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

I came back to the forum hoping for an answer to the display brightness question myself. So far everything else is working fine in the latest build of Windows 10. I await RTM for Samsung to do anything with drivers. The Setting app would need to be updated for Windows 10 so that the brightness issue is addressed. I tried version 2.5 of the Setting app but it didn't fix the issue.

Has anyone tried a clean install of Windows 10 on the NP780Z5E or related notebook? Mostly I am interested in whether the hybrid graphics were properly detected and appropriate drivers installed by default.

 

How has everybody's computer held up over the years? I ask because mine is kinda loose in the right corner, has some discoloration around the hinge, creaks, and things like that. I would like to chalk that up to normal wear and tear, but being as picky as I am, I don't know if it's normal.

Just curious, how have the others held up?

 

I clean installed on 770Z5E-S01 (same drivers of 780), i confirm that dual video switch card works, not working it's the brightness control (fun it's that before windows auto-install drivers it works, when use generic video driver, but without accelleration -_-' )
I tried using the auto installed drivers, and official intel/ati drivers... but haven't figured how resolve yet.... I'm disappointed, because Samsung I think won't release drivers at the end of July (2018 )

 

I have mine NP880Z5E running on the lastest build of Windows 10. Everything is working great, except for a few quirks.

For the brightness, there is a fix. However, since SWUpdate has not been update to be able to detect and supply Windows 10 drivers, it is difficult to resolve this. However, I managed to fix this problem. On 8.1, there is a patch from Samsung to fix this problem. The patch is actually a registry changer that modifies a couple registry keys in order to make the brightness control works. First, find the key FeatureTestControl. This key could be in a couple locations. However, you should be able to find it on HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\# and/or HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\# and/or HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\# and/or HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\# where # is some random GUID. Just go to those location and use the search feature from registry to find it. Once you locate them, take a look at them and modify them to 63752 in decimal. Restart Windows and brightness control should be working after that.

For the AMD driver, it is working fine. I have not tested playing game or doing some intense benchmarks but switchable is working and being recognized properly. Currently, there are two versions of the driver: one is from Microsoft as an engineering sample (WU) and one is an actual AMD WHQL driver just released today. If you install the current technical build, you will properly be offered the Windows Update version first. After that, you can update to the one from AMD from within the Catalyst program.

Everything is working great right now. In case of Samsung does not release proper W10 driver, it is manageable to use older W8.1 drivers. For newer Samsung laptops, the things that would be concerns are graphic, WIFI , settings, and mouse/kb. As for this particular model, those are good at this point, except for mouse and keyboard. For mouse/kb, I have encountered problem with using shortcut keys and touchpad. For shortcut key, apparently I can not use Ctrl+Windows+Right arrow to switch to the next virtual desktop, despite I can use that combination with Left arrow to switch to the left one. For the touchpad, the current driver that WU offered me is so bad that it disables entirely multi-finger gestures. There is no configuration software that you could turn them back on despite they are stored as registry keys. However, you can use older version of ELAN touchpad driver from W8.1 and still be able to use everything as before. There is a catch that you will have to disable automatically update drivers within Windows, otherwise, it will be updated when WU is being checked.

Windows 10 looks better at handling drivers than Windows 8 when upgrading from the previous version. So I would say it is safe to upgrade to it at the end of this month, if Microsoft roll out for Samsung laptop during that time. Otherwise, you could wait until Samsung offers more robust drivers and then upgrade to W10.

 

What about audio? Is there any problem with the subwoofer or anything like that? There is a subwoofer in this laptop, right?

 

Audio is good also. Not problem at all. W10 pickups every drivers so I did not have to install them. Most of them are from WU I think, but as we get close to the released date, OEM should have newer drivers.

 

Kudos to Spincel for the tip - it works! Other than the lack of multi finger gestures on the touchpad, even with the latest Elan driver, windows 10 is working great. Looking forward to a clean install once RTM is reached.

 

Mine's great. Just like new really. Keep in mind though that I use it more like a desktop PC; it rarely leaves my desk. I'm planning to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as it's available and would love to add an SSD. I still struggle with 100% CPU utilization, but seem to be at a point where it's not affecting it that often. Kinda hoping it's a Windows 8 thing and that Windows 10 may resolve it.

