Samsung 9 Series laptop (ZX310 / 900X3A) unveiled

Thank's John - i will download the software you suggest. I did notice that during the processor tests, my cpu speed was at 1.4ghz (i have a cpu win7 gadget which shows speed and load on all cores) but the load on all cores never reached 100%...

I've dug through the power management options in windows, and there are options like passive/active cooling and min/max cpu state, but these are all already "maxed out". I'm doing the test on the "max performance" power management preset, and have double checked the options for this preset to make sure everything is set to max possible performance. Still, i'm missing out by 4/10ths according to some. I know its not a huge amount, but it is approaching 10%...

I tried fiddling with the power saving mode (disabling it) and it made no difference to the score. But if yours are both enabled/auto anyway and you're getting 6.3, that presumably isn't the problem. This is rather strange. Could AV be causing it does anyone think?

Yeah i'm scoring 5.9 for CPU as well. Would love to get to the bottom of this...

 

Well I splurged and bought the service manual from Samsung's parts site for $18. Learned at least two things:

1. You can use 1.8" SSD drives that goes up to 256 GB. They take different connectors.

2. Samsung ran into a problem with Wimaxx. They could not put WLAN, Bluetooth and WiMaxx in at the same time. So, they ended up with two specs, the Broadcom WLAN with BT 3.0 or an Intel WLAN with Wimaxx.

Excerpt from Spec Sheet:

"802.11bg/n 2x2 WLAN and BT3.0 HS Combo Impossible to apply together BT3.0 and WIMAX
Intel WIMAX + Intel WLAN 802.11bg/n (2x2) Combo (for BBY)"

 

best i could get was 5.4 , don't know how you guys are getting 6.3

 

Has anyone successfully replaced the WLAN adapter with Intel 6230? Will it make the wifi on the laptop behave normal?

And how about 6300 adapter? Does it consume more power than the stock one? How much does it improve on wifi signal and speed?

 

Thanks for sharing. Do you have the device? Have you had any wifi issue and do you have any tips to fix it?

 

Have anyone here with the Samsung checked what temperatures they get in the laptop? It seems mine's around 50-55C while idling or doing simple tasks (surfing etc) - The fan doesn't sound at all at this point, even with the AC plugged in and power settings configured at performance.

EDIT: My CPU score is 6.0, and that's without a clean install.

 

We're talking about the CPU score, not the over-all experience score (which is just limited to your lowest category score), and you got 5.9 which is the most i can get too. So, still not up there at 6.3! Though not quite as far out as you thought.

Still, I would love to know what i have to do to get my CPU score up to 6.3...

 

FWIW, I checked the index again. CPU score is still 6.3 (always has been).

Don't know if it matters, but my power settings are Samsung Optimized. I haven't done any modifications to the laptop.

 

When you say you checked it again, do you mean you re-ran the test?

I have no idea how you managed that, because if i leave mine on samsung optimised its down at 5.3/5.4. I have to use max performance to get 5.9. Do you have any AV software running or anything like that?

There MUST be a reason for this...

 

Yes, I re-ran the test just to see if the speed was time dependent. I don't use this laptop a lot. You probably know this, but you have to be plugged into an outlet to run the Windows Experience index. Won't run on battery.

And, yes, I have an AV program. I am running MSE for my AV.

Is it possible that you have a different model? I'm on the US version with WLAN and BT and Win 7 Home. I know that there is a version with Win 7 Pro.

Someone, I forget who, had a much higher graphics score than I did. (Mine is 4.6.) Do you think it is possible since the memory is shared that a faster graphics chip is reducing the cpu speed somehow? Can't see how that would matter, but just thought I would throw that out.

Sorry I can't be more help.

 

Ah! Wich one - Broadcom or Intel - is the better (more powerful) WLAN card? I have issues with the reach of the Broadcom in homes with brick/concrete walls ...

 

The touchpad is driving me crazy. E.g., its very difficult to highlight something like a sentence. I have to press down the left key very hard and often have to repeat the process a couple of times before it highlights all I want. Is there anything in settings I can try?

