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

@Swooshant: Are you running Win7 or Win8? And if you're running Win8, did you by any chance install Easy Settings (which you shouldn't because it's designed for Win7)? Just asking because it might explain some of what you're seeing.

Oh, and welcome to NBR

 

I had issues with all drivers after the 13.5 Beta 2, everyone of them seems to turn off the AMD GPU after prolong gaming and or after switching in between games and the desktop.

I've turned off the option that causes the GPU to save power, but that didn't work. Every game I tested with has this reproduce-able drop in FPS. Load game, play, switch to desktop, switch back to game, FPS drop to the bottom of the barrel...

 

Thanks for all the information, and I am about to order a samsung pro 256gb, hopefully everything goes smoothly with the clips. And everyone is talking about this recovery partition.. do you even need one, I re installed windows 8 on the 1TB and completely removed the recovery.. I just used SW update to get all the drivers back.

 

which problems would be caused by this Easy settings?

 

Latest Intel Wireless drivers for Windows 7 and 8. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?lang=deu&changeLang=true&DwnldID=23047

Yes, the site is German, English site is not updated yet, somehow I was given that link from Intel themselves. =)

 

I am not so sure. I think I have the same problem and task manager only shows minor read/write speeds (around 5 mb/s) with a percentage of 100% usage.

 

Do they work?

 

Using this driver for a day without any issues as with previous drivers. I'm using the Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 7260 though.

 

Are you having the csrss.exe high CPU usage while USB 3.0 devices is plugged in?

 

I just tried the demo after installing the beta drivers, and I got 37 fps. I didn't try it before. Not sure if that's good or bad, but seems decent.

I seem to still have the switchable graphics after the latest beta drivers. I followed the instructions on the first page of this forum, and had no issue. Others seem to be having some issues with them, but I rarely game and haven't seen any issues so far.

 

The clue was that you have OSD icons when you press certain keys. That's not a problem in itself (depending on preference) but was a sign that you may have installed Easy Settings.

Easy Settings is a bundle of different modules and Samsung utilities written specifically for Win7. Several of them are pretty hacky implementations even under Win7, let alone under Win8.

Samsung provides Settings for Win8, which ties into that platform, is a much cleaner implementation, and does pretty much everything Easy Settings did (except those OSD icons) but in a cleaner way. It also supports new features like Win8 Airplane Mode.

If you did a Win8 clean install, I recommend you install the drivers described in this post, no more no less.

 

Re-install the Intel drivers after installing the beta drivers, that should give you back the switchability.

Stock drivers here, and trying the google aquarium at 1000 fish (whoever thought of that needs a slap!), I get between 33 and 40 FPS @ 1080p, both full screen and windowed, with the Intel drivers. This still doesn't resolve how to force the AMD to be used though!! I will keep investigating.

EDIT: Would appear that users of the HP G6/G7 models with Switchable Graphics have this same issue, which has been going on for some time. From further investigation, would appear to be the GL technology - possibly when it's not running in a standalone application - webGL is using the web-browser as a wrapper for the GL technology, which is probably stopping this working.

Can't confirm it, but it's possible that NO GL applications work with switchable graphics based on some of the available information, can anyone test it with a GL based dedicated game (ie not wrapped by a browser)?

 

OMG, that's why FHD videos on YouTube are playing terrible on mine.. How can I make sure that the 8870 is used for these vids?

Edit: ok, it seems you guys are already trying to figure out how to fix this issue. I'll just try something as well, hoping for the best.

 

So same problems with the new wireless driver, short disconnects.

 

I honestly don't think that is the reason. The HD4000 is PLENTY fast enough to play 1080p video. In fact, my measly HD3000 is plenty fast enough. I would think network problems are a more likely cause. Or some background process that keeps demanding attention from the CPU even though it should be sleeping.

BTW, haven't seen you in awhile. Good to have you back

Edit: Regarding the Chrome WebGL and aquarium thing: I wasn't able to make it switch on my older NP700Z3A either (HD3000 & AMD 6490M) which otherwise switches fine in other 3D apps and games. So it doesn't seem to be be just the 2013 models. Still, it's puzzling (and annoying) that Switchable Graphics doesn't respect our command. I wonder if Nvidia Optimus works better on this one.

