Samsung ATIV Book 5 NP530U4E and NP540U4E

Did the updates one by one (-; sooo much fun,..but it did the job in the end.

As to RAM config, cpu-z shows just one 4GB stick in slot 3 - the one accessible via easy access opening on the bottom cover. went inside the laptop, but there isnt another RAM slot to be seen. i was pretty sure when buying this model that it said it had 2 RAM slots. will have to get one 8GB stick in this case.. (funnily enough, when buying the retailer offered to install the additional memory,but i didnt use the service,cause it would delay the postage of the unit)..

 

4GB is integrated to the motherboard, so when you have another 4GB in the slot, that is equal with 8GB. Can you post a HWinfo screenshot?

 

cant post any screenshots at the moment, but..
..system properties and cpu-z say there's 4GB RAM (exactly as much as supposed to be there initially). i thought it will be soldered (with one free slot for upgrade), but it turns out its samsungs mem stick in slot 3 (easy access slot), and there's no other slots on the motherboard...which leaves me baffled and confused..
the exact model nr is NP530U4E-X04PL.

 

Perhaps Samsung saved a few $$$s by not soldering any RAM onto the board.

Fortunately, you still have the upgrade option of putting 8GB into the slot. The main disadvantage of the single channel RAM is primarily reduced performance of the integrated graphics.

John

 

It looks like they have - just had a look at few websites still selling this model - one of the listings says there's supposed to be only one memory slot on m/b (with no RAM soldered).
could swear that the retailer which I bought it from listed this model as having two slots (cant check that as their listing isnt there any more-sold out). will have to get in touch with them and clarify the issue (as i mentioned before, they even offered installing the additional 4GB stick...installing where?i dont know..)

 

what about the system performance and gaming on dedicated graphics card? is that being affected having RAM working single channel only?

 

Dedicated graphics normally has its own RAM. In this case the impact on performance should be minimal and caused by the reduced bandwidth between the CPU and the main RAM.

However, the only way to be sure about the impact is for someone with this model + both soldered RAM and RAM in the slot to run some benchmarks with and without the RAM in the slot.

John

 

It is actually an interesting topic, I might will run a 3DMark11 test to see how single and dual channel affects the cpu and gaming performance with discrete graphics. I expect about 10% difference in CPU physics score and 5% for total score.

 

Hello everyone,

I bought this laptop a while three months ago and I've been following this thread ever since. My model is more precisely NP530U4E-X01PT.

I'm running the AMD 12.13 WHQL driver now, and I've already modded the MSI afterburnner to start some gentle overclocking. Anyways, I'm still in stock values and I get on 3DMark11 the score of P2057, which I think it's pretty good running windows 8.1.

I'm writing you cause for some reason I sometimes get the notification that the laptop doens't have enough memory. For example, if I'm running a light game or some CAD program sometimes it sends me that notification. Today I had the antivirus turned off and only Firefox open while playing a light game and he gave a BSOD with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

Have you guys had any problems with memory? I'm thinking of upgrading to 8Gb (4gb on the empty slot), but I think it's strange that it gives me those warnings.

Thanks in advance

 

Hello Kynodontas, welcome to NBR.

Errors like that (a page fault causing a BSOD) are rarely from too little memory, and likely from a buggy driver, or corrupted driver or Windows file -- or possibly even from a defect RAM chip. If you changed your Virtual Memory settings (too small or too large a pagefile) that could cause this as well.

You could try running a thorough memory test (using MemTest86 or similar tool). Also, you could use Recovery to restore to factory state and see if the problem resolves -- in which case you know it is a software issue, not a hardware one. You can backup your current Windows State in Recovery before restoring, so that you can get back to it (of course any problems will be restored as well).

Maybe others have more specific suggestions.

 

Task Manager can show RAM usage and related activities such as page faults.

IMO, the likely cause is the overclocking. Once hardware is pushed beyond its safe limits then all sorts of seemingly unrelated errors can occur. What happens if the overclocking is turned off?

John

 

Doh, how could I have overlooked that

@Kynodontas: Yes, definitely try without overclock as the first thing!

 

Guys, I hate Windows 8, Can I install Vista for this computer? Swupdate offers Windows 7 drivers, but not sure if those will work with Windows Vista or not...

 

I could understand you wanting to install Windows 7, but Vista was the worst Windows since Me.

Why not try one of the programs that gives you back your start menu? I paid $5 for Start8 but free programs also exist. They give you enough Windows 7 functionality to make Windows 8 tolerable.

John

 

Thanks for the quick replies about the memory issue!

I didn't mess with any page max or min values, and I was not overclocking, I had only set the MSI afterburner with the unoffiocial mod. But just to be sure it was not from that, I unistalled the MSI, uninstalled the gpu drivers and basically just cleaned out all the AMD stuff. Then reinstalled the driver "13-12_mobility_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql".

After that I did the 3Dmark11 and something strange happened, with the same stock values, it went from P2057 to P1606.

Stock values - before reinstalling the drivers

Stock values-after reinstalling


The physics score just went down drastically.. Can it be related to me messing around with the drivers? Or messing around with the Regedit to make MSI unofficial overclock mod?

