Samsung 15" Series 9 NP900X4C with Ivy Bridge CPU

I recommend you just download the latest from Intel's Download Center. I believe it's still 15.8.0, which means the file you're looking for is Wireless_15.8.0_Ds64 (for Win7). Uninstall the current Samsung provided driver (using Programs and Features control panel), reboot, then install this new one. It just spins for a while during install, no dialogs or confirmation.

Admittedly, a few members have reported better results either using Microsoft built-in drivers (Win8 only) or Samsung-provided drivers. But I still think more people report better results with the Intel-provided Driver Only package.

 

POWERCFG said I didn't have the right powers to stop hibernation so, instead of messing around doing battle with Windows 8 I chanced upon Minitools Partition Wizard which enabled me to further shrink C: and then easily create the other partitions that I'm used to for reasons deep in history (such as there being limits on size of partitions). I still find multiple partitions useful because they represent one less level in directory structure and it's easy to shift from a listing of one drive to another in Total Commander.

I've now copied over a few hundred GB of files and the next project is to start installing software.

I get the impression that the keys on the new X4C have slightly more travel than on the old one, which explains why there's more backlight leakage around the edges of the keys.

John

 

That's odd, assuming you were using an elevated (Admin) Command Prompt. I wonder if iRST is blocking it?

But anyways, even with the steps I mentioned, Windows still might limit how much you can shrink -- because it doesn't support moving files. 3rd party tools are generally better for this. I use GParted from my Parted Magic LiveCD. But then, I don't have UEFI enabled...

 

IRST(if you mean the Rapid Start) isn't there. It's probably me being too lazy to figure out how to give an elevated, rather than normal, CMD. Anyway disk rearrangement is done.

John

 

Yes, I meant Rapid Start, wondering if it was blocking the disabling of hibernation. But that's not the case, then. Good to know.

I should have pointed out that POWERCFG /H OFF (to disable hibernation) must be run from a Command Prompt opened with right-click Run as Administrator. Sorry about that.

Anyways, using a "real" partitioning tool, as you did, took care of it.

 

Thanks for the reply (again ). I've installed the 15.8 drivers (which I have done before), and device manager reports 15.7.0.3 being installed. The Samsung SW Update program then tells me there's an "Essential" upgrade to 15.7.0.4, which I've successfully done before. After this, there's a recommended update to 15.7.0.5, which fails each time I try to update to it. Any idea what's going on here? Maybe I'm not using the right version of SW Update? I'm using 2.1.15 at the moment.

 

My old X4C (Windows 7) is on 15.7.0.3 while the new one (Windows 8) is on 15.8.0.5. Both are from April this year and, I think, include the fixes for the connectivity issues.

SW Update should keep itself up-to-date. I think I'm on 2.1.15.

Are you still having WiFi problems or just worried that you haven't got the latest?

John

PS: On a different subject, my new X4C had a hint of wobble with the left front moving down when I pushed the touchpad. So I took the base off and applied some firm pressure on the base at the inside of the left front and right back areas. This seems to have fixed this issue.

Update: The new X4C has now been put to work. I'm finding the display has more contrast than the old one to the extent it's a little harsh. I see that there is a display profile included in the Windows 8 SW Update downloads so perhaps Samsung has made an attempt to make the display look better. When I get home I''ll try to do a proper display calibration (I hope Win 8 doesn't get in the way).

Update 2: I've loaded the calibrated display profile done for my previous X4C and it's now easier on my eyes.

 

My new X4C is looking to be slightly more power-efficient than the old one. I'm sitting in Dubai airport and connecting through WiFi with Firefox and innnumerable tabs open and the display at reasonable brightness. Battery Bar says the battery is at 78% and 7 hrs 36 min remaining with a power drain of 6.5W. It must be either the CPU and/or the SSD that are more frugal than previously.

John

 

Could anyone tell me where I could buy a replacement battery fro my Series 9? I have tried searching and just can't seem to find any available.

 

Which country are you in? The X4C listing at SamsunParts.com gives a part number as BA43-00344A. If you feed that into your favourite search engine then you should find other sources.

Can I ask why you are looking for a replacement battery? The battery in my 1 year old X4C still reports 0% wear.

John

 

If you do buy a new battery from samsung parts, make sure you pick up some screws too. So easy to strip.

 

Thanks. I'm in Canada. And I am looking into as a precaution, I just bought a demo unit for super cheap and wanted to know what the cost would be if I had to replace the battery is all.

