Samsung Series 7 Laptops - 15.0" and 15.6" Models (NP700Z4 & NP700Z5)

I went to the Intel GMA Control Panel and unchecked all the boxes in the "media" tab under "color" and "image" enhancement. I also turned "off" all enchancements in the AMD CCC under video settings. But problem is still there.
I made this quick video to demonstrate the problem, but it's really difficult to capture on camera without my phone trying to compensate for the lighting dfference:
700za brightness/contrast issue - YouTube

 

Just got mine!
I'm still wondering, is it better to delete all this crapware manually, or make a format and install Windows from cd. Any thoughts?

 

I'm pretty sure this has been resolved but I know atleast a few users had issues with the express cache when reinstalling windows. I'm sure someone with the laptop can actually chime in here.

Care to share your first impressions on the build etc.

Also, for everybody else, with the new drivers I have been seeing, do these work with BF3 yet? I am still interested to see how well this laptop runs that.

 

I swapped Hdd and I am having prob with express cache

 

Just picked this laptop up over the weekend from the Microsoft store in Minnesota. $926 - great value. It sounds like they have a good supply of them so if you're in the market and live in Minnesota go check it out. I actually had to return my first model because of trackpad issues (the right click was broken).

So far I'm a big fan of the laptop. Screen is fine though it's nothing compared to my girlfriend's Envy 14 with the original Radiance display. Not great viewing angles (though better than my old Dell D630).

Temps on the CPU cores idle at about 50c and I've had them get up to 90c when gaming. When they go that high I had the lid closed because it was hooked up to an external monitor. Opening the lid seems to result in the temps hovering around 70-80c under load. I get the impression that the i7s run hot, but I'm a bit worried I'm still at the high end of the temps others are getting.

 

Wow - great price!

It's plausible, closing the screen will reduce exhaust port area, and so ventilation. Other than that, 80°C full load w/ a i7 it's perfectly fine. Throttling threshold it's ~105°C IIRC...

The expo unit I saw was in the 40s °C idle all day (I went to the shop at 7pm or so...)

 

Not sure I may head back to the store and compare it with the one on display.

 

If you knew the secret handshake at the ms store they were selling them at 500 before tax on black Friday when they opened.

 

Been lurking this thread for months (thanks everyone for your input). Thought I'd post and try to contribute.

Finally found the right deal at the Microsoft Store and decided to suck it up and pay the sales tax instead of waiting for the price to come down online. They are offering 25% off all products priced at $1,000 or more (in store only I believe). I ended up getting the 6GB Version (NP700Z5A-S04US), which was selling for $1,149.00 on Amazon, for only $1,080 total (including the almost $70 tax). The price was this high because I got two year protection plan ($199 discounted 25% to $150), and Microsoft office (Home/Student Edition, free with protection plan purchase). Just the laptop, before tax and after the 25% discount, rang up to $861.75 on my receipt.

I was also impressed with "Microsoft Signature", they basically remove all the bloatware for you.

I am happy with the laptop so far, but I can tell it is going to take me a little bit to get used to the keyboard/trackpad. I have noticed the spacebar issue, if you hit the very edge of either side of the spacebar it won't register, but it isn't a deal breaker and I think my typing will adjust. The screen isn't bad, just need to figure out the best settings for it.

Quick question about the leshcat 11.11A drivers: Do I need to uninstall the old drivers before I install them? If so what is the best process for doing so?

 

Did anybody else notice that they no longer have these for sale directly on Amazon. I cannot even find the product page. Hopefully they get these supply issues sorted soon or I may have to grab the new Envy 15. Anybody know of anywhere with these in stock online with a good return policy. I am looking for the S04 model.

 

I read on another forum that you can disable it in "easy settings" or in BIOS

 

Has else anyone noticed that when you completely dim the keyboard the F12 button is still lit? Even when I turn off wireless its still lit.

Note: I swapped the original HDD for and SDD and reinstalled Windows and the drivers from the Samsung website.

 

Did you turn off bluetooth?

If you turn off wireless and bluetooth the light goes off.

 

Yes, Bluetooth is off as well.

Update: my bad, the adapter was off but it wasn't off in easy setting

 

I ordered one yesterday and it will arrive today, so I can compare myself shortly.

 

What drivers are the "must update" ones for a new Samsung 700Z5A?

I've read alot about problems with the graphics driver, so guessing it's important to upgrade it, but which version works the best with this laptop now?

And any other issues that should be upgraded asap for better performance? Network? Trackpad?

 

can u be bit more specific? what problems you exactly having? I did swap mine with Samsung 830 SSD and have zero problems. Did total fresh re-install in order get TRIM properly working thought.

