Samsung R20 notebook (14" widescreen)

That's what I would do. It should install over the previous version or it might want to remove the previous version first.

John

 

Hi John ,Decided to send it back ,big question is do i reorder another one orgo for something else.
If it was a problem with the one i had & the rest are ok i will reorder.
I am going to John Lewis on Sunday to have a look at one .
Shaun

 

Yes, try to see one in the flesh. It may be that the older R20s with the T2250 CPU are a safer bet for a good display but I wouldn't expect that all the newer ones have bad displays.

John

 

After reading this thread for some time I decided to order a R20 as it seemed to perfectly fit my needs. Here in Germany the Declan model is available almost exclusively with the T2350. After recieving it I was quiet impressed by the design and the smooth functioning keyboard. The only thing that was little disturbing was the CPU-fan, which at times worked little louder than expected. Consequently I got the latest BIOS update from the Samsung website (which installed itself directly from Windows without any troubles). Now the noise behaviour is no longer disturbing for me, rather the opposite. In additon to that I got the XP drivers there, as I just don`t like vista. Deleted Vista by formatting c:/ in the XP installation routine. XP installed itself without problems. Chipset, Sound and WLan drivers next. Everything works fine now! What I forgot to mention above - right after recieving the notebook I installed 2x1GB of this RAM - which is probably the most bang for the buck at this time here: http://www.mix-computer.de/html/product/detail.html?artNo=IANEUF&artNo=IANEUF&

After finalizing this installation I tried to get out some more performance by overclocking with clockgen (which now is applied automatically at startup). Here are the results, as sometimes in this thread there was the question for PCMark05 and 3DMark05:

PCMark05: 3989 @ 2,33GHz with 128MB set to graphics
3DMark05: 1430 @ 2,33GHz with 256MB set to graphics

EDIT: PCMark05: 4001 @ 2,33GHz with 256MB set to graphics (just wanted to get the 4000 )

hope this is of some relavance at least for a view. Thank you for the decent information in this thread provided by all the previous postings, especially to John! Sorry for any failures concerning my English.

 

Hi tricks,

Welcome and thanks for all that good information and feedback.

John

 

Hello,

after working for some time with the r20 now I am still completely satisfied with this smart 14'' device. Just installed Acronis TrueImage and secured C:\ by cloning it to the Acronis Secure Zone. Now the system can be restored with the bootable rescue disk of TrueImage right after BIOS has loaded at startup. Already tried to restore C:\ from there and it worked.

Now I was wondering if the recovery partition which came preinstalled on the r20 is still necessary, or if it may be formatted. After all it takes ~7.3GB of disk space - would rather like to assign this space to e.g. D:\.

This is why I would like to ask you for some good advice. Attached you can find a screenshot of the WinXP disk management - the alert window shows what windows says when trying to format the recovery partition. Can I go on or should I stop?

Thank you very much in advance!

Kind regards, tricks

 

As far as I know, the recovery partition contains a copy of the original installation and any subsequent restore images created by the supplied recovery software (if any).

Provided you have the Windows recovery and Samsung utilities discs (should you ever want to do a clean reinstallation) then you won't lose anything by deleting the partition since you are using Acronis to make your own backup images.

I suspect the warning message comes because the recovery partition has a non-standard format in order to hide it from everyday access.

John

 

Thank you John for the quick advice! After receiving this information I dared to perform the formatting of the recovery disk. Unfortunately the acronis secure zone was no longer detected by windows afterwards. It showed up as empty partition then. Consequently repartitioned the disk as intended and when all was done I let acronis create a new secure zone. Let it do a backup and tried to restore. Works well again. For repartitioning I used Acronis DiskDirector.

Now I realized something quite unexpected: The deletion of the recovery disk increased Windows boot-up speed noticeable. The loading screen appears only for ~7-8 seconds now, whereas before it took approximately double as much time until it disappeared. I really appreciate this little side effect .

By the way, this is what the disk structure looks like now:

 

It looks as if there is something in the Windows boot-up which checks the recovery partition - maybe taking a snapshot of the key files. I would prefer if manufacturers put the recover partitions at the end of the HDD where the data transfer rates are slowest, since the files will be rarely used. Getting Windows right at the beginning will give a small speed improvement. I would also suggest that you specify a fixed size (2GB?) for the virtual memory (advanced system settings > advanced > advanced). It can then grab a contiguous block. Letting Windows manage the virtual memory will cause the file to get fragmented with time, reducing performance.

John

 

just looked at the underside of my r20 and the Windows Authentication Sticker is smudged where the top text is printed (i.e. the bit that says SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS and the barcode under it).

The PRODUCT KEY is still fine, however.

Does anyone else have this problem?

 

Hello again, all.

