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

What driver are you on? Maybe updating through sw update would help.

 

I am really intending to buy this laptop

So it has no dvd drive, but I never use it anyways. I am interested in 17.3 model, what are the biggest problems with that model? Does it shutdown, give error, do you have to take it to service manytime etc??

Does it overheat?
why there is not a 1.5 GB option 7200 HD? They removed dvd player, so there must be some space for that right?

 

the 17" version does have an optical bay.

 

Pranktank hit the nail: The 17 inch model NP770Z7E DOES have an optical drive bay, so you can move the 1TB HDD there and install an SSD as primary. Check this discussion we had the other day in the 2012 series 7 Chronos 17 inch thread.

To your other question about whether it's a terrible laptop with lots of stability problems: I don't think they designed it for that

But seriously: My impression is owners of the 2012 model absolutely love this machine. I have only seen a few reports from 17 inch 2013 model owners, but it is not nearly as changed from the 1012 model as are the 15 inch models discussed here. I think that thread linked above is where you want to read for impressions.

 

There are several possible causes for this:

1) As pranktank said, first make sure you have the latest driver. In the case of WiFi, I have generally recommended getting the Driver Only version from Intel's Download Center instead of SW Update. The latest version 15.6.1 (as of today) is a file called Wireless_15.6.1_De64.exe.



Most members have reported great results with this 15.6.1 driver, although a few have reported better results using EITHER Samsung's factory installed driver OR Win8's built-in driver.

If you choose to switch to the Driver Only version (and get rid of all the PROset junk) I suggest you follow the steps in this post.

2) Make sure to set Wireless Adapter Settings in your Power profile. Check this post and this post from just a few days ago in this thread.

3) Check your WiFi adapter settings as described in TANWare's post here.

4) Check your router settings. First try power cycling it. But in particular try changing to a different router channel that is less crowded. Use the free tool inSSIDer for this (Google it).

You would be surprised how often WiFi problems are router related, naturally because people see the router working with other devices. For persistent problems, I recommend trying a different router at a friend's house or a Starbucks -- just to see if the problem is really with the laptop.

5) Also try Googling site:notebookreview.com/samsung wifi issues. You will find extensive discussion of this subject in many threads.

6) Finally do note that the Intel 6235 has known connectivity issues as discussed in this Intel forum.

Hope some of this helps. Please let us know your progress, what works and what doesn't

 

1.5+ TB hard drives don't exist in laptop form factors.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...onos-amd-hd8870m-post9194093.html#post9194093

 

I have 1.5 TB in my hp envy, it is 7200

 

Might it be 12.5mm thickness, which won't fit in most 21st century notebooks?

John

 

I would rather have thicker laptop and more space than a thin one with 5200 1tb drive

My HP envy is not thick at all, looks like regular laptop

 

I know a lot of you are not interested in gaming but I wanted to share my experiences a bit. I bought this laptop firstly for university and secondly for entertainment. The performance of the 8870m was a bit dissapointing at first. Constant GPU throttling and underutilisation made this laptop look a lot less suitable for gaming than its specs suggested.

But now, the 8870m is finally performing like I hoped it would (quite a bit better actually). The GPU stays at turbo clock and 100% utilisation at all times (without any tweaking needed). The CPU still acts strange, even when the GPU is not active. This is not a problem to me since it does not appear to be bottlenecking the GPU and framerates are not jumping around anymore like they used to.

It overclocks well too. I was not planning on doing this at first but it's just fun to tweak this stuff . I do not and will not touch the voltage though. Temps are great. I played BF3 for about 2 hours at 900/1300 and both GPU and CPU did not hit 80°C (GPU max 77°C, CPU max 79°C). That's pretty impressive IMO and well within safety limits. If anyone wants a tutorial on this let me know. It's actually just enabling unofficial overclocking.

With that overclock I play BF3 maxed out (except for MSAA, which is off like it is in preset high) on 35-45fps depending on how open the map is. Small maps like noshahr canals are constantly 40+ for example while bigger ones rarely go above 40.

