Samsung Series 7 Lovers - Here's The NP700Z5C Ivy Bridge!

Any new system is sluggish at first. You have to build cache, indexing, thumbnails express cache needs to settle in etc etc etc. This is especially true of using just a 5400 rpm drive. Now power is again something to settle in. Your system was busy the first few days so it will get better. Also you need the lowest poer plance possible for those extended battery hours.

BSOD is something I can't advise on..................

 

curious to know...how many of you are using the laptop with the batterylife technology enabled (no charging beyond 80%)?

 

I have my Battery Saver option on. I still get 5.5 hours on it with 80% so it's still great.

 

Can anyone recommend the best settings in easy settings for the display? Do people allow it to do auto brightness or do you have it set on the slider? At mo mines seems to default to dark on the slider so looks fairly washed out?

Also i saw some mention of a .icc profile for colors and selecting sharp in the display options, does this still stand? Have selected sharp but i have trawled through this thread and cannot find the .icc profile that is meant to make my colours a lot better If anyone could link a nicely calibrated one it would be much appreciated by more than just myself i am sure.

Thanks

 

ICC profile: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...es-7-chronos-np700z4-np700z5-icc-profile.html

Also, this is a great thread if you haven't browsed it yet: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...0z3-np700z4-np700z5-series-owners-lounge.html

-Matt

 

i ordered this laptop from amazon uk for 799£ shod get here on Tuesday

I was considering the inspiron 17se with gt 650 for exactly the same price has a better screen also larger thou it is too big to hold it on lap i went for Samsung instead since amazon has 30 days returns policy.

i have a 128gb curical m4 want add it to the samsung but i need more space is it possible to change the 8gb masta ssd with a m4 msata 128 gb ?

also im planing to do some gaming in this laptop connected to a 50 inch tv how will the gt640 preform on gaming for 4 hours ?

m4 msata

 

Hey everyone so I ended up getting the S01UB since I am not a pc gamer. I have been loving the laptop so far, but I have two minor complains that hopefully you guys can help me fix. First I have the screen brightness on max but every time I reset my pc it boots up with the screen brightness at only 50%. This has gotten pretty annoying since every time I start up my laptop I have to to change the brightness. My second question is there anyway I can use one of the usb ports to charge my phone while the laptop is turned off? I previously had the Samsung RF511 and it let me charge my phone through usb even though it was off.

Hope you guys can help me solve these two little issues ^_^

 

for screen brightness you may need to change the power profile itself, not just adjust the screen.

For USB charging, that may be an option in bios, don't have my samsung yet.....................

 

Congrats, I bet you'll love the Samsung.

As I understand it, the 8GB cache is not an mSATA, it's a "small flash chip" soldered to the mobo, so no way to update/modify that.

-Matt

 

Have you tinkered with display settings in the Easy Setting utility? I would turn off auto-brightness and set it to max there!

-Matt

 

Don't have mine yet, getting the gamer, but with a SSD as primary can we set the 8GB to cache the data drive instead?

 

The answer you seek lies somewhere within this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...0z3-np700z4-np700z5-series-owners-lounge.html

Just scan down to ExpressCache and you'll find what you need!

EDIT: WAIT, I thought YOU'RE the one who gives useful answers!

-Matt

 

LOL, can't answer on what I don't even have yet. My gaining knowledge by osmosis just is not working today..................

Just read all that, what a waste. It appears best to just NTFS it and make a small page file of it. Thanks.........................

 

I did though I used slightly different way, as you say disable Fast mode, then I kept the SSD as first boot device, hit F10 to bring up the boot menu and selected the USB drive in USB2 port. Windows installation begins, when you get to the partition select screen, before choosing the installation partition you have to delete or format the iSSD drive or Windows will complain that it can't find a suitable partition and will get stuck at that point.

Once you've formatted the iSSD you can then ignore it and carry on choose your installation partition and all should be good.

I'd already put the HDD into a caddy in place of the ODD and my SSD was in its original place. My SSD is a Crucial C300 256GB that I bought a while back, it was slightly too thick, then I noticed the case had a plastic spacer a couple of mm deep, so I opened the case and removed it, put it back together and it was then an easy fit. I bought it cheap with a short warranty so not that wasn't an issue for me.

The only slight issue is with the ODD caddy I bought (only a fiver off ebay), I had to remove the slot that the disk slides though off of the case to get the bottom to fit back on, maybe some caddies are slightly shorter and don't require this. I may get another later so I put this slot back as it gives that part of the case extra strength where need because of the ODD groove cut out.

