Samsung Series 9 - Windows 8

I have a 900X3B. Looks like the only way Win 8 drivers are offered from Samsung is through SW Update?
They don't list any on the support page, is this correct?
Support for Win 8 from Samsung directly seems a little spotty, at best, am I wrong?
Some have mentioned non-Samsung ELAN drivers. Where are they found?
Thanks!

 

There are no windows 8 drivers on their support page yet but you can easily download all the setup files through the SW update app with just one click, and keep them for later, so I guess it's not that bad actually.

 

OK, but I gave it my model number (Sandy Bridge) and it gave me Ivy Bridge drivers.
Assume a later chipset driver is ok, but...
it gave me Ivy Bridge graphics drivers, for the 4000. Would they include the 3000 as well?

What source for the clean ELAN drivers is being used, several here suggested not using Samsung's???

I have read the entire thread, and several have suggested that many or most drivers are not needed.
Any suggested list of essential/necessary ones?

 

I have a NP900X4D-A02NL that came with win8 for about 2 month now. But the computer feels kind of slow.
I already upgraded my memory from 4G to 8G and I changed the SSD to a 256G Cruacial M4, and I use the 'High Performance' Power plan.

When I'm using Skype it complains that my computer is not fast enough ("the computer is fast enough to make audio calls and low quality video calls"). Also complex websites take some time. When I'm having a Google+ video meeting the cursor does not move smooth anymore.

I installed the Intel Turbo boost monitor to see what the processor is doing. But the tool only shows me a green leave (meaning that the processor is in energy save mode) and the blue bar that should indicate the processor speed is at the lowest level. Whatever program I use or start, the situation stays as is, nothing changes.

I also used the program 'PerformanceTest' to test the CPU speed. The overall result is about 996 (=CPU mark). Where according to online comparison the Intel Core i5-3317U @ 1.70GHz should be somewhere in the 3000 ( PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - List of Benchmarked CPUs).

I have the feeling that the CPU is in somekind of powersave mode and does not increase the clock speed or use the Turbo mode. I checked the different BIOS settings, but could not find anything.
I tested with different powerplan settings and with and without the power supply. I do not detect anydifference.

Does anybody have an idea what to do to get the computer faster. Or is the behaviour in Skype and the test results that I find normal for the Series 9 I5 that I have..

Thanks, Alex

 

1. Did you enable the Silent mode (Fn+F11)? This locks the CPU down to 800MHz.
2. Set the Samsung Optimized power plan in (Easy) Settings.
3. Run HWiNFO to check both the CPU speed and temperature (should be 50 to 60C on idle rising to about 80C under full load).

John

 

Honestly no. My 2007 macbook seems to get better range but the wifi speeds seems to be faster. There must have been a compromise because of the design. Ive also tried the 17 inch chronos and that had even worse wifi performance. Most of the rooms in our house turned into deadspots. Ive tried tinkering with all the setting and am always on max performance but the range is noticeably shorter than even my galaxy note 2 !

 

The silent mode was the trick. I disabled it with the Samsung Settings app (FN+F1) and now it's like a whole new computer...

John Thanks!

 

Thanks for the update. You're not the first person to have been caught out by the performance side-effect of the Silent Mode.

I would still recommend using the Samsung Optimized power plan so that the CPU can slow down when it is not busy - there will be a little less heat and fan activity. The performance benefit of the High performance power plan (which keeps the CPU running faster) is very small.

John

 

Hey everyone, long time reader - first time poster.

I just purchased a Samsung NP900X3A Series 9 and its loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I would like to upgrade it to Windows 8 using the online purchase/download option via Microsoft. I have read through many posts in this thread but am a bit confused as their seems to be varied advice on how to do so.

I of course want to make sure that all drivers, functions etc will work after install - including the fn keys, multi touch trackpad, wake from sleep etc (ive read in a few threads people having issues getting everything to work). Can someone please advise me on this? What do I need to install prior/after installing Windows 8? Is there any functionality that I may loose by doing so?

