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

The sound that emit the fans is usually low. During regular use I can´t hear it. During gaming you can notice the fans are working but much more quietly that I expected. My unit is surprisingly quiet and with a quite good cooling for this very slim design. Also the screen quality after color calibration is more than decent. The only real downside of the system is the space bar, you must to press it in the center to make it work...a stupid flaw design.

 

It's a mini pci card, pretty much as swap a ram stick... Look in this section, there's a thread where some users have already done this, as the had problem with bluetooth...

 

I second that as well. The Chronos is by far the quietest notebook/laptop on the market thus far. I can honestly tell you right now, as I am typing that I do not hear the fans whatsoever. In fact my cousin as a Mackbook pro right beside me and his laptop fans are absurdly loud, compared to my chronos 7. I have gotten so many compliments on the quiet fan effect .You cannot go wrong with the Chronos 7!! My only gripe is the damn trackpad and sometimes dimming screen effects!!

 

Hi All,

Typing this from my new s01uk, the laptop flies as one would expect but the amount of bloatware Samsung include with it is just rediculous! have others been removing this rubbish or doing a reinstall?

I'm coming from a Dell m1530 and they build quality of this machine is much better. The screen seems a little washed out but I much prefer that than reflections from a gloss screen.

The trackpad seems a little unresponsive but not too bad, keyboard is an obsolute joy to type on. Mine came with the VGA adapter just in case any perspective buyers are wondering.

 

It appears there are various differentiation of the Chronos 7 depending on the region it released in. Have you tried using revo uninstall software to get rid of the samsung bloatware??? It worked pretty handy for me, you should try it!! The trackpad can take some getting used to sometime but man those keys are indeed a joy to type on!! The backlit is beautiful at night Glad you are loving your Chronos 7 so far!!

 

Guys can I ask what cleaning solution if any are you all using on your matte screens??? I notice that the keys are sometimes prone to grease effects as well as dust lint particles!! I find myself hving to use a microfiber cloth to clean my screen and keys alot. I have notice as well that some streaks can appear on the screen if your not too careful!!

 

Definately loving it, best laptop I have ever used by a mile and is indeed comparable to a macbook pro but half the price. It's night time here in Ireland and I agree the backlit keyboard is the business!

Will give that Revo software a lash, thanks for the tip!

 

I asked this on the last page, and it relates to the discussion here. If I get it at the Microsoft store, it will have Microsoft signature with minimal bloatware on it?

As for removing the bloatware that's there, if you decide to re-install make sure not to re-partition the turbo cache or there may be issues setting it up again. I would guess you might be better off removing each piece individually.

 

According to a couple of lads that purchased there S7 from Microsoft store, Yes your model will or should come with minimal bloatware based on Microsoft signature. The first shipments form JR.com via Amazon were filed with bloatware from Samsung! It is important though that you ask a representative from the store to verify this for you. I'm not sure about removing the pieces individually but I guess it wouldn't hurt.

 

Unfortunately I am actually a few hundred miles from the nearest Microsoft store. My brother is actually going to pick it up before he flies home from college for Christmas tomorrow. I guess worst comes to worst I can do my own fresh install of Windows following the instructions here. I cannot wait to get it though.

 

Don't worry Lad you will get it soon!! Believe me when you get it you will be satisfied and relieved!! This laptop/notebook is by far the best I have experience from a Windows 7 thus far. Happy SS7 experience when you get it lad!! Cheers!!

 

Just installed the Intel 6230 Advanced N wireless card. It is much better than the Broadcom card it replaced. I am getting 300 Mbps speeds and a solid 5 bars!

 

I cannot really find a specific data sheet...

Is it possible to upgrade the NP700Z5 from 8GB ram to 16GB ram?
Is the 8GB ram one bar or two 4GB?

So if I would like to upgrade would I need one single 8GB bar? Which ram do I need?

thanks a lot in advance
squadro

 

I don't think so. I have the s04us (or whatever the 6 gb model is called) and I remember reading about the max supported memory by the chipset to be 8gb.

I believe there is only one upgradable slot for the ram which holds the memory supplied by samsung, apart from the 4gb fixed memory. So, if you have an 8gb model, your ram slot holds a 4gb stick from samsung.

 

That's great. Are you able to use Bluetooth after the replacement?

 

How hard is it to change the wireless card? And I guess you void the warranty if you do?

It's sad how few notebooks today that is actually delivered with a dual band wireless card.

