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

I think Samsung has changed something about the display, because on Ativ book 8 review by Notebookcheck there is some difference about contrast and brightness if you compare with the review of previous series 7 Chronos maybe just to avoid the image retention.


Test Samsung Serie 7 Chronos 770Z5E-S01DE Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests
Series 7 Chronos Infos
X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximal: 296 cd/m²
Durchschnitt: 273.9 cd/m²
Ausleuchtung: 85 %
Helligkeit Akku: 300 cd/m²
Schwarzwert: 0.2 cd/m²
Kontrast: 1435:1

Test Samsung ATIV Book 8 Touch 880Z5E X01 Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests
Ativ Book 8 infos
X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximal: 266 cd/m²
Durchschnitt: 242.7 cd/m²
Ausleuchtung: 79 %
Helligkeit Akku: 243 cd/m²
Schwarzwert: 0.24 cd/m²
Kontrast: 1017:1

 

Does anyone can recommend good screen cleaning product because my lcd gel doesn't do very good job cleaning this screen

 

Hey there i personally don't use any cleaning agents to keep my screen fresh..any microfiber cloth should do..i use one from 3m and gets the job done

 

If there's dirt that a dry cloth won't move without applying pressure then I use a damp cloth with a hint of liquid detergent to help lift the dirt followed by a wipe with another part of the cloth without the detergent.

John

 

Hi there i have one dilemma about this laptop, since battery is not suitable for removing on daily basis how long is the expected life of this battery?
And when it dies eventually where can i get new one as this laptop is pretty expensive i would like to use it for 4-5 years. Are there some on ebay or some other specific site.

 

Hey, I have some very important question for you guys.
My ativ book 8 is a great laptop, and after i installed a ssd it became so much better ^^

My problem is the dedicated gpu, i think i have some problem with it :s

At this moment im using the 13.9 drivers, but I would like to use the newest beta ones..
But the beta drivers dont have the power settings.
So how can I know which gpu they are using?

And the thing is, I have my games forced to use the dedicated gpu in CCC, but when i open a game, e.g: LoL or AC black flag it runs good, but after some times it lags.
The curious thing is that, if u minimize black flag and open it again its runs smooth.
And if i disconnect the power and then connect again i see a huge jump in FPS ( this happens in LoL, eg: i get 80 fps +-, but sometimes it drops to 40. I quickly disconenct the power and connect back again and it jumps to 80 , but its pain in the to do this all the time)

is there a fix? The silent mode is always off! and im always forcing the discrete GPU

Someone please help

 

Hey Everyone,
Would just like to thank this whole thread for making my laptop run as smooth as possible.
I have an axe to grind though. Samsung is pathetic! The store advised I upgrade to 8.1. As everyone knows that didn't end well...
Now last week Samsung's own SW update had a graphical update. Excellent I thought, maybe I can play play my games again using the AMD8870. Downloaded it. PC won't start...
I'm aware that through troubleshoot and prompt this can be fixed. But I shouldn't have to! I see many people here asking how to fix so and so problem, but no one asking WHY I HAVE to fix such a simple problem!!
To make things even better, the UK site doesn't even list the NP770Z5E as a product under contact us.
Absolutely pathetic!! I for one love this laptop, but Samsung's attitude has made me seek an immediate refund... if I can ever find out how to contact them

 

RVash stated he purchased the np880z5e-x01ub.
This is the ativ-book-8 (and not the series 7 chronos).
He stated that he "did" have an issue with image retention.
Therefore, he is stating that even the new version (ativ-8) still suffers the same image retention issue of the chronos.

So, since his original question was not yet answered, I will re-ask it:
- For those who own an Ativ-Book-8, and (have) noticed image retention - did this issue go away with time, or is it still present ?

I, too, would like to know the answer - as I prefer to have brightness turned up high on my display.

 

I remember pranktank answering that exact question a couple days ago, when commenting on his new Ativ Book 8 vs his old Series 7. I'm pretty sure it was in this thread.

Edit: Here it is:

 

Water - that's it. If something won't come off with water, I add a little vinegar to the water.

 

Plan on picking up the one of these laptops from bestbuy soon, has anyone tried used this ram? PNY 8GB 1.6GHz PC312800 DDR3 Laptop Memory MN8192SD3-1600 - Best Buy

Or does anyone have any experience with PNY? I am considering this ram because I will have an extra $50 store credit that can go towards the ram.

