The New Samsung Series 7 Chronos Thread #2

I'm starting a new thread about the New Chronos Series 7 (i.e. NP770z#e or NP780z#e only) because the last one here has become a complete mess of misinformation and pointless moaning.

Pre-worldwide/general release of the laptop: Please only post useful information or links you've found which are of benefit to those of us waiting for the laptop.
Post general release: Please only post useful tips/hints/technical information or questions etc.

THIS THREAD IS NOT FOR MOANING OR REPEATING THE SAME FEW QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER. If you're not sure, read the thread first!

The Best-buy version of this laptop and the 17" version are slightly different variants to the Higher spec release - feel free to talk about them here, but only if your comments fit the mini-rules above.

To start the ball rolling, here's the technical specs of the 4 pending UK releases (note all have 4+4gb RAM (no 8+? available) and none have ssd fitted at factory):

NP770Z5E-S01UK (i7 8870gpu no Touch, matt)
NP780Z5E-S01UK (i7 8870gpu with Touch, glossy)
NP770Z5E-S02UK (i5 8850gpu no touch, matt)
NP780Z5E-T01UK (i5 8850gpu with Touch, glossy)

I asked in John Lewis @ Milton Keynes, who are getting some 15" models in stock, but expect this to be sometime mid-late March at the earliest.

Now please play nice...

 

People ask the same questions over and over again because they don't want to look through 170+ pages of the thread for useful information (or not use the "search" function).

If you want to form a clean thread you should look through the thread yourself and put any and all useful information into this first post.

 

See, there you go already ! I have read it all, every single post - I've followed the original thread from the day I first saw this shown at CES in fact. I just want people to share/converse over the facts and not speculate or bicker!

However, good point about updating the first post, so I'll gather over the next day or two (170 pages is a lot to look through!) and will update as I get to it.

 

The downside of having 2 threads is that you will constantly have to shift between two threads. That's probably more annoying than sifting through speculations on the first thread. I like the idea of updating the first post. Maybe you could ask the OP of the large thread to do it or ask whether you can do it for him.

 

Yep people writing it off with miss information, wait until i can google and and have tons of webpages giving detail reviews

 

As someone who has NOT followed the big thread at all (beyond the opening post) I must say I was rather excited about the idea of a new thread containing actual user experiences, and questions answers based on them.

It happens in all tech forums: When a product is pre-announced in a new thread, it mushrooms very quickly with thousands of speculative posts and discussion, before anybody gets actual hands-on. That's mostly harmless and good fun, kills time while waiting for product release. But I've sometimes seen it get a bit aggressive ("my speculation is better than yours") -- which is what I gather happened in this case.

For any actual owners joining after the speculative phase, it is quite a burden to wade through those thousands of initial posts, most of which may contain little or no real information (or even wrong information). So I think a structured way to "start fresh" -- while carrying over or linking to the most important information from the original thread -- is a great idea.

I base this entirely on my general experience from other Owners Threads over the years. Again, I have NOT read the original thread in this case, and I apologize if I misread the situation

 

I agree with the idea of this thread, but I think we should maybe make an owner's club instead?
This will end up being more and more speculation, where as an owner's club tends to work for product-related posts.

 

The easiest way is probably to create a list of links to the most useful posts in the old thread.

If we can get the most pertinent information included into this thread then, if there is general consensus, I can lock the old one.

John

 

I have the Best Buy model in US, NP780Z5E-S01

I think the only difference to the UK models is it has 1GB/ GPU instead of 2.

Specs from the box:
Intel Core i7 3635QM
15.6" FHD(300 nit) UMS2 Touch
AMD HD8770M GDDR5 1GB
8GB DDR3 1600 MHz/On BD 4G + 4G
1TB HDD (5.4k R SATA)
Intel 802.11 abgn(2x2) + BT4.0

Here's the review I posted at bestbuy.com yesterday.

3 Stars

What's great about it: Nice screen, trackpad, battery, and build quality
What's not so great: GPU doesn't perform well, slow out of the box, endless settings menus with a mind of their own.

Great screen and neat that it's a touch screen, but I don't like the high gloss. Trackpad is almost as good as the Mac Book Pro or of equal quality. (This is really saying something because PC manufactures have been screwing up the trackpad for a long, long time.) The battery is humongous, and lasts a long time. Probably more like 7 hours instead of the 11 they claim, but that's a huge improvement over most computers with similar specs. The speakers also sound better than HP Envy "Beat" speaker, but I don't use them that much. I either plug in external speakers or plug in headphones. (They sounded even better when I removed the loose screws that were stuck to the magnetic diaphragm. This did require disassembly--keep reading.)

