2013 Series 7 chronos / Ativ Book 8 15" owner's lounge (NP770Z5E / NP780Z5E / NP870Z5E / NP880Z5E)

Here you go mate

 

You sir, are a god. Thanks!

 

Hi, after installing 14.4 drivers i have a problem with core clock switching from 775 to 725. Also GPU usage is strange.

If overclock is applied then switching is from 850 to 600 MHz.Enduro fix is applied.

Thank you for your help.

 

The bottom plastic cover plate for my N770Z5E has cracked...... Anyone knows where I can purchase a replacement online?

 

Which part of the world are you in? Our usual source of part numbers, Samsungparts.com doesn't list the NP770Z5E but has the similar NP780Z5E for which the base is part number is BA75-04323A. A quick search reveals that this part number is also applicable for the 770 as confirmed here.

John

 

I'm in Australia

Thanks for the links.....

But over $70 for a piece of thin plastic is ridiculous ....

I will leave my laptop cracked as it is....

 

I'd use some epoxy glue (preferably the stronger, not rapid, version) on the inside. First roughen up the plastic each side of the crack so it can bond extra well and you will end up with a repair that is stronger than the original material.

Then watch ebay or similar for someone selling parts from a dismantled dead notebook.

John

 

OMG I thought i was the only one ! ... i start to open by itself , i did not hit it in anyway and suddenly it is broken in the middle front part !! NP880Z5E-X01UB

unfortunately i cannot right or left click, i had to buy a wireless mouse

 

Hi Just recived this laptop as a gift and am looking at upgrading the 128gb msata to a 250 evo ssd. Just a quick question does the replacement drive have to msata or can it be a ssd such as samsung ssd evo sata iii 2.5 7mm 540 mb/s520mb /s?

Also anyone know where you can buy replacement batteries for this laptop?

Many Thanks
D

 

Are you sure you're in the right forum? This model hasn't been sold for quite a while and doesn't have an mSata port.

 

Can anyone help me?
My touchpad doesnt work!

 

Have you checked it isn't just disabled with fn + f5? Have you tried reinstalling/updating drivers?

 

If it worked before, then suddenly stopped completely, first check you didn't accidentally disable it with Fn-F5. Check the Touchpad tab in Settings (Fn-F1). Of course try a Windows Restart as well if you haven't already (NOT Shutdown, that doesn't fully restart the drivers).

Next step is to check if the Touchpad shows up in Device Manager under Mice and other pointing devices. Mine shows as Samsung PS/2 Port Input Device. If it does NOT show up in there, it appears you have a hardware malfunction.

If the Touchpad DOES show up in Device Manager, you can try a thorough clean out and re-install of its driver. You may need an external mouse to complete this:

1) Uninstall the current Touchpad driver in Windows Programs and features (Elan... ETDWare...). Reboot.

2) In Device Manager, right-click the Touchpad device and select Uninstall; when prompted, check Delete the driver software for this device and click OK.

3) Still in Device Manager, chose Action (menu) - Scan for hardware changes.

4) Repeat steps (2) and (3) as long as you still get that Delete the driver software for this device option. That's how you cycle back and delete each of the previous driver versions you have installed. When you do NOT see that option anymore, it's clean. Reboot.

5) Re-install the Touchpad driver from SW Update, or your preferred version if you previously saved one.

Another thing you can try, is member lovelaptop's suggestion here to delete the Keyboard device in Device Manager, then reboot. This will force the PS/2 port device to be re-detected and its driver to be re-installed. That port is used by both keyboard and touchpad.

If none of this works, I cannot think of anything other than a hardware defect.

EDit: LOL, pranktank beat me to it

 

I dont ahve the mice under mouse and other poiting devices



EDIT: I tried the fix above about unnistalling the keyboard and it didnt fix.
FN+F5 doesnt work. The only way to turn off the blue LED is to open the settings via FN+F1 and turn it off there. Even turning it back on wount work.

