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

Try working through the fixes in the adaptive brightness thread.

John

 

Howdy!

I am the proud owner of a new ATIV 8 (From BB) and have been lurking around here for a couple weeks now.

My boss purchased it for me and had BB put in an additional 8GBs of RAM total 16GB. Is it confirmed that the first 8GB is soldered on to the mobo?
Since BB put the RAM in they had to start it up and all that jazz so now the username is Owner and the host name is Samsung-PC. I know it may seem petty but I hate that...it drives me crazy. I want my username and my hostname...lol.

What is the best way to revert it back to true factory (where I am guessing Windows will do the mini-setup)? I have already made the factory restore USB key image. It took forever (1hr 20min) but it boots fine with no issues. I was not sure if that would take me back to what it was when it really came out of the box or if that is how it sits at the point i did the image. I did choose Factory Image in the F4 Recovery to create the USB stick. I will be getting an SSD for it but not sure when yet so for now I have to deal with the stock HDD =(.

Also...I am very familiar with PCs and such. Been a Senior System Admin for years now so the tech lingo and such is fine. Ive done a ton of reading on here but didnt see anything that matched what I am looking to do and just wanted some other opinions before acting =)

Thanks!

 

For the time being why don't you just create a new User (Administrator of course) and delete the 'Owner' one?

 

Yeah that dawned on me earlier....I got the laptop late last night and have been working remotely at a client site this morning so my brain has been torn between thinking about the laptop and work =P

I think I will create a new user and change the host name. I am not that familiar with the inner workings of Win8 because I have not had to deal with mini-setup or it's equivalent yet and I was not sure what all it does in Windows 8.

 

Hi jtp, welcome to NBR. And congrats on your new machine. Isn't it great when someone else buys you toys this nice

You could simply F4 boot Recovery and restore the PC to its initial factory state. That way you get to start over completely anew. In order to catch F4 on startup, you may have to temporarily disable Win8's Fast Startup as described in this post (it's about F2, but the same applies to F4).

The following guide describes the restore process (called "a recovery" in Samsung jargon).

Perform A Recovery

OTOH, since you're about to install an SSD, I would just create the necessary factory image backup so that you are ready to proceed with the drive swap. That will eventually put a factory installation on the new SSD anyway.

The steps in this post may be helpful. I know you have a lot of experience already, but some things are unique to these Samsungs and some are unique to Win8's new UEFI/GPT mode.

 

Thank you! Especially for that link to the Samsung guide. I have been in the tool a few times now and it is anything but intuitive!

If I do the Factory Restore now, will I need to reinstall all the drivers and such? I dont have an issue with that either way...just wanted to know.
Also...I already have created the Factory Restore on a USB stick so is there a need to create another one?
There is no difference in doing the Factory Restore from the USB Stick and the F4 option right?

Unfortunately....I do not know when I will be getting the SSD so I have to live with the stock drive for now =P

The uniqueness of Samsung and such is why i wanted to post before doing anything...so I appreciate your response!

On a different note...

I think running Sysprep /oobe /shutdown from the command-line would suffice to fix the host name and user name annoyance. =)

 

@jtp: At dinner now, so this will be quick: Restoring from the USB backup or from F4 will both give a factory windows installation - but the USB will re-partition and re-image the entire drive, overwriting your current Recovery partitions. For that reason, it's best to restore the USB onto a new drive, just in case something goes wrong.

In both cases will the windows installation have all Samsung drivers and bloat.

The USB backup doesn't restore the SystemSoftware folder currently on the Recovery partition (Samsung drivers and bloat, pulled by SW Update). You can back those up separately if you want.

 

Exactly the answers I was looking for! Enjoy dinner and thank you for taking the time to respond...

Edit:
Am I right in thinking that doing a Factory Restore would NOT be beneficial until I am switching hard drives? If the bloat and all is included what would be the difference in running like it is now vs. after the Factory Restore?

I ran sysprep /oobe /shutdown earlier and it solved my username/host name annoyance (though I had to remove the Owner user afterwards).

