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

I'm using 13.12 (the latest official), I think I simply got it from Windows update, and Titanfall is working flawlessly. I have pretty much everything set to high except for some minor things (bilinear filtering, no anti aliasing) and am running in 1080p. I don't think it's a steady 60fps but I notice no stuttering whatsoever.

 

Thank you go45cvi.

I have mentioned your Clonezilla success story several times when answering cloning questions, because it is so far the only verified report we have of using 3rd party cloning with working Recovery. However, we had others who did NOT manage to get it working with Clonezilla (I forget who and where).

Could it be that you cloned the entire disk with Clonezilla (which also copied the partition table entries, including the F4 link) whereas cloning or restoring Recovery partitions individually does NOT work (because Clonezilla creates the partition table entries anew, and doesn't know to create an F4 link)? That would be a logical explanation.

I should take a few days off sometime and investigate this thoroughly. I did that originally, but it was back in the days of SRS5 and older versions of Clonezilla and other partition imaging tools

 

Hey, thanks for the input, sorry for the late response, how long was it delayed? What worries me is that they haven't told me what kind of clarification they're waiting for and haven't answered my latest emails, so I'm just left hanging, anyway I'll try calling tomorrow or on Monday.

 

Quick question doesn't anyone used Waterfox (Firefox 64bit)? For some reasons when I open this browser and plugging in the charger my fan would blast very loud non stop and when I unplug it the fan stop. This only happen when I open browser and plugged in.

 

Overall, it took about three weeks instead of less than one week but I expect they had the X3C battery in stock once they had been told it would fit.

John

 

Catalyst Control Center still crashing on my lappy - has anyone experienced the same? It happens straight after I switch on the machine!!!

 

I'm not lying . It worked and yes I cloned the entire disk before I even booted into windows for the first time. I just don't know whether it would work in a W8 uefi setup, but in theory it should support it. If I remember I'll try to get it to work on my bro's W8 X3D, but that won't be for a long time.

 

Oh, I don't doubt you for a second, I hope I didn't come across like I did. Again, I have been referring to your report many times.

And thank you for confirming that you did a full-disk clone. I do think that's what makes the difference: While cloning (or restoring) Recovery partitions individually remains a no-no, cloning the entire disk has a chance of preserving the hidden Recovery link, at least with Clonezilla. Of course owners can do a Disk Copy with Recovery for the same effect, but many like to use other tools. I would still love to hear confirmation if the latest Samsung Data Migration preserves Recovery (and F4 actually works after cloning) since many receive that with their SSD and use it by default.

 

Guys just to clarify w8.1 spring update.
1) do you confirm that leaked update doesn't break anything?
2) how is it supposed to be applied? I mean, once we'll see it availabe in Windows update, ready for download, should we first install Samsung w8.1 stock drivers downloaded from stupidate and THEN download the update from Windows update? Or how?

 

Hi
Some thoughts first
I bought the Samsung Ativ 8 NP880Z5E-X01SE with AUO9003 (last example) because I do not like the "upgraded" new model with the Nvidia GT750 (what samsung things - worse graphics and HD instead of SSD is upgrade? Why they use all others manufactories parts instead for their own one - like panel, HD, etc etc). Samsung can irritate own costumers, maybe they should hold itself to refrigerator and washing machine.. 
One thing I do not like is that the panel AUO9003 is grainy. And why is it grainy when it is glossy? To reduce reflection? Then they failed because this one is more reflective than my MSI GX640 3 year old glossy panel which is absolutely no grainy.
So to have grainy and reflective panel is nonsense.
And some questions
1
If I want to change the panel which one should i buy? It should be touch, absolutely NO grainy and as less reflective as possible, IPS, not too much bleeding, 1920 x 1080 panel?
2
In Samsung settings in silent mode which one to use - auto, low or off? Each one starting a fan after 1 minute even if I just surfing on the net, no hard work to all.
Thanks for suggestions

 

Has anyone tried LeeKM's or Leshcat's 14.2 drivers?

 

Keep Silent Mode Off for normal operation, and tweak the Samsung Optimized power plan to your needs. Toggle Silent Mode with Fn-F11 only when you want power frugal operation (hence quiet, but slower) and tweak the Power Saver plan to your needs. When in Silent Mode, Auto turns fans on/off as needed, Low keeps them running constantly at low speed.

