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

Thanks John - sadly can't find it in Canada. Interestingly, even Samsung Canada's website excludes laptops/notebooks and the big online stores (Staples, Best Buy) aren't selling Samsung notebooks any longer (at least that I could find). Strange...

 

I thought that I had read somewhere that Samsung were getting out of the laptop business pretty much altogether?

Nevermind, I see on the US web site they still have a few ATIV Book 9 models, mostly 12" and 13" models. The single 15" model that they have is a Core i7 6700HQ CPU and a GTX950 GPU, using a 4k touch screen. That looks pretty comparable (other than the $1600 price tag).

 

A brief check in the SW Update database suggests that China, Hong Kong, Korea and USA are the only countries getting the current generation of notebooks. It appears that Samsung are keeping their notebook unit alive but with a substantially reduced challenge of the number of countries / languages they are trying to support.

John

 

I've installed the exact same drivers, but unfortunately my battery usage is still around 20W. I'll try to re-install my system in the future, but I don't have any time for that now. Are you running an insiders version of Windows 10 perhaps?

 

I can confirm this. I'm getting 20W of power consumption on batter and default Samsung Optimized Settings. I have installed latest AMD Crimson drivers and Intel GPU drivers.

 

Also in the same boat and having major stability issues with the drivers even with using DDU.

 

Hi all, long time reader infrequent poster! I have the a UK version of the NP770Z5E. On Windows 10, I am having same issues as previously posted, sleep issue where it doesn't start up and shuts down (now switched to hibernate mode) and battery lasting about 4 hours max. I am running the current drivers

Intel HD Gfx - 10.18.10.4338
AMD Crimson - 15.300.1025.1001

Interestingly, on the AMD release notes on 15.12 for known issues it mentions:
[81448] A system restart may be experience when waking the system from sleep mode on some systems with Intel processors

Wander if it's the same thing. Doesn't look to be fixed yet from what I can see.

Two questions, how is everyone measuring their Wattage usage of the laptop? Last question, did a 3DMark benchmark and came out at 2202. I'm sure I was getting early 3000 before but no record of it. Can anyone else test and report your scores?

Thanks all.

 

Ok, strange situation. According to both HWiNFO64 and Samsung settings, my discharge rate with my adapter unplugged is around 20W. However, if I measure my discharge rate unplugged with the Samsung Settings tool my discharge rate is now around 10W. Unfortunately, HWiNFO can't measure a discharge rate with the adapter plugged in. I'll see if I can fetch a wall plug energy usage monitor whether the value in Samsung Settings is accurate.

That means that it's almost fixed, but that some parameters are changed when I unplug my laptop. I've to say that my laptop is much quieter when it's plugged in after the driver updates to the latest recommended drivers.

 

Anybody find solution for brightness fix after Windows 10 November update? Also, any solution for GPU switching on Windows 10? I have ATIV book 8, on Windows 10, battery backup is just 3.5hrs, while on Windows 8.1, it's 7+ hours

 

So as of today I have gained a bit of battery life with some new drivers - latest Intel driver from their website, then AMD 16.1.1 with the Vulkan beta installed over top. Used to get 24W on "silent mode" now down to 17W.

There seems to be the occasional issue with sleeping and turning on in my bag on the go which is a pain, but as long as you only Hibernate there is no issues!

Try searching you registry for a key called FeatureTestControl and change it to hex value 0xFFFF - that has always worked for me when Microsoft/Samsung messes up my brightness controls back to 8.0 with an unwanted driver update.

 

Thanks to Aussihir, found a Win 10 1511 brightness fix here that seems to work for me... https://communities.intel.com/thread/81571?start=0&tstart=0

FWIW seem to be getting 17-25w on moderate usage (unplugged), battery seems worse since Win10 but doable. I use a surface as my mobile machine, and this one is usually plugged in.

update: after radeon update, for some reason my "Generic PnP Monitor" driver was disabled in devmgmt.msc, so after re-enabling it I was able to adjust screen brightness. This reminded me of a consistent problem I've been having with TeamViewer's screen capture driver, which replaces this device with a very similarly named "PnP Monitor (Generic)" (or something), which breaks brightness controls. Just putting it out there.

 

Hi All
Not been on here for some time so apologies if this has been asked and answered before.
I have an NP780Z5E with touchscreen which has Intel HD graphics and AMD graphics.
I'm not a graphics bod by any means so should I be using one or either or both?
Thanks
Rob

 

If you don't really care much about it, the AMD software will pick for you automatically. Power users like to tweak it but for the average person what the laptop does is fine.