Also...I was going to work through your debloat list (linked on the first page of this thread) but you mention using Samsung Easy Software Manager. I do not seem to have that installed and I see no mention of it since the December time frame. Is it still relevant and if so...where is the best place to download it?

 

@jtp: Yes, since you're waiting for that SSD anyway, and if the current Windows install is running OK, there is no need to restore now. It was just a way to get back to the "factory experience" that you missed when the store did the first boot. Of course if you want to play with it and experiment, there is never a better time than now, before you build your working installation. Then once you have swapped in the SSD, you re-image the drive using your USB backup, and you know exactly which steps to get the installation setup as you like.

Edit:
Easy Software Manager is what's now called SW Update. That software list is from my Series 7 from last year, and there have been a few changes.

 

Once again...thank you!

I figured that SW Update was the new "version" of it but was not 100% sure. I did not see things like Norton listed in there but I do have Norton installed so I guess I can just use Programs and Features as usual to remove.

 

I assume you are referring to this bloatware list which is the one linked in the opening post. Norton is ABSOLUTELY on that list as one of the first things to go. And yes, you can just uninstall with the Programs and Features control panel.

We really need an updated bloatware list for the 2013 models. It's not the first time this has come up

 

I have a small question, I have this laptotp samung ativ book 870Z one month and I have battery wear level 7,44 %, I think thet is very high nuber, but I don´t know what I´m doing wrong I play game occasionaly, I start charging battery at 15-20 %. So do you have any advice how to minimize this battery wear? I have programs such as battery care etc.

 

Thanks again!

There was not as much bloat on here as I had expected when looking at the list. There were quite a few that had changed names with the Samsung apps. I cleaned it all up and am so far very happy.

I do have two general questions though for any one:
1. What is the general consensus on Bitcasa? I had never heard of it until I was reading on here and it is on the laptop.

2. What are most people running for AV?

 

If I recall correctly, your 870Z doesn't have the Battery Life Extender facility provided with the previous generation of Samsung notebooks. Therefore, the only way to minimise the wear is to minimise the amount of charging / discharging. Are you running on battery when you could be running on mains power?

One thing you can do is to run the battery calibration utility in the BIOS. First fully charge the battery then run it down as far as you can while using it. Then go into the BIOS and run the calibration, which drains the battery until it is completely empty. Then plug in and fully recharge. Then check the wear again. If the wear is more than about 3% I would contact Samsung, tell them that the calibration has been done and ask for the battery to be replaced under warranty.

1. If you don't plan to use Bitcasa then you can remove it. If you subsequently change your mind then you can reinstall it using SW Update (the same advice applies to anything else offered by SW Update).

2. Personally, I use the NOD32 AV because it has relatively low resource usage, but there are some that say that the current Microsoft products are sufficient.

John

 

It's strange that with the same Samsung Settings build on 770 there's BLE and on 870 it is not. Beside on board ram, those laptops are 100% the same. So I guess the app detects model number to hide that option in 870, maybe removed to avoid confusion in customers (detecting shorter battery life without knowing or remembering BLE). I've got a 770, but as a 870 owner I would dig into registry just to check if some key releted to ble has been deleted or put a 0 value. Maybe a registry comparison between two different products would solve this question.

 

I am pretty sure it's not the model number that determines it, but the BIOS: If your model has BLE in BIOS, it should also have it in Settings, and vice versa. The exception is Settings version 2.1 (downloaded from the new NP940X3G model) -- it doesn't seem to have BLE, even if it is supported in BIOS.

I am one of those who believe the new Windows Defender in Win8 is plenty fine. It combines the old Defender stuff with Microsoft Security Essentials. It downloads new signature updates every few days (sometimes daily, if new ones come out). And it stays quiet and doesn't promote itself heavily, as some commercial products do.

 

So bios is different between 770 and 870? Does anyone have both files to compare?
Anyway we can still check if BLE option can be "forced" through registry key.

 

to John I´m usually on battery is better plug the notebook to electricity when I can? I read that there are some problems for example the battery is suffering from heat

 

The more you use the battery then the faster you will wear it out. Does HWiNFO show the cycle Count in the battery properties?