I got about 37-40 FPS with 1000 fish in 1600x900 fullscreen.

 

I agree, using the intel HD4000 on the 2013 model, I can play HD video back from youtube, blu-ray and HD files all at full fps, so I also think that is an unrelated issue!

@Obyboby have you tried saving the files locally to see if it is your Internet connection that's struggling rather than the laptop?

 

13.8 beta works perfectly, downloaded straight from AMD. Switchable graphics, everything works. 3Dmark11 and BF3 give the same results to maybe 3-4% improvement. Nothing spectacular on those applications.

 

Have you tried the wireless fix in the first post of his thread? It works for most people.

 

Hi guys... My name is rohit.. Just got my Series 7 chronos np780z5e from Best Buy. Read this thread on how to upgrade to a SSD, thanks for the help.

Installed a 256 gb SSD .Huge performance difference.

Steps I followed

1. Go to Samsung recovery - F4 at start up.Insert a USB 32 gb and copy the factory image and make the USB bootable device.

2. Removed the HDD and replaced it with SSD.

3. Start the laptop ,go to BIOS and disable fast boot and On OS Mode Selection chose "CSM and UEFI OS".

4.Then restart and go to Recovery -F4

5.Start recovery- copies all the files from USB to SSD. Takes some time

After start up update all the desired programs through Samsung Software update.

I have a question though. My laptop has 8gb RAM. 4 gb is non removable though. Is it worth upgrading the total RAM to 12gb??

 

Have u tried rolling back to the stock win8's drivers for the wireless adapter? That solved all my problems! Since then, my laptop has a strong wifi signal, and no disconnections anymore!!! Dannemand had posted a little tutorial for me about this procedure, so you might want to check the previous pages (it was about one or two months ago..) to find it.

Now I'm ignoring any update that SW update shows for the wireless adapter, because eveything's working fine (except for the fact that my ping is 10-20 ms higher than my friends', and we're connected to the same network at the same distance from the router. But I read it might be a Win8's issue, so I'm not worrying that much).

Eheh, thanks man, haven't posted in a while, but I'm reading the thread everyday

Regarding the videos issue, I'm trying to think of a possible background process that might slow down the movies/videos playback, but I don't have much stuff installed.. Antivirus, logitech software for my g500 mouse, and a few other small processes.... How can I investigate to find out what's causing this?

 

I didn't find a post about the keyboard backlit problem. The backlit won't turn off automatically when i turn this option on (FN+F1). I set this to 30 sec but the backlit is permanent activated. Of course i do not use the trackpad or keyboard for the tests. Do you guys know any solutions? would be very helpful.

btw. i have the NP870Z5E-X03DE

 

Need help on removing the back cover, I feel the tutorial on the front page is too vague. So I removed all the screws(step 1) and not sure how do I proceed now. Thanks in advance!
I am at the ports now, how do I use my nails to open them?

 

I need your advice.
I called the technical Support yesterday. I want to upgrade the np770z5e-S01DE with a Samsung 840PRO SSD.
Samsung support said that i will lost my warranty for this product if i open it.

will they find out that i opened the Notebook ?
I remember some years ago some Notebooks had a little seal over the screws. To open the case you had to damage the seal.
The 770z5e has no seals, but maybe the screws are sealed....

 

Ive done that yeah, and it was better, but not entirely fixed, still got short disconnects here and there. Ive got the newest driver on now by the method of rolling back to win 8 driver and beyond and then just installing driver from setup files from swupdate. yet to test it. thanks anyway)

 

There is a tool called a 'spudger" that is designed to help get the plastic seams apart although some people use an old credit card.

There are no seals. Your challenge is to proceed carefully, cause no obvious damage and keep the original parts so you can restore the hardware to the as-supplied condition if you need warranty service. People have done this and received warranty service.

John

 

Still nobody here with linux running on this machine (NP870Z5E)?

 

Start at one of the front corners, use your nails, or an old card, or a prying tool (google iphone opening toolkit, it was my first time too and this is what i got).
Once one corner is open (you heard a 'pop') slowsly continue towards the other corner. I slightly pulled the part that was already open further open and then used the prying tool to pull apart the next bit that was still together.

