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

I meant this to be a reply to this post:
"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."

I've just looked on the John Lewis web site and they don't seem to sell the Z5C anymore (??). They have dropped the price of the Z3C to £799. If it was the Z5C you bought could you please confirm as my guess would be that they have pulled it from sale to avoid paying lots of £100 rebates, though I think that even if they only sold it at the reduced price for a day they should still, according to their own policy, offer the rebate.

I would phone their (usually excellent) customer services but I'm on a train so there's no point in trying!

 

You are correct, I just followed my own saved link to this NP700Z5C and it says page not found. So JL have took it down, sorry it seems to be too late now. I rang them yesterday about this time and they checked my order number, agreed it was now £100 cheaper and processed a refund.

What a difference a day makes. I think too many £100 refunds made them reconsider.

PS Just a thought, you could ask if they price match with 'SaveOnLaptops' where its £829. Or as you say it was on sale at the price we're talking about so they still may price match it if asked.

 

Newcastle, only just checked back into the forum after a few days and saw your post/question. Don't know about any driver or firmware update but have you tried resetting the expresscache in the easy settings utility.

I had some issues with speed after loading lots of programs (like CS6) so tried the reset and it wiped everything off the iSSD except a small system protected area. Obviously if you've tried this already then ignore me!

 

rheeley - have you tried resetting the cache as above - I had problems with it running really slow, the HDD light staying on constantly or for ages after booting up. I had also loaded another Samsung utility whilst I was looking for and downloading driver updates, this automatically checked for Samsung updates (separate to the easy software manager as the ESM is utter rubbish). I then suspected this was causing issues constantly checking for updates so uninstalled it. After that and the expresscache reset it's been fine, obviously the 5400 1TB disk slows it down a bit but overall no problems now.

 

As suggested in my posts above - I now own a Z5C-S01UK which arrived last Friday (28 Sep), which I think is the same as the S02/S03 US models (i7-3615 2.3GHz; 8GB DDR3 1600; GT640M) but with the slower bigger 1TB 5400rpm HDD. £850 before £100 cashback.

Following guidance from posts here I've spent all my free time over the weekend and evenings so far this week re-partitioning the HDD, with a small system partition for windows and other programs and a large data partition; then reloading windows from the recovery partition, removing bloatware and unwanted utilities from Samsung; loading the suggested colour profile and calibrating the display, etc, etc. Then transferring all my data (mainly photos and music), and loading programs like Adobe CS6.

All I can say is I love my new toy! (Although the wife's fed up with it already as I'm apparently neglecting my duties as a father and husband).

 

link please

 

Have a look at this thread:

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

 

I spoke to John Lewis customer services today and they are crediting me the £100 with no problem whatsoever

I do like shopping with them - they've never let me down.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

want to put in an 830 ssd to replace the hdd. do I need the laptop kit which includes a spacer or will a 7mm drive fit ok without this?

 

7mm thick will fit into a 9mm space. The screw holes are in the same alignment as the connector.

John

 

I mounted the 830 without the spacer in mine.


Thanks!
David
Sent from my iPhone using
Tapatalk

 

Sup, i found a picture of the NP700Z5C-S03US, I dont think theres any other difference from the NP700Z5C-S01US other than the 2b extra ram..

Can someone find any othder difference..? i guess this is for people that dont want to bother opening their laptops and really want the 8gb ram..

200$ difference between the two models on amazon

 

Tell you one thing, this plays world of warcraft like a charm. I didnt check the system settings to see what it had defaulted to but looked no diff to my desktop and was getting 150fps in stormwind :| Thats so much better than i was expecting lol. Gets mentally hot though, as in within minutes its almost burning my lap, not sure if thats likely to damage the laptop/screen as it gets really hot just below the screen too?

 

IIRC a few times in this thread the "trick" of lowering max CPU in your power settings profile to 99% has come up, which may help with the heat issues. Of course, you may end up dropping to ~100fps in WoW, but it's a small price to pay.

-Matt

 

Wondering -- how's the heat on this model? I returned its 14 inch cousin because it heat up a lot during gaming around WASD.

 

Does anyone know if Samsung has released Windows 8 drivers for the series 7?