 

Perhaps you weren't intentionally overclocking but something must have been running much faster.

Run the current installation for a few days and see if you get any error messages.

John

 

I've done the Single Vs. Dual Channel memory test using the discrete graphics and could not measure any noticeable difference. This means if IGP is not in use, than we really do not need to worry about Single Channel.

​

 

Vista was terrible for old computers, but how about with modern laptops? I think it should not be slow anymore, just not sure if windows 7 drivers will work or not. In Windows 8 the lack of the start menu smaller problem for me, instead the oncoming slides are really annoying when I pull my mouse to the sides and corners or I cannot minimize skype and fully closing and same things with other apps too. I want normal windows with - and X.

 

I agree that Vista would run faster on modern hardware but it is still very buggy. There was a good reason why people rushed to adopt Windows 7.

I'm using Windows 8 at the moment and encounter few of your problems. First I paid my $5 for Start8 and then I run the desktop version of programs. Pressing the Windows key gets me to the Win 8 desktop but another press gets me out again. There are rumours that Microsoft will issue another update to Win 8 to move it closer to what users want.

John

 

I installed this Start8 program for John recommendation and it is actually good! With this program possible to disable all hot corners and charms bar, now windows 8 is more enjoyable.

Dack,
If you are thinking using Vista, you will probably have problems with drivers.

 

I use Start Menu 8 (free from IObit) which lets you disable the corner menus and the Charms bar. If you also have it boot directly to the Desktop, it's almost exactly like Win7 (but faster). I never have to see the Metro screen.

And as for Vista... enough said

 

nice one,many thanks for doing that. i can sleep peacefully now knowing that just one memory slot isnt really a major issue (maybe apart from having to somehow swap two 4gb sticks for one 8gb, but im working on that with the retailer!).

 

How come my score is so low. I had to do the test in 1280x720. All of my drivers are up to date. What is exactly this driver issue ?
I think my harddrive is also quite slow... my express cache runs well but actually I think overall my pc is even slower that the one I bought 2 years ago (same type of config). Thanks

 

You are running on the integrated HD4000 graphics. Do you have the 530U4E or the 540U4E model?

 

oh okay. I understand I though you were also only using HD4000 and not the radeon.

I am using 540U4E, hardrive is an hitachi travelstar Z5K500

 

I think nvidia card performs better than AMD .. One of my friend with Nvidia GT 630 m with 2nd gen i3 performs better in games than another friend's AMD 7670m with i5 3rd gen..All benchmarks show 7670as slightly better than gt630m .. Both 4gb RAM and on 500 GB HDD 5400 RPM and Windows 7 64 bit. (it makes no sense)

To OP i am planning to buy a similar laptop from Samsung
Series 3
i3 3rd gen 3120m
4gb RAM
8750m 1gb DDR3
750GB HDD

Its 540$(kinda cheap for the GPU it packs)

So my main concern is - Has Samsung played around with the GPU and modified it to cut cost? Maybe put a 64 bit mem bus instead of 128 bit .I heard lenovo did that with gt740m on some of the models..

And as taanvee55 said about his friends gt710 performing beeter than his 8750m, i am a bit worried about going for the 8750m laptop ..

 

The Radeon 8750M with overclocking performs close to 750M with DDR3 for half the power consumption. When you do not overclock it performing about the level of 740M or little better. Anyway if you planning to buy laptop nowadays I would wait for the new Nvidia GPUs with Maxwell core, they going to be very fast and efficient.

 

Oh well you seem to be getting a good performance on your 8750m. I think I will buy the Sammy then.Hope I don't end up like tanveer55 XD .
As for Maxwell, I think those Maxwell equipped laptops will cost out of my budget (550$ max )..

 

I think the most demanding game i ever played on my 540U4E was Dayz Standalone, using 14.2 drivers with Leek's patch the game with stock clocks and it ran ok since it's an alpha. I played it for like a hour and temps were around 72ºC for CPU and 69ºC for the GPU which is great for a thin laptop. If you are interested on how a certain game runs i can test for you if i own it.

For the owners: do you guys hear a buzzing noise when you have headphones connected? Try opening an image and try zoom and move it around and check if you get a buzzing noise as you do these actions.

 

Hey Atom I need a favor. Can u please upload the GPU Z screenshot of your 8750m ?

 

Yes, but it is not too informative now, so I've included the Catalyst Control Center Hardware information too;



Why do you need?

 

I wanted to check the detail specs esp memory bandwith .. Strange i asked a guy on another forum for the same and the exact screenshot aka not all the specs listed..

Mine's hea

As you can see its got all the details.
Can you find out the memory bandwidth of your GPU in other ways and tell me?

Update :
Ops sorry I just saw the mem bandwidth on the CCC screenshot which states the mem bandwidth(was only looking at the GPU Z one initially)
Thanks a lot !!
Now my doubt is cleared--Am gonna buy the Samsung laptop.

