The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

You have got me confused. According to the Samsung Canada website there's an NP900X3A-B03CA (2011 design S9) or an NP900X3B-A01CA (2012 Sandy Bridge). But there's no NP900X3B-B03CA.

Your comments suggest that you opted for the cheaper model, which would be the NP900X3A. In that case the relevant discussion is here.

John

 

Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) is a valid product name and family. See Support for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology

It used to be called Intel Matrix Storage Management.

Intel Rapid Start Technology is a different product and feature set and the confusion comes when people use the same acronym for different products.

 

I just uninstalled my IRST, the version that came installed with my S9 is 1.0.0.1008. I realized it was useless before, because after installing it, I can still sleep and resume normally at the same very quick speeds.

If I manually deleted this hibernation partition, would it still be able to sleep/resume? Btw, where can I find the latest IRST drivers? It wasn't available to download on the US samsung website.

 

You can use the standard windows hibernation. The sleep in IRST is probably the same as the standard Windows sleep.

Google for "NP900X3C downloads".

John

 

Ok I just got my sleep/hibernation/resume from IRST working successfully. Took about an hour total because of the few bumps along the way I had to figure out, but I realized it could be done in less than 15 minutes. Pretty painless process for me. Here's a summary of what I did and the bits and pieces of post I pulled together for the last 20 pages regarding IRST:



1) Start your downloads of the " Intel Rapid Start Technology" driver version 1.0.0.1015, and " Easy Settings" software version 1.1.0.54 HERE.

2) While it's downloading in the meantime, uninstall the old IRST drivers from Control Panel < Programs < Uninstall a program. Reboot after download and uninstallation is complete.

3) Install the new standalone IRST 1.0.0.1015 first, reboot. Then install the new Easy Settings 1.1.0.54 package afterwards, and reboot.

4) Type "regedit.exe" in windows search, press enter to go into the registry. Navigate to HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Intel\irstrt\Parameters, and change the values for "InvisibleMode" and "HideMessagePrompts" both to zero (0). Reboot.

5) After reboot, there should be an icon that looks like a blue power button in the bottom right task tray. When you open, there will be an error message, but after you change one of the the timer settings to anything and press "save", you'll get a notification saying " Status: Intel Rapid Start Technology Turned On", and that's when you know it's working. DONE!

 

WhiteFireDragon that's going to be fairly useful to me, thanks.


On a separate note does anyone know how to solve this issue?

I updated the Elan Touchpad drivers to version 10.7.13.1 from the original drivers that shipped with mine and worked fine.

Since the update none of the gestures work at all. I did re-enable them in the Control Panel section.

I rolled back the driver to the older version and I still have the same problem, reinstalled the update and still have the same issue.

I rebooted where necessary in between installing the programs and am kinda stumped now.
I think I read about it before when I read the whole thread but the search is broken so can't find it.


EDIT: Should I just try the NP900X3C drivers that John linked to in post 1480?

 

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I got my replacement unit and I'm still experiencing the same problem. I noticed that I get fantastic download speeds but it's like the connection is dropped every few seconds altogether. I've noticed it during file downloads and if I try to load a Youtube clip (the clip loads about a third of the way, freezes, then loads a tiny bit more, freezes, loads, etc. It makes watching anything above SD content impossible. What's the latest version of the wireless driver so I can make sure I'm running it?

EDIT: I downloaded inSSIDer but I'm not really sure what I can do with this tool. My router is apparently set to automatically find the best channel, could that be the problem?

 

Just a quick update on the IRST: I shut the lid, left it like that for exactly 3 hours, opened the lid again and battery was still 100%. Basically zero battery drain, so it looks like it's doing what it's suppose to.

Yeah, the drivers I linked is the same one that John posted.

Then it's probably your router, not the notebook. Two notebooks with the same wifi problem is highly unlikely, especially since I haven't seen any one else had huge complains about wifi problems.

 

I'm sure it's my router, but I just want to fix it! Stupid computers...

It's just irritating to me that every other device in my house plays nice with my router except for this one. I'm wondering if the driver is just wonky or if there's something I can do to my router to increase the chances of things working well with it... basically I want to avoid buying another router just for this machine, but I don't want to return it either!

 

If you are looking for a replacement recommendation, see Amazon.com: NETGEAR N600 Wireless Dual-Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700: Electronics.

Regarding the WIFI drivers, you might download the latest from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx?lang=eng

 

Thanks Thor, I was already looking into that router, as I found your post from a few days ago. I'll probably end up ordering it. I had also found the Intel download page, but chickened out on downloading the latest drivers when I read that I should get them from my OEM instead of Intel, but I suppose I could always restore my system if something goes amiss.

