The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

There was a recent wifi/bluetooth driver update via the easy manager (version 15.x, it is not online yet, only via the manager). Did you guys try updating it?

Using the updated IRST, 60m after sleep to go to hibernate, after 21h, went from 80% to 78%, only 2% drain .

 

Go down to Poundland and look for the 13" Signalex sleeve I described here.

Perhaps your S9 is not typical: I've just tried holding my S9 upside down and the display stayed closed.

I tend to agree with you here. Another hour or two of run time would be welcome. However, I believe that the machine was originally designed for Ivy Bridge, which promises better power efficiency, but Samsung decided to ship a Sandy Bridge version while waiting for Intel to produce the IB chips.

I agree that they could have made the space with the ports slightly bigger without spoiling the overall appearance. If you don't normally need Bluetooth then disable it in Device Manager until such time as Samsung issue a better version of Easy Settings.

John

 

I finally got this beauty and I love it!
Currently I'm updating all the drivers but how should I do it via the Samsung donwload/support site or through easy manager?
Is the easy manager always up to date?

 

Easy Software Manager's database is probably more up to date than the downloads site. The UK X3B downloads have not be updated since release in February.

We have found that some of the downloads for the X3C are even newer but there's a risk that some might not be completely compatible with the X3B.

John

 

The won't-sleep issue that caused me to reinstall windows, and investigate IRST, and spend countless hours troubleshooting my computer over past five days turned out to be the wireless PRINTER, which I had installed incorrectly as an http:// webservice by carelessly reading the install options. Criminy. Should I be relieved that the computer isn't broken, or concerned about my brain?

 

I would opt for the former. A lot of installation instructions (where they exist) are challenging to understand. The annoying thing is that something small like that can cause so much anguish.

John

PS: My X3B enjoyed a 12 hour snooze overnight and the battery was at the same 45% (10 minute time delay to hibernate). Given that there is a noticeable time lag (but only a few seconds) for the computer to start, I'm now wondering whether IRST was previously erratic in switching to hibernation. The resume time is still very snappy compared to the standard resume as on my Lenovo T420s.

John

PS: Can any X3B owners comment on the request in the discussion about my review regarding comparison with the Vaio Z2.

 

Thanks for the tips. Mine easily opens by itself just a few millimetres when it is vertical, and the same if i hold it upside down from the base.

I can't see a single advantage for me in having the base so thin. (I don't like to hold my laptop in the air going 'look how thin this is'). It only causes problems, most of which I was aware of when I bought it eg:
- very shallow movement on keyboard
- non-standard ports
but it's also so thin that I have to lift the computer up to be able to put my 3G dongle in the USB port. At a certain point manufacturers are making these things thin just for the sake of making them thin, never mind if it makes a worse experience for the user. It's not like a phone or something that you put in your pocket where every millimetre counts. The sleeve I carry it in is much thicker than the computer.

Thanks for the IRST manager download too. I have set the timer to 15 minutes and got 1% battery loss overnight, compared to 5% before. In my rough tests, it starts from normal sleep in about a second, from the IRST 'hibernation' in about 3-4 seconds, and from normal windows hibernation in about 11 seconds.
I deleted the 4gb hibernation file without any ill-effects.
I seem to be getting one problem now though, which I don't think I had before: if I close the lid and then open the lid again immediately it doesnt wake up from sleep unless I press the power button...

 

Assuming you really meant the word, "immediately." It is not really a problem, it is true for all computers I have used. If you re-open it so fast, it may still be in the process of sleeping/hiberating so it won't register that you are opening it. It will only start again w/ lid opening if you give it a few seconds after it finish its task. You could always close it and open again, that should work, but power button is faster in that case.

 

that's good to know, I guess I never normally close the lid and then open again immediately, I only noticed it because I was testing the IRST thing.

 

Regarding the 3G dongle this is an expensive, but flexible, workaround while this is a lot cheaper and helps with other larger USB devices (some 3G dongles I have bought in the past have come with an extension lead).

I think the marketing people set the designers a challenge and the result is an impressive product although I would agree that a little more thickness could be used to avoid some of the disadvantages we are encountering. perhaps the older and slightly thicker X3A would better suit your needs although the port arrangement on that model still isn't ideal. It's certainly worthwhile looking out for a thinner sleeve.

John

 

Thanks John!
Ok, now I have updated all the drivers though the Easy Software Manager but I still have to update the IRST which is downloaded from the 900X3C dowload/support page. It's this that is giving me a headache.
Currently I have IRST 1.0.0.1007 and when I got to 'Start, All Programs, Intel Folder and IRST Manager' the 'User Account Contro'l pops up, I then press 'Yes' and nothing happens...
So now I've been trying to update the IRST, I downloaded the IRST 1.0.0.1015 from the site and then I go to my downloads where I 'Extract All' the 'Compressed (zipped) Files'. Once that's done I click 'Inst' application and 'User Account Control pops up' and I click Yes. Soon after a small window says 'Installation may take several minutes. Please wait...', I wait a couple of seconds, the window disappears and nothing happens!!!