And I cant find a touchpad driver on SW Update

2nd EDIT: If on the device manager i tick the show hidden devices this happens:

 

That means the device WAS there at one point, but is not currently active.

A few more things to check:

1) In the Touchpad control panel (or on the Touchpad tab of the Mouse control panel), do you have Disable when external USB pointing device plug in checked? You can try unplugging your USB mouse and any other devices and see if it makes a difference.





2) Do other devices in Device Manager show up as in-operative?

3) I see you have some other pointing devices installed, which is normally fine. But if some of those drivers are poorly written, they could conceivably conflict with the built-in touchpad. You could try and uninstall them (same way as I described above).

4) Factory Restore and see if the problem persists (F4 or using your Bootable Factory Image Backup). Samsung will probably ask you to do the same if you call them to request warranty service. That's how they check if this is a hardware problem or just a messed up installation. Backup your data files and and current Windows installation first, so you can easily restore once you have tested the factory installation.

That's all I can think of

 

This is all I have.
Where can I download the driver?
Ill try to reinstall it

 

Use SW Update, that's the only way to get recent Samsung drivers. If you don't have it, there is a link in the Sticky List on the top of the Samsung forum. I'm on my phone now (Tapatalk) making links difficult.

But clearly there is already an Elan driver installed, it's just the touchpad not reporting for duty. I would also try uninstalling drivers (if any) for those Razer devices I saw in your Device Manager.

 

I found an Elantech folder on my C rograms
I just cant find a driver for the Touchpad anywhere in SW Update



I even checked if the driver was starting in msconfig and it is



The touchpad worked fine even after i bought the Razer deathadder mouse, its been working well for like a year

 

I understand. Most computer problems are not there at first, then show up suddenly -- for whatever reason. In your case, it very well could be a hardware defect, in which case none of this will have any effect, and you will need to contact Samsung for a repair.

But those uninstall/re-install steps I suggested might fix it, if it is merely a software problem. I would uninstall BOTH the Razer drivers (and disconnect the devices) AND the Elan Touchpad driver, then start over with drivers from SW Update. I realize you already have a touchpad driver installed, and that it worked fine before, but clearly something is not working now. The purpose of re-installing is to fix that. If we're lucky.

If the touchpad driver doesn't show up by itself in SW Update, use the Find Model feature and look up your model. You can find other driver versions by looking up different models. My preferred version is 11.7.10.4, which can be found under Win8 drivers for model NP880Z5E-X03CA.

I'll be heading out now, but you will find tons of discussion about Elan Touchpad issues, both in this thread and the one linked below:

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

If Search doesn't locate relevant posts, often scanning backwards through posts in a thread is a good way, then clicking the little arrows in quotes to track back to the beginning of a particular discussion.

 

I would add that the touchpad will, if it is healthy, function as a basic pointing device using the Microsoft default driver. The Elantech driver adds extra functions.

John

 

one and half year.error 43 on videocard. its dead. good device but...

 

sad to hear that. Isn't it under warranty still?

 

No. Only one year warranty

 

Your only option then is to replace the motherboard yourself. It is doable (I fully opened my laptop without any hassle) but very expensive. You can get the motherboard from samsungparts.com.
Maybe you can tell us more about when the error appears, what happens to the computer etc.?

 

I'm wondering if anyone knows how to achieve 10,000 mW of power usage shown in battery bar and SW settings? The lowest I ever went was ~13,000 mW. No matter what i do, even go into power saving and silent mode, I can't achieve 10,000 mW like I've seen others report to achieve in the past. I have the touchscreen version, np770z5e. Because of my high power usage, I can never achieve even 6 hours even on a full charge, even when just browsing the web or typing a document.

 

The challenge is to figure out what is using the power.

BatteryInfoView (I prefer it to BatteryBar for instantaneous readout) shows system power drain and ThrottleStop shows the CPU package power consumption (see an example of those in my post here). The display backlight might need 1-2 W at minimum brightness (but a lot more at higher brightness - you can quickly observe the effect of changing brightness on system power drain by watching BatteryInfoView).