Windows 7 Ultimate as a clean installation is better than the Samsung OS, leaner and nice and fast on the SSD. I put the page file onto the iSSD to make use of it, the only niggle being Windows complaining of low disk space on that drive now as I filled it with fixed size page file, I think there is way to stop that though.

The other thing I did whilst the case was open was to remove the heatsinks and redo with better quality thermal paste. I thought the fitting here could have been better and wanted to fit a couple shims, I only had a selection of 15mm x 15mm shims and would only have been able to fit one onto the GPU. To do this right needs the same thickness shim over CPU and GPU or the heatsink will not fit squarely. I'll probably do this job when I get slightly larger section shim to fit over the CPU.

Still getting my software installed, so far Adobe CS6 is running so well and I'm editing HD without a problem.

Overall very pleased. I got mine from John Lewis with the 3 year warranty and £100 cashback, glad I waited for this offer to come along.

Edited to add, if anyone is nervous about taking this apart and fitting your SSD, there is no need to be. The case is made from strong plastic and as long as you are careful it will unfasten without breaking any clips. With all the screws out begin to loosen along the sides, I just used my thumbnail and it was easy to gradually unclip it, leaving the back part under the screen till last seemed the natural way...remembering to take out the dummy card first. When its put back together no one would tell, unless you are clumsy the warranty should still be intact as there are no security tags to break.

 

Hi Guys

I'm considering buying this nice machine as a best balance between portability and power. Unfortunately my budget is limited so I have to go for i5 version. Does anybody know if CPU is fixed on mobo or can be replaced in the future (when necessary) ?

Greetings from Germany

 

Haha exactly the same deal! awesome huh?

I want to install a SSD later so glad you've succesfully done this.

can anyone explain to me how fast boot works? in the advanced options of easy settings there is what looks like a msconfig, but I'm not sure if I turn things on in here they load faster or do not load at all.

is there a way to switch off the nvidia when not in use? as I can only seem to get 2.5 hours on power saver when people are reporting at least 4 sometimes 5.

I thought that may be the case, I guess I'll give it a week or so to settle. is everyone reinstalling windows a fresh? or keeping the samsung one?

there is an option to switch on usb charging when sleeping in the eay settings I believe

 

Yes JL have been the source of a few good deals for many years...

To answer the Fast Boot question, one is as you say controlled by the OS, and is a combination of using the express cache, (not used when an SSD is fitted), and selective start up, it just delays a few apps in the start menu, again not needed with an SSD as they load fairly instantly anyway. Its a few tricks used to give the impression of getting to a useable OS faster with an HDD.

The other fast boot option is in the BIOS, and it bypasses some of the pre boot functions to get to the OS quicker. For example F4 and F10 don't work, so if you want to do anything with either of those then disabling it temporarily is the way to go.

Not sure about your other questions

 

bloatware will always slow a system down. Since there seems to be a few things still needed here it becomes tough to just filter out the "Must Haves". A lean install with those needed util's is always better than the full installation and will show even more on a 5400 RPM hdd than a SSD. This is common with almost all systems and some to more of a degree than others.

If you plan to keep the HDD, any HDD, as the boot drive I would suggest getting a better defragger than the stock M$ variant. I have found through personal use Perfect Disk works wonders. While EC will cache alot of the boot files it can never cache everything so the better the files are arranged on the HDD the more responsive the system.

While on the subject of EC, the trimer the install and load up the more effective EC will be. Not loading bloatware will reduce files requied for both boot up and personal logins etc. This reduction will alow the smallish EC to better cache just those files required for boot and usage.

 

ah so basically its like MSconfig?

@TANWare shall I defrag the disk straight away then? I thought you only defragged on older disks?

also what are you guys using for trackpad settings? I downloaded a google chrome extension but it is quite hard to configure to achieve smooth scrolling like a macbook esqe style

 

Thanks im guessing that i just have to format it when i install the ssd.

If im not missing something some of you replaced the disc drive with the hard drive can someone pleas give me a link for the Hdd caddy and the parts if any needed form ebay uk or amazon uk thanks

amazon just posted my cant wait

 

I absolutely hate Samsung software. A few weeks ago their update software showed me options to update and it completely screwed up easy settings. So I tried to uninstall it but it ended up in a no-mans land state of not installed but pieces remain somewhere. Every time I try to install the latest version of easy settings it says it has "detected version 3.02.000 of Easy Settings" already installed, and claims I am trying to install 1.1.

The result is my screen brightness is stuck and can only change from dim to super dim, and I am getting giant headaches. No matter what brightness settings I change in the power settings I can't get maximum brightness.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Just stuck my screen brightness to full and after the initial eye burn...wow the screen looks so much nicer lol. Do many of you use full brightness or do you leave it on auto in the easy settings so that it adjusts due to ambient light?