 

Are you sure you are not talking about another samsung notebook? I know they have another one below 500 on black friday but this model for $500 is really hard to believe...

 

I am expecting my Samsung series 830 SSD in the next day or two. Any tips on how to install would be much appreciated. Please let me know if the sequence sounds right:

1. Shut down laptop, remove power cord. Push pinhole to make sure battery is not connected.
2. Remove 10 screws (do I remove the screw for the memory slot as well) and gently pry open the casing at the spot where the palm rest meets the edge seam with a thin piece of plastic.
3. Remove two screws that attach the Hitachi hard drive to the motherboard (is the drive in a caddy that I will have to transfer to the SSD?)
4.Remove the HDD from the SATA interface and replace with SSD.
5. Secure SSD after putting in spacer provided.
6.Close the bottom casing and screw back in the 10 screws
7.Plug in AC adapter, start up the laptop with bootable USB flash drive?
8.Put the Samsung Recovery disk with the Microsoft OS in the DVD drive.
9. What next?
10. How to download drivers before the LAN connection is enabled?

Thanks for your help!

 

10. How to download drivers before the LAN connection is enabled? <- Download all the drivers BEFORE starting number 1.

 

hey you don't want use the image because image you make is not trim optimized. What you need to do is clean windows 7 install, W7 is only OP that is optimized to work on SSD... it will config itself properly and will turn off few things like disc defragmentation which can damage your life time for ssd.

 

So after replacing the HDD with the new SDD, do I power up the from omputer with the Samsung provided Windows 7 disc in the DVD drive and windows will take care of it from there?
Then I need to download and install the wireless, bluetooth and other drivers from the Samsung site?
Thanks for your guidance.I've never done this before so I appreciate your patience.

 

I just got my 700Z5A, and I'm going thru the "first time start" procedure etc, and I am in Windows now, but I can't find any way to toggle on my backlit keys.

If I press Fn F9 and F10 I get the on screen that I'm increasing or decreasing the light, but there is no light on at all, so guessing that it needs to be turned on or is toggled someplace?

The only light I have on atm on the keyboard is a light on the F12 key, guessing its supposed to indicate that WLan is active, since there is a simillar light on the Caps Loch which lights up when it's active.

Any suggestions please?

 

First download all drivers you need and have them handy before you do anything. My version didn't come with windows 7 disc (it didn't come with vga cable either) so I actually used W7 Ultimate disc I got from amazon. So the drive needs to run on AHCI and once you plug it in make sure your W7 disc is already in rom... then bootfrom dvd and follow rest rest of the installation instructions and you should be good to go. Am thinking posting instructions along with pictures here soon.

 

I have the same problem. Guessing it might be a driver related issue, since I haven't updated it yet. Unsure which driver that works the best with this machine...

 

Hi, newbie here been looking for the last few hours for a decent forum to post my issue with the series 7 laptop.A customer of mine (laptop repairs) by the way, bought a samsung series 7 NP700Z5B 4 weeks ago, it worked for a week then would not charge. The battery eventually died without charge for a few days. He then rang samsung and told them the issue they said they would issue a refund but will take a few weeks, So he brought the laptop to me to check it out and see why there is no power going to the laptop from the charger. Now i have tested the DC Jack and there is power going to it on the board, but after that no lights turn on not even to a light to show that a charger is plugged in. I have stripped the laptop down to the board and disconnected everything and tried powering it up with each individual part connected and still nothing. This has me baffled i am in the game 20 years and never have i come across a month old laptop to just stop charging without a legitimate reason. Please tell me someone has had the same issue as its killing me to know if more people have experienced a similar problem with this laptop.

 

Does anyone know a U.S. online retailer that is still offering pre-orders for the 14" model? I REALLY need to get an order placed before the end of the year. It will be expensed through the office and for purposes of balancing the books, we make purchases like these at the end of the year.

I know Microsoft was but has since stopped accepting orders. I dont guess there are any new developments on a new ETA after the obvious supply delays are there?

 

I tried those drivers, and the screen resolution is all messed up now, and I cant set it back to 1600x900 again. Guess I'll get the old Samsung drivers again for now. Running at 1024x768 is not fun.

And I still haven't found any way to toggle on the backlit keyboard. Or could it be so simple that it's broken? Would really suck bigtime if that was the case, hate to return new toys, even when they are broken.

 

Hmm so power gets into mother board thats what you saying? How can you power up individual items? if you injected power into chipset you probably have already fried it(Operating voltage for these is usually 3.3 V).
If power comes into laptop but no lights turn on there are few options starting from power module switch into bios itself. Since I manage about 40 laptops in our company we had brand new dell laptops that had bios clock chip battery dead and laptop wouldn't power or nothing would happened at all. My piece of advice in cases like this are let the manufacturer handle this. Probably best way to get a refund and get new one. Remember there are always bad apples inside the basket and its true for any product just a matter of ratio.

