Samsung Q45 (12.1" widescreen)

Did you try the space bar with one cone in the middle?

It is quite possible that there are spaces for 3 cones because they use standard components, but 1 cone may provide the right resistance - you have already discovered that 3 cones makes it too stiff.

John

 

Yeah, with one cone it gets stuck in the depressed position. I am currently using it with the centre and right cones in place but is still too stiff.

I have taken offseveralkeys and fiddled withtherubber springs etc andthey allwork fine once i replace them correctly.so itseems somethigis up with the spacebar specifically. sorry for thewriting

 

Hi,
would anybody be able to tell me about the possible implications when using inverters with different Wattage, ie. can you actually damage the laptop by using the inverter with less than laptop's wattage? If you have the choice should you buy (in this case) an inverter with 75W or with 150W one?

The shop in the link above does only those two and I just don't know much about the electricity and how it affects things. The size of the inverter is not an issue, I would even prefer the bigger one because I might be able use it for some other things in the future that might require bigger wattage. What those other things might be I don't know, just trying to think upfront.
Also, does the bigger inverter drain the car battery quicker or are there any other things I should know about it?
Sorry if this sounds silly but I had to ask (the only stupid question is the one you never asked (apparently)

many thanks in advance

cheers

ps. just saw it , they do 120W one as well as 150W, it is just that 150W one has USB point(??). They say the USB point is for charging laptop, anybody knows how to do that ie. what sort of cable is needed in order to use that USB point for charging laptops? I didn't know that one can charge laptop via USB point.

 

I believe that the Q45 has a nominal 60W PSU. The 60W represents the worst case power demand with CPU under full load and the battery charging. However, the PSU has some conversion losses, so it may need 70W, which is just within the capacity of a 75W inverter. Usually the inverters have some sort of protection against overload.

The 120W inverter represents a good compromise with some spare power capacity. I wouldn't get the 150W inverter just to get the USB power. You can get this pair of USB PSUs for less. There's also a 140W inverter at play.com.

John

 

Thx John,

called Samsung's "technical support" yesterday and the guy I spoke to thought (I don't think he was 100% sure what he was talking about) that anything over 90W would make the laptop run much hotter and possibly inflict some damage to the laptop.
He said that Samsung only recommends inverters of up to 90W, but I think that he was just improvising on the basis of what little info he could gather on his screen.
Since I don't know anything regarding electricity and how things work in that respect, can anybody please enlighten me on this one, ie. can more powerful inverter really be so detrimental to the laptop or any other device for that matter.
I would really like to know that, not just for this particular purpose but as a general knowledge as well, you never know when you might need it

many thx in advance

cheers

 

I would suspect that the Samsung support guy has never used an inverter. The inverter produces mains voltage and frequency from a 12V source. The risk of overloading your notebook's PSU is somewhat less than plugging into a normal mains socket where the source capacity is measured in Gigawatts. Many years ago I used one (I think it was rated at 250W) and an extra-large car battery as a backup power supply for whatever notebook I had at the time.

UPSs also contain inverters and no one has worried about plugging a low-wattage appliance into a high-rated UPS.

John

 

Thx John, much obliged!
Your observation on mains socket comparison makes sense methinks.

cheers
GD

 

Hello!

Today a new bios version, 12ST, has been released. Has anyone tested it yet? Does the brightness control work with XP or Linux??

thx, mccoy

 

@mccoy.

Yes, testing right now.
Whatever they have fixed, it is not the issue with the brightness/wlan control.
Back to 09ST...

Bye

 

Thanks for the fast information! Do you own a Q45 Damali?? 08ST is the only version that works fine for me.

mccoy

 

No, I own a Q45-Dalia with Intel IGC.
For me 09ST works fine. 10ST to 12ST showing the brightness/wlan control bug.

Have you cheched your BIOS settings ?
After a bios upgrade some of the settings become resettet to default.
(brightness auto /wlan always on).

Bye

 

Hi!

I have checked my bios setting: brightness: auto / Wlan: always on. But this should not be the problem, these options are only for startup. I can't change the brightness with XP or Linux yet. But my wlan control bug is fixed.

mccoy

 

Interesting,
you're using 12ST and WLAN controls are working now for you ?

