2013 Ativ Book 9 Plus owner's lounge (NP940X3G)

John just to follow up on this; opening it up I found a distressed ribbon cable connecting to the keyboard which under very gentle probing broke. I tried to sand it down and solder it together but that was a fail; thanks to your advice I turned up the correct model on Samsung parts, which arrived and was easily installed, so I have a working laptop again. Thanks again for your help and advice.

 

Same issue here. I have had this model (NP940X3G - K05US (i7-4500, 8GB DDR3, 256GB m.2 SSD) since new in 2013. Not sure if current Samsung Software Update Utility has the patch folded in. Yellow looks much like it did in my pre-clean re-install of W10 - to that great calibration tool, the naked eye!

On the subject of Software Update, I am confused. I had to download the utility and it did so and looks just as I recall it looking when I last looked at it about a year ago, but I'm perplexed that it isn't doing anything! It just sits there when I launch it and asks me if I want to save it (I do) and then, well, nothing. Features are implemented somewhat differently - eg, the Elan Touchpad settings launches from Windows Control Panel (I used to have to launch it as a separate program I downloaded and put on the taskbar), some features are not working: 1) keyboard backlighting, neither automatically, as it used to, nor by pressing FnF9/F10 on keyboard 2) display brightness not responding to presses of FnF2/F3, need to launch Windows display settings, which work fine, and there are various others that either don't work at all or don't work in ways I recall them working, even in W10 upgrade pre-Creators. To restate, like @major65 the yellow patch won't run and displays bright red security warning. Makes me suspicious overall as to how updated my drivers are (can see the ones that show up in Programs and Features Windows Control Panel, of which there are precious few showing and they are dated the date of my W10 re-install, not the date of the driver - haven't checked device manager to see original dates of installed drivers.)

So clearly there are tweaks I need to do to get things like Fn keys doing what they are supposed to do: restoring that oh-so-minimalist aurora borealis green glow Samsung called "keyboard backlighting" for this model, others that don't come right to mind. Also, I'm inclined to believe that I am running some 2013-2015 drivers, replacements for which are likely lying in wait on the SSD of this machine. But here's the rub: the computer is running as fast, responsive and smoothly as it ever did - I'm inclined to say even better than I remember it ever did in many respects - so I'm faced with the "ain't broke/don't fix position that time has well taught me to respect and let lie.

Thoughts, suggestions? Perhaps I should run some benchmarks to verify that things are as sound and smooth as they appear to be - which ones? Security seems to be on auto pilot with W10 and I loathe to wreck performance by tinkering with Windows Defender settings, though the primary reason I wiped this machine and re-installed Windows and apps is that it was clearly infected with some ugly malware and I don't want to see the likes of that again. Thus, I refer back to the opening sentences of this paragraph and welcome suggestions for what, if anything, I should do, beyond getting certain features working. Thanks. Oh, and by the way, this machine is as fast, smooth and, well, just "tight" as it ever was, making it to this day the best ultrabook I have ever owned or used, and that encompasses many models, including today's most highly regarded, admittedly mostly high-end consumer, models. Neither the dated cpu/gpu, RAM nor SSD make this feel any slower than Kaby Lake, DDR4 RAM, PCie/Nvme SSD on, say, even the Thinkpad Yoga 370 my wife uses for work. Pretty impressive, Sammy! And to think, they announced their exit from the computer mfg market shortly after releasing this series.

 

I'm sorry for my habitual [sigh] over-communication in a post, but I would be most grateful if one of the moderators of this forum might skim it and give me some pointers. To summarize, I had lightly hand-refurbished my NP940X3G - K05US (i7-4500, 8GB DDR3, 256GB m.2 SSD) about a month ago, putting in a new battery, cleaning fans, etc, and ran into some major malware infestation that required me to wipe most of the SSD clean, do a factory restore and update to W10 Creators Update and performance is great, malware gone, but I'm unable to restore certain basic functions - see previous post for specifics. When time permits, I'd appreciate any pointers. Thanks, Jeff

 

Well, all's well that ends well. I could edit the previous posts away now, but I'll leave them for posterity; if someone encounters similar issues, I'll pass along the small tidbit of knowledge I gained in case it may be of use. When using Samsung Software Update you need to choose "Windows 10 RS1 as your operating system. Turns out that enables the Samsungy drivers to download and install. Now everything works as it did when new, and I've updated all of the non-Samsung drivers to 2017 versions. This is a great ultrabook!

Edit: BTW, still won't allow me to install the yellow correction patch but yellows look ok, probably as good as with the patch, but though I could observe the defect 4 years ago I didn't consider it a big deal then and wouldn't be surprised if it isn't in the updated display drivers and I'll have defective yellows on this computer whenever using it on battery at full brightness. (I don't like shopping at Best Buy these days anyway!)

 

Noticed my seldom used but always plugged in and powered down 9+ no longers holds a battery charge.

Reports "0% plugged in, not charging" in the tray icon, and powers off within a minute of being disconnected.

Any troubleshooting advice?

 

Try going to BIOS (F2) and run Battery Calibration -- with the power cable unplugged. But if your battery is unable to hold a charge at all, this may not work. In that case you probably need a new battery.

You could try to unplug and leave it for a couple days, then recharge it. I've seen that revive a dead laptop battery a bit, but not to the point of holding a full charge.

BTW, this is exactly what Samsung's Battery Life Extender is for (before Samsung retired that feature): To prevent damage to batteries from being always plugged in and fully charged.

 

Darn, that's disappointing. Thank you the tips.
I'll play with a little today and see if I can get some more life out of the thing.

If I do need a new one how easy is it to replace?

 

Sorry for the late reply.

Replacing the battery is doable, although you will need to take off the bottom cover, which is always risky business on Samsung laptops.

I don't recall any guides for this model off the top of my head, but try googling site:notebookreview.com np940x3g battery replacement or site:notebookreview.com np940x3g disassembly.

 

My Samsung has been throttling to .77-.79 GHz, I wondered if I needed a Samsung driver update of some sort but I've installed all latest drivers and nothing worked> I went through all the power options, registry hacks, etc. The only thing that finally worked for me was a program called Throttle Stop. Unfortunately when I unlock the 18 multipliers it jumps to 2.8ghz and I worry I'll overheat and destroy the computer. At 17 multipliers the boost mode doesn't get activated and it's stuck at 1.7ghz but I'll take that over .77.

 

Hey @milicz, welcome to NBR.

It sounds like your laptop got stuck in Silent Mode. This is a power saving feature which (among other measures) throttles the CPU to its lowest speed. It is a classic trapdoor with Samsung laptops for owners to accidentally enable it and wonder why the computer is suddenly much slower.

Open Samsung Settings (Fn-F1) and make sure Silent Mode is set to OFF (not AUTO). It can also be toggled with Fn-F11, but using Settings is the best way to ensure Silent Mode is set to OFF.

Of course disable or remove ThrottleStop to see the difference