But that's where the good ends and the bad begins. Out of the box, this computer is slower than my 2 1/2 year old HP Envy, it's also got a mind of it's own that has made me, an experienced computer user, feel like Will Smith in I, Robot.

As far as I can tell, the computer runs slow for three main reasons:
1) The hard drive is SLOW. It should be upgraded to an SSD or a less expensive, but sometimes just as fast hybrid drive
2) Bloatware called Intellimemory which tries to turn the RAM into a make-shift SSD to make up for the poor hard drive performance--was causing the system to utilize 65%+ of available memory while idling.
3) Poor performance of the graphics card, the AMD 8770m with 1 GB of memory.

The first two can be fixed, although replacing the hard drive should only be done by someone with a lot of experience and/or liability insurance in case they break the case or motherboard cable connecting to the hard drive. I replaced mine already to see if it would help performance (it did), but it was a pain. I also discovered that there is only one slot to upgrade the RAM (currently filled with a 4 GB stick). I guess the other 4 GB is soldered to the board, but I couldn't see it on the part of the board that was visible when opening the back case. (I now see it's in the specs, but wasn't paying that much attention when I first got it.)

I'm not sure about the AMD 8770m. Better driver support may fix the poor benchmark scores, but it seems to run about the same as my 2-year-old AMD 5650 in my old laptop. But I'm not even sure I'm using the AMD. Even after disabling the Intel 4000 in the device manager, it would sometimes re-enable automatically. This computer (and any with switchable graphics) really needs a switch or a button which can be used to switch between the GPUs. There are endless settings menus--some from Samsung, some from Windows, some from AMD, and some from Intel. In fact, each program can be set to use the Intel or the AMD card, but it's annoying to have to open this settings window every time you install a new program and want it to use the better GPU as the default seems to be the Intel. (I found some more settings this morning which may now make the default GPU the AMD, but still not sure if it will stick.) Sometimes the settings stick, and sometimes they don't, and sometimes the different settings menus conflict with each other, and you're not really sure which one takes precedence. If I can't figure out how to make the GPU run better or more consistent, I will have to return the computer.

Now on to the backlit keyboard. The keyboard is actually very visible in low light without the backlight turned on. The black letters on silver keys provide good contrast, especially with the reflection of the screen. With the backlight turned on, it makes the letters appear the same color as the keys, and it makes most of the letters invisible. This wouldn't be a problem if there was a way to turn off the backlight--there isn't. It comes and goes automatically depending on the ambient light. This is a big problem for anyone who needs to see the keys occasionally. There are shortcut function keys (F9 and F10) which will turn it off temporarily, but the come back on again in a few seconds.

I haven't decided on whether or not to keep this laptop. It really depends if I can find a solution to the poor performance of the GPU over the next week or so, and better manage which GPU is currently in use without having to spend 10 minutes in different settings windows. It also depends if Samsung offers another version of this computer, but with a better hard drive and/or GPU. I may also pick up the cheaper model (700) with the nVidia GPU to see how that compares. If the 2GB AMD GPU comes available in the States before I need to return this one (30 days), then I'll definitely switch it out.

I'm happy to answer any questions about this specific model. I can post links to benchmarks I've run, but I'm not sure they are that useful because they wouldn't run with the AMD GPU (or maybe they did, but I just couldn't tell).

 

Probably a long shot but has anyone who has this laptop been able to downgrade to windows 7 successfully and if so, are there any problems with doing and does the touch screen still work?

 

I also bought the Best Buy model. First of all, thanks to AP11 for posting about the Intellimemory. Once I got rid of this, everything seems a little snappier. Boot up, program loading, etc all feel a little more snappy.

I am pleasantly surprised with this laptop. The biggest hurdle seems to be the 5400RPM drive, but beyond that, it feels like you get a good combination of everyday PC and light gamer. It runs the atman games, Crysis, Call of Duty's, etc all at 1080, but with scaled down effects.

It is not a true gaming PC, but if you are looking for a good everyday PC that you can game on, I do recommend it.

 

Dekabal, I haven't and probably won't downgrade to Windows 7. While I hate the 'two desktops' of Windows 8, I do like other things about it--mainly the faster boot times and less resource intensive. I would not recommend it for my mom, unlike the guy on the Win8 Best Buy commercials.

MJBarnes, have you noticed some websites (including this one) not loading CSS sometimes w/ your new laptop? I've had the problem in Chrome and Firefox. This Mozilla support question and responses suggest it has something to do with the Samsung Update or Samsung Support software.

Uninstalling the Samsung Support/Help seemed to fix it.