 

You can have multi finger gestures by installing an older version. Look for a version that used in W8.1 inside SWUpdate and download it. Any version that range from 11.7.18 to 11.7.19 is okay. Once install, you should be able to enable the multi finger gestures within two applications. However, you will have to disable the Automatically update driver using Windows Update from System Properties - Hardwares - Device Installation Settings to keep WU replaces the old version with the new one. Also, this will be reset after upgrading into a new build so be sure to do that again until we have a working Elan driver. I was looking for compatible Elan driver for W10 but have not have any successful yet, but I hope we will get it when W10 is officially released.

 

I have an 800z5e-X02CA ativ book 8 black with an I7 and 8870m radeon.

my issue is with the touch screen. ive gotten the laptop replaced and spent about a year attempting to resolve this with samsung support. the touch screen keeps picking up inputs when the lid is closed. the screen turns black when the lid is closed but it still keeps registering random touch screen inputs all over the place, they are being spammed all over the screen. ive tested this by opening paint and closing my lid. i also remote accessed into my pc to see what it does when lid is closed. i do not want to put my computer to sleep when lid is closed and i cannot manually turn off my touch screen because it requires me to log off every time. i need to know if there is a solution for this. something like an automatic toggle of my touch screen on/off when lid is closed/opened.

 

Got a new update today.
(Samsung 870Z5E-X01PT)

 

I wonder if that is related to the imminent arrival of Windows 10. It has been discovered that Samsung's SW Update changes some settings to block automatic installation of Windows updates, thought to be an attempt to prevent Wondows 10 causing problems by attempted installation on computers that aren't fully compatible. (I'm offered Windows 10 on my 3 year old Windows 7 NP900X3B which I know will struggle with Windows 8 and UEFI).

John

 

Edit: nevermind =).

Excellent thread by the way

 

Can someone verify that audio cancellation for VOIP is working in windows 10? Anything beyond 6.0.1.6890 breaks it for me. This includes the 6.0.1.7299 official realtek driver from samsung.

To reproduce:
Make a skype test call while playing music moderately loudly from the laptop speakers while talking. When the skype call is played back to you, if you hear music, VOIP speaker cancellation is not working. If it's close to silent except for your voice, it is working.

And to answer someone earlier in this thread: the Ativ 8 15" notebooks do not have an integrated subwoofer.

 

Not sure if we can trust Samsung customer service but when I emailed them and asked them about Windows 10 software and drivers for current laptops, they said that those will be available after the official release via SWUpdate. They did not mention any particular timeframe, so we could assume that it might not be immediately after the 29th of this month. Hopefully we will get those sooner and this time it needs to be better than Windows 8 situation. I will do the upgrade anyway on the release since most of the stuffs are working right now with the RTM build and I can do away with minor issues.

 

Too many nasty ebay incidents to talk about on purchasing one of these. One of which is still on going.
Anyway; I've put a request in the NBR Marketplace if anyone has one to sell:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/wtb-samsung-series-7-chronos-i7-3635qm-8870m-uk.778805/

Has anybody attempted to refit the keyboard with the non silver version? Is the disassembly that much of a nightmare?

 

my samsung update has a patch to install related to windows 10 updates i think ?



Anyone experience this on their NP880Z5E ? I did some windows updates and now it's prompting me to activate my windows ?



entering my bios embedded key doesn't work either - using default factory Windows 8

maybe due to my hardware upgrades i did a few years ago ? for ram and disk and wifi ?

edit: one of the windows updates is related to activations wonder if it's related https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3058163

and https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2976978

looks like removing KB3058163 and restarting pc might have fixed it !

 

Hello all,

I finally managed to get my hands on a 770z5e -S01UK 3635QM/8870m which is exactly the machine that I wanted. It's in okay shape all though there are scratches on the cover and bottom of the machine. Thankfully the screen is lovely.

I'm going to have to purchase an SSD drive tomorrow and today I have been loading all the programs that I want on the current harddrive, in order to clone it and put it onto the new SSD. What I would like to know is if anyone could recommend an Anti Virus software. I haven't gone online with the machine yet and have been putting the programs on via USB stick and a USB dvd drive.

