The Samsung QX410 Thread

Awesome. There you go

 

I looked at the QX410 at Bestbuy and was really impressed, I'm going to this instead of the RF510 now that I got to see it in person. I'm going to pick one up in 2 weeks. Which one is the newer version? S02 or J01? I can't really find any piece of text that states the difference.

 

I was wondering if anyone here has connected their laptop to a second monitor using VGA. I have been doing this but just now noticed that the second monitor flickers as if the refresh frequency is 30herts but when I check its 60. I can see a very slight line being drawn on the screen.

Also a very cool side effect of samsung's low battery (7% ) automatic state saving feature is that when I choose not to login to windows. Restart my laptop and boot into Ubuntu then restart and choose windows my previously used windows state is still saved and restoring my session i.e. booting into windows takes 5 seconds.

I was wondering if anyone knew how to have the OS save my state every time before shutdown so we can just choose "continue and resume session in windows" or whatever when we start back up. If I can figure out how to save state before shutdown, boot up time will take 5 seconds and restoring my previous session would also save ~30seconds. I hope I am writing this in an understandable manner because this feature is pretty awesome.

 

I have J01 and it has everything that I need bluetooth etc.., though I wish battery life was ~10 hours like the MBP vs ~7

 

Did anyone managed to Hackintosh this laptop successfully? I've been trying for a few days now, and I have constant problems.

 

I noticed there were drivers for both but don't know the difference. I just bought the one from Best Buy and am extremely happy with it. The only thing I noticed were the colors weren't super accurate on the screen as there was a blue hue. I just ended up adjusting the colors and everything about the laptop is now nearly perfect!

 

Lately my laptop has been running into HUGE memory leaks. Right now i'm at 90% memory ussage (4gig) with 1 program open (this web broswer). Does anyone know how I can see what is using all of it?

I've checked the processes and it doesn't even begin to add up close.

 

1. Can you crop that image? Or use Alt-Fn_Prnt Scrn to just capture the active window.

2. You might get a better idea of memory usage by (i) enabling more of the memory columns on the Processes tab. Also look at the performance Tab.

Otherwise you will have to figure out the memory leak by observation.

John

 

So I've been lurking around this thread since I got this samsung laptop in late January. I don't have any major issues but I do have a issue no one has mentioned. When the laptop is completely shutdown and you press the power button to turn it on, my laptop turns on for one second then turns off. The light around the power button illuminates and then disappears. When I press it the second time it turns on and stays on and everything runs normally. I don't know if this is a hardware issue or what. I was hoping someone could cast some light on it.

Another problem I've run in to is that I broke the usb port on the right side of the laptop (above the cd-tray). I was in bed on my laptop with a usb wire plugged into the right side port. I fell asleep and the laptop fell off my lap and landed on the usb wire causing the port to break. It hasn't been an inconvience because I never use more then two usb ports simultaneously, but it is a bummer knowing that the laptop is now lacking one of its original ports. I've tried plugging things into the broken port and wiggling around to see if it would connect but it didn't work. Can this be fixed easily or is the usb port gone for good?

 

I think the power button, is similar to how a phone turns on after it's battery is depleted. First it starts charging the battery, then you gotta turn it off and then back on to actually get the system to boot off that battery.

Personally unless you have experienced with replacing internals of a laptop, I wouldn't try to fix the usb. In my experience once you open up a laptop the laptop is more prone to faults in the future. It's just one usb plug unless you seriously need it.

 

Hello, today i have a strange problem: when i type i get numbers on my keys, for example j is 1, k is 2 and so on... its just i would hold the fn key all the time, but im not. so i have to hold it when i write this text, wich is really hard to do... its just like fn key got switched - like alway on, and when i hold is is off. what can i do? i tried restart,but it doesnt help...

 

ah, i got it, sorry for this post - i just pressed fn+f11, stupid me

 

Has anybody been having problems with fast start? I seem to have to re-install it once a week... It's getting old

 

Does anyone know how to enable the cool windows 7 feature windowskey+tab in classic view mode?

Also, this mousepad is getting on my nerves so much I think I might sell the laptop, or somehow return it to best buy for a new MBP.

resting your finger on the click pad while moving the mouse makes it jump so much, also, left and right click rarely work, it's as if you have to press them in a certain spot for it to be recognized. Then when I use my brothers mbp touchpad from a year ago, everything works perfectly.

>_> the laptop would have been great with the traditional mousepad, not this half atempt at a all-in-one.

 

The touchpad is a descent attempt, if you like the design decisions of the MBP they implement it to near perfection.

The Qx410 is probably one of the best looking laptops just the implementation of the design isn't as perfect due to its price constraint.

