Samsung Series 7 Chronos and Intel Wifi Card

dammit!!!! still seems to have the same problem... any way that i could give you a detailed test log so you guys could help me more?

 

little note: i powered it up today and, while browsing, still lags as hell (connection throttles up to 25 kbps...) while browsing and even downloading files.... but i installed utorrent, and utorrent runs at full speed (455 kbps)

can anyone guide me in any direction?

 

How did it throttle?

 

first times it started while browsing. normal browsing began to slow down until it became unbearable... now, browsing in general is sluggish as hell... but, as i said before, torrenting is a go at very good speeds...

 

What speed do you get if you use Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

 

i was using speakeasy last time to do the tests...

right now computer is working normally... but if i shut down, sleep, or something like that, it doesnt even begin to do the test.

normally, or in linux, speed test ranges from 450 to 520 kbps. when it is f%^&d up, browsing becomes sluggish as hell, dsl tests cannot be made, and download speeds (measured by downloading any file from the browser) go from 9 - 20 something kbps...

 

Looks like indication of driver not installed properly. Reinstall?

In Linux it does the same thing. Replace?

Regards
"Paying Beta Testers"

 

I've been having this problem also. I bought a Samsung Chronos series 7 from Bestbuy. My laptop will out of no where drop signal. ONLY if im in the room where the router is in. (EXCELLENT SIGNAL) If I go to another room the signal wont ever drop. It's annoying. I got this labtop from Bestbuy 2 months or so ago. I know nothing about laptops, i only got it for personal, entertainment purposes. I NEED HELP. took it to bestbuy and of course it never dropped signal there so they said they dont know whats wrong with it.

For example. If im using the laptop in my room, i'll have full bars on wifi..then out of no where i'll have no signal. None of our other laptops do this, or any other things we use with wifi. please help. (but i need answers that are dumbed down..lol since im not a computer guy)

 

Your problem is really weird. While others report range issues, yours is the opposite.

 

Agree - my situation is that my 15.6 is worse than my 2007 Dell D620 with frequent drops when far from my router. My series 7 slate wifi performance blows away my 700Z5A - from the same position with the same router.

 

I had this same issue when I took it to the Microsoft Store. Their router is located in the back of the store, so we walked outside of the store, but I had full bars. But at home, I'm only downstairs and about 25ft from the router I have one or no bars.

I have no idea whats wrong, probably will but a new wi-fi card down the road when I get sick and tired of not getting signal. Might even see if changing my router will help.

 

I had been using a Linksys WRT54GS. I replaced it with a Netgear N750 WNDR4000 specifically for the new laptop. It isn't much better - maybe just a hair. But now I might put my old router in the front of the house - again just to cope with the poor performance of the 700Z5A.

 

reinstalled and it did the same...

in linux, that problem does not seem to happen...

i have reinstalled from zero, and it has worked out well, until i began installing some of samsung's software... like the one that optimizes booting up....

 

and it seems to be working well for today.... must keep on trying more then...

 

Looks like driver issues.

 

I've been getting extremely low internet connection speeds so I replaced the Broadcom wireless card with the Intel 6230 that has been recommended here.

I haven't noticed any significant change in speed or signal quality at all with the Intel card over the original Broadcom card.

Today I had access to a router and ethernet cable so I plugged it in and ran a speed test comparison between ethernet and wireless. These are the results...

Ethernet:

​

Wireless:

​

The upload speeds are almost identical but the download speed on wireless is severely impaired. I have no idea what would cause this. I know that it's not the router because my old Sony Vaio gets 17.89 Mbps connected to the same router on wireless. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

Check your settings and reinstall driver if necessary. There's no way that the wifi should perform at this low level.

 

Poor performance for wireless.

Found that disabling 'bluetooth collaboration' from within
wireless network
properties
configure
advanced tab
bluetooth collaboration --> disable.

After performing this, windows did have a driver update for the broadcom card, which made this option no longer help connectivity. Rolling back that driver and resetting this option has made connectivity 5 times better, but it's still about 1/3 of what other computers on this wireless network recieve.

Without bluetooth collaboration disabled, I get about 1mbps
with it disabled I get about 5 mbps
other computers on same ap get about 15 mbps.

 

I just got the new unit just now. Preliminary test on wireless for my 100Mbps Fibre Plan. Looking good.

 

Pretty impressive speeds!

I have upgraded to the wireless N Intel 6230 card and in the wireless utility I show connection speeds of 240-300 Mbps for the 5 Ghz network. (Real world read write speeds on the network of about 130-149 Mbps). Unfortunately, with no traffic on the network, no intereference from nearby routers, the speeds fluctuate every day. The wireless utility shows connections between 150-300Mbps at different points in time.

Any idea if this is a router issue or a wireless card / antenna design issue?

 

Well john lewis won't even replace the laptop I bought as they have stopped selling them. I am pretty sure there has been a screw up with the batch they sold and they had lots of them returned.

Got it for £850 and now I'm going to have to pay a lot more to get it else where. Sigh , it's £1400 elsewhere. Maybe samsung can fix it.

 

Wireless speeds will tend to fluctuate.