Of course keeping the drivers updated helps the software recognize newer games and programs.

 

i know that this is a fairly old laptop, but i believe it still has some power over newer mid range graphics laptop. but i have encountered an issuer

its that i installed windows 10 on it and it does not install the display driver i tried some modded drivers and the official driver from samsung but it always goes to a black screen.

i also remembered that when i installed the driver for intel and amd it went to a black screen and it stayed black for quite some time and it automatically shut down. so i restarted it and the screen went black again after passing the samsung logo.
so i went to safe mode and check if the driver was installed and it seems installed because the gpu is listed as radeon HD8870 in the device manager

but i cannot verify it in gpu-z since i'm in safe mode.

i also tried manually installing the driver
but the computer freezes same if i use the catalyst driver

i tried to search around forums and videos
and so far
i found some possible culprits
which i hope that some one here can verify

1. ULPS must be disabled
2. when the screen goes black on boot up the
its either the screen is too dark and i had to change it in amd catalyst or the laptop is sending the output to a secondary monitor for which i had to connect the laptop to another monitor or TV to fix


i also found that this issue has happened in the past when amd rolled out 15.7 driver

but its now 15.12 some i'm confused why i encounter this error

or maybe my gpu is already dead. but why is it still being detected by windows.

hopefully you guys can help me.
thanks

 

Graphics drivers are the main problem with this notebook.

Have you tried the official Samsung drivers as provided by Samsung Update? Also install the Samsung Settings program which does some background configuration. Once you have got something working using the Samsung drivers then you can read through the recent discussion in this thread about newer drivers which might work better.

John

 

I did finally get around to trying this update, and it did restore my brightness functionality. The only catch is that it doesn't seem to provide the ability to adjust the full range of brightness. Even at it's brightest setting now it is dimmer than it was before switching the registry key. I'm sure that will help battery life a fair bit.

 

Hi i went back to installing win 8.1

When i was installing the samsung driver yesterday on windows 10 i think i saw the device manager show my gpu as 8870m and i saw catalyst had the option for switchable graphics but then i encountered the error "crashed and recovered" it restarted the computer and i only get blue screen. but now it shows amd radeon hd8800 series on windows 8.1 and it goes back to black screen And now i'm thinking was it a wrong move to go back windows. 8. Geez i've been on this for 3 days. Tough luck

 

So i went back to windows 10 and installed the samsung drivers but it still freezes when it gets to the part of display driver for 8870m. I was hoping i can replicate what happened yesterday. And be more careful. But it seems im back to square one.

 

update: i was able to install the samsung win10 gpu driver on the laptop and i now see the switchable graphics option when i right click. so i tried to check the GPU on gpu-z and then it crashed and a BSOD came up with words "video tdr failure", restarted the computer and when windows is about to show up
i get another error "thread stuck in the device driver"
and now i can only boot to safe mode if try to go to normal mode it only shows a deep dark screen not even a hint of light. looks like to spend another night with the laptop..

any suggestions that you can give me
so far i'm considering

1. bios update
2. clean the laptop( the insides of course)
3. take it to a technician and have him give the gpu a blast from the heat gun( i really want to avoid going to a technician)

if i was able to install the driver for the GPU
the GPU is not dead right?

 

First make sure you have the newest BIOS. It might well improve compatibility with windows 10.

This notebook has a history of graphic driver problems. It needs the right combination of Intel graphics driver + AMD graphics driver and maybe some background configuration carried out when the Samsung Settings program is installed. Software is more likely to be the problem than hardware.

John

 

Update

I installed windows 7 to the machine
And bios is still updated and i installed the driver given by swupdate and the latest from amd 16.2 with hotfix and it installs fine until i restart the machine. I get the atimgpak.sys bsod. I tried the fix i found from other website and videos which is replace the file in system32/drivers with another file but won't go away.

 

yesterday, after too much frustration i went to the technician and had it reflowed which work to which i payed about $28. so the laptop is now living on borrowed time. if i want to make it last as long as possible i have to be careful on using it under load until i buy the next laptop which may take 6 months at least.

 

Managed to get down to 6.9~7.1W of battery usage with minimum brightness and Wi-Fi on. Windows reports 13h of battery life. Battery wear level 10.7%.

 

Sounds great, so that seems to be without an adapter plugged in. Are you running Windows 10 and which build? What drivers are you using? Did you only change the GPU drivers, or also other drivers like chipset?

