New Samsung Series 7 NP700Z7C-S01US Laptop i7 3615QM 650m Review!

IIRC, the CyberLink apps are not on the Samsung website nor in SW Update. It is only in the pre-installed OS AND in the System Software on your Recovery Partition. If you make a System Software backup (using SRS) it should be there.

I seem to recall that XP actually had webcam controls built-in whereas Win7 have none.

 

Yes, i was more looking for a built in app in win7 or a samsung app.

BTW, did any of you guys managed to install linux on this comp? I've heard aout this whole brick thing, i just got lucky i think.

 

My laptops hinge is really creaking when i open it. Does that happen in your laptop?

 

Its happening with a hinges on mine too,its a crapy plastics around hate that

 

Try this one:

http://www.station-drivers.com/tele...uchpad_11.14.1.3(www.station-drivers.com).exe

It's from 2-7-2013

Got it from this page where there are some others that are older too:

ELANTECH Drivers

 

Has anyone flashed the new P06AAE bios? I want to say it just came out, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

Yes, I did. I was alerted by the SW update utility.

 

Im able to update to P06AAE in the BIOSUpdate utility but what are the new features/improvements/bug fixes?

 

I got my machine with 4. Put on 5, before 6 came out. I believe 5 broke the recognition of the Nvdia GPU. Going to 6 didn't fix it. I was going to go back to 4 (tricky to do this..it's a hack basically) but I received a replacement because a left speaker was blown in mine. Anyway, it can with 4 and the Nvdia GPU is there. I'm NOT upgrading to 6...but going from 4 to 6 could be fine. I would consider avoiding 5 though.

 

Are there any known improvements with going from BIOS version P01AAE to P04AAE?

 

John,

Thank you so much for the suggestion - changing to the 'Best Performance' option in the settings for the drive policies and a reboot made the switch back to USB3 speeds. You rock!!!

 

'Quick Removal' means that the system waits for confirmation that each file has been written before sending the next one. This slows down the data transfer, particularly with smaller files.

John

 

After months of deliberation, I finally settled on this laptop. But I'm a little confused by models and pricing. Looking at Amazon the Series 7 NP700Z7C-S01US goes for $1339. There's also a Series 7 NP700Z7C-S03US on Amazon for $1639, but the only difference between the two seems to be a 750GB (S03) vs. a 1TB (S01) HDD. On eBay these can go for around $900, but they are all S01 models. On XoticPC the base model (also S01) starts around $1400.
Is there any particular model I should look out for (or avoid)? Why the big discrepancies in price?

 

Look for specification changes with the CPU, HDD and VRAM on the GPU (1GB vs 2GB, not sure if there is any speed difference). Some models have Windows 8 vs Windows 7. I also recall even seeing a model which has a i7-3635QM CPU which is 2.4GHz, slightly faster than the common i7-3615QM which is 2.3GHz (not taking Turbo boost into account). Actually I have no idea why the S03 model seems to have lower specs but costs more than the S01.

Finally, don't forget the 770Z7E which has a slightly better graphics card though it's AMD (drivers arguably may not be as good).

 

@DrNorm: Just be aware that Samsung announced the 2013 model of this laptop NP770Z7E with a significantly faster GPU, a slightly faster CPU and MSRP of $1300.

If you don't need the performance of the newer AMD 8870M GPU (or if you prefer the Nvidia platform of the older) I would still make sure I paid a lower price, given that the new model will be replacing the one you are looking at.

There is a review at notebookcheck that compares the two models.

As for the two models you have been looking at, the S01US has 2GB of GDDR5 and 1TB HDD while S03US only has 1GB of GDDR5 and the 750GB HDD (slightly faster at 7200RPM). Other than that, I don't know what the differences are (if any). I think the main reason for the price swings are that some sellers are ignoring the fact that a new model is out.

Update: LOL namaiki beat me to it

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I had a look at the notebookcheck review and the new 770 model looks indeed very enticing (which throws a wrench in my decision making process, as I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 700). But I didn't find any release date for the US.

