) Under what resolution do you run Photshop? I am not a pro PS User, so I need to se all the tool, and when I use Qhd+, I could just as well tried to finger read over the screen, the letters are sooo small.

2) Are there any news on connecting to a external monitor with 2560 x 1440px?

 

Got my laptop yesterday, love it, but experiencing two strange issues-

1. Task Manager ALWAYS reports at least 40% memory usage, even with nothing open. It typically stays between 50-60%. Is this normal for Win 8.1, or do I have something weird going on?

2. Every time I reboot it forgets all my Elan trackpad settings.

Anyone else?

 

Anyone experiencing a flickering screen, try this (I don't know if this is well known or not).

1. disable adaptive brightness in the power option (I'm sure people know how to do this)
2. Right-click on the desktop, select "graphics properties"
3. Click "Power"
4. Switch it to "on battery"
5. Un-check "Display Power Saving Technology"

I found that this 'display power saving technology' changes the level of brightness based on what images are being displayed on the screen.
Hope it helps.

Cheers

 

1. Is IntelliMemory installed? If so, uninstall it. It's a disk caching program but there's no obvious benefit when the computer has an SSD.

2. Look though yesterday's posts in the Windows 8 Upgrade thread. The problem and fix is there.

John

 

Wow, two birds with one stone. I uninstalled and re-installed the touchpad drivers, and nuked WiDi while I was at it, and now everything is great and my memory usage dropped a full 20%. THANK YOU!

 

@leftbrain and lagos:

Could you comment on a direct fan noise comparison between Book 9 and Book 9 plus in typical situations (in a silent room)? I am thinking about ordering both to compare, but if there is a clear winner I could spare me this. I've decided I'll let the fan noise be the determinant which of the two to get. I can tolerate both 4GB on the 9, and glare on the 9+, but I won't tolerate more fan noise than necessary. Thanks for comments -- else I will be ordering both next week and do my own comparison.
Cheers.

 

I can tell you that the fan noise of the Ativ Book 9 with Ivy Bridge is a little bit annoying when in a completely silent room. The fans are constant on and audible, while CPU temps stay at low 40C. I only had the AB9+ a short time but i couldn't here the fans when the notebook was idle. Of course both machines also have "silent mode" which makes the notebook dead silent.

 

There is no noise. The laptop keeps the fan off and only uses passive cooling in normal situations. Obviously if you start gaming or doing something more intensive than web browsing and word processing, the fan will kick on, but for the most part it just stays off. This is all a benefit of the new Haswell processor that's inside the 9 plus.

 

(please only read this if you are a fan noise hater, too)

Thanks for your feedbacks. I still decided to give the matte a chance, so I will get both laptops and to a side-by-side comparison with identical scenarios. Preview: I will install Opera 17 (with adblock/adblock plus) and an AntiVirus (probably Norton which seems to have gotten quite good), then simultanously start browsing, increasing tabs to up to 50, and simulating browing behavior for at least half an hour (at least until fan activity seems to have reached a constant), thereby taking notes of fan behavior (when it kicks in and how loud/annoying). Tweaking before the test will include
- configuring an optimum of CPU throttling that will not affect browsing speed noticeably (perhaps as mentioned in http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/651937-series-9-question-how-does-silent-mode-work-2.html )
- disabling unnessary services and bloatware (check for (almost) identical list processes in taskmanager in both notebooks)
- running one long youtube video (medium resolution) and an mp3 running during the whole test to provide a buffer that will simulate typical additional load.
- make sure the antivirus doesn't have a load of updates to install that will obstruct results, i.e. only the constant definitions-update-flow.
- disable any autoupdates (like google) that will suddenly turn up cpu (monitor taskmanager during test, sorted by cpu load)
- also monitor at what point (tab count) there is a point where browsing gets slower/latencies due to 4GB RAM limit.
- if I'm in the mood, repeat test with firefox (adblock/ab plus)
- unfortunately, BES (battle encoder) can only hardthrottle one-process browsers at the moment, but I've asked the developer if he will ad this capability, which would be great. (hard throttling = suspending/unsuspending a process very quickly). If you are interested in this feature in BES, send me a quick PM so I can let the author know there is demand for this. He's busy, but he's very nice and I think if he sees people need this, he might work on it sooner, than later.

