Anyone here have the NP550P7C 17"?

Good news! I found it by trial and error after discovering that Esc (which I also found by trial and error) no longer worked. I don't think that Samsung support know about this feature because it's not on the user guide.

John

 

A friend of mine bought a NP550P7C yesterday 11/09/12 and they have been playing guild wars 2 on top quality, high performance battery settings while plugged in and the temp of the GPU was 77 degrees after 3 hours play, I do that for 5 minutes and I get 91 degree

 

Mine has now been written off by Samsung and I'm getting my money back. Only took 51 days in repair.

 

So will you buy another of these or take your business elsewhere?

John

 

Hello everyone.

I have a Samsung NP550p7c-s02uk, and i love it and i think its value yadda yadda yadda.... So yesterday i bought myself a nice SSD for the second memory slot and although it fits just great and will work fine I cannot for the life of me find the damn connector cable!! NIGHTMARE!!

Does anybody have any clue what its product code is or where how i can get one?? To make matters worse I live in Lao PDR which means that getting simple hardware is almost impossible. Ive checked on eBay etc but im genuinely not sure what cable I need.

PLEASE PLEASE help!!

 

The bag the cable comes in with the 4 screws has "ba96-06183a10" on it, but a Google search draws a blank, maybe Samsung customer services can help.

John.

 

I'd like to get another 650 i7 combo, but there seems to be a lot of problems with throttling on lots of models. Might get the lenevo Y580, although that has different heat issues. Or I might build one from the PCSpecialist guys.
Best of luck with the NP550P7C, hope mine was part of a bad batch.

 

NP550P7C April 2012 Vs June 2012 - YouTube

I made this video with my April 2012 NP550P7C vs June 2012 NP550P7C

 

My notebook is a may model i dont have Guild Wars 2, is their an app prime95, wprime or something free to stress the cpu/gpu that we can all use to standardize our tests, and see what temps we get.

John.

 

How did you manage getting a refund?

Samsung still have my laptop! They said it should be free to pick up on monday and I've called twice and keep getting told I will get a call back from someone

 

They gave up on the third repair and put me through to customer services. I refused a replacement and got my money, although that is taking ages to come through. I joined the facebook group for this laptop, and a load of people have the exact same problem. Great video btw, can't really argue with your findings. I was getting those temperatures with a cooler.

 

I know I've asked before but do you have and work reference numbers I can use and where your laptop was repaired? so I can show the people at my Samsung repair center to show them I'm not the only person on this world with the problem and how they resolved your issue, you can inbox me it just encase you don't want to put the details on this, anything would help.

 

Hi,
I didn't even get a work number with the last lot. They just gave in on the 3rd repair. I can send you the reference no for my case if that helps.

 

Anybody get a loud high pich screeching sound from the speakers slowly increasing in volume, i have had it a few times, i thought it might be feedback from the mic, but it is muted, the sound continues even after muting the speakers.

John.

 

Hi guys yesterday after a lot of search I bought 550pc -S0iN , this is the one with i5 3rd generation and nvidiea 650m .

I have a problem and need help .
all the videos/movies are blurry and pixelated on the laptop ..i don't know why .

On youtube i was watching a video for few minutes it was playing in good quality and then suddenly it became pixelated ..

I have tried multiple movie /videos on dvd ..all have ghosting effect and pixelated ..

what do i do ..is it related to graphic card settings ..i am worried my new purchase not working properly ...

 

I think i have figured it out , low resolution videos in full screen look pixelated in this lappy because panel resolution is 1600*900., is my logic correct .?

 

I can't believe that opening your laptop would invalidate your warranty - the manual that comes with it gives clear instructions on how to upgrade memory and add/replace a hard drive; if they didn't want you to do that, they should warn you that doing so would invalidate your warranty. The fact they don't would make it difficult for them to enforce it.