I am not an expert when it comes to these things so any help would be greatly appreciated - I just want to make sure I can do the install and have everything on the laptop work as it should. I have not currently installed any software on the laptop so I dont need to transfer anything over.

Do I just need to install the SWUpdate tool after installing Win 8 and that will take care of everything?

Thanks so much.

 

Look for my post a few pages back. Just make sure u update everything to the latest with sw update and proceed to win 8 installation. After that you might wanna restore windows 8 with a fresh install because it makes a huge difference. Redownload sw update from samsung driver site and download all drivers there. Damsung could not have made it any more simpler it simply works flawlessly.

 

Thanks for that. I did a fresh install of Win 8, used the SWUpdate and everything is working great. I did not do a restore - what type of improvements might I see if I did? So far everything seems to be running pretty smoothly.

 

If it's working, don't fix it. I would just use it for a while and see how things go.

 

Folks,

I have a real problem here: I'm experiencing recurrent automatic restarts with my NP900XC4-A03 (on battery or on AC). This happens almost very time I awaken my laptop (from sleep or hibernation modes). The error message I'm getting is KERNEL_STACK_LOCKED_AT_EXIT (along with a blue screen about 60% of the time ).

Anyone experienced this problem and were you able to fix it?

Thanks!
A.

 

What SSD is in your machine?

 

Liteon 256gb ssd

 

Issue: Samsung series 9 display auto dimming

Hi guys,

I bought a Samsung series 9 NP900X3D-A01US with the sandy bridge i5M processor and windows 8 a few weeks ago, and loving it so far.

However, after updating the BIOS today, there is now a problem: the screen would dim automatically after about 3 seconds whenever I log into the computer. The screen just gets darker but the screen brightness level was unchanged - I usually leave it at about 30% since the screen is so bright. I did not have this problem prior to the BIOS update.

I tried the Intel power management option, as well as the hot keys FN+F1, all to no avail. It’s not the end of the world, just really annoying.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

 

Sounds good - thanks for the help.

 

I installed "Settings" via the SW Update tool, however I only have fields for Network and Display. How can I get the other options to be able to control the backlight?

 

I am interested in this solution too! I have only boot management, network, display, and sound alive visible in settings. I would like to get the rest of the options to be revealed.

 

Same goes for me too. I bought X4D and Series 5 at the same time, both with pre-installed W8. Series 5 Settings has fast boot modes etc, though in X4D there is no such thing. Cold boot took 35 seconds, more than three times longer than promised. Can't say that's "that much", but my 5 year old HP laptop (Dual Core P8600, 4GB ram, integrated graphics) with tweaked Win7 managed to boot in 25.

 

My Series 9 NP900X3D boots to the desktop with the network lit in 10-12 seconds. My mods include the addition of a Crucial M4 256GB SSD, and a custom clean install of Windows 8 Pro x64. Windows 8 Fast Start and hibernation is not enabled. My environment is also running VMWare Workstation 9.x though it doesn't launch a VM at boot.

 

What version of Easy Settings do you have installed?

 

I have Settings 2.0 for Win8 and I have the SanDisk SDD.

Where do you disable Fast Start and hibernation?

 

I took the plunge and upgraded on Thursday, but I do have a few issues.

Webpages on Firefox occasionally stop loading fully, it seems to fix itself for a while if I clear the cache and reload.

When on battery power the screen only seems to be half as bright as it used to be on 7.

The mouse cursor does not always seem to flow as smoothly across the screen all the time with the latest driver. I rolled it back to John's recommended driver from 7, but that means two finger scrolling does not work on the metro interface

Other than that its not that bad at all once you get used to it

 

The very first article in a google search for "windows 8 fast start" is Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

To turn off hibernation, see How to Disable Hibernation In Windows 8 To Gain Disk Space

 

Can you "adjust plan brightness" under power options? Not sure if it's still there.