See this post for more about Samsung's approach to power management.

 

Hi everyone.
I got NP770Z5E-S01DE. I want exchange this qwertz keyboard to UK qwerty version (US keyboard have another shape of enter) I found the keyboard on ebay, supposedly compatible model NP770Z5E, but I'm not sure if it will work properly. Whether the type designation S01DE/S01PL/S02FR ... has some effect on the compatibility? Question is simple: Does anyone have any experience with replacing the keyboard in this model ?

 

The official part is called "Unit housing top" and is a complete keyboard / keyboard surround / palmrest unit - something like this. In fact, you could do worse than buy that part and figure out how to non-destructively remove the key caps (I believe it can be done - they clip together) then just change the keycaps.

John

 

AAArrrggghhhh just out of warranty, and I've noticed that the plastic bezel around the edge of my 780z5e (between the base panel and the keyboard surround/wrist rest) has cracked - I think it might have been self induced, as I keep catching it with my watch - it sticks up a tiny tiny amount! Anyone know if it's possible to replace this and if so, where I can get the parts in the UK? (John?)

 

Two sources come to mind: Digicare and Valutech ( on ebay.uk).

Wouldn't a little drop of superglue do the necessary? I don't recognise anything at samsunparts.com that looks suitable.

John

 

Thanks John, yeah, a drop of superglue probably would do the trick actually - just seems like the wrong thing to do to a £1,200 laptop! - Think I need to take the back off and really assess how damaged it is!! It might be a simple fix - think I might then use the old Dremmel to take the slight lip off so it doesn't happen again too (seems an even crazier thing to do to a £1,200 laptop, but what the hell!). If it all goes wrong, I'll check out those links.

 

Up.. Still trying to figure out a solution for this

 

Good to hear from you again, damouk. But sorry to hear about this.

If you're only just out of warranty, I would contact Samsung as the first thing. You may be in luck they will cover it for you after all. I admit it's a long shot, particularly if it looks to be physical damage. But it couldn't hurt trying. Good things do happen sometimes.

Otherwise it sounds like you're on track for a DIY repair.

 

How long can you hold fan complitly silent (just websurfing CPU runs about 3 to 10 %)? I tried all settings in power mode Samsungs and Power save mode(pasiv cooling, cpu max 50% and so on) but after 1 minut fan starts again. Whatever I use in Samsung settings app (even if I choose off it stops imidiatly) it stays quiet just about one minut and starts again.. hmm (I have read posts about power managament and I have reinstald Settings)

 

Up to 10% CPU while just web browsing is quite high and likely to get the temperature over the threshold to turn on the fan. Perhaps you have some Flash running on web pages (often unwanted adverts).

Try using Firefox with AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock and see if that reduces the CPU usage.

John

 

Hi Obyboby,

I see you haven't gotten any response to this, even after you bumped it. Since I don't game (or even own the 2013 S7/AB8) this is one area where I don't have much experience.

Since the crash happens both with stock AMD drivers and the modded 14.1 drivers, I wonder if the problem is related to the GPU switching mechanism.

I would say try a complete uninstall of both Intel Graphics and AMD drivers, then re-install of Stock drivers. If that doesn't solve it, do you have a restore point you can roll back to? Or a Windows partition image backup? Worst case perform a factory restore.

The goal would be to get stability back -- then once you have that, you can start testing newer drivers again (after creating a backup or restore point of the stable installation).

I realize this is very general troubleshooting advice. I wish I had something more specific for you

Please keep us posted on your progress and if you find a fix.

 

thanks
how long can you hold your completely silent? where can you se temps CPU and GPU? I tried Everest och cpu-z - nothing. Can we adjust start-stop fan temp somehow?

Maybe then with Haswell is better byt GPU is worse on then.. so thats not an option...

 

Try using the Sensors module in HWiNFO to see the temperatures.

No one has published an override for Samsung's fan control. However, you may try the "low" setting in Silent Mode. This is meant to keep the fan running slowly rather than stop-start.

John

 

Thanks will try the reinstall option.

Unfortunately, I don't use backups/restore points on my machine. (BTW, can I enable them or do they stress my SSD?) I do have a backup of my drive but can't be bothered doing the procedure, so, I hope the driver refresh will be enough to fix this issue.

