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

yea ive done that ages ago, im not sure if it helped a little or not, but as for disconnects changing from 6235 to ac 7260 really didnt help. Im not sure wether another router would help. I heard in 5ghz mode these problems dont persist.

 

5GHz is shorter range and less congested. However, it may not work well if your computer is several rooms away from your router.

Did you try uninstalling the Intel Wifi driver, rebooting and then installing the latest driver? That may help clean up some of the messed up settings that were part of the 6235 connectivity problem. My 6235 used to have these issues but got fixed by the new driver released 3 or 4 months ago (obtainable direct from Intel).

John

 

Can you do that? I thought the AMD driver had to come from Samsung (using SW Update) to support switchable graphics.

 

While I'm unlikely to ever sell this system, that is a fair point. It's too bad Microsoft doesn't offer an easy to way to acquire clean Windows 8 media. Anyway, my enclosure hasn't arrived yet, so I haven't tested it, but I've had some compatibility issues in the past with similar partitions. I suppose I could try wiping just the C partition and see how that works once it arrives since I have a slightly different network setup than before. Also, I think I missed it, but is it possible to make an F4 recovery from an external drive?

Thanks!

 

I cannot think of a reason you should have to wipe all partitions on the original HDD in order to use it for general storage -- even on a network, assuming the server supports GPT disks. Basically just leave alone the first two partitions (Windows RE tools and the EFI system partition, less than 1GB total) and the last two partitions (SAMSUNG_REC2 and SAMSUNG_REC, 18-26GB total depending on model). The 975GB (or so) in between can be formatted as you like. This should preserve F4 Recovery if you ever put the HDD back in the laptop. Or just format the Windows partition only, as John suggested.

You cannot F4 boot Recovery from an external HDD, it has to be the primary internal one. I have theorized that you may be able to boot Recovery on the external drive using the tricks described in this post, but I don't think anybody managed to actually do it. I have not tried it myself either, it's pure theory.

 

I just did a fresh installation of Windows 8.1 Pro, but with a twist to the original installation method I usually used.

After installing windows 8.1 Pro, I updated everything from Windows update, everything, including the new 13.12 AMD drivers that is already on Windows Update. Windows 8.1 x86 and x64 graphics driver availability status

Install Samsung Settings software (so that brightness can be controlled by the hotkeys).

Changing the registry "FeatureTestcontrol" value to "FFFF" (this is to enable the brightness control natively in Windows).

Install the Realtek Audio driver from SWUpdate (so that audio sound rich and not flat).

Install the Multimedia Card Reader software from SWUpdate.

Install the Elantech Touchpad driver (other drivers seems to be causing skips and jumps, this one which I took off Elantech site is working perfectly for me)

And so far everything is running smoothly. Albeit at times graphics switching is not working as intended, especially in World of Tanks, but can be overcome by hitting the power switch Fn+F11 twice (once for power saving, second time to switch back to high performance, this always works for me to activate the AMD GPU)

 

Yeah, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work, myself. Just figured I would run into some issue based on a past attempt trying to use an external drive with recovery partitions still onboard. I'll be sure to test it when my enclosure arrives.

I read your post, and I may attempt something similar but, knowing me, I probably won't get around to it. Oh well, guess if I ever really need the recovery,I'll be taking the laptop apart again anyway.

Thanks a lot!

 

Sorry! No time to read all 400 pages.
I want to replace my 870 HDD at SSD and install Windows 7 on it.
If there any that especially in this notebook? Tell procedure.
I've already done this operation on 700zh5a.

 

Could somebody help me to boot my 770Z5E from an external DVD drive? I connect the drive and restart the computer, enter the BIOS and the drive doesn't appear on the list. I have Secure Boot disabled and boot mode set to legacy and UEFI. I'm stumped. Any ideas? Many thanks.

 

There were problems with the version 13.05 (see the first page of the thread) but now AMD driver are up to date and working .

As you can see with 13.12 (and maybe newer driver) i have the switchable graphics options and as said before i'm getting 3392 in 3d mark 11 so it's working great.

 

Read the first post, including the spoilers.