 

I have a Samsung Ativ Book 8 and I experienced the same problems when I updated my drivers tonight. I found help on this link on microsoft.com: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...crolling/8ca1444e-5ae0-47a2-bac9-d730ba08c1e8

It lists a link: c:\program files\elantech\ETDSimpleUI.exe that I pasted in my windows explorer address bar and it brings up the mouse options page that has options to enable 3 and 4 finger gestures and make other adjustments to the trackpad. Hopefully it works for you too

 

Just got the Book 9 Plus yesterday and I am now looking for an external monitor. I am wondering if it will drive the Samsung Series 9 Quad HD monitor 2560x1440 using mini-hdmi port? I am looking at the new model S27B971D.

 

That's not actually the same problem I had. I could still launch that ETDSimpleUI.exe control panel, but it was modified by the new driver and stripped of some useful features, like I said. I have still not fixed my problem except to use the ETDAnuConf.exe settings control panel to manage everything.

 

Evidence suggests this is possible although it's beyond the micro HDMI port specification.

The subject is discussed near the start of this thread although an important post is here.

John

 

Agreed - that's what ended up selling me on keeping this device more than anything. The sound is better than anything else on the market, including the Macbooks.

 

SW Update finally just pushed all the drivers to my computer. SD card reader is working fine. The only thing still at issue is the touchpad options still only shows about half of the options. Not sure how to fix that.

 

Hello.

I've just installed this to drivers 9.5.12.1682 and 9.4.0.1026 from SW. Now I have this rattling sound, maybe from the fan or something. Any idea how i can roll back to the previous drivers?

 

Finally.... I just picked up my new NP940X3G-K03CH (i7/8/256) . Wow, what a beauty! Coming from a Macbook Air 11" I'm really impressed by the build quality and sturdiness.
Since there were currently no matching Samsung AB9+ Sleeves available here, I went for a simple 13.3" Laptop and MacBook Sleeve from CaseLogic which (IMHO) is a perfect fit (s. below).

 

Where exactly have you found it? I'm from Switzerland too and highly interested in that notebook.

 

Have a look here.... It's exactly the same as "K04CH" except for Win 8.1 Pro. They got the shipment today around 8AM, 10 minutes later I received the "ready for pickup" confirmation. That was probably the fastest order of my life...

 

Thanks for sharing Lancair. Can you get the model number of the SSD from device manager?

 

It's still a Toshiba M2 SATA (THNSNH256G8NT) but overall with much better sequential write performance compared to the 128GB unit. AS SSD shows 506MB/s read and 464MB/s write (seq) and ATTO peaks at 545MB/s (read) and 503MB/s (write).

 

Does anyone have some good scales for weighing their X3G? The specs given by that Swiss retailer say 1.3kg while S amsung UK says 1.39kg.

It would be useful to have an owner's weight of (i) the basic computer and (ii) computer + PSU + mains cable.

John

 

NP940X3G-K03CH: 1417gr (+/-1gr)
Psu: 185gr (+/-1gr)
Mains cable: 89gr (+/-1gr)
Total: 1691gr

 

1417 grams= 3.12 pounds

1691 grams= 3.72 pounds

 

Thank you.

How long is the mains cable and is it two core (ungrounded) or three core (grounded)?

John

 

Yay thanks a lot! I did not expect it that early here in Switzerland. Actually I was thinking about this one an the Lenovo Yoga Pro, but since I don't know when the latter appears in stores here, I just ordered the Samsung one the site you posted. The price is okay I guess for the Swiss market, since the i5 version costs only about 100 chf less in most stores.

Either way, I'm happy like a little child that I can pick mine up tomorrow evening! Thanks for the hint!

 

Both the -K04 and -K05 are now listed on Samsung's USA page. Assuming again -K05 is Windows 8 Pro, funny that both are listed as the same price, $1799.

Specs - Laptops NP940X3GI | Samsung PCs
Specs - Laptops NP940X3GI | Samsung PCs

 

Well, its showing both the K04 and the K05 as being simply Windows 8.1 (64 bit) so hard to say if K05 is pro or not...

If not, just what is the difference between the two SKU's?