 

Have Samsung support replace the wifi card and the screen assembly. See if the issue resolves after.

 

That doesn't bode well if I have any problems with mine. What exactly are John Lewis saying and does the 3 year guarantee mean they're even offering a refund?

I'm waiting on them to send me a VAT receipt to prove the guarantee since they didn't give me one when I collected the laptop last week. Touch wood any dips in wifi are down to the shoddy connection we have with Sky and not the laptop.

In terms of Samsung, can THEY provide a replacement?

 

My new set seems to have similar performing wifi as my previous 3 sets.

Relatively consistent results. Note that test was done with 100 active APs surrounding me. 10m away from router with 100Mbps Fibre plan.

 

Hi dhowlett, I bought mine from John Lewis too and have been fedup with pretty shoddy wireless. The lack of 5Ghz has forced me into buying one of the recommended Intel cards. Should be installing this later this evening, so will let you know how I get on.

When connected over N, the fastest connection I've seen is 117Mbps, but this would usually fall and then fluctuate between 9Mbps and 60Mbps. My AP is in the same room as the laptop.

To me, omitting a 5Ghz wifi card is a pretty silly decision on Samsung's part. Odd, when you consider the rest of this machines specs.

 

I finally got my Intel advanced N 6230 to work - both Bluetooth and 5 GHz wireless are working fine. To get Bluetooth to work I had to not only remove the Broadcom drivers, but also uninstall the Widcomm utility that was screwing up the new Intel Bluetooth.

I am a happy camper, streaming stereo music to my bluetooth headphones while watching the music video on a 54" HDTV powered by the Intel WiDi. Life doesn't get any better

 

Update as promised. A one word summary... incredible.

I can now make use of the 5GHz networks, streaming media across the network now works flawlessly, online video services like iPlayer and 4od are reliable for the first time, and it's like a new laptop all over again.

Time taken from uninstalling my first driver to writing this post - 1 hour. And I wasn't exactly rushing.

The hardest part was persuading Samsung's site to let me download the Intel driver.

dhowlett, if there is anything I can help you with on testing or spec checks, just shout. My only thought could be, have you checked to make sure the antenae lead was connected to the new Wireless card correctly? Was quite fiddly and I almost started reassembly before connecting it.

 

I believe the guarantee was never a money back guarantee and simply a 3 year warranty with john lewis to get it fixed via samsung. That being said, I'm unsure if I ever got this VAT receipt you talk about as my dad was the one who bought and collected it. I shall have to enquire, have a sort of invoice which came inside the wrapping I believe if that counts?

I would suggest against this based on the fact that it seems that several John Lewis laptops have wifi cards which are not working correctly, if the problem is with the antenna housed in the laptop then changing the card will not fix this, at least that is my understanding.

 

dhowlett, you probably have to ask Samsung to change the display assembly (antennas are in there) along with the wifi card.

 

My story with the Chronos: first attempt to buy was at JL in Bluewater on Sunday 18th December. I paid for it after they said they had one left in stock [at the £899 pricepoint]. After waiting ages in the pickup point they had to refund me because they couldn't find the laptop in storage. When you buy in store you get a little booklet with your receipt etc that serves as your warranty too.

So when I bought it online and picked it up @ Oxford Street on Jan 2nd [at £849}, it was all sealed up and I asked if the booklet for the warranty was in there. They said yes, but when I opened it at home it only has the delivery invoice that you mentioned.

I emailed customer service on Friday to ask if my email receipt that mentioned the warranty was proof enough if I ever needed to bring it back. They replied quickly and said they would send me a VAT receipt as that would be enough to show I got the 3-year warranty on the purchase. I haven't yet received this, but if it doesn't turn up this week I'll ask them to confirm it was posted to my billing address [since I did a store pickup for the order].

Quote from the email: I have arranged for a VAT receipt to be sent to you. This is proof of purchase and warranty. If you have any problems with your laptop please contact us to resolve any issues.

Not sure why that isn't provided inside the sealed package when it's picked up

 

Sigh, now the middle of my trackpad is hideously unreliable when clicking it down. How can so much go wrong! I too need to get that VAT receipt then. This is so annoying, right in the middle of my final exams at uni.

I wonder how long it will take samsung to fix my wifi and trackpad.

 

Gee, I'm starting to get a not-so-good feeling about Samsung's laptops.

 

With the WiFi the big challenge is to get them to agree that it isn't working correctly. The touchpad may be a hardware problem (but have you tried reinstalling the latest driver?) and you need to be sure that they have some spare parts before sending the computer in.

John

 

Hi all I have just found that Samsung's latest wifi driver includes the Broadcom Wireless Utility. It will report the RSSI signal and noise under the 'link status' tab.

In order for those affected to have a case to back up their claims, please try to:

Have no other users using the router while doing the following.

1. Standardise the distance at about 5 metres away from the router.
2. State the model of your laptop and router.
3. Screenshot the link status tab.
4. Do 3 speedtests at speedtest.net using the same server.
5. Post the screenshot and above-mentioned information.

After we have a few users posting, we can compare and see if the wifi issue exists.