I currently have windows 8 with classicshell (via USB).

Thanks.

Also to note - my T60p had stopped working a few days ago due to a fan error. It had been making unbearable noises and sounds, but I'm hoping that cleaning the fans should get it to work again.

 

There's a long thread about the best free anti virus software. Start at the end and work backwards and see if any of them meet your needs.

However, I personally have been using Eset NOD32 for some years because it has a low resource requirement and is reasonably priced for multi-PC multi-year licences.

John

 

Is there a way to "unlock" bios?
I dont even find any option about bios in swupdate.

Heroes of the Storm refuse to use the Radeon card in my 770Z5E and instead use the Intel 4000 which makes it laggy as hell.
This is a known issue and Blizzard are working on it, although very very slowly...

There is some kind of workaround but for that you need options in bios concerning fixed/dynamic graphic.
http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/18300613728

 

Thanks for the reply and I'm looking into it now.

 

Installed the samsung ssd 850 pro and it's currently recovering from the USB stick as guided by that particular link on this thread.
I have to say that I am far from impressed on the experience of opening that laptop and hope to never have to do it again. Every screw was ridiculously tight with the hard drive caddy being the absolute worst. In fear of damaging my screen by applying to much pressure (which ended up blunting my precision screw driver), I had to take it to my local Costcutter's (a small convenience store in the UK) and ask to borrow a screw driver to get the caddy off. I've put everything back in, but have not tightened the screws to the length they were before.

Having come from opening a T60p thinkpad laptop, (which is a joy in comparison to this) I cannot understand why Samsung decided to make it so annoying to upgrade. It's almost like your being punished for doing so!

Also of note - the screen still looks fine

 

It's a bit late to tell you, but this is the screwdriver I use for getting into my notebooks. The big handle enables good control and torque. The precision screwdrivers with thin handles aren't as good.

John

 

Do you also have this problem someone is writing about here?
https://community.amd.com/thread/184381

Same thing happened to me.

Which driver version should i go to? 15.4beta worked fine for me, but after it asked me to update to 15.7 I got a bsod.

 

So anyone upgrade to the official release of Windows 10 yet? I havent gotten the 'its ready' notification yet

 

you can legally download also the iso from microsoft here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

i know you can legally download, the notice in the taskbar hasnt told me its ready yet. I guess i could try the iso..... i was more curious if anyone has tried it yet on the ATIV 8, and if there were any issues

 

If you run SW Update then you should find there's a set of Windows 10 drivers for the Book 8 which suggests that Samsung think they are ready.

However, I would also suggest that we adjourn the Windows 10 discussion to the Samsung Windows 10 thread so that our accumulated knowledge and experience of Windows 10 on Samsung notebooks is in one place.

John

 

Because it was not designed to be end-user upgradeable or serviceable, with the exception of changing the RAM modules. So they're not punishing you so much as trying to deter you.

That being said, I've never heard of anyone buying one and not upgrading the HDD to an SSD. The HDD that they chose is so slow that it's ridiculous.

 

Installed Windows 10 today (first updated it to get the key and afterwards a reset of the OS to have a clean environment) and I'm very happy with how it went on my laptop. I haven't experienced any of the Win 8.1 horrors and most of the drivers seems to work right out of the box, even the switchable graphics are installed through Windows by default. It seems that Samsung also provided a brightness fix through SW Update (the only two things I've installed through SW Update up to know are Samsung Settings and the Win 10 brightness fix). So overall, I'm impressed by the smooth transition!

 

I saw your reply this afternoon and went into maplins in town but they didn't have it. I think that there's another maplins near where I live so I'll check that tomorrow.

I've turned off automatic updates on my laptop as I dont want to upgrade to windows 8.1. I've set it to download but not to install, as I've already witnessed the brightness controls not working on my sisters i5 version of the same machine.

 

Good to hear that. I did upgrade, not a clean install, and I'm getting a lot problems, Icons from Windows Universal Applications are not displaiyng correctly on the Taskbar, I'm getting graphical artefact on some apps. i.e Internet Download Manager, Video Camera is not installed.

How to did reset OS to have clean installation? Could you send me drivers for Video Camera ?