For me it doesn't work with 12St

Can you switch to a real console in Linux and try to change brightness/WLAN and
give the output (if there are some debug messages).

Thx

 

Yes, but the wlan control works only with XP and not with Linux (ubuntu). Sorry, if there were any misunderstandings! Also i can switch the backlit with XP again.
There aren't any debug messages. When i call dmesg it says:

[ 496.240000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x88 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 496.240000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e008 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 496.868000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x89 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 496.868000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e009 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 587.268000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x88 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 587.268000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e008 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 587.608000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x89 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 587.608000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e009 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 588.724000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x84 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 588.724000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e004 <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 589.884000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x86 on isa0060/serio0).
[ 589.884000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e006 <keycode>' to make it known.

mccoy

 

Ok, same behaviour here. I also have the "atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed" messages with Debian SID and 12ST.

IMHO it works for you, because you're using Nvidia.

With Linux and 12ST suspend modi are working better for me.

Thanks and happy eater greetings

 

BIOS 13ST is available.

 

Hi!

Have they fixed the issue with the brightness/wlan control??

mccoy

 

In one word: No

 

Does this brightness and WLAN bug of linux/WinXP applies for vista also?

(going to be Q45 owner)

 

I mean, if I buy this q45 notebook with vista, do I have this BIOS problem if I update it to 10ST or newer of that?

 

I'm sure that the above problems do not happen with Vista, which is the operating system normally supplied with the Q45.

John

 

all right then, thanks

 

I see that the Q45 software downloads are all dated 19 Mar 08. I don't know whether there is anything new or this is just Samsung's annoying habit of putting a new date on old files.

Also the drivers, dated 27 Mar 08.

(Same for Q70).

John

 

I got my Samsung Q45 today and i like it. It looks nice and i don't have anything negative to say about it after using it for about a couple of hours.
I upgraded the ram to 4GB installing the ram myself was not hard. Samsung though could make life a bit easier for some people and put both of the ram slots at the base of the laptop. I used a spudger stick to do the job i would recommend getting one of those.
I would prefer a battery that did not stick out but it is ok with the battery the way that it is.
My last two computers have had 13.3 inch screens and i don't really notice any difference going down to 12.1.
I like the red glossy lid of this notebook.
I paid £556 for this notebook which i think was a complete bargain.
You can get a cheap 3 year warranty upgrade from Saveastore.com for £52.99. I will think about upgrading the warranty i won't do it immediately.

I was also wondering about upgrade possibilites with this laptop. Does this laptop have a socketed or a soldered CPU? I probably won't upgrade the CPU but you never know i could change my mind about upgrading it if it is possible. You can get decently priced CPU's from NewEgg.com.
Thanks for the recommendation in my other post John.

 

Thanks for the update and feedback. First impressions count a lot and that was a very good price.

"spudger stick"? - I must look it up.

The Q45 is one step better than the Q35 in that it has two RAM slots (the Q35 had only one). I have examined a Q45 but when I reviewed the Q70 I reckoned that they could have squeezed a double-deck RAM socket in the hole in the bottom. Perhaps they were worried about too much heat.

I'm 100% sure that the CPU is socketed and upgradable. The Q45 must also be Penryn compatible since you can get a Penryn Q45.

John

 

I am sure that you have seen a spudger stick before John but you might know it under another name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spudger

I am starting to think that i may have the x3000 graphics card opposed to the x3100 card. I thought that it was a error the way they listed my laptop where i bought it but now i am not so sure.
https://www.saveonsamsung.com/Product/id/240723
I would be ok with the x3000 graphics card. Is there anyway to check for sure? The box did not have the graphics controller on it and neither has anything else that i have looked at on this laptop. I have looked under system information and i have also looked in the BIOS and the device manager. All they are telling me is that my computer has the intel 965 chipset but the x3000 uses this chipset also so it doesn't really tell me much.

Most x3100 Q45 models seemed to be speced with the 160 HD and the b/g wireless card. Mine has the 200GB 4200 HD and the b/g/n wireless card. I can live with the 4200HD these modern SATA ones are faster than the IDE ones used to be a few years back due to newer technology. My model is the NP-Q5A005/SUK.