Post the info at a separate thread for easy presentation to Samsung when the need arises. Keep the discussion here.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/638411-series-7-all-models-understanding-wifi-issue.html

 

Did you notice that your trackpad shifted position and is no longer in the centre? (It shifted and closed the gap on either left or right.) One of my units did this, and the trackpad stopped working correctly after. DOA.

 

Yikes, sorry you're having more trouble with the laptop. JL Customer Services replied and said the VAT receipt is indeed being sent to my billing address and would take 7 days so I would definitely get in touch with them.

 

hey ya'll, i have been following this forum for a while collecting some tips and what not. i just recently installed the intel 6230 w/bt the beginning of this week and i seem to be having lag spike issues that seem to happen every 30sec-1min which makes it frustrating to play online games. now i don't know if it is because of the router i am connected to. (i currently been in a hotel for a week) Today i will be going to a friends and will test if i get lag spikes there but i do believe i was having this problem as well with the broadcom along with the range issue(which is why i bought the intel). Maybe you guys can help me shed some light on this issue, i will report how i do with my friends router.

-Geo
Edit: this is all in my chronos and this problem also affects my web browsing :/
Edit2: Sorry for another edit fist time posting in forums like this. also whenever i plug say my phone and tether(while phone is connected via wireless to the same network) the lag spike don't exist anymore.

 

I REALLY do not think that the Samsung Series 7 Chronos WiFi problems are related to the Series 9 WiFi problems. I have many posts where people appear to be combining/confusing the two.

The Series 9 WiFi problems are very simply being caused by the Duralumin casing. The Series 7 Chronos does not have Duralumin.

 

Hi guys,
Just registered here. First ever experience with a forum!
I obviously have a samsung series 7 SO1UK version with a broadcom wireless N card. I did not have any particular problems with reception, although it is not a very good performer...However, despite having an N router I only get a speed of up to 54Mbps. Has anyone noticed anything similar?

 

With an N router operating with 40 MHz band, speeds of 300 Mbps are possible. So 54 Mbps is very low.

 

The wireless N card is kind of a lie. It only runs B/G there's no N option. My ipod touch 2nd gen has better wifi lol. Well in terms of reception and speed is about the same.

 

Samsung nerfed the driver settings, so you cannot see the options fully.

IBSS 54G Protection Mode - try disabling.

 

It was in Auto and I disabled it....still only 54Mpbs.

I have also noticed that there is only b/g options in the "bandwidth capacity" section. But others in this forum do get N connections since they report speeds over 54Mbps

 

Samsung series 7 review and discussion thread on options to get higher wireless throughput on this link:
Samsung Series 7 Chronos - Notebook Reviews by MobileTechReview

 

hey guys, i got a series 7 chronos and i did encounter the WIFI connection problem.

strange thing is, this problem occurs only when my hdmi cable is connected to a secondary screen with resolution set to 1280x768. When i changed resolution to 1366x768, the problem disappeared!

i realized that the wifi issues could be related to the VGA drivers which is having a problem. I Remembered reading somewhere that ATI and Intel HD3000 doesn't work really well with the samsung notebook...

Note that my notebook drivers, firmware and BIOS are at the latest version at this point when this problem occurs.

 

Not sure if you were able to resolve this, but I just got my Series 7 and have the same problem. For me the problem was the power plan settings. Default is "Samsung Optimized", with this setting and power cord not plugged in I was lucky to get 1Mbps down link. Power cord plugged in and it went back to normal ~20Mbps. I changed the power plan to "High Performance" and I would get 20 Mbps without power cord. Change it back to "Samsung Optimized" and it would drop to less than 1Mbps. I did this test back to back, from the same location in my house. Hope this helps.

Quick edit: I was looking through the "Samsung Optimized" plan settings. Under 'change advanced power settings' there is wireless adapter option. On battery it is set to "Maximum Power Savings" for this plan, I changed that to "Maximum Performance" to match the on AC power setting, and that fixed the problem for this power profile.

 

Bingo - major signal improvement after changing this setting. Thanks!

 

I am thinking of buying the best buy version of the series 7 15 in. that is sans Intel wifi (yes I know the graphics card is also lesser) Would the intel centrino ultimate-n 6300 be compatible as an upgrade? I am going to be using this on a college campus so I would like to maximize my range of signal with the 3X3 antenna. If it is not compatible then what would be my best option?

 

I am not sure about the Intel 6300. Mine Series 7 (S0A) has Intel 6230. As far as I experience with that, the range is not good even you upgrade into better card. If the campus has N wireless, I'm pretty sure you would be fine, if not, then you better find some usb wireless adapters. Theoretically, Intel 6300 has download rate as 450 Mbp/s compare to 300 Mbp/s of th 6230. However, in real life, it would come down to the speed limit of campus wireless. My campus is still using G wireless and I had problem with the range. Despite sometimes the card can see the wireless, but it cannot connect to it. Funny thing is that it is strong in library, but then when I move to another room still in side library, it gets weaker.
So my suggest that find out what type of wireless on the campus, if it is N and the card in the laptop is 6230, then you don't need to upgrade to the 6300. Otherwise, it depends on your choice.