One of the first things to check is whether the dGPU is powered down. I think (but I'm not certain) that HWiNFO will show this.

John

 

Honestly motherboard replacement is probably not cost effective at this point. I know it's a bit hypocritical for me to say as I'm a guy that rebuilds 5+ year old gaming PCs for household decorations, but in this case I have to agree with popular opinion. Since the laptop has integrated graphics and isn't really sufficient as a gaming rig at this point anyway, you might as well just disable the dedicated and use your IGP instead. For some reason replacements parts for these cost more than just buying a used one in many cases. The 8870m is still a decent card, but not worth hundreds of dollars and a decent risk of cracking or breaking something during replacement.

That being said, you may be lucky and your GPU isn't actually dead. Error code 43 is caused by the drivers crashing. This can sometimes be caused by hardware failure but is just as often a driver conflict. For example when WoW Cataclysm released, it had a bug where the new water effects would cause a crash almost identical to VRAM failure and as a result many people replaced their GPUs. Once the game was patched, problem was solved and those cards suddenly worked again.

Also there have been several occasions where past GPUs I've owned would overheat or crash and the problem turned out to be either dried thermal paste that was cracking or a thermal pad that was sliding out of place. Once I repasted, the issue was resolved.

So before you go nuts ordering new parts and tearing it apart, I would recommend doing a full driver removal and reinstall as described at the beginning of this thread. If that doesn't resolve it, maybe open it up and check the condition of the paste and/or thermal pads. If you are lucky, you won't have to put half or more of the value of your laptop back into it in parts.

 

No. its not drivers. clear install w8 and w7. all kind of ati driver. every time error 43.

 

Bummer. Do you get the error every time you launch a 3D app, or after you've been using it a while?

 

every time i start system - it show me that videodriver stop and restore and show me blank black screen. after i need start in safe mode and disable 8870 and reboot. reinstal video driver - blank black screen and again again.i unlock bios - i wanted to disable ati card but no nothing in unlock bios. usualy error 43 - overheat of bga. so after holiday i will find soldering specialist. cost appx 200$. new motherboard 1000$.

 

While Samsung never came with a solution for the missing 8GB with the latest bios updates, I've finally bought a new module which works perfectly.

However the strange thing is that it is actually the same module . I've changed the not working Kingston ValueRAM KVR16S11/8 with the same module (different memory chips which Kingston often does) and the newer one works perfectly. Strange problem, but it seems fixable.

 

For NP880Z5E and similar users, has there been any developments on Windows 8/8.1 imaging and cloning disk backup methods which retains the Samsung recovery partitions and features at boot ? It's been a while since I read this thread and while my NP880Z5E is working fine now, it's becoming more apparent that proper OS and data backups are needed (my work desktop pc just went up in smoke with burnt motherboard) luckily I had image cloned the data using Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Pro and made a P2V virtualbox image of the OS drive.

But thinking about what would happen with NP880Z5E if I ever need backup/restores of complete data.

The default Samsung inbuilt backup process is too slow to be useful <20-40MB/s for my 960GB Crucial M500 disk.

cheers

George

 

The Samsung Recovery Solution provided with Windows 8 models lets you make a full backup onto external storage.

Read this thread.

John

 

Thanks John lots to read... the SRS is same process I used here http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...hird-party-msata-upgrades-10.html#post9348540 as that was slow as a snail to to backup at 17-66MB/s

seems like there's alot of hidden partitions here

 

The speed problem may be due to the connected device and whatever support there is for it. I wonder whether you are getting USB 2.0 speeds because SRS doesn't support USB 3.0 (did you try all USB ports?).

The bootable flash drive that can be created by recent versions of Acronis include USB 3.0 drivers. However, while I've used Acronis for cloning I've never tried restoring an image onto the original SSD to see if SRS still works. My normal procedure on getting a new computer is to make sure everything works and then clone the original drive onto something work more capacity and/or speed. The original drive then goes into storage pending a need to get reinstalled for computer repair / disposal / drive recloning.