Kinda lost track of this topic - I think there's been about 12 pages of posts since I last posted.

Just popped on to ask a quick question... I had this RAM bookmarked from a while ago and back then it was around £70. However, I've just went to the page for the first time in about 2 months and I was surprised to see the price was now £35!

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT2KIT12864AC667

I know things usually come down in price as the days go on, but are 2x1GB sticks of RAM really that cheap nowadays? If so, would I be better with 2x2GB? (If the R20 and 32-bit version of Vista will agree with it, of course.)

Is that RAM as good (or possibly even better) than the RAM that Samsung supply with the R20?

Finally, if I was to search around for RAM elsewhere, what kind of specs would I ideally want? For example, for this RAM on eBuyer, there is a list of specs - would I ideally want these specs to be lower or higher? (I know some things need to be lower [like time] and some things need to be higher [like speed].)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119282

Thanks!

 

I posted this a few pages ago, and it's now dropped to £15.98 per module. In general as long as you stick with a name brand (like Crucial or Kingston) then you'll have no problems with quality. I don't recall what the recommended/supplied RAM spec is, but either the 533MHz or 667 MHz stuff will be fine.

 

Your R20 may have DDR2-533 RAM but DDR2-667 RAM works fine and will slightly boost the graphics performance.

Probably the cheapest 2GB module is this Transcend module. It works fine in the R20. There's not much point in going above 3GB RAM with 32 bit Windows. I tried 4GB but it only shows 3GB in use and 2GB + 1GB will run just as fast as 2 x 1GB.

Also check the RAM prices at play.com. They include delivery (I think Crucial does as well).

John

 

hi john,
its been awhile!just got round to trying the over-clocking.just a few questions-
1.when i used rmclock to reduce the voltage,the cpu core clock and throttle dropped to 800mhz and it also reflects on clockgen.is this supposed to happen and does this reflect the max cpu power?

2.on default, the fsb on clockgen is @ 134.i tried following your instructions but couldn't go beyond where you said to "increase fsb from 533 to 667" cos it tops at about 500.11 to be exact.am i doing something wrong?

3.how do i make the undervolting permanent?temperature is about 68 degrees when i undervolt

 

OK, I've been searching around for RAM, and this is what I need to ask...

I can usually only find RAM with CL=4 that is 533Mhz, but the ones with 667Mhz have CL=5. So which would be better for me? (Don't really play games, just want Vista and my apps to run/open a bit quicker.)

Depending on the answer to that question, I'd either go for one of the following on Amazon (I have a gift certificate), or Crucial -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-VS2...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1194049141&sr=8-13
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-VS2...0?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1194049898&sr=1-8
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=543D3D76A5CA7304
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=30F62C7CA5CA7304

However I did find this on Crucial...

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=BL2KIT12864AA663

It seems like a better quality, possibly lower latency kit, but for around £20 more. Would that kit be worth the additional expense?


Thanks again!

 

1. Are you enabling the various speed indices for RMclock. I use performance on demand and on the performance on demand profile it is necessary to select all the speeds you want to use (only the slowest is selected by default).

2. The true FSB speed is 4 times the clock speed, so 167 clock speed = 667 FSB.

3. Once you are confident that your RMclock voltages are stable then you need to save them. However, it is advisable to do a long (several hours) test with the CPU under full load (I use 2 instances of Prime95 torture test).

4. If you are overclocking as well as undervolting then you'll need to check stability for all conditions. An overclocked CPU will need more voltage, but this could still be less than the default.

Is this clear, or confusing?

Three of the five modules you have listed are 240 pin desktop RAM, so no good. The keywords are 200 pin DDR2 SODIMM.

In my experience all RAM which is CL5@ 667MHz is CL4 @ 533MHz. See the attached example for a timing table built into a module (it's called SPD). Therefore, if you want 2 x 1GB get this one. I think it will run at 667MHz which will give a slight boost to the graphics performance which shares the system RAM.

John

PS: To all readers - I'm currently away from home so there's a reduced level of service.

 

You can also save £10 by using Google checkout at ebuyer - 2 x 1Gb Crucial for just over £25 including Super Saver delivery.

 

I'm starting to get a little mad at the battery life (I wish it was better and makes me look stoopid around all my mates with Macs!) so i'm thinking of buying a bigger battery.

Has anyone done this? Are they physically bigger / heavier? Do they last twice as long and where is the cheapest place to get them now (UK)?

Any help would be wonderful!