Has anyone installed the most recent or beta AMD GPU drivers? I haven't had the time to test them, but might try tomorrow to see if they offer support for the GPU. It seems the current driver is just a placeholder, and they may push an update out in the next couple of weeks.

Still on the fence about keeping the computer. May switch it for the 8870m (even w/ the same power input), or try to get the 8770m w/ 2 GB instead of the 1 that this computer came with.

 

why was a second thread created? I don't like one bit.. now we have to go back and forth between the two... dislike!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

I too have just bought the NP780Z5E-S01 from Best Buy with the same issues. I am still contemplating keeping it. I bought and returned the Series 7 Chronos without the touch screen and the lower res display. I couldn't stand to look at it. If i was gonna bite the bullet and learn Windows 8 on top of every other OS out there, i figured i might as well opt for the touchscreen version. So far, I am not entirely impressed. I was never a fan of AMD GPU's and did wish a NVIDIA version was available at the time.
I am much more versed with windows 7 and much more satisfied with 7 as well, I am not so keen on version 8.

To apt11: what other bloatware did you remove from the fresh start and has that new hard drive really helped? I am also getting some seriously slow download speeds from the web.(using CHROME). Is Chrome not quite up to par on Windows 8 yet?

 

@spindash: You can check this post for a list of the software that came with my older series 7 Sandy Bridge, and my take on which is bloat and which is useful.

If you want to go really lean, we have a thread dedicated to reducing latencies, particularly for those who want to run real-time processing software -- or anyone who just wants to avoid the overhead. If you scan through the thread, it also has some advice for clean install of Win7.

 

I second this request, and add another thing : is the silent mode feature still available with Windows 7?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Yes. At least on other Samsung models.

 

@spindash, I'm not 100% sure what I deleted, and what I kept, but if I go to the SW Update program and look at the list of files, I don't have these files installed:
- IntelliMemory
- Allshare Play
- Norton Internet Security
- EasyFileShare
- Norton Online Backup
- Support Center (because it was causing a weird bug which made websites on different browsers not load or render CSS)
- PowerDVD
- User's Guide
- Bit Casa
- Windows 8 Critical Updates (not sure what this is for, maybe only if you upgrade from Windows 7?)
- Online Chat Consultation
- Quick Starter

For Chrome, are you using the desktop version or the Windows 8 metro version? I only use the desktop version, so maybe there's a difference. It could also be another program or utility is updating itself and taking up a lot of the bandwidth like Windows Update.

@Dannemand, your thread looks like a great place to find even more ways to improve performance and reduce latencies

I've been wanting to uninstall SW Update and hopefully that will get rid of the annoying notification center telling me I need to install 'essential software'. I'll probably keep it for a couple weeks and wait and see if they push an updated graphics driver through. I also want to uninstall "Settings", formerly Easy Settings, so I may try your tip to keep only the exe that keeps the FN keys working.

 

Thank you, ap11.

Heading out the rest of the day, so this will be a fast one:

1) When you uninstall SW Update, you may find that pesky notification service (called sAgent) is not uninstalled with it. In that case you have to manually remnove it from your Task Scheduler and delete the Program Files folder. I know, messy...

2) I am afraid the steps provided in the latencies thread for lean install of Easy Settings (Win7) do not apply to Settings (Win8). But it seems Settings is already more properly implemented. I hope to find time to do similar investigations in Win8 and post the results.

 

I have deleted most of the bloatware and more resources are available to the pc. I am using the desktop version of Chrome. I have tried both and each are buggy with not loading simple web pages and not fully loading images or not loading them all. The updated Internet Explorer for Windows 8 has been more reliable than Chrome so far. Thanks you ap11 and dannemand for your help.

 

Been looking for more infomatation about RAMAccelerator and what it does. Samsung is touting that it increases some speeds by 150%. However, an accelerator that relied only on RAM wouldn't help boot times. And I see from a previous post that the memory accelerator was a hinderance not a help.

How does the RAMAccelerator relate to express cache and Samsung machines that have small amounts of flash memory (8-16 GB) on board for optimization? Does the Chronos have any flash memory on the mother board or coupled with the disk drive?

Thanks.

 

Did you uninstall the Samsung Support Center? Once I uninstalled that program, I had no more problems with CSS rendering.

EDIT: Just had some CSS rendering issues with Amazon.com and Google Drive, but they cleared up on the first refresh. I haven't had any rendering issues in the last 24 hours with the other sites I was having trouble with (Facebook and Gmail). With those sites, I would have to refresh 3-4 times to finally get them to work right. I've had anything happen like this other computers.

