Samsung Series 5 NP535U3C Thread

Hi there!
I just purchased this little computer for my personal use and I was wondering if anyone else here have it!
This thread could be a good place to share information, tips and tricks about the computer.
Feel free to post your impression about the computer and if you have any question I will be quick to answer!

Information sheet:
Specs - Series 5 Notebooks NP535U3C | Samsung Laptops

 

Glad to see this thread started. I'll link this owner's thread to The Ultimate AMD Trinity Notebook List.

 

Hi Thierry 19. I'm very interesting in purchasing one of these. I love the size of the machine and it's at the top end of what my budget should be.

I do have a few questions:

Have you added more RAM to it yet? And if you have, did it make a large difference to the performance?

Also, have you tried playing any games on it yet? obviously no one expects to be able to play everything with 120FPS but it'd be nice to know if it'd be capable of playing a few games.

 

Nop! I still have the standard 6gb, I'll be upgrading later this week. I also bought an SSD, which should be there around the end of next week.

What game are you planning on playing?
I did not play any actual game. I did however play a couple of game available on the chrome store, and it went well.

 

Howdy guys, first post here!

So happy to find this thread! I just discovered this laptop here in Norway in a local electronics store, and was quite impressed as the seller told me it would be equivalent to a current core i3/i5 in terms of performance. The price was just so much better than the series 5 ultrabook and the UX32VD that I considered before. I was really close to buying it right away, but I decided to go do some research for myself.

Immediately it seemed wise, as a few performance tests i looked up shows that it's even slower than the lower end i3-sandy bridge cpu's. What I don't know however, is how it works in every day use - as none of the reviewers really tell how it performs other than in benchmark tests. Now as you've had it for a few days, it would be great to hear how you would consider the basic performance level of it.. I'm just a normal student, not going to use it for games - but I multitask a lot (gimp, youtube, spotify, several other tabs are usually open at once) which is where I wonder if this cpu delivers enough power.

As of today I have an old Samsung X125 with a AMD K125 single core processor in it, so I guess anything would be an improvement really. Like I said earlier in this post I'm also considering both the Intel version of the series 5 as well as the UX32VD, but if there's no real difference in terms of normal everyday use - I don't see any reason for investing the extra 35% in one of those two. What do you think?

Looking forward to hear your answer!

EDIT: Also found that the 6GB RAM version don't really deliver real dual channel, which might hurt performance a lot on trinity. Did you experience this on your piece?

 

Civ, Starcraft II, Diablo III.... Nothing that's super taxing but might still run slow on something without a decent GPU.

Also, does it run particularly hot? Some of the user reviews on the Amazon store complain that it gets seriously warm quite quickly.

@Chris_tt - apparently adding an extra stick of RAM makes a big difference to the AMD APU's - and on this particular model it's very easy to do, there's just a panel on the bottom that can be opened and there you go...

 

Yeah, I noticed many mentioning it. Got any tip for a good piece? I was thinking that many of the benchmarks might have been done without running with a optimized dual channel set up.

 

Hi There!
I did have a hard time deciding if I wanted to keep this laptop. The performance are really not amazing. It gets frequent slowdown when I am multitasking (to be fair, my other computer is a i7 2700k with an SSD and a pretty fast GPU). The laptop also comes loaded with bloatware, which you really want to get rid of (I would recommend a clean install).
Once all the crap is removed, the performance is not so bad, but do not expect a lot of multitasking, the cpu is indeed pretty slow.
The hard-drive won't help either, it's a standard 5400rpm, so if you have a 7200rpm HDD or a SSD laying around you know what to do!
I am also a student, I use this laptop everywhere I go to take notes, do some homework (Word, Excel and powerpoint mostly) and it does the job quite good.

I will install Diablo III in the near future, I'll report how well it works when I have the chance.
And yes, it is quite hot, although nothing dangerous/hurtful. It will get particularly hot when it is charging, but otherwise you will feel the warmth pretty much always. I might try to apply some new thermal paste. Depending on how lazy I am.

 

Thanks for the quick answer! Auch, that was indeed not what I wanted to hear, hehe.

Frankly I would like to have a laptop that would be quick enough for 2-3 years to come, going to be a hard call.. I considered buying it with an extra piece of ram and a SSD, but then I might end up on nearly the same price as an Intel based series 5, at least in my country.

 

I've also just picked one up (in Canada) for $550. Considering the lowest zenbook prime (ux32a) is $800, pretty much a no brainer.

That being said, the main things I was looking for were form factor, portability, and good enough battery life (get approx 5h 30min on 1/3 brightness, energy saving mode). Bonus that it only has a HDD, I don't have to worry about constant hibernate ruining my ssd. It wakes from hibernate in about 12 seconds. I mainly use the computer for word processing, taking notes, web-surfing, and not much else.