 

No, unfortunately I tried loading drivers from the Samsung site and from the Intel web site, but I can't get Bluetooth to work. I see the bluetooth icon in the system tray, but under devices in the controlpanel it shows that the bluetooth is not working. I think there is a conflict with the Samsung Easy Settings that tries to interfac with the card to turn it on and off.

 

Not hard to swapout the card. I just read the instructions somewhere in this forum and watched a few You Tube videos to get familiar with the procedure. The hardest part is getting the bottom cover of the laptop off to access the card.

 

Will taking the intel i5 over the i7 improve battery life

 

Anyone have any idea what format the SDD is supposed to be i reformatted everything on the computer now things are messed up.

 

I'm annoyed by the fact that this computer seems so hard to customize. I'm reading about so many of you struggling to get the systems working again after reformatting.

That - along with the fact that this computer barely made it out of the door, puts me on edge on samsung laptops.

Do you guys feel you have a solid (reliable) machine and do any of you have it in a state where it is completely working after reformatting/upgrading ?

 

The laptop is great. Its running fine with a regular windows setup, no issues. I just want to get the express cache back. I should have left the SDD alone. I talked to Samsung. They are sending me a factory restore disk, that should repartition my laptop to stock.

 

This is the one you've got, right?: Amazon.com: 6230 IEEE 802.11n (draft) Bluetooth 3.0 - Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter (Bulk): MP3 Players & Accessories

There has to be a way to get the bluetooth to work on there. I wonder what would happen if you turned off the Samsung Easy Settings.

 

Yes, I bought the retail version of that card - not bulk. I called Intel and they said that manufacturers like Samsung make custom adjustments to the BIOS so the retail card may not always work. He said that sometimes manufacturers also have custom versions of the card so for all support issues we need to call Samsung. That seems to be a dead end, because Samsung does not support swapping out the original Broadcom adapter for any other version.

 

Just got confirmation that my laptop is in my brother's hands. I should have the unit in my hands tomorrow night. It is model NP700Z5AH-S04US from the Microsoft Store in San Diego.

 

Can you be bit more specific, what is exactly messed up?. It's really hard to understand what exactly are you asking/ what is the issue?

1. Do you have existing SSD drive that you want to install in your laptop and looking to reformat that, if yes please list the make e.g. Intel has own toolbox that includes secure erase or Samsung has magican and so on.
2. If you trying to install new SSD right out from retail box?

I have posted many replies regarding SSD and posted quick install manual here, and more than happy to help but people keep it straight forward.

 

For those interested, I picked up a black friday Best buy Chronos, swapped in a Vertex 3 240G SSD, and 8G RAM module (Newegg special).

The module is supported and I now have 12G RAM available, and a very speedy system

Next waiting on success stories before switching to the Intel 6230 wifi/bluetooth card.

CORSAIR 8GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 Laptop Memory Model CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9

Cas Latency: 9
Timing: 9-9-9-24
Voltage: 1.5V
Model #: CMSO8GX3M1A1333C9
Item #: N82E16820233216
Return Policy: Memory Standard Return Policy

 

Samsung Series 7 Chronos isn't even out in Korea. Were all guinea pigs right now!

 

Dude, where did you buy it from? I plan to buy it next week, and I see JLewis and PC World have it. The latest has S01UK and JL claims theirs is S02UK. I cannot find any difference in the versions when reading the specifications, but the JL price dropped after the PC World launch. Thus, I am really templted to take it from there.

 

Which drivers for the graphics do people use that work well? 11.11a from Leshcat?

Just want to check before I go thru the whole FAQ, there is alot of tedious steps in it.

 

I'm currently using the 11.11c from AMD. Did a driver only install over the stock samsung package and it works rather well. Running Skyrim at High settings, 1600x900 and 2x aa with good framerate. Haven't run Rage, though, so can't comment on the opengl issue.

Problem with the leshcat drivers is that you lose desktop rightclick access to the intel graphics control panel (which I use for moderating "Film Mode"). Otherwise, they seemed fine.

If anyone wants to experiment, the people at laptopvideo2go have also just debuted their ATI drivers (leshcat is at the forum there too). They know their drivers well, I used to use their drivers on my geforce 7950 laptop.

 

Hmm, I'll try to install the drivers just like you did. Btw, I haven't even found an easy way to check which version that is installed. Weird.

EDIT:
BTW, What package did you download from ATI? Alot of options there...

