Samsung Q45 (12.1" widescreen)

So, I've had my Q45 for just over 2 years now, and for the first time, the battery will not last for my two 1 hour daily commutes. I guess it's time to think about a new battery.

Anyone have any experience/recommendations? I see this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/MEXXTRONICS-Notebook-Battery-compatible-ORIGINAL/dp/B001VR46HO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258547777&sr=8-4 for £80 on amazon, or this: http://www.power-supplier.co.uk/laptop-battery/2703/SAMSUNG/Q45%20Aura%20T5450%20Danyal.htm for £30. Are these safe? What alternatives are there?

 

I've got 4 gig's installed. The other slot is under the keyboard if memory serves (excuse the pun). Unfortunately under 32bit OS I'm only using bout 2.9 gig's. boohoo.

Regarding the Fn keys. Under Windows 7 take a look here...

Install Windows 7 on Samsung Q45 | Geek: the Gathering!

Under Ubuntu take a look here...

Linux On My Samsung • View topic - HOWTO: NC10 scripts

 

It appears my screen backlight has died tonight.

Anyone know where in the UK I can get a reasonably priced replacement?

Thanks.

 

My screen has also died but it looks like the GPU / motherboard as I can not get any display on an external monitor.

Anyone else with a Q45 and dead GPU? Is it worth repairing?

Ian

 

I have been having similar problems with two identical models purchased at the same time a couple years ago. Most commonly, after turning on the computer, or after coming out of standby, the backlight is turned off, though an external screen works fine (so it is not a broken GPU). From inside Windows XP (so after a "blind" login screen) after the system load of all the drivers, cycling through Fn+F5 (the backlight toggle combination) will usually bring the backlight on again, although it may not "stick" until having toggled several times (maybe as many as 7-8 cycles Backlight On-Backlight Off-Backlight On).
It IS possible to see the screen (a tiny bit) by shining a flashlight or other bright light source near the screen, which I sometimes need to do to manage the login.
Oddly enough, on both of them the problem happened frequently last fall, then basically disappeared (I removed the "screen off" power savings settings at all times) and recently returned a couple weeks ago.

 

Hi There everyone,
My girlfriend has a Q45 and I am thinking of doing these upgrades.

1. Putting an SSD as a replacement for the HDD. Does anyone know if this laptop can support AHCI trimming for SSD's.
2. Upgrading from 2G to 4G of RAM.
3. upgrading to a quad core Penryn CPU, I have no idea how to find out what CPU's I can drop in there. I was thinking about Quad Core Q9100 or the Dual Core T9900, does anyone know if that is possible?
4. Finally I would like to upgrade to windows 7, does anyone know of any issues with that?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

As I understand it, TRIM is managed at the OS level. Windows 7 has built-in support for TRIM while some SSD manufacturers provide a utility to provide the same functionality with XP and Vista (see, for example, the FAQs about Samsung SSD Magician).

This should not be a problem but 32-bit Windows can only use about 3.25GB.

I'm not sure about the hardware compatibility for different CPUs. The BIOS may only support the CPUs from the same family. The quad core CPUs are 45W parts which may challenge the cooling system (if they work). Unless your GF is running software which can use all the cores, you may see a performance drop because the maximum GHz tends to be lower than the dual core parts. See the notebookcheck CPU benchmark list. The T7700 or T7800 is probably as fast as you can go.

I have had Windows 7 working OK on the Samsung R20 which is of similar age to the Q45. However, Samsung updated some of their notebook BIOSes to improve Windows 7 support (particularly, I think, for the power management), but the newest Q45 BIOS is over 3 years old. The software and drivers should work because the Vista versions usually work if Windows 7 doesn't have something built in.

John

 

There is much discussion about using XP on the Q45, how do you get around the SATA driver issue? My wife's machine tanked, and i can install Win7 without fail - but her external devices are not Win7 friendly. I do not have the original install discs and am in the USA, so Samsung will not help me - anyone have the SATA drivers so i may get the drive to recognize and install?

 

There are two ways to add the SATA driver:

1. Use nLite to add the SATA driver to the XP installation disc (while you are at it, you can add the various other Samsung drivers probably from here). also add Windows updates / patches so there's less to update after initial installation. See the old guide here.

2. Use the "press F6 to load driver" option during the XP installation process. Follow the instructions in this thread to extract the drivers from the Intel chipset installer and copy them onto a USB flash drive. Then press F6 during XP installation to point to these files (alternatively, if the HDD is partitioned, put the files in D .

John