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

My Power/Display settings are identical for plugged in and on battery, and this change still occurs - I don't think it is related to these features. Either there is some color profile change that occurs or maybe somehow the display gets more current when plugged in, though I would have thought the current to be regulated by the power supply.

Other colors do not seem to be noticeably affected, but yellow changes to a murkier greenish/brownish-yellow color about 2 seconds after unplugging and then back to yellow about 1 second after plugging in.

 

Actually I don't think either that there's much of a difference to the Yoga 2 Pro in terms of the yellow problem. I noticed that today while working with it unplugged (see the right picture below, Simpsons pictures are great to show this btw ). Unfortunatly I can't find the settings I had before when it was plugged in, so there's still too much brown/green in the yellows, even when plugged in (left picture). But other than that I really love my new laptop


Left: Ativ Book 9 Plus and my old HP EliteBook 8560p, both plugged in
Right: Ativ Book 9 Plus, unplugged

 

Ativ Book 9 Plus - plug in and out

Here's also a 5 second video to show you what happens if I plug out my laptop (same settings, around 80% brightness).

What seems strange to me, if it is plugged in, the yellows look really good if I turn up the brightness to about 85%. Above that value, instead of getting brighter like the other colors, the yellows turn greenish/brownish. Have you experienced something similar?

 

And finally a comparison with my Dell U2713HM. I don't want to start another "yellowgate" here and I'm very happy with my new Ultrabook so far. I prefer 1-2 hours more battery life over a perfect yellow any time, as long as the power adapter cures this problem, but I also understand, that this doesn't apply to everybody, due to a different scope of application.

(shot with no external lights and same shutter speed/aperture and display brightness)

 

Yes, same here.... really strange, didn't notice that before

 

Are you using your AB9P uHDMI output to show the picture on Dell U2713HM? If yes then using HDMI or DVI input on Dell monitor. What is Vertical frequency?

 

So, all multitouch capability on my touchpad has completely stopped. I did nothing other than reinstall Chrome, then suddenly I noticed not being able to scroll. I rolled back to no avail. Then I uninstalled all drivers and reinstalled. Still nothing is working. I contacted Samsung support and they advised me to roll back to Windows 8.0 and wait for the new touchpad driver coming in a few weeks. He also advised me to wait 3-6 months to upgrade to Win 8.1. I almost gave him some advice, but then I regained composure.

It makes no sense that this would just break on its own after working fine for almost a month with Win 8.1. This is Elan driver v11.7.15.3 and 11.7.18.2

Any thoughts?

EDIT: Actually, I tried the process again and installed v11.7.18.2 and it seems to be working again. It is very strange that this is happening, though. v11.7.15.3 was working fine, and I preferred it because it had more features, but only the newer one works now.

 

No, the Dell was connected to a GTX770 on my desktop system (both displays @60Hz).

 

I have a probably rare problem and need an advice. This is what I heard from one of fans 6 days ago when bought my AB9+ but soon everything went fine. Today, however, this beeping (in reality it is easier to hear beeping than that strange spinning fan) came back: I tried to do some computations (high performance tasks) instead of just browsing - didn't help (it seemed that this one of two fans didn't spin as fast as the other one); tried to turn on silent mode - the mode turned on but all the problems were still there; restart didn't help, shutdown and turning on did help.

So now I am thinking whether I should ask for replacement.. despite beeping (second time in six days) I have no other problems, everything works great. I guess it is quite likely that this problem will come back and even get worse?

Edit: it took only a couple of hours for beeping to come back. At the end of this beeping is a bit clearer than in previous audio. Definitely going to ask for a replacement now..

 

I have NP900x3c connected to Dell U2713HM. The max refresh rate is 39Hz. It would be very interesting to know is the AN9P with new chipset capable for normal (60Hz) refresh rate.
Testing might be tricky, as I needed to use HDMI to DVI cable to achieve this. In another case (uHDMI to HDMI) 1900x1080 (or1200) was the limit. Also I needed to use Intel CustomModeApp.exe to add this reolution.
So could you try to hook up the DELL to AB9P and check is the limit still there?

