X60plus 20XD Vista BIOS but still on vista drivers

http://www.samsungpc.com/products/x60/x60plus_bios.htm

 

yep, installed it last night. I had to burn the .iso to a CD to get it in and it's pretty scary running the update because it beeps about 50 times throughout the whole process at full volume. Still, it worked but it made me sweat for a minute! On reboot, Vista noticed my sound driver was out of date and re-installed soundmax. No issues for me, worked well.

Absolutely no idea what was changed in this bios release, does anyone else???

Taking so long for these damned drivers, the X60+ will be out of date by the time they bother I reckon. Also if you go to the ATI website, you can't download the X1700 driver from them any more, they just point you to your manufacturer - some good that does us with Samsung!

 

Had the same thing with the sound card, but I used the windows install for the BIOS.

No problems as well.

 

Thanks for this. I watch the Samsung global downloads site and this update isn't there yet.

At least this one is compatible with the X60 plus. I've just installed it using the Windows installer. It works fine with XP.

I'm not sure what Vista issues necessitated the BIOS update but they went through the same process with the Q35.

There might be other fixes as well. There's a lot of versions between 03SD and 20SD which we have never seen. I was hoping that the PowerPlay might now work, but still no trace of it in the CCC. However, I will uninstall and reinstall CCC in case there is something it checks for during installation.

John

Update: I uninstalled and reinstalled the CCC + ATI driver, but still no trace of PowerPlay.

 

I thought I'd email samsung and ask about drivers for the x60 plus, this is the nonsense they sent back:

 

There quality of the Samsung support staff is variable. I suggest that you reply setting out the key hardware differences between these models. This would be a useful exercise anyway. What is the same and what is different: For example, think most of the recent Samsung notebooks use the same Synaptics touchpad and Ricoh card reader.

However, ultimately, my X60 plus says "Vista capable" and the sticker on the bottom says that not everything may work with Vista.

On a related topic, I recently enquired about whether there was nay progress with making PowerPlay work.

Perhaps we should study the consumer legislation and "fitness for purpose" and see if there is a strong case for demanding a replacement or refund. The X60 worked much better. I made the change because I wanted the higher resolution display (which is fine) but the rest of the computer is a disappointment, primarily because of driver/software issues.

John

 

Hi,

Please can someone specify the pro's of installing this BIOS.

I have Vista already running with sound (although I don't think sounds is working great as it always makes a quick one-off crackling noise when the compy and speakers switch on). In the past, Vista used to automatically install a sound driver but it never worked so I had to hunt one down myself.

I'm worried that I may break my PC if It all goes pete tong.

Whats the worst that could happen?

 

I have always found the Samsung BIOS updates to be very reliable. They check for compatibility and they check that you have the mains power plugged in before the update starts. Just make sure you are not running lots of other applications which might cause the computer to crash at the wrong moment.

We don't know what improvements are included in the BIOS update but have to presume that there was something which caused a problem somewhere and needed to be fixed. I would say the update is low risk and reduces the risk of some problem happening.

John

 

Raising this issue from quite a while ago but just thought I'd ask on here if anyone else here owns an X60 plus and is as frustrated as I am with the current level of support?

I'm unhappy about the lack of Vista support, Samsung have recommended on two occasions that I look at the specs of all the other notebooks in their range and try those drivers instead. I have emailed and phoned them at least ten times since January 2007 and nothing seems to be forthcoming.

Secondly, Vista logs error messages up to 15 times a second, all day long regarding Power Play errors. I feel that this alone is costing me system performance. I know this is an issue with XP and Vista, so it isn't just Vista causing the problem, there is a problem with this machine.

I wish I could get rid of this machine, it is costing me money with frequent lockups. I reckon I loose on average 2 hours a week waiting for it to recover from hangs, rebooting, checking error logs, checking the Samsung websites for drivers. Does anyone else feel so aggreived?

I own an IBM X31, which I bought in 2002 and it runs Vista just perfectly with pretty much full driver support. How can IBM provide such support for an old machine and Samsung justify such shocking service for a 7 month old machine...

I get the feeling that if a few people (if anyone else would like their money back) got together, maybe Samsung would listen.

Thanks
Dave

 

Am so glad that there are a few people that feel the same way i do with this notebook. The x60plus is my very first notebook purchase and considering the fact that it was at least £1000 back then when i got one...i was expecting the the quality of the build, its features and reliability to be somewhat outstanding. Sadly this isnt the case as i am completely frustrated with the amount of fixes and patches that i have been putting up with. For example:

I cant seem to use a mouse with the notebook without it going nuts as the pointer starts to dance around the screen after a few minute of usage.

I have always been exasperated with the amount of heat this notebook produces even with a notebook cooler! its a bloody furnace.