Cheers

RM

 

Well the bigger battery is nearby twice as heavy as the regular 4cell one. It upgrades your workingtime up to 4-4,5 hours. 3,5h is realistic. The batterytube is bigger because of the extra 4 cells, so the battery doesnt fit/ ends with the "tube". Watch out, there are two models of the big battery (4800 and 5200mAh). I bought mine (the 5200mAh one) at ebay. It is a non Samsung battery but it only cost me about 100€. Thats a fair price compared to the samsung's original.
hope this will help you

 

4/8 cell battery pic

Anyone else running Ubuntu 7.10 on the R20?
I've tried both the Live and alternative CD - both fail to properly set up the graphics driver/X, so just like in 7.04, you'll need to install and set up the fglrx driver via the command line. If you feel like following the "Method 2" instructions here with the latest ATI driver, you get to play with Compiz which is pretty nifty.

Unfortunately, I've run into what looks like some sort of kernel issue - both the installers and the installed OS "pause" multiple times during boot/hardware detection, and only continue when/if I start pressing keys or put a finger on the touchpad (or maybe it would time out by itself at some point, I'm not patient enough to find out...)

 

Read the R20 review on the main site with great interest, excellent detailed review may I add.

Really tempted by this machine, for it's size it's so cheap!

I ve read online that the latest BIOS update pushed the battery up to 3hours, which is pretty impressive. Though I have to say I think they were being a bit optimistic. So would I be right in saying that 2hours is easily achievable with the standard battery?

I m actually quite amazed that the intergrated ATI scored so high in those benchmarks - but how do they actually perform in games?

 

Must have missed that - I'll need to give it a try.

Right now I get roughly between 1hr 30min and 2hrs.

John and Glaswolf - thanks for the help with the RAM. I noticed you can pay with PayPal on eBuyer, and that would be helpful for me, so I think I'll go with the Crucial RAM from there.

 

I don't recall seeing reports of the R20 getting to 3 hours with a 4 cell battery.

This looks to be a suitable 8 cell battery at a very reasonable price although it's not the 5200mAh version.

The same site shows a replacement X60 battery "coming soon". That will be of interest of the X60 owners.

John

 

What's the difference between 4800 and 5200mAh battery, please?

 

@ recordmeister
You'll have longer Batterylifetime with the 5200mAh.

 

John,

Do you happen to know which R20 version has bluetooth?

Thanks!

 

I don't recall any versions of the R20 with built-in Bluetooth. A USB Bluetooth dongle is an easy work-around.

John

 

I read it in the PC Advisor review, it stated it has bluetooth. Again more than likely they could be wrong since they also said it has firewire... And PC Pro said it had stereo speakers lol. Magazines eh? lol

read your review saying the r20 fans are very quiet - that would be great. My 12.1 sounds like a wind turbine and it can drown out background music!

 

Samsung's specs show Bluetooth as a factory option.

All the Samsung notebooks I have used have a relatively large fan which runs quietly under normal conditions. They can get a bit noisier under full CPU load, but that can usually be mitigated by undervolting the CPU.

John

 

hey john,
i read ur instructions concerning the over-clocking.i adjusted the clocks on clockgen but everytime i turn off it goes back to the default setting(133.34fsb).any solution so it stays?

thanks

 

I've just ordered this RAM -

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=43J1&PageMode=1

I think that's the same as what was linked to on Crucial's website - the only reason I didn't order it through Crucial was because I couldn't pay with PayPal. (I've got money in my PayPal and I may as well use it instead of going to the hassle of transferring it to my bank. )

Thanks for for your help, everyone.

 

Looks like the R20 has been relegated to the product archive, but its guts will live on in the P400-Pro, apparently targeted at business users (none of the glossy nonsense - matte case lid AND display! More realistic battery runtime estimate of "up to 2 hrs" as well...).

 

Samsunng's UK site now lists the R20F. However, I've been unable to work out the difference between that and the R20. Companies do make strange decisions but I have difficulty in believing that the R20 would be abandoned since it is in a relatively uncrowded market segment. There are several versions available in UK but I see it is no longer listed at notebook.de. Samsung would have only themselves to blame if supply is constrained by a shortage of 14.1" glossy panels.

John

 

I'm having problems with the mains charger on my R20. The green light is showing on the transformer unit so that is OK. I have to fiddle around with the bit that plugs into the laptop to get it to charge. Looks like a loose conenction inside the machine somewhere - anybody had anything similar ?
Thanks

 

wow this nb is sleek, stylish and very attractive. samsung is a top brand in my book.

 

I'm confused.

On my R20 CPU-z says I have two empty slots and two used slots. Yet, When I inspected this myself I could only see two used RAM slots?

Does the R20 only come with two used slots? :S

 

Yes, there are only two RAM slots in reality and they are both normally in use.

John

 

Oh no. Is there some way around this? I want to increase my RAM to 4gb. Currently have 2gb. You can't buy one 2gb stick can you?

Thanks

 

You can buy one 2GB module (for example this Transcend module which I have tested in the R20) to give you 3GB. This is the maximum RAM which can be addressed by 32-bit Windows.