Once the battery is charged up it will stop charging. And if you just leave it plugged into the mains there won't be a top-up charge until the battery charge has dropped by several percent.

John

 

Yes I can see 28 cycles in Hw info is it ok ? I think that not. I read there that some users have 8% of wear after a year of use.

 

28 means you are accumulating about one charge cycle per day. Compare that with my NP900X4C that I bought about 3 months ago. By keeping it plugged in as much as possible the cycle count is only 4.

Anyway, your wear is still high given Samsung's claims for battery longevity. Try running the calibration.

If this is your model then Samsung claim:

John

 

Yes it is almost same model, but I don´t have touchscreen and in my notebook is more powerfull graphic card 8870, but the battery is same. I will try the calibration. So for the next time I schould plug notebook to electricity everytime when it is possible?

 

The key is to avoid unnecessary charge cycles: If you have unplugged and begun running on battery, don't plug it back in, charge a little, then unplug again later. Each time will incur a charge cycle. If possible, keep running on battery for the rest of the day -- but don't run it down too far, that's what hurts the battery the most. Then plug it in for the night, and keep it plugged in until next time you need to take it out and run on battery. As John said (and evidenced by his own battery) leaving it plugged in does not hurt the battery.

 

I think the charge cycle counter also takes account of the amount of depletion / recharge. I've run my X4C on battery for a lot more times than the current cycle count of 4 suggests. It may be that a 10% discharge happening 10 times = 1 full cycle.

I personally think that with the current batteries it is better to plug back in to the mains whenever it is available and not running the battery down more than necessary.

John

 

Shinji, did you reach any conclusion regarding this?

 

Admittedly, that's what they say about Lit-Ion: "It likes to be charged". That has not been my personal experience with other devices using Lit-Ion or Lit-Pol, although I am not sure in the case of my Sammy. I normally try to avoid starting a charge cycle unless I can complete it to 80% (I use BLE). But you're saying any charge is better than no charge, right?

Interesting that yours doesn't count small charge cycles. Mine doesn't display charge cycle count at all, so I couldn't tell. In my mind, anytime it actually charges, its a cycle. Do you think it's only those quick disconnects, where it doesn't physically begin recharging, that are not counted? That would make sense.

BTW, I just calibrated my own battery a few days ago, since my 15 months warranty is coming up. I am still at 6.8% wear, which is where I've been since last fall. I take it out for meetings about twice a week, and frequently to the patio as well, so I probably have some 140 charge cycles. I suppose I should be satisfied with that that wear, though I am not blown away.

 

I'm saying that getting back onto mains power is better than running the battery down but, in reality, it depends on the time involved. If, for example, one uses the computer on battery on the way to and from work I would reckon it better to use it on mains power at work than running all day on battery. On the other hand, I would agree that 2 hours on battery, 1 hour on mains then 2 hours on battery is likely to result in more wear than running 5 hours on battery (provided the battery charge doesn't drop below about 25%).

My old X4C doesn't have the cycle counter but is still at 0% wear at over one year (it started off with the full capacity being more than the design). I think the combination of BLE and a generously sized battery mean that the charging and discharging at each end of the charge range are rare events but the only times the battery gets much use is when either travelling or there's a power cut (more a problems when working away from home) but the battery doesn't get used on a daily basis.

John

 

I am completely with you on that. As much as I want to avoid unnecessary charge cycles, I want even more to avoid discharging the battery to very low levels.

 

What is generally considered "very low levels"? Most operating systems that I am familiar with will shutdown to system (or hibernate) at around 5%. I know you can usually try to power it back up but that would of course be bad for the battery...so is 5% too low already?

 

How many RAM slots does the ATIV Book 8 have ?

Also how many SSDs can fit inside ?

Are there any pictures of the ATIV Book 8 disassembled ?

 

I am thinking what John said, once you get down to 25% you start looking for a power outlet. That doesn't mean you cannot run it lower if you have to -- I have been down to 10% many times, and 5% too -- but now you're getting into the zone that wears the battery most.

