Samsung Series 7 Chronos and Intel Wifi Card

I got my S01 UK yesterday and the wifi is beyond dire. If I'm upstairs I get 2Mb/s, downstairs next to the router I get 30Mb/s

 

And which Wifi card does it have?

John

 

Just got my series 7 last week and have already done the Intel WiFi upgrade. The biggest problem I see here is people not having their blue tooth recognized. It was driving me nuts for the better part of the day. Once the Bios was updated everything is recognized and bluetooth is once again recognized in the Samsung Easy Settings panel. This upgrade is a huge improvement over the broadcom

 

Can you list the step wise procedure to install Intel WiFi card? For example, which driver did you install and which software did you uninstall from the laptop.

 

To start go to your programs and features section of control panel
remove Broadcom driver package
remove at bottom of list bluetooth controller package
reboot the computer then shut down the computer
Remove the broadcom card and replace with Intel wifi chip.
Reassemble laptop
Restart computer and install Samsung Intel Chipset drivers (Intel Proset Wireless)from samsung site be sure to select 64Bit
Reboot the computer.
Install 10FD bios from samsung
Voila everything works as it is supposed to.


Links
Driver Package:
Samsung

 

If any bluetooth issues remain install the bluetooth package from samsung
Bluetooth (Driver) (ver.2.3.0.0) both versions are in this package. Use Intel folder for the new wifi chip

 

Thanks "j.q.citizen", everything is working on my S04US laptop. Only Wireless LAN Intel (Driver) 14.2.1.1. was sufficient to run both wifi and bluetooth. I think the bios update to version 10FD is very crucial to make intel wifi work.

 

got the series 7 today... the broadcom wifi is absolute .
Extremely terrible performance next to my Envy 14 with an intel card.
If the laptop is in my lap speeds drop to <2mbs -- while the envy maintains 12-14mbs down.
I need to order an intel card.

 

Anyone can confirm with the Intel card, the signal is significantly stronger?
Or is it the Serie 7 body itself which cause that "signal drop"?

 

can someone help me with my problem?

mine came with a intel 6150. everything works fine... but i seem to be having wireless connection issues...

if i reinstall, wireless works flawlessly for 1-2 days... then it begins to throttle...

connection does not become unstable, or stuff like that... i dunno if the problem comes from the optimization parameters that samsung's software applies to the system, or if it is anything else....

 

Did you try downloading drivers from the intel website? and by connection does not become unstable you mean that you still have 'bars' or signal?

BTW, which model did you buy that came with that intel 6150 chip?

 

i bought the NP700Z5B-W01UB at a best buy in NY.

the funny thing about this is that i get all bars, but the connection speed diminishes.... even sitting next to the damn router....everything begins to slow down, from youtube videos to normally rapid loading pages... i gotta make some more tests about it at home, but the thing is that every other device on my network works perfectly... still gotta try it out with another router to see if maybe it is a compatibility issue, but the thing is that it works perfectly on a clean windows installation, works perfectly on ubuntu on a stick, but after installing windows, and using the computer for 1-2 days, everything comes back again...

 

Little question off board : What did you do to boot Ubuntu via USB? I've created a USB stick, it works on all my other computers, but on my Samsung it won't boot (USB3 ports & USB2). Did you touch something in the BIOS?

 

u gotta go into the bios with it plugged in, and make it the first device on the boot list.

the thing about booting from usb drives is that samsumg's software optimizes bios settings to boot from the CD rom, and then from the hard drive...

EDIT: and i think that allways resets it to be that way... must test it a bit more and tell you about it later....

 

Try pressing Esc at the BIOS screen. On older Samsung notebooks that would take you to a one-time boot menu option (or the BIOS setup).

John

 

tested, and it works!!!!! thnx john!!!!

 

So there is no hope for this broadcom wireless card then? If I replace it does it void my warranty? It will scratch the paint off the black screws so surely they will know if I take the back off?

