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

It will run as asymmetric dual channel. There will be a slight reduction in the memory bandwidth but more than compensated by the extra RAM. My table here is for tests for different combinations of modules with the Sandy Bridge platform but the results with Ivy Bridge will be very similar.

John

 

Agreed. ExtremeTech did a test a few years back (page is gone, ) that measured ram speed vs. capacity, and capacity always made a MUCH bigger difference than an increase in speed or bandwidth.

 

Can anyone comment on the durability of the power jack? I have small children and animals running around (i.e., tripping) the house. Thanks.

 

Seems pretty solid to me -- both the connections into the brick and the laptop are fairly tight. In fact, you have to insert the plug into the laptop with a bit of force. Which of course might argue for the opposite outcome, i.e., maybe a magnetic/breakaway connection would work better in your case?

-Matt

 

A break away solution would definitely be better as I was a victim of someone tripping over my charger in the library. Now the right hand side of my chassis of the display is dented. Not a massive dent but it is still there. I was surprised nothing else broke, it was a mighty drop from a table that made the library even quieter with the noise it made. It all happened in slow motion lol

 

Is it just me or does the GT640m lack adaptive vsync?

 

Bit the bullet and bought an open box NP700Z5C-S2UB at Best Buy the day before Christmas for $635! I couldn't believe the price. Tried to figure out why it was priced so low as it seems to work fine. Then I noticed a barely detectable small scratch on the top that was barely evident.

It has the newer screen which I think looks great. Have had problems with the screen dimming at times I saw no reason for it to do so, the wireless connection occasionally breaks but was generally pretty reliable and the keyboard backlighting goes off at times when I really need it to see the keys. I've also had it lock up twice when in Internet Explorer. All of these have been reported by others.

However the absolute worst thing about it is Windows 8. I absolutely HATE the start screen. I was about to return it but discovered the desktop approach. However there is a lot "missing" from its usual place (as in Win XP or 7) that I stil, have to try to locate so I can adjust my workflow. One thing that really bothered me was that if I opened up Internet Explorer from the start screen and then went to it from the desktop, there were apparently two different sessions because my opened tabs in the start screen version weren't open when I started up Internet Explorer from the desktop. Unless I'm missing something, they don't seem to be integrated. Very strange IMHO.

Also, the Internet Explorer session from the Start screen must have been software engineered by people who don't use common apps. When reading my mail in a tab, the backward and forward arrows on the sides midscreen made it impossible for me to delete messages in my inbox because they opened over the box to click in to delete them. Same with a scroll bars at the edges of the tab window... try to click on the scroll bar and I generally get that stupid Charms bar extending from the right hand side of the screen and preventing me from clicking on the scroll bar. Same thing on the left hand side with the nonsense that extends from the left margin.

I've worked with almost every version of Windows starting with 1 (and, of course DOS and CP/M before that). I did skip Win ME and Vista. IMHO Win 8 is one of the most stupid updates I've experienced in terms of the user interface.

Will be loading some of my mission critical software to ensure it all runs under Win 8. I have 30 days to decide if I can live with the strangeness of Win 8. I do love the hardware for the most part.

 

Congrats. BTW, you can get rid of all of the apps and pretty much use the laptop just like windows 7. I actually really like the start menu. I figure, when I boot up my machine, I'm going to obviously launch an app, right? The first thing presented to me might as well be a way to launch an app.

 

Awesome...I think... Glad that there are a few positives for you, especially the amazing price! A couple quick thoughts:

- Windows+X (IIRC) in desktop mode pulls up a menu of several important functions (e.g., Computer Management, Device Manager, Programs and Features, etc.)
- In the Modern UI (aka start screen), under Personal Settings -> General (IIRC) should be a toggle for the automatic dimming (you can also get to it in the advanced power settings configuration)
- You might try heading over to Intel and checking for an updated wireless driver (btw, how are "Settings" and "SW Update" behaving?)

I totally agree that the two versions of IE is pretty dumb -- I have to wonder if they deliberately "crippled" it to make the next version more popular...?

Keep us posted on how the legacy software performs!

-Matt

 

Mine doesn't have the metro version of IE for some reason. No skin off my back, since I'd never use it, but I don't miss it.

 

Microsoft Windows 8 compatibility web site says Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe Premiere 6.0 are compatible with Win 8. Nonsense. Neither one will install from my original CDs.

