NP530Uxx Thread (Series 5 ultrabook)

Hi guys, sorry for disturbing but just a quick question, I upgraded the hdd of my Samsung np530u3b to a 256 gb Samsung evo ssd, does it make sense to have the issd as cache or it will slow things down?

Thanks in advance

 

It will slow things down. I simply used mine to store a backup image. Short answer cuz doesn't make sense to explain again what's already been discussed dozens of times here..

Enjoy your new ssd!

 

Turn of the iSSD, its much slower than the Evo.

 

I have a NP540U3C A03UB - Got it used and it did not have any drive init. So I added a SSD and found out it has a 24GB issd in it that was wiped.
I put windows 8.1 on it and am going to upgrade to Win10 I have read alot of the replys and I am NOT using it as a ExpressCache as everyone says it slows the system down.
But How do I Get windows to Recognize it as a Good partition to do a Backup to image it ? I keep getting insert a USB drive. when I try to do a Backup. ?
The Drive has a Drive letter and is active & I have formatted the drive to NTFS this should work correct ?

Thanks.
Mike

 

the system will not image with the stock restore to a drive smaller than the drive(s) being imaged. You would have to have a system partition smaller than the 24GB. I would not use it anyway as pre bios post it is not an recognizable device and if it ever goes you could never recover the data, physically move the drive etc..

Also it isn't the iSSD that will slow you down it is trying to use express cache. Just having it there is a non issue, it is a drive in mine with no issues at all.

 

I figured it would shrink it down like when you use EaseUS Todo Backup But I guess not.

I might use it as a 2nd drive then. or if anyone has a good idea on what to use it for I am open to suggestions

Thanks for the reply

 

Hi guys,

I've recently upgraded my 530U3C to Win 10 and so far the experience has been terrible.
Lost a bunch of functions and the laptop is extremely slow, specially at startup and shutdown.
I was wondering if anyone here already upgraded any 530U3C and was able to solve at least some of the issues..

Thanks.

 

I wonder whether the problem lies with either the iSSD (possibly not being used) or the main SSD (too full to work efficiently). I would expect that a new, higher capacity, SSD would transform the performance and 256GB is now relatiely affordable.

John

 

Indeed, just today TechBargains listed Amazon deals on Samsung 850 EVO: 250GB for $74.99, 500GB for $258.97 (sold by Amazon themselves).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OAJ412U

 

Ratsey, Dannemand, thank you for your answers.

The issue is not the iSSD, nor the HDD (I replaced it back), I had no issues while running Win 7.

Anyway.. After considering the many cons of Win 10, I've decided to rollback to 7. The upgrade is simply not worth it.
If anyone's interested I'll give my opinion, besides the obvious performance and functions issues, there's a huge freedom, control and security issue in my opinion.
Win 10 blacklists trusted publishers like Samsung, it's a hassle to handle its UAC, comes with built in keylogger and spyware which you have to keep up to date to block in firewall with every Win update, in sum, I don't like the idea of using a OS that restricts me and decides for me what can I use and run in my own laptop.

Right now, I'm rolling back to 7, and my next upgrade is probably to linux.

Thanks.

 

Any performance or battery improvement on the NP530U3C with Windows10? Thanx

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

In my opinion, quite the opposite.. read my previous posts and also the ones on Windows 10 thread, and you'll find out you lose not only performance but also performance functions.

 

Just picked one of these up recently. Used.

The CPU is idling between 55c and 60c.

Is that normal, or should I break it open and re-apply the thermal paste and maybe test the fan? Using Samsung Optimized Power Plan and Silent mode is off.

 

Mine usually idles @ 45/50c.. And 60/70c on load.
You can try re-apply thermal paste and clean the fan, but it might all come down to past cpu load.. If it was a heavily used laptop, its temperature won't come down..

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Cool, thanks for the tip. Fan is clean, so I am guessing it's stuck right where it is.

The Express Cache has a total of 175TB of data host writes to it and has a total of 3270 powered on hours, so I am guessing it was a heavily used laptop.

Gonna have to baby it, oh well can't complain. It was practically free.

 

Where did you check that?

 

Crystal Disk Info.

Ran into another problem. Wiped the ssd and tried to put a fresh copy of windows onto it last night and it's trying to use the express cache as the protected system files partition so it wont boot after windows is installed.

Was up until 3am trying to fix it. Found a few guides, gonna try them all again this morning with a fresh start.

 

Use a exsternal usb dvd reader , it will work with no problems, if you're trying to install via usb is a no go

Sent from my P01MA using Tapatalk

 

I found a work around.

Took awhile and I was sweating it, but it works now. Yay.

 

Learn to share, describe the steps or post a link to help others who might need it.

Standart, Shizuku?..

 

Standard.

Also;
Difficult to explain.