After the corners try moving to one of the sides, these are a bit more tricky, be carefull around the ports, just keep pulling whats open and trying to manouvre something inbetween where its not open untill it pops. Once the sides are fully opened, slowly tilt the whole thing off (while the back is still not open) untill somewhere halfway the back completely pops open too.

Like I said, it was my first time opening a laptop too, and all in all it wasn't that hard. Good luck!

 

Not sure why you all get 30+ fps, while I get about 20-22, but indeed, it doesn't resolve how to force the usage of the AMD, so let's forget the fish and focus on that

I retried and now it works (didn't even need to reinstall the intel, not sure what I did different this time, but, great!)

Hmm, this doesn't give me much hope that this will actually be resolved soon ... I'm afraid I'm ggoing to do some research if new Nvideo Optimus laptops also have this issue..

But let's not give up yet! (& tnx for digging into this a bit damouk.. )

I've installed a OpenGL based dedicated game (something called Space Invaders OpenGL, first thing I found), and I'm actually not sure to which GPU is active.
GPU-Z shows a higher GPU Memory clock for the Radeon (which for example in chrome it never does), but it also shows over 30% activity on the Intel, which drops to 0% when I stop the game.. not sure what to make of that?

Also: the new Catalyst drivers (13.8) allow for 3D settings per application. So I made a profile for chrome and put everything on max, but alas, it didnt change anything
Catalyst now also comes with a monitoring option, which showed me that it runs Chrome in Power Saving mode, even though I so told it not to! ... and it does show High performance when I run chrome in Windows-8 fullscreen mode... but alas, again it didn't activate the AMD.

 

Hey, does anyone know where one can buy this laptop for a reasonable price in canada?

 

Epic fail on the SD card. You're right, it stuck out a good amount. I took a nice picture demonstrating how it looks but I can't seem to upload pictures in the reply (not sure why).

Anyway, I returned the SD card.

 

Thanks! I am using a old credit card and there seemed no way I can release the catch between any of the ports. I will try again once I get a prying tool.
update: I got it open using three plastic cards of different strength and thickness. The process took about 3 hours.

 

I think I found a way to activate the Radeon for WebGL

I found this article, which shows how to force the browser to use native GL (indead of OpenGL through Angle).
Starting chrome with --use-gl=desktop, or in firefox set webgl.prefer-native-gl to true in about:config, and voila! The Radeon is activated when playing WebGL stuff (and the fish demo indeed already looks smoother), and even for all flash things it is activated now (like youtube or 3d flash games)

I put chrome.exe back on "Based on powersource" and now:
when unplugged, Catalyst Monitor shows me chrome is running as Power Saving, and GPU-Z shows me only the Intel is active.
when plugged in, Catalyst Monitor shows me chrome is running on High performance and GPU-Z shows me the Radeon is activated (when I run some webgl demo)

Perfect! I guess I'm going to keep this beauty after all ^_^

The only thing I noticed is that the aquarium demo now shows some strange flickering when unplugged. So it seems that using the Native GL option over the Intel GPU may cause some small issues. I havn't found any issues so far yet with Native GL + Radeon, but there might be? ... Anyway, what I did is I made a seccond Chrome shortcut without the --use-gl=desktop stuff, which is the one I'll be using when I'm on the road.

Edit seems like flash on firefox is still not going over the Radeon, and webGL also performs slightly slower, but chrome works like a charm

 

Thank you for confirming it, I'm sorry you had to return it.

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

I can confirm that native OpenGL definitely works with the Radeon and switchable graphics (and has done through stock, 15.3 and 15.8 beta drivers).

Using my own application, I display the GL_RENDERER string (which is one of the things listed on the chrome://gpu page), and it lists either Intel or AMD GPU appropriately as selected from the switchable graphics settings. Performance is significantly improved when the AMD GPU is active.

 

Interesting this, I have the 880Z5E, been following this forum for some time (on and off) and am experiencing the same problems as Swooshant. I have however, already installed a Samsung 840 Pro. My main problems are:

• (seemingly) random slowing down of system
• Slowing down of system when plugging device into USB port
• Ctrl key getting stuck (e.g. I suddenly start to zoom in Chrome; hitting Ctrl again fixes it)

Are there known solutions for these problems? Are the problems more commonly known? Would be great if you could help!

 

HELP!!!