Then follow this Win7 install guide, it also contains the steps to convert to from UEFI/GPT mode to BIOS/MBR -- which we generally recommend for Win7 on Samsung laptops. Since you will be installing on a new SSD drive, you won't lose the contents of the original HDD. Just keep the Recovery partitions in safe, in case you want to sell the computer someday or need to convince Samsung of a warranty issue.

Make sure to disable Fast BIOS/Fast Boot in BIOS settings, otherwise it will skip USB devices when looking for boot devices. You can temporarily select a boot device by pressing F10 at startup (Esc on some model).

 

Thank you.
And if I take the SSD drive with 700z5a already installed windows 7 and put it in ATIV Book 8 870Z5E.
Will it work?
I also have a key to the windows 8 pro. Should be done in the BIOS settings or simply replace SSD and install Windows from a flash drive.

 

no...the OS configures itself according to the all the different parts that make up the hardware (motherboard, cpu, etc)....

 

'
Thank you Dannemand. That was exactly the problem. All sorted now. Cheers!

 

As bintoito wrote, the Windows installation for NP700Z5A is very different from the one for NP870Z5E: Different chipset generation (Sandy vs Ivy Bridge), different USB (ASmedia vs Intel), different GPU generation (HD3000/PowerXpress vs HD4000/Enduro), possibly different network (Broadcom vs Intel), it's just a very different computer.

In theory, you may be able to boot (possibly in Safe Mode), uninstall everything in Programs & Settings relating to the Z5A, then delete the ACPI root device in Device Manager. On next reboot, Windows may successfully detect the new device tree and all the new devices. But seriously, you're almost guaranteed to get some issues and spend a lot of time.

Much better to just clean install Win7 on that new SSD. With the guide I linked, it shouldn't take you long. The guide itself is lengthy because it covers many models, but the procedure is pretty easy for this model.

If you want to clean install Win8 on the new SSD, you need to get install media matching the Product Key stored in BIOS, in which case it should pick up the Key automatically. Alternatively, you can use the links in John's post here to extract the key. Getting legit Win8 install media can be difficult; see the posts here and here and here for some suggestions. On this model (and other 2013 models) I would recommend installing Win8 in UEFI mode, although Legacy BIOS mode (CSM) will work as well.

Alternatively, you can use Recovery to either clone your HDD to the new SSD ( Disk Copy, requires an external enclosure) or create a Bootable Factory Image Backup on a USB stick (as described in this post, also included in the opening post).

 

hey guys,
so I'm fresh booted off the 840 evo....can you please recall me on what the specific "timeline" of stuff to install?

I installed sw update and just 2 or 3 minor updates (px profile, etc). now I have about a 1GB of Windows updates, and another bunch of sw udpates....my doubt mainly regards wether o rnot I should install Windows updates regarding intel gpu and wifi....if so, in any particular order?

Thx

 

Congrats, that should be a nice speed boost

If you did a clean install of Win8, then use the post linked below as guidance (admittedly a bit old, but mostly still accurate).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e-132.html#post9255035

And if you re-imaged with a factory image, the post linked below (also in spoilers in the OP) contains links to bloatware trimming (steps 5 and 6).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e-270.html#post9384103

As for Windows updates, I would do them all except graphics drivers (Intel and AMD). That's assuming your on Win8.

Win8.1 is a different matter. Check Shinji_U's post from yesterday, linked below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e-411.html#post9563764

 

My brightness level is set really low, bluetooth off, wifi is constantly on but I always close my browser.CPU usage usually goes from 5% to 8% during my normal routines. There's not many programs running either, Nor do I use usb devices. =/
HWiNFO is stating in current at 14.7 V with a wear of 4.1 % Not sure what else to do at this moment.

 

Thanks. The battery is quite healthy and you have taken the normal precautions.

5% or more CPU usage might be the main factor since it will result in reduce system sleep time compared to 2% - 3% CPU usage that I would expect. More investigation is needed.

Which Power Plan are you using? Samsung Optimized or Power Saver / Max Battery. My own tests have shown that the latter don't necessarily give the best battery time because, by slowing down the CPU, it has to run for more time thus reducing the time when the system can drop into a lower power mode.