Any idea how badly it will affect my battery life by having the screen set to full all the time? Looks so much better and everything is far more readable.

 

Whoa lots of activity since I last checked this thread. For screen brightness, I haven't had a problem since I turned off Intel's Display Power Management. And I also have auto Brightness turned off in Easy Settings. I usually run my brightness at the 2nd bar, bright enough for me and the colors look fine once switched to "Sharp" in Easy Settings. I don't use the ICC profile from the other thread because Im too lazy, and the colors don't bother me. I also sped up the starting of EasyDisplayMgr, EasySPeedupManager and SmartSetting in Task Scheduler from the 30 second delay at login to no delay. I disabled MovieColorEnhancer and EasySoftwareManagerAgent there as well.

I have USB Charging enabled in the Bios and in Easy Settings, but I haven't been able to get it to work but it didn't matter enough for me to actively research it. Since swapping my stock HDD with an SSD I used the provided disc to re-install Windows 7 to the SSD since a USB install didn't work. I disabled Expresscache and haven't found another good use for it since I also disable the page file on all my computers and made sure AHCI and trim were on. Hibernation is off, defragging is off, as well as system backup and protection; all to minimize reads and writes on the SSD to prolong its life.

I think I've addressed all the questions I saw whilst reading, but let me know if you'd got more that I can answer.

 

@yjgfikl: Good job. That's how to run these machines!

One comment: if you don't use ExpressCache, just uninstall the software (as opposed to disabling it in Easy Settings). But maybe that's already what you meant.

 

Hey you guys so I am returning the laptop to bestbuy because I found it brand new for $880 on ebay so I'm saving $200. The thing is I uninstalled some programs that came with the laptop such as Microsoft word. I re installed windows 7, but it didn't re install some of the programs including Microsoft word. Is there any way to be able to get it back?

 

Hi all just registered so I could post a quick question, although apologies to those over the pond on the North American continent, this is aimed at any UK members who've bought this laptop - I think rheeley, btb32, and newcastlefc200 at least are in the UK, based on their posts.

I am on the verge of buying the UK version (NP700z5c-s01uk), I've looked on a number of retailer sites here and some have specs showing the 640m card with 1gb of DDR3 RAM and others show it with GDDR5 RAM, under the identical part/model number (plus others that don't say which type it is at all just show 640M with 1gb RAM).

I could understand if there were higher spec'd versions with different model codes, and those with stock showing with the GDDR5 RAM are higher priced so it could be a different variant but could also be vendors not having a clue about what they're putting up or getting different spec sheets from Samsung - (from this thread it sounds like the US and CA models have the GDDR5 RAM, although Samsung's US site doesn't specify the type of RAM on the GPU for the 700z5c).

Samsung's UK website is equally useless and doesn't even show either the 700z5c or z7c even though both are featured on UK retailers' sites, they just show a generic Series 7 Chronos 15.6" with much lower specs throughout.

Can any of the UK owners check which RAM they got on their GPU cards please? Could really do with an answer asap as the £100 cashback offer from Samsung expires at the end of this month, (sorry to seem impatient).

Great thread by the way, although it's taken so much time to read through all the posts I've neglected both work and family for the past couple few days!

 

Here you are,

 

hi is it normal that battery wont charge to the 100% stays at 98 %,i just got it today changed it to 100% unplge it to see how many h it will stay on battery plugged it in after 10 min it wont charge over 98 % .


I just did a fresh w7 install on ssd battery is stile 98% not chagrin, im in process of removing the cd drive can some one advice is the battery fatly before i remove the cd drive ?

 

It's just avoiding a new charge cycle when you're this close to fully charged. Better for battery health. Use it on battery till it drops below 80% (or something) and it should charge to full 100% next time.

 

thanks now i have a new problem did i get the wrong caddy ?



1 one caddy 2 cd rom

 

Thanks btb, for the definitive and rapid answer. Can't believe how some sites have it listed as DDR3 on the GPU card, e.g. Save on Laptops who had the lowest price. I rang them yesterday and asked them to confirm the GPU memory spec and they said their spec sheet from Samsung said DDR3!

Anyway, have ordered it now, with next day delivery, it was £850 so £750 after I claim the £100 cashback from Samsung, which nearly brings it down to US prices.

So for info, the S01UK model spec is the 3615QM CPU, a 1TB HDD (5400 rpm), 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz, and the GT 640M GPU with 1GB GDDR5 - rather excited now for its arrival tomorrow!

 

It's odd, you'd expect a manufacturer to get the specs right.