I also just went above P3900 and 3600 gpu score in 3Dmark11 : Generic VGA video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3635QM,SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. NP770Z5E-S01FR score: P3904 3DMarks

So in short: 8870m + 13.5 beta 3 (+120W PSU) = awesomeness

 

So just making sure, the factor that prevents the downclocking is that you have a bigger power supply?

 

I have the exact canadian model as yours. I do not think the quality of this laptop feels cheap. It feels amazing, similar to a zenbook. The only flaw indeed is the bilingual keyboard and harddrive but those two things compared to what you get(mid-high end gpu, amazing processor, 16gb of ram!!!) in such a slim chassis is unfound in any other laptop except in macbook pros

 

Hey bro, could you post your over clock values? I'd love to push the VGA to the max performance possible too


Does the 120 PSU make so much difference? If so, I'd probably consider buying one for myself. Thanks

 

No, it's mainly the 13.5 drivers. I only notice that I seem to be able to overclock further with the 120W PSU. At stock clocks I notice little to no difference. I'm not even sure if the PC is using more than 90W. I need to do some more testing to check if the 120W is actually really is improving gaming performance.

Off course . When gaming, I like to put it at 900/1300, +20% power limit. This is perfectly stable and keeps the temps below 80 °C. Something like 910/1325, +20% or so should be fine too.

When benchmarking I put it at 925/1375, +20 %. This is about the furthest I can go without crashing 3Dmark 11. BF3 crashes at these clocks. Upping the voltage could probably push it further but I don't like doing that.

I'd check if the 90W one is enough for you. I bought it out of curiousity. Like I said above I'm not even sure if a 120W PSU really helps. This needs more testing.

 

I see there is a new Intel 7260 card out with ac. Perhaps the solution to the on going 6235 problems is going to be a hardware upgrade.

 

I have heard of so much problems with WiFi, but I haven't had a single problem myself. Stock drivers, newer drivers, win8 drivers,... This is strange.

 

I'm surely missing something, but I can't change the core and memory frequencies for my video card under afterburner! On the top of the page it says "ATI Radeon HD 8800 series" but the sliders won't move! Even typing the value in the little box on the right doesn't work.. Is there any particular setting I need to change before overclocking? I'm curious to see if it improves the framerate in AC..



edit: OK, as always, you need to activate the card by launching a graphically demanding application in order to see it under afterburner..

 

Hey guys,

I'm starting to think my amd 8770 isn't working properly. I first tried opening gpu-z and it doesn't open now with catalyst 13.5. I then changed the 3dmark11 application to power saving and ran the benchmarks. I get the same score! The 8770 does show under the results running at lower clock speeds versus when I run full performance it's clock speed on the results page is a lot higher. I'm going to try downloading afterburner and a game to see what gives. I have a week left to return to bestbuy so I'm starting to get worried. Let me know if anyone else has had similar issues.

Thanks,

Kia0001

 

Hello,

3 Quick questions for the owners of the ATIV 8:

- How easy is it to change the HDD for an SSD and does this void the warranty? And if so, is there any way of opening up the laptop without breaking any seals?

- How's the wifi? And if there's any problems, are they fixable by installing new drivers?

- How's the quality of Samsung's after sales service and warranty?

I hear mixed stories.

 

Ok, here's my question: 1 WHY IS THE TOUCH MODEL THE ONLY ONE AVAILABLE IN THE US?!?!?! Also 2 why is the 8770m available but not the 8870m?

 

I can reply to the first question:

swapping the HDD with an SSD doesn't void your warranty as you won't remove any seals during the removal of the bottom lid. If you be really careful while removing it, you won't even leave any sign of the operation, so nobody will ever notice that you've done the operation (assuming that you put back the original drive in case you need to send the machine in for reparis)

 

Weird thing is, I have the 13.5 drivers and in afterburner i still see the GPU usage jump from 100 to 64 percent over and over again even when the limit is 20% when I play a game like far cry 2. Everything is stock yet i think(correct me if im wrong) it still downclocks to 725mhz from the regular 775mhz. Have any ideas?

 

If I remember correctly 725 MHz should be the nominal frequency, and 775 MHz the boost frequency

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

thinking of buying NP770Z5E but worryed about cooling, can it handle it?