 

You can order from JR JR.com: Samsung NP700Z3A-S01 Series 7 Chronos 14" Notebook PC - Silver in PC Notebook Computers
which usually has really good prices, I was told that these are in delay because of short supply of components by samsung rep. Good Luck

 

Sorry i worded that wrong i meant i stripped the laptop down and removed all parts such as dvd drive ram wireless card etc then added each one by one and plugged in the charger to see if it would power up.Sometimes some hardware can cause a fault with power but checked everything and still remained the same.I have found one other person online who had the same issue as this, but its early days yet as the laptop was only released a few weeks ago.

 

ok first thing is can you check if power is routed to chipset and power module to the power switch that controls the rest of the power to mother board. Since the power and changing management are also controlled by this its the first thing I would check.

Also forgot to double check but another issue I have come across is also adapter voltage loss... did you check the output voltage from power adapter or try a different one?

 

There is 0.02 going to power module no power going to chipset, output voltage is 19.07

 

Ok seems perhaps fault switch ... did you try this while disconnecting battery, perhaps battery causes an issue?

 

As noone answered my previous question, I will post a bump here.

I really need to find out what is the difference between the S01UK and S02UK models? Both seems to be as powerful (and pricey) as S03US but I am not sure what is inside S02UK that is being sold here in Great Britain.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Yes the had battery out aswell as in and still the same..but faulty switch does not explain why the light wont light up that there is a charger plugged in

 

well sorry am out of ideas, I had similar issues in past with couple laptops where removing battery and holding down power button for a min bought laptop back to life. sometimes removing memory sticks or hdd and once it was faulty charger connector it self that had pin broken off. However if you cant get any sign of life my good guess is that motherboard is burned out and you should stop fighting with it. Ship back to sammy and end of hassle. Good Luck

 

Bump.

10char

 

Hi, for your issue with the keyboard, what worked for me is in the bottom right by the time and date, click on the battery icon and change it from the samsung settings to the normal computers ones. That then allowed me to change the backlit brightness and also the screen brightness. Hope this helps.

 

I tried that, but it didn't help. I could adjust the screen brightness before I did this via the Fn keys, and they work the same no matter which mode I choose.

The Fn keys for the backlit keys shows up on the middle of the screen as if I am adjusting the brightness of them, but the keyboard is all dark. It's not the brightness of the keyboard that is an issue, I just don't have any backlight at all on them.

Did everyone else have this work automatically, even outside windows (at bootup etc), and it that case I most likely have a faulty unit, otherwise there must be something I'm missing. Checked Bios aswell, but nothing in there.

Or is there anything I need/should upgrade to get it to work?

Like the graphics drivers, but can't get the ones linked earlier to work either, so rollbacked to the originally installed drivers for now.

 

dear all,
i am interested in this laptop and consider to order from Tigerdirect. I'm a bit confused, the laptop name is Samsung NP700Z5A-S02US, but model name is NP700Z5A-S04US. Is it lacking of some specs such as blacklit keyboard or express cache...?
Here is the link:
Samsung NP700Z5A-S02US Series 7 Notebook PC - Intel Core i7-2675QM 2.2GHz, 6GB DDR3, 750GB HDD, DVDRW, Backlit Keyboard, AMD Radeon HD 6750M, DVDRW, 15.6 Display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit at TigerDirect.com

 

Here are the actual physical dimensional.weight is less than 5kg

 

Buy with confidence my friend the actual model is 04US model. I got second one from tiger direct and u can see pictures of box right above

 

While you have the laptop open, do you think a second hard drive could fit in the slot for the dvd drive using a caddy? Is the connection a normal Sata 2 connection?

 

Pretty disappointing. The graphics card started crashing while watching videos, and now it's giving me a BSOD, Anyone having problems like this too?

 

thanks for your clarification

 

Lots of people have reported this issue. Update your drivers to the newest ones straight from ATI not on the Samsung website andd the issue is resolved Pacifica.

 

Thanks for the reply. I tried that before, but when I went to install them it said it was not compatible.

 

I think there is a special modified one on here to deal with that issue, somebody who has the laptop should be able to help you

Sent from my HTC Mecha using Tapatalk

 

Does anyone have a problem where when you wake your computer from sleep/hibernate, the brightness buttons don't work? All of the other Fn keys work but those. Is there a workaround this? The only way I can get it to work is if I restart my laptop, but it happens again once I put it to sleep =/