Upgrading my Series 7

Hi All.

I have decided to upgrade my Series 7 NP700Z5C-S04CA. I am hoping to find answers to the following questions:

1. Slow 5400 RPM HDD out, Samsung 840 Pro in

The laptop came installed with win8 home premium. I upgraded it to win10 using MS free upgrade offer.

How do I re-install win10 on the new SSD? I want to do a clean install. Can I download the win10 image off the Microsoft website and install that via USB 2.0? will my win8 activation key work? Or do I need to dl win8 iso and then upgrade?

2. Intel 6230ANHMW out, Intel 7260HMW in.

Will the 7260HMW work with my NP700?

3. HyperX 8GB RAM

Installed yesterday. I haven't noticed a big change. But that's not surprising, considering the slow 5400 rpm HDD.

Thanks!

 

Hi @farmoar, welcome to NBR.

I am afraid I cannot help you with Win10 in particular since I didn't make that upgrade. You can check our Win10 thread (stickied on top of the Samsung forum).

I did read some time ago that as of the November update, Win10 can be clean installed directly using Win7/8/8.1 Product Keys without first performing an update. But again, I cannot confirm firsthand.

What I CAN give you specific advice on are the following:

1) Be careful about Windows clean installs on your model: It was one of Samsung's first UEFI models, and they have been known to brick when clean installing Windows in UEFI mode. Far from always, but sometimes. You can read more about that in the Bricking section of the Samsung forum sticky list (also on top of the forum).

2) If you install in legacy BIOS mode, that should be much less risky. In BIOS settings, select SecureBoot=Disabled and OS Mode Selection=CSM OS. Your disk/SSD needs to use good old MBR layout in order to install in this mode (as opposed to the newer GPT layout required for UEFI mode). You can read large GPT disks regardless of which mode you use. Of course switch back to UEFI mode if you ever install your old disk/SSD again, otherwise it won't boot. If you don't know what UEFI, GPT and MBR are, then please read this post first.

3) Also in BIOS settings, disable Fast BIOS before you start. This will help boot an external disk -- both for installation and in case something goes wrong. You can re-enable it after everything is up and running.

4) Update to the latest BIOS version before installing Windows. Use the safe procedure here.

5) Install Windows from a DVD if at all possible. If you install from USB, Windows setup will be confused by the small iSSD used by ExpressCache and install its boot files there. Lots of Samsung users fell through that trapdoor. There are workarounds (described in posts #1 and #2 of this thread) but they are a hassle, and they ONLY apply to legacy BIOS mode -- not to UEFI mode.

Those are all general Windows clean install points, not specific to Win10. We have Samsung clean install guides for Win7 and Win8.x, but I don't think I've seen one for Win10 yet -- though I could have missed it.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

Well I did a clean install yesterday using a win10 USB-DVD image on the USB 2.0 key. I let win10 run updates for a while. Everything worked except FN keys and touch pad driver.I downloaded drivers for those from Samsung's website. Then I made sure every other driver was up to date.

Haven't been able to set the nvidia GPU as primary.

Is the second RAM stick on the opposite side of the board or soldered to it? I am really interested in upgrading the rest of the memory for a total of 16gb. Which I believe is the maximum amount supported by the mobo.

What about CPU and GPU? Are those upgradable?

 

IIRC, some of the RAM on this model is soldered so there is no second slot.

And I see no compatibility problem with upgrading the WiFi card provided the card size and socket are the same. However, I should mention that when I tried a similar upgrade some years ago the driver showed an error in device manager. i suspect the cause was Intel's standard driver not being clever enough to properly detect the new card so it decided that the old one had a problem. I was too lazy to spend time trouble-shooting this and put the old card back in. If swapping the WiFi card it may be necessary to first download Intel's latest driver, then remove the card, do a full driver uninstall and cleanup, then put the new card in and finally install the latest driver.