Samsung Series 9 - Windows 8

The procedure he tested was with Windows 8 Enterprise which uses a volume license key, and a Key Management Server. That is a completely different process from using OEM or retail media and keys.

 

But he said the procedure should also work with other Edition of Windows 8, even though he tested it on Enterprise. Form the thread, it seems a risk thing to try though. However, I couldn't find any better solution.

That sounds nice. Amazon people told me it has no Ethernet dongle though. The product page shows that. They also told me it only have 1 year US warranty but the product page shows 3 years. Did you found out about anything about the warranty?

 

Better solution to what?

 

To backup the activation of Windows 8 and make a clean install by finding another clean iso of same edition and restore the activation backup and stay genuine.

About X3D, yea, Samsung is so misleading in that. The good thing is, I am not interested in 13 inch and I haven't seen any X4Cs, and X4Ds with sandy bridge.

 

You don't need to worry about all of that now. The Windows 8 key is embedded and does not need to be backed up. If you have media that matches the Windows 8 version (Pro or standard), then you can install and activate as much as you want.

 

Oh that sounds so cool. However, what will happen when I replace the ssd?

 

Do you have a link to where you saw that on Amazon? If you scroll down about halfway on the product page to the "Wireless & Networking" section, it says "Ethernet connectivity (via included dongle)."

The Amazon warranty description is wrong. The warranty card in the box says it's a 1 year warranty.

 

Yea, you are right it says two different things, it says via included dongle. We are on the same product page. I have even seen your review. When you go down a bit, under
"What's in the Box" it says "Series 9 laptop with 15-inch screen (model NP900X4D-A05US), AC adapter, rechargeable battery, operating instructions"

 

That's an oversight on Amazon's part. Check out the NP900X4D-A05US product page on Newegg - there's a picture of everything included in the box and it shows the dongle.

 

Hey guys, I've got problem with turbo boost. I have 900x3c with i5 and i heard that processor can reach 2.6Ghz...but when I stress processor it only reaches 1.9...I checked in intel turbo boost monitor and CPU-Z...I've disabled energy saving mode in bios, and turned high performance in windows power plans...Maybe I don't have some driver? I didn't check this on windows 7, so I cannot tell if I've got this problem there also...

Cpu-z shows that core speed stays at 800Mhz almost whole time...is there any way to go higher and stay there? It is cool on battery, but otherwise I'd like to see a little more power....

Except that everything works great at windows 8...no problems, every hotkeys work, no problem with wifi, camera etc...

Thanks in advance.

 

That is much clearer, thank you for the useful link. Amazon is unreliable in the product detail. The newegg price is just 900, wow. Can you please check if the warranty is international or US?

 

@rafstraszek: Sounds like Silent Mode may be on. On my Sammy it's Fn-F11 to toggle it.

 

Oh my god - I love you! I thought this is only for quick change between energy plans... Amazing! Thank you very much!

 

The NP900X4D-A05US warranty is only valid in the USA.

I managed to get it for $900 on Amazon last week as well but looks like it went back up. I'm sure it will drop back down again soon though.

 

You are really lucky. I have another question, but I think I should take it to NP900X4D thread before mods complain. I will post one soon.

 

I have posted a new question here.

 

Just wanted to thank everyone in the thread - ran a BIOS update and have backlit keys!

If anyone has a FAQ of which Samsung drivers to install and which not to install on W8 that would be a great sticky.

I'm suffering from some bad SSD performance and debating whether I should upgrade the SSD (and RAM while I have the case open) versus just screw with drivers.

 

You notice this model is nowhere to be seen on the samsung.com website for confirmation.

 

Yeah I'm not sure what's up with that. I've contacted Samsung Support by a few different avenues to ask them to add a support page for this model...hopefully they'll do it soon.

 

Anyone know what the "S Agent" app does? It appears in the notification area and I'm not sure what it's for, nor how to disable/uninstall it.

 

It's part of SW Update and is the engine that actually talks to Samsung servers to find which software is available for your model.

It runs in the background, and even tough you can disable visible notifications from it, you can not close it or unload it. On my Win8 installation (I don't keep SW Update installed on my Win7 installation) I have disabled loading of sAgent in Task scheduler because I don't want it running all the time. But I have to load it manually anytime I want to check for new updates, otherwise SW Update cannot connect.