 

Most complaints about weak WiFi are with respect to the Broadcom WLAN card I believe.

However, I am not sure I have heard from anyone with the WiMaxx configuration, so I have no idea if the critisims are related to the WLAN card or the laptop design (i.e., the metal case).

 

Phil1908, your posts has been extremely helpful.

I am looking to purchase the Samsung 9 Series and looks like I will have to upgrade the wifi. For those of you that have upgraded, how are your speeds now? Is the Intel 6230 the best bet? Where did you buy it? Have any of you had any other problems?

Uluquai - thanks for the link on upgrading the RAM.

Thanks again!

 

Thanks very much! Quite the contrary - you've been very helpful.

I have WLAN, BT and win 7 home so im guessing its the same version. Either way, its presumably the same CPU, and this is in theory just a CPU test. Very interesting idea about the gfx memory though. I might try setting the graphics to a lower, battery friendly mode to see if that makes a difference.

I really do want to get to the bottom of this. It seems at the moment like there are two performance categories. Its bizzare that people seem to fall into one or the other - 5.9 or 6.3...

 

Phil1908, your posts has been extremely helpful.

I am looking to purchase the Samsung 9 Series and looks like I will have to upgrade the wifi. For those of you that have upgraded, how are your speeds now? Is the Intel 6230 the best bet? Where did you buy it? Have any of you had any other problems?

Uluquai - thanks for the link on upgrading the RAM.

Thanks again!

 

i recently had started getting the wifi connection issue.

i did some research on google and did some services tweaks based on one of the sites out of hundreds out there. i disabled a couple of services. since then i don't have any wifi issues get full bars now. don't know which one fixed it but it works for now.

this is the website i used. it might help. not sure


Black Viper’s Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Service Configurations | Black Viper's Website | www.blackviper.com

 

Hi phil1980,

What's the average speed after you replaced the stock adaptor with Intel 6300? I noticed that you asked about the 7Mbps speed. Was your Sammy with replaced 6300 not even reaching 7Mbps?

My stock Sammy wifi is slow. About half the speed of a CR-48 at the same location. It was at 8Mbps while CR-48 was 17Mbps (upper limit is 18). At home (upper limit is 20 for download) Sammy is sometimes 5, sometimes 15 (5% of the time?). Most of the time it's at 8Mbps. It's always half the speed compared with another computer. either iMac or MBP at home.

I'm already on my 2nd unit. The first one has worse wifi issue. My question is,
1) is this normal for Sammy? Do you all have such wifi issue? For those who doesn't, was your Sammy very close to a good router?
2) Shall I exchange yet another 900X3A? I will only change if there are any good ones out there. If most of them are defect, then don't bother.
3) If they are defect in wifi, I may still want to keep it... but I'd like to change the wifi adapter. Would it really help? Will it keep my Sammy's speed in par with other devices?

Hope I hope it's working fine!

 

Is it large? Do you have an electronic version or can you scan it? I think a lot of people would appreciate if you will share it.

How does it look like (connector etc.)? Any pictures? From my experience I believe there is definitely no space for a normal 1.8"...

That's on the paper. In real life I do own NP900X3A-A02US which is supposed to be a Wi-Max version - nevertheless it was equipped with the same Broadcom Wi-Fi-only chip which comes in a A03US version. No Wi-Max. No Intel. Samsung - shame on you!
AFAIR, there is no NP900X3A on the market with preinstalled Intel wireless modules. At least, now.

 

I removed Norton and installed ESET Smart Security. My CPU Score - 6.3. I don't think there is any connection between CPU score and AV unless you use Kaspersky

I'm on a Win 7 Pro version (A02US).

AFAIK, if you would disable Aero and re-run the test you'll get a better score in graphics.

 

Broadcom is awful. I'm afraid you wouldn't be able to find NP900X3A with a factory installed Intel wireless card.

 

The touchpad is one of the best. Try to go through all of the settings of the touchpad one by one and disable those you are not gonna use. Customize the others.

I'm using tapping with "Tap again and hold to drag" and "Locking drags" features to highlight smth - very useful. I agree - it doesn't work very smooth with the left key probably because of multi-touch, so use another method. I don't think there is a connection between the hardness of pressing the key and success rate: it works one time and drops another.

I've also limited the pointing zone on the bottom in a SmartSense Section. You may also try to play with "Filter Activation time" in the same section.

Finally, I've disabled all side and bottom scrolling because I found two-finger scrolling much more useful.

P.S. An interesting observation about the touchpad: if you will try to hold your laptop only with your right hand (4 fingers on the bottom, thumb on the top) at the corner (to the right from the touchpad), you would probably not be able to get a click from the left touchpad button (it will only click nearly at the center). Same happens with the right button if you hold a laptop in your left hand. It looks like also it is stated that Duralumin is about twice as strong as aluminum, it's definitely not strong enough to keep 2.9lbs laptop from bending in one of the natural holding positions...

 

I'm pretty sure it's not the metal case: if you would check my earlier posts, I've tested the wi-fi connectivity of the laptop without the bottom panel holding the laptop vertically with the open half directed to the router - there is no significant difference in range and speed with or without the panel.

 

Thank you for your appreciation. I'm trying to help fellow forumers to squeeze some extra points from their Sammys.

Check this thread - there are a lot of useful info. Yes, I would probably go with 6230. Are there any non-Intel dual-band half-PCI minicards on the market?

 

Hello!

Not Megabits per second (Mbps) - Megabytes per second (Mb/s). I easily get 300Mbps with 6300 on both bands. Nevertheless, I wasn't able to get more than 4,5 Mb/s on Sammy with 6300 at about 50 feet from router (one wall) or about 7,5 Mb/s at 1 foot from router. My Dell XPS with Intel 4965AGN shows 6 & 11 Mb/s correspondingly.

The funny thing is that with 6300 I get higher speed on 2.4Ghz while the 5Ghz should be much faster. I still hope it's a drivers issue and will be improved.

How do you measure the speed? With speedtest.net? It's not accurate to measure wi-fi connection because the speed constantly changes on "ISP-your modem" segment.

It would definitely improve the range and wireless speed of your Sammy.

 

Yes I used speedtest.net. And then I downloaded a software Lan speed test. The speed was only 2MB (maybe 40 feet from the router?) while another cheaper laptop got 16MB.

Thank you very very much for your response and I just ordered the Intel 6230 from CostCentral. I will try that out.

 

I tried disabling Aero completely and it made only a small difference. That surprised me a bit. My graphics score went from 4.6 to 4.7. Hardly worth the difference, especially since the screen looks so ugly.

I also don't see the wi-fi connection drop off that most are reporting, even when I'm as far from my router as possible. When the signal drops to 2 or 3 bars, it's true that the connection doesn't seem as fast as when I have 5 bars, but my other laptop (Sony Z) reacts in exactly the same way.

This is so, so odd. Do you think that there is a quality control problem with the installed adapter?

 

Have you finally resolved the issues with 6230?

 

Interesting. Some people got better results (4.6 vs 5.3). I suggested to disable Aero only during the benchmark sequence - not for good

Well, may be your Z is also suffering from the slow connection?! A lot of Vaios (including recently released new S series) are equipped with obsolete/slow adapters. You can give us the real time over the air transfer rate with your Sammy and Vaio by connecting a computer (A) or NAS with a LAN cable only (if present, disable wireless adapter on this computer in order to eliminate possible errors) to your wireless router and trying to copy a large (more than 1 Gb) file to/from this computer with your laptop (B) connected to the router over wi-fi only. You'll see the real transfer rate in the details section of a copy file window. Wait a couple of minutes to see the average transfer rate since some adapters start with the slow speed and then rise it according to the connection quality. When you will see that the transfer speed is not going up/down significantly - that's your real wi-fi transfer rate.

 

i got 5.4 on graphics without disabling anything

 

Hi Phil,

Can you share where did you buy the 6300 and the antenna? Thanks.

 

I thought that the one with the WIMAX has the Intel - no?

 

Tried you recommendations and YES, this has become much better. THANKS!

 

Nope. I returned the first one ,ordered another one and it also came in small plastic box without Software. I tried it with the new one and getting the same issues. I already got RMA for the new one also. As a last option I ordered one more card more from Macmall and I'll try it as soon as it comes. I have not seen anybody in the forum installed 6230. After I try the last option I am thinking to do a clean installation of Win 7 Pro 64 bit and try to install 6230. The reason why I want use 6230 is to use WIDI 2.0
(already got PTV2000;if iot doesnt work I'll return it) and also bluetooth. I will give an update during this weekend.

My thought is either we need a OEM drivers for 6230 or my installation process steps might be wrong

 

sammy9user: I also ordered a 6230 also from costcentral which is to be arrived on Tuesday. Do they accept return even if the package is opened?

Planning for the worst but fingers crossed. If it doesn't work out, I will just try 6300, which is supposed to be more advanced than 6230, less the bluetooth feature.

 

It is not in a sealed package. You'll get this card in transparent plastic pack which you can open it and there is nothing in there to say whether it is opened or not. Google with "intel centrino advanced n 6230 package pictures" and go to images you can see the transparent plastic cover

I think these cards come in qty 10(model#62230AN.HMWWB) or 100(model#62230AN.HMWG) from intel and they (costcentral) pick one from the package and shippping to us

 

OK. I only have a g wi-fi setup.

So, near the router (5 bars) the file transfer rate is 1.66 MB/sec.

As far away as I can get from my router, the number of bars drops to 2 and the transfer rate starts out at 1.55 MB, but slowly drops to 1.04 MB/sec, where it pretty much levels out.

This seems reasonable to me, but what do I know? Hope that helps.

 

I can only partially get why it sends me into such a rage, but it does.

Everything about this machine reads like a poor Macbook Air (and the last-gen version at that) knockoff, and more importantly one that was specifically designed as a knockoff that's different enough to be legally not a knockoff - not 'inspired by' or anything like that.

From the straight-ripoff packaging, the stupid power connector, the stupid flaps on the side to the mediocre keyboard and the *really* TN (Yes, I know all notebook screens bar very few are TN) screen - with the slight saving grace of mattness - I'm really developing an antipathy towards this piece of kit.

I haven't even finished my initial runtime tests yet on this thing, let alone heat and stability, and I'm already angry at this machine. It's just the white-flagness of it all.

I guess I'll have see how I feel about it a month or so down the line.

 

An ultrathin ultralight notebook is going to be like a MB Air, however it's designed - though the Lenovo X1 at least sill looks like a ThinkPad.

A real ethernet connection and a matte screen are big items for me, and big enough improvements over the MB Air. But I'm holding off until the wifi and widely varying WEI processor scores are clarified - and maybe the forthcoming Air update will have them (very unlikely).

Regarding those poor WEI processor scores some people have, could you report the BIOS, so it could be compared to those with no problems?

 

I won't be worried about the processor score. In Microsoft store, where they sell signature version, all of the 8 demo 900X3a scored 5.9 for processor. Demo unit in Best buy scored 6.3, with all trial software on it. But does it matter? Both are insanely fast.

I also compared the CPU of sammy with that of X1. Although X1 has a much higher frequency (2.5-3.2G vs Sammy's 1.4-2.3G), Intel sells it $25 cheaper than Sammy's CPU. Both CPU were out Q1 2011. Sammy's one worths $250 and X1's worths $225. Why? Sammy's CPU asks for less power (half of X1) and that's the harder part. Both models have 6-cell battery and I guess unless Lenovo is very advanced, the X1's battery life will be noticeably shorter than the Sammy's. They declared as 5 hours and Sammy declared it as 7 hours (in practice I think it's 5 hours for normal to intensive use).

Think about when do you need a CPU that fast. Do you run Matlab on it? I do and I installed 32bit Windows, which means only 2.6G Memory is used, and that brings the processor score down to 4.9. It's still fast enough for my need. My only complain is the wifi. Luckily I find a good excuse for myself to fix it on my own: Intel 6230 supports widi! This is the future of home wifi. You can play video on your TV (equipped with widi) without going through your router or AP. You can access other widi ready devices the same way, super fast, totally wireless. How cool is that? So I'm looking forward to changing the wlan adapter from broadcom to intel. Not all Intel adapters supports widi. Not even 6300 supports it. X1's doesn't even support 802.11n, if I read the spec correctly (a,b,g only).

Next generation MBA may be good. But until it's out, who knows. I won't like it anyway because of the Mac keyboard layout. Even it adds the backlit, there will be no forward delete key, no insert, home, end key.

 

Have you try these driver from samsung themself?
http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.c...0127094746608/WLAN_Intel_64bit_14.0.0.113.ZIP

And this is the WiDi software:
http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.c...71814425/Intel_Wireless_Display__2.0.27.0.ZIP

It seem like intel just update the whole driver a while ago for vga, wifi, widi(2.1) can give it a try.
http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wtech/iwd/sb/CS-031109.htm

The new vga driver seem to improve the performance of the graphic and more
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/20037/eng/Graphics driver release notes.pdf

 

Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (633AN.HMWWB) - Network Adapters

Laptop Internal Aerial Antenna U.Fl plug connector -Electrically Isolated -easy installation no need to open the Base or LCD OxfordTEC.com

 

It does in the ads. In real life it doesn't have neither Wi-Max nor Intel.

 

It shouldn't come with the software. Really really strange since 6230 and 6300 are based on nearly identical platform and I have absolutely no problem with the installation of 6300 from the same seller.

I am looking forward to your weekend update since Tuesday is my last day to return 6300 if I decide to downgrade to 6230 in order to get a built-in Bluetooth since the speed of 6300 is far from desirable.

It would be nice to hear about your experience with PTV2000 also...

 

Well, it's definitely very far from the good connection speed. After upgrading to Intel Centrino 6300 the best I can get is 4-4,5 MB/sec at ~50 feet from the router with one wall on the route. I consider it pretty slow...

 

Not true. 6300 is the most advanced Intel wireless adapter as of now. Check Intel web site... Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 – Overview

It would not. At least for me. Main reasons:
1. Glossy screens;
2. Hardware not optimized for Windows environment (you'll get 2-2,5 hours with Windows compared to 5-7 with MacOS).

 

Oh, I must have read a wrong pdf. Maybe it was for another model. Sorry.
And it's good to know this. If my 6230 doesn't work out for me, 6300 is not bad either. Bluetooth is not essential, and when needed, a bluetooth dongle is tiny and handy.

I didn't know about this. I run Mac on my Macs, and then remote desktop to a windows server sometimes. It's very inconvenient when I wanted to delete a file. And frankly, Win 7 is far better than OS X. That's one of the reasons I bought the Sammy.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful response, it's much appreciated.

Re the processor, I agree about the difference between 5.9 and 6.3, but someone earlier posted that theirs was 5.3, which is no doubt fast enough, but seems to indicate that something is wrong. Of course, one can always return the unit.

That was interesting about the difference between the Microsoft scores and Best Buy - I wonder what Microsoft have optimized for? Anyway, the consistency you saw is reassuring.

Regarding the wifi, I'm happy to upgrade the card, but so far no one has reported success with the 6230. I'm hoping someone will.

I'm not holding my breath for the X1, as I suspect the fan will be too noisy for me because of the hotter processor. There are a lot of complaints about the X220 fan, which ought to have an easier time. This is one of the main reasons I like the Sammy, and am interested in the new Air.

I've always been very resistant to Apples, would always run Windows, and agree about the Apple keyboard (though you can use Fn to get around that). I may still wait to see what it's like, whether they add USB 3.0, etc. But I am tempted to move on the Samsung sooner....

 

No. That's not the issue. Yes, all ultra-thin wedge shaped machines will look kind of similar. The issue is, as I said, that it is very specifically a knockoff.

I'm in debate about that. While matte is nice, the panel itself is inferior to the Air (1st & current-gen) in terms of display characteristics, especially in terms of horizontal viewing angle - any claims of superior brightness aside - which adds insult to injury.