I have many different windows install ISOs. I switched from using one USB installer created using windows 7 download tool to one created using rufus (From ISO downloaded from MSDN) and it booted into the installer differently (IDK what Windows 7 download tool does but in rufus i set to UEFI + Legacy and NTFS file system). One created using windows 7 download tool would just directly go into loading windows. one created using rufus would ask "Press any key to boot from usb" or something similar.

After installing windows using this option, it installed like normal, MBR went onto express cache etc and it failed to boot from C drive but it went back into "Press any key to boot" after installing(Booted from windows install USB i made with Rufus). I didn't press any key and it booted right into windows. The way the boot settings are on this mobo is really annoying lol.

After that it wouldn't boot unless that usb drive was inserted and i did those steps. so afterwards i used easyBCD to move the mbr files from the system secured partition on the express cache and stuck it directly into the c drive (Not on a separate partition.) and then went into the windows disk manager and set c drive to "active".

sorry i can't be more specific. Between last night and this morning I have very little sleep and jumped through a LOT of hoops. In the end, what I described above is basically what I did.


EDIT:

I will say these three links helped me a LOT

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...amsung-chronos-7-2012-laptop-from-usb.753965/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...le-to-install-windows-7-express-cache.654225/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-7-or-8-via-usb-on-np700z.697841/#post8960112


in the end none of these guides really helped me but they helped me understand what i was up against which is how i found my solution, both in part by accident and by trying "What ever the hell might work, idk lol" literally

 

Installing Windows on models with ExpressCache is always easiest done from DVD, exactly for the reason you mention. When installing from USB, Windows Setup thinks the iSSD is the boot drive and places its Microsoft System Reserved partition (so-called MSR) on it. Unfortunately the iSSD is not visible to BIOS and thus cannot be booted.

There are several workarounds for when no DVD drive is available. In fact, we have an entire thread dedicated to this subject (the last one on your link list):

GUIDE: How to install Windows 7 or 8 via USB on NP700Z

Posts #1 and #2 in that thread contain different workarounds for this iSSD problem. Post #40 contains a comprehensive Win7 installation guide covering pretty much all Samsung models.

But it comes up regularly (it used to come up almost daily) and hence is also discussed in the other threads you linked.

 

I guess this CrystalDisk info is not very reliable.. My laptop shows considerably lower consumption but 220h just seems surrealist..

 

Crystal Disk info cannot be unreliable.

It reads the smart data from the drive itself and displays it in an easily understandable format.

Either your smart data is corrupt, was wiped, or that's the truth. You could verify this information by checking other software that does the same thing. SSD Life Pro and What's the other one, HD Tune Pro (Both have trial versions I believe).

What about the 500gb drive it came with? Or has it been replaced?

 

OK so I know two things

I know the various disk utility and checker software out there is usually not wrong. (in years of using all three programs I have not ever really encountered seriously erroneous data)

How ever, given what I just found out, I think that what ever SanDisk iSSD drive is in our laptops may have difficulties keeping track of it's own smart data.

I want to admit I have no real professional experience with these things, this is entirely anecdotal evidence.

But given these results, I think maybe at least my iSSD is reporting erroneous data.

HDTune reports a negative number. Not sure that's actually possible.

SSD Life Pro reports a hexidecimal number which I think translates into 46,000 TB of data written and of course, as mentioned before. Crystal Disk Info reports 175 TB of data written.

It's possible I converted the hex wrong. It's supposed to be hex to dec, and the dec value is in Megabits (Mib) which then converts to Terabytes. But yeah I am not 100% sure.

So given that you also think the data being reported is wrong. I am guessing that this iSSD just is bad at keeping track of it's own Smart data and given all the **** i've had to trudge through for this funky little drive, I'm inclined to believe that it's just a strange little anomaly that only Samsung engineers fully understand or were meant to understand.

Would be pissed if I paid full price for this laptop given all this nonsense. lol. I do not mean to insult any one by saying this ofc. Worst Purchase I have made all year is the galaxy s6 i have in my hand. It is a great phone, but it is not worth 800 dollars. Think I might be done repping Samsung.

 

I always just used HWiNFO to track wear on my iSSD -- mostly because I have it installed anyway, so I never bothered installing something else. Strangely "Remaining Drive Life" on mine has been stuck at 98% for as long as I can remember, so maybe the iSSD does indeed have issues keeping track of its SMART info.



@Muezick: Samsung would agree with you if you decide not to recommend them based on the iSSD: They stopped making models with ExpressCache three years ago

While ExpressCache does indeed speed up disk access, its implementation has proven problematic for several reasons, including the ones you discovered. Some other reasons are:

1) As members who posted in this appropriately named thread can testify, ExpressCache sometimes mysteriously vanish after a re-install, making it difficult to get it back (in a few cases impossible).