 

Blimey, it's been a loonnggg time since I've been on here (Hey John, glad to see you're still around) - I was one of (if not THE) first to get my hands on the Chronos NP780Z5E and have neglected this place for ages.

Successfully installed Windows 10 on my NP78Z5E, but got into an instant BSOD loop caused by not updating/uninstalling my ESET Smart Security prior to installing windows 10. A bit of tinkering got me back in and got it all working properly again.

The only other problem I've had is that the brightness fix won't install and keeps erroring with error -100. Any ideas how to get around this? I've tried both SW Update and manual install - both give the same error!

 

Welcome. Long time, no see. I had assumed that you and your Samsung notebook had gone separate ways.

I'm using the ESET NOD32 anti virus and that caused no issues during the two upgrades I've done so far.

Have you tried installing the Brightness patch as ... As Administrator (assuming that Win 10 allows this)? And is the graphics driver the version being offered by SW Update or is it one installed by Win 10? The Brightness patch most likely needs the Samsung version of the driver.

John

 

Hi,

just to give some feedback on Windows 10. Feeling lucky, I upgraded my Ativ 8 on Wednesday via the Media Creation Tool offered on the Microsoft site. This will download the entire Windows installation (around 6 GB) again, erasing the files in the hidden $Windows..BT folder created by the reservation tool, but who cares. You can upgrade the notebook directly via the tool, not having to create USB sticks or whatsoever before. Unlike I had expected after my experiences with Windows 8.1 upgrade, everything went quite smooth this time. When Windows finally came up again after 2 hours or so, everything was still more or less in place. Directly after login, the Samsung SW Update urged me to install their additional Windows 10 drivers which I did (btw the buttons on that dialog are in Korean or so, the left one means 'yes'). This also took some time, but turned out to be successful in the end, with the exception of the Brightness control patch which also fails with a -100 exception. SWUpdate then offers to download the patch file and execute it manually, which I did, but that thing just vanished after a while and SWUpdate still claims the patch to be missing. Anyway, brightness control just works regardless of that. While updating the Samsung things, the AMD drivers requested an update too, and feeling lucky still, I accepted, but I cannot say if that was a Samsung driver or the new AMD ones installed my Windows. The AMD driver has an automatic update feature and I got 2 more updates in the meantime, so I think they are directly from AMD (currently version is 15.20-150715a-184226E). Windows 10 runs really nice, it feels kind of smoother in many areas and I will stick to it. Some minor problems I had was when trying to activate Windows which failed several times first but then suddenly succeeded after 10 or 20 attempts. As I got the same problem on my Dell PC at home, it seems the activation servers were overloaded that day, several users reported that issue. There are some minor display problems with the Intel driver, namely somewhat blurry text in some of the 'old' dialogs (like Device Manager, for instance), but that doesn't bother me too much right now. One more serious thing to mention is that I suddenly got Image Retention issues now which I never had experienced before. Its not really much and is not disturbing me in the end, but it's noticeable, in particular on the desktop background after having opened windows with lots of white in them (in fact, unless you change the color setting, most windows now are all white, even the title bars). I suspect a driver issue or something like that here. On the positive side, the unplugging problem when playing games seems to be gone for good, no sudden returns to Intel HD4000 anymore, at least up to now. I really hope it stays like that, saves me lots of nerves Could be that the overall power consumption is higher now, Samsung Setting says something around 13W now where it was about half of that before, but I very rarely run the notebook on batteries. All in all, I'm quite content to be bold enough to try.

YMMV, and good luck to everyone,
-- Chris.

 

Hi guys,

I am facing a problem with my laptop that is really annoying me. If someone can help me, I'd appreciate it a lot.

The problem is that my laptop is charging and stop charging all the time. I'm certain that this is not a problem with the charger because my brother has a Series 7 Chronos (and I have an Ativ Book 8) and he doesn't have any problem charging his laptop with my charger. Also, I noticed that the problem is related to the screen because the problem only happens when the screen is turned on (if the laptop is in the "sleep mode", it charges just fine). The first time that I noticed the issue, the laptop alternated between charging and not charging when the brightness charged suddenly, so maybe it has some relation. I tried changing some settings about the brightness and it didn't solve the problem. Also, I updated the Brightness Control Patch driver and nothing happened.