 

It has been two good weeks since I uninstalled IntelliMemory, suddenly I'm having cache problems in Chrome all over again I can barely browse the Internet. How is that possible? I haven't installed/updated anything recently.

Anybody else experiencing problems with FF/Chrome even though they have IntelliMemory uninstalled?

 

Just sorted out the display by going to Edit Plan Settings, Advanced Power Settings , and then Enable Adaptive Brightness which was switched on for battery but not plugged in. Now its off in both and gives me maximum control of screen brightness with the F keys regardless of what power source.

I have also gone to into Device Manager and unchecked the allow windows to turn this device off check box for the network adapters, so hopefully that will fix it too.

 

Welcome to the club. I have been trying to solve the firefox and chrome cache issue ever since I upgraded to win 8 with no luck. Samsung support is useless and I'm disappointed that for such an expensive laptop Samsung is refusing to fix or even acknowledge the problem.

 

IntelliMemory is not the cause behind Firefox and chrome cache issues.

 

You have the 4C Series 9, correct?
The browser problem you have occured after doing a Windows 7 -> Windows 8 upgrade?
Can you give an example URL the produces the caching issue?

 

I also have Settings 2.0. And only two fields in Settings. Worthless.

 

leland, what is the issue your machine has? I didn't see it in your previous posts.

 

Yes
Yes
It's something that just happens randomly while you're browsing (sometimes days go by without any issue) and after that browser just fails to load images, stylesheets..etc, for all websites, basically you just get text.

 

For those having FF and Chrome problems, here are 2 things which worked for me on my NP900X3A-01:

First I was able to solve Chrome by deleting my chrome user and creating a new one (the exact process is written earlier in this thread).

Later I found that uninstalling the "Samsung Support Center" (NOT SW UPDATE !), clear the cache of FF, and then restart the computer solved Firefox too (maybe this fixes Chrome as well without the need of deleting your user).

Hope it helps !

 

There's a possible fix for Chrome problems earlier in this thread. Read here and the following discussion (which also relates to Firefox).

John

 

How about backing that up with an explanation?

That was what I initially did and, sadly, the issue reappeared not long after.

 

These residual bugs mean that I'm keeping my wallet in my pocket and refraining from buying an upgrade although the deadline is only a few days away. Or maybe they are not bugs but features.

John

 

I have Settings ver 2.0.0.30 installed. I have a Series 7 not a Series 9. Sorry if I upset anyone by adding a request in a different forum, but some of us are having the same problem on both types of machines.
I tried using S-Service for assistance. Needless to say, the first S in S-Service does not stand for Super.

 

I have Easy Settings 2.0.0.25 installed on my Series 9.

What forum? Where is another good Samsung forum?

Thanks,

Thor

 

I have the same problem on Mozilla, gotta try that new user thing.

The previous problem (no fast-boot option in Settings) still persists.

 

I didn't install Intellimemory after upgrading to win8 yet the cache issues are still there.

 

After unsyncing with current user, uninstalled Firefox. Installed v. 18, imported bookmarks and about 4 hours in and my first CSS crash happened.

 

FireFox 18 is pretty buggy. I am always amazed at how poorly it performs when watching a youtube Flash video. It grinds to a halt almost.

 

Did you try uninstalling "Samsung Support Software" , then clear FF cache and reboot as I stated before ? This solved all my Firefox problems on the NP900X3A-01

 

Using that name, no items are found on my computer. Or did you mean Support Center (Toasts)?

 

My Series 9 (v C w/ Ivy Bridge) running Windows 8 Enterprise only shows two fields in the settings menu - wireless and display. I have no control over the keyboard backlight, and the backlight simply doesn't work. That's the main issue I'm trying to solve.

 

Here is the list of software and drivers installed on my NP900X3D (click the thumbnail below). Any chance you could provide a similar screenshot or comparison? Maybe we can spot a clue.

 

Maybe it has a different name on your model (I have the NP900X3A), here is a screenshot from SW showing the "Samsung Support Center" I am talking about.

 

I think that did the trick, it's been fine all day long.