 

Thanks for the tip.

Also, John what do you use to check your batteries wear?

 

BatteryBar and HWiNFO both show the wear. HWiNFO may also show the charge cycles (it may only be the newer batteries and/or Windows 8 that does this).

To be completely sure of your battery's health charge it to 100%, run the battery calibration in the BIOS (which will full drain the battery) then fully recharge it again. This enables the current capacity to be correctly calculated.

Also, unless you need to get the maximum run time on battery, enable the Battery Life Extender in (Easy) Settings. This limits the charge to 80% which reduces the wear.

John

 

I have just buy this notebook, but I have problem, Windows shows only 1GBB free ram, but I have 8GB inside, could u tell me why?

 

Uninstall IntelliMemory (you can reinstall using SW Update if you want). It's a caching program that uses the spare RAM but any benefit when using an SSD is offset by the delay to clear some RAM if you load a large program and dataset.

John

 

So, should I delete this program if when the PC needs more RAM, the InteliMemory let it use more memory of RAM??

Because specally I bought version with 8GB, because I always use with a lot of website on the sametime (even about 50 pages).

 

IntelliMemory will reduce its RAM usage when other programs need RAM. I recommend you uninstall IntelliMemory. It might bring benefits to a computer with a mechanical hard drive but there's no significant benefit when the computer has an SSD and there could well be disadvantages such as additional pagefile writing.

John

 

OK, I will do it, but now I have another problem, I cannot open Settings application from Samsung, when I click double, I will not see any new windows :/

Maybe should I delete any other software which is not need?

 

See if you can start Settings using Fn+F1. If not, reinstall Settings using SW Update.

John

 

Long time reader, infrequent poster. I'm having trouble with the NUMS LOCK pop-up on my NP900X4C, basically I'm using a Logitec N305 and everytime I press a key on it the NUMS LOCK pop-up toggles on/off. The Nums Lock pop-up is identical to the CAPS LOCK pop-up.

Basically does anyone know how to deactivate these pop-ups!!!

Cheers

 

If you are on Windows 7 then try version 2 of Easy Settings which, IIRC, disabled all the on-screen pop-ups. This program isn't offered by SW Update but exists in the Windows 8 Settings installation package. Use Find in SW Update to find the X4C Windows 8 drivers / software, Export the Settings package then run the SetupW program in the Win 7 folder.

John

 

Thanks John, tried 2.0 as recommended but didn't see any different settings in the 2.0 version. I actually uninstalled 1.1.1.3 afterwards and my hot keys stopped working, so I'v reverted back to 1.1.1.3. Thanks anyway but I can live with the Num Lock pop-up but I cant live without hot-keys.

Cheers

 

I don't see option unistall in SW update even i control panel :/, where can I find it??

Okey next question, your notebook is hot in right corner too? Because my is almost all time.

 

I've rechecked: The pop-up is there for Settings 2 in Windows 7 but not for Windows 8. It might be interesting to see what happens if you try to install the Windows 8 version of Settings onto Windows 7. You need Easy Settings for the hot-key functionality but the version 2 fixes a few glitches such as not needing administrator rights to run.

Go to Control Panel then select Programs and Features, select the program, right click and select Uninstall.

The CPU is near the back right corner. Are you noticing the heat when idle or under heavy usage? Is the heat on the keyboard or underneath?

John

 

the most hot is behind 3 buttons (F10, F11 and F12), the keyboard is a little hot on the middle, but underneath is hot (in middle level), on the right FAN.

Now I have open about 25 pages, winamp, excel and communicator GG, I think that for this laptop should not be problem.

PS I have SSD by samsung, is it the better or worse? because I read that are 2 version.

 

Actual CPU usage is more important than the number of programs open. Check the CPU utilization in Task Manager. Under light usage I would expect it to be less than 5%.

The X4C has only one fan which is near the area where you have the warmth (there's an internal photo in my review). You can check the CPU temperature using HWiNFO > Sensors. As I type this my CPU temperature is in the range 50 - 55C. If yours is hotter then check the System Cooling Policy in the Power Properties > Advanced > Processor Power Management. I have my cooling policy set to Active when on mains power and Passive when on battery. I haven't checked but I expect that Passive allows higher temperatures before then fan works.

The Samsung SSD is fine. The Liteon mSATA SSD is very good. The Sandisk U100 is the bad performer.

John

 

Now I have about 15% and temp. is about 53 C, so I have like you.