Broadcom

 

Thanks. Never up to the Intel standard, although I don't know whether the problem is with the hardware or drivers. I do know that on the Series 9, its the Intel 6300 with the third antenna that improves the WiFi. Is it the same for the Series 7 or will a dual antenna Intel card make the difference? [By the way, the fundamental problem seems to be style taking precedence over function - the old Samsung X series had metal lids (see my reviews - links in signature) but they included a silver coloured plastic strip at the top where the antenna were located.

Use a good screwdriver and don't let it slip. Samsung have put the screws in without damaging the paint. Keep whatever components you change so that you can put them back should you need warranty service - the warranty covers whatever Samsung sold you.

John

 

Here's a comparaison between my old HP DV6315 with a Broadcom BCM94311MCG and the Samsung NP700Z5A with a Broadcom BCM4324A.

The link (because the image is quite big): http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/7720/wifirange.jpg

Both laptops were side by side.

 

Can't say I really know anything about the insides of a laptop. Have built and overclocked many a pc but never really been inside a laptop other than to clean them out. I was thinking I might pick up a 6230 from ebay as I kinda want a laptop that isn't confined to being in the same room as the router if I want to be able to stream youtube or download etc.

Is it possible to put a 6300 into the laptop?

I meant to ring up samsung and actually ask them about their warranty policy as apparently the series 9 laptop warranty allows you to change the wifi card. Sadly I forgot haha.

I hope they release some new drivers for the touch pad soon as well because it picks up taps far too easily. They should make it so you physically have to click it to get a mouse click.

[:EDIT:]

Just updated my touch pad drivers and it seems they added this option, brilliant!

[/EDIT:]

Tis just numbers to me, what does being 15 points higher really relate to in terms of signal quality?

 

The PROBLEM with most who just posted is that they tend to rely on the signal strength reported by the card to the OS, which will be what you see in the status screen for the wifi connection. Signal strength CANNOT be compared between different manufacturers. The comparison is flawed.

What most fail to realise is that some vendors, like Intel, do not pass on real time speed information to the OS, which is why once the connection reports 130Mbps or 300Mbps, it stays this way forever.

Atheros and Broadcom chipsets do pass on real time information, which is why some notice the 104Mbps speed and start to complain.

However, in reality, using a 2T2R router configuration, putting my HP ENVY14 (with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230) and Samsung Series 7 (with Broadcom 43225AG) 10m away, real world download speed is about 40 to 50Mbps, and upload is about 30 to 40 Mbps, from both cards, on my Fibre 100Mbps network. There is actually no perceptible differences between the Intel and Broadcom card.

Both laptops are made of metal BTW, but the ENVY 14 does have a plastic lip.

Please also remember that Wireless connections are suspeptible to many interferences and attenuation. Are there any other Wifi routers in the area? Any cordless phones in the house that run 2.4Ghz?

Try to scan for other networks by using inSSIDer . It may help your speed if you change to a less congested wifi channel. If you have knowledge of HDB flats in Singapore, you would have noticed that there will be upwards of 100 different wifi Access Points in a small neighbourhood. I circumvent this by selecting relatively less utilised channels.

There is really nothing wrong with the Broadcom card. It is the perception and mentality playing tricks again.

 

a thing about my wireless problem:
in windows, if the connections throttles, i disconnect from the router and connect again, and i'm golden again... for a while...

the problem resides on windows config, or in the eff'n router... i'll have to try with another one here...

 

You post the same post on both threads while failing to see the fact that I'e been stating I'm checking my download speeds and the fact that every laptop in this house achieves full 30Mb/s bar this one getting a quite frankly, disgusting, 2Mb/s right now in my room.

As I said on the other thread, I've even tried channels 1,6,11. Though I knew they wouldn't work because I know it's not the network that has the problem.

I want to know if others have this problem or if my laptop is broken. This is quite clearly a problem with the laptop, nothing else.

 

Yikes. Sounds like Samsung is having some serious wifi issues -- on more than just one laptop.

 

Using LAN Speed Test I can measure the real world read write speeds on my Gigabit home network. For the wired LAN the speeds I am getting are 252 Mbps write and 450 Mbps read.

For data transfers between the Samsung notebook (connected at 150 Mbps with 5 bars) and server on the wired LAN I get real world speeds of 25Mbps write and 30 Mbps read.