It would also be informative to check the power consumption straight after a clean boot. If CPU usage is more than about 2% then you need to look harder at what is loading up and whether it is necessary. If you go to Task Manager's Details tab then add the CPU time column which shows how the CPU usage accumulates. This is a lot easier to monitor than the bursts of CPU activity. Checking what has been using the CPU after a day of normal usage can identify background processes, that may not be necessary, but are cumulatively guzzling resources.

John

 

Hey Dannemand, many thanks for the reply.
I was lucky to have a clean win 8 MSDN, so I opted for a clean install. Ok, I'll start by running SW on those importante programs and only then will I run Windows update (not being able to control brightness and touchpad is driving me crazy).
For now I'll just install whatever amd driver sw will give me, but later on, what do you suggest? I have on my external disk the 13.10 (I think) which, together with another program used to give me OC on the fly with amd overdrive...

Cheers

 

err, I'm not able to control the brightness in settings...all other functions are doing ok, what I'm I doing wrong? Apparenty I have the latest intel hd4000 version - 10.18.10.3379 and the AMD one offered through SW. I've just downloaded the 13.21 WHQL offered in a french site some pages back, but I'm a bit afraid of messing things up...

thx for any help asap guys!

 

Ok, I installed 13.12, gave me a warning, rebooted, had a blue screen, rebooted again and apparently things are working...except brightness that i am still unable to control either trhough settings or windows power management.

also, for some reason sw update always fails to install intel rapid storage technology - tried downloading it from sw and installing it manually and through the intel website and in both cases it fails...I wonder whats going on and is this really necessary?

 

Just an update on situation....

installed magician and found out why intel rapid wouldn't install...aparently, me leaving ahci set to auto in bios didn't enable it. done so, couldn't start win 8, had to poke around a bit and found out that to enable ahci on a working win 8 is not hard, just have to set the os to boot into safe mode, force ahci on in the bios, save, go to safe mode, there disable safe mode and reboot. xaran!

on the part of the brightness not being set, gone here skimmed through, downloaded a reg fix from a guy's skydrive, applied, reboot and voila

Now, I would like to make myself a backup/cloning of my os in its current condition - since the recovery from SW update does not work anymore, which soft would you recommend (to make a bootable disk)?

Cheers

 

Hi there,
Recently I have been having a problem where the following message pops up: 'Your computer is low on memory. Save your files and close these programs: Borderlands 2'. It only happens when playing games. Happens during Borderlands 2, Dirt 2 and Dishonored. I have the 16GB model so I don't see why it should be a problem. I have also noticed that I usually have plenty of memory to spare when gaming. The graphics card seems to be performing well. 30-40 fps during borderlands 2 at 1080p. I noticed this happening after I installed an 840Evo 500gb SSD, but then again I had not gamed for months before installing the SSD. The SSD is performing well at the expected speeds measured by Samsung magician. And the capacity and remaining memory is what is expected as well.
I am not too sure what is causing this. Usually the error just pops up and nothing happens but a couple of times it has crashed and rebooted on its on. if any one has any idea it would really help.

Thanks.

 

Have you tried uninstalling intellimemory?

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I have the same problem with my Chronos 770z5e - 8 gig of memory. I also have the 500gb evo SSD. It's only happened a couple of times whilst playing Borderlands. I have the paging file disabled on my computer so I thought it may be linked to that - I also had multiple browser tabs running in the background whilst playing the game. I also have uninstalled intellimemory.

It's not enough of a problem for me to be concerned at the moment. I played Borderlands yesterday and it didn't happen.

I now try to reboot my pc before I play games, not open any apps before playing - maybe that helps.

btw - I use a wired xbox controller to play Borderlands on my laptop - a great combo. My PS3 version of this game is at 720p, it's great this laptop can run it at full hd 1080p.

 

Thanks guys, I do have intellimemory uninstalled. I too thought it was the paging file size so I played around with that and I think when I let windows automatically set it seemed to pop up much less. But that was set at 16gb max. Does the paging file affect the life of my ssd if set too high? Or should I just turn in off since I have 16gb of memory, I have read that over 8gb it is ok to turn it off.

 

You shouldn't need a paging file if you have 16GB RAM unless you are running multiple virtual machines. What memory usage does Task Manager show when you use all your favorite programs at the same time?

John

 

Thanks for your help. Do you have a link to the intel drivers you've used?

