The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

So far I have just put the computer go to sleep by closing it. Then, according to the post above, IRST will put it to sleep using the hibernation partition and it gives a near instant resume. This is in a different league to the standard hibernation to the SSD which can take much longer to resume.

Historically, I've been worried about using sleep because of little problems (and the risk of a wake-up in a bag causing overheating) but, so far, nothing on the S9 has caused me any worries in this respect.

John

 

That's great to know, thanks!

Nic

 

All my woes are teaching me much about IRST. What I can tell you is, if you have it well and truly enabled, you will have a 4G (ish) hibernate partition on your hdd, and you will not have the ability to set hybrid sleep, or hibernate settings via advanced power settings. Hence, I don't think you get to decide whether the power button "hibernates" or not if you have IRST enabled. Once I disable IRST (and/or once I delete the driver, I'm not sure if both are required), the option to set hibernate/hybrid sleep behavior in advanced power options returns. Hope that made sense.

As for me, I am in the middle of a painful step-wise rebuild of my windows. Spent some time on the phone with Samsung this morning; the guy was pleasant and totally unhelpful. Already I knew more about IRST, Easy Software, and Easy Settings, than he did. After that call I decided to throw in the towel and do a re-install. At the moment, with only windows running, and all updated Samsung drivers, my IRST, sleep, lid-wake settings are all functioning perfectly. Will report back again if it turns out something in particular breaks the IRST service. Otherwise, it was just something that broke for mystery reasons.

 

shelleyevans, did you reinstall from samsung's recovery windows or did you do a fresh install with your own?

 

Samsung's recovery windows, which is the same one I used last time. Went like this: boot to recovery dvd, reformat hdd, install windows. Install easy software and wifi drivers from the samsung driver dvd that I made. Then use easy software to download and install all drivers and any of the software that I want. This method (which I am becoming painfully familiar with) seems to produce the fewest install errors, for me. Once I get this working I'm going to make an image, so I don't have to do it again.

 

Hey, while I was installing the new display driver, cleaning with ccleaner and that's all I think, I rebooted and everything was normal, except that I heard for the first time the fans. I decided to download HWmonitor to see the temps and the cores are working in 43 C, 107 F...what about yours?
Ok, the things was when I saw wear level, it's in 15! ?? It's plugged right now. Is it possible? I'm going to calibrate it in BIOS.

 

43C is nothing to worry about. Check the task manager to see if something is eating up your CPU usage. If the fans are just on during booting, I think that's normal, but if it stays on for a while, then something is throttling your CPU.

 

the A01 (with bloatware, not MS signature) was running 65 degrees C for me.

thought maybe it was hardware, then I put the A02's ssd in the A01 and it hasn't gone above 50 C since

 

I typically run 48-50c.

Have any of you found a tool that will show the rpm of both fans? HWiNFO64 isn't showing either for me.

 

And what about the wear level of 15%? Can't be possible...can't accept it in a brand new machine.

Edit: 14% according to Hwinfo64.

 

Mine is .3% but I don't use battery much.

 

It's been less than a month since I bought it

 

Mine is 3% and was that out of the box. I would consider that to be around the limit of acceptability.

Run the bettery calibration in the BIOS. If that doesn't fix the problem then contact Samsung about a battery replacement.

John

 

Quick question, I'm going to be doing a fresh install on my S9 shortly (I want to get shot of the 20GB recovery partition and I'm a little obsessive about using fresh installs). My intention was to install from an external DVD drive or USB drive and then just drop on the Samsung easy software update that I downloaded from Samsung's site (to make sure I had the latest version) and let it chug through updating the drivers, etc. From experience, is there anything else I need to think about for doing a fresh install on the S9?

Also, I've got some photos of the S9 in the Speck sleeve if anyone wants to see the fit on this sleeve before they buy. Will try and get them loaded up this evening.

 

i dont understand why samsung support staff arent exposed to new devices including software etc

and i get the easy settings and IRST etc are on all the samsung laptops and have been in some guise for a number of years

i spose its the same with all manufacturers, few minutes 'training' on a new machine before it goes commercial and the calls flood in, pathetic prep for a new release

 

My wear level is also 3% read from HWinfo64.

This reminds me, I also took pics of mine, I'll post mine soon also.