EDIT2:
AMDs driver download page is not a very fun place to try to look for stuff. )

EDIT3:
Found these:
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/catalyst_11.11_hotfixes/amd_catalyst_11.11c_windows_vista_7.exe

Gonna see if I can install just the drivers without messing up everything.

 

Curious to know if you can run two monitors simultaneously (HDMI and display port, with the laptop monitor off). If anyone can confirm, that would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

That didn't go too well. It all installed fine, and it looked like I had the new drivers (installed display drivers only) when I checked the driver thru "manage", but tried a few different games and neither was using the ATI card, even thou it was set to "High Performance".

Did a trusty rollback with system restore and I'll look more into this later...

 

BTW, I also have an issue with playing HD content on Youtube in Chrome, it looks like its SD or lower even thou 720p or 1080p is chosen. I thought this is a driver issue, but perhaps there is something else involved here?

EDIT:
Seems to work fine in Internet Explorer, which weirds me out. Could IE be using the Intel GPU and Chrome the AMD and that's the issue? How do I get Chrome to use Intel in that case when playing video?

 

I think the John lewis version may be the i5 which has six gig of ram rather than eight . Give them a shout to confirm this though. I got mine from PC World.

 

Has anyone noticed if there is a two finger click. I see the option for two finger tap but I like to turn tap off.

 

Just got my s04 us and I am loving it. The spacebar is mildly annoying, but I should learn quickly. Once thing I have to question though is the stock partitioning. Why the weird sizes. Is there someway I can combine the two without messing up what is already in the C partition?

Figured it out with a quick google search. Ignore that. Loving the computer though its awesome. The trackpad is really impressive for me for a windows machine. So far so good. I am installing Skyrim now so we shall see how it turns out.

 

Hi guys, I'm interested in getting this for music production but can't find anything with regards to the dpc latency of this machine. Can anyone of you help me out with this? Thanks.

 

I just got my this laptop and it seem that when I use the far sides of the space bar it doesn't register with the computer.

Does anyone else have this issue or is mine defected?

 

Mine works just fine. Had to return my first one thou, since the backlit keyboard didn't work, but this new one I got this week is working just fine.

Except that I haven't gotten new video drivers to work, but I'll get around to it more later on...

 

I ran:
DPC Latency Checker

Not sure how to export the results, but the Current Latency seemed to be around 100 +/- 25 or so. Absolute Maximum was around 250.

 

Your result is accurate. However, if there is load placed on the machine, you may get periodical spikes of 3-5k. YMMV

 

It's not just you. It's one of the issues with the design. The way most people type, they don't really meet that issue much. There is non-registering zone right at the far ends of the spacebar that I *very* occasionally hit. But I also tend to slam the spacebar with my left thumb while typing, so I don't usually meet it.

 

Thanks, buddy. No spiking in the red? If so, it sounds like it would do a good job at music production. Now I just need to check with owners Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop regarding the dpc latency of that machine.

I would prefer getting either of those and save the Apple tax for some recording interfaces instead.

 

I got it to spike into 1600ish (Yellow), but that included starting up alot of programs and doing alot of weird stuff which included both alot of HD access and Internet access in multiple programs at the same time.

This shouldn't happend during normal usage I hope...

EDIT:
And it was ONE spike, most of the time it didn't react when I started/closed other programs etc.

 

Thanks for testing. Seems pretty good enough for what I intend to do. I'm kinda glad Apple decided to rub Samsung the wrong way because we wouldn't be having this kinda competition otherwise LOL.

 

Anyone tried sending mail to Samsung nagging about switchable graphics force from BIOS option? I guess if we all do it, either they stop making the PC or they will update the BIOS Either one works for me, the Switchable Graphics screws up gaming in Windows, and general use in linux and OS X. And I want the latter to work, which means I have to force the ATI, as the Intel card bugs in OS X.

 

I truly hope for Samsung they are working hard on fixing the graphics problems. ( that or the guys at laptopvideo to go make is a few miracles, their DOX drivers were quite nice). The envy 15 will soon be available everywhere and it seems to have more gpu power and easier to expand ram. Which are two things that I among others seem to be interested in.

However with decent graphics drivers and the ability to OC this laptop becomes very interesting. A home setup with a notebook cooler sounds like a good multimedia/ gaming base especially since a lot of them can be used as USB replicators.

 

It is really sad they did not put better display into it . I just compared it with my friend's hp probook and the samsung one is really horrible and makes eyes strain more.