EDIT 2: See this topic in the Google Product Support Forums. Other people are having similar issues, and uninstalling Support Center + clearing cache seems to do the trick for most users. There's a Google rep there trying to trouble shoot as well. It's really scary that a program could do that. Before I found the solution I was starting to think that the computer had malware or a virus installed at the factory which is not unheard of.

EDIT 3: Another idea; you might want to try disabling some of the plugins found by typing "chrome://plugins/" into the address bar and see if one of them is the culprit.

 

I'm guessing the RAM accelerator program would be the IntelliMemory program. I did not find it useful, but maybe some people might. For me, it seemed to be using way too much idle RAM and it did not seem to adjust if a program I was using needed some of that RAM tied up in IntelliMemory.

I'm not too familiar with Express Cache, but from what I've read about it, I don't think this computer has it. It does have 4 GB of RAM on the motherboard, and another 4 GB stick which can be upgraded.

I have this Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive installed in my other computer, and I like it a lot. Once I know I'm going to keep this computer, I'll clone it and stick it in this computer. Supposedly they are going to stop making them in 7200 for the new models, so I might pick up another one of these while they are still available.

 

@spindash: I have no problems with Chome rendering, neither in Win7 nor Win8. Amazing if it's really Samsung Support Center that causes it, as ap11 mentioned, I never would have guessed that. Indeed I haven't had that one loaded on any of my installations.

Otherwise my first guess would have been graphics drivers. I read others comment they were not quite mature yet.

 

Does removing Intellimemory really help? I find that there is high RAM usage even when just browsing but its seems like everything should slow down if not using the RAM as a cache?

 

My computer's memory usage while idle 65%+ when IntelliMemory was installed, and once it was uninstalled, idle memory use dropped to around 25%. That's not really a problem if the program can adapt when other programs were running which needed the memory. It just didn't seem to work that well for me, but it might work better for someone else.

I like the idea of Express Cache and IntelliMemory, but maybe it would work better if it really is only dedicated for that purpose, or maybe I just need more than 8 GB of RAM to make it work without hanging up things.

 

I'm thoroughly frustrated. I can't seem to get the AMD GPU to take over. Is there some sort of setting I'm missing? I am new to W8 and thus fear there is something simple that can be switched. Any tips? I have adjusted everything in the Catalyst control center, played around in control panel... I'm at a loss. Thanks!

 

I had (and sometimes still have) the same problem. The computer has way too many places which control which GPU is being used at any given time. First place I would check since you haven't mentioned it is the advanced power settings. Go through each option. Second place I'd look is the "configure switchable graphics" setting which is accessible by right clicking on the desktop and then choosing "configure switchable graphics". Here, each program can have its own setting. There's a link down at the bottom for the 'global settings'.

You can truly force the AMD GPU by going to the device manager and disabling the Intel one. I did this while running some benchmarks, but then the benchmarks would crash or not work on certain tests. I think part of the problem is that the AMD drivers that came with the computer are just old placeholders, so they don't work very well. If an application can't run with the AMD driver, then it just defaults to the Intel GPU -- at least that's what it seemed to be doing for some games and the benchmarks.

You could test the new drivers put out by AMD in January or their beta drivers and see if they work better. I haven't had time to test them yet. Hoping they will just push an update in the next week or so.

 

Thank You! I have played with both things, but I will try again.

I contacted Samsung support not only through their public q&a but also using their remote assistance program. That person could not see my screen in their in-house remote sharing program. I was then told to call the help number. They told me to use SW update (I had to reinstall it) and download the AMD driver. I thought this meant there was new drivers out, nope. Same ol' same ol'. I will give their January updates a try if I can't get the AMD to kick on at all.

Welp, that didn't work. If I wanted Intel 4000 graphics I could've purchased an ultra-ultrabook.

 

If anyone's interested, here's a picture I took of the inside of the Best Buy model. I removed the one stick of RAM, but everything else in intact. I found a couple of stray screws which were stuck to the magnetic diaphragm of the speakers.

And if anyone figures out a way to manually adjust the backlight on the keyboard and disable the automatic brightness, I would be ever so grateful. Samsung posted on their official Q&A that it was tied to the auto screen brightness feature, but that was one of the first things I turned off and the backlight still goes on or off depending on ambient light. The problem is that in low light, the keys seem easier to read with the light off completely, but they won't stay off for more than a few seconds.

 

I did uninstall the Samsung Support Center and a few other Samsung related software titles that did not serve me much purpose. CSS rendering has been better, but I still get an occasional hiccup here and there. I haven't found a key plugin as of yet that clears up the issue so I'll keep digging and post something if I find out any more information.