2) Once the iSSD dies (from wear or defect) it will delay booting by several minutes while the SATA bus scans for devices, even if ExpressCache is uninstalled. Since the iSSD cannot be disabled in BIOS, the only solution is to replace the entire motherboard -- which Samsung ended up doing in many cases, presumably making these models very expensive to support.

No doubt the world is going the way of "real" SSDs. That said, the combination of a large HDD with ExpressCache served a purpose, and works very well -- when it works.

 

Several Minutes to boot up even if I have already replaced the hdd inside it with an actual SSD? Yuck!

Because honestly after hearing all that I kind of want to format the drive to a file structure that windows doesn't recognize so I never have these issues again.

Glad to hear they stopped using express cache, this honestly sounds like an idea that's better on paper, or maybe they just didn't execute it properly or more likely, it's just impossible to execute proppely because of some inherent flaw or design in how our current computer systems run on a fundamental level. If a drive indeed be a SSHD Hybrid combo drive, then it needs to be so as a single unit and not as a thing you can add willy nilly to any hard drive you install which I am guessing was their goal with the Express Cache.

 

Formatting the iSSD in an alien format makes no difference if the device itself becomes defect: It is the actual scanning for it in the device tree that hangs (and eventually times out).

The idea of providing a small SSD for caching a large HDD is certainly not a bad one -- and it does indeed work well as long as you install Windows from a DVD (arguably a flaw in Windows Setup) and as long as the iSSD doesn't become defect.

All major issues with the iSSD could have been avoided if there had been a BIOS option to disable it: Temporarily before Windows installation and permanently in case of iSSD defect.

In your case, with the HDD replaced by a "real" SSD, all you have to do is ignore the iSSD once WIndows is installed. Or do as many others: Use it to store files that don't require much writing so you minimize wear.

Of course do NOT install ExpressCache now that you have a faster SSD

 

Whelp, wouldn't you know it.

So sometimes on fresh boot the laptop does hang pretty hard while windows is loading.

Is that the iSSD failing ? On a normal boot cycle it takes seconds. Like, 5...but rarely, it'll take minutes. During a regular boot, windows 8 spinning wheel shows up but freezes for long periods of time intermittently. When I get into Windows the iSSD is accessible and all is well. It just sometimes takes a really long time to boot, I'd say 1 in 20 boot ups.

Just curious if I should look at getting another motherboard for this thing while they are still relatively easy to find.

 

Have you even considered Windows Updates installing during those random freezes?
I don't think you have a iSSD problem, just hypochondria IT problem.. lol

 

Unlikely. I do not allow windows to install updates without permission.


But you are probably right on that last one. I do get a bit anxious.

 

LOL

While I agree that it probably isn't the iSSD, I have to say anytime it takes minutes to boot from an SSD, something has to be wrong.

If the boot animation freezes, that indicates the hangup occurs after Windows boot is well underway, and presumably the Device Tree has been already been built. It is worth trying to disable the iSSD device in Device Manager and see if it makes a difference. I wonder if it will stay disabled. I use ExpressCache and haven't tried it myself.

Needless to say, anybody who has ExpressCache installed should NOT disable the iSSD in Device Manager!

 

OK that is what I was curious about. I am new to this iSSD phenomena and I have no idea what it would look like if one were failing. I've already sworn it off (It's totally unused and I'll probably never write another bit of data to it if I can help it), so outside of the controller literally randomly going kaput some day, it should be ok.

As for windows hanging. Who knows, it's windows, dumb things happen to windows all the time. 95% of the time, the device boots up in about 5 seconds (from Button Press to Windows Logon) ... And I've only seen it hang like I described before like twice, maybe three times.

So I should probably stop worrying. (Yeah Right!)

I am planning on buying a new battery for it next week. I've seen them on ebay for between 80 and 150 and I think Samsung has them in an official capacity for 125. Probably just gonna buy one from Samsung unless some one has a better suggestion?

 

New battery is finally installed. Getting a good 3.5 hours of high cpu intensive battery life and looks like potentially over 5 of casual low intensity work. Pretty good. I haven't tested it extensively yet.


One question for the other owners. Have you updated your BIOS?

Mines been bugging me to update for awhile now. I haven't been able to because it wont let you while there is no battery.

Normally i'd leap into this kind of thing head first but I recently had a fairly negative experience with BIOS updates in which a m.sata port that could formerly act as a bootable drive no longer did so. Ever since it has made me think twice about updating BIOS when a BIOS update is not "needed"

my main question is whether or not a BIOS update might fix the issue where the boot partition is put onto the express cache.

Recently learned that the express cache on this laptop might actually be SLC, which is really amazing and would explain why it has such high endurance. I'm probably still not ever going to use it again lol. I do not fancy a five minute boot time.