 

I have been looking for some concrete info on this too. When I got my ATIV 8 (Friday), my boss had Best Buy upgrade the RAM to 16GB. They were only able to put an additional stick of 8GB in here. They said there was another slot but it was almost impossible to access without breaking down the entire laptop. I have read on other sites that the 1st 8GB is actually soldered on to the mobo.

As far as I know and can tell...only 1 HDD will fit in and plugin.

Thanks! I usually try not to go below 15% but it does happen occasionally.

 

So I've had it resolved under Windows 8 by installing the optional 'Card Reader problems' update from Windows Update. However, I've been using Windows 8.1 for a few weeks now all without any issues, except for that I have the same SD card issue again! Unfortunately Windows 8.1 does not have that optional update in Windows Update and I simply do not know what to do to fix it now. Any suggestions? I'm wondering what the old Windows 8 update actually did...

Edit: this is weird, it seems to be a hardware issue afterall, it also occurs on a ubuntu live cd (well, usb). I could've sworn that the Windows 8 update fixed it last time, I cannot find what update that would've been though

 

Lithium ion or polymer has the same energizing structure, whether you use it or not, they are based on production life, the battery starts to wear and tear regardless if its charged or not, and doing deep charge (deplete battery and charge up again) will cause the lithium ion or polymer cells to greatly lose its ability to hold charges. Its like food with expiration date.

Unfortunately, I still can reproduce the major drop in FPS with that option disabled... =(

Surprisingly different battery manufacturer has different percentage of "low level", it all depends on the ID chip that is embedded with the battery. From what I understood, it seems the safe low level is "surprise" around 20% ish.

 

I've been having a strange issue that seems to be caused by the switchable graphics. For some reason, every time I want the computer to enable the AMD card, I have to restart the laptop and immediately start using the program that I wanted to use, otherwise it will just use the HD4000 and run at a very low FPS. If I close the program, the computer automatically reverts back to using the HD4000 exclusively, and I have to restart again to make the AMD chip work. I have all my switchable graphics settings set to make sure that the programs use the AMD chip at all times, but it just doesn't seem to be doing anything. I've tried every beta driver there is, and none of them seem to make a difference. Getting a little frustrated and don't know what to do.

 

Try installing the 13.8 Beta 2 drivers, your issue sounds like what I've been facing.

 

I think I'm sticking with the 13.10 first beta then. Haven't had a problem with those!

 

I had posted a question about this earlier and have since purchased the Ativ 8 from Best Buy (USA). I can confirm that the Ativ 8 I received has 8GB soldered on board, and an empty DDR3 slot. I have ordered the memory both for the expansion to 16GB, but also to get the memory running in dual channel mode. CPU-Z confirms that the 8GB I have now is running in single channel mode.

1 HDD is also correct. I will be doing the SSD upgrade shortly down the road. FWIW, this thing seemed REALLY slow when I first got it, but I have warmed up to it some as time has gone by and it has seen use. I have not uninstalled Intellimemory yet. I have noticed that hard drive transfer speeds are actually pretty decent (on par with my desktop computer), at least for straight file transfer when copying data files. I have also noticed that it seems to be a bit quicker with a bit of use - I wonder if this is partly due to intellimemory 'learning' something about my usage patterns.

I let SW Update install the latest drivers from Samsung for Wifi, and I have had no problems so far since the update, though its only been a couple of days. I believe some of the early slowness may have been due to wifi issues as well - some of the Windows update stuff took forever to install.

 

A request to 870z5e owners: can you please extract bios.rom from latest bios and post it here? Thanks.

 

Hi guys, sorry for bad English, I use Google translator.
I am now the owner of a new ATIV 8 and I immediately changed the HDD to SSD (clone all data via Samsung Recovery) and added 8 gigabytes of RAM. Just in case I made a backup to usb and hard drive too. Now I want to remove the recovery partition to free up space. How to do it better? In Disk Management, I can not delete the hidden partitions, but use third-party programs do not want to, they can break windows. How to do it in windows? Thanks.

 

Hi Shepard, welcome to NBR. And congrats on your new laptop.