Edited to add:
I have just seen this model which is the same as mine on Dabs.com with the graphics card listed as x3100.
This reassures me somewhat. Amazon list it with x3000 graphics also.
If i could find out how to check though myself i would appreciate it.
http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...onKey=11105,388790000,49350000#specifications

 

I don't think I have ever come face-to-face with a spudger.

As for the GPU, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Run 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 and see what the scores are. AFAIK the X3100 is a member of the X3000 series (and the only member to get into notebooks). My Zepto scored 910 and 561 in 3DMark05 and 06 respectively. Have you found the Samsung resources here? The specs there say X3100 and I can't see why Samsung would make a special run with a different GPU (which is on-board).

Which model is the wireless card?

Which model is the HDD? Can you treat us to an HDTune plot?

John

 

John thanks for your help i am reassured now totally due to the pdf Samsung link that this laptop has a x3100 graphics card in it.

I have never ran a HD Tune plot before but here is mine i hope that i have done it right.

As you can see from the screenshot the HD that i am using is Toshiba MK2035GSS. The wireless card is an Intel wireless 4965AGN.

 

The HD Tune plot looks OK but the performance is nothing to be proud of. It is verys similar to the 120GB Fujitsu (attached) that I measured in December 2006 when I got my X60 plus. Samsung must be getting them very cheap from Toshiba. I would suggest that you give the HDD upgrade higher priority than the CPU. The 250 or 320GB 5400rpm HDDs get a maximum data transfer rate of between 60 and 70MB/s, so about 50% faster data transfer rate. Once you have got the computer set up as you like it with Vista SP1 and all you software then you might want to consider cloning the HDD to a bigger and faster one. K omplett and Overclockers are two sources. Then you keep your original HDD as backup.

John

 

Thanks John i will consider upgrading the HD i would like a drive though that was equally as quiet. One good thing though about this drive is that it runs very cool and it is also super quiet and quiet drives are also important to me. I think it should also have a very slight advantage over 5400 and 7200 rpm drives when it comes to battery life.
I have used the 250GB 5400 Samsung HD in the past and whilst it was quiet most of the time the drive would make clicking noises sometimes. 4200rpm drives have always been the most quiet drives that i have used. The majority of 7,200rpm drives that i have tried have been to noisy for me and so have some 5400 HD's.
This drive does run ok though under normal use. I will look into getter a better HD that is also super quiet and a pretty good performer.

 

The Samsung HDDs used to be very quiet but recent ones have got the occasional clunk. At the moment I'm using a WD2500BEVS which is pretty quiet. Fujitsu HDDs are also usually cool and quiet. You are right about the power drain aspect. You can compare many HDDs on the Tom's Hardware 2.5" HDD charts.

What is you initial impression on the battery time? Read Luke Alexender's power saving thread if you want some tips.

By the way, I just noticed that ebuyer have a red Q45 at <£500 (NP-Q45A008/SUK) with 1GB RAM and 120GB HDD. That's getting silly - cheaper than the R20 with the same CPU! You can also get your next CPU at ebuyer.

John

 

Ebuyer CPU price for the T8100 processor is really pretty decent. Thanks for that link John. I would be interested to read what kind of battery life people with Penryn are getting who have this notebook. Penryn processors are meant to give improved battery life over Memron processors but how much or will there be any advantage over the lower clocked speed Memron processors that are in some of these notebooks. Maybe investing on getting a more expensive Q45 might not be worth it if you hope to see better battery life. Maybe if you need a more powerful processor might be a better reason to get one.

I haven't run any proper battery life tests yet but i discharged my battery yesterday and i got about 4 hours 50 minutes battery life. For the first 10 or so minutes i think i had bluetooth enabled then i disabled it in the device manager and at this time i also turned Aero of. I had Samsung Optimized running also for the first 10 minutes or so then i switched onto power saver mode.
I didn't adjust the set brightness i didn't even know where to look for it as i could not see it under the power management settings.

Whilst running my battery down yesterday i also had wifi on and i was doing pretty constant wifi web browsing browsing a good few flash based high street store websites with several tabs open. I also restarted the computer a few times. I also had msn messenger going the majority of the time. I was using internet explorer as my browser as i am yet to download Firefox.
I think i should be able to definetly get a little over 5 hours with proper management.