Has anyone had this problem?

Oh and last night after 7 hours sleep there was a 6% battery loss... I have everything on Samsung Fast Boot, Fast Start, USB Charging and IRST and in general wake up time is around 2.5-4 seconds.

 

First uninstall the existing IRST and reboot. After that I went into the unzipped IRST installer folder and ran setup.exe. If the installation is successful you will get the IRST manager as a blue tray icon. Click on it and select Settings to get the options. They appear to persist after a reboot.

If the Samsung Easy Software Manager doesn't want to cooperate with the uninstallation then use the Programs and Features option in Control Panel.

John

 

Thanks for the quick answer!
So I did as you said but no success...
I uninstalled through Program and Features since Samsung Easy Software Manager didn't have an uninstall option.
After installing the the updated version there is still no icon in the tray even after reboot, Samsung easy software manager still shows IRST being 1.0.0.1007 and still cannot open the IRST manager.

 

I'm sorry for your pain, but glad to see another person having the exact same problems I had along the way (See my comment above about worries about my brain ). Here's the solution: find my earlier post about registry settings for irst manager. You need to set the switches for "visible" and "messages" to ON. The IRST service is running, but the Samsung default is for it to be hidden. When you exit the registry and/or reboot, it will be in your tray. You will probably experience an error message when you double click to configure, but then it will load anyway. Close, reboot, and if you're like the rest of us, the error message won't reappear. (Before you do all this, make sure that you enable the IRST service through easy settings-- at least, that's how I enabled it, to avoid conflicts between IRST manager and Easy Settings service.)

As for Easy Software Manager: it seems to be the best way to get the most current version of the drivers/software, but my experience is that it's cr*ap, excuse my French, in practice. It claimed to install IRST for me but in fact I don't think it ever successfully installed it-- only after manually installing the XC driver did I get the battery savings and slightly slower resume of IRST. Further, there's no way to uninstall a broken install from inside Easy Software, as you discovered, and, if you manually uninstall (as I did) Easy Software might (as it did for me) still register the program as installed. In the end, I uninstalled it, figuring that I will use it for rebuilds, because it's convenient, and then get rid of it.

I laughed out loud about the earlier comments about holding up my thin laptop and saying "look how thin this is..." The truth is, that is a huge part of why I have this laptop, and not another. I am a writer, and wanted something that felt like a notepad, or a tablet with keys, and this one is a dream for me. I think if I were coding all day not so much.

 

Run regedit.exe and search for InvisibleMode. Change the value to "0". See the section "Registry Parameters" in the Readme.txt file in the installer package for more details.

John

 

Nevermind I found it and changed to '0' I shall now reboot!

This is so frustrating!!!
Ok I see the IRST manager in my tray, I double click, error pops up, I click continue and nothing loads...
IRST is enabled in Easy settings

 

Did you reboot and try again?

Can you make sure that you have a healthy hibernate partition on your hdd? (This was not made for me in my first, failed, install of IRST) (Go to Start, type "create and format hard disk partitions", hit return, in the Disk Management window you will see your HDD, should be three partitions, including hibernate partition)

Is irstrtsv running in your task manager/services window?

Also, per instructions in readme file John referenced, I would also set the switch for "notifications" to enabled. Then whenever I make a change to my IRST settings, I get a little confirmation bubble from my computer, which I find reassuring-- tells me that my changes have registered.

Also, just to be sure: if you right click on the rapid start manager in the system tray, do you get a pop up window that says "Settings..."? If you do, can you get to the settings window that way?

 

I've rebooted several times with no success.
If I click the IRST icon in the tray and select settings the error pop up still shows and clicking continue doesn't load anything.
irstrtsv is running.
At 'create and format hard disk partitions' it actually shows 4 partitions, 'SYSTEM' 100MB, 92.92 GB (C: ), 4.29GB Healthy (Hibernation) and 21.93GB Healthy (Recovery). The Hibernation partition box has several thin diagonal lines...

 

Your partitions look fine. I've done a few reboots and my IRST icon is now hiding from me although I have set it to always show. There's a message saying it will appear when it next becomes active. Maybe the icon will appear if the computer is allowed to sleep (which won't be for a little while because I am doing a full backup). It's likely there are some remaining bugs.

John

PS: I left my S9 to sleep for a couple of hours with the power disconnected. The battery stayed at 79% so IRST is still going into hibernation but there's no sign of the control although it's enabled in the registry.