 

The link was above ,here it is .Enjoy your working windows 8.1 !

 

Ive been having this exact same problem. Been playing Borderlands 2, and it will often close and give that same memory error. Other times it wont close, but when i exit it, i see there is a poppu suggesting i close it.

I have intellimemory uninstalled, and so not have an SSD yet

 

Hey,

Titanfall beta is out.
To get high FPS and a good/average optic I did some OC/tweaking:

I installed the "AMD Catalyst 13.12 Mobility WHQL SG Fix Driver (intel & APU)" from LeeKM and recognized that there is now a driver option called "AMD Overdrive". I maxed all the adjuster (850/1250/+20%power). I don't use any custom-powersupply or anything else beside a chunk of wood to lift the rear bottom. As far as I can see there aren't any graphic errors neither throttling. 3dMark11: 3522 points.


Just wanted to report my positive experience with this driver, OC and Titanfall.

btw: if you care about titanfall: you won't be able to play it on high details @ fullHD. But it looks great with customised settings (shadow details disabled, lightning low, all other adjustments @medium/high)
Hopefully the retail version will run even better so it will be possible to raise the graphic settings and retain high fps rates.

another btw: the newest 14.1 LeeKM driver crashed Titanfall on startup. But it seemed that other games are running fine (I tested FarCry3 only).

(np770z5e, 8870m)

Sorry for grammarrr °_°

 

Hi, seeing zirkus post, remiinds of the following: the other day I also installed 13.12 - "stock" from a french site someone posted a few pages back and then I had lying around the DX9 fix from the user MacHater - this also enables AMD Overdrive....

So, here's another alternative lol (I was under the impression that the driver from LeekM was a bit of a nuisance to install - this stock one is a breeze, just uninstall the old driver reboot and install this one)

 

Thx for your reply, what does this "DX9 fix" do?

edit: Got the information by myself
As far as I can see there is no reason to install that dx9 fix if you already running LeeKM driver, right?!

 

hmm, I don't if LeekM driver addressed that issue. I use this tool just to get the amd overdrive feature

 

Anyone having issues with audio drivers or Bluetooth drivers since going to 8.1? I've got an NP770Z5E-S01UB that I finally upgraded last that's having problems. First I made sure to update all of the device drivers through the Samsung SW Update utility. Then I took the Windows 8.1 upgrade available from the app store. Afterwards there were new drivers available from SW Update, so I installed them all and the Bluetooth and audio drivers failed to install. I've tried to install them a couple of times since then, but they always fail. Everything else seems to work OK, and in fact I think that my frame rates on certain games has actually increased. I'm just curious if anyone else has had this issue.

Also, I have noticed that the touchpad will not work simultaneously with the keyboard. I don't know if this is new to 8.1, an old bug from 8, or "functions as intended". I recently started playing an older game (Thief II), and when I'm using the directional keys I cannot use the touchpad either for a "mouselook" type action or to click either mouse button as long as I have any of the keys depressed.

 

So, I managed to get WIDI to work with Windows 8.1... briefly.

Following earlier advice, I got rid of my existing AMD and Intel graphics drivers (in that order) using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). Then I installed new Intel drivers (from the French site mentioned earlier in the thread).

I tested WIDI using the Project option in the devices charm, and I could connect to my WIDI-capable TV, and see my desktop and everything. Unfortunately, the connection was even worse than the Nexus 4 I tried with it - not sure if that was a network issue, or the fault of the TV or the laptop. Something weird was going on with a giant oversized mouse cursor and ridiculous lag on it, even though I was just using the trackpad and keyboard on the laptop.

Anyway, I subsequently installed the AMD 13.12 WHQL drivers (got from somewhere else in this thread), and they work fine in games, plus brightness control works. However, they seem to have broken the WIDI. Although it can still connect to my TV, I don't see any picture or hear any audio on the TV regardless of whether I'm in Clone or external-only mode.


Still, I'm quite pleased to have ditched the dependency on Samsung-specific Intel graphics drivers, it would appear DDU is removing some registry flag that was telling Intel's installers not to work.