 

There is very little if any risk trying the drivers directly from Intel. Samsung and the other OEMs typically do nothing to the Intel wireless drivers other than set the package to install silently with a command line switch.

1. Download the latest from Intel and Samsung to your Sammy.
2. Uninstall the Samsung drivers via Control Panel | Programs and Features
3. Install the latest from Intel
4. Reboot
5. Connect and do some testing.

Good Luck!

 

Gave it a shot and no real improvement, so I'm picking up your router. Hopefully it will work better! Thanks for the advice

 

Great step by step description!
I did everything you said but the blue power button won't appear in the task tray...
I decided to click customize and make sure the IRST button always shows. After selecting 'show icon and notifications' I waited for a couple minutes and it finally popped up next to my sound, battery and wifi signal icons! I tried to click it but as soon as I hovered the mouse over the icon it disappeared...
If I click the windows start button and click the IRST Manager it goes to user account control where I press 'yes' and then a message tells me "An unkown error has occurred. The application is terminating."
The registries are fine, both set to 0 and I've rebooted several times already...
The icons pops up occasionally but like before it disappears as soon as I try to click it.

 

Hmm it looks like something got corrupted. I would uninstall everything from the program uninstall option in the control panel and try again fresh. So uninstall both the IRST and EasySettings, reboot, and go back to the uninstall programs list to make sure it's not there anymore. Then install the newer updated version of the driver and software again, and do the registry tweak.

 

Ok I've done that. But with the same results...
I then tried a second time and realized that after uninstalling both programs when I clicked windows start I could still see that the IRST manager was still there, clicking would give me an error window and then nothing would happen. Opening the file location led me to a file in my local disk where RapidStartConfig was selected which is exactly like the GUI folder that came in the latest IRST download package. Clicking RapidStart Config would make the IRST icon in the task tray visible and clickable but like the previous days clicking would make an error window pop up and nothing would happen after that, restarting made no difference.

 

I had a few challenges getting IRST running after I had reformatted by SSD and reinstalled Windows. since IRST is causing a few headaches I am preparing material for its own thread.

Among the things I have noticed is that (a) version 1.0.0.1007 of IRST incudes a utility to create the hibernation partition and put the IRST entry into Easy Settings. If the hibernation partition already exists then it gets confused and every time the computer restarts it wants to create the hibernation partition again; and (b) once that version of IRST has done its work then 1.0.0.1015 can be used to install IRST Manager. When that is installed and the switches changed in the registry then the IRST settings can be changed. Plus reboots at each step of the process (fortunately delightfully quick).

@ Pato Milan: Keep trying different options and reboot after each change. Eventually you will succeed.

John

 

Great summary, thanks! When I try to install the new IRST software, an error comes up and says the computer doesn't meet minimum requirements. Any ideas why? Thanks!

 

Do you have the hibernation partition? See John's comments above. I got that error when the hibernation partition wasn't properly set up.

Thanks John, for more updates. Your explanation about windows getting "confused" explains the many strange errors I got when trying to install this. A new thread would be great, consolidating things that we have learned. Especially since it seems that some people are struggling with Rapid Start on different models.

 

I'll have to dig through this thread unless someone has a hibernation partition setup summary

I checked my partitions, and I only have the main 119gb partition and a 100mb system partition. I never installed the original IRST. Any other ideas why I'm getting the "computer doesn't meet minimum requirements" message?

 

You need to run the IRST installer in Easy Software Manager. That will create the Hibernation partition.

Once you have done that you should get the partition and also a switch at the bottom of the General page of Easy Settings. Enable it and then install the newer version of IRST. And reboot after each step.

John

PS: IRST now has its own thread

 

Ooops. Sorry. Was posting this just as John posted his answer and link to thread. His answer is better. The only thing I would add is that I'm not sure if the partition gets created just by running installer from easy software. I think you might have to enable IRST from Easy Settings, and then partition gets created, at least that's how it seemed to work for me. From now on will post in new thread.

 

Things have gotten weird today!

I booted up my notebook an hour or two ago, everything seemed relatively normal but with in a matter of seconds the touchpad wouldn't click anymore. It was working for a brief moment at start up as I opened up the browser with it.

I used mouse app on my phone to navigate to download the touchpad driver from the NP900X3C and installed them (they seem to be the same updated version that I had already).

Restarted the machine and still had the same problem. Since then I've noticed the following:

Left Click/Right Click not working
Tapping not working
No gestures work apart from two finger scroll which is smoother than ever now
Weird >> Pressing down on the touchpad away from the bottom (towards upper half & top of touchpad) works as a left click now?!? I didn't even think these pads could do this.