 

Samsung is promising Windows 8 support for a long list of notebooks but so far has not released any specific software or drivers. Some people have installed Windows 8 already and encountered some issues as discussed h ere.

John

 

For anyone who owns the 14" version, what are you guys getting for idle cpu usage for

 

Just though I'd post to say how impressed I am with this laptop!

I had originally planned on getting the new XPS 15 (L521X), but decided against it based on the terminal throttling problem, and also the awful Wi-Fi performance. I then found this laptop, which matches nearly all the specs, and sizes of the XPS, but is also somewhere around £400 cheaper! The only downside is the 900p screen instead of the full 1080p screen of the Dell. However that's a compromise I can make to get a laptop that actually works. I was worried about how this laptop would hold up in games, when running the CPU and GPU at 100% for a while, and if/when the laptop would start throttling. I'm very happy to say that so far I've never seen it throttle at all. I've even been able to overclock the GPU to the maximum available +135MHz, and also +400MHz on the memory (can probably go higher, but I've not tried, yet). Even with these clocks the temperatures don't get to the point where the laptop starts throttling. Very impressive for a laptop with such a small footprint, and so very thin!

Other than that the laptop has been perfect in day to day use, and I'm fairly picky about little problems.

 

Forgive the stupid question but I've searched and found little.
I have the NP700Z5C (BB edition w/ the 630) and would like to swap the HDD out with a spare SSD I have.
Clearly this can be done after reading the thread, but how exactly does one get to the HDD on this model?
Any guide / pictures?

I've done this numerous times on other laptops, but this is one of the more compact ones I've tinkered with.

thanks!

 

There's another thread dedicated to the disassembly and it's pretty straight forward, just be really careful:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/632487-samsung-series-7-chronos-np700z5a-disassembly-guide.html

 

Doh, that was obvious.
Thank you sir, SSD installed and back in business

 

Please can someone tell me what their idle cpu usage is for the 14" series 7. It's at the bottom of the window task manager.

 

Gosh I REALLY need Samsung to push a new driver for the Realtek HD Audio. I consistently need to go into device manager and disable then re-enable it in order to get sound after sleep, sometimes after fresh boot, and nearly every time after plugging and unplugging my headphones. If I uninstall it, all 3 speakers won't work together so that's not an option. I wonder if non-OEM Realtek drivers will work. Just need to find ones that support 3 speakers.

Has anyone else had this problem?

EDIT: I downloaded the R70 driver from Realtek's website; speakers are working properly, the 2.1 system. The driver in device manager is listed as 6.0.1.6662 and the one provided by Samsung is 6.0.1.6699 so this is actually a downgrade. So far I haven't gotten the driver issue but we'll see if this is actually a fix.

 

Hey everyone! So I bought the S01 and upgraded it with a Samsung 830 256GB SSD and 4GB RAM taking it to a total of 8GB. I used the included Norton Ghost that came with the SSD to migrate the OS. So far everything seems to be working fine and great. It's a very sharp and handsome system and with the SSD I'm getting boot times under 13s. The audio is great, and despite everyone's complaints, I quite like the screen. The resolution seems perfect for this size and while the viewing angles aren't spectacular, the matte finish is fantastic (I'm typing this in my family room with the sun blazing on the screen, no problem!)

I do, however, have one concern. For fun I decided to run 3DMark 11 and take a look at temps with CPUID HWMonitor:
NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3615QM Processor,SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 700Z3C/700Z5C score: P2050 3DMarks
I was pleased with the score and my max GPU temp of 71 C. I know there was some talk in this thread about temps, but I couldn't seem to find any consensus. I got CPU temps of 86 C on two cores, 89 C on another core and finally 90 C on the final core. These seem PRETTY high to me. I want to make sure that this isn't unhealthy for my computer. At low usage the cores are hanging in the mid-50s. Thoughts? Appreciate it!

 

Hi All

First time poster, but long time lurker.

I've been humming and hawing between the NP700Z5C and the HP DV6T for awhile now. Ill be needing a notebook for school/gaming come January. The DV6T has a slightly better graphics (650 vs 630) and the obvious 1080 vs 900 screen but crappier build quality. I can deal with the slightly lower graphics card but I would prefer the higher resolution screen. Has there been any indication that Samsung will release an updated version with a higher rez screen any time soon?