Another nuisance with sAgent is that it often doesn't uninstall along with SW Update. It's left behind, and you have to cut it out surgically: Delete its scheduled task and its Program Files folder. I know, messy...

 

Hey guys, i'm new to the forum. I recently just bought the Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US from Newegg which was on sale for 899.99. However, I checked out with their new v.me payment option and saved an additional 10% off, so in actuality I paid $849.99 which I thought was a fair price. The laptop will be delivered to me by tomorrow's end, & I was just wondering about some of the options I should take into consideration regarding upgrades. I read that there are 2 slots for memory, so what memory sticks on the market are top notch that i should look into? Also, if i wanted to upgrade the ssd (if it comes with the slow u100), what are my options for the fastest & best 256gb ssds for my particular laptop? Also, how hard are these installations going to be & would they void my warranty from squaretrade if I install them?

PS: I saw the video post of the 4sec bootup from SGMD1 and was wondering what were your upgrades to the same unit we have? & if it was solely from the clean boot of windows 8 that made it that snappy, how hard is it to do the same procedure b/c it looks like alot of steps

 

I haven't made any hardware upgrades from the stock configuration. I just did the reformat/reinstall that I outlined here (which I know seems lengthy but is actually very easy.)

 

okay, well then I guess i'll have to find a way to get my hands on an .iso file, since I cant download it from the source posted.
Quick question though. If i just booted up the system out of the box, and then did some type of refresh/reset from the pc's setting page, would I be able to then only install the stuff I want? Or is the only way to do a refresh/reset is by putting an iso file onto a usb flash drive and following your outline?

 

You can also use Windows 8's native "reset" option, which isn't a full reformat but it removes most stuff (SW Update still remains.) You can then delete the recovery partition if you'd like using diskpart.

Instructions here.

 

thanks for your feedback. ill see what happens when i receive the unit tomorrow

 

I'm in the exact same boat, model number and all. If you could let the forums know how it goes I'd greatly appreciate it!

 

Does anyone else have an easier solution for closing Metro apps other than the "click and drag from the top to the bottom of the screen" action? I feel like there has to be a simpler way.

 

ALT + F4 is the quickest I know of.

 

The crucial m4 msata is your best bet:
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3 Solid State Drive - Newegg.com

Any decently rated laptop ddr3 ram should do, you can go for low latency is you like, but I doubt you'll notice the difference in most situations.

By the letter of the law, it voids your warranty, but there's no way for them to tell as long as you are careful and retain the stock SSD. Installation should be straightforward.

 

thanks for the info go45cvi. I had read about the crucial M4 before. I just wanted confirmation that it would work in my specific device. Thanks again

 

instead of dragging from the top right of the screen you can also right click apps closed. helpful if you have more than a few open because you can pick and choose what to close and what to keep open.

 

Hello everyone, this is my first post.
I recently (Dec 2012) bought a series 9 that came with preinstalled windows 8. Everything is working fine, except for the backlit keyboard which stopped working a few days ago. Before that, it was working fine. Now it never lights up, and the Fn shortcuts (F9 and F10) do not work at all.
I have installed all updates from Samsung. What might be the problem? How can I check if this is hardware-related or something else?

Thanks

 

Some of us were encountering this issue a couple of weeks ago. It is a software issue also affected my Windows 7 installation (but, strangely, it seems to be working OK now).

1. Go into the General page of Settings and fiddle with the keyboard backlight control and then see if the Fn key controls work again.
If not reliably fixed then:
2. Reinstall Settings (which might be what fixed the issue on my computer).

John

 

Thanks for the response, however, there is no keyboard backlight control in neither Settings or Easy Settings (I manually downloaded and installed the latter).
As I said, the laptop came with windows 8 preinstalled, so I don't think it's the same problem with all those users complaining about such issues after they upgraded from windows 7...

 

This is what I see (NP900X4C + Windows 7:



If you don't see that option then reinstall (Easy) Settings. Perhaps it has got confused and thinks your computer does not have a backlit keyboard.

John

 

Here are my Win 8 settings

 

@millenseed: As john and Thor said, the backlight control should definitely be there, both in Easy Settings (Win7) and Settings (Win8). And adjusting that slider all the way down, then up again, is usually the fix when backlight refuses to come on.