 

Wait, what?

*pushes windows + tab*

Life significantly improved.

 

is there a battery issue with my new QX410? With a full battery life, the estimated battery life is projected at 3 hours. That's WAY more less than advertised.

 

Advertised battery life is based on having a very low power consumption such as the display on minimum brightness, no wireless / bluetooth / WWAN and no programs running which provide significant CPU usage. Animated Flash in a web browser can cause quite heavy CPU usage.

You can use the processes page of Task Manager to see what is using the CPU. Light usage should be less than 5% CPU utilisation whereupon the CPU can spend most of its time in low power sleep.

John

 

I'm wondering if it's easy to replace the QX410's battery as a DIY project
Do I just open the screws on the bottom, lift the bottom plate and replace ?
Or do I have to remove hardware before I get to the battery ?

 

So i've decided to replace the laptop with a 13" MBP. This mousepad is one of the worste i've ever used and has angered me to the point of beyond frustration. Also, the win my windows task bar at the bottom keeps having the icons disapeer making me have to end explore.exe task and re run it. Finally the HDMI port, requires extensive fiddiling to get the audio and video to work at the same time.

When your work is based around using a laptop for almost all of your tasks, efficiency battery-life, and reliability is paramount. This laptop failed to deliver.

 

I'm having a problem with this laptop and I hope you guys can help me. I decided to reinstall Windows 7 because the bloatware was simply too much. I've managed to install everything correctly except the Wireless drivers. I tried with all the wireless drivers (Broadcom, Atheros, the most recent one) in the support page. I also followed zenx's advice and installed that one too. Right now I only have an exclamation mark next to "Network Controller" in Device Manager, any thoughts on how to solve this?

Thanks!

Diego

 

Did you install the LAN driver here? Also, you should have installed the chipset driver. Preferably before anything else because it helps detection of the other hardware.

John

 

I installed the Chipset and LAN drivers after installing the wireless drivers, but I also tried reinstalling the wireless drivers afterwards and that didn't change anything. Do I need to uninstall everything and install Chipset, LAN and wireless drivers in that order? And also, which one should I install, the Broadcom or Atheros driver?

 

I would have hoped that things would have sorted themselves out whatever order you install the drivers. However, Windows can still screw things up on occasions. Make sure that you have any hardware switch or Fn key switch set to on before you try to install the wireless driver. Otherwise the hardware may be turned off and the installer can't see it. (If device Manager can see it then that should mean it is on).

Regarding which wireless card driver, can you look under the covers on the bottom and see the wireless card hardware with a name on? Alternatively, if you have the box that the computer came in, look at the labels on the box. On the attached example, the wireless card is listed as the "Communic" device.

Otherwise it is trial and error. Try one of the drivers. If it doesn't work then uninstall it and try the other.

John

 

Will try that as soon as I get home, thanks for the tips!

Regarding the Fn keys, I noticed that the wireless switch button on top of the keyboard doesn't change colour if I click it.

 

Do the other Fn key commands work OK? Samsung used to provide a program called Easy Display Manager which handled the Fn key commands but I see that it is not listed under the QX410 software collection.

John

 

Anyone ?
I bought this PC, but from my experience laptop batteries become useless after a year.
I am very worried that this laptop will turn to a paperweight.

 

Most likely, it is just a matter of removing the base (first take out the screws and then probably prise the seams apart around the edges). However, you will need to find a source of replacement batteries.

The good news is that notebook batteries, in my experience, tend to last a lot better than 4 to 5 years ago. I don't know if that is the result of better formulation or better charge management. The Samsung battery that I had in my Dell E6400 had less than 15% wear after 2 years.

It is prudent practice to check the battery wear (HWiNFO32 will do this) as the end of the 1 year battery warranty approaches. If the wear is substantial then get the battery replaced before the warranty expires.

John

 

Ebay/online stores are full of them.
Cool so I am relaxed. thanks !

 

Just wanted to chip in with my findings during my odyssey trying to get Wifi working again after a clean Windows 7 install. I installed the latest drivers of everything but the Network Controller item in the Device Manager kept showing up without a driver, and the Windows wifi utility reported that there was no wifi card. So what I did was connect the laptop via an ethernet cable to the router and then magically I had internet. I then right clicked the Network Controller item in the Device Manager and had Windows look for drivers online. Luckily it did find drivers for it and installed them, and I now have wifi working flawlessly again .

Thanks so much John Ratsey for your help!

 

Thanks for the update. I must try to remember that the best way to debug wireless driver issues is to get on line via a wired connection.

John

 

Hello, I am considering buying a Samsung QX412 and since it has the same chassis as the QX410 I was wondering what do you guys think of the build quality ot the QX410?