 

My tasktray icon is still present. I have it installed since Fri. In your task scheduler, is it set to start on login? (Intel® Rapid Start Technology Manager)

 

I just took a quick video of a disassembled NP900X3B if anyone is interested in the internal components. I'll post some high res pics later to show all the chips, WiFi, SSD, etc., in detail.

Samsung S9 NP900X3B Internals - YouTube

 

Task Scheduler showed that it is started. Task Manager showed that it is running. But it refused to stop hiding.

So I reinstalled it, reset the switches in the registry and rebooted. Thenthe icon reappeared. Clicking on it produced the usual error message so I rebooted again and it is still there. I've now got it set to 30 minutes.

John

 

What was it set to before? Are you thinking that's why it disappeared?

Mine has not disappeared, yet, but your report doesn't bode well.

I had one crumpy wake up, where my synchronizing service broke, and I had to reboot. All of this makes me irritated by Windows, which has NEVER implemented sleep without driver/software problems. Grrr.

 

That's not Windows' fault. There's really nothing Windows can do if the hardware provider does not distribute a viable driver for their product... For what it's worth, there's plenty of laptops that sleep perfectly fine.

 

Also, Windows sleeps perfectly fine if you uninstall Intel's IRST; it will sleep/hibernate as Microsoft intended, but what's the fun with that?

 

Here are the photos I took nearly two months ago:
Puzzles that probably don't need to be solved: March 2012

I have them in higher res. if anyone needs... not sure why they would

 

I previously had it set to be visible with a 10 minute time delay to hibernation. It's still there at the moment but I'm planning to wipe the SSD and do a clean install in order to get more space. On reinstallation I'll go straight to the latest drivers. One possible cause of the invisible icon problem is that there are two entries for the IRST Manager in the notification area icon list. Both are set to show.

John

 

Windows sleep itself is rock solid - given rock solid drivers. Blame the right people. A bit like Sony but to a slightly higher degree maybe, Samsung or their partners still can't write rock solid drivers. They also (unlike Sony's partners perhaps) need lessons in design. I haven't really futzed with the drivers since I made a few changes and then had a hang on the B - which is frankly a no-no in this day and age if the hardware isn't failing.

 

Quick question, has anyone else had problems with the Samsung Easy Update manager reporting 'the software did not install properly' via a balloon dialogue from the system tray but with no indication on opening the manager on what the issue is?

Had this previously but had been hoping the fresh install might get rid of it...no such luck.

 

Yes. I could never make it stop, so just uninstalled it.

 

Oh gosh, I fear that my unconsidered gripe has provoked some reactions! With apologies in advance to those I might offend, I think I meant: the windows ecosystem (OS, hardware, drivers, etc) is so fragmented that it will always produce gotchas of some kind, most of which go away after tinkering, and some of which you just choose to live with. Sleep, for some reason, has been historically impossible for me: my desktop motherboard just won't do it right, and I need it always on because it's a media server, but there's only three people in the world (or at least on the internet) that have experienced the same problem, so, it doesn't get fixed. So, my desktop never sleeps. Or, this laptop, where getting the IRST service working is a feat of detective work/reverse engineering.

Whoever said it above is right: if I were content to use plain vanilla Windows, I would be fine. And, to quote them further, "where's the fun in that?"

 

Thanks for clarification. Would love reports back, if you don't mind. Everything you learn, especially about IRST.

 

Does the "Intel Rapid Start Technology" configuration option appear explicitly within Easy Settings in your case?

My problem is that I can't find it. I'm not sure if it's actually supposed to be hidden, despite being installed.

 

In Easy Settings the on-off control for IRST should be at the bottom of the General list. Do you have a separate 4GB hibernation partition.

Note that the most recent discussion about IRST is about the version listed under the NP900X3C downloads. That version includes the IRST Manager which, if you change a couple of registry settings, appears in the notification area and allows the user to set the time delay between sleep and hibernation anywhere between 0 and 120 minutes. We were getting annoyed by the version of IRST shipped with the X3B because it would typically drain the battery by about 6% overnight and there was no indication of when the change from sleep to hibernation occurred.

John

 

Bugger

Ah well, I will just turn off notifications and check it manually once in a while.

 

Yup - me too, but only ever on resume from sleep / hibernate...

 

So I have to ask. All of this sleep/resume/hibernate stuff got started because of some power usage during the night when a machine "sleeps"?

Why is this important? You want the ability to just close the lid and not worry about it then wake up the next morning, open the lid, and all of your apps are still there the way you left them? Is that the scenario?

It appears to me hibernate doesn't fix the problem anyway. It just hides it. Something in the Samsung code is still using power when the machine is in a sleep state. This isn't fragmented windows ecosystem (whatever that means). This is an app or driver written by Samsung. Did anyone ever open a support ticket to see how Samsung responds to the bug report?