I'm going to try to set up a dual boot configuration with Windows 8 and XP so I can run this software on the Samsung.

 

When I was using the Windows 8 Release Preview the Metro version of IE disappeared when I installed Chrome and set it as my default browser. I'm not sure why W8 is programmed like that, but if you've installed a 3rd party browser I'm betting that's why it's missing.

 

So finally i got my NP700Z5C-S03IT with a 640M... now i got some Side by Side 3d films and i would like to see them on my 3d television through hdmi...is it possible? if yes should i use cyberlink or what?

is there a way tempor disable HD4000?
I noticed that i cant install official nvidia drivers from the site :/ is it normal?

 

hi... as far i know there is no option in bios to disable intel GPU... regarding nVidia driver you must install intel gpu driver first and the nVidia as 2nd driver....

 

I did and i have both installed.. i just dont know if it's all ok.. if i start "stereoscopic player" with a SBS 3d left-to-right it doesnt seem to work properly.. is there a way to check if my conf for 3d is ok?

 

Does this thing have an SSD? It has an option that is turned on; I have the S02.
I wanna get rid of Windows 8. Period. I have no use for it whatsoever. Can I just wipe this thing and install Windows 7 without any issues?

 

Is this a GDDR5 640m or ddr3?

Does it have throttling issues or is it running perfectly smoothly at safe temps when gaming?

How are the fans when just idle and web browsing?

 

Technically it's 8GB soldered to the mobo, rather than a conventional discrete SSD. HWiNFO64 reports it as a SanDisk SSD i100 (SATA 6Gb/s). Samsung's intention is to provide it as a cache for accelerating boot and program load times. If you're comfortable with wiping and installing Win 7, the only challenge I would note is whether you want to stay with EUFI or switch back to legacy BIOS. In the latter case, it should be a simple job, the former, not so much. FWIW I'm running 7 on the S02UB and pretty happy with it.

This particular 640m is GDDR5 -- I had the same card when I briefly owned the S01US, so I'd assume they're all the same. Tempwise, I'm seeing ~70C during gaming with no sign of throttling, though the CPU may run as hot as ~80C. At that point the fans are blowing pretty hard (toward the back/screen), but the keyboard area stays fairly cool (at least for me).

The fans and HDD are both totally silent during idle and light use. You also have the option of using "Silent Mode" which will drop CPU speed over fan use as a cooling priority.

-Matt

 

Ty for quick reply. Can you also tell me what kind of wireless card that comes on NP700Z5C and the new bestbuy model? Is it the intel card?

Can you also do me one favor when you got time and also other owners. Can you guy find out if there is keyboard ghosting on the NP700Z5C keyboards. If you don't have any idea what keyboard ghosting is, click the link below and it has the info you need and you can also test your keyboard out. It's basically pressing 3 keys simultaneously and if one of the 3 keys that are pressed at the same time does not work or register then it has ghosting issue. I'm mainly interested in Q+W+SpaceBar or W+E+SpaceBar or Q+W+D or W+D+SpaceBar. On the link below you can test out the keyboard and all 3 keys should light up green.


Microsoft Applied Sciences Group

 

I'm pretty sure the Intel 6235 is standard for all the Z5C models. I had lackluster throughput at home on it, but an hour of tuning the router (esp. avoiding neighbors' channels, BTW WiFi Analyzer on Android is super tool) fixed that.

All four of your key-combos worked fine.

-Matt

 

No keyboard ghosting Matt? That's great news!! I'm about to hit Bestbuy in a few hours and i still have a few questions.
How is the sound quality on it?

I like the 1600x900 on a 14" or 15" display but i'm not sure about the quality of the display itself, does it have good color gamut and do you have any info on the SRGB coverage of it? Is the matte screen grainy or is it super clear and colorful?

Last question, i want to know the actual battery life that you got from this from 100% to 0% when just web browsing and playing music. (Not the estimates)

 

Has no one gotten adaptive vsync working on the 640m?

 

Alas, sound quality you'll have to judge for yourself -- it's a household of 4 here so we usually use headphones! I'd say the few times I've heard the speakers they were "better than adequate" but I think it's a very subjective issue.

And ah, the screen is worth a dissertation in itself. By virtue of the fact that you used the terms "good color gamut" and "SRGB coverage" I can already guess it will probably not knock your socks off. The earlier models had a very disappointing screen though it seems the Best Buy S02UB has better color and contrast (maybe by a very small amount). Something that has helped improve subjective color quality is adjusting the ICC Profile. I guess I'll leave it to your eye to judge.