Can someone please tell me why when I click on "Configure Switchable Graphics" I end up with the AMD Catalyst HydraGrid configuration page? I'm scratching my head now. Have uninstalled, clean up and reinstalled all drivers in the order recommended (ATI, then Intel) but still not convinced I'm getting the expected behaviour. Are there some steps I can perform in order to verify if my graphics setup is correct because my favourite game (Flight Sim 2004) does not even show that I have a Radeon installed, only an Intel 4000!

Thanks

 

Well, I did try some of them, 1080p, saved in local. If I skip a part of the video, for example, it takes a while before it resumes the playback, it sort of freezes for a couple of seconds like its loading. Playing FHD videos is a bit annoying, also when I try to play a movie via HDMI, it happens the same thing.. Video freezes while audio is still playing, etc... I have no idea why.. All of this on the samsung optimized setting!

 

Hi everybody! I bought Samsung 870z5e just yesterday and I already have serious issue. When I first boot laptop everything was working flawlessly so I installed som windows updates and also updated bios to newest version P02ADH. I also install new catalyst driver(13.5) and reinstall intel hd driver but now I am having troubles with noise of my laptop. HDD sounds wierd. When silent mode on I hear noise from hdd, it resembles blowing air. All this happens once per 3-4 sec and it´s very annoying. Also fans are much louder if I disable silent mode. Everything else is working properly and I hope it´s only software problem. Is anyone else experiencing similar issue as me? Maybe it can be because of bios or some drivers. Thanks everyone for any useful respond

 

There are several other things beyond drivers which you can (and should) tweak to optimize WiFi performance. This is common to most Samsung models, particularly the ones with Intel 6235 adapter.

Check the thread linked below where I've tried to summarize the most common remedies, including that procedure mentioned by Obyboby to fully clean out old Connection entries in registry (from previous drivers) and rolling back to the Win8 driver. I too found that one to be most stable -- although some have different experiences.

But the other tweaks mentioned in there are important too, particularly if you have disconnects.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/727499-wifi-remedies-samsung-laptops.html

 

Look in Task Manager to see what is using the CPU and the Disk.

John

 

Even the fastest machine is never fast enough to play smooth video, if some background process keeps snatching the CPU for extended periods of time.

The most trivial first: Make sure you're not in Silent Mode: Check that the Power Saver profile isn't active and that Silent Mode isn't selected in Settings (Fn-F1). I am sorry, you already know that, but just for completeness.

Next I would try and at least disable Antivirus and see if it makes a difference. You probably already know my opinion that 3rd party AV is unnecessary, since Microsoft combined its Defender and MSE into a smooth AV solution that comes standard in Win8.

Finally, try and uninstall all Samsung utilities except drivers, Settings and SW Update. You could even uninstall SW Update and only install it when you need it. Again, you've probably already seen it, but this post contains general advice for bloatware cleanout on these machines.

There is also this discussion which I had with pranktank back in the spring about further trimming to reduce latencies (those spikes in CPU activity that cause hiccups).

 

Thank you for your great response, man. Appreciate it.

I've already removed some of the bloatware that could increase the latencies, and this time I also removed the intel proset/wireless software. Hoefully it won't affect my wifi's performance, which as previously stated, is doing great right now.

I'm REALLY worried about the antivirus, though. I'd remove it, but I'm often downloading stuff (torrent, etc) and I'm afraid that I might run into some kind of virus which windows defender wouldn't find... I'm never surfing dodgy websites, so maybe I'm just worrying too much LOL. What do you guys reckon? Would I still be safe without 3d party antiviruses, if my usage of the laptop includes only a few (trusted) torrents, known websites, and online gaming?

 

Hello rohit, welcome to NBR. Congrats on that great machine. And thank you for sharing those steps. That's exactly how it should be working!

Regarding RAM, I am generally of the conviction that 8GB (or even 4GB) is plenty for most users, unless you run very memory heavy apps such as video editing or multiple virtual machines. Even Photoshop (which used to be considered memory heavy) will fly on 4GB (although it CAN make use of the additional memory).

If you have IntelliMemory installed, it will utilize any unused memory to cache the HDD. But since you swapped in an SSD, I would recommend uninstalling IntelliMemory anyway.