 

I'll be an owner tomorrow!!

My Amazon order for the AB9+ 8GB/256 says : Shipping Now with delivery expected tomorrow.

 

I've heard the exact same noise a number of times now.
To me, it seems like it only happens when power management is set to anything other than high performance. I've been running my laptop on high performance for 3 days now, and yet I haven't come across the weird fan noise + beeping noise.
However, I cannot be sure if it will come back. I need to keep an ear out for a bit longer to confirm that this is indeed a power management problem.
Is there anyone else out there with this similar problem?
The sound i hear is exactly the same.

 

Hey,
Just bought the i5 module and I am facing a strange issue, sometimes when I wake the computer from sleep or blank screen saver, the screen starts blinking/flashing black for some seconds and then it's alright. Anyone faced this issue? is it hardware or software?

 

I am not sure whether this is the same issue, but here is a solution that helped me with flickering that occurred while e.g. browsing:

 

Just received my NP940X3G-K04US from Amazon! Won't have time to play with it until tonight :-/.

 

New owner here K04. Searched for "Chrome", "Small," "Upscale," but can't find anything in the thread which helps with chrome being so small. Can someone please direct me? Thanks.

 

See this post.

John

 

Lol. Thanks. I was looking for a way to delete my post. Thanks.

 

LOL ! I didn't notice who made the other post.

Anyway, we'll leave it ready for the next person with the same question.

John

 

I wasn't able to find the K04US on Amazon other than one for $2100. Do you have a link?

 

Any way to invert the 2 finger scrolling? Making scrolling up go up, down go down.
(I searched both threads for invert, scroll, and reverse).
Thanks.

 

Anyone noticing this issue?

 

Run "ETDAniConf.exe" which is in the touchpad driver package.

It contains a lot of pad configuration options.

John

 

The latest Samsung touchpad drivers removed the ability to un-reverse scrolling (technically it is set to "reverse" by default, just like Macs) using the normal Control Panel touchpad settings. As John said, ETDAniConf.exe will bring up more of the Elan touchpad control settings. Samsung is also releasing a new touchpad driver in about two weeks, so let's hope they add the features they stripped out of the default touchpad control in the last release.

 

I just got the i7, 8 gigs of ram version and so far I love it. But, I don't know if this is normal, but the left-clicking on the trackpad is much harder and have a completely different "sound" to it. It's is much louder and as I said much harder to press than the rigth-clicking. Am I the only one that have that "problem"?
And I can totally see that the yellow is much darker then it should be, just like the Y2P! Not that big of a problem, but still a minus when you spend so much on a laptop. Windows 8.1 was pre-installed and have no problem with drivers

 

Am I the only one, that experience very high RAM usage? From the picture you can see that I use 54% of the ram, more than 4 gigs of ram. It's a danish version and "hukommelse" means "ram" The thing that I find wierd is that I use more than 4 gigs, so if I had the 4 gigs version I wouldn't been able to use it, and I really don't have that much open! Chrome seems to be the biggest ram "eater" and I only have 3 tabs open :O ... Does anyone have an idea why it's so high, and do anyone have the same "problem"? I have the i7/8 gb/256 ssd version...

And I cant find IntelliMemory, that some have been reporting use a lot of ram???

On my 3 year old HP, that only has 4 gigs of ram I never use more than 2.7 gigs and that's with 15 tabs open in chrome, 5 pdf's, 3 word docs open and that only use about 2.7 gigs on win7. So I really dont understand why it is SOOO high on my AB9+ when I have so little open..

 

Appreciate it. It couldn't find it in Run. But was able to just search for ETDAniConf.
Thanks John Ratsey and leftbrain99.

 

On my new X3G, on boot my RAM is at 19% (1.5/7.9GB). I uninstalled a bunch of bloatware yesterday. I can post a list when I get the chance.