Either way, I've owned mine for about 6 weeks now and I am 110% satisfied. This is -- bar none -- the best notebook I've owned to date (going back to 1995 and counting maybe 10-12 machines). RE: the matte display, I would describe it as "clear and colorful," but not "super." I've seen several owners rave about how it performs outside and in bright settings, but my uses are more mundane. The pluses for me are the resolution and the brightness -- and given so many other features scored as excellent for me (e.g., temperature, weight, battery life, etc.) -- I'm OK with a "not-really-retina-quality" screen.

Speaking of battery life, I haven't had the chance to do any rundown testing, but I'd confidently put light use like web browsing at around 6 hours. I've been amazed on several occasions to unplug, then do a few hours of work (e.g., the router tuning I mentioned earlier), and then check estimated battery time to see that I've got 4 or 5 hours left. I was looking at several other machines that would need major tweaking to reach 4 hours (e.g., the Sony S15 and the Asus N56) so it's a joy that the Samsung performs so well with so little effort.

-Matt

 

The matte screen was one of the major factors I used in choosing the Series 7 model group. I bought a Dell laptop about five years ago that was supposed to have a screen I could use outside (I love working near the ocean since I live on an island), but the seller was wrong. It was useless outdoors. The new screen (the 007) on the Best Buy S02UB model seems fine both indoors and out... better than the S01UB models I saw in the stores as far as I could tell.

 

I see the "Vertical Sync" option in the NVIDIA Control Panel -- when I first saw your question, I wasn't sure if the NVIDIA option was adaptive or just simply locked to the panel refresh rate. If you can describe a way to test whether it's adaptive or not I can check and report back.

-Matt

 

I don't think adaptive V-sync is in the drivers for now for the 640m, I haven't seen it anywhere yet. however, regular V-sync works fine in most newer games since they don't actually halve the framerate when below 60 anymore. I always have MSI Afterburner running when I play games and never see it go 60/30/15 it's always just by individual frames.

Also that stock Intel 6235 card sucks as always, and I'm thinking of picking up a 6300 because I don't mind loosing Bluetooth. Speakers are good if you mess with the equalizer in my opinion, the standard setting is far too hollow, the "rock" preset on Easy Settings made music a lot better. Much better than average laptop speakers, and they go loud.

I think I can pull 7+ hours of light web browsing on this thing, and 10 hrs of strictly word typing with all radios off. Like Matt said, web browsing and music gives 6-6.5 hours. Battery life is awesome.

 

There should be, in the nvidia settings, a third option for Adaptive Vsync, it's not there in the newest drivers for me.

Interesting. I vaguely remember Nvidia enabling it for all cards in the 600, 500 and 400 series. While I know it's a desktop card, my GTX 470 worked with adaptive vsync just fine...

For those interested, HERE is an article about it, and some screenshots of the settings screen.

 

Thanks for the article, very informative!

A minor footnote on the 640m and Windows 7: when I downgraded from 8 to 7, the 640m performed as expected. However, it bugged the heck out of me that OpenCL displayed as "not active" when I ran GPU-Z and selected the 640m. I think GPU-Z also threw an error when I started it that said, "Intel OpenCL driver bug detected, skipping OpenCL detection. Please update your Intel OpenCL driver to re-enabe this functionality." Long story short, I dug into the Intel HD4000 install folder, navigated to OpenCL, reran OCLSetup and all four features (OpenCL, CUDA, PhysX, and DirectCompute 5.0) showed as detected and working in GPU-Z.

-Matt

 

TY Gadget and the others.

One last question. I have a Samsung 830 SSD and i'd like to replace the HDD with it in the future. Is the HDD user serviceable and replaceable without voiding warranty? Is the bottom cover easy to remove and is it the standard laptop ssd/hhd size or the 7mm smaller ones?

 

Sorry I can't answer most of those questions, but here are a few good resources:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...icky-list-find-most-popular-threads-here.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...ies-7-chronos-np700z5a-disassembly-guide.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...0z3-np700z4-np700z5-series-owners-lounge.html

I also gleaned a lot from this video of the 17" Z7C: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFp5HpJ51rA

In particular, what I noticed (and have heard other owners remark) is that the plastic tabs connecting the chassis are pretty brittle. YMMV.