 

I know, you'd finally made up your mind -- and then here we come and confuse things

NP770Z7E-S01UB is a Best Buy model (UB) and you'd think Best Buy had it on their site, but they don't. There is a Buy Now button for it on Samsung.com, but that's probably just pre-order.

Based on reports in this forum, I have a good impression of the old NP700Z7C (I don't own it myself). Looking for clearance deals on it once the new one finally comes out would seem like a good tactic.

 

I bought the S01 from Amazon. It was listed refurbsihed at $860. I missed that sale but then bought one from Laptop365 for $899.

FLAWLESS condition. Perfect unit. Full warranty.

I am very pleased. I put a 256gb Samsung 840 Pro in it for $200. So, basically I spent $1100. Nvidia 2Gb 650m GPU. The only thing lacking is that the DVD burner isn't Blu-ray. But I can get an external 12X Blu-Ray 3.0 burner for $140 if I really want one. Or a cheapy slow USB 2.0 blu-ray burner for $60.

Beats that pants off any Apple, including the highest end Pro models. Thinner, more powerful, with an equally attractive screen...for way less money.

 

Can someone here tell me how to backup the restore partition of my laptop? It came with Windows 8 but didn't come with any restore DVD's. I'd like to back it up, and then reload a clean Windows 8 or 7 on it.

 

Does the guidance here apply?

John

 

Actually it's not as thin as the Macbook Pros and it has similar specs (Core i7, 650m).

Apple is the first one to pack a full-watt Core i7 into a 0.8" (20 cm) form factor with their 2012 Macbook Pro, while Samsung is catching up with their New Series 7 15" at the same thickness (the 17" is still a whole inch thick).

But Apple should be very afraid, as Samsung and Asus are also making powerful, high-quality thin notebooks.

 

Hello all,
I am about to jump in to order one online with Win 7 HP and I found some refurbished on Ebay going for $900-$1000 range.
The reason I am for a refurb is I really can't get used to Win8 and the $500 difference.
Did anybody get a refurb unit from Ebay?
I never bought a refursb from Ebay before and would like to know if there's anything I need to double check.
I am in Canada by the way and there's not a lot of choice up here with Win7HP.
Thanks

 

Hi guys, short question,

I have a Samsung NP700Z7C-S01DE (Germany), unfortunately with the latest BIOS Version P06AAE. Now I have high CPU idle usage and low battery life as well as frame drops when gaming. Now I want to downgrade to verison PA05AAE.

Can somebody please tell me the exact name (ITEM_?????_???_WIN_P05AAE.exe) of the BIOS version PA05AAE?

Many thanks
Dominik

 

Done, thanks to the uploaded "BIOSItemList (Google Cache Jan 31 2013)" list! Great forum!

 

Hello there. I'm contemplating if I should get this laptop or the NP700Z7C-S02US listed on the xoticpc website for pre-order which can be upgraded to 16gb of ram.

I'm not a gamer but I'm doing a lot of Photoshop, Illustrator as well as After Effects (Small 30 sec clips) work and would like to hear some opinions about the performance of the NP700Z7C-S01US.

Thank you.

 

Can't share any opinions re performance (I'm still looking to find a good deal on the S01), but would like to point out that the S02 version has the NVIDIA GT650M with only 1GB of video RAM. Since you are not a gamer that might not be too relevant for you, but the XoticPC models are all not the latest incarnations and thus, their prices are a bit inflated at this point.The S01 can be found for ~900 refurbished on eBay or Amazon, if you want to go that route and you can easily upgrade the RAM to from 8 to 12GB.

 

I use it for those same things, and also AutoCAD and 3ds Max, and it performs great, it's the fastest laptop I've ever used, but my only complain is the slow hard drive (as you may have read here it's a common issue). If you are making small clips in After Effects it may not be a problem, but with long clips or a lot of effects it's very, very slow, because of the program cache, which you know that in the case of After Effects it's huge. In that case I recommend you getting an SSD.