My laptop is the Samsung Ativ Book 8 (NP880Z5E-X01UB).

Thanks in advance.

 

What version of windows are using? Have you tried upgrading to see if the problem goes away?
(Make sure to back up all your data first!)

 

Me and my Samsung are still firm friends, life just took over and this forum got abandoned!

I managed to install the Brightness patch manually, as you suggested, using Administrator, and it worked fine - until I rebooted when it instantly stopped working again! Unless there's a way to remove the patch files and try again, I'm feeling a clean install of W10 coming on, rather than using the update W8.1 path which I used before!

 

Hi Worzyl,

Thanks for the response.

I'm currently using the Windows 10 Home, but the problem also happened when I was using the Windows 8.1.

 

Hi, been lurking this thread for some time now and am in need of some advice now.

The problem is AMD drivers. The PC model is 770Z5E-S02SE with the 8870m. Ever since I got this PC I've had some problems installing drivers but always manged to get one working somehow, although I still had the fps drop sometimes and had to unplug/plug the power connector.

Not so long ago my PC froze while playing WoW, and i had to force reboot and got a black screen on startup. Only way to get back onto the PC was by uninstalling the driver in safe mode from device manager. After this it was impossible to install a new driver (I tried many different), so I tried to do a factory reset which also resulted in a black screen. So I sent the PC back for repairing and they told me they changed the motherboard (which the gpu is integrated on). When I received the PC again I immediately upgraded to windows 10 and everything seemed to work fine except for the GPU. I tried playing some WoW with the SWupdate drivers and it caused the game to freeze randomly, as well as two BSOD (thread_stuck_in_device_driver and kernel_security_check_failure), which I think both are related to the gpu. I tried installing the latest drivers from AMD which ends in a black screen during installation. I also tried to install the driver from windows update but that froze during installation etc.

So I'm wondering if anyone have experienced something similar and which gpu driver to use in windows 10? I imagine if I go back to win 8.1 the same **** is gonna happen, so I have no clue what to do now.

 

I have a huge issue since the WIndows10 update. BCD error at startup and I cannot enter windows anymore. But USB drives dont seem to be working as well?

How can I restore the BCD so that I can enter Windows again and make a backup of my files?

 

I did a clean install of Windows 10 with a 780Z5E with i7 and 8870M. At first, it used only Windows own Intel drivers, switchable graphics were not available. I then installed the Win 10 "Graphics Driver" from swUpdate, which enabled the AMD chip. The Samsung drivers prompted me to download install newer ones, which in turn prompted me to install newer ones still via AMD's new Gaming Evolved software thing.

The results seem to work well with Planetside 2, MGS Ground Zeroes and some other stuff I've tried.


Have you tried changing the Intel drivers, maybe?

 

Ok. i have tried everything! But my Mx Master from Logitech wont connect to my Ativ Book 8. It happen after i upgraded to Win 10. All driver should be right. I even downloaded some driver from intel and tried with those but nothing works. anyone have the same problem.

If someone can help i will be really glad!!

Brakza

 

I see from this review that the setup for this mouse isn't very straightforward. Did you try the process from the beginning?

John

 

Its not the setup, It worked perfectly before i upgraded. I believe its my Bluetooth drivers or something. Were can i find the correct ones? in sw update i get zero drivers to my pc in Win 10.

 

I see that SW Update isn't currently offering either WiFi or Bluetooth drivers for this group of notebooks. There's no obvious reason why not, considering it's the Intel 6235. I suggest you try using the latest drivers direct from Intel.

John

 

There is no BT driver for Intel 6235 at the moment. The one preloaded with windows 10 doesnt work. If intel do not supply driver for 6235 the only solution will be to replace the card with Intel 7260.

 

After clean install Windows10 and then SWUpdate, bluetooth works very well (Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 on my NP870Z5E-X01PL)

 

So transfer pictures from smartphone via Bluetooth and check if it works.

 

I have the 880Z model and I'm having a hell of a time finding compatible RAM to upgrade with. Would anyone mind sharing what kind you used when you upgraded yours? Thanks!