-Matt

 

Hey gadget, regarding the screen quality, would you say the colors are dead and dull when viewing photos and watching movies or are they colorful and a lot better than the consumer 1366x768 common displays out there?

 

The colors are definitely bright and colorful. To help compare, let's construct an imaginary 7-point scale:

1: man that's awful
2: wow, playing with settings doesn't help much
3: argh, I guess it's tolerable
4: not bad, not bad
5: it's pretty good if you tweak the settings
6: I really love my display
7: OMG, that's freakin awesome!

On that scale, I'd say most 1366x768 displays (e.g., $400-$600 15" machines) are around the 4-5 point level (IMHO). For example, I recently picked up a cheapo Samsung NP305E5A that has a reasonably crisp and bright display. It handles both text and images well, and the backlight is even across the display. What kills it for me is the lower display resolution, and weaker backlight than the NP700Z5C.

On my subjective scale, I'd put the S02UB around 5 to 5.5 (i.e., a bit better than the average display). If you pinned me down, I'd say the colors are overall pretty good, but the more salient weaknesses are poor viewing angles, and maybe some uneven backlight (e.g., the upper-right corner on most units looks a bit dark to me).

Sounds like you haven't played with one at Best Buy yet? I think you'll be pleased. If it's your first time, keep in mind that they tend to do a crappy job loading the stock software, and in particular, the Samsung utilities ("Settings"). But with a 30-day no-questions return policy you should definitely go for it.

-Matt

 

Thanks Matt so around 5.5-6 is pretty good on a 7pt scale ^_^

BTW, how is Samsung warranty? Do they come to your house like Dell or Lenovo to fix it or do you have to ship it to them? Do they cover both 2 way shipping etc..

 

Hard to believe but I actually didn't bother researching the warranty details -- from this forum I've come to sense that Samsung customer service is pretty damn awful. I hate the idea of spending $1000 and rolling the dice, but that's basically what I did this time. I tend to baby my machines and try to get 2 or 3 strong years out of them. I also work them pretty hard the first 30 days with the naive hope that any major hardware issues will surface.

Maybe this isn't much consolation, but having tuned into this thread since July, I've heard very few complaints if any about build and component quality. On other threads, in contrast, you'll often here a steady drumbeat of problems with the trackpad, or heat management, or HW/SW interface (e.g., sleep) issues. There is refreshingly little of that here.

-Matt

PS I should also note that I came within a few inches of owning the Dell XPS 14 Ultrabook (actually, I did own it for a week but sent it back with a dead fan!). The idea of in-home service was very attractive, but I could also make the argument that "if you can't build a machine that works flawlessly for 2 years, then I'm not interested."

 

Has anyone created a dual boot S02UB with Win 8 and Win XP? If so, I'd be interested in a step-by-step. Discovered I also have a fresh Win 7 install disk, but don't think I'll go that route.

Wondering mainly about the availability of drivers and the order of their installation.

 

Hello everyone!

I have been looking/reading these forums since the last week or so and I would like to thank everyone who participated in it because you guys have convinced me to get the NP700Z5C-S03UK model. I have found you guys really helpful, specially if someone has any problems, you guys are all quick to try to help your fellow members.

I had to choose between this or the Asus N56VZ and although I really liked the specs/look of it, I decided to go with the Samsung Series 7 Chronos because of its build quality and design. For a laptop this powerful, I think it's a pretty light and thin laptop. I'm really loving my new laptop. I opened it yesterday and played around a bit with it/Windows 8 and so far everything looks great. The screen looks pretty good to me and so far I'm not having any problems with the touchpad, and I'm loving it, it's really big, so you have a lot of space to work with.

My specs:
OS: Windows 8 (64 bit)
Intel Core i7 3635QM 2.4GHz
8GB RAM
1TB+8GB SSD
Nvidia GeForce GT 640M

I think the only things missing from this laptop is a Full HD display and a Blu-Ray drive.

 

Thanks for the reply. I thought it was just "in my head" lol. I appreciate the confirmation. Next thing to do, find where I can buy Windows 7, legit, lol. Heck, I'd just love to get the dang key, purchased of course. I have the DVD already. If anyone knows where I can legitimately buy the key, I'd appreciate it.

Happy new year!!!

 

I can see abunch of Z5C XP drivers here. However, why not run XP as a virtual machine using VMware player? This would avoid having to fight with UEFI, SecureBoot, etc.