 

I finally bit the bullet and got a used NP700Z7 from Amazon (has two scratches on the lid, but is otherwise in supposedly mint condition - we'll see..; was a good deal at $850). I'm now looking into getting an 8GB stick of RAM (have a 256GB SSD already), but not sure what to go for. I might have read before that the NP700Z7 takes 1333mhz SODIMMs, but I can't find that information anymore. Could I also use 1600mhz ones? Could someone point towards some modules that work. Thx.

 

No problem with 1600MHz modules (or 1866Mhz for that matter) because they include timings for 1333MHz (and lots of other slower speeds).

John

 

Staying home today, 'cause the Boston bomber is running around in the town next over...

@John: Thanks for RAM advice.
Just received my (used) NP700Z7 last night and apart from the two scratches on the lid it's in really good shape - I like it so far. But it makes a bit of an annoying low level brushing sound, which I assume comes from the HDD. So I want to get my SSD in there as soon as possible - which causes me a bit of a head ache. Initially, I planned to just migrate everything from the HDD to the SSD, but after seeing all the bloatware on the machine, I'd rather go for a clean Win7 install. But for that to work, I would need all the drivers etc. backed up by the Samsung System Recovery, which - according to all the tutorials (using ver. 4) etc. - shouldn't be a problem. However, this machine comes with ver. 5 of the recovery software and that apparently doesn't have an option for a backup of just system files (you can only backup either data files or make an image of the entire drive).

While I can dl most/all? of the necessary drivers from the Samsung website, I'd miss the Samsung specific utilities to make keyboard backlight, silent mode etc. work. Any suggestions as to how to proceed? Thx.

 

SW Update should install all drivers. Or at least I don't think anything is missing after I did a clean install of Windows 7. Put the install program of SW Update and a copy of the WiFi driver on a USB Stick because you won't have a WiFi driver installed at the start.

It will let you pick which drivers and programs to install. You can perhaps download the updated graphics drivers off the nVidia website as the Samsung server is not exactly the fastest.

If you have SW Update installed, a copy of the drivers and utilities might already be present on the computer. Open SW Update from the Start menu and click 'Save Setup Files' in the bottom left hand corner of the SW Update window and there should be an option to let you export the drivers to a location of your choosing.

 

Thanks, this is very helpful.
I found the EasySoftwareManager application. I assume, this is the one you are referring to. Other than that, there is only SamsungUpdatePlus, which seems to be limited in functionality. Apparently, the EasySoftwareManager is not able to connect to the Samsung servers (found a thread discussing similar issues, I keep trying to connect, but so far without success).
This machine also seems to have the WIFI issues. The drivers are up-to-date and I tried disabling wireless N (as suggested here previously), but to no avail.
My enthusiasm is waning...

 

Hi DrNorm,

SW Update is the latest Samsung tool for obtaining drivers and utilities. It replaces the older Easy Software Manager as well as Update Plus. Normally these will update themselves to SW Update -- but sometimes the server is down and you have to try later.

You should be able to download SW Update directly from the link below. It really makes installing drivers a snap. Again, if the server is down, try again later.

http://orcaservice.samsungmobile.com/SWUpdate.aspx

And, as namaiki wrote, make sure you have a Wi-Fi driver as well. I assume you have Intel 6235. I recommend getting the latest Driver Only package from downloadcenter.intel.com. Use the filter shown below.

View attachment 94953

 

Thanks! Got the SW Update tool and finally managed to back up all the drivers etc. No luck with the WIFI, however. I installed the latest driver, but it still doesn't connect (despite 100% signal strength).

 

God job on SW Update!

Do you have MAC filtering enabled on the router? That could cause the laptop to see the WiFi, but be unable to connect.

 

No MAC filtering or fixed IPs on the router and the laptop sits at most 10ft from the router (I have almost a dozen other wireless devices in the house that work properly).

 

I am sure you tried all the usual:

1) Power cycle router (keep it off for 30 secs before back on).

2) Power cycle PC (I know, I had to ask )

3) Switch between 5.2GHz and 2.4GHz band (if you have a dual band router).

If none of those work, I'd say this sounds a bit like an old problem which we haven't heard about in a while: Did you have the full Intel PROset WiFi driver installed at any point (either from Samsung or from intel.com)? And do you (or did you) have Easy Settings installed?