 

Not that I've posted in here yet, I've been reading it, I've had the laptop about a month or so now your temperatures are pretty much what I get on this laptop (as do others from what I've read).
I was somewhat concerned at first seeing the temps, but going back to my old laptop they are about the same if not a bit better when web browsing though a bit higher (maybe 10c or so compared to old laptop) in games and benchmarks.

I've had spikes of high 80s on CPU for benchmarking, 70c~ for GPU, about 70-75c & 60c~ respectively, in a Total War game I have (not that I really play games that much on this laptop).
Idle-Low usage (Office & Web Browsing) 45-55c & 40c~.

 

Ok, thanks for the response! Just wanted to make sure this wasn't abnormal. Did a bit of gaming on GW2 and CPU temps were hovering in the mid 80s, so that makes me a bit more comfortable. Overall, very pleased.

 

For those still sitting on the fence (like me!), Best Buy is listing for preorder a newer version of their $999 S01UB:

Samsung - Series 7 15.6" Laptop - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Titan Silver - NP700Z5C-S02UB

The two biggest improvements on the newer S02UB are (1) the 640M GPU w/1GB, and (2) the slightly better 3635QM Core i7 (0.1 GHz faster than the 3615! LOL).

The price is also $999 (don't forget tax), which may make it a better deal than the spring-2012 S01US (currently $1049 at Amazon).

No word yet on when it ships. Since it comes with Win8, that probably means it's available in about 2 more weeks.

-Matt

 

I have the best buy model and have a 15.9 sec boot time to desktop with a Kingston 256 ssd. I'm using boot racer to measure could a few of you guys with ssd's compare my numbers using the same program. Thanks in advance

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

Awww no way??? I'm surprised now that Best Buy is going to have the best model of the Series 7 AND at the best price. I don't care much for the 1TB upgrade since the 750gb is a faster drive, but still, damn. I'm using the 750gb as an external, and an extra 250gb wouldn't hurt. I'd love to have that upgraded CPU :/

I guess that's how it goes with computers.

 

Oh, don't sweat it -- we'll ALL be moaning and groaning next spring when Samsung swaps out the IB and puts in Core i7 Haswells!

Login to DIGITIMES archive & research

-Matt

 

Haha true, but at least I've actually been expecting a Haswell re-release!

 

Ah! I can't believe that they are adding the GT 640m to it... and this newer version is 0.04" thinner. I should have waited! Would have saved $150. Although, I'm not entirely sure I want Windows 8. The consensus seems to be that its a nice operating system but only provided you have some touch interface.

 

I'm fairly sure I'll pick one up (though the Asus N56VJ-DH71 for the same price looks competitive -- FHD screen, 635m, 5lbs). Probably the first thing I'm curious to check is whether the S02UB also uses the SEC0006 panel, or if perhaps it's been upgraded.

-Matt

 

Hi everyone,

I just bought this laptop around a week ago, model number NP700Z5C-S01CA. I've since swapped out the hard drive for an ADATA SX900 256GB SSD. What an absolute beast this thing is! It boots faster than my monster desktop, which is a 3930K based computer also with an SSD. I've even grown to like the screen, which was the only thing holding me back from buying this machine was seeing the screen in store compared to others. I use the laptop often while on the road, and the matte screen is amazing for such uses. Sun isn't a problem at all.

I had a problem while updating the BIOS a few days ago, and I was wondering if any of you ran into the same issue. While flashing, the laptop crashed with a BSOD error code 124 which usually indicates a RAM issue. After my heat skipped a few beats, I tried turning the laptop back on. It took me a good 10 minutes to get it going again, but finally it worked. I've stress tested the laptop since then with Prime95 and it hasn't crashed at all, so I think my RAM (upgraded to 12GB) is fine and the BIOS utility was the culprit.