 

Hi Everyboy, I bought my awesome np530u4e about one year ago. Yesterday I bought the Samsung 840 evo ssd on Amazon and now I'm waiting for it.
I read the really usefull guide from Atom to desassembly the base plate in order to access to the HDD so I'm ready to do it. Now I have one problem, about 4 months ago, I tried to do a clean install of windows 8.1 (I was running W8) and once the installation was finished I faced a black screen with flashing mouse arrow. I understood it was a AMD driver problem but I couldn't find the solution. So I restored to my backup of windows 8 and tried to install 8.1 through Windows Store. This time no problem with AMD drivers but i was not able to adjust screen brightness and to install samsung SW Update. I restored again to W8.

I suppose that once I'll do a clean install of windwos 8.1 on my new ssd, I'll face the problem about black screen again, so I'm wondering if after installation I turn on in Safe Mode, will I be able to install AMD drivers? Unfortunately, last time I did not tried this option.
Moreover, how to install and run correctly samsung SW update? Last time I couldn't be able.

Thank you for your patience, to forgive me, I'll post bechmarks and tests about the ssd performance and pictures about the installation.

 

I won't try to give you a definite answer but I think you need the Samsung version of the drivers to get the brightness control to work. You also need Settings in order to get the Fn key controls to work and it also does other system configuration during installation.

I'm sure you will find discussion of the problem and the solutions that have worked for others in either http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...pgrade-until-samsung-has-updated-drivers.html and/or http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...unge-np770z5e-np780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e.html (which also uses the AMD graphics). Both those threads are long so work backwards from the end.

John

 

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'll work on it in next days


UPDATE

One friend of mine suggested me to use "Driver Magician", it allows you to make a backup of all drivers installed in your pc and then, once you formatted your pc, restore drivers.

P.s.: Still waiting the ssd

 

Good news for everyone.

SSD Samsung 840 EVO installed successfully!

I followed the disassembly guide by Atom Ant, once opened this was the view:



Circled in red, the 4 screws you have to remove in order to remove the hdd.

Withouth hdd:



Connector circled in red.

I've previously created a bootable usb using this useful tool by Microsoft:

LINK

I boot up and installed Windows 8.1, then I downloaded Samsung SW Updater from Samsung website, the installation was fast and clean, it recognised all the right drivers and installed everything.

Now, everything is working and the laptop is superfast.

Here's the boot time:



Some note:
1)No problem with AMD driver... can't believe it
2)Fn functions work great
3)Fast, fast, fast

 

Is it possible to upgrade the video to the Radeon 8750m that some of you have? I opened my laptop to upgrade to ssd but didn't see anything to add a GPU.

 

Hello fly1333, welcome to NBR.

I am afraid that is almost certainly a no. I haven't heard of any Samsung models that allowed you to upgrade the GPU. It is usually soldered to the motherboard, and baked into the supporting firmware.

 

That's what I thought but I read through this entire thread and some people were saying how GPU-Z scores were low because they were running on the Integrated Intel GPU. I thought that meant people somehow had both GPUs.

 

Oh I see what you mean. Basically these models (and several other laptop models) have both the integrated Intel GPU and a separate, more powerful, GPU from Nvidia or AMD (depending on model). The system switches to the more powerful GPU when needed for games or other 3D applications.

But none of these GPUs can be replaced, they are soldered on the motherboard.

I hope that clarifies.

 

Ah ok. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Hello guys,

I have this laptop and I'm thinking of doing a clean install of windows, but I know that the hard drive has a 24GB ExpressCache SSD, so how do I make it possible to install the windows in the SSD? Or should I just install it normaly as in any other hard drive?

Thanks

 

Your computer cannot boot directly from the ExpressCache SSD (iSSD) since that was designed just for cache. So you'll have to leave the boot partition on the HDD (MSR if you have a Legacy BIOS system, EFI system partition if you have an UEFI system) then add the new Windows installation on the iSSD to the boot menu. Of course uninstall ExpressCache and Intel Rapid Start before you begin (since they use the iSSD).

Be very careful what you do, particularly on Series 5 models with ExpressCache running in UEFI mode. See this thread for recent horror stories. If I had a 24GB iSSD (unfortunately I only have 8GB) I would want to try this myself. But I would NOT dare do it in UEFI mode, since you risk your BIOS getting stuck wanting to boot only from the iSSD -- which it can't.

If you're going to install normally (on the HDD) you should install from DVD, not from USB, otherwise you will run into another issue on these models, where Windows Setup will mistakenly see the iSSD as the boot device and places its boot partition there. If you MUST install from USB (which I really don't recommend) you will have to use one of the workarounds in posts #1 or #2 in this thread. That's for Legacy BIOS installations only, NOT UEFI installation.

 

Thanks a lot Dannemand! I'll investigate into it from now on, it's good to be aware of the possible problems first! The issue about installing from DVD is that this laptop doens't have a DVD-driver, so I guess it's easier to invest on an external one.

 

I know, that's a peculiar issue with these models, that Samsung delivered them with no DVD drive, yet they cannot really be installed from USB -- except with some extreme workarounds and some actual risk.