If you're looking for performance I'm afraid this is probably not the computer for you. But if it's mainly for office tasks/student tasks, it's pretty awesome for the price.

 

Indeed, if you want something for the long run, you might want to look into i5 and i7. I plan on keeping this laptop for 18 months at most. Which is why I decided to deal with the certain lack of performance. I just wanted something portable with a good battery life!

Yep, at this price it is indeed a good deal (especially for student with a limited budget). Glad to see you like it.

 

Did you already upgrade the RAM? If so, did you notice any difference in terms of performance? I had a short look at a review done by another user on this forum in the ultimate trinity notebook list thread, where a proper dual channel set-up seemed to help quite a lot. That was with the A6-4400m though, but I guess the 4455m should be affected a bit as well?

After looking at the other alternatives, I decided to go for this machine after all.. Tried it some more in our local store, and a few tabs with youtube, excel, powerpoint etc together seemed to be running fine. Probably not going to use it for more stressing tasks anyway. Hoping that I'll have it by Wednesday

 

Yes I did! Just yesterday actually!
It does feel a bit faster overall, although the difference is not tremendous. The cpu activity is always between 2 and 10% when I only browse the internet and it does get pretty high when I open another program.
I should receive my SSD within the next week so I'll keep you updated on that too.

Good! I don't think you should be worried about the performance. It is really not so bad!

 

Great thread guys - glad you've provided so much info already!

Did anyone have any luck with gaming?

Thierry19 - have you installed Diablo yet?

 

Came across this thread while reading up on this ultrabook, awesome!

I'm looking to replace my iPad (3rd gen) for a entry level ultrabook to take with me to travel Australia next year! I need something that can browse the internet without a problem, run Microsoft Office and iTunes (wow, I realised I really don't use a computer for much). I'll be using it to store photos on before uploading them as well.

The main reason I'm looking at this is because it's so thin and it has a decent battery life.

My current Dell desktop is from 2006 and it has a Intel Pentium D 2.79GHz processor so I think for performance this would be fine for me. My budget is £500. Would you recommend me going for this? Looks portable and standard, which is ideal for me.

EDIT: I'm also looking at the Lenovo 310 Lenovo Ideapad U310 13.3 inch Ultrabook - Graphite (Intel Core i3 2367M 1.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD + 32Gb SSD, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories but the Samsung looks more portable and is lighter.

 

The samsung is a good choice, I am loving the screen and the performance are actually pretty damn good!
I just finished installing Windows 7 Ultimate on my new SSD in the samsung, I will let you know how are the performances.

So, I was waiting for my SSD to install Diablo, now that I have it, I got to play a little bit of Diablo this morning, and it runs very smooth. I was on High texture and medium details and it was smooth (around 30FPS) in 1366*768. However if you turn the settings down a bit, it will easily get more FPS.

 

Hi, I'm planning on buying this for taking some notes in class and playing a game now and then on it. So I was wondering what the performance is in League of Legends and ArmA II (there is a free ArmA II also), it would be very nice if you could test it for me !

 

I picked the 535 up for 500£ and have had it for 2 months. It does run hot, the fans runs frequently when doing anything a bit intensive (it's a quiet fan, but still; even when in silent mode it is audible). It isn't that snappy, but not bad. I've got rid of quite a bit of bloatware, and there hasn't been any drastic improvement.

But that is about it for the negatives. The build quality is very nice. It is compact, light and feels good. I have been carrying it around a lot and it is performing well.

If you can find an i3 ultrabook for 550£ I would suggest spending the extra. AMD chips still don't have it, at least not at this level. The battery is 5 hours max. As well, you can swap RAM and HD easily and without voiding the warranty, though not the battery. Bottom line: it's ok, great body, shame about the chip.

 

Can someone post WEI scores using 2x4 dual channel DDR3/L/U 1333/1066, SSD, and either A6/A10 (with latest Catalyst CCC drivers)?

 

Hi,

I've also just bought this laptop (539 euros) and upgraded the ram with an 4GB Corsair 1333 SoDimm. For a quick review, I use Diablo III as reference. Before it was around 27 FPS and now it's around 30 FPS. So in fact not a huge improvement and it still have some slow down when much action takes place, for example, when I use up all my different Wizard skills in one go... in Town

So as a warning to the others: do not expect too much in terms of 3D gaming even after a ram upgrade.

Anyway, I had the choice to buy the i3 version of this laptop, which cost roughly 100 euro more, but in the end I've chosen this with hopes that it will perform snappy for general tasks (browsing, excel, watching spicy videos youtube I mean , etc) and as a plus that it will be acceptable for gaming.