In Power Mangement I have choosen active in booth.

I will check later when I do something harder ;D


PS on the left what is it? I thoght that is the FAN too

Edit
http://www.notebookreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=66220

Why don't I have Backlight like you?

I have only near the buttons and green, I prefer white like you, how to change it?

 

To be sure to be sure, I tried Easy Setting 2.0 again and the same result, the only thing that works for me is to disable dmhkcore.exe in Task Manager (description - Easy Display Manager) which drops out all hotkey buttons but also disables the caps and num lock pop-ups.

Because I use the Logitec Number Pad when I enter a lot of numbers the constant Num Lock popping up On/off is very annoying so disabling Easy Display Manager works for me. It is automatically restarted when Windows reboots.

Cheers for the help anyway.

 

Note that when the computer is upside down then the fan is on the left side.

The keyboard backlight is relatively dim and is sometimes erratic. In theory, the ambient light sensor (just to the right of the power LED) will control the operation of the keyboard backlight but something is unreliable. I have put mine onto manual control by putting a very small piece of black tape over the sensor and then use Fn+F9 and Fn+F10 to control the brightness.

I've just been looking at the Windows 8 Settings program. It doesn't use dmhkcore.exe so we can't try the Win 8 version (which doesn't give the pop-up). I've also looked through the Windows 7 registry to see if there is a disable hot-key option for Easy Settings, but there's nothing. Upgrading to Windows 8 seems to be a complicated solution to a simple problem.

John

 

But I see two holes, one is FAN, what's is the second?

Where exactly is the sensor? Because I cover all POWER BUTTON and the backlight doesn't turn on.
But your backlight is white color, my is green, how to change it?
And the most important you backlight light in each button (in my anyone :/ only border of button, I wolud like to see light letter, not border)

 

The sensor on my X4C is above the Esc key about 5mm to the right of the power light.

Take you computer into a completely dark room and see if the white lettering on the keys is visible. Note that the brightness can be controlled by the Fn keys or in (Easy) Settings.

The keyboardbacklighting uses an electroluminescent panel which might have a greenish tint.

John

 

Hey guys! I finally cracked my long-lived case of the ambient light sensor in Windows 7!

I finally have it to the point where I can use the Easy Settings to enable or disable it on-the-fly. Take a look at this article, courtesy of a member's posting on another forum I visit: Overview of Adaptive Brightness in Windows 7 - Sensor & Location Platform Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

It turns out the sensor was disabled in a hidden section of the control panel. I had it enabled under Device Manager, but Windows was overriding it. Oddly enough, it was still controlling the keyboard's adaptive brightness while disabled all along.

After enabling this, I found that I had to install the HD4000 driver from Samsung for this model. The latest Intel one didn't seem to have adaptive brightness working. Plus, the latest one seemed to change the brightness instantaneously rather than gradually (Mac-like, though I'm a PC fan...).

 

If I get desperate I'll try installing Settings 2.0 for Win8, though that could have its own problems - no?But at the moment I have my work around and the whole install, un-install, upgrade process takes a while so might have to wait before I give it a try.

Cheers.

Yeah the first thing I did was look in the registry but like yourself came up empty handed. I can't change my OS to Win 8 as there are too many compatibility risks with the s/w we develop at work, so that is not an option.

 

Actually can anyone confirm whether or not Easy Settings V2 for Win 8;

1) works as normal on a Win 7 machine i.e. Hot keys, Easy Settings configuration window,
2) deactivates the caps/nums lock pop-ups or has an option to deactivate

Cheers.

 

Now it's working, when a cover sensor above ESC the backlight starts light

I will check on tonight if all keyboard lights.

But you didn't me answer me, whats is te second hole?

 

The second air vent panel just lets air in to improve the internal ventilation. That panel is under the RAM.

John

 

Aha, thanks for the information.

I have just Macbook air my brother and it has better system of backlight, I can manuall turn on it and choose level of lights

I found second better think, wi-fi, it has about 100Mb/s transfer, but my Samsung has under 100Mb/s (about 60-80Mb/s), can I do something to improve it?

(PS both notebook stay in the same place, so I thnk that in samsung it's not okey)

 

1. By covering over the light sensor I effectively have my keyboard backlighting on manual control using the brightness adjustment. I also avoid automatic control over the display backlight.