 

Cheers, If I may ask, what size of SSD did you use to replace the HDD with? Like in mm.

Also, where would one find non-promo pics of the actual ATIV 8 in ash black?

 

I wonder if some owner can tell me what is possible in terms of customization of trackpad gestures on the Elan trackpads on the 7 series.
How are these drivers or is there decent software that allows you to make good use of such a nice big trackpad?
I started this thread but didn't receive and concrete information on my questions.

 

Our accumulated wisdom is in this thread. If you search for "Smartpad" in the registry you will find innumerable configuration entries of which only a few are accessible through the touchpad control panel.

John

 

Thank you very much.

 

2.5", 7 mm.

 

If you set msiafterburner as "high performance" in the switchable graphics app you can just open afterburner and it should work.

gpu-z never worked for me so that isn't too worrying .
Why do you want to put 3Dmark11 at powersaving?

Hmm strange. Maybe this is where the 120W PSU does actually help. Have you tried other games too?

It most definitely can. When gaming intensively GPU and CPU never hit 75°C. Even at a pretty high overclock GPU nor CPU hit 80 °C. I do lift the back a litlle bit to improve airflow. I have never experienced any kind of thermal throttling.

 

Same here, downclocks to 725 while temperature is below 70 with the new driver.

 

It did that on the previous drivers with 90w psu for me too. Will test with my 90W psu tomorrow.

 

Hi guys. Successfully changed my hdd to a ssd. Now I'm thinking of using back the stock HDD as an storage.

Will any 2.5inch 7mm enclosure works best? As my old hdd still not formatted yet. Can I still boot back the default is still?

 

Did anyone get the 13.5 drivers working with proper brightness control yet?

 

I am going to return it. I was thinking about it (screen retention, jumpy touchpad, throttling, bilingual keyboard, random backlight) and finally I found a bright pixel, there is no way I am going to compromise for this.

 

Actually, I can confirm for the new 13.5 beta 3 driver that when I start a game and play it for the first few minutes it throttles up and down from nominal clock speed to 780mhz(overclocked core). HOWEVER, after a few minutes more the gpu stops sporadically changing clocks and throttling and stays at 100% usage according to afterburner. Just my two cents on what i noticed in game for more than a a few minutes. Because of this, I am satisfied with this laptop.

 

Since you never got replies to the latter two, let me fill you in on that: the WiFi is good and bad. The card's had a lot of problems, but generally everyone's found their own solution. Most people seem to have perfectly working WiFi with the latest Intel driver, while some (and I am one of these) find that the latest causes disconnections, and earlier drivers worked fine. I don't think anyone who has actually tried a few different driver versions have actually returned this laptop on account of the WiFi.

I've never been particularly enamored with *anyone's* customer service. It's all just a roulette wheel, to me. Sometimes you get knowledgeable people on the other end of the line, and sometimes you have those who aren't too familiar, and answer you from a list of stock answers. I think every company has a bunch of both. I'm not sure how good their warranty is--but most big companies will honor their terms to the letter, and are very good about it too.

The one available in the US that you're probably talking about is the 780z5e-s01ub. The last two letters are the country code, but "UB" is unique in that it designates a Best Buy special. Best Buy likes to do little exclusives of big laptops, and this was another one. However, Samsung's really behind on shipping this out--or indeed, even making any sort of public press release. I don't think anyone is sure why--some people have cited 8870 availability from AMD as being the hold-up, and perhaps it might have to do with the re-branding, too.

I'm curious why everyone seems to be dishing so much hate onto the multilingual keyboard for the s02ca. I own that version of the laptop, and I can say that the keys are all in their right positions, and the standard US keyboard layout is prominent. Alternative symbols for the Canadian French layout are inked off to the side of affected keys in orange, but really? I even remember someone mentioning in the other thread that they couldn't get used to it. It doesn't seem to me like there's much to get used to--the keys are in the exact same places as one would expect from any US keyboard.

 

I did.

step:

1.install amd 13.5 beta3 (lost brightness control)

2.uninstall HD4000 driver

3.reboot

4.install hd4000 driver by SW update

5. Done (get brightness control again)

 

Thank you Pranktank! It seems the specific quote from another forum was true...