I am perfectly happy not using Intel hibernate, keeping my disk space, keeping Windows 7 rather vanilla, and using shutdown.

 

Yes, it is visible in easy settings but is meaningless because none of the Intel code is installed.

 

Yup. I have lots of reasons for wanting it to work that way, but that's the short answer. Not so much "overnight" as "whenever."

At the moment (knock wood), thanks to everyone here, IRST is working well for me to do just that, and I don't mind losing the drive space.

 

If the Intel Rapid Start driver is installed, you will have an on off button in easy settings to turn Rapid Start on or off. If you don't have the driver installed, the option to turn Rapid Start on and off disappears from Easy Settings.

If you want more configuration options-- the ability to tell the computer when to use rapid start to hibernate, and/or to see if the service is actually running-- then you have to use a configurator, which only comes with the most recent driver package on the XC download page. You also have to enable the switches in the registry, so you can see it.

 

It is working well for me too. I set it to 60m after sleep, and loose about 1% total overnight. Open it and in seconds, everything is back exactly where I left it.

 

Thanks, that certainly clarifies things a bit.

Actually, my laptop's a Series 5 530U3B which in contrast to the Series 9, uses a 16GB SSD for cache (Diskeeper ExpressCache) and hibernation (Intel Rapid Start Technology) purposes.

After a fresh install of Windows 7 and all drivers from Samsung's support website (even got some missing ones from the Korean website), there was no way I could hibernate and the sleep mode would drain the battery 6% overnight (consistent with your figure). At that point, I knew something was amiss which led me to this site and your posts after much googling.

Reading your posts about sleep, hibernation and IRST clarified how things really ought to be (adjustable sleep duration before eventual hibernation). Since my laptop drains so much overnight and resumes session within a fraction of a second, IRST is presumably not working. The ExpressCache works, and I can see a 4GB hibernation partition on the SSD. But IRST just won't appear in Easy Settings.

Will try the registry edit and see if it works, don't really mind whether the IRST appears in Easy Settings or not anyway...

 

OK thanks! I think somehow it's an indication that IRST is installed correctly.. Currently my laptop can't hibernate and when it sleeps, it drains too much (6% overnight). I could just forget IRST to have the hibernate command return with 0% drain overnight, but that would degrade my resume time (coz I'm using a Series 5 (16GB SSD cache only))

 

Silvernight, this is the Series 9 forum. Maybe people in the Series 5 forum will be more useful? Series 9 doesn't even have diskeepr expresscache and I am not sure the software will be even compatible.

 

So 45 days after I got my laptop it died. It won't power on at all. I'm not getting any lights on the laptop at all. The power supply works because it charges my wife's laptop perfectly.

I chatted with Samsung support and they were useless. I even spoke to a supervisor and they were useless as well.

They didn't know anything about the battery circuit reset and that is what I would like to try before sending it in for repair. Does anybody know how it works or have any ideas what I should try?

Thank you for any advice!

 

According to the user guide, the pin hole is effectively a switch. If you stick a paper clip into the hole and press, you turn off the connection between the battery and the motherboard. This switch is reset when you plug the AC adapter back into the machine.

You should try this. I hope it works for you.

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/660015-samsung-series-9-wont-turn.html for more discussion on this topic.

 

I will try that when I get home. Thank you for the quick response!!!

 

Is IRST supported for your model? I can't see the driver listed amoung the NP530U3B downloads.

John

 

Hey Guys,

I read this thread in detail and followed as much as I could and finally pulled the trigger, the Canadian model was np900x3b-b03ca.

I spent some time on whether I should go for the newer model and decided against it due to a $300 price difference ( $999 CAD vs $1349 US ). It depends on your need I guess, I did not mind the lesser resolution and the fingerprint magnet it was.

The Canadian model page ( NP900X3A-B03CA - OVERVIEW | SAMSUNG) has zero downloads for support so I have been looking at the equivalent US page ( http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/NP900X3A-B03US). The Canadian series 9 page also seems to be listing the "A" models.

The touchpad driver did update though windows said the software did not install properly. I also know that it has the Intel 3x3 lan card and have been getting good speeds on a floor above my router.

I will post more thoughts about this Canadian version if anyone's interested.

The trackpad is definitely something to get used to and I still feel my 2008 MB Pro has a better trackpad experience than this 2012 windows version, the gestures are a hit and miss and I have found that the elan trackpad looses its driver once in a while which I believe fixed after the driver update.

The screen is definitely on the better side though the sound is tinny.

 

Yup, it's just mislabeled as Intel Rapid Storage Technology. It's an old version though (1.0.0.1007) which doesn't support the GUI configuration and the registry parameters you posted earlier.

Will see if I can get to install the 1.0.0.1021 version properly..