 

Yes, purchased same item/s from Best Buy and works great. Just had them price match New Egg today as well for 256 gb Samsung 840 Pro for $209 which will be here December 6 ( wanted to use the $25 reward dollars earned from Book 8 amd PNY 8gb memory ). Out the door cost was less than $200 on SSD...

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

 

Is it possible to upgrade the RAM to 16GO ? I thought the chipset can only use 8GO since the spec sheet said the MAX RAM is 8. As for the SSD, I got the PRO for 160 on ebay (brand new: such a deal). How much was that RAM for?

 

The Book 8 I purchased at Best Buy last week had one 8 gb already in it and I added 8 gb for a total of 16 gb...

RAM was $69

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

 

What method should I go for when wanting to install a SSD into the Ativ Book 8. As far as I understand

1. clone the C:/ partition to a new SSD using a backup software that does the alignment of the SSD properly and leave the OEM HDD intact. However some people have suggested that it breaks Samsung Recovery links even when putting the OEM HDD back?

2. Install it the proper Samsung way? Any guide on this?

Please help..

Thanks

 

There is a Copy Disk option in Samsung Recovery Solution 6 which, I understand, both does the cloning and keeps the link to Samsung Recovery Solution.

You may need to resize the C: partition to be smaller than the SSD size (by about 30GB to allow space for the other partitions). Windows disk management may not do this task very well but we have had good experience with Minitool Partition Wizard. Do not touch the various system and recovery partitions.

John

 

I uploaded mobility 13.10 beta: AMD_Catalyst_13.10_Mobility_Beta.zip - Solidfiles

They are the most recent fully working and performing drivers for our laptop. 13.11 beta 1 works too but performs worse, especially in BF3.

edit: Graphics section of post #1 updated

 

I have only one question to the owners of this notebook - if there are no perfect new drivers, why cannot you just stay with the default driver? Is it that bad too?

Seeing how many people struggle with the beta drivers issue, I cannot resist asking this question. Sorry if it sounds naive as obviously I do not know much about problems of this notebook, but its test results and hardware specifications look so good that I am thinking of buying one too Thanks

 

Hi everyone

I have update every display driver form SW ,But my win 8.1 still can not go to sleep mode automatically , Manual switch will do fine, what is wrong?

 

quick question, has anyone replaced their standard hard drive with a SSHD, if so has the performance improved significantly and is it worth it?

 

Thanks.

I am still curious if (even though the IR is much more subtle), if the IR that (is) there, has diminished with time - or if it is at the same level as always - (even if it is subtle).

 

The way I read pranktank's post, I understand that he found Image Retention to be significantly less on his new AB8 than on his Series 7 back when it was new. I think it is entirely possible that Samsung is using a different or improved panel. Additionally, damouk and other owners have pointed out how it diminishes with use.

@pranktank and @damouk, please jump in to clarify if you see this.

 

The first of the real SSHDs (ie with a generous amount of SS capacity) is too thick to fit into this notebook.

So I presume you mean one of the HDDs with a large cache such as the Seagate SSHD which has an 8GB cache. This will improve the Windows boot performance, with the cache holding the most frequently used files. Note that there's not much choice in the 7mm thickness.

John

 

Look, I'm sticking with the stock win 8/Samsung provided FULL drivers (no betas!) and I'm not experiencing a single issue. Wifi works great, switchable graphics and backlight work for everything, FPS rate during gaming is good (I play CS:S, which is old, I know, but I'm having an average of 150-180 FPS which is amazing, even on battery power), no black screens or crashes... I really don't know why everyone is making their life harder by messing with beta drivers, which most of the time bring everything but improvement on the machine. Lol I'm just visiting the thread daily and waiting for Samsung to release win 8.1 compatible drivers, so that I can safely upgrade, but I'm definitely NOT going to update before that.

As for the image retention, I'm pretty sure my series 7 is fine. I've never experienced any image retention so far. Maybe it does occur, but I really don't notice it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

great! Thanks man for your full answer. I hope this applies to Ativ book 8 as well as I am about to buy one.
I was actually hesitating that anybody would answer my question since it may sounded kind of dull and I was beginning to think the stock drivers must be terrible that is why people are experimenting

 

hey all.... so are we still all in the 'couple weeks' phase still for 8.1 drivers? it was a couple weeks a month ago

 

Give us all a Christmas gift, Samsung - working up-to-date drivers for God's sake! See, how miserable your customers you've made...

 

Well I find it oddly funny that this topic appeared again right now... I've had my laptop for quite some months now, ever since April this year, and I had never experienced image retention issues. Now out of the blue I started seeing some pretty serious problems, almost from one day to another, and I mean really bad, like I can almost read the letters from the URL of the browser I had opened for a few minutes-bad. I don't have a good camera but if I did I'm pretty sure you could appreciate it in the photograph, that's how bad it seems. It wasn't like this before, trust me, I certainly checked for the problem and I never saw anything remotely similar. It seems almost impossible how sudden the appearance of the retention was, it almost makes me think that it has to be some sort of problem with Win8.1 or something like that (never had the problem before), but I really doubt that.

I bought my laptop in the US and right now I'm in Germany. I understand there's international warranty although I'm not sure what the procedure would be, and I'm not fluid enough in German to speak with someone from a Support Center (they're usually impatient enough as it is). Luckily I have my original receipt with me, I just coincidentally brought it along. I would have to return the original hard drive, luckily I haven't erased the original partition layout from it, although opening the laptop again is not something I want to do.

Anyway, I'll see how the issue evolves, I'm not going to be more careful than I had been so far - that is, using a screensaver and not leaving fixed images with the screen at maximum brightness (hurts my eyes anyway) - if some image burn-in happens then so be it, that way it'll be more obvious to whoever checks the problem at the service center. If anyone's had experience with this in Germany well they are welcome to give their advice.

EDIT: I guess you don't need such a good camera after all. Check it out.

 

John:

I was referring to the seagate SSHD, i was contemplating on the idea of buying one can slotting it into the laptop, just wanted to know if it was worth it...it appears to be considerably faster than the standard drive and slower than an SSD. After looking at the seagate homepage where all the specs are provided for the company's SSHD, it appears only one will fit into the laptop based on its 7mm thickness, giving the user 500GB of capacity

 

hi people,
is the quality of the built in microphone good enough for skype talks or is the external headset mic a much preferred option?

excuse me if this topic was already discussed in this thread, but I honestly tried to find and could not

 

Sorry to see that, OsoAlgo.
This is the reason I asked this forum if anyone still had the image retention issue or not.
What you are seeing is what many of us had seen on the series 7 chronos.
When I saw this defect (similar to what you are now seeing) I returned mine - as it is a definite dealbreaker.

Oh well, I tried to pick up an ativbook8 this weekend, but it would appear that there's no more stock here in Canada.
This might be a good thing - as perhaps a new Samsung model is just around the corner.

 

New Owner here of an ATIV book 8.
I couldn't read through the 300+ pages but is anyone else concerned about the charge port/connector on this computer. It looks like an accident waiting to happen. I also use my computer while sitting in chairs a lot of the time so the arms of the chair will bump into it ect.

Any remedies for this? maybe replace that part of the cord with one with a 90 degree on it or create a patch cord to not stress the charge port.

Thanks

 

I have an older Momentus XT 500GB drive in my HP laptop, and it is definitely faster than regular HDDs without SSD cache -- and significantly faster than the 750GB HDD in my Series 7 Z3A (even though that one is 7200rpm and has 8GB ExpressCache). But of course it is nowhere near as fast as a real SSD (which will cost you about $300 for a 500GB SSD).

I think it is regrettable that Samsung dropped ExpressCache in the 2013 Series 7 / Ativ Book 8. Although I am sure it caused some support headaches (and that's why they dropped it) it really does speed up the drive. In fact, on a laptop this size and price, they should have a 64GB mSATA for the OS as well as the 1TB drive for data.

Update: TechBargains has some great SSD deals today. See here and here.

 

What is difference between NP870Z5E-X01HS and NP870Z5E-X02HS? color ?

 

Hi people, I'm a graphic designer from Kenya and I just got the Series 7 Chronos from ebay and it's a beauty I tell you. I have John Ratsey, Pranktank, Dannemand to thank (for their regular and generous contribution of trouble shooting information and all the others I haven't mentioned) for the smooth running of this beast although I have updated to Win 8.1 then updated drivers from SW update and everything works fine so far. Now, I want to start installing Adobe suite and a game or two. Been following this thread for months until I bought the laptop on ebay in August but it just arrived.

 

Same, I've two chronos 7 using Samsung only drivers and utilities and both is doing well, albeit at times the graphics switching is a little dodgy, but is fixed by switching power plans using Fn+F11. =)

 

Every driver from amd before 13.11 beta 9.2 works perfectly fine. That and they are MUCH faster in almost any game than the samsung drivers. The stock drivers work perfectly so it's not bad to stay with them, the serious bump in performance is just really nice.

 

If you are interested to hybrid drive, maybe this is what you are searching:
Western Digital Black2 drive packs both solid-state and spinning storage

http://www.wd.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1190

Unfortunately for its price you can almost buy a 512SSD

 

Just bought my Samsung 840 SSD. Do they all come with the transfer cable and the software?

This computer is not very fast without the SSD, but I know that will change, especially once I get rid of intellimemory.
Screen is rich, speakers actually produce bass, battery life is crazy, been working on it about 3-4 hours already and theres still 45% remaining with music blasting, backlit keyboard on about 70% brightness in "balanced" mode

 

the issue isnt with win 8, its with win 8.1.... which is 2 months old now, and more like a service pack than anything. i highly recommend everyone not upgrade yet, but 2 months into a release and no driver support makes me VERY concerned abut the future support of this laptop.

As a consumer, i consider this a high end purchase, and not getting the support that we deserve is really not winning Samsung points with me, nor should it from any of you. Im still giving them time, but honestly growing very impatient

 

Can anyone plz help me ?

When im playing games like, LoL, AC black flag, fifa it runs great, i get like 80 fps on LoL and 120 on fifa, but sometimes the fps drops like to 40 ( i think it turns off the dedicated gpu and uses the onboard gpu). So i disconnect it from power and connect back again and it jumps back to max fps...
Can anyone help me?

I got the right settings in CCC, I can guarantee that.
I have maximize performance when connected to power, i set the gpu to high performance on the games i play..
I have the stock drivers

 

What drivers are you using?

 

this looks like a viable solution, i dont want to spend plenty on an SSD which comes with medicore GB...do you already have the WD BLACK installed on your laptop? if im not mistaken this particular drive is 9.5mm whereas the NP7805E has space for 7mm only. So I take it this drive would not in this particular model

 

And, unfortunately, but the time you have squeezed a 9.5mm thick drive into a 7mm high bay then the drive might not work properly.

I wouldn't recommend trying it in this notebook (unless I'm wrong about it taking only 7mm or thinner drives).

John

 

The HDD that came with my ativ book 8 NP780Z5E-X04DE is a ST1000LM024 (Seagate MOMENTUS).

I measured the HDD and it is around 8.5mm thick. According to this its actually a 9.5mm drive. So I think you should be fine.

 

Hello, I just bought a new ativ book 8 and I have a few problems after upgrading to 8.1

1. after the elan touchpad driver update from the SW I cant adjust touchpad to be invent or not.
the option was just next to the "two finger" scroll



what can I do?

2.the windows is fresh and for some reason in the task manager it says "6.1 gb is in use"!!!
how is that possible? im not using anything!!





that's all.... for now...

thanks

 

I believe you are blaming the wrong party. If you read the other forum threads on other manufacturers, even those of Clevo and Sager etc, you will realize that the problem lies with AMD.

Why do you think the Enduro fix drivers are there in the first place? They are not meant for Samsung laptops, they are meant for what AMD has broken and not able to fix.

Also, from what Prank has found out, seems like AMD broke something again from there.

 

That seems to be the main issue right now. Seems to be the way BIOS is detecting the power to determine whether to use the integrated Intel or discreet AMD. But on the other hand, some reports from other forum threads of other manufacturer points to the driver that is at fault with the power detection mainly the "atiesrxx.exe".

I'm still working with a few laptops here with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs to see how can I reproduce the issue, and hopefully come up with something solid enough.

But for now, changing the power plan via means of reconnecting the power connector or via Fn+F11 seems to fix the graphics switching to integrated Intel.

 

Remove the intellimemory, just remove it and it will save you countless hours of headaches.

 

Anyone had any success over clocking the HD8770M/HD8870M?