I've encountered the equivalent of a four finger swipe gesture (windows key+tab) with one finger by accident a few times but haven't been purposely been able to recreate it.

I got a 'z' keystroke register by trying to move the mouse - another user reported this before.

In the touchpad settings program when I hover the pointer over 'Two-Finger' 'Tapping' the program crashes. Think it's related to the video preview not working for that particular action - does that happen anyone else?



Should I uninstall the driver via device manager and reinstall it? I've used the Easy Software to update the first time which created these problems. Second time I downloaded from the web to install it over the old one.

I'd like to know will an external mouse work ok if I uninstall the driver though just in case.

 

An external mouse should work fine since that uses Windows drivers. I updated my trackpad drivers manually (downloaded from Samsung and installed). That worked fine for me. I've updated my wifi and sound drivers via the manager, and that has been fine too. Yes, you can click the bottom left and right of the trackpad as clicks.

 

Cheers, I plugged in the external mouse then seen it got it'as own driver so I went ahead and uninstalled the Elan drivers, restarted. Installed the Elan drivers manually, restarted and I'm back to having the same problems again. I had more functionality with the windows touchpad driver!

PS: RE clicking bottom left and right as clicks - I was just stating its not working anymore.

 

Something is serious messed up. Is it worth trying a system restore if there is an option for yesterday? How about trying to change the sensitivity using ETDAniConf.sys?

John

 

Hi John

It's weird alright. The touchpad works fine on the windows driver with left/right click without the gestures.

Might try a system restore for recent changes to see if that works. I didn't make a back up since day one onto an external hd (didn't have an external DVD drive back then).

The new touchpad driver is faulty whether installed manually or with Easy Software.

I don't have a stand alone copy of the older one.

I done one from a few days ago. The touchpad is working fine again on the old driver.

I'll try update it again in a few days, not in the mood right now for a dodgy touchpad again!

 

Any reason why you're not recommending the new Netgear N900 4500?

I happen to be looking for a router to replace my VERY old Netgear RangeMax and I thought the new 4500 would be the best bet??

 

I am noticing that the touchpad becomes unusable if the 'W' key is depressed and held. Can anyone else confirm this behavior or offer an explanation for it? Is the touchpad sharing circuitry with the keyboard? I was unaware that ghosting could affect touchpads as well as keyboards..

 

Haha, I can confirm that too. Probably a "feature" so while you are typing, you don't move the cursor when you accidentally touch the touchpad with your palm. When you hold the shift or control keys (still allowing you to move, select things), it is fine... only the normal keys it does this.

 

It is indeed. It actually makes a big difference, I really noticed not having it when I was having problems earlier and yesterday, it was very hard to type anything properly with the touchpad switched on.

Although when I played some John Deere game that installed on the computer you couldn't walk (WSAD keys) and change direction with the touchpad at the same time because of the 'feature'!

I'm not sure if you can actually turn it off easily for gaming.

 

I haven't tried that router. I have the one I recommended.

 

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

Check the Series 7 touchpad thread. There may be a switch in the registry.

John

PS: There are innumerable settings in the registry for the Elan touchpad at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Elantech\. This post points to one possible setting for the touchpad response while typing. Another setting is DisableWhenType_AllArea, which defaults to 1. There are also associated time delays. See what suits you and report back.

 

Since installing the new IRST manager I'm having a couple of issues:

1. It no longer always wakes from sleep when I open the lid, I sometimes have to press the power button.

2. The function keys (eg to control screen brightness) sometimes don't work after waking up. I noticed before that there was a delay with the F keys which I thought might be due to the way IRST works. But now they sometimes dont work at all.

Anyone else had these?

 

Now that IRST has its own thread it might be worthwhile discussing the problems there.

To briefly reply to your issues:
1. I've not noticed this except if the computer goes to sleep when left open.
2. No similar problems here, so far. I suggest you try reinstalling Easy Settings. You might even want to try the slightly newer Easy Settings listed under the X3C downloads.

John

 

Under Easy Settings, do you have Fast Start turned on?

 

I am about to tear my hair out. I purchased the router that Thor suggested and just installed it, but I am running into numerous oddities. First of all, I cannot seem to get the router to work in n mode--I can only select up to 54mbps in the router settings for speed. Additionally, while my S9 no longer seems to drop downloads, I'm not really noticing significant speed improvements. Tested next to my girlfriend's old Asus laptop, I was getting speedtest results of 12-13 mbps on her laptop and 3-5 on mine. What is the deal here?

EDIT: Andddd I solved it. Looks like I had the encryption set to WEP which was forcing b/g mode. When I changed to WPA I was allowed to use N mode and now I'm getting normal speeds throughout the apartment. Huzzah!

 

Samsung teases Series 9 Ivy Bridge Ultrabook, leaves availability in the ether -- Engadget

 

I was just getting ready to suggest the problem is between the keyboard and the seat. Just kidding!

Glad you got part of the problem figured out.

I would suggest doing all of your initial testing while on AC power first, and move to battery later.

Second, I would suggest two different SSIDs. One for 2.4GHz and the other for 5GHz. Test on them separately. Tweak them separately.

Have fun

 

Oh believe me, I'm no expert, so I was certain that I was doing SOMETHING wrong. I was just frustrated that the thing wasn't working! But I'm glad to finally have a functioning setup so I can actually enjoy using this thing more than a foot away from my router. Thanks for the help!

 

I'm thinking of getting a bluetooth mouse so that a wireless mouse dongle doesn't block one of the USB ports. Did anyone try a BT mouse? If so, how did you get on? When I last tried one some years ago there were problems with dropped connections.

John

 

I have not used a BT mouse with this machine, but my impression of BT mice in general is pretty bad. Even if they don't drop the connection completely (something I haven't experienced in the past couple of years), they ALWAYS lag for a couple of seconds when not moved for a bit. My guess is that they save power by sleeping when idle for X-minutes, and then wake up when they move again. This means for a second or two they don't move the cursor. For a lot of people this probably isn't a big deal, but I personally find it extremely annoying!

 

I've rocked the Razer orochi on both my M11x and my current envy13. Besides from a bit less battery life (on the mouse, it seems to me compared to Logitech 2.4's), I have no complaints. The mouse wakes from sleep in a fraction of a second, and I can't notice any lag whatsoever. YMMV though...

 

I'm currently using two bluetooth mice, a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 at work which I leave at the desk and on all day, and Sony Vaio VGP-BMS10/B when I am portable in my bag (this one is awesome, you slide the faceplate and it turns off/on). Both works great. I open the notebook lid from sleep, and usually within two clicks with the left button and I am connected. There are no drops except from cold starts where it may take a few seconds for the bluetooth drivers to load in/out. I highly recommend bluetooth mice in general; been using them for a few years now.

 

I used a microsoft BT mouse on a previous laptop. It worked OK, but the battery life of the mouse was poor (batteries needed replacing after a few weeks of heavy use compared with my current logitech wireless mouse which is still going strong on first batteries after more than a year).

The other issue is that you have to have BT on on the laptop, which will lower the battery life there too.

 

Thanks. Amazon UK has the Mouse 5000 at a reasonable price.

I'm not too worried about this. I use rechargeable batteries.

I'm aware of this. When running on battery it is best to avoid any external devices (specifally watch out for having anything plugged into the USB 3.0 port, which seems to use more power than USB 2.0).

Slightly different subject: Amazon UK now have the X3B on back order with more stock expected on 20th May (which means that the X3C is not imminent). In the mean time this company is trying to make a profit.

John

 

The MS BT Mouse 5000, I leave it on about 6-8 hours a day (also use rechargeable batteries) - I turn it off at night to save battery. They last quite a while for 2x AAA, a few months. The Vaio BMS10 I use normal batteries and replace them maybe once a year, but I don't use it as often as my MS one, mostly weekends or an hour or two during the week. I have always left my bluetooth on with all my laptops, so I don't know how it affects my battery life with it off. From 80%, if I am writing, working on slides, I can usally do 4-5 hours with bluetooth/wifi on (mostly working, not much surfing).

 

I can also vouch for the MS 5000 BT mouse. I've been using it for well over a year, on the first generation Samsung S9 as well as my wife's MBA and my HP HDX16.

It works perfectly on all of them, very stable (the wife often plays games with it) and much better than earlier versions of BT mice. The size is also ideal for use with a laptop -- it's small, highly portable and comes with a convenient cover.

 

I just noticed that notebookcheck recently posted a review of the NP900X3B. I'm a little intrigued by the statement that the RAM is not soldered on the motherboard. I also noticed that the external temperatures are significantly higher than what I measured. It has me wondering if there's a version with one fan and DIMM slots (as on the X4B).

And I was just thinking about another accessory: Something to enable me to read the SSD should the computer die. Has anyone else thought about that issue? Would one of these work (together with a standard 2.5" SATA USB enclosure)?

John