John

 

Those are normal partitions for any Win8.x laptop, although SRS6 is different from other vendor Recovery systems in having two Recovery partitions instead of just one. See here for a list of standard partitions.

The SRS6 feature you used with your Series 9 was Disk Copy, which is handy for cloning an entire disk (such as from a small SSD onto a larger one). I do recall your report about it being very slow.

The other useful SRS6 feature is Bootable Factory Image Backup which creates a self-contained Recovery on a USB stick with its own factory image. See here and here and the OP. It allows you to re-image a disk to factory state with working Recovery -- say, if the original disk becomes messed up by a Windows update (!) or if a new disk is installed.

You can make an image backup of the Windows partition using Acronis and restore that after re-imaging a drive with the Bootable Factory Image Backup (or anytime you want to restore to that image). Just don't restore the SRS partitions using Acronis since that will destroy the F4 link in the partition table and render SRS unworkable. I have not tried that with Acronis myself (I have with other 3rd party imaging tools) but we get enough reports about it to confirm that it does indeed break SRS. See this case from yesterday.

The post that John linked (again, here) is a relatively recent attempt at summarizing the various SRS backup and restore techniques for SRS5 and SRS6, respectively. It is admittedly a bit long, but not compared to the hundreds of scattered posts which it gathers in one place

 

I am having problems playing Wolfenstein New Order (via Steam) on my 770Z5 with 8870m graphics on Windows 7 (64bit). Are people running this okay?

I have tried help guides to get it running (other games run fine). If I knew that other people with the Chronos can play it ok it will give me hope and I will continue trying things.

When I had Windows 8.1 I had the same problem with this game.

According to Task Manager, the Wolfenstein exe is running (taking about 330megs of memory) but I see nothing and can't play the game. Have tried uninstalling drivers, running it as an adminstator, putting it into compatibility mode but still no luck.

I have also configured switchable graphics to run at high performance for this game.

 

So i can get this laptop 2nd hand in a good condition for about 800 euro's.
The main pro's about this laptop for me are the huge 91wh battery and a dedicated gpu for CAD/CFD programs and in combination with a quad core in a thin and light (for 15.6) package. There are hardly any similar laptops and they all cost twice as much.

Would you guys say that it is still a good deal or should i look for something newer?

 

The laptop is fairly unique for Windows laptops - and I think AMD graphics have been shown to be much better with CAD than comparable Nvidia ones (when it comes to NON Pro/Workstation cards.. can't remember the source). I used it for Solidworks on reasonably large assemblies and it works really well - that said I usually do electrical stuff so my usual Solidworks use is mostly small parts or checking over other's larger projects or presentations.

The laptop is comparably powerful to a decent Desktop PC when plugged in and after almost two years running it low every day I am still getting 6+ hours of battery life (started out at 8+). I paid $1700 CAD new for it, so I'd say 800 Euros used is OK.

 

The power cord has been yanked and the socket connector broke! #@#$%^(*&!!! The power jack won't fit anymore. It actually sparked, not trying that again.
So I ordered a replacement socket from a vendor in China. It's probably gonna take 3-4 weeks to get here, grrr. I'm willing to try to solder it myself. Don't really have a choice anyway since Samsung won't cover physical damage and their suggestion was to replace the motherboard (which is $1000). The part cost me $5 + $5 shipping.
DOES ANYONE HAVE EXPERIENCE SOLDERING A SOCKET, or have other useful tips for me?
Thanks guys.

 

I had to resolder one about 15 years ago.

The existing socket is probably held in place by 2 or 4 tabs that are probably embedded in holes and are soldered to the board plus there will be two power connectors. The more difficult task is to remove the dead socket and the associated solder that you have a set of clean holes to drop the new socket into. You may find that either / both of these items will help.

The other unknown is whether you can can do the work without having to remove the mainboard from the computer in order to access the other side. I would first try the removal with the board in place ( having first removed the battery - don't want to end up with this problem). You can try the removal work once you have the tools but, if you have to remove the board then I would suggest you leave that task until you have the replacement socket and can do all the work in one session and don't forget what goes where (or mislay any parts).