"Again, as I mentioned, the PSU is only given an overhead of about 3-4W and I never saw power draw exceed 93.7W under load whether it was in 3dmark 11 or TF2. I'm pretty sure that the hard programmed limit is somewhere between 94-96W with this 90W PSU. This is fine for the 8770M system since the GPU isn't exactly super powerful but it could spell disaster for the 8870M system unless its equipped with at least a 120W PSU!"

Does this mean that the problem will still exist when battery powered?

I am not a fanatic game player, and i was thinking i could escape with the NP870Z7E, instead of the NP700G7C...

I would really appreciate your opinions...

Thank you

 

When I first got it, it was a little awkward - in addition to the orange ink, the keyboard also has a smaller LShift key for a second \ key, and a vertical Enter for the other \ key. For someone used to typing on an English keyboard with the larger LShift and horizontal Enter, it does take a little bit to adjust - but it's just a matter of a week or two of use.

 

A power drain of 90W or more from the battery is unlikely to be good for the battery's health and I would expect the system will prevent it happening.

The US English has one less key than most others although why so many things got shuffled around in the process of adding one more key is a mystery to me. My X4C has an enormous right shift key and a very small left shift key.

John

 

Today I had a couple of issues on a 802.11n network with WPA2-PSK encryption... Suddenly the connection changed to "limited" and the only way I could get it to work again was to reboot the machine. I hope it'll never happen again, I had enough issues with my iphone 5 already -.-

 

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

 

Hey guys !

I haven't been around lately, but my NP770Z5E-S01FR w/ 840 Pro 256 GB is still giving me entire satisfaction I just caught up with this thread and I'm happy to learn that updated AMD drivers w/ improved performance came in. I will install those tonight and will let you know if I run into any trouble, which I severely doubt thanks to the various feedbacks and summaries that showed up.

I also follow the 90W-120W PSU discussion with great interest, thanks to Prantank for his benchmarks and also for managing post #1 of this thread.

Edit : I think this has already been confirmed, but I want to make sure : there is definitely no way of getting this laptop to reach maximum performance (meaning, exactly like on AC) while running on battery in very demanding applications e.g. games ?

 

Can't wait to put in an SSD in mine too. I need 500gb so I'm thinking of the regular samsung 840 500gb. What do you guys think about that one? Or is the €70 extra for the pro version really worth it?

You are very welcome . I'll do some 90W testing again tonight.

No, since this laptop pulls more than 90W at full load I think you'd fry your battery if you pull out that amount of power in such a short time. I don't think there is a laptop with decent specs out there that can do that.

 

And if the battery will deliver 90W then the run time will be less than one hour. Get a car battery and an inverter if you want to do serious gaming while not connected to mains power.

John

 

I purchased the 8770m a couple weekends (NP780Z5E-S01UB) ago from Best Buy and just installed the "normal" samsung 840 this weekend. Highly satisfied with the results, though taking the bottom plastic plate off was more than a little worriesome I can't say that I would need the "Pro" version, but I definitely noticed the speed increase after running through the Samsung restore.

Note for those of you looking forward to doing this, you will need a USB stick with greater than 17GB (so the 32 fits just fine) for the Samsung restore. I took a peak at the used space on my usb stick and I think its like 17.5GB after I created the restore image.

 

I haven't really paid much attention to the posts relating to upgrading to an SSD and such since I know little to nothing about it and wasn't going to do it myself soon. I was planning to just buy a kit vesion of the SSD and just cloning the HDD. Wouldn't that work?

 

For those of you with the WiFi issues, Intel just came out with a new driver, it may be worth trying out.

Quoting from the HP-Drivers forum:

 

Mine was about 15.6 GB! I used a 64 GB pen drive, though, so I can't tell with a 16 GB one would do.

I've just installed Assassin's creed and it runs smoothly at full details, in full HD, with 4X multisampling. OMG I wouldn't expect it!!!!

edit: 16 GB drives are not even recognized by the recovery software. 32GB is the minimum allowed in order to create the bootable drive with the factory image!