 

Ok here are the pics of the Speck Sleeve model SPK-A0293. I first asked about it here, and no one had a good solution to a sleeve that would fit perfectly. Everything I found was either too loose, too small, or too thick. After about 2 hours of searching for one, I found this sleeve that people mentioned was too small for the macbook air, which I realized should be perfect for this since this 2nd gen S9 is a tad smaller than the 13.3" mac air.

It's basically a perfect fit. Not too tight where the notebook is hard to come out, and not too loose where the notebook moves inside the sleeve. You can notice that you can also charge the notebook while it's inside the sleeve, very convenient to just plug in after every use without having to take it out.

I bought this S9 and the sleeve both from amazon at the same time, and at the time I bought it, it was only $30. Looks like price shot up a lot to $50 now, but I believe you can get it cheaper elsewhere if you search. If anyone can find another sleeve that looks and fits just as good, please post. I'd be happy to try out a different one as well, but for now I love this one.

Amazon.com: Speck Products MacBook Air / Ultrabook 13-Inch TrimSleeve Black (SPK-A0293)








Additional pics here:

 

WFD, that's pretty much what I was going to say about the sleeve too. There is a little bit of play where the S9 can move in the sleeve (horizontal) but other than that it's a great fit for the S9. If there any Nordic types in here, I got this sleeve from ElGiganten for about 399 DKK.

 

Disable quickboot in the bios, set boot to cd first (obvious, but just in case you didn't know), and DON'T use the usb 3 port (left side of the computer) because it can't install windows (a driver issue I believe). I'm not sure, but I think that nobody here has been able to install off a usb stick. I haven't ever tried. My usb dvd works great. Slow, but great. Having just done this for the third time, I can say that your routine is the one that has worked best for me. Samsung's drivers (touchpad and irst in particular) are inexplicably difficult to install by hand, and have (for me) produced many problems/crashes when installed that way. So now, clunky as it is, my failsafe routine is to do my fresh windows install, install easy software and wifi drivers, disconnect dvd, and install all drivers from Samsung website.

1994F7PT: It wasn't just that the tech at Samsung hadn't been exposed to the driver, it was the IRST driver package itself, which was impossible to install and uninstall. No executable, no readme file, about six set-up and installation exe's, which I had to randomly execute just to see what they were. It installed IRST without even installing the Intel Driver, which I couldn't install manually because the HDD didn't have the hibernate partition. (This is why I called Samsung. At which point I found out that there was no way to reinstall using easy software, because one of my installs had left a flag somewhere telling easy software that the driver was installed, and nobody could tell me how to resit it!) Everything I learned about IRST I learned from an incredibly helpful pdf on the Dell website, which is breathtaking compared to Samsung, and from this board. (Am I ranting?)

 

Ditto what Shelley said. REMEMBER TO PUT THE WLAN driver on a separate USB stick so you can download the rest of the updates through Easy Software. I ended up putting WLAN, Easy Software, and Easy Settings on a stick to make it easier.

Don't bother with a USB boot drive installation, it won't work. I pulled my hair out trying. Won't work on either the left or right USB. After you do a clean install, the left (USB 3.0) side won't work until you re-install the 3.0 drivers through Easy Software.

I'm going to pick up that trimsleeve... for those wondering, I picked up the official Series 9 case from Samsung (Buy.com for $52), but it is pretty worthless. Very flimsy with no padding. Just imagine a piece of thin bare leather sewed together into a pouch. Good for scratch protection, but that's about it it.

 

Thanks! I've seen from further up-thread that some people managed to get the USB install working by starting from the powered USB port and moving to the non powered port later on in the install process. I mostly just wanted to check that I wasn't missing anything important for the reinstall after I nuked it, done this enough times on other computers but the discussions on the S9 suggested a certain 'touchyness' for reinstalls.

 

Just one comment on the sleeve, it's a lot better than Samsung own brand sleeves (I had one for my NC10 which was useless) and is very stiff but there isn't a lot of padding in it, as you can probably see from the photo. It's a good case though and just protected my S9 during a trip down to France at the weekend.

 

I did a clean install from a 32gb usb stick - had to use the Win 7 USB download tool - and it all worked fine.
I disabled quick boot in the bios & used the usb 2 port & once win 7 was up & running I loaded the Samsung software update & let it do it's thing.

So far, so good!!

 

It does - perfectly & now that I've got the IRST up & running it all makes so much more sense!

It's a shame that I cannot find much about IRST out on the web!