John

 

I suspect that you will find this video informative, even if you don't have this exact model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Jls6QeYg0

 

Thanks John. Useful tips. I just ordered a desoldering pump & braid (but from a source closer to Canada ;-)

 

Thanks goibhniu.
I found another video a couple days ago (don't have the link right now) which actually shows the tech doing the soldering. I think I can tackle it!

 

As I would expect you to do.

I provided the link to save me having to write so many words. I presume you have, or are getting, a soldering iron and solder. You will also need some pliars.

John

 

I have a similar problem. Before I updated to windows 8.1, battery life was really good and I usually saw 9W at idle. Now the lowest I've seen is 14W at complete idle with the exact same settings. I've never seen it drop under 12W or so no matter what I've tried.

Has anyone with Win8.1 and this laptop managed to get under 10W usage under any circumstances?

 

Sorry, I cannot give you any possible solutions, but I can refer you to my post here. Maybe it's related?

 

I have - but I am not sure if it is a solution to the problem.

I had noticed the same thing (power usage between 13 and 16W) after updating to Win 8.1 and/or the latest AMD drivers (14.12 Omega) - cannot remember when I first became aware.
However, I had to downgrade the graphics driver again. There was a noticeable framerate-drop while gaming (Elite Dangerous), but the actual dealbreaker was that sometimes (not always, for some reason) the computer would hang while booting, with the screen starting to flicker. Has anyone else experienced this with 14.12 Omega, btw?

So, after booting into secure mode and some meddling around and trial and error, I went back to Leshcat's 13.12_WHQL_UnifL_rev_1.2. And - lo! - power usage had decreased to under 10W. Unfortunately, I had lost brightness control. Plus: After the next reboot, power usage was back to 13-14W. I would have seen someone looking dumbfounded had this laptop a glare-display.

I have been trying to fix brightness control, first manually, then with Leshcat's latest UBR (v 7.5). I haven't succeeded there, but after choosing option H in the UBR installation progress, I am suddenly back to 8W in idle with WiFi on, around 10W surfing and typing.
The downside next to still having no brightness control: It appears that after waking the laptop up from sleep, it eats 13W again. Once I reboot: 8W again.

If anyone can make sense of this (I can't, I really am no_expert), or even how to establish a permanent low power usage, please post. Any advice on how to resolve the brightness problem without going back to +50% power usage would be most welcome, too.

Plus another question to you out there: While I actually experience better gaming performance with Leshcat's 13.12 than with 14.12 Omega, GPU-Z shows GPU-temperatures around 90°C. Catalyst 14.12 Omega kept my videocard around 80°C. Notwithstanding the fact that cooler is always better, is 90°C something to be worried about? I have only found contradicting information on how warm a GPU should and can get over a longer time.

On a final (side)note, I can only express how pleased I am with this laptop (apart from minor things like the above). The combination of sleekness, good display, powerful GPU and CPU as well as battery life is pretty unique. After throwing out that HDD and putting in a Crucial CT960 I feel I have a machine that makes the Macbooks and XPSs of this world look like a sliderule.

 

I've gotten the power consumption as low as 7W while plugged in, which honestly makes very little sense to me. As soon as I pull the cable, it shoots up to 15-16. Making all the power settings the same between plugged in/on battery doesn't change this behavior. I don't have a tab called battery life extender, which makes me think that you have the Chronos 7, which might be somehow slightly different from the ativ 8.

Have you tried playing with the FeatureTestControl key in the registry at all? Setting that to FFFF and restarting always fixes my brightness using FN keys and/or autobrightness (but leaves the windows sliders in power options broken for me).

I haven't experienced any crashing with the 14.12's. They're pretty great, but of course still cause headache with the plug/unplug trick to pop the discreet GPU from medium into high clocks.

 

Try reinstalling Samsung's Settings program. This does some background configuration.

John