John

 

I see.

Thank you

 

The fan on my R20 has become pretty loud as of late.
When I first bought it it was almost silent, it sounds like its spinning a lot faster for some reason.

Any tips to make it quieter/slower?

 

Hi,
I just installed ATI Graphics driver for the P400 on my R20. Games will work better now. I downloaded the driver from http://support.samsung.de/modelselect.aspx?modelcode=NP-P400&fileType=DR&language=
Maybe the bios for P400 will also work on the R20 and maybe ATI Powerplay is activated there, but I didn't try it.

 

Dunno about the BIOS, samsungpc.com lists 14SH for both machines, while the normal download center has a P400-specific version 05SP (which may end up being the same thing, who knows).

The new sound driver works fine as well. The modem driver wouldn't install on my R20, but the same thing happened with the latest one fromthe R20 page.
Had to edit agrmdv32.inf to insert the device and subsystem ID from the 2.1.72.0 driver to get them installed.

 

There are several possible causes for additional fan noise:

1. The cooling system is getting clogged up with dust and fluff ( a particular risk if you use the computer on a fluffy surface such as a blanket).

2. Some software is keeping the CPU busy when it should be on idle (Flash on web pages is one example). Use the processes page of Task Manager to check the CPU utilisation.

3. A BIOS update has changed the CPU fan settings.

See this guide for more details. However, I would start by using the monitoring page of RMClock to display the CPU temperature and CPU utilisation. Undervolting the CPU is one route to reducing heat and therefore fan noise. RMClock can do this for you.

John

 

Any ideas why a R20 battery might be only getting about an hour before the low battery warning comes on?

I've tried the battery calibration thing in the BIOs, but it's still not any better.

I don't know whether it's the battery or maybe Vista - the battery indicator on the taskbar gets down to about 25-30% (which is says leaves about 26 mins) and then within a minute or two is gives me the 5% critical battery warning and says there's 23 mins left in the balloon thing that pops up. Once I close the balloon thingy I hover over the battery indicator and then that says 5% but 6 mins. It's like Vista doesn't know how far the battery is down and it can't make even a rough estimate properly.

This happens with Samsung's Easy Battery Manager and without it. I don't currently use it because I had to do a resinstall of Vista (problem with the Crucial RAM and hibernating when the battery is low - it'll only come out of hibernation if I told it to go into it, not it if does it automatically because of the low battery level).

Any ideas?

EDIT: Would any of this reduce the battery life to an hour/45mins...?

2GB of RAM (instead of 1GB)
Running the graphics card at 256MB (instead of 128MB)
Any of the Vista Aero stuff

 

I would suggest that you get and install RMClock. You can use the battery tab to see the battery capacity and current drain. The new battery should be 14.8V, 2600mAH, 38.48WHr. Therefore, if the battery is good, you would need to be drawing around 38W to get only one hour. This is high.

It is looking likely that the battery calibration is getting wrong. Vista doesn't by default, allow you to fully deplete the battery. However type this code into the Start > Run box:

powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_BATTERY BATACTIONCRIT 0

and it let Vista run on an empty battery until it dies. Do that full depletion a couple of times and it might reset the battery.

John

 

Thanks, John - I'll give it a try.

I only tried the BIOS battery calibration thingy once and I did it when the battery was at about 10% - should I try it when the battery is showing as full? (I tried it at 10% because I didn't think it was draining as far as it could and I just wanted to make sure it was going straight to the bottom.)

 

OK, here's what it says on RMClock...

Remaining capacity - 26107 mWh (98%)
Discharge rate - 25160 mW (it shot up to 34000mW at one point)

One thing I noticed was this -

Designed capacity - 38480mWh
Fully charged capacity - 26640 mWh

Should the fully charged capaity be so low?

 

Thanks. The discharge rate and the remaining capacity are consistent with the 1 hour run time. I suggest that (i) you try various power management options to reduce the power consumption (it should be possible to get below 20W - see this thread for some ideas) and (ii) disable the Vista low battery shutdown and run down the battery until the computer stops, recharge and repeat. If you can't get the remaining capacity to increase then it is time to hassle Samsung for a replacement battery. However up to about 25% loss of capacity in a year is normal.

John

 

I found an application (Vista Battery Saver) which was all over Google that turns off the Aero and Sidebar features in Vista, and it seems to have helped a little bit so far. I've not had time to do a full discharge to see how much that has improved things, but hopefully it'll be better. I'd be happy to get my 90mins again because right now I'm only getting about 50mins.

If that doesn't help, I'll playing around with the settings and fully discharging/charging like you suggested.

25% in a year is fair enough - but I've only had my laptop for about 7 or 8 months.