Also, using HWiNFO64, my 2 week old S9 is showing a wear leve lof 3.0%

Kind regards,

Nic

 

Same wear level for me. Well 3.05 now, probably from all my non sleep.

I found this paper from Dell very helpful:
Dell Whitepaper: Intel Responsiveness Technologies Setup Guide - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

But learned as much on this board.

 

Ta Shelley!

 

FYI,

I have left my NP900X3B sleeping each night when I went to bed. Each morning I would check and see how much the battery lost. It was 5% the first night and 4% last night. I certainly don't see anything alarming with that.

 

Interesting to see the comments on the Dell forum about the IRST. Sounds like they have a bigger partition (8GB) & also a few options for it in their bios which (by the sounds of it) allows them to select the time before the IRST kicks in...

One guy said his laptop dropped only 1% overnight.

I hope Samsung make some of these options available to us....
Not holding my breath though!

 

i presume the partition is the same size as the installed RAM?

 

That'd make sense then as some were talking about their 8GB RAM...

If only!!

 

I'll just make a quick comment as well on the Speck sleeve. First of all, I'm a big fan of Speck cases. I've been using them on my Macs for years. I have an Asus UX21. Asus provides a very similar sleeve. It's actually a very good product for a throw-in. I really like that it has a magnetic clip vs. the snap on the Speck sleeve. Regardless, when you open the clasp, you're stuck with the metal clasp being right where you slide out the notebook. This means that you can scratch the laptop if you don't hold the clasp out of the way when you pull it out. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but the last thing you want is for the case you got to protect your lap to end up scratching it. Speck had a brilliant design insight in this respect. They simply attached a material flap just inside. When you pull out the notebook, the material covers the metal clasp... No scratches! Brilliantly simple, but more importantly, it shows that they actually put some thought into beyond just quality materials and looks.

By the way... just picked up my Series 9 (and the Speck case along with it). I've been debating whether or not I should wait for Ivy Bridge or not. For my use, the extra power of the GPU isn't something I will use. I don't really ever do anything graphically intensive on my laptops. Performance wise, Ivy Bridge isn't a monumental jump. It will be better on power, but not significantly more so than Sandy Bridge (especially in the ULV processors). I've just been drooling over that display! For some reason, Asus always "almost" gets it right, but then they end up screwing one thing up that sort of takes away from the whole package. They've used horrible screens for years now in their laptops. I guess it does help to keep costs down. They do tend to have great pricing for higher end internals. I've just gotten to a point where I don't need "faster". I want a better experience.

Holy cow! I don't think I've updated my profile in years! I don't think I still have half of the systems I have listed anymore (and have way too many to add). I really need a cheaper hobby!

 

it's currently at around 54c while sitting on top of a pillow (worst place for cooling obvs)

speedfan does not see the fans either.

 

I've tried HWiNFO64, HWMonitor and Speedfan. None of them display the fan and rpm.

I guess they are confused by dual fan designs.

 

I done my fresh install from Win 7 on USB stick !

G

 

Ok stickler, your next mission is to find a monitor that will show us the fan rpm of each fan.

 

My SS9 since launch also reports wear level 3.05%. I had it since launch.

 

Okay guys. More observations/questions. Everything working very well here from the point of view of going to sleep, waking up, etc. Except: last night I closed the lid on my computer with battery at 69% and looked forward to waking up with it at 69% based on John's statement that he left it for a week, and only lost a few percentage points of battery life. When I woke up, battery was at 62%, and now, after minutes of use, its at 59%. Possible that the computer isn't going into this deep sleep it's supposed to achieve? How would I ever figure it out? Thanks for any thoughts.

 

i'd say arond a 5-7% loss overnight on sleep is acceptable

 

Well that's what I would have thought, except our recent discussions of IRST have led me to believe that the computer actually goes into some version of hibernate after 75 minutes. That should be a power trickle lower than 5-7%, no? John reported that he only lost a few percentage points of power in an entire week!

My powercfg -a command reports that my system doesn't support s2 or hibernation. I suspect it says it doesn't support hibernation because that feature is disabled when IRST is enabled...?

 

it seems theres alot of different services running that are treading all over each others toes. i think i get it now, basically native windows hibernation has been disabled and the IRST version has been installed instead which in theory should work as the sleep function as we understand it? so its kind of a substition of sleep using a program/driver thats wiped over the native hibernate as well.

no wonder the poor laptops in a right muddle bless it!