The battery life consumption is absolutely terrible even after you switch off the wireless LAN and close all programs running on the start bar. You cant use it to perform light task like word processing etc..for longer than 30-40mins

Samsungs customer service is less, less and lesser than
average. i have been complaining to them about my audio problem since MARCH of this year which is that when i plug in headphones the inbuilt speakers still produce sound and doesnt mute and the staff that was handling my case got into a serious argument with me claiming all x60plus laptops are like that. anyway not to go into the details, i was finally able to prove to them that that isnt the case YESTERDAY and sent my laptop for repairs TODAY!. i think this kind of service and their support for this product line is absolutely outrageous.

In whole i feel the x60plus is just poorly crafted and a marketing sham by samsung to ring in a few cash for an updated processor then, now outdated.i dont really like the brand anymore especially their laptops. i will be willing to join in if we were to make a strong and good case against them.

 

I only have two complaints: Poor battery life (no doubt related to the lack of PowerPlay); and the paint wearing off the keyboard. I had the X60 (with X1400 GPU) before the X60 plus and that gave me 50% longer battery time.

I consider the general build quality to be good (it contains an above-average amount of metal alloy) and I've not had heat problems, perhaps because I didn't use the GPU's power and I had the CPU undervolted to 1.05V maximum.

It does not reflect well on Samsung that the PowerPlay problem has been known about from last year but has never been fixed.

It is very poor that no attempt has been made to provide any Vista drivers or software for a computer sold as "Vista capable". Perhaps this could be the foundation for filing a complaint against Samsung.

I'm about to clean up my X60 plus and sell it. Someone should like the strong chassis, powerful GPU and high-res display.

John

 

Isnt the powerplay feature meant to be supplied/added by ATI/AMD?

This is also the main reason why i havent changed my OS from XP to vista.
I get the feeling that the x60plus line didnt do so well thats
probably why they do not give it as much attention as their other notebooks.

lol! am planning on doing the same thing thats why i made sure it went through repairs before my warranty was over. i have been following the x65 thread but i would wait till someone makes a comprehensive review on it before i finally decide whether to drop samsung and look for a better manufacturer.

 

I'm not certain, but I think there needs to be a combination of driver support and BIOS support working together. There's not been a PowerPlay tab in CCC when installed with the X1700 so I presume it's not seeing a suitable BIOS.

I get the feeling that Samsung has an unbalanced development team. It's full of innovators and people working on the next products and no one assigned to sweep up the loose ends. We were caught out by the X60 plus PowerPlay problem. It should have been a simple upgrade from the X60. However, Samsung were caught out by ATI who gave them the newer and better X1700 instead of the proven X1600.

As for Vista support, the main market for the X60 series seems to be business, who haven't been rushing to embrace Vista. This is said to be one reason for the delay in the X65 - Samsung Korea did all the Vista development and were then told by their sales offices that they needed XP.

John

 

That definitely hits "samsung's nail on the head". It is exactly what i think of their organisation structure. I think we should right a comprehensive open letter to them and hope that we get some form of reply because i believe many of us are dedicated customers who are proud of the samsung brand. The only worry is that i have seen a few emails on this forum and samsung didnt really resolve their problems but i think a constructive criticism about the way they handle things with their notebook line(much emphasis on the x60plus) will most likely not fall on deaf ears.

where do you get your news??

 

Nothing definite, but my conclusion from there being a full set of X65 Vista drivers and software on Samsung's download site at least two months before the XP versions appeared (you will see that the file names on the Vista drivers mainly start with 20070427 but XP are 20070718. And the product which is on the shelves has XP.

John

 

I've decided to get a macbook pro and sell my x60 plus. Not sure I'll buy anything from samsung again without thinking very seriously about support. In the six months since I bought this laptop I've bought a flatscreen tv and a new phone. Neither of these purchases was with samsung, sometimes you just have to vote with your feet...

 

very wise decision, am also leaning towards mac myself but am interested in the desktop once leopard is launched. my notebook will remain with our ever problematic microsoft but a different manufacturer this time.

 

alright...one major thing i hate with their download sites is that updates are not in one specific place. you have to search constantly on their different sites from samsung.com/uk to samsungcomputers. i think they have about three or four different sites that always have download updates. they should learn from tosh..they email you everytime the product model you registered has been updated with driver

 

There's two sites you need to watch: the global download site (to which the Samsung country sites link) and SamsungPC (which is in UK). Occasionally, as with the X60 plus BIOS, and the X60 / plus Vista drivers, they are only on SamsungPC. My guess is that it is their way to publish files when they can't get the folk in Korea to do the necessary and suggests that the Samsung UK support people are doing more to sort out problems than we give them credit for.

One disadvantage of the SamsungPC site is that there is no post date information against each download.

John