While I'm not sure the i3 version will yield better performance with Diablo III, but atleast the i3 version should be snappy for the general tasks, which also seems lacking on this AMD version. So ultimatly I have to agree that it might be better to spend the extra for the i3 version.

Anyway I hope I can learn some tricks and tweaks here to improve the experience on this laptop since I'm not planning to return it.

My next tweak is to get an SSD (I thinking about the 128 GB Kingston V+200). I hope my view on this laptop will by then be more possitive like Thierry19 He seems to be quite dissappointed at the beginning too.

Last but not least, the laptop does run hot after a while (with just browsing and not even playing youtube movies). Does anyone here have suggestion to address this? I've read in a review in Amazon about using thermal paste. Anyway had experience with this?

 

I've had this laptop for a little while and I've noticed a problem and I was wondering if it's just me. Every time I plug it in to charge the CPU spikes to a near constant 100% and makes the laptop pretty close to useless for anything other than word processing. Before I plug it in I get a pretty constant 60 FPS in games like Half Life 2, but once I plug it in most of my frame rates drop to below 10 FPS. Same goes for watching HD videos on my HDD or via streaming.

 

I wonder whether you have enabled a High Performance power profile which keeps the CPU running fast instead of using a Performance on Demand power profile that allows the CPU to change speed to suit the workload. If the CPU is running at full speed there may be insufficient headroom in the power envelope for the GPU to run at the speed needed for gaming so the GPU is getting throttled.

John

 

It possible, but I've tried all of the profiles that came with my laptop and made a few of my own. Nothing seems to make a difference. It's odd, while it's charging it chugs along but the second it's finished charging but still plugged in it's fine. I contacted Samsung. Their only advice was to re-install windows. On the Amazon product page for my laptop a few people also reported this issue. I was just curious if anyone else here had run into it.

 

Thanks for the extra clarification about the different behaviour between plugged in and charging and plugged in but not charging.

I have to wonder if the PSU isn't big enough to provide power for both charging and high CPU / GPU usage. However, this is normally managed by the system automatically giving preference to system demands with any spare power being used for charging. What is the power rating of your PSU (see the label on the bottom - 19V, how many Amps)?

This does smell like a bug. However, to convince Samsung that it is at the system level you have to do the requested reinstallation of Windows (their first request for most problems since many immediately disappear). Check if Samsung Recovery Solution provides the facility to (i) make a backup of your Windows installation (but first make a separate backup of anything critical) then (ii) reload the factory Windows. Once you have done your tests you can then reload your Windows from the backup using SRS.

John

 

Interesting, I have been having that same problem. Are you running under Windows 7 or Windows 8?
I remember having no problem with Windows 8, but when I reverted back to Windows 7 those issues came back.
I can therefore assure you that a clean install won't change a thing, I must have installed windows half a dozen time and always clean installs.
If I remember correctly, the power supply provided with the laptop is 40W (19V * 2.1A), perhaps that could cause a problem..
I assumed it was a driver issue with the GPU, but a lack of power does make sense.

 

Hi,

Does anyone here know how to get the ATI Catalyst Control Center installed on NP535U3C with Windows 8? My problem is that when I hook up my the np535u3c to my external full HD 27" monitor I got black borders. I have the resolution and it is set correctly at: 1920x1080. From my search on the internet I found that the solution might lay in changing the scaling options in Catalyst CC... But I can't get it Catalyst CC installed, during install I always end up with the follow message "... the version of your graphics adapter is not supported ...".

I have upgraded to windows 8 and according to Samsung SW update software everything is up to date. That said I do remember I had Catalyst CC while I was still using the pre-installed windows 7...

Does anyone has a clue about this?

Thanks,
Albert

 

It sounds to me as if the resolution on your external monitor is higher than 1920x1080. In that case you have to change your multi-monitor mode from Duplicate to Extend -- otherwise resolution is limited to that of your internal screen.

You don't need CCC for this, just use Windows Screen resolution dialog (under the Display control panel). Or simply cycle through the different modes with Fn-F4.

Once you switched to Extend, your external monitor will be an extension of your internal screen (in Desktop). You can use that Windows Screen resolution dialog to place it above/below/left/right of your internal screen -- just drag it wherever you want.

See the thread linked below for more details:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/711882-series-7-np700z5a-s01uk-dell-u2412m-monitor.html

 

Hi Dannemand,

Thanks for the reply but actually I have already did what you said and have extended my desktop. My external monitor is a Philips 273ELH and its max. resolution is 1920x1080. But if I set the display resolution to this then the screen is somehow scaled down with black borders around it. It won't use the whole screen to display, however if I use lower resolution like: 1440 x 900 then borders are gone... but of course that is not the desired end result.

 

Thanks for the update. And sorry for posting what you already knew

Then you probably also already tried changing resolutions for each individual monitor in that Windows Resolutions dialog.