EDIT 1
Running the LAN Speed Test again with no network congestion, I get read write speeds around 90 Mbps.

So real world network speeds are a fraction of theoretical speeds. The bottleneck is not my Samsung hard drive - I have a 6 Gbps Samsung 830 series SSD installed. Internal read write speeds of the drive are 350-400 Mbps.

 

Clearly something is wrong with your particular unit.

My post addresses the general issue of users being misled by the OS connection reading - not to your particular issue.

What I'm saying is that I do get REAL WORLD speeds of 30-40Mbps, even with the Samsung Series 7. There is nothing wrong with the Broadcom wifi card itself.

It is noted that drivers did make a difference, and I'd recommend that you manually uninstall, clear out the caches, or even try a new browser to see if the issue goes away. You may also try to clear the winsock. Corrupted winsock can cause this slow speed.

If the above fails, please tell us what router you are using (router, other laptops' wifi card and settings). It may be a case of incompatibility, but until you tell us the detailed configuration, no one can effectively assist you.

 

Your winsock could be corrupted.

Reset your winsock and try again.

How to: How to reset Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

 

Yup, your speed is fine. Do note that Wireless N drops off in REAL WORLD speed extremely fast.

 

I did a few more tests of LAN speeds with no congestion on my network and I am now getting about 90 Mbps read write speeds between my Samsung on wireless N and a network server connected to the router on Gigabit Ethernet.

That's pretty damn fast!

 

That's a very good speed! I can only hope to achieve that type of speed in 5GHz when there's about more than a 100 2.4GHz APs surrounding me.

 

Yes, I can only detect 9 other wireless networks around me - mostly 2.4 GHz. I'm using my 5 GHz AP to get the super fast speeds. I also have a great cable ISP so my download speeds from the Internet are 30 Mbps with uploads around 4.5 Mbps.

 

Well they are just silly . Are you talking 30-40Mbps download speeds from the internet or 30-40 transfer speeds over the network? I ask because network transfer speeds are so subjectional and really not all that useful when it comes to real world usage.

When sat in my lounge I get 70Mbps across the network but my download speed is 10-15Mbps. Once again, all other laptops are getting the full 30Mbps download speed.

When I upgraded the drivers I got an extra 0.5Mbps upstairs. Woop, up to 2.5Mbps download now. I had faster speeds than that 7 years ago.

All download speed tests have been done using speedtest.net by the way, which I have always found to max out my connection when possible.

I'll reinstall the drivers and clear winsock later today but I'm not expecting miracles to be honest and quite frankly I'd like to know how winsock would even come corrupted in the first place on a fresh factory install, I've not even formatted it. I think that one of my antenna isn't connected properly. As for my network, I don't see what it could possibly be considering it works for all other laptops bar this one, which will all be on the same default settings the Samsung came with I would imagine. Eitherway:

Linksy E2000
2.4 GHz (We have no problems with interference and if we did all laptops would).
Auto 20MHz or 40MHz
Channel 11 currently (tried 1,6,11)

Don't know what else you might want to know. As for my laptop, I've tried turning IPV6 off and I changed the bandwidth to 20/40mhz but it made no difference.

 

Just uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and it got worse haha, typical. Now in the living room I used to get 15Mbps on the far side of the room, I now get 10Mbps. Yet on the closer side I get 20Mbps. How can the wifi card be so pathetic that 10ft of open ground makes such a difference when you're not even far from the router to begin with?

 

Have the routers been changed to use wireless N?

 

My router has been using N for years.

 

i did it, rebooted, and it seems to be working well... i will put the laptop through some use, sleep, shutdowns, and see if the problem is resolved completely....

thnx for the help man...

 

on a side note, how could the tcp/ip settings corrupt even after formatting and reinstalling 3 times?

 

I have a 100Mbps Internet fibre connection.
Your E2000 uses all Broadcom chips - which means there should not be a case of incompatibility.

- Broadcom BCM4717 Intensi-fi XLR 802.11n (2.4/5 GHz) Router System-on-Chip
- Switch: Broadcom BCM53115

Given that many who have posted seem to have resolved their issues or have had no issue, you may want to get your Series 7 replaced.