Can one of you guys who have updated the BIOS do me a favour, please? Could you possibly verify your MICOM version in the BIOS? I think my laptop crashed before the update was complete as prior to flashing my BIOS indicated:

BIOS VERSION: P02AAG
MICOM VERSION: P02AAG

And after updating:

BIOS VERSION: P03AAG
MICOM VERSION: P02AAG

So I suspect the MICOM (whatever that may be) didn't get update before the crash. I can't re-update the BIOS as the utility sees the P03 BIOS version and says I'm already up to date.

Is there an alternative way to flashing a new BIOS than the Windows utility that Samsung provides?

Thanks!

 

Hi everyone. New user here. I bought the Best Buy model 2 weeks ago and just saw the new Windows 8 model with the slightly upgraded specs at the same price. I don't do a ton of gaming, but since I'd be within the return window, would it be worth it to exchange for the new model once it's released? I plan on having this for 5 years hopefully and just don't want to regret it. Any insight is appreciated!

 

It would but a poor choice not to, especially if it is the same price and if you are 100 percent in the return window. I just put a SSD in mine too lol. I'll be taking mine back.

Regarding windows 8, if you can get a hold of a windows 7 oem copy (100 bucks) at some places just install windows 7.

 

Can anyone tell me if the area around WASD heats up on this version of the laptop during gaming/load? The 14 inch one I had I loved but it got really hot around WASD.

 

I've been using mine for almost a week now and I have not noticed any significant heat around the WASD keys, even while gaming.

 

Thanks. Think that's just because 640m runs a lot cooler than 630m? The 14 inch I had could've literally burned me if I touched the metal near the speaker grills.

 

Took mine back today. I was going to keep it even though the best buy model with the 640 is coming out but I really really hate the touch pad and the screen, it's just down right horrible.

 

Updated the Bios on my NP700z5c-S01US while ago aswell.
All went smoothly.

Says now:
BIOS VERSION: P03AAG
MICOM VERSION: P03AAG

So.. true.. unfortunately it looks like something went wrong there with your update..

Sorry i have no idea what to do about it though..
My first post.. maybe it helped anyways..

Great thread.. a lot of info and insights!
THank you guys!

Good luck with the fix!

 

Have you tried downloading the BIOS file and opening that? The full file name is "ITEM_20120809_616_WIN_P03AAG.exe" I'm not sure from your message if you have tried running that file on its own or by only using the BIOS update utility.

 

I'm not entirely sure. It may just have to do with small differences in the cooling systems. I've found with the series 7 that the heat issues are more with the CPU than with the GPU. My 640M rarely breaks above the low 70s where as my CPU will easily cruise into the mid-80s with intensive load (gaming). With that in mind, the speaker area just below the screen does get a bit warm but it would never burn me.

Really my only complaint with the laptop is that I wish it were a bit thinner (more like a Retina Mac Book Pro than like a Mac Book Pro). It's dead silent unless gaming, and even then, the excellent speakers or a TV in the background drown it out no problem.

 

Do the keys warm up a lot? On my 14 inch the WASD area would get warm enough to make my fingers very sweaty and the area around the speaker would be warm enough to hurt if touched for too long.

Also for people who are waiting for the best buy model, you can already get one with a 640m from the microsoft store or staples or new egg. The best buy one just has a bigger (but slower) harddrive and also windows 8 if u like that (i dont lol)

 

No, I don't find that the WASD gets noticeably warm. The area around the speakers gets warm, but not uncomfortable to touch.

With regards to the Best Buy version, it may we worth the wait in terms of price. Beyond that, the specs are almost identical.

 

Thanks. The notebook check review of the older 15 inch chronos found temps of over 100 degrees on WASD which was my experience with the 14 inch ivy bridge/630m chronos. That's just too hot to be comfortable, especially the metal a little further up is much hotter than that. Looks like switch to ivy bridge, 640m, bigger chasis hopefully keeps temps more down than that.

Review Samsung Series 7 700Z5A Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

Hi All

I just see on german market updated revision with Windows 8, 16GB Express Cache and faster RAM... CPUs are the same ones as before.

Sent from my HTC Sensation

 

Thank you for pointing that out. That's a good improvement and allows the EC to be used for more purposes: Rapid Start, installing a slim OS -- or just more cache. With luck, maybe they switched to a faster iSSD as well, instead of the slow SanDisk P4.