 

It looks like this limit still exists. 1920x1080@60Hz was no problem (uHDMI-HDMI) but to get it work at 2560x1440 I had to use the "CustomModeApp" too. However, I've only tried some settings in the 60-50Hz range, before I went straight down to 30Hz - possibly 39Hz might work as well.

 

This is quite normal... the more RAM you have the more 'crap' will be cached by OS and apps, so things run a tad faster. Remove 4 gigs from your AB9+ (which is not possible without soldering of course ) and your notebook would run perfectly happy @ 2-3gigs with the same apps in use.

 

Hi all,

If I missed this, my apologies.

I'm interested in this machine, but there have been numerous complaints about how the default screen resolution makes Chrome unusable. Apparently reducing the screen res slightly will fix this. Does anyone have any screenshots of Chrome when it's not usable? This request extends to current and soon-to-be users.

If reducing the resolution circumvents this problem, I'd like to see a before & after pic so I can see what you're seeing. I'm a stubbornly avid Chrome user, so this is a big deal.

Thanks!

 

It's not about changing the resolution - scaling allows Windows to resize most applications (those which are developed to support scaling) without adjusting the resolution of the display.

Attached are two fullscreen screenshots of Chrome on my AB9+. The first is at normal scaling - because of the high resolution of the display, the text and controls are very, very tiny. The second is at 160% scaling, which sizes application windows to something resembling the sizes you would find on a 1440x900 display. Keep in mind that these screenshots are not indicative of the quality of the display, just the relative display size of text.

 

I posted this in which notebook to buy thread.
Probably more relevant here too as well
Hope everyone is having a great time with their ativ book 9 plus.

I have two samsung ativ book 9 plus units, purchased a few days ago the 01 series. One for me and one for bro.
Hardware and quality control wise the units are sensational. I have put them side by side checked same websites, etc and they are identical in image quality, whites, blacks and colors.
The wifi, cpu, gpu, touchpad all work great not a single issue whatsoever with these components. The fans are basically inaudible. If you go very close to the right hand side you might be able to hear the fans but only when running demanding 3d apps or something requiring a bit of grunt. In my setting up, web-browsing, installing office 2013 I hardly can hear the fans at all they are super quiet and the base of the unit is very cool not warm at all.

I have noticed the yellow color turns to a slight mustard yellow(not really all that bad but if you do go looking for it you will probably notice it) on battery power, with auto brightness for display, but for me this is not an issue as I use it mainly with whites and office 2013 when travelling and occasional website browsing via wifi. When plugged in the yellows have no issues at all and honestly the quality is beyond retina especially with photos so to me this and the higher resolution provide future proof until windows gets it scaling right for such high resolutions notebooks/ultrabooks. Battery wise I have yet to test the units but I am extremely happy with what samsung has achieved here. They are to be complimented on refining haswell with excellent battery results.

The slimness, keyboard backlight, chiclet keyboard and the screen quality are all stunning A+ in the field. What's more the weight and finish of the unit is the best I have seen in an ultrabook. Forget mac, this thing whips it for good in every area except batery but seriously 8-9hrs v 12hrs is not that big issue for me as most of my flights and journeys are around 6-7 hrs at most and beyond that I think I would get DVT on the flight from sitting too much.
I had heard about the lenovo yoga 2 pro but it is hard to find where I am if not see it in store(I prefer to play with unit before buy). To hear some users have wifi issues on yoga pro 2 reminds me of the sony vaio duo 13 which is appalling when it comes to wifi and distance. Atrocious hardware and support from Sony with wifi usb dongles offered as a remedy/solution.

The Samsung ativ book 9 plus to me and probably many others is the premium ultrabook at the moment. I have no buyers' remorse whatsoever and have to be honest have nothing but praise for samsung as an ultrabook manufacturer.

One amazing ultrabook. I'll post some photos soon

 

Ohh okay, thanks

isosunrise: have you removed Samsung Link Service and Samsung Link Tray Agent?

 

Furthermore, regarding the yellow color reproduction on ativ 9 plus, it is definitely not an issue on the Samsung but it is on the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2.
Thanks to the very kind TWhiteInCO user in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/ide...yoga-2-pro-release-thread-39.html#post9410781 take a look at the pics of Samsung ativ 9 plus v the lenovo yoga pro 2 below.
In this first one we have Lenovo on left v Samsung Ativ on right.

In this second one we have HP desktop monitor on the left(reference) and lenovo on the right.


What can we infer from these pics?
Well I am viewing them on my Alienware M17xr2 which has 1900x1200RGB LED screen with very wide screen gamut - probably one of the best laptop screens in color reproduction alone I have ever used. It's even better than my desktop 24'' Dell monitor.
To me the Samsung has no issues at all perhaps more saturated yellow than even the HP and is definitely comparable to the HP monitor. The Lenovo, however, is olive drab yellow and this is quite visible and obvious in both pics.

Conclusion?
The Samsung has no yellow abberation whereas the Lenovo does. I have also heard issue with other color reproduction on lenovo with reds being more orange but this needs further proof/evidence.

 

A little guidance please.

I have my resolution set to 3200 x1800. I have the custom size setting at 250%. Everything looks good to my eye EXCEPT Chrome which looks a little fuzzy or muddy. Using browsers IE and Firefox are crystal clear.

Am I missing something with these settings? I know it is mostly personal taste but wondering if I am maximizing the screen image to the best this machine can offer.

 

On my unit running Win 8.1, SWUpdate just pushed a graphics driver update and after a reboot, yellows are yellow rather than mustard when unplugged from AC (it was always fine when plugged into AC). I have auto brightness disabled.

 

My system memory stays low, less than 20%.

Uninstall Programs
- Absolute Reminder
- Adobe Photoshop Elements
- AllShare
- Bitcasa
- HomeSync
- Intel Experience Center Desktop Software
- Intel Manageability Engine Firmware Recovery Agent
- Microsoft Office
- Norton
- Oasis2Service
- Phone Screen Sharing
- Plants vs Zombines
- Samsung Kies
- Samsung Link
- SideSync
- Smart Advisor

Task Scheduler
- Delete: advRecovery, intel update manager 2x, Send Samsung
- Disable: SAgent

Services
SW Update to manual

 

Strange, when plugged in I have no issue with yellows, no matter what energy option I choose (only if I turn up brightness to 100% the yellows somehow turn greenish). Unplugged on the other hand the yellows always appear a little ugly, even on maximum performance mode. Are there other settings you changed? I already have auto brightness disabled.

Apart from that I absolutly love this laptop and can sign everything tron2^ wrote above.

 

What's your recommended scaling % for the programs that do not support such a high resolution screen?
I have photoshop and a couple of other programs that are essential for my work but it is unusable at the moment.
Is the only solution to this lowering the resolution every time?

 

So. maybe I've missed this but how exactly do I boot into BIOS? I've tried the F2 key once the Samsung logo appears but it never comes up. It hangs on the Samsung logo.

 

Ok. I set the DPI % to 150%. I prefer this to the default 200%, and trying it at 100% was just too much strain... 150% DPI and changing the Chrome's HiDPI flag thing works for me.

 

Wow this is great news.
Edit: I have sent email to Klaus @ notebookcheck. I am curious what they find and Lisa will you update your review?

 

Ok some further updates as I have been playing with the units today(irresistible)

The multimedia experience of the ativ 9 plus is excellent. Actually probably one of the best audio sounding notebooks I have ever used.
As I am an audiophile I would recommend the classic(classical music) option in the Samsung config utility. This provides it with a great blend of bass and mid-range and top end(neutral). The standard setting is a tad too bass heavy and lacks the mid-range and top end. Actually, associating the word bass with an ultrabook/notebook is a misnomer and to hear this ultrabook produce it is quite amazing to say the least.
Watching movies with this audio which images like crazy in a stereophonic plane at least half a metre outside of the ultrabook is mind-blowing. And the screen is fabulous too. Blacks are great and the unique screen aspect ratio makes the high definition video fill up the whole screen making it an awesome viewing experience, although it does crop slightly the full image but this is not an issue.