 

It's common.

 

Thankyou for your help. I only hope I get a nice screen and touch pad on the next one like I had done with this one.

 

Hello,

I bought a Z5A-S01UK from John Lewis just after Christmas and sadly the wifi is useless! Speed is fine if it connects - the issue is reception strength. I live in an apartment where a shared router is in the apartment below and although every other device I have (old laptop, desktop with PCI card or USB dongle, PS3, Wii, phones) connects fine with excellent signal strength, the Z5A is unusably bad - either can't connect at all, or if it does it will continually drop out. I have to use my USB dongle, but then the USB ports are so close I have to take it out if I want to use one!

Before I found this forum/thread I logged a comlpaint with Samsung and it's actually going in for repair, so it will be interesting to see if it really is a fault and comes back fixed. I noticed with interest the people here replacing the Broadcom card with Intel. I'm no expert at all but would find it surprising if changing the card can fix the issue - I would have thought it more down to the antenna than the card. I always thought the reason laptops were generally awesome in terms of wi-fi was because they had an antenna around the screen (so larger than what you'd have on a USB dongle or PCI card). If that's true could the issue with my Z5A be a faulty/broken antenna or is it an inherant design flaw - the metal case (but there are plenty of metal cased laptops, presumably not all with crap wi-fi), or poor/lack of antenna?

I guess the answer could come from confirmation from any of the people who have swapped out the Broadcom card with an Intel - did it fix the problems? Do we have any such confirmation?

Anyway I'll keep my eye on this forum, and update with what happens after the laptop goes in for repair.

Cheers

 

Tell us about it when it returns.

 

Mine was an SO1UK from john lewis as well. Perhaps they have had a bad stock? When did you order yours? Mine was the 25th of december.

 

Coming over from the Owners' Thread, I got my S01UK from John Lewis on Monday [ordered on December 29th right before it went completely out of stock].

I don't have any connectivity issues so far, but I've not taken it out and about to test. It's ok at home, and better than my previous laptop [Samsung Series 9], but that wouldn't be hard!

None of the reviews on Amazon.co.uk or John Lewis' site seem to mention poor wifi, so I don't know if that means you've both been unlucky with individual hardware?

*edit* I will check tonight but I haven't noticed any major speed reduction on downloads compared to my old Vaio.

 

@yknyong1: deamn.... problem still persists... i closed the lid (sleep) went to work, and when i opened it up, problem still alive and kicking... dunno if it is a driver conflict, or maybe a bug in the way that samsung's optimizations manage the power options... any other thing that i can try ?

 

Download the latest driver from Samsung first. Try totally uninstalling the wifi driver, and clean install the new driver.

 

It makes me wonder if the fact john lewis were selling their stock off cheap and the fact john lewis now can't get any stock is because samsung knew they had a problem with a lot of them so they sold them off cheaper and are now attempting to fix it. Same thing they pulled with the series 9 no?

 

I doubt it. Even in US we have this weak wifi signal strength issue. I hope its not a design flaw. I have tested the wifi strength so far with a Cisco 881 branch router , Cisco 1141N AP and Actiontec routers with same results.

 

I swapped out the Intel 6230 card because I could not get Bluetooth to work and the 5 Ghz speeds, while very good at about 90 Mbps, were still far below theoretical speed.

With the replacement Intel 6230 card, the wireless connection utility shows I'm connected at 300 Mbps and the signal doesn't degrade right away to the 180 Mbps level. The LAN Speed Test shows real world write speeds of almost 170Mbps - that's almost double the speeds I was getting with the older Intel 6230 card. Needless to say, I am pretty happy I swapped out the card. Still can't get Bluetooth to work though.

LAN Speed Test results
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BwrPuJFSQqZMYzM1NjYyNDgtZmZmNy00NGQyLWIyODQtYmEzMTdjZTBiNzhk

 

@gautam27, bluetooth works with Intel 6230 if you follow the procedure given earlier in the post #55. You need to upgrade your firmware to 10FD to make bluetooth to work.