If you right-click your Desktop, don't you get a Graphics Properties command. That should open Catalyst Control Center. But I think it is more likely you will find the solution in the Intel Graphics control panel (either under Control Panel or on the same right-click Desktop menu).

If none of that works, I wonder if the monitor is scaling the image. You are absolutely sure its max resolution is 1920x1080? If it's a TV style monitor, it may support 1920x1080 input, but only have a native resolution of 1366x768. We had another case like that here a few months ago.

 

Hi, I just want to say that this problem is currently resolved It seems that the latest version of CCC (version 13) is installable now. After installing this I got "AMD Vision Engine Control Center" in my right click menu and with this I can change the "overscan/underscan" settings. Now I got true fullscreen again on my external monitor

Albert

 

Great, thank you for the update. Good job there

 

Hi everyone. Did someone find a solution for 100% CPU usage when charging? I have the same problem but I have 100% hdd usage as well. On the other note, if anyone added a SSD how much did it speed up everyday usage - surfing, office, movies? With an existing hdd it seems very, very slow so I am thinking of upgrading with a SSD.
Also is it possible to somehow create an ISO of Win 8 on a usb an do a clean instal with the product key that came with the computer. Somehow i think this is the best way to get rid of all the programs that came with the computer but Im not sure if i will be able to activate windows afterwards even though it came with a copy of Windows 8?

 

IIRC, the presence or absence of Intel Rapid Storage Technology can cause the usage issues you are seeing. If it is installed then uninstall it, and vice-versa.

In my experience, an SSD makes a very noticeable improvement in not only boot times but overall system responsiveness.

Regarding reinstallation of Windows 8, the key is said to be stored in the BIOS, but I don't have first hand experience of trying the reinstallation. It should be possible to uninstall all the provided software but keep SW Update and Settings.

John

 

Ok tx for the help but somehow after i upgraded to windows 8.1 problems went away. When idle, CPU and HDD usage is 0% and laptop works ok, but still im used to my desktop i7 and sdd so feels awfully slow but i guess u get what u paid for. Oh yeah i did SW update and it upgraded my bios as well maybe that has something to do with it. I couldnt find IRST installed on my laptop but since its working ok now i guess i dont need it right? Only thing i noticed transfer from usb to hdd is very slow, like 10-15 seconds for only 15-20mb, thats very slow in my opinion.
And yes, CPU goes to 100% when charging and fan gets really loud, dunno whats up with that.
Would be great to hear Thierry impressions with sdd?
Oh and yes somehow i got this model but with only 4 gb of ram out of which 3.2 gb is in use. Even the box says 4 gb of ram and the internet says it comes with 6 gb. Strange ...

 

Hey guys do you think we are eligible for a refund or replacement due to this 100% cpu usage when charging issue? This is , when you work for a long time it means that every 2 hours im not able to use computer for 2 hours. It gets really really slow and cpu is at 100%.

 

First you need to do more research into what is loading the the CPU. Does Task Manager show any process with high CPU load when charging (sort the processes by CPU load by clicking on the column header)? If not, try using Process Explorer.

The action of last resort is to reinstall the factory image (which is what Samsung are likely to recommend if you contact them). If the problem also occurs with a freshly installed factory image then you can pass the problem over to Samsung.

John

 

im thinking of buying the samsung np535 amd a6 4455 model...

is the speed comparable to an intel i3-3217 ulv...?

i only use it for browsing and light office use and watching movies, word ppt and whatnot... is it a good decision to save $100 and get this instead of the i3 version...?

====
is it true that the palmrest gets very hot to the point of not being able to be touched?

 

On paper, the AMD CPU is somewhat slower but I doubt you would notice for the type of usage you envisage. If you put the $100 towards an SSD then you will get a machine that will be much more responsive in everyday usage.

I think Samsung have shipped quite a few of the AMD-powered Series 9s which have a slow CPU and an SSD.

John

 

Hey guys

I have a NP535 and I have installed 4GB extra RAM (8GB total) and also the Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD. The laptop is now super fast but I have one problem. The battery life is never better then about 3hours on power saving mode with only WIFI turned ON.
This laptop should be pushing about 5 hours.
Any suggestions? I'm using Windows 7 (the laptop came with windows 8)

 

I would check the battery capacity, battery wear and power drain rate when running on battery.

BatteryBar will give this info although on my computer the drain rate is only updated for each 1% drop in battery charge.

You should be looking for a power drain below 10W and ideally nearer 5W. Some initial suggestions: (i) Make sure the display backlight is quite low (preferable less than 1/4 brightness); (ii) check the CPU utilisation in Task Manager is less than 5% and ideally nearer 1%; (iii) Make sure that you haven't got any animated Flash content running in your web browser.

John