If so, check this post. There is more description in other post, I'll come back with more links.

Update: Well basically it's described in the OP of the Latencies thread and again in the wifi issues thread. That last thread has some other nuggets, including this from member TANWare.

Hope some of this helps.

 

Hi guys,

I'm having serious trouble when gaming on the NP700Z7C. In certain games (BlackOps2, Trails Evolution) the GPU load varies a lot which causes major slowdown during the game. I added a pic of NVIDIA Inspector during BlackOps2 gameplay. As you can see, the GPU usage goes up and down all the time. Everytime it goes down, the FPS drop from 60 to 30. Two days ago, I did not have any problems! Between then and now I only downloaded a few big files and let the notebook run 10+ hours without shutdown. After that, the slowdowns appeared...

 

UPDATE: I managed to fix it! I'm using an external monitor and have my notebook lid closed all the time. For an unkown reason, the display setting was set to "clone displays", even though I did not see anything on my notebook display (opend the lid and it was off). After changing the setting to "monitor only", the FPS are stable a 60 and I'm happy now!

 

Thanks! Lots of stuff to go through...
So I updated the driver through the SW Update tool. Still no connection. I downloaded the latest Intel driver (driver only package) and installed it. Again, no connection. Next, I uninstall the 6235 from the device manger (plus drivers). I also attempted to delete the associated registry key, but for some reason Win7 didn't let me. I checked the credentials for the key and set them to 'full control' for everyone, but still couldn't delete it, so I left it alone. Then I installed the Intel driver again. After that mayhem ensued, with all network devices in the device manager dropping off (=showing not working correctly). Eventually, I had to go back to a restore point before all that mess to at least get network access through my LAN cable again. As a last ditch effort, I tried power-cycling my router (those never did anything for me before) and low and behold I got WIFI access. This even survived a reboot of the laptop. However, triumph was short-lived. I had the laptop idling for while and it eventually went to sleep, after wake-up WIFI was gone again (and couldn't be restored). Then I rebooted my router and WIFI is back again!?!
Never seen anything like this. This is maddening - I can't always reboot my router, to get this thing to connect...

 

That IS maddening. I've seen a similar thing happen with my TP-Link WDR3600 router and the new Nexus 4 phones I just got recently: Every time I turn the phone on, it says my network is out of range. If I power cycle the router, the Nexus connects. Somehow the Nexus causes a state in the router that prevents the Nexus from connecting -- but other devices can still connect. It's very odd, and sounds similar to what you're experiencing between your Sammy and your router.

Still, it also does sound a bit like that old Intel Wi-Fi problem I hinted at before: No WiFi on startup, until the adapter has been disabled/enabled. The WLANStartup module in Easy Settings SHOULD connect it -- and if using the Driver Only package and everything is virgin, that shouldn't even be necessary.

I take it you uninstalled the PROSet driver in Programs and Features, right? Not just by deleting the device in Device Manager? Even though Device manager lets you uninstall the driver itself when you delete, it doesn't clean out all the junk.

If it persists and you cannot find a solution, maybe it's worth giving Samsung a call. Until then, let us know your progress. We'll do what we can to help

 

I happen to have a Nexus4 as well and that works flawlessly (great phone btw).
I might do a clean windows install and see how that goes. If all else fails, I'll use an external WIFI dongle.
Great forum btw, I really appreciate all the input.

 

That's great. Clean install is easy on these Sammies: Just save a copy of SW Update and Intel's latest driver before you begin. After Windows Setup has finished, install the Wi-Fi driver; run SW Update and click the blue button; uncheck items you don't want; let it do its thing; reboot (just once). Done!

Once again, I recommend you do NOT let SW Update install anything PROSet. Use Intel's Wi-Fi Driver Only package (latest is still Wireless_15.6.1_Ds64) and leave Bluetooth to the standard Windows drivers.

Also, you should format your current Win7 partition during Windows Setup, but be careful making other partition changes. Leave your Recovery Partition alone -- at least until everything else is working AND until you've made backups of that recovery.