I put in an SD Ready Boost card in mid-way and it seemed to reduce my battery life time on the clock so i removed it.

Thanks for the link to the tips thread i have already been reading over the tips that is in this thread when i had my M1330 and i have found those tips to be very helpful.

 

Brightness control is probably Fn+ cursor up / cursor down.

My X60 plus also has Samsung Battery Manager as a standalone application which you can configure for various power management settings. See here for the full list of Q45 software. SamsungPC only has a subset.

John

 

Hi everyone,
I'm going to degrade my 13ST bios to earlier version. Question - where can I find this "CD version of bios installer" (mentioned in this thread earlier) ?

Viljar

 

The CD version is the ISO file listed at SamsungPC.

John

 

I'm using Vista on the Q45 and the birghtness/volume hotkeys have stopped working since doing the BIOS update. Any ideas to get this working again?

 

I see that Q45 BIOS 14ST was released on the 18th April. Is that the one you used? There has been discussion of problems with these controls with XP and Linux 20 or so posts back, but I thought Vista behaved OK. You could try (re)installing the latest version of Easy Display Manager. A lot of the Q45 downloads have new dates but it is unclear whether the files have new contents.

It's interesting that the newest BIOS listed by SamsungPC is 09ST. It is possible to downgrade the BIOS. I think the instructions are further back up this thread.

I would also suggest that you submit a bug report to Samsung via the send email link.

John

 

Thanks, the latest version of Easy Display Manager got it going. Not sure why that it disappeared after doing all the updates.

 

Maybe the new BIOS had changed the mapping for those keys and the reinstallation of Easy Display Manager forced it to look for and relate to the new mapping.

Anyway, problem fixed.

John

 

Hi People,

I have been using a Samsung Q45 for about 7- 8 months now, running XP and all has been fine and dandy until today.

Does anyone have any experience of obtaining the parts and replacing the screens on one of these? I have cracked the screen and need to replace.

Currently mulling options, are there any preferred component suppliers? Tried to search the forums but I only found Dell users talking about obtaining their replacement screens from Dell.

Would prefer to go down the quickest / cheapest route, trying to source the screen so that I can replace myself.

Based in the UK.

 

Hi!

Can somebody tell me whether the new bios version fixes the problem with the brightness or wlan control with Linux (or XP)?

bye mccoy

 

No, 14ST is still ignoring FN-Brightness and FN-WLAN.
As usual stay with 09ST !

niox

 

See this thread for a source of Samsung parts.

John

 

Thanks John, I did see that thread, looks like I will be contacting Digicare or Romtronics in the morning

Took the screws off the screen holder to see whether it would be feasible to replace the screen myself, its not to user friendly back there and beyond the realm me and my small philips screwdriver..

 

By the way, Trusted Reviews have had another look at the Q45. They didn't quite make the 5 hours on battery that I would expect.

John

 

Hey, my first post!
First of all, thanks to all for any info you've posted, i've found a few bits (e.g. where the ram slots are, the bluetooth on and off app) pretty useful.

However, my concern at the moment doesn't appear to have been discussed yet.

My understanding is that these days batteries (e.g. notebook batterys) can be made to have no 'memory affect' i.e. can be left plugged in all their lives and then the one day you unplug it it'll still have the promised (in this case) 6 hours battery life (which i understand is samsung spec and not real).

Is this the case with our Q45's?

Cheers, James

P.S. I own a Q45 with the 1.66Ghz C2D, (an upgraded from 1GB) 2.5GB of ram and 160GB HDD.

P.S.P.S What are peoples gaming experiences? I wasn't expecting much, but managed to get an ok frame rate in CSS, what other games appear to work well

P.S.P.S.P.S. I Like Vista!

 

Welcome.

Lithium batteries do not have the charge memory problem of the nickel-based batteries. However, they do gradually deteriorate with age and one of the aging factors is the number of times the battery is recharged (whether from empty or just a small top-up). You will notice that your Q45 won't recharge if the battery charge level is just below full. 98% is the trigger for my X60 plus to recharge. This reduces the number of small top-up charges. I reckon that a lithium battery will lose 1/4 to 1/3 of its capacity per year (and that is with the battery kept in the computer but normally running from mains power). If you get more than that loss in the first year then you might be able to persuade Samsung technical support to send you a new one.