 

You are looking for the Power Options Advanced Settings. I got to that by right clicking on the battery status symbol, then selecting the hotlink for "Change advanced power settings" on the bottom. Go through all those settings but Display > Dimmed are the settings you need to adjust for the screen.
I still haven't finagled the keyboard backlight to the exact settings I want... but I am trying to wipe this particular laptop and start fresh to get the graphics card to work.

 

Are you certain this is actually a Chronos model, or is it an entirely different product line, like an updated version of the Series 7? The 8770m is comparable to the 640m in the Series 7, no?

I'm familiar with the Chronos Model H (high spec, i7 CPU, 8870m, 1080p display) and the Chronos Model M (lower spec, i5 CPU, 1366x768 display), but from the photos I've seen, both of these models have the Chronos branding on the chassis. That doesn't appear to be the case for the model depicted on that best buy product page.

 

I'm interested in both the 13.3" and 15.6" Series 7 machines. I live in London, and have asked about availability in the Tottenham Court Road and Stratford Westfield Samsung stores, also at John Lewis in Oxford Street (John Lewis have several of the new machines on their website) but as of Tuesday nobody knew when they would come out. I've also emailed Samsung, but not had anything except an automated reply.

So... I have a relative visiting the US tomorrow who could pick up the Best Buy model (15.6", touchscreen, 4+4GB, AMD 8770) but I really would like to see the laptop in the flesh before I buy, also worried about warranty situation, and I'm pretty sure I will need 16GB, not 12GB which is the max with this model,

Apart from that I have the following worries:

keyboard backlight - not much good if it can't be controlled and doesn't actually illuminate the characters
hyper-v compatibility - ideally I will be able to run Server 2012 on this, dual booting with Windows 8 perhaps
games compatibility - I don't game much, I really only play the ancient Sim City 4 and Homeworld 2
max-res over HDMI - at some point I will want a 3840x2160 external monitor, right now I can get by with 1920x1200 and a second 1280x1024 external via VGA or displaylink (USB).

 

Yes, it's definitely branded Chronos. It has 1080p, but just not the 8870m. I'm not sure what it would be equivalent to in the nVidia line. I think we won't have proper benchmarks until the drivers for this card are updated.

 

Definitely Chronos. It has Chronos badge above the keyboard in the upper left corner. And it's all over the box.

 

My old Series 7 NP700Z3A is a Chronos. I believe so are most (if not all) Series 7.

 

It says very clearly on the computer that there's an ''international warranty" which was a big selling point for me because I often spend extended time outside of the United States.

 

So I've spent a couple of days going through the other thread, collating links to all the useful posts, when ironically, or fatefully perhaps, my old Sony Vaio laptop has decided to die on me (taking 100+ pages of searched through links to posts with it, so I'll have to start going through the other thread again from scratch!).

I really need this New Samsung Chronos Series 7 laptop to come out in the UK now - still no sign yet, though!

 

@damouk: Sorry to hear that - both about the Sony itself and the work you lost. Maybe at least the drive is intact and you can get to your files.

It's a noble effort which will make this a very valuable thread.

 

That will make this thread useful. Thanks. I'm sorry to hear that.

 

Can anyone confirm is there is an issue with this machine on dual booting linux or downgrading to windows 7? Would the touch screen still work if I were using windows 7 instead of windows 8?

 

I've just phoned the Samsung store @ Stratford Westfield, and they still don't know when they might have them...

 

My machine will not put itself to sleep after the set amount of time. I can put it to sleep with the menu pick from the power options. However, if I leave it idle for an extended time, it never fully goes to sleep. The display turns off, but the keyboard backlights are still on. Anyone come across this? Any idea of what's preventing the machine from sleeping on its own?

 

You probably have some process that's running in the background which is tricking the computer to thinking that it's being used. Maybe a torrent program or an updater? If you just got the computer, it could be Windows Update. Also, double check the advanced power settings, and double check the Samsung Settings (just labeled 'Settings' in the start menu).

 

Thanks very much for clarifying this. Is there any mention somewhere in the documentation or on the box about this being a "Model M" or "Model H"? Also, it is 0.82" (20.9mm) thick, with no optical drive, and glossy display panel, correct?

 

The model M has an entirely different chassis and does not have a full hd screen. This is definitley the model H, just a different SKU.

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to upgrade to 12GB of RAM in this machine, or replace the HDD with an SSD? Would it be possible to move the windows install over to the SSD, for instance by copying the recovery partition over?

 

It is possible to upgrade to 12gb of ram.
And yea it is possible to install an SSD, there's been a lot of discussion on it in the other thread about the series 7 chronos.

 

It might actually be possible to go to 20GB RAM, if 16GB SODIMMs ever come out.