I would say, however, that if you installed Easy Settings on Win8, on top of the pre-installed Settings app, I can imagine that would cause a mess with various Samsung services and modules. If I were you, I would uninstall both of them, make sure they're thoroughly cleaned out (Scheduled Tasks, Registry, Program Files Samsung and Common folders), reboot, then re-install only Settings.

Oh, and BTW welcome to the forum

 

Thanks for your help everyone!
I removed everything, and then I got a notification from the Support Center that "The Fn Key is not working" (which was not true). So it prompted me to download "Settings", which I did. Then after I installed it, I got the same thing as before. No place to adjust keyboard lighting. So the hot keys are still not working. However, there seems to be some backlighting going on on the keyboard now (which, however, I am not able to adjust).
Will keep you posted for any updates...

Thanks again!

 

My observation is that keys F9 and F10 only work when keyboard backlight is ON. Turn off your room's light or cover the light sensor with your finger, and when keyboard backlight is ON, you can change the brightness using F9 and F10 while Fn key is pressed.

 

This is what I see in settings and easy settings.
The backlighting works with no other lights in the room, but it is not adjustable. Why the sudden change in behaviour?

 

@millenseed: Thanks for keeping us updated; it looks like you're making some progress, but not quite there yet.

One thing I want to point out again: You REALLY should not have both Settings and Easy Settings installed. If you use Win8 it's Settings; if you use Win7 it's Easy Settings.

Although I cannot say for sure that this is the reason why it is misbehaving, I can easily imagine how installing Easy Settings onto Win8, on top of Settings already there, could screw things up. I would uninstall BOTH, reboot, then re-install ONLY Settings (assuming you're on Win8), reboot, then see if the backlight control is there.

This is what the General tab in Settings looks like for me.

 

Thanks Dannemand,

I actually did uninstall both of them, then restarted the system, then got prompted to download and install Settings . At the end of the installation I realized that it went ahead and installed both Settings and Easy Settings . Maybe I should clean up the relevant registry keys somehow? Any pointers on that one?

Oh and one other thing: how come Settings doesn't have all those tabs and only has Network, Display and SoundAlive ?

Cheers,
Marios

 

Got it, thank you. Why SW Update would automatically install both is beyond me. Normally it doesn't even show Easy Settings on a Win8 PC (or if you manually look for Win8 drivers).

Manually cleaning out Easy Settings is a daunting task because of how it is implemented. See this recent post.

It is very possible that the reason your Settings doesn't show all the tabs it should, is because Easy Settings was installed afterwards and took over some of the hooks for features that would normally be in Settings.

I think you should just try again to uninstall both, then re-install ONLY Settings. Let's see if we cannot get this thing working right for you.

 

I uninstalled Samsung Software Update on my NP900X3D-A02US because there is no setting to only install updates manually. I caught it installing a mouse driver one day and uninstalled it.

I want to make the decisions on what is installed and when it is installed. Automatic only isn't going to work for me.

 

I'm confused. My SW Update offers me all the updates or other uninstalled Samsung software it can find but I decide what to install. I've got notifications turned off so it doesn't nag me.

John

 

I thought mine worked that way, too. Until it started installing updates without my permission.

Might be a bug in their Windows 8 version.

 

I never experienced that problem either of automatic updates from SW Update. Whereas I did NOT keep SW Update installed on my Win7 partition, I DO keep it installed now in Win8. But I hate having sAgent running permanently in the background (latency spikes) so I disabled the Scheduled Task that loads it. Now I simply load sAgent manually (using a Start Menu shortcut) when I want to use SW Update. Keeps the beast dormant until I need it

 

Hi, new user on the block. As for millenseed user, I also bought a series 9 in December 2012 and the keyboard backlight worked in the beginning but after some SW updates it stopped working. Following the recommendation in this forum I uninstalled "Settings", reboot and re-installed it. Still not working.I believe the problem is that for some reason, the OS (Win 8) thinks the keyboard does not support backlight. Sometime back, I played around with setup in control panel and I managed to make it working, however I do not remember what I did. I will keep my struggle to find the problem.
Should anyone find the solution he/she will help a lot of us with this annoying problem.
Thanks.

 

My Power Plan automatically selects Power Saver. No matter what I do, after a time, with no apparent pattern, the system puts itself back on power saver. I like to keep it on balanced because I have changed the adaptive brightness there, so it is easy to tell that it has selected itself back to Power Saver because the adaptive brightness dims everything out. Any ideas on what is going on?