 

I have this laptop and had problems with Far Cry 3 throttling.
To fix it I removed the battery ( dont ask why !! lol ) and changed the system cooling policy to ACTIVE in processor power management
this kicks the fan in if it gets hot rather than slowing the processor down .
the default is to slow the processor down first before the fan kicks in !!

it worked for me as i can play FC3 on high setting for hours now where I used to get FPS down to 10 withing 20 mins

 

Hi, I've recently bought this laptop for my general learning and gaming on GW2, LOTRO etc. are the issues you guys have been having resolved are/were they ongoing? I feel I may have made a mistake with this purchase now...

 

Based on the lack of discussion in this thread I would not consider the problems noted above to be widespread. I recommend using the Samsung Optimized power plan. However, if you are doing heavy gaming then investing in a laptop cooler will help keep things running more smoothly.

John

 

I'm thinking of buying this laptop but I won't bother if this overheating issue is a massive problem.

I found this solution on another forum for this problem and was hoping some of you may be able to try it out?

This is what is in the other forum:

I solved the problem :-

I have this laptop and had problems with Far Cry 3 throttling.
To fix it I removed the battery ( dont ask why !! lol ) and changed the system cooling policy to ACTIVE in processor power management
this kicks the fan in if it gets hot rather than slowing the processor down .
the default is to slow the processor down first before the fan kicks in !!

it worked for me as i can play FC3 on high setting for hours now where I used to get FPS down to 10 withing 20 mins

 

Found a good deal on this laptop @ £500 second hand.

I'll be putting an SSD in it, so could someone confirm whether it has SATA 2 or 3? According to the specs on the Samsung website it says SATA 2.

Also I'd like to set it up to dual boot Windows 8 and OSX. Is there any reason this would not be feasible?

Thanks.

 

Samsung say SATA 2 because that's what the HDD supports. The boot speed reported in this post suggests SATA 3 speed when an SSD is installed.

It it's a Windows 7 machine then dual boot should work without too much hassle.

John

 

Thanks for the reply.

I was also wondering if anyone knows for sure if 16gb of ram can be installed?

 

I want to clarify. The stationary socket supports SATA 3. The additional socket (through a cable) supports SATA 2.

 

Cool, so I'll stick the sata 3 ssd in the stationary socket then. This thing will fly!

 

We need an owner of this model to clarify if there are two SODIMM sockets. The 15" Series 7 has 4GB on board and only one SODIMM socket so the maximum RAM is 12GB.

John

 

Someone with the NP550P5C has upgraded to 16GB ram

"I have the NP550P5C-S02AU upgraded to 16GB RAM."

link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/676725-not-much-info-np550p5c.html

Also, Crucial are selling a 16GB kit:

http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/Samsung-memory/Series+5/NP550P5C-T01US-upgrades.html

 

Has anyone managed to source the hard drive sata cable? I can't seem to find one anywhere on the internet.

 

I have np550p5c laptop , most probably similar to np550p7c i guess
as many users reported ,playing on battery reduces the throttling to near negligible levels compared to connected to ac adapter,
i monitored the temps,clock speed,voltages etc. at both the modes..
found out that at battery mode gpu runs at 1050 mV while in adapter mode it beefs upto hot 1200 mV or so in high perfomance mode
in battery mode clock speed of gpu is limited to 835 MHz while in adapter mode it boosts upto 950 MHz
in case of cpu
battery voltage=0.835V
charging voltage=0.95 V
as we can see in both the cases the increase in voltage is the main cause of throttling in charging mode
so we need is to undervolt the gpu as well as the cpu ,so that they run cooler in charging mode also
i tried to find applications which could aid me in doing so, but i wasnt able to find much help from the mighty google
IN SHORT:solution to our problem is to undervolt the cpu and the gpu

 

@Nisz14; Great detective work! I have some experience undervolting laptops with software like RMClock & CrystalCPU. I think I read somewhere recently that the i7 couldn't be undervolted, though you seem to have found that running on battery provides an undervolt. I shall investigate and report back.