Seems the more I use it the more I am getting attached to it. The keyboard is just right. Typing on it I thought it may have been problematic from some online reviews, but the response and pressure of the keys is just right. There is a shallow depth to the Chiclet keyboard, but this allows you to type fast and the layout of space between the keys is superb.

The only thing I may do in the future is use partition magic to split the hard drive into 2 partitions c and d. At the moment with only one drive it's hard to see your folders as c can become quite clutered with folders.
I also uninstalled Norton security as MS defender is perfect for me and I may uninstall some other bloatware in the future.

Overall, the experience of using this ultrabook gets better and better by the day.
Thnx Samsung you really have amazed me with this one.

 

I am using 100% zoom on ie10 and 1920x1080, FHD large text scale. Loving it so far.

 

Ok guys I am going to give everyone a very useful tip to maximise boot up time and general speediness of this beautiful ultrabook.

I noticed today that side by side my 2 units were showing something weird. When booting up and comparing them one Samsung ativ 9 plus was booting up much faster than the other and I thought woahh what is going on.?
So I did some investigative work and here are the results.
The power options can sometimes affect the gpu clock and for some reason the slower ativ 9 I noticed the gpu clock was going at 200MHz whilst the other one was showing 600MHz a big I substantial difference. So I thought what is causing this? Is there some software than can control it? Looked everywhere nothing...

Here is the image you all will want to keep an eye on. I used hwinfo 64 to see the difference. A very good program as well as I use it on the alienware and clevo models with good effect.


Note the red circled box keep an eye on this cause if it drops to 200MHz the bootup time is significantly slower by about 2-3 seconds and app loading in desktop/metro also suffers.

So... how did I solve this issue?
Well serendipitously I realised it could be power related as notebookcheck spoke about the intel 4600igpu being affected by power options.
PS - please note that I was running both ultrabooks on battery and one was showing 600 the other 200 for igpu clock speed.

Then I cleverly attached the battery plug into unit and voila the clock went up in hwinfo64. I then removed it and it stuck @600MHz. You can restart the ultrabook, you can shut it down and then start it up again and 600MHz will stick. woooot
I think though that the trick is to remove the power whilst unit is on and not shutdown and leave power cable in and then disconnect it. I will experiment to see if the latter pushes it back to 200MHz and update in due course. Something though did activate it on the other ultrabook and I am not sure what it was but it's working now at 600MHz.

Here is the link to hwinfo64 which you will need to identify if you are running on slow or fast clock speed for the igpu.
HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download

I will also add both units just run beautifully now nice fast and zippy. Webpages spit out.
Loving it...

 

Start tapping the F2 key (about twice per second - don't hold it down) immediately after pressing the power button. If fastboot is enabled (the default) there's only about one second when the computer will respond to the F2 (or F4 (recovery) or F10 (one-time boot device priority) keys).

Alternatively, Charms > change PC Settings > General > Advanced Startup (note that passing this point kills all open applications so save anything first) then look for one about Boot priority. Selecting this will reboot straight into the BIOS.

John

 

How can I determine which app is slowing my shutdown?

A message pops up saying something like "....this app is slowing shutdown...." and shows a very small icon but it is too small and goes too fast to see what it is. In about 3 or 4 seconds the computer does continue to shutdown....but I am finding the message annoying.

 

Administrative Tools > Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System and look through for the time you did the shutdown. Something that's delaying the process deserves an entry.

John

 

Potential and likely buyer of this notebook here..

...I was wondering if someone could test something out for me... (I shall rep you until my hairs grow gray..)

KakaoTalk for PC (an application similar to WhatsApp), would anyone be willing to download, and tell me how the windows/messages etc look. It's a messaging application, and I use
it daily. I would be SO thankful, if someone could do this for me.