Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite (NP915S3G) brightness problem Win 7

Hello everyone,

I am a (un)lucky owner of this laptop. It is an AMD machine with some unknown QuadCore. Some say it is some custom version of A6-1450 designed for samsung. The laptop came with Win 8.0, but had many problems (freezing) so I wiped the drive (imaged the drive first just in case) and installed Win7 (UEFI + CSM mode). Now the only thing that doesn't work is brightness control. I don't mind it being on max brightness all the time, but the biggest problem is when it wakes up from standby then screen backlight is completely off. I have all samsung drivers installed including Easy Setings. I can see an OSD message on screen when trying to adjust the brightness but brightness level stays the same.

Now I tried installing Win 7 in just CSM mode - same things.

Installed Win 8.1 Pro (separate disk I own) - brighness works, but touchscreen is flaky. It seems as though touchscreen connects and disconnects all the time which causes contents of some windows to flicker (noticable by keyboard icon to the left of systray appearing and disappearing all the time, or if in device manager - device list refreshes constantly) - disabling touchscreen fixes it, but this is undesirable so I decided to stay with win7. (Win 8.0 has no such problem which seems to be caused by upgrade to win 8.1)

The question is: does anybody know how to fix brightness control problem on win7? Does anybody have a link to a different version of Easy Settings that might work? I am super frustrated at the moment as I spent at least 3 whole days installing and reinstalling different versions of windows with different UEFI settings... EasySettings (Settings on win8) is the worst coded pices of s...oftware that I've see so far.

Thanks for any hints

 

Hi m00nman, welcome to NBR.

I am afraid I have no firsthand experience with the AB9 Lite which, as you point out, has an AMD chipset and thus differs from other Samsung laptop models. I can give you some general guidance that applies to other models and Samsung software, though:

1) We generally recommend installing Win7 in Legacy BIOS mode (UEFI disabled, OS Mode Selection=CSM OS). While Win7 is generally UEFI compatible, we have reports of issues with Samsung laptops and Win7 in UEFI mode, probably caused by Samsung's Win7 drivers and software being designed for legacy BIOS mode only. Indeed, Samsung provides even new models (2014+) in CSM mode when they are delivered with Win7.

2) Conversely, we generally recommend installing Win8.x in pure UEFI mode ( OS Mode selection=UEFI OS) but ONLY on models that were originally delivered with Win8.x and which have the newer SecurBoot UEFI implementation. Win8 normally runs fine in Legacy BIOS mode (CSM) both on newer models and older ones (without the full SecureBoot UEFI implementation). But reports such as this one, where a member was unable to fully disable Adaptive Brightness because he couldn't access the the UEFI Firmware Page after re-installing in CSM mode, make us stick to a rule of "choose the same mode as Samsung did on the factory installation". Another reason is to spare members from accidentally wiping their HDD/SSD when they convert from UEFI/GPT to CSM/MBR.

3) Samsung Settings (for Win8.x) is indeed pretty messy, but Easy Settings (for Win7) is far worse -- although its newer versions 2.x are significantly better than the old versions 1.x. The thread linked below has more information about both, including where in SW Update to find the latest versions. You use the Find Model feature to look up newer models with more up-to-date drivers and Settings versions. They are backwards compatible, but Samsung don't bother updating older models in the SW Update database.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-to-know.729139/

4) Defeating Adaptive Brightness is a classic sport for Samsung laptop owners, since it has to be disabled in multiple places, as described here and here and here. We even have an appropriately named thread specifically for this, linked below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...riving-me-nuts-unable-to-disable-help.636721/

Again, I don't have firsthand experience with your model, but in your case, I would logically suggest re-installing Win8.1 (since Win8.x is designed for touch screen and Win7 is not) in pure UEFI mode ( OS Mode Selection=UEFI OS). DON'T install in hybrid mode ( OS Mode selection=UEFI & CSM OS) since you cannot be sure that Windows Setup makes an UEFI installation.

If you installed Win8.1 in hybrid mode because you couldn't boot Windows Setup in pure UEFI mode, then probably your Win8.1 source wasn't formatted correctly for UEFI boot. Use @Obyboby's Win8.x clean install guide here to create an UEFI compatible Win8.x USB stick. Note that many Win8 and 8.1 discs are not UEFI compatible either, although new official discs from Microsoft should be.

Make sure to install Chipset drivers for your model (if offered in SW Update) before any other drivers. Install Settings LAST, after all other drivers. And check that you can control brightness using the slider in Windows Power Options before installing Settings. Also, use that Settings thread I linked above to find the latest Settings version in SW Update.

That's all I got. Please keep us posted.

 

Use the Find Model facility in SW Update to look through all the different versions of the NP905S3G / NP915S3G to see what is the latest version being offered.

Also, check if there is an Easy Settings inside the Settings installation package.

John

 

Thanks for your responses. Nothing helped in Windows 7 and brightness did not start working. Had all the latest software installed from samsung using SW Update utility, including all non-essential software. Reinstalled windows 7 several times in Hybryd UEFI + CSM mode and in pure CSM mode. Easy Settings was installed. I tried controlling brightness using FN + F2/F3 and inside Easy Setting using the slider. No go.

Reinstalled Windows 8 and brightness works. Disabled touch screen so that there is no weird refresh every 10 seconds. For several weeks had been using it like that. Yesterday tried a different thing and HERE IS THE SOLUTION:

Open Device Manager
Under Human Interface Devices instead of disabling "HID-compliant touch screen" disable the second instance of "HID-compliant vendor-defined device" device id: HID\VID_04F3&PID_012E&REV_0013& Col03



After this everything seems to work. I really do not know what that device is but touchscreen works and I have no more of device refresh problem. Hope this helps someone.