 

Surely, this is just the normal operating rules built into the CPU. The lower the frequency then the lower the voltage needed to ensure stable operation. Programs such as RMClock allowed the user to fine-tune, by trial and error, the voltages pre-set by Intel, but the range of voltages used still increased with frequency.

I would expect the same process to be used a GPU - low frequency and lower voltage under light load and increased voltage to ensure stable increased frequency under higher load. If using the Intel graphics integrated into the CPU package then a further factor is the overall power consumption which, I suspect, means that one can't concurrently run both CPU and GPU at maximum speed.

John

 

Hey folks
I love my np550p7c but I do have one question:
Has anyone managed to change the screen on it? If so, how? Any recommendations? I'd like to upgrade to a 1080p screen but I'm not sure how to go about this. Is it easy to access the screen and remove? Does a new one just slot in its place? Will the GPU recognise a new screen and change its output resolution to match?
I installed an SSD and it flies. Would definitely recommend this to anyone.
Cheers for your help guys.
Motty

 

I'm planning on buying a np550p7c, with i7 3630qm and gt650

I've noticed that the first models came with a 90w psu, and the notebookcheck review noticed throtling, and suggested that the problem could be related to this- Also people with the 700z5e had similar problemas solved by upgrading to a 120w brick.

The model i'm about to buy, is now shipped with a 120 PSU... can anyone who had problems tell me if they have the 90w or the 120w brick?

 

I have the np550p7c: it came with no installation discs and had windows 8 pre-installed. I now want to put the operating system (windows 8) onto a ssd which I plan to upgrade the laptop with. How do I get the pre-installed copy of windows 8 onto the ssd without ghosting/cloning? Would creating windows 8 recovery discs/usb do the trick? Would the pre-installed samsung recovery tools help?

Many thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide!

 

Hi MrOctagon, welcome to NBR.

You basically have two options, as discussed in the thread linked below, both of them involve using the Recovery:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/721457-upgrade-hd-ssd-windows-8-a.html

1) Create a backup of the Factory Image to a 32GB USB stick and select the Create Boot Disk option. This turns the USB stick into a self-contained, bootable Recovery with the factory image for your PC. After installing the new SSD, you boot this USB stick and have it re-partition the drive and install everything. Then keep the USB stick safe for future use. I recommend doing this regardless.

2) Install the new SSD in an external USB enclosure and use the Copy Disk function in Recovery to clone everything from your current HDD to the new drive. Then swap them afterwards. There is discussion about it in the 2013 Series 7 Owners Lounge, starting here. Keep reading from that post for further advice.

This question comes up all the time here. It is particularly discussed at great length in that Owners Lounge thread, including a guide on the opening post (linked below). It's a different model from yours, but the software part should be the same.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...e-np780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e.html#post9135887

Keep us updates on your progress

 

Thanks Dannemand! I have tried to create a BOOTABLE factory image to a 16gb (not 32gb) sandisc usb3 stick formatted in fat32. Samsung recovery reports image size as 14.6gb and the usb drive as having 14.9gb of free space.

Unfortunately, I get the message "An error has occurred while processing partition for creating boot disc"

Please could you or anyone suggest a way of getting around this error message?

Many thanks in advance.

 

I wish I could tell you otherwise, but you need a bigger USB stick. Remember it will contain the Recovery software in addition to the Factory Image -- that's what makes it bootable, and so useful.

If you're an adventurous person, and technically skilled, you could probably use the alternative procedure described in this post. It involves creating a so-called Admin Tool on a smaller USB stick, and backing up JUST the Factory Image (not bootable) on your 16GB stick. This is how we did things before Samsung Recovery Solution 6 gave us that great feature to create a bootable Factory Image backup on a self-contained USB stick.

I recommend just getting a 32GB stick. Or put the SSD in a USB enclosure and use the Copy Disk feature instead. If you have a 32GB memory card and a USB card reader, one member reported successfully using that.