 

Clean W10 Pro 1511 installation with all updates on Samsung 840 Evo SSD

Drivers as follows:

• Intel chipset 10.1.1.13
• Intel MEI 11.0.0.1177
• Intel Rapid Storage 12.9.4.1000
• Realtek Card Reader 10.0.10586.31222
• Realtek Audio 6.0.1.7727
• Intel HD 10.18.10.4338
• AMD 15.300.1025.1001
• Realtek LAN 10.6.1001.2015
• Intel WLAN 18.40.0.3
• Intel Bluetooth 18.1.1549.2834
• Touchpad ELAN 15.14.2.2

All other missing drivers downloaded from Windows update

Runs better than ever, shame I have to sell it as I bought XPS 9550.

 

Someone have a dual boot with a Linux distro ?
I've tried many of them, but it still lack of some important feature like backlight adjustment and some FN key functions... also hibernate don't works.
I've tried many solutions around internet, but i can't figure out how set to work.... Also the "samsung-tools" repo are missing and don't work in the actual (for ex.) build of Ubuntu 15.10 (aren't anymore in the PPA ? )
I would use linux instead of windows10, but missing these features it's very disappointing me.

EDIT:
found a solution that works with ubuntu 15.10:

add/change the grub kernel boot parameter to
acpi_osi=linux acpi_backlight=video
in /etc/default/grub (line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=).
Hint was found at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight#Kernel_command-line_options
After command "update-grub" and reboot changing brightness was possible again.

 

Thank you! I'll try this configuration soon. Good luck with your new laptop, I'll have to stick with it quite a bit longer. But I'm still satisfied with it. With my HD to SSD replacement and ram upgrade to 16GB, it's still a beast.

 

I have made sure to install all those driver packages and still can not get power down below 18W - but silent mode is now actually silent, which I haven't seen since 8.0! Will have to try a clean install at some point, but I feel there is something else that is key to power savings on this laptop. If only there was a way to profile how much power each component is using (beyond taking it apart and probing that is...)

 

Installed the same graphics drivers as Jako above and have also seen improvements in power consumption in Windows 10 (at last!), not quite as good as 8.1 but sitting on 13-14W now and battery life up to about 8 hours from 5 previously which is usable for a days work. Only took 9 months from Win10 release for Intel and AMD to release drivers that play well together on this laptop, haha.

 

Hi, is this laptop able to run Tom Clancy the division in good conditions ( not the top of graphic of course)? I have tries "CAN i run it" but it does not detect the radeon or randomly ( but never for this game).


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Hey guys, got my hands on NP870z5e. Decided to downgrade from W8 to W7 and installed Samsung 850 Evo 512GB SSD - everything works fine.

I've read through some pages here and didn't find the solution to the keyboard automatic backlit problem. Have i missed it somewhere ot the only option is to physically deattach sensors from the display case?

Could anyone please share the temperatures of the laptop? Mine get up to 55-60 C during idle on the latest bios firmware. Also, could anyone say: is the exhaust from the fans flows right on the screen? Or maybe im just a sickminded person, who couldn't assembly the laptop right after the installation of the SSD.

Thanks.

 

I've yet to find intel HD 4000 drivers that aren't from SW update that don't have clock problems. The core clock should dynamically change between ~300mhz to 1200mhz depending on load, and it usually gets stuck to 300 permanently with non-samsung drivers. This turns out to be problematic, as the intel is too slow without turbo to play back even youtube 1080p60 without dropped frames.

I use the intel HD 4000 drivers that SW update gives you, removed the ATI driver, and installed whatever latest Crimson driver ATI has out. I don't have power problems (around 14-16W consumption with wifi on and screen brightness ~80%) and no problems with incompatibility.

There are some bugs and areas you need to tweak in the Crimson drivers, but that's a problem with ATI, not with the laptop.

 

So my warranty has expired and 3 days later my GPU (8870) died. Coincidence? Planned obsolescence? I don't know. It only took 2 years. I gamed a lot, yes, but I kept reasonable temperatures (lifted laptop with more intensive games). I didn't overclock or tamper with it. The best part - It's not replaceable!

It sure is sad though - I'm left with a PC with no gaming and 3D editing capability, I no longer can control screen brightness in any way. Different Intel drivers and brightness patch doesn't work. That's because the system is intended to work with 2 GPUs, I presume.

So, can anyone recommend me a brand/model, which would last me 3-5 years without such nonsense? Thank you in advance.

 

I would reinstall the Samsung Settings and a Samsung Intel graphics driver from SW Update. this might get your brightness control back.

What are the symptoms of the dead DGPU? Did Windows shove through an incompatible driver update just before it died.

There have been so many issues with the AMD drivers that a full system restore to the factory image would be the only way to be 100% sure that the problem is hardware and not software.