 

Hi, i restored the laptop to the factory settings (because i didn't like windows 8.1) but now i can't activate windows 8 and there is a message popping up telling me that the license will expire soon. When I trie to activate the 0xC004F074 error appears. What can i do? Should i do it again or there is another way?

Thanks.

 

Do you have any links to this DX9 fix to enable overdrive?

 

sure, right here at our forum. the thread is "dead" as of september last year and machater didn't post about his fix enabling overdrive....but for me it does

 

Googling the error message gave this Microsoft support page which hints at a mismatch between the Activation Key and the version of Windows installed.

But if you factory restored using Recovery, that should never happen. Definitely just give Samsung support a call. And if that doesn't resolve it, several members reported that Microsoft was quite helpful in cases of Activation problems.

 

Many thanks, that worked great including brightness control.
Now I'm a bit unsure if the Ati Graphics is detected, when I right click on the desktop I see the intel app options, do you get that also? HWinfo detects Intel Gfx. How do you know your ATI gfx card is working.

See the image below.

 

These are my 3DMark scores....are these indicative of the Intel or the HD8870M?

 

I only tested with the basic benchmark 3dmark11 but following this link ,a 2250 score is normal compared to other .

I have the same problem ,Hwinfo only show the intel graphics and the best way to know your graphic card work is selecting high performance under ati switchable graphics .

 

I use a program called Gpu-z. Switch it's display to the 8770M and look at the 'sensors' tab while running a game in 'performance' mode. It clearly shows the 8770M is being used with the temp maxing out at about 70°C before the clock speed drops due to throttling.

 

Help please, I flooded my beautiful laptop [Samsung NP770Z5E] - keyboard not working

A couple of weeks ago I accidentally spilled some water onto my laptop. Aaarrrgh!
I did all the first aid steps: switch off, turn upside down, disconnect battery, removed bottom cover and left it to dry out in a warm room for a week.

After it had dried out I switched the computer back on and every thing works, even the backlight [which I was sure to loose], but not the keyboard. No keystrokes register.

I checked the device manager and the keyboard is listed and marked as 'device is working properly'. If the keyboard had shortened out I would not have expected to find it listed. [on-screen keyboard is working btw., not that that is much use...]

Is there anything else I could check? Any suggestions what else I could try? It just feels like I might have missed something. [Seems strange that a relatively small amount of water has wrecked it when another posters laptop survived after being soaked in beer....]

All else failing, has anyone got any experiences with Samsung repairs? Will they be able to fix? [Judging from the photos of replacement keyboards online, the actual keyboard part don't seem to be accessible [fixed into the top cover]. I really love the high quality matt screen on the NP770, there is just nothing else out there.
Any help for this distraught newbie-poster? Thank you!

 

My next step in trying to troubleshoot this type of problem would be to disconnect / reconnect the keyboard. However, this might not be straightforward. Does the touchpad work, since it probably shares the same connector? It is also possible that there's a simple controller chip on the keyboard which the computer can see, but the chip can't read the keys.

I suspect replacement is required. An unfortunate side-effect of the separated key type of keyboard is that replacement is no longer straightforward because the keyboard is part of a larger component (see picture here) which Samsung calls "unit housing top". It is unfortunate that making them liquid resistant is part of the standard manufacturing process.

The typical UK price for a new one is around £150. You might want to ask Digicare (one of the authorised Samsung service agents) how much the part would cost and how much they would charge to do the replacement. You could also contact whoever is nearest to you (feed in your details here) because if there is somewhere close then you can save on the courier costs.

John

 

Hi guys, wanted to ask if it makes sense now to switch to windows 8.1. As in, is everything working?

Im on windows 8 atm and everything is fine, i would just like to upgrade my ATI driver and i have no clue which to use. Im still on the basic one i think. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

Hello everyone =) ... i have a question: is there any version of easy settings working for windows 8.1 ??? i cannot change brightness with the F2 F3 keys (brightness can be changed with displays settings)

Thank you all for the help

Greetings !!!

EDIT: nevermind guys i've just solved it ... i've installed Settings_2.0.0.45 version and its now full operative =)

Greetings !!!

 

Gpu-Z confirmed that the the AMD 8870m is working. The switching is really fast.
This means we finally have working Windows 8.1 graphics drivers.

I can also confirm that the screen brightness is working.

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