The other I did was replace the 4GB memory for 8GB, so 12GB in total, its cheap enough at under £30 direct from Crucial. Oh and do put an SSD in it, you know it gives such an improvement you really can't do without one!

 

anyone getting or originally got BSOD's? It's only a week old, I've updated all the drivers I can think of and it still bluescreens! it happens when it comes out of hybrid sleep mode, not all the time but most of the time. its really annoying! it bluescreened this mornign when it came out of hibernation (I guess it hibernates after being in sleep mode for a long time) any advice?

 

what spec laptop have you got? I've got the 14" one and it says 8GB is the highest capacity?

 

Not sure about the 14" - this thread is based on the 700Z5C which is the 15.6", but I think this query has been raised previously in this thread for the 700Z5C, with people saying the same as you - although the Samsung official position is 8GB max lots of people have put in an 8GB strip to get 12GB in total and it works fine, so no reason to think your 14" is any different. To be certain, there will be other threads on the forum covering your model more specifically, try there and you'll probably get a more knowledgeable reply than mine.

 

ah its only £30, may just see if it works, I believe they have a return policy! it won't damage the laptop though will it?

also did you clean install? or leave samsungs os on there?

 

Haven't got mine yet, and I'm a bit of a novice (but I have read this entire thread!), but the 'experts' and purists on here suggest a clean install is the way to go for both the Windows OS and the Samsung utilities, the latter so you can choose which bits to load.

 

I agree with what was said. Put your model into the Crucial memory checker and see what it comes up with, I can only really speak for the 15".

I added an SSD so was able to install clean OS on that, and saw no need to remove the Samsung OS on the original HDD, so I can pick which to use, though the original Samsung W7 is too slow compared to the SSD, so for now its left as is, there's no need for me to reclaim the space.

Do what suits you best, if you ever want to go back use the restore feature on the F4 key!

 

any one here plays dayz ? i am getting the same frame rates abut 20 same as dell xps 2 with gt 525 with is strange

 

Bummer, I'm trying to install the Windows 8 Release Preview (to show a friend) on a separate partition and again I'm running into the error with Windows being unable to create the 100mb system partition due to the 8gb SSD. Clearly I was foolish enough to believe they'd have fixed that problem with the new installer but I guess not.

Any idea on how to get this thing dual-booting Windows 8 without me having to sacrifice a DVD? I'm not even sure a DVD install would even work actually since it wouldn't be the Samsung-provided SSD.

EDIT: I'm going to try deleting the Expresscache Partition since I don't use it anyway

EDIT 2: I got close. It went ahead with the Windows 8 install and yet upon rebooting went right back to Windows 7. So I opened up Disk Management and lo and behold Windows 8 installed to the 30GB I allocated to it on my primary SSD, however it installed its 350mb system reserved partition on the Sandisk 8GB SSD. Therefore, Windows 8 is not a boot option still. I got close. SO CLOSE.

 

does anyone know if there is any updates to the driver or firmware for the expresscache? I'm having BSOD's and i'm told the expresscache is being reported as the problem!

 

I replaced my ODD with a second hard drive and I was wondering if there was a way to disable the ODD bay temporarily when not in use

 

The only things available are the drivers and firmware you see on Samsung's support page or what's in Easy Software Manager. I'm currently waiting on a new sound driver as well.

Also, dp3000 you want to disable the hard drive you put into the optical caddy? I'm not sure why you'd want to do that but I'm sure you can disable the disk drive under Device Manager. I don't think it'll prevent the drive from spinning and consuming power, but it'll make it inaccessible.

 

Been using mine for a couple weeks now and it hasn't got any faster. Formatted it before I started using so no bloat, it's the top spec one yet everything is hourglasses and loading signs. Seems to take forever to boot and to load any programs, anyone else find the same?

 

I can't tell the difference, either, and I can also say that the one on Amazon isn't a typo; a guy in the reviews says his says S03 on it, not S02.

 

I just did a clean install and I was wondering if my cpu usage is unusally high at 30%?

 

Just a message to those who bought from John Lewis for £899 (before cashback), they've now reduced it by £100 making it £699 after cashback. I just gave them a call as its their policy to match the price drop if you bought within 30 days. Without hesitation they offered me the £100 back onto my card. so if you act fast you too can get another £100 off.

 

You can set a short time-out for the hard disk under the Windows power management advanced settings.

John

 

Can someone with a 3615QM (this CPU) tell me what clock speed it idles at in CPU-Z? 800Mhz or 1.2Ghz? Thanks Screenshot would be even better!

 

Your answer is 1.2Ghz: