The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

Hey Guys,

I got a used version of this series 9 from cowboom.com. It came with no OS installed but with a Key for windows 7. I have been trying to install it from a bootable USB for 2 days with no luck. It recognizes the USB stick, says it starts loading Windows files, but then gets stuck on the "starting windows" screen. I'm going crazy trying to figure out whats wrong. I created a USB from the recovery CD that came with it, and then used an ISO I downloaded online with still no luck. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Recommend you either confirm the stick works on another machine (boots Windows PE and starts Setup), or use an external DVD drive and Windows DVD media.

How did you make the USB stick? Did you download the .ISO from a MSDN or TechNet subscription the use the microsoftstore.com USB stick creation utility?

 

I just received my Samsung Series 9 in the mail today and I've been testing out the display.

Does anyone else notice that the display seems to make greens more yellowish (basically greens are very weakly displayed)? It generally feels like the display projects a lot of "warm" colors, at least compared to my Sager NP8170. For example, when watching movies, the skin of people seem more orange-ish and blacks are far darker (what seems like dark gray suits on other computers will look like completely black suits on the samsung series 9).

 

@isosunrise

So far so good, started fine tonight.

 

Yes, definitely. I plan to color calibrate mine when it arrives this week to see if I can cool it off a bit.

 

To tallguy12:

I had problems when doing a clean Win7 installation from USB stick on my X4C. I seemed
to be that I was using the the USB 3.0 port. After switching to the USB 2.0 port,
everything went well.

Per

 

Thanks for the reply, but it I tried that too and it didn't work. What did work was going into BIOS and disabling EVERYTHING and it finally went through the loading screen. Weird but so happy it worked out. I got the laptop for 500 so it would have sucked sending it back!

 

I apologize for the noob question, but how would I go about reducing the 'warmness' of my display [whites are just a little too yellowish]? I tried to do the color calibration, but the default settings already matched Window's suggested setting for brightness/contrast and color removal from gray contrast. Despite this, colors are still too warm on the display.

It is a little weird though, for the most part, the display looks great. But it when I'm playing a video, or looking at a picture with a lot of green, the color reproduction is off.

 

Also remember to disable the Samsung Fast Start.

You can try the calibrated profile I posted here. You will also need to look through he subsequent discussion to see how to make it stick.

John

 

I wrote up a how-to on my blog here. Has worked for other folks.

HTH

 

Excellent, thanks. I'm not going to upgrade the ssd yet, but I do want to save the factory image before I do my reinstall. Do you know how much space it is, I'm guessing ~25GB?
Best of all, clonezilla is donateware.

 

My laptop is about to be delivered this week. Is there any tips, tricks, or advices for this laptop? Like should I update some of the drivers or would it cause problem? Should I disable this or that? Usually the OP has something similar to this but I couldn't find any.

 

If you have a full version of Acronis True Image Home 2012, use the Acronis rescue and recovery disk to backup the machine before the first boot. If you don't have a purchased copy, use the Samsung supplied recovery software to create a DVD set of the environment, drivers and software.

After that my recommendation would be to study the machine for a day or two before making any changes.

Since the image coming on the SSD is actually a Microsoft (not Samsung) created image, I want to take the time to see how it diverges from the Samsung factory image. The Samsung factory image didn't have a lot of bloat so I figure the Microsoft Store image architect just installed Live Essentials, maybe Security Essentials, Bing Desktop, etc. You can bet Chrome isn't the default browser.

 

Hey guys,

If anyone is unhappy with their purchase from the recent Microsoft Store deal - please PM me - I just missed out on the deal - and would like to get my hands on one.

Thanks!

 

If you want private messages, you need to turn on the ability for us to send them to you. I already tried. See the Private Messaging options at http://forum.notebookreview.com/profile.php?do=editoptions

If you are interested in mine, unopened, send me an offer.

 

should be able to send me msgs now -- for whatever reason, I wasn't able to send you one.

 

Newbies can't send PMs- it's an anti-sapmmer measure.