Do note that some members have reported problems with the factory Image backup being incredibly slow (hours) and giving errors. They found that replacing the USB stick solved it. If you experience that problem, don't trust the backup, get a different stick.

 

If anyones still looking at this laptop heres my story (its a bit long) and fix....

I bought the np550p7c so2 in Aug 2012...with manufacture date of April 2012. Like many in this thread I found the fps would drop to 4 or 5 for a while then come back up, when plugged in but okay on batteries.

During gaming the GPU temperature would reach 91C and then the chip would throttle back from 950MHz to around 150MHz. CPU wouldn't be as high but still around mid 80s. I found that when running some games with the back cover off and on a cooling pad the GPU would still throttle but only down to 835MHz the temperature would still stay at 91 though.

Anyway decided enough was enough and it was time to repaste the chips. Before pasting temps were 37C on CPU and 39C on GPU at idle and as above on load. Before starting I ran bioshock infinite benchmark on high settings and GPU went to 91C and throttled halfway through benchmark.

Opening up....

Took the cover off (there is way too many screws to hold a light bit of plastic in place) and pulled apart the plastic clips that can hold everything together without the screws. Then took the heatsink off. First important thing I found.. they use a LOT of paste.

Cleaned the old paste up and applied Arctic Silver 5 to both CPU and GPU with a nice thin layer on both. Put everything back together and turned on.

The good news was the laptop started up fine Room temp was about 22C and CPU temperature was sitting around 35C. Bad news GPU temp was now idling around 55C.

Stripped the laptop apart again

This time when I took the heatsink off I found that with a thin layer of paste only half of the GPU made contact with the heatsink. The CPU with a thin layer was fine and made good contact all round.

So that seems to be why they piled on the paste to start with. But instead of going down that route I used a small shim...I found some copper coated in silver at work that was being thrown as scrap and used that. Its just slightly thicker than a sheet of paper. Pasted the GPU and put the shim on, then pasted the shim. Then just repasted the CPU as it was okay before. The put everything back together......

The results

It still turned on...and:
CPU temp 34C
GPU temp also now 34C.

Never seen the GPU temp as low as that before, even sitting on cooling pad with the back off and air con on.

Ran bioshock benchmark again, same settings as before but not on cooling pad and with all covers back on......

Max GPU temp 77C :thumbsup:
Max CPU temp 81C

The GPU does throttle still but only down to 835MHz for a few seconds and then goes back up to 950MHz it does this around every 10 seconds but doesnt have any noticable effect in game.

Arctic Silver has a 200 Hour burn in period so the temperatures may improve slightly over time...but I am quite happy with the current ones.

Tried a few other games... Metro Last Light, Hitman absolution and Arkham City. Highest GPU temp seen is 84C but 70C to 80C seems more common.

And thats it....if anyone wants any more details let me know.



90W PSU as well

 

Good job, kgrath. Thanks for sharing. And welcome to NBR

 

Hello there: just bought a 2nd hand NP550P7C - its grand but I need to add a second disk and the drive cable is missing: Anyone fancy selling theirs if they don't need it - I'm told it comes in a separate bag - with BA96-06183A10 written on on it ...

rgds

Ian B.

 

THROTTLING GPU/CPU WHEN GAMING - GUILTY!

Got some quick patch, maybe not a complete sollution but..
i got an NP550P7C-S01PL
and i got two ideas worth checking i think



1. I dont know if anyone suggested and checked that already, but there`s an official Nvidia tool. Nvidia PowerMizer Manager

LINK

I did install it,

i switched the policy to "max perf,min eco"

and "Overheat slowdown override - disable slowdown"

i`m currentyl testing it. It seems like the overall performance of laptop dropped but the throttling didn`t occur yet !


2. If anyone smart enough can tell me - maybe totaly disable Nvidia Optimus and integrated intel GPU from laptop power grid?

LINK

didnt test it yet, i`m a bit scared