8GB also has a performance advantage over 12GB because it runs in symmetric (4+4) vs asymmetric (4+8) dual-channel, although the difference is small. See the thread linked below for details on that, John's post in particular.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/624900-t420-hd3000-ram-speed.html

 

Similar problem as Swooshant
NRGd - I have the same model as you and also the same SSD. I've only had the machine for about a week and haven't used it much (just been busy upgrading components and installing). I don't have the Ctrl problem, but it did start lagging significantly at times and I think it's only when I plug USB3.0 hard drive into the port. I first noticed it when I was transferring files between two USB3.0 hard drives using the two ports. The weird thing is that the lag continues after i safely unplug the drives. After I reboot my computer the problem is gone. I'm not sure, but I think it's stays gone as long as I don't plug anything into those two ports (right now I have a usb 3.0 flash drive in my 2.0 plug and everything's working).

It was really sad to see my new computer run so slow especially after I installed a new SSD. I mean my old Asus ca400 with a lot of things installed and last gen i5 processor was outperforming my new comp. It was taking like 2-5 seconds to switch between windows, a good 2-3 seconds to go from folder to folder in explorer and opening up a new file explorer, just painstakingly slow. Sometimes it'd take longer to open up programs. I uninstalled IntelliMemory but I'm pretty sure it's just something to do with the USB3.0. Still, it might be worth uninstalling IntelliMemory. Were you able to solve your 3.0 issue?

 

I'm not sure if I understand the sound you're referring to, but my HDD also makes some sound every 3-4 seconds. It can get annoying at times but I rarely notice it, and when I do I just play some music over it . I do think that it is rather normal behavior...

 

Regarding points 1 and 2, this is an issue with Windows USB3 drivers which microsoft are investigating. It is related to any device (possibly only storage, there's no confirmation on other devices) plugged into the USB3 ports and then putting the laptop to sleep. It also can occur after putting the laptop to sleep and then plugging a device into the USB3 port.

However, there is a fix:

Restart the computer and press F2 to enter the BIOS.
Go to Advanced
Change the setting of "USB S3 Wake-Up" to Enabled
Save changes and restart.

After applying the fix, you should find the problem solved. I do very occasionally now find that the laptop takes some time to shut down - it's rare, but pulling the USB devices out allows it to continue a bit quicker if you're in a rush.

 

Understood. Of course I cannot guarantee that Microsoft AV will catch any particular piece of malware and/or that any given 3rd party AV won't. And I know that wasn't what you asked.

But Windows Defender in Win8 is a real, full-blown AV solution, which just happens to have a much smaller footprint and less bloat in it than many of the 3rd party solutions.

Of course it depends on what you do. My days of walking the netherworlds of the internet are long gone

I personally use Chrome, in which I also disable the built-in Flash plug-in (except when I need it on a specific website). Needless to say I don't have the full Adobe Flash installed. And I don't have Java installed on this PC at all (although I do have it on my other PC where I need it for certain web conferences). Oh, and I also have AdBlock in Chrome which speeds up everything, and (conceivably) could prevent a malicious ad from running.

At least for the purpose of this video playback issue, I would try to disable or uninstall 3rd party AV and see if it makes a difference.

 

I´ve just tried it but hdd usage is 0-1% and cpu usage is the same. I´ve also uninstalled intelligent memory in order to decrease hhd usage but it didn´t help. The strange thing is that after entering uefi hard drive noise is constant. Before updating drivers (including new bios) i wasn´t having any problems with hdd. I was surprised how silent ativ book is. However, now is noise very audible especially when silent mode on. I didn´t hear anything apart from hdd that changes noise all the time. Maybe I should try downgrading bios and uninstall some updates. If it doesn´t help, then hdd is faulty. Problem is that I haven´t seen any post regarding downgrading bios on ativ book 8 or new chronos.

It´s typical sound of hdd but intensity is once for 3-4 seconds much higher. All this is happening after installing new updates, drivers and bios.

 

Hey guys, I just bought this laptop (open box from BB for $1070 total). I was just curious on if I made the right choice. It was between this and the Asus n550. I need it for school (Computer Science work) and some light gaming.

So, did I make the right choice considering they would be about equal in price? I have a 15 day return window, so I can take it back if enough people tell me I screwed up on this one

 

I'm looking at both of these laptops, and I don't think either is a bad choice. Samsung gives longer battery life, while the Asus has newer hardware. If you like it I would say you picked right