Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook listed at US retailer for $900, 'coming soon'

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The absolute first thing I noticed as I put my wrists onto the palmrest, was a loud pop sound. Put your finger in between the right CTRL and Home key, then trace an imaginary line straight down to the very edge of the palmrest. If I press here either straight down or in at 45 degrees or so, I get a loud popping sound. Much louder, deeper and more noticeable than even the mouse click. I tried tightening the screws a bit, doesn't help.

That sucks. I returned an HP DM1-4010 solely for that reason. Every time I placed my left palm on the rest to type it made a popping sound. I knew I couldn't live with it and ended up sending it back.

One thing to consider, it's more likely that it gets worse...not better.

[joeyl]

I got my laptop back from Samsung, they did not change the back cover, so that's a given for US models: no middle vents. But they did replace the fan, and for some reason they opened up the whole bottom of the laptop, I know that because they put the bottom back with the hard drive installed which meant that I had to remove the bottom again to swap out with my SSD.

Good news: no rattles from the fan! and they did not damage anything on the laptop by getting into it.


Will let you guys know how it goes.

[andersonjacob54]

I got my laptop back from Samsung, they did not change the back cover, so that's a given for US models: no middle vents. But they did replace the fan, and for some reason they opened up the whole bottom of the laptop, I know that because they put the bottom back with the hard drive installed which meant that I had to remove the bottom again to swap out with my SSD.

Good news: no rattles from the fan! and they did not damage anything on the laptop by getting into it.


Will let you guys know how it goes.

Yeah, I figured the bottom vent panel was a US thing since many reviews for the laptop don't have it, either. The rest sounds very promising, especially after reading RWUK's bad experience. Do you have the popping sound issue that he is talking about?

[joeyl]

Do you have the popping sound issue that he is talking about?

nope, mine does not creak or pop like he said, I can make the laptop make sounds but I have to push down hard on the palmrest, more than any normal person would do while typing.
The screen hinge is as he described though, I would prefer it to be much stiffer.

[RWUK]

I got my laptop back from Samsung, they did not change the back cover, so that's a given for US models: no middle vents. But they did replace the fan, and for some reason they opened up the whole bottom of the laptop, I know that because they put the bottom back with the hard drive installed which meant that I had to remove the bottom again to swap out with my SSD.

Good news: no rattles from the fan! and they did not damage anything on the laptop by getting into it.


Will let you guys know how it goes.

When you took off the bottom panel, did you just remove the screws and pry it off of the keyboard/palmrest area? I may take a peek under there to see if I can figure out the pop sound.

[joeyl]

since I had to open the bottom of the laptop, I swapped out the wifi card: Ultimate 6230 for an Ultimate 6300. Did not make a difference at all and I lost bluetooth since 6300 is wifi only. So I put the original wifi card back. in my elitebook 8460p, the card was a Broadcom and swapping the 6300 made a huge difference. Kudos to Samsung for using an Intel card, I think they are better than Broadcom and Atheros and the super crappy realtek.





the laptop is very easy to open it is the same as the S7 series and the Chromebooks, I used a credit card to slide around and get the tabs to release, all you need to remove are the visible screws. There are none under the rubber feet like most other models.

[RWUK]

the laptop is very easy to open it is the same as the S7 series and the Chromebooks, I used a credit card to slide around and get the tabs to release, all you need to remove are the visible screws. There are none under the rubber feet like most other models.

Sweet, thank you. I will tear into mine and see what's going on.

[joeyl]

Sweet, thank you. I will tear into mine and see what's going on.

cool, maybe it is an easy fix...

[RWUK]

Opened mine up, looked around. I couldn't find anything that would come close to making this sound. There is only the battery in that area of the body. I'm guessing it's just the plastic pieces rubbing together.

But after putting it back together, I don't hear it anymore on its own. If I go poking at that area harder than I did originally, I can make it happen but even then the volume of it's greatly reduced. I'm fine with that since it doesn't happen at random anymore.

I also repasted with some Gelid GC Xtreme I had around. The factory paste was a big mess. When I got the heatsink off, there's this little black film covering the green part of the cpu (I don't know the technical terms for this) and between this little black film and the area which contacts the heatsink, there's a very small groove, about 1/32" wide. I really wish now I took a picture of it, but was too excited to remove the gunk. I cleaned it up with alcohol wipes, used my fingernail over one of the wipes to clean out the grove and put my new thin layer on. If anyone else chooses to repaste their cpu, take the heatsink and fan off as one piece, it's easier.

I did a Furmark Burnin test for 6m:20sec to check my temps against badman's. Here's the result of that.



I can't feel the heat at all when typing, but the bottom of the laptop, center towards the rear gets warm. I do the occasional video encoding so worse case I guess I'll take the bottom panel off. I assume my temps will lower in a week or so after the break-in period is over for the thermal compound. The CPU cores stay in the mid to high 40's when unstressed and that's pretty good compared to other ultraportables I've seen.

I'm likely going to keep the laptop at this point. I'm still not crazy about its build quality for the money spent, but 1. it's a laptop, not a house and it really isn't that bad. Like I've said before, I'm picky. Also 2, build quality is not going to change unless I spend more money. Unfortunately average build quality with a higher price tag is becoming the norm.

[andersonjacob54]

Is the screen wobble (due to the stiffness of the hinges) really annoying? Would it be a deal breaker?

And how much of a wobble is there? I had an old Inspiron 710 with the same problem. It was super annoying to adjust the screen because after I would get it to the right place, it would tilt forward/backward and distort all the colors (poor viewing angles) forcing me to readjust about 2-3 times.