Samsung's claimed 6 hour battery life may be the upper limit, but 5 hours should be achievable. See this power savings thread for some tips. You may also want to investigate undervolting. The guide is here. This may provide only a small extension of battery life but will reduce the heat and fan noise when the CPU is under load. The RMClock software also has a useful battery info page so you can see you actual battery capacity (when new it should be, but may not be as on the label) and the discharge rate.

John

 

Ah ok, my reason for asking was that my old laptop (Acer Aspire 1690) had a Lithium battery, and yet after 3 years it gave me 10mins battery life (i put this down to it been plugged in all the time)

So am i better to leave it plugged in whilst i'm on my desk?

As i have been advised in the past to just keep topping up the battery rather than leaving it plugged in or always using it till 5-10% left.

TBH i always wondered why they didn't find a way of having it so that the mains bi-passes the battery (i.e. the battery is disconnected) once the battery is fully charged. I know they do something along those lines, however its always connected (if i understand correctly). I do understand that it'd be an effort to work out a way the above would work without having your laptop cut out every time you went mobile, i just remember how sick i used to be with my 10mins battery life!!!

LOL.

Anyway, i'd just like to raise another issue... i love the battery % indicator on the underside of the battery (thats all)

EDIT

I have thought of a way the battery bi-pass would work - if one cell of the battery was always connected, but the rest left inactive whilst fully charged & plugged in

 

I think that the by-pass you want is actually there: Once the battery is fully charged then the charging will stop until the charge level drops below 98?% (you can check to see when the charge triggers).

It would be good to have an option to set the recharge trigger at a lower level. On my Sony G11 there is an option to set the maximum charge to 100%, 80% or even 50%, which is claimed to extend the battery life. I normally use the 80% but that is because the G11 can still run for 7 hours on an 80% charged battery. However, what I have noticed is that when I use 100% then I don't get 100%.

If you start seeing a noticeable drop in capacity then you can run the battery calibration utility in the BIOS. However, in my experience this doesn't work properly. Another trick is to do a deep discharge. However, since Vista by default won't let you run the battery until empty, you need to type this command into Start > Run

By running until empty, fully charging and then doing a full discharge it is sometimes possible to recover capacity.

However, you can still expect the battery to somewhere close to useless after 3 years. If you are going to use the computer for long periods (weeks) just connected to the mains then you could remove the battery. That will reduce the number of charge cycles and wear.

John

 

Ok thanks, thats what i was after.

Anyway, i just thought i'd share my experience today with Counter-Strike: Source & Vista performance index (WINSap iirc)

Firstly, today my 2GB of ram came through, so i vista benchmarked and CSS Benchmarked before installing and got something along the lines of :
CSS Average FPS: 17
Vista: RAM 4.5, GPU 3.4
(1GB of factory fit ram)

So i stuck the ram in and got:
CSS Average FPS: 20
Vista: RAM 4.6, GPU 3.5
(512mb stick of factory & 2GB stick of PNY £24 stuff from play.com)

Not a big improvement, but a start.

Anyway, i decided (after your suggestion) to update the graphics drivers from the Intel website to 15.9 (think it was 7.1.14 or something silly before)

CSS Average FPS: 33.78
Vista: RAM 4.6, GPU 3.2

Seems a bit funny - my vista performance index shows its got worst, however CSS has become much better, and playable in my understanding!

Ah well, guess this X3100 chip aint as bad as i expected. Later i plan to see the benchmark difference of taking out my 2GB SD Card which is acting as a Vista Readyboost thingy.

Anyway, i'm gonna plague you with another question - my understanding is that the X3100 can use upto 386MB of ram, however in the q45 bios, theres only 'Auto' '128' and '256'
How can i achieve the highest amount (if possible)?

Also, due to a recent bios update failure with my main computer, i decided i wouldn't update the bios on my q45, and hid the update within samsungs update manager thing. How'd i unhide it? I'm searching for any extra performance i can get atm...

Cheers, James