John

 

Anyway, what does it means the EUFI? i saw that in BIOS, tried to switch in to EUFI but my hdd was completely wiped out, so no EUFI file?

 

THIS. Also, consider Virtual Box as a free virtual machine option. It has a ton of options and has been rock solid for me for years.

 

Hey guys, I'm hoping this is the right place to ask for help, apologies if not.

Got the 700Z5C model for christmas and really happy with it so far, but I put a disk in for the first time today (DVD - Breaking Bad if you're interested) and the laptop's failed to recognise it. The eject button on the keyboard isn't working, and as the laptop hasn't accepted the disc I can't go through My Computer or anything to eject it either. No idea what to do here, anyone had a similar experience or know how I can get the disc out?

 

That is a very nice Christmas gift. Congrats on your new toy

Sorry to hear about the stuck disc. I would boot into BIOS: Press F2 repeatedly, starting 1-2 secs after Power On. The eject button should work in there.

Of course it should work in Windows as well. But before we start debugging that, try in the BIOS. If it doesn't work in there, you could have a mechanical defect (not you, of course, the laptop )

 

Do these slot-loading drives still have a mechanical release by poking an unbent paperclip into a small hole (somewhere near the slot)? Or did that facility disappear?

John

 

John, I see a pinhole on the underside of the chassis, reasonably close to the ODD.

-Matt

 

I'm pretty sure -- if you already have the Win 7 disk -- that you should have a free downgrade path from 8 to 7. From what I've seen, you can do a clean install of 7, without entering the license key, and then you call Microsoft customer service to activate the copy of 7 you installed.

Guys, does that sound right?

-Matt

 

Or is that the battery disconnect which has a symbol of a rectangle with a cross in it? In older days the optical drives used to have a release hole in the face plate under the slot (that's where it is on my 5 year old Samsung SE-T084L slot loader).

John

 

Indeed, you can run a virtual XP from inside Win8, as suggested by John and Modred, though I believe there will be some limitations (for example no accelerated graphics).

If you DO want to dual boot Win8 and XP, I believe that is absolutely possible. I did it with Win7 last summer on my Z3A with a small 8GB XP partition. It was mostly a test: I since backed up the image and don't have it loaded anymore. The key is that Samsung provides XP drivers for your model, as John pointed out

You have two issues two consider, though:

1) Win8 PCs are delivered by Samsung in UEFI mode on a GPT partitioned disk (as opposed to the classic MBR partition table format). UEFI is a mode where Windows bypasses the BIOS allowing faster boot; it requires a GPT partitioned disk.

XP does NOT support UEFI and GPT. So you would have to change the disk to MBR and re-install Win8 with UEFI disabled (clean install -- Restoring from Recovery won't work for this.)

If you mean to start from a clean disk anyway (maybe a new SSD) this is not a problem.

2) You want to create an XP Setup disc (CD or DVD) with SP3 integrated (so-called slipstreamed) and the Intel AHCI driver added. SP3 (or SP2) is required to support drives larger than 137GB. AHCI is required to support SATA drives natively.

(I was lazy and used an old SP3 CD I had without AHCI drivers, so my XP needs to boot with AHCI disabled in BIOS. The AHCI Auto function in BIOS can detect your OS and automatically swicth AHCI on/off -- but it requires an extra boot each time to switch between Win7 and XP).

Creating such an XP Setup disc is fairly easy, using the free nLite utility (that was a link): Download SP3 from Microsoft and the AHCI driver from Intel (so-called F6 driver). Then go through the simple steps in nLite.

(There is a myth that SP3 requires you to first install SP2. That IS true when running the SP3 updater on a live XP system, but is NOT true when creating a slipstreamed Setup disc: SP3 includes everything from SP1 and SP2).

If you want to pursue this, I can help you. Again, if you're starting with a blank drive anyway, it isn't that complicated. But booting a virtual XP is almost certainly going to be simpler. It all depends on your needs.

 

You can certainly install Win7 without entering a key. You'll have 30 days during which Windows will prompt you regularly to Activate (requiring you to enter a valid key in the System Control Panel). After that it quits working.

It sounds plausible that Microsoft Support would allow you to Activate if you call them. I haven't tried that, though.

 

That did the trick! Thanks a lot, hugely appreciated.

 

The ODD on my Z3A (Mata DVD-RAM UJ8A7AS) does NOT have a manual release hole -- unfortunately. I think that was only on slot loading drives with a spring.