John

 

how do i become a un-noobified?

 

I think you need to post 5 or 10 times. N00b

 

will this bring me over the top? or will I need to tastefully comment on a few more forums before I can send you a PM??

we shall see.....

 

Hi everyone,

I just got this laptop from the MS store deal, and it is a very beautiful laptop. I have a problem with this laptop though. How do I set the entire touchpad/clickpad to be clickable? I want to be able to click, not tap, anywhere on the pad as a left click. I have the previous version of this laptop (crappy wifi), and I could set the entire touchpad to recognize as a left click.

My previous series 9 11.6" laptop did have a synaptic touchpad as oppose to the elan touchpad.

 

i'm also a n00b and can't PM, but if opticblast did not buy thors.hammer's NP900X3b and he still wants to sell his new one (or anyone else), pls let me know at email [email protected]. thanks.

 

no, im really interested in buying it.. just waiting to get enough posts to PM...

 

I took the NP900X3B I purchased at microsoftstore.com and upgraded the SSD to the new Crucial M4 256GB mSATA SSD. Attached are some screenshots of some benchmarks from three different tools. Looks like the M4 is going to be a nice option.



Looks like someone got around to fixing attachment thumbs.

 

What 128GB drive came in your B from MS Store?

 

Samsung
P/N = MZMPC128HBFU-000KN
Model = MZ-MPC1280/0KN

 

So, you got the Samsung 830 128GB mSATA.

Other than twice the space with the M4,
you aren't really seeing a speed boost are you?

 

The goal wasn't additional speed.

 

Lurker, who bought the microsoftstore.com promotion.

Love the laptop so far:
- Build quality is great
- Screen is amazing, even coming from an Envy 14 Radiance. No going back to glossy screens for me.
- Whisper quiet
- Cold boots in 18 sec with a pw
- keyboard is shallow. When I use a laptop stand to prop it up, typing is much better

I also got the Samsung P/N = MZMPC128HBFU-000KN. Here is my CrystalDiskMark
These results are better than the Samsung 830 256gb SSD I have in my Envy 14. However my Envy 14 opens programs like itunes, skype, foxit reader faster. Any reason to this? Newbie question, but what speed test in CrystalDiskMark "rates" the speed to open apps?

 

Hello,
After I discovered that the battery wear on my S9B was 13% after 1 month, I sent it in to Samsung for repair. They replaced the battery and sent it back. The new battery shows only 4% wear - OK with me. However, since I got it back, hibernate is not in the shut down menu. I have been on the phone with Samsung for a couple hours and tried several different things to re-activate hibernate. I even tried opening a command prompt and typing "powercfg -h on" and got a message that system firmware does not support hibernate. But I had it before I sent the laptop in for repair. They finally told me that they were not permitted to walk me through a registry edit but that I could probably find help on the web. Otherwise, send it back in for repair. I have not been able to find anything doing a google search. Does anyone have a suggestion before I send it back?
Thanks in advance
Dennis

 

So, are the NP900X3B now coming with Sandisk too? Is their any reason to get these anymore over the NP900X3Cs? I know you can sometimes save some money but with the sales that seem to be happening right now even that is moot.

 

Try the various steps in this thread.

Some X3Bs shipped with U100s and some did not. It depends on your country.

John

 

First of all, synthetic benchmarks are typically pretty pathetic. Real work scenarios are often a better way to judge. Regarding your question, I would compare more than just storage I/O. How does your Envy 14 compare when you look at the other specs? For instance, is the CPU the same? What about the GPU? Everything comes into play. And don't forget, because you've been using the Envy 14 longer, Windows could be predicting what programs you are going to use and has some of them already cached for you.

Mine came with the Samsung. It's a shame mostly for people that can live within the 128GB realm. Forcing them to a decent SSD and the extra expense sucks.

 

Why would you want windows hibernate? Just a waste of another 4GB, rapid start is better and does essentially the same thing. After your computer is asleep for awhile it will hibernate on its own.