Oh, and make sure you install from DVD. If you install from USB, you'll run into the boot issues described in this thread.

There are several Win7 install guides on this forum. I posted a few myself in various contexts, the most elaborate is probably this one.

PS: Yes, the Nexus 4 is great, but we may have to return ours because they have very poor signal reception. I already received one replacement which was even worse than the original. I am currently fighting with Google Play support to avoid 15% restocking fee -- on BOTH the original and the replacement. Otherwise it really IS a wonderful phone!

 

I might be a bit late but would note that someone else recently sorted their WiFi connectivity by disabling N in the WiFi adapter properties.

There is also a set of suggested adapter settings in this thread.

I presume that you've checked for any newer router firmware.

John

 

I tried disabling N at various points along the way and also played around with a number of the adapter settings, but all to no avail. The router (a Verizon FIOS Actiontec) firmware is up-to-date.
On a tangentially related note, I put my SSD in yesterday (boy, does that speed up things) and noticed the 6235 card is easily accessible. Is there a good alternative that could be put in as a replacement? I had a cursory look, but didn't find anything that would fit the bill (e.g. broadcom or atheros models are missing bluetooth or WiDi or requiring three antennas vs two).

 

@DrNorm: On tapatalk, this will be quick: Look for posts by member gonzagnr in the NP700Z5C Series 7 Lovers thread re Wifi adapter replacement. Use Google, it's a huge thread.

 

Quite a tome to go through. From what I gleaned from this thread, some guy tried the Intel 63xx card without much success, someone wanted to try the older 5100 card, but I didn't see any results posted for that. I googled around some more and stumbled upon a thread on an Intel forum. Apparently, there are lot more people having problems with the 6235 (and not only in Samsung laptops). One guy came up with a promising solution: he downgraded his wireless card to the 6230 (BT3.0 instead of BT4.0 is the only difference to the 6235), which enabled him to run the v14.3.1 drivers and that seemed to fix all his problems: Sporadic but recurring connection dropouts on an Intel 6235 wireless adapter. Another alternative might be one of the Bigfoot Killer wireless adapters.

I actually did a clean install of Win7 yesterday and the first thing I did was to install the latest 15.x Intel drivers (driver only package), but that had no effect on my wireless issues. I might try one of the above mentioned adapters. I'll keep you posted...

 

Thanks for the update, DrNorm.

Yes, the 6235 is notorious, and there have been discussions both at Intel's place and in various threads here (as you found). My older NP700Z3A has 6230 which works quite well: About as well as my friends MacBook Pro, but not as well as my old HP HDX18 with Intel 5100 WiFi. Before that I had another version of the same Samsung model with Broadcom WiFi, and it was hopeless, I had to return the unit.

I have often stated my opinion that, even though 6235 is a known culprit, Series 7 and 9 also have some antenna challenges dues to all the metal. AND each unit off the assembly line isn't exactly the same. So if you happen to have a Samsung with particularly poor antenna AND a 6235 with particularly poor reception -- that's the formula for a replacement or warranty repair.

In other words, if you cannot make or hold a connection even with decent signal, and you've tried all the usual router tricks, and you've tried factory restoring the laptop: I would definitely give Samsung a call instead of keep spending time trying to fix it.

Just a thought

 

Hello

I replaced yesterday my optical drive with a secondary hard drive, after closing the laptop everything was working perfectly.
This morning I received a "low battery warning" while my laptop was plugged with the AC adapter.

SInce then I'm no longer able to power on the laptop : when I plug the AC adapter the power LED turns green for 1 or 2 seconds, switch to orange (charging notification) for half a second and everything disappear.

I think, somehow, I broke/unplugged something that prevents the AC adapter to charge the battery. I reverted back what I did, tried to check all the connections on the motherboard but I can't figure out where the problem is.

Any idea ?

 

Did you try booting with the secondary HDD removed?

See this thread about the "bricking" problem. It may include discussion of how to get a computer with a flat battery back to life. A few people have encountered such problems.

The last resort is to restore the computer to the supplied condition and send to Samsung to fix.

John