When I went to check the laptop on a store I noticed that there was a lot of flex above the DVD drive by pressing and even only by opening and closing the screen.
Did any of you have any problem with that?

Are the hinges solid?

I woud thank some honest answers and no fanboyism since I will carry the laptop around everyday and I NEED something solid and durable.

 

I have a QX410 and carry it to school everyday with a stuffed backpack. I have it in a zip up neoprene case and haven't seen any damage to the laptop whatsoever. In fact, it looks like it's brand new and I purchased it when it first released in the US. I couldn't be happier. Also, the hinges feel very sturdy. I honestly have no complaints.

 

I've been considering getting the QX410-S02. I just love the style and design. However, it currently has the older generation i5 processor. However, I'm not sure if I need the performance power of the new Sandy Bridge processors.

My daily tasks for my laptop would probably be as follows:
- college school work
- light gaming (Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2 all on medium/high settings)
- watching movies
- browsing the internet? but I can do that on a Celeron lol

Bottomline: Should I bother with Sandy Bridge or just screw it and get the QX410-S02?

 

I've recently purchased a Sandybridge notebook and find that the CPU speed improvement is minimal compared to the previous CPUs of the same clock speed. However, the performance of the Intel graphics is much improved (but the QX410-S02 has hybrid graphics so that's not a big benefit) and the battery performance is also slightly better.

I would therefore consider that a QX410 as an attractive price would be a good choice.

John

 

Sorry if this has been asked for can someone divert me to a post or thread with recommended settings and tweaks to the QX410 that will reduce power consumption and increase battery life ?

Also, the screeen is kinda washed out out of the box, is there anyway to increase sharpness ?

 

Put the display brightness at less than half and, if you are using a web browser, enable a Flash blocker. Flash can cause substantial CPU usage.

Try using Windows 7 display calibrate tool (Type Calibrate in the search box). However, you may first want to try reducing the display brightness. The optimum contrast may be at around 75% of maximum brightness.

John

 

Question for you guys.

Long story short, I have recently been in the laptop market. It boiled down to the asus u43-bb06 or the samsung qx410-s02. I went with the asus just because similar pricing but it has more memory and a usb 3.0. Everything else was identical.

I have this asus now and honestly the fan is driving me crazy. It isn't ridiculously loud, but it is CONSTANTLY humming. I could turn it on and there is exactly a 0 second delay before the fan turns on. I had this happen to me in the past with my old crappy laptops, and it bothers me.

I'm considering returning it for the samsung. My buddy has the qx410, and it is literally the quitest laptop I've ever heard. Couldn't hear the stupid thing if I put it up to my ear, much less 6-8 feet away. Is this a common experience? Reading reviews online says it was very smooth and quiet, but before I make the official exchange, I wanted more opinions.

Thanks so much guys.

 

In my experience Samsung provide reasonably good cooling systems. More recent products may also include a utility for selecting a balance between heat and fan noise.

John

 

Thanks so much.

 

Hello ! How many slots of RAM does the QX410 have ?
I want to upgrade to 8GB. Do I need 2x4GB or just 1x4GB to upgrade ?

 

The Samsung specs show that the standard RAM is 4GB and is expandable to 8GB. However, we need an owner to confirm whether the 4GB comes as 1 x 4GB module or as 2 x 2GB modules.

John

 

For anyone using linux, if you are using external monitor and see the screen flickering/shaking it's because there is an issue with the VGA use a dvi to hdmi converter and you should be good. pm me if anyone here is using linux I've been wanting to tune this to linux I'm using Ubuntu at the moment.

 

Hmm... this would be great for my stats work can someone check the ram door? I'm in a new place and don't have the right tools handy

 

I've had this laptop since beginning December 2010, and as has been said it still looks new, I bring it everyday to and from work, so much so in fact that I am trying to reduce my time on it. Hinges are solid. I use a wireless mouse with a mini dongle and I'm good to go.

 

my came with 2x2gb adata brand memmory

 

According to the Samsung update program, there is a new bios upgrade. Anyone install it yet?

 

Thanks for the headsup! Installing now. I'll report any findings but sometimes it's hard to tell without change logs.

 

Hi, everyone.

I recently purchased a new router (Linksys E3000) which is dual-band. I set the 5GHz to be N-only. However, my laptop cannot seem to locate this band. It has no problems connecting with the 2.4 GHz band, however.

Anyone who has had the same problem? I tried updating the Broadcom driver but nothing happened. I hope somebody can help me on this one.

 

Have you tried uninstalling the "Samsung Network Manager" Software? That was causing me a issue with my router where it wouldn't see the SSID, after i uninstalled it i had no issues.