John

 

Reinstalling those from SW update didn't help.

As to what are the symptoms.. everything froze mid-game, like to many others I've read. I was pretty sure what happened, because, believe it or not, I haven't had a freeze mid-game ever on this PC. After I restarted just to see a BSOD and fans kicking in, it just supported the idea.

And yes, I did a full recovery to clean upgrade to Win 10. Once I enable AMD GPU in device manager, everything freezes and there's nothing to be done other that a hard shutdown.

 

Thanks for the clarification. It does look like the GPU has inconveniently died.

Depending on the comsumer legislation in your country, you might be able to pressurise Samsung or the retailer into fixing the problem in spite of the warranty period being finished. "Fitness for purpose" (ie was the computer built properly for the likely usage) and "latent defect" (something wrong from the beginning which was waiting to appear), would be two phrases to use.

John

 

Thank you for the advice. I may give it a shot.

 

Restarted my NP780Z5ES01-UK today to find the old bugbear brightness not working on Windows 10. Installing Intel graphics drivers from SWUpdate had no effect, re-installing "Windows 10 brightness fix" had no effect.

However, thanks to a post a couple of pages back I found that searching for "FeatureTestControl" in regedit and changing the value from f000 to f008 wherever I found it has fixed the issue. Pretty horrible solution, but I'm certainly glad it's working again.

 

Guys, in windows 10 with a NP770 I'm seeing the following error on systema administration

usb root hub (xhci)
windows stopped this device (error code 43).

Any sugestions? I thought of updating the driver, but I can't find any on samsungs website.

 

What about the battery life with the SWupdate graphic drivers? I think thats the only issue with this amazing laptop and windows 10.

 

Anyone know if there's a way to pressure Samsung into finally releasing proper, updated AMD graphics drivers? It's been several months since the AMD Crimson package arrived in earnest, and Samsung hasn't pushed anything though SW update. Any time I try to circumvent SW update, my brightness is unmoveable. Speaking from experience - my self-built desktop runs AMD GPUs - the new driver package is infinitely better than the old ones. I was hoping for an update sometime around the beginning of the year, but here we are 3 months later and... nothing.

 

Finally, my laptop has an acceptable life battery. I've been trying everything that is posted, until I did this:
1.- Install the Samsung Update's graphic drivers.
2.- Download and install the latest AMD's drivers without uninstalling the older drivers.
3.- Use the W10 brightness patch, again.
4.- Cry a lot.

 

Hello, i have a problem with the sleep function.
I recently got a sandisk ssd and installed it in my pc, and then i installed windows 10 home single language directly on it. Now if i close the lid to make it go to sleep and then open it to wake the computer up, the screen just stays black for a few minutes and then the computer seems to reset (the samsung logo appears and then the login screen).
I already searched for updates on sw update and nothing seems to fix this problem. I even reinstalled windows 10 and still nothing.
Please help!!

 

Hey Man. This is the best post I could read right now.
I'm about to order an Evo 850 and I wanted to be assured that I can do a clean install on it.

Can you please confirm that I just need to proceed with using an windows installation media?
Or even better, can you point out what Clean Install method you used?

Thanks a ton!

 

That fix, though bizarre, was as helpful as toilet paper. My life would be pretty ****ty right now if not for you!

Thank you very much!

You posted this on my birthday!!! ahah
Man, the best gift I got, and I only knew now!

Tahnks Jako. Your input has been quite valuable!

Best regards

 

Hello, everyone.
I use Win 8.1 on my Samsung np780z5e and i need to install Ubuntu alongside Windows. I'm sure that many of us tried that. So i'd like to know, is there any difficulties in installing Ubuntu with Windows or general installation guide offered by Ubuntu( http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/install-ubuntu-desktop) works fiine?
Thanks.

 

I installed Linux mint a while back and it's been working just fine, the only thing I can't control in Linux is the keyboard backlight, which I rarely use anyway.

I used this guide, which should be similar for Ubuntu. You can probably skip the creation of a separate partition for the home directory.

I installed Linux while I had windows 8.1 and I then updated to Windows 10 and it didn't break anything.

 

Where did you find the Intel's drivers? I solved the problem too, but with the latest windows 10 update (build .218) the problem came back, help me please.

 

Maybe this is a really stupid question, but does this laptop have 2 SODIMM slots? I just installed an SSD yesterday and thought I'd take a look at the DIMM slots and only saw one?

 

I'm 99% sure that there is only one slot, plug 4GB RAM soldered on the mainboard. You can check by using CPU-z to report the SPD data for each module: The soldered RAM doesn't have the chip which holds the SPD data.

John