2. The WiFi antennae on the Series 9 are located on the back of the chassis between the hinges. While the cover over the antennae is plastic, there is still plenty of metal in the vicinity to obstruct the WiFi signals compared to the optimum location of being under a plastic cover at the top of the screen. The antennae arrangement is a consequence of having a thin display with a metal back.

John

 

Has anyone upgraded their series 9's & M4s to the latest BIOS/Firmware releases?
I heard that there's large issues with that combination, true?

 

Please do not cross-post. I have responded here to your other post asking exactly the same question.

John

 

The ability to shrink or enlarge your partitions has nothing to do with the disk being set as GPT, and the lack of ability for Acronis to do anything to the partitions is due to that program not supporting GPT correctly.
Logically speaking, GPT is a no-brainer. The are a lot of benefits to larger disk arrays and elaborate partition layouts, with the only downside being a lack of compatibility with older BIOS's.

The W8 interface i've debated amongst colleagues for quite some time, once you realise that at a basic level the metro screen is just a large start menu with better searching abilities, the OS is no different in general productivity to W7. The key differentiator is when using metro designed apps, as they dont play quite as nice. Its the search feature and learning that it actually makes things easier to find that is the kicker.
Most peoples "lack of productivity" with the OS is down to not knowing how to do things, as there are a few minor but noticeable differences.

 

So why mess up the user interface when there are millions of people who do know how to do things productively with previous versions of Windows? We've got better things to do with our lives.

John

 

Change has to take place in order to usher in progress.
Its a change yes, its inconvenient yes, but the benefits when "learnt" outweigh the inconvenience imo.

 

While the more tech savy among us can adopt to the new interface relatively easily, it frustrates a much larger portion of potential users. It was a big risk for MS to be so hard-headed in forcing users into their vision. The penalty for that uncompromising attitude has been poor sales. The advantage is, once they have moved people over, they can leverage their interface across multiple platforms: PC, mobile, XBOX. Was the short-term loss worth the long term gain? Probably, but if they didn't have the market share they would've been in big trouble.

 

People are painting it that W8 has sold badly, it hasnt.
IIRC its sold more copies thus far than W7 had during the same period....

 

Windows 8 sales were below Microsoft's expectations although the report here quotes Microsoft as claiming that the sales were "in the same general ballpark" as Windows 7. Perhaps the person meant the same order of magnitude but given (i) a lot of people (myself included) paid to upgrade from Vista to the Windows that Vista should have been and (ii) there has been a significant drop in total PC sales (for which Windows 8 is given some of the blame), I would be surprised if the Windows 8 PC sales were anywhere near those of Windows 7. Perhaps if one adds in the Windows 8 on other devices then the gap closes.

John

 

If you believe MS' numbers they sold 100 million copies almost as quickly as they sold 100 million copies W7. Let's not forget they were practically giving it away at $40 for three months.

But actual adoption is another story, it's lagging behind vista (and xp and 7) and has been particularly bad in the enterprise sector. Like it or not (and I'm not saying it's a bad OS) I don't think anyone can claim it has been a success and that's because they made enough irritating changes to steer people away. If the PC OS market was competitive W8 would've been up there with New Coke, but most people aren't going to jump ship because linux is not simple, macs cost more and software compatability. However, they really needed to make a dent in the mobile sector and that has been slow as well. Maybe the XBox will be their saving grace. Sorry this argument is out of place on this thread.

Windows 8 continues to fail | ZDNet

 

One of the things I like about our forum, and the Samsung crowd in particular, is that we can have discussions like this, where members exchange viewpoints -- even on contentious subjects -- and yet remain civilized and respectful of each other. There are many other forums where such discussions almost immediately degenerate into vitriol and personal attacks. That happens very rarely here, so thank you for that!

We also don't have a tradition here for heavy handed moderation or censoring or telling users what they can or cannot discuss: We normally let members discuss what interests them, as long it stays within forum rules and maintains some relevance or context to the thread topic.

That said, go45cvi absolutely has a point that general Win8 debate is better placed in other threads (such as the one linked below) -- or even in NBR's Windows OS and Software Forum (also linked below).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/683577-samsung-series-9-windows-8-a.html
Microsoft Windows Forum

There is nothing here that warrants censoring or other moderator action in my opinion. But if participants should decide to continue the discussion in those other threads, I agree it will help preserve the focus of this one

 

Isn't that sort of the point though, with declining sales of traditional PCs yet still getting near to W7 sales, that's still pretty good.

Regardless, still not bad sales numbers. People are making out like its bombing, when its really not.