We covered this a few times earlier in the thread, last time within the last few weeks. I wish I had saved a link to that discussion and I am afraid I don't have time to search for it just now. Try Googling site:notebookreview.com/samsung 2013 ativ book 8 owners lounge delete recovery partitions - that's what I would do to find it.

It's really easy, though. I would use the free Minitool Partition Wizard to delete the partitions. Since you already have both a USB backup (which you used, and it worked) as well the original HDD, you are pretty safe.

 

Thank Dannemand, I read it. About Minitool Partition Wizard I know, but I would like to use the DISKPART. On the Internet I found 2 ways to delete a partition with it, but I do not know if it works with GPT partition?

And one more question, if I remove the recovery partition and use USB backup , it will restore only system on the C drive, or it will delete all partitions and create a recovery partition again? Thanks.

 

Sure, you can use DISKPART to delete the partitions (use DELETE PARTITION, not CLEAN). You can do anything with DISKPART, if you know how

You can also force the Recovery partition into a normal NTFS partition by changing its ID from 27 to 07 (as described in this post) which will allow you to explore, modify and delete it using normal Windows tools, like any other NTFS partition. That applies to the big Recovery Data partition (named SAMSUNG_REC2) which is really just a hidden NTFS partition. As for the small Recovery Boot/Software partition (named SAMSUNG_REC or RECOVERY) it's actually FAT32 (not NTFS). My older SRS5 doesn't have one of those, but I would guess its ID is 2C and must be changed to 0C in order to force it into a regular FAT32 partition.

As for your USB backup: If you created it as a factory image backup (using the Factory Image tab in Recovery) then it will always restore the factory installation. But I would think, if you restore with the Partition settings option disabled, that it can restore just Windows, without re-partitioning the drive and losing the other partitions. I have not tried that, though, so I cannot say for sure.

It's a good question, I would like a confirmed answer, if you (or anyone) have a chance to try it. It's a safe test to make on a new SSD: The worst that can happen is it fully re-partitions and restores all partitions (including Recovery).

 

I would like to clean up the Intel wireless driver bloat that comes installed. What all do I need to uninstall to get everything out? I see in Control Panel that there is Intel PROSet/Wireless Software for Bluetooth, Intel WiDi, and Intel PROSet/Wireless Software. Do I need to remove all 3 and then install the driver only?

Also can the driver only be installed using SW Update or is that a manual download from Intel?

Thanks!

 

You can uninstall anything PROset (WiFi and Bluetooth) in the Programs and Features control panel, and instead use the latest Driver Only package from Intel's download center. Or roll back to Win8's built-in WiFi driver, which many of us (but not all) have found to work best. There is quite a bit more on that, including proper roll-back procedure, in the WiFi remedies thread linked below.

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

 

Much appreciated!

 

I really need help... Every time my ATIV 8 does its windows update and restarts to install it, it hangs.

It happened twice. First I thought it was installing but it took around 2hrs then i gave up... I pressed the power button (5secs) for it to restart then pressed F2 for a safe mode. It detected a problem and gave an option to have an "Automatic Repair" and I said yes. It gave me an option to go back to its previous settings, again I said "yes", then it was able to fix the problem... This came up last week.

Early this morning, when it was shutting down, it again started downloading some updates. When it was done, it had to restart to install it... When it was installing, it again was taking so much time... I decided to just leave it there. I got back after 4-5 hours and it was still the same, nothing happened. So I did the same thing, restart using F2, go to diagnosis and decided to copy it. It said...

BOOT OVERRIDE
CPO:ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB

It gave me an option for Automatic Reapir, I said yes then it said "diagnosing your pc"... After that it said "Windows could not load correctly" then it gave me an option to do a system restore. I said yes then it fixed it... I'm using bitdefender.


I really need your help... Thanks

 

Bitdefender can cause some documented problems. Try following the advice at that link then see if the Windows update works OK.

If not, what happens if you try to install the updates one at a time, with reboots in between? I realise that will be tedious but it should help identify which update is causing the problem. Or you might not encounter the problem. Sometimes the updates can trip over each other if installed together.

John

 

Any feedback on the new driver? Thank you.

 

Works great on my machine.