Series 7 Ultra NP730U3E / NP740U3E with AMD HD 8570M and optional 4G LTE

Hey guys! I found great deal on this Samsung NP730U3E laptop (with HD 8570M and 6gb ram) and gonna recieve it in next few days. I've been scanning this forum for a while now but haven't foundt confirmation if it's already safe (and smart) to upgrade to windows 8.1? Has the driver issue already been solved with HD 8570M and windows 8.1?

 

hey guys, yesterday suddenly my laptop's touchscreen display wasn't work .. and when i saw the device manager there's a warning at driver usb description.... and now it works again.... and i am afraid if in the next day my touchscreen won't work again... how should i do

 

Many people have upgraded, with various degrees of success and pain - including some successfully. The AMD switchable graphics is definitely among the issues causing the most trouble. Check the Win8.1 sticky thread (if you haven't already). I tried to summarize status there a few days ago. Also check the 2013 Series 7 / Ativ Book 8 Owners Lounge for extensive coverage.

 

Hello everyone.
I am not good with laptops and i've read some info about replacing RAM modules in np730u3 but maybe something has change. First of all i want to make sure about that fact that only one module can be replaced, yea ?? Also, now, when 8gb RAM is not so expensive is it a good idea to change 1 module to 8 gb or it wont make a difference because they will stop working in dual chanel or something ??

 

Some versions of this notebook use Intel graphics and have two RAM slots. However, most have AMD graphics and only one RAM slot. You can check the hardware details using a program such as HWiNFO.

Whether more RAM will give any noticeable benefit will depend on whether you are using nearly all your present RAM and windows is dumping RAM contents into virtual memory. Task Manager will show you this information.

Not running in full dual channel mode is not a worry with modern computers: The memory bandwidth may be reduced by about 10% but the impact of this is far less than the use of virtual memory.

John

 

Thank you for your fast response. I checked the graphics card and i have AMD so 1 slot it is. I will see for the next few weeks if im using nearly all od my present RAM and then think about should I buy more ram or not. Thanks once again ^^

 

Hi, I am getting ready to replace my 128gb ssd with a 500GB ssd in my NP740U3E-K01UB. I know there were some posts about this somewhere buried deep in this thread. But I am wondering, If I have an external USB DVD player and my own copy of Windows 8... Do I need to do any special partitions or anything? I don't need any special Samsung partition for recovery, so is there anything else I have to do?

I have never installed an OS on an SSD so I have no idea if it is just the same as installing it on a non ssd drive.

Thanks for any help.

 

That should be easy enough if you install on a blank new SSD. Your computer came pre-installed in UEFI mode, and a blank disk is what you need if you want the new installation to be UEFI as well (see here for descriptions of UEFI).

If you install the same version of Win8 as the pre-installed one, it should pick up the Product Key in BIOS. Otherwise see John's post here on how to extract the key -- before you swap the drives!

After swapping the drives, change the following BIOS settings (F2) in order to boot the DVD:

Fast Boot/Fast BIOS=disabled (can be changed back after installation)
SecureBoot=disabled (can be changed back after installation)
OS Mode Selection=UEFI OS

Select the USB DVD drive in Boot Priority or Press F10 at startup to temporarily select it as boot device.

Once Windows Setup is running, make sure the SSD is blank (no partitions). It should create the following partitions as part of the installation:

Windows RE tools (Windows Recovery, NOT Samsung Recovery)
ESP (EFI System Partition - boot)
MSR (Microsoft Reserved and BitLocker encryption)
Windows (Primary Windows partition)

Once Windows is up and running, you can create a Data partition in any leftover unallocated space.

If it won't boot your DVD, you may have to select OS Mode Selection=UEFI & CSM OS under SecureBoot. And if so, you may also have to force the SSD to GPT format in order to get a UEFI installation. Press Shift-F10 in Setup to open a command prompt and use the following commands:

DISKPART (to start the Disk Partition manager)
LIST DISK (to show all your disks. Notice which one is your SSD)
SELECT DISK 0 (assuming 0 was the number of your SSD)
DETAIL DISK (just to verify that you selected the right disk)
CLEAN (to wipe the disk)
CONVERT GPT (to convert the disk from MBR to GPT)
EXIT (to close DISKPART)
EXIT (to close Command Prompt)

You may have to restart after this in order for BIOS (UEFI) to detect the newly converted GPT drive.

As for drivers, use SW Update to download most (but not all). This post has guidance and a download link for SW Update. A few things may be different on your model, depending on whether you have discrete AMD etc.

There is a more detailed WIndows install guide here, covering many different Samsung models and more details on drivers. But it assumes you want a non-UEFI installations (BIOS/MBR), including downgrades from Win8 to Win7.

 

Will you want to use Samsung Recovery Solution? If you do, then SRS 6 includes a copy disk utility which will clone your old SSD onto the new one (you will need a USB adapter for the new SSD to do this). If you don't plan to use SRS then just let Windows do what it wants. Don't reformat the old SSD so you can always put it back and use SRS to restore the factory image should you want to dispose of the computer.

However, before doing a Windows clean install first use SW Update to export all the drivers and software onto a flash drive (but get the WiFi driver from Intel). These are then to hand to install once the basic windows installation has finished.

John

PS: I see Dannemand got in first with his more comprehensive advice.

 

LOL

One minute apart, what are the odds of that? Yet it seems to happen quite often, though usually with your post first.

@steveninspokane: Yes, unless you know you want a clean install, definitely consider the Recovery features: Either Copy Disk (requires an Adapter) or Factory Image Backup with Create Boot Disk enabled (requires a 16 or 32GB USB stick, depending on model, but works as a standalone bootable Recovery).