 

you mentioned earlier in this thread that cpu is on 800 Mhz in silent mode, mine is att 1200 Mhz, ussage about 0-3%, temp from 48 to 54 when fan starts again after 3 minutes it was off (save mode enabled i bios, rooms temp about 22)..
does everyone have it so or have I missed somethig?
so you can't either have fan off. more than some (3-4) minutes or??

 

I don't use System Restore myself, mostly because it increases latency spikes, about which I am a stickler. I prefer making image backups of my Windows partition whenever I have a good installation, and/or before making significant changes (even before Windows Updates, if they include .NET or anything else that might disturb the peace). If I ever have a problem that doesn't resolve quickly, I'll restore to my last image backup instead of spending a lot of time trying to solve the problem.

I don't know if System Restore contributes significant wear to the SSD. It is not my impression that it adds a lot of writing, it just keeps original files (or maybe LBAs) in place whenever updates are being written. And creating a Restore Point doesn't seem like a big write operation either. But I don't know this for sure, maybe others have more insight.

I hope you get it working!

 

Hi - you can go here to get links and instructions on the order to install the updates: You can download Windows 8.1 update 1 right now with a simple registry tweak [Update] - Neowin

On my 780Z5E with stock everything (except for the SSD I swapped) it runs like a charm and nothing was broken. There is some word that the leak was not the final but I think that has since been debunked.

 

Maybe your CPU has a different minimum speed to the low power CPU in my Series 9. Which CPU is it?

We need another owner of your type of notebook to check their CPU speed, temperature and fan behaviour.

John

 

Does you brightness control still works? Mine stopped working. Does the french site have newer AMD/intel drivers?

Also do you think you can use the standard intel drivers from the website?

 

I did try the 14.2 whql by AMD but the drivers kept crashing every minute so i came back to the 13.12 and everything work as before .

You can download intel drivers from official source even if they say that you must refer to the laptop manufacturer (i have the 10.18.10.3383 one running/working, didn't test the newer ) link here .

I recommend to keep a working version of the intel driver (seems responsible for the brightness problem) and only update the AMD ones .

 

It is Intel Core i7-3635QM, so if someone have this one, how long silent mode keeps realy silent?
I think it is pointless with silent mode which keeps just about few minuts.
Thanx for helping me

 

Guess I should have read this before digging in...
I just slapped the drive in and plugged in a USB optical drive. It took a reboot or two to get it to read and seemed quite slow, but eventually it booted to the dvd drive and I installed Windows.

Looks like my drive is formatted as NTFS. Here is what MiniTool sees:
http://i.imgur.com/u9wd23g.png

Windows did a good job automatically installing drivers. The only thing missing seems to be the AMD graphics driver. I tried installing it from the SWUpdate tool but it didn't go cleanly. I uninst and tried again and then it seemed to work. So I triggered the Windows Experience calculator, but that crashed to BSOD. It was repeatable after a reboot.

The dump indicated the ati driver was the culprit. I've uninstalled the Catalyst software and rebooted. I'm fishing around to see what driver to try next.

 

I grabbed the AMD_Catalyst_13.10_Mobility_Beta.zip drivers from the first post. The download was horribly slow and confusing--the file host played the shell game with the download link. Thankfully I chose wisely and avoided whatever malware they were pushing.

Windows Experience ran and no BSODs:
imgur: the simple image sharer

I'll do some more benchmarking later.

 

That partition list looks good. And because you installed from an optical drive, you didn't have to worry about the format of the install media: The problem of UEFI only being able to boot from FAT32 (and not NTFS) only applies when installing from HDDs and USB sticks, not optical media.

So great job. Now it's on to testing the various (and infamous) AMD drivers. Of course I would backup an image of that stable installation before making too much experimentation that might mess it up

 

Is there anyway to disable turbo?

 

Thanks. I think the idle power consumption of the 45W quad core CPU tends to be higher than for the dual core CPUs so the ability of the computer to run without fan usage is impaired.

You may try the "low" setting for Silent Mode (you can select this in Settings (Fn+F1)) which keeps the fan running continuously but should be less noticeable than the fan turning on and off.

There doesn't seem to be an easy control for simply disable Turbo mode. Perhaps ThrottleStop does it.