 

If it really is hibernation of a sort, there should be 0% battery loss over time. Hibernation is a disk image of a live state, and requires no power to maintain.

I need to read up on IRST, my head hurts.

 

IRST is not as well documented as it should be. In addition to the Dell info that someone had already linked to, I found this guide. However, it is evidently not completely applicable becasue it refers to the Intel Rapid Start Technology Manager which I am unable to track down. The Manager can be used to change the time delay. However, there is no trace of this software nor can I find it for download. Dell appears to provide a user-adjustable setting in the BIOS while Samsung give us nothing, so it is difficult to be sure how long the time delay is.

Anyway, I confirm my observation that I only lost a couple of percent on the battery when I put my S9 away for a week. What I can't remember is whether the S9 went straight from being used to shut, unplugged and put away or whether I shut it first and then unplugged and put it away later. The latter might have meant that it went straight into hibernate mode once the power plug was pulled out(once in hibernation there should be no significant power loss except for self-discharge of the battery). I have also noticed that if the computer is shut and left plugged into power then it immediately wakes up in the morning, so I think it stays on sleep.

The extra info I have found about IRST appears to confirm my deduction that the system memory is directly mapped to the storage in the hibernation partition. Somewhere there must be a record of which address range in the storage needs to be loaded first to give the appearance of the computer being ready to go when, in reality, it is still reloading the rest of the RAM.

Yes, somewhere in the documentation it is stated that normal hibernation is disabled when IRST is enabled.

John

 

indeed it sounds like the IRST is basically a hibernation mode, so in theory no power drain overnight, but it seems that on shelleys lappy its not working and shes going to sleep, not IRST hibernate

 

The best thing is for more of us, at bed time, need to (i) make a note of the battery charge level, (ii) close the computer (ie put it to seep), (iii) pull out the power plug; then in the morning (iv) open it, (v) see how long it takes to wake up (instant or slightly longer) and (vi) check the battery charge. we should all see a consistent amount of charge loss due to the time before hibernation takes place.

A possible cause of extra charge loss is (i) anything plugged into the USB ports and (ii) the computer waking up to check for updates.

John

 

One way of testing whether IRST is working is testing it with IRST off and IRST on. So, turn off IRST in Easy Setting and turn off normal windows hibernation also. Make sure the computer is set to sleep overnight the whole time, ie not hibernate or shutdown after a certain amount of time. In the morning, check the drop in battery percentage. Then next, turn IRST on and repeat. Note the drop in battery in the morning. Try to keep the hours difference the same (the longer, the better). If the battery drop improved, it is working. If it is the same, it is not working. Of course, the wake-up time should be slightly different too, about 2s for sleep and 5s for IRST. That's how I knew it was working and fell in love with it.

Unconfirmed though, but I think the BIOS version may affect the drainage. Before updating the BIOS to 4 or 5, I would see a drop of max 4-5%. Since the BIOS updates, I am seeing a max of 10%. I am not complaining since it has never dipped greater than 10%. Maybe the sleep times have changed?

 

This is a great strategy, and one that I was already in the midst of trying-- I had IRST running for 2.5 hours today, lost 3%, and am now running without IRST for 2.5 hours to compare. Of course, after I read your email, I realized that, since IRST doesn't kick in for 75 miinutes, I will see, at most, a tiny difference between these two tests. So tonight I will do your more intelligent experiment, and leave it for 8 hours, then tomorrow night as well, and report back.

When you resume from IRST, is it similar to resuming from sleep, meaning, just open the lid and you're up and running? Or does that behavior change, meaning, you have to push the power button to resume when the system enters IRST?

PS can you believe how crazy this is? We have to do trial and error experiments and search for white papers on the internet to figure out how this high-end cutting edge feature actually works?

 

life on the edge......its always tough! ask the pioneers of anything ;-)

 

Yeah, more time is better since it does stay in sleep mode only initially.

When you open the lid, Windows will resume for both. There is no visual difference between sleep and IRST on wake-up, except for the slight difference in time. If you see the Windows loading/resuming bars, that means you were in the normal Windows hibernate, which is not what you want, and also significantly slowly.

 

Hey guys, I just received my X3B and I'm having serious issues with Wi-fi connectivity, namely downloads constantly being interrupted and seemingly terrible reception. Is this potentially a driver/software issue, and has anyone else had trouble with spotty wi-fi, or is it likely that I just have a unit with a bad wireless card?

 

Are you on battery during the issues?