Series 7 Driver & Software Install has become a Nightmare

I purchased a Series 7 17.3" NP700Z7C back in the Summer, performing a fresh install of Windows once I received it. I used the provided Samsung Easy Software manager to install drivers and included software. It worked surprisingly well for bundled software, allowing me to choose which drivers I wanted to install before it automatically downloaded and installed everything I selected over a period of an hour or so. After rebooting, all intended drivers and software were installed with no problems.

About a week ago I purchased and installed an SSD in the machine and did a fresh install of Windows 7 on it.... here's where the problems begin. Apparently there is a new version of the Easy Software Manager. When running the included old version, I was required to update to this new version before proceeding. The new version is called "SW Update" and was released to aid in Windows 8 upgrades, but even Windows 7 users must use it. Users search for their specific Samsung Laptop by model number and then select their country. Then users select which OS: Windows 7 or 8. The first problem I encountered was that selecting US as the country only offered Windows 8 in the OS selection. I decided to proceed with the Windows 8 drivers, assuming there was no difference in drivers that would cause a problem on a Win 7 OS. I selected which drivers and bundled software I wanted, and proceeded to watch the SW Update software download my selections. I was prompted when the downloads were complete, but apparently this new SW Update software doesn't actually install anything. I wound up with a series of folders containing downloaded drivers and software. In each folder was a setup.exe. Apparently I had to manually run each setup.exe for each driver or software package that was downloaded. This new SW Update only downloads software but doesn't install it. Automatic installation of software was kind of a nice feature in the old Easy Software Manager, and, as I soon realized, I would miss it much more than I anticipated. It turns out that several drivers must be installed in a proper order. For example, you must install the Intel Integrated Graphics drivers before the Nvidia GT650M drivers, or you'll run into problems. There are several other instances where this is the case. Oh, and by the way, by the time I had gotten half way through the manual one by one driver installations, I had encountered additional errors that led me to believe the Win 8 drivers were in fact incompatible with Win 7. I looked at SW Update and, sure enough, when choosing a different country, there was an option for Windows 8 and Windows 7 for driver selection. Samsung has made a mistake and selecting "US" as the country only provides Windows 8.

As you can see in these two photos, selecting NP700Z7C-S01US only provides Windows 8 drivers, but selecting a model for any other country (NP700Z7C-S01UK, in the second photo, for example) provides both Windows 8 and Windows 7 for diver driver downloading.




So I had spent a couple hours downloading and manually installing the incorrect drivers. I reinstalled windows and started over, extremely frustrated by this altogether awful experience. Has anyone suffered through this new software, which removes automatic driver installation and doesn't even provide Win 7 drivers for the US model?

 

Sorry to hear about all your trouble.

I am afraid you made a fatal wrong turn early in SW Update, which then led you to more wrong turns that finally got you deep into the woods.

SW Update can be used almost exactly the same way as Easy Software Manager. Just hit the big blue Install & Update One-click button on the main screen, and it brings up the list of drivers and utilities for your particular model and Windows version -- just like you saw when you first installed last summer.

Find Model and Save Setup Files are OPTIONAL features in SW Update which allow you to find drivers for any Samsung model and save them locally. Easy Software Manager buried downloaded driver packages with cryptic names deep inside your Temp folder. So this is a great new feature in SW Update.

Since you tried to install Win8 drivers on your Win7 -- which in most cases will not work or cause a mess -- and since this is a new install anyway, I recommend you format that Windows partition again and install Windows anew, then run SW Update and hit the Big Blue Button.

Let us know how it goes.

Update: Here is a screendump of the SW Update main screen.

 

Hmm... that's odd. My version of SW Update displays this as the main screen:


Unfortunately, there's no blue update button. Clicking the blue button at the bottom with the paragraph of text that starts "With the SW Update utility," opens a browser window to http://samsung.com

 

OK, that is very odd indeed. I would try the whole thing again from a fresh install; it just doesn't make sense.

If you made a System Software backup when you got the PC, you can run that instead. Run it BEFORE you install network or any drivers whatsoever. It will give you the old Easy Software Manager and install drivers from the backup (or from your Recovery Partition if it finds it on your drive).

 

It looks like SW Update hasn't correctly identified your model or it isn't in the built-in database of model. I would tell it that you have a similar model. Most hardware is the same. Check the label on the box to see if something like the WiFi in your model is not standard.

John

 

I reinstalled Windows from scratch to find the same "SW Update" software, which appeared to have no One-Click install.

Fortunately, when the software finished downloading all my drivers, SW Update generated an exe. When I ran this exe, a window appeared offering to install all the drivers automatically. I somehow missed this before.

Still, I'm worried that the SW Update software doesn't seem to be detecting my hardware correctly.

Another problem has recently cropped up. My computer will BSOD whenever Windows is Sleeping. I never get a BSOD when I'm actually using the computer, but if I put the computer to sleep in the evening, I'll find it turned on at the login screen the following morning, and when I login, I see a dialog that says "Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown." The details on that window indicate a bluescreen.

Any ideas?

 

Thank you for the update. I applaud your tenacity, and it's great that you saw some improvement with SW Update.

But still, it is clearly not rewarding you with the results you deserve. As John pointed out, it seems to not detect your PC correctly. You should be able to just install everything (or the items you want) using the One-Click button, based on its detection of your specific model.

I can think of two reasons for the instability you are seeing:

1) Actual hardware defect.

2) CMOS or BIOS corruption. This could have caused SW Update to not detect your model correctly AND either directly or through incorrect drivers could cause the BSOD.

The CMOS can be cleared by opening the computer, although this is a somewhat involved procedure. There are also rumors that it can be cleared by keeping the power button depressed for a minute while having the battery disconnected using the pinhole on the bottom. Please see this thread. I should add that I have not tried either procedure myself.

I wish I had more specific advice for you. If I were you, I would probably give Samsung support a call -- knowing that I may have to spend some time on the phone.

Any advice from other members who experienced similar problems or know the Z7C would be great.

 

Assuming you still have the original hard disk that was working with all drivers and software prior to installation of the SSD, have you thought about maybe just cloning that on to the SSD instead?
That's what I did when I installed mine, and it was absolutely painless. Completed and up-and-running on the SSD within a couple of hours. See here for more details, if interested:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/687673-clean-win7-install-ssd-2.html#post8838811

 

I like this idea

My only concern would be if something is actually defect or the BIOS is corrupted, it's better to find out now while the laptop is still under warranty. After all, SW Update really SHOULD work properly unless there is something wrong.

 

Why don't you just snap a pic of the BSOD and see if you can google a fix for the stated cause of the crash?

 

First: Computer Properties (or Control Panel > System) > Advanced System Settings > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Deselect Automatically Restart. Then the Blue Screen won't disappear while you look for the camera.

John

 

Thank you all for the help! Fortunately, I haven't any BSODs in the last two weeks! It may have been a recent Windows Update that fixed the problem.

I will keep you posted though, and as for John Ratsey's post to disable the auto restart after a BSOD... that's pure gold! I never knew about that and, throughout my history of using Windows, I certainly could have used it from time to time! Many thanks!