You can also try going into the advanced settings for your power plan and reduce the maximum CPU state. 78% is the threshold for my i7-3537U at which turbo mode stops running but the speed drops all the way from 3.1GHz to 1.9GHz. You can test this behaviour by running HWiNFO to watch the CPU speed and wPrime to load the CPU. Then change the CPU state % setting and press Apply to see the immediate effect.

John

 

Has anyone else had this problem with the Ativ Book 6 (NP680Z5E-X01US)? When I wake my computer up from Sleep, it briefly pauses trying to startup. For example, I'll log back in and start Pale Moon, but it takes a few minutes for the computer to respond. If I try to click or do anything else, the window displays a "Not Responding" message until it finishes loading. I have had this problem since I first got this laptop and I've only seen it happen on this model. I like it overall but it's very frustrating and I'm not sure whether it's the hard drive or what. In Pale Moon I only have twelve tabs open in two windows (8 in one and 4 in the other), but since this computer has 8GB of memory I figured that would be enough to not cause any problems.

 

Did anyone, who installed a Samsung ssd, enabled full hw disk encryption? How to enable it?

 

Anyone installed Windows 8.1 Update 1 on here yet?

 

I recommend that you download Samsung Magician ,you will find usefull options to configure your drive and depending on your model you have different data security option (not sure about hw encryption) .

 

Byron - check back a few pages. It installed fine and nothing is broken on the 780Z5E (Samsung provided drivers) with the only modification being an SSD replacement. I've used it since it leaked. I also understand from the original neowin post that the files are being served again by MS.

Here's the original instructions from Neowin.net: http://www.neowin.net/news/you-can-...date-1-right-now-with-a-simple-registry-tweak

Check near the end of the story for instructions on manually installing the updates. Reboot between each one just to be safe.

 

Yeah installed it and worked fine - glad it didn't cause the same hassle as the 8.1 Update. Anyone installed the latest AMD drivers and got South Park? The game flickers like mad with the latest ones for me

 

Hi, I have the NP770Z5E with Windows 8.1 and which graphics drivers (Intel HD and AMD) I should use? Thank you.
Also given in the first post doesn't work correctly for me.

 

I personally use the 13.12 whql ATI drivers (available on their site) and the 10.18.10.3383 intel driver ( here, the red message says that this driver is old but for me the newer ones don't seem to work for me ) ,having no problem with brightness or switchable graphics.


I recommend installing this drivers and making a restore point before trying newer drivers for both intel and ati graphics ,in case things go wrong.

 

Thanks John. Went with the superglue option. Turns out it was at one of the clip-points, so I suspect the bottom of the laptop being removed several times (by both me installing the SSD and Samsung when they replaced the battery!) caused it to break. It looks like that plastic bezel is glued to the metal of the palmrest/keyboard mount, so I suspect there is no replacement part for it without doing a 90% rebuild of the machine.

What I HAVE done though, is just sand down the plastic very slightly, because I do keep catching that lip all around the palmrest area. It's now flush - but has taken on that horrible white colour that this plastic naturally has beneath the lovely silver finish.

Do you know if there's a paint/touch up colour that's available to touch this plastic whitening up and restore it close to it's original silver? (Would also use it on several other laptops, where the plastic has gone white where I rest my palms, just through use - might make them more saleable!)

 

When my Dell E6410 got a chip on the corner of its red painted lid after a tumble onto a marble floor I raided my daughter's nail varnish collection and found a close match.

So, if you know any nail varnish users then ask if they have any silver which you can borrow. You only need a few drops. It's probably thicker than paint but is designed to be quite tough. Failing that you will have to take your computer shopping.

John

 

Thanks John, I've been thinking about this since I first posted - I'm going to go to a model shop with the RAM cover door as a reference - suspect there will be more choice of colours close to "aluminium" at a model shop than somewhere that sells automotive paint! Not sure I know anyone likely to own Silver/aluminium nail varnish - probably a bit too Goth for the women in my life!

 

I have a graphic issue I was hoping someone could assist or guide me with. I just recently started playing Simcity on my 780z, however the graphics seem to be very poor. Played other games on this laptop but the quality was never this poor. I did add the game to the AMD catalyst control center but no improvement. Any other suggestions?

 

This WHQL doesn't find compatible hardware for me