 

Has anyone done a UEFI windows install? Benefits?

 

Hello Don1, the SS9 that i bought from MS store last week has samsung SSD!

 

I just received my X3B bought from MS store last week. It's got a samsung SSD. The 4K read/write is about 20+/40+ MB/s by crystaldiskmark.
The overall build quality is pretty good. Although it does not feel as solid as a macbook air, it's very close. The hinge is not loose by any means but the screen does shake a little bit after tilting the angle. The top sinks in a little bit when I press against it, but there's nothing to worry about. It weights only 2.56lb after all.
The trackpad is OK to use, but there is one problem. The pointer moves up when I scroll up with two fingers. This is very annoying in web browsing.
The screen is certainly a nice one with good view angles, but the grayscale is not. It loses some details in the dark and the bright side. I think this may be improved in the Intel video control panel. The screen also suffers some backlight bleeding, which I don't really mind.
The speakers are nice considering the size and thickness of this laptop. I'm moving from a Dell Latitude which is a nice machine, but the speakers are just horrible. The Samsung sounds much rich and clear.

As for the temperature, the CPU idles at about 50 C, with the room temperature around 20-25 C. The CPU runs on 2.0Ghz under load, but the clock goes down to 1.9/1.8 GHz when running prime95 stress test and the temperature go up to 80 C. The keyboard does feel very warm when running prime95. I'm not concerned with the temperatures cuz I'm never gonna run any task like prime95 in daily use.

I'm still testing the battery. I started playing a 720P movie trailer repeatedly 45 minutes ago. The brightness is set to the 4th level (half). It's down to 81% from a full charge.

 

Just about ready to pull the trigger on the 900X3B-A02... Just curious though. According to the MS Store, it's supposed to be the silver color... From what I've heard from EVERYONE else, it's mineral ash, which I'd greatly prefer. Can anyone confirm what color it is?

 

The one I got from MS Store is mineral ash black.

AFAIK, the silver ones are only available in the newer ivy bridge ones with 8gb ram and 256ssd

 

It is mineral ash black.
I told MS Store that they were wrong, and to correct their description, but they have not.

 

I see some backight bleed as well! Is it a common issue with this model? I am getting a bettery life of 3-4 hours!

Is there any particular software/driver update that we should avoid now? There is a new bios, USB3.0 driver, graphics and WiFI driver updates are available. Everything works great so far and am relucant to update anything yet. Thanks.

 

What display brightness are you using? I find that 5/8 is good for indoor usage.

I would assume that the updates include a few bug fixes and install them. The BIOS update is irreversible but you can roll back the others if you find a problem.

John

 

Updated to the latest touchpad driver (ver. 10.7.17.5). It solved the two finger scrolling issue. Now the touchpad is great!

 

That's the version I downloaded and installed on my clean install.

 

You know if you have a store near you the new one is on sale for 20% off, right? Anything over $1000 is 20% off. As it seems to be a crap shoot on what SSD you will get anyway you might as well spend the extra $40.

 

Yes, but it becomes a $200 price difference when you factor in taxes (or the lack thereof, in Amazon's case). Haha, no worries. I will be getting the updated version, after further consideration. If I get a bad SSD, it's an excuse for me to grab a 256GB one and to give the old one to my mother (who could really use the upgrade from her 5400rpm drive haha). Prospects for the SSD seemed to be better for the 900X3B edition though, at least with the final batch that MS is pushing out.

 

Did you find the new one somewhere for $1040 and no tax? I will jump on that in a second.

 

Haha, no no. I meant there's a $200 difference between the 900X3B and the 900X3C. XD Last I checked, the MS store has the 900X3B for $999 and a free Xbox 360.

IF ONLY IT WAS THE NEW ONE. ;________;




Edit: My bad; now I understand where the $1040 is coming from haha. No, I factored in tax for both using my lousy California rates. The 900X3B comes out to roughly $950 (if you estimate netting a $150 profit from selling the 360), and the 900X3C is about $1150 after the 20% off promotion and taxes.