The Samsung QX410 Thread

Hello everyone, I've had this laptop since November 2010. Last week my "enter" button stopped working. Has anyone tried to replace the keyboard yet?

 

It didn't work. Still can't find the 5Ghz band.

 

Hello -

My QX410 has been working fine, for the most part, since I bought in 12/10 until yesterday. Now it gets to the Samsung screen and hangs. If I reboot and press F2 or F4 I get "Please Wait" at the bottom, but nothing more.

Any sage advice, or is Intellisol my only recourse?

 

There's a deal to get a refurb version of this for $500 today on woot. Even though this laptop is about 9 months old, it seems like a pretty good deal. I mostly need it for general use (web, email, watching videos) and light gaming so it looks like it would work fine for me.

Just wanted to get an idea from you current owners how things have been going. Are all the big bugs (video flashing, trackpad issues, etc.) now fixed or is there some bug issue that I should be aware of before I purchase?

Also, I previously returned a lenovo 14" laptop (420s) with "edge-2-edge" glass because it wasn't really glass (it was plastic) and the display was awful with low contrast and terrible off-angle viewing. Just curious how the display on this model is.

 

I wonder if the HDD is sick. The best thing is to remove it, put in a USB enclosure and try to read it in another computer. If you can, make a copy of all your personal files and give it a thorough scan. If you can't, then it's dead. If you haven't got an enclosure then you could burn a Ubuntu Linux CD, boot from it (press Esc at the BIOS screen, IIRC, to get a boot device menu, or maybe it's F12) and see what happens.

The T420s doesn't claim to have "edge-2-edge" glass. It's a matte display and matte screens tend to have less vivid colours due to the anti-reflective layer.

John

 

Actually it was the E420s which had what they called "infinity glass". Turns out that infinity is a fancy word for edge-2-edge plastic. So is the Samsung surface actually glass?

 

Yes, it is actually glass. For those that are wondering, the display is good enough for casual web browsing, video watching, and everyday tasks. However, the colors are a little washed out so if you are thinking that you will be able to edit photos on this, look elsewhere.

 

Does anyone know if there's a way to hack the Elan SmartPad drivers to add my own custom gestures?

 

I found this thread because a friend bought 3 of the Woot offerings to spin a few them off onto E-Bay, so I could still grab one for the original 500 bucks if so desired. My uses basically involve web surfing, some very casual gaming, and occasionally plugging the laptop into my TV to watch old seasons of The Challenge.

I'm very curious about this notebook, at least in terms of performance. Obviously this is a nicer notebook in terms of quality or whatever, but the specs seem pretty outdated. This laptop

Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 15.6" Display / 3GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive - Black - C655-S5212

is 100 bucks better than even Woot's price and from every benchmark I can find, the 2310m is almost as fast as the Core I5 in this thing, and the HD 3000 processor beats the 310m hands down in most every game out nowadays.

Again, this is from just checking Futuremark benchmarks, if anyone has any of their own benchmark results or any anecdotal performance stuff they'd like to relate from playing any games on this system, I'd be really curious.

 

Mine just died. BB is saying motherboard (thank god got the extended warranty my year just ran out on black friday)

 

Hello,

I really need help here! Hope anyone can help me..

My QX410 screen is complete broken, it was even pulled off from it.. So no way to even replace the screen(I need cable from motherboard to screen, wifi cable and camera cable..). My DVD drive is not working neither.. and my hard disk drive just failed...

I got a new hard disk drive and I want to install a new system, so I've to do it from a USB. I'm using an external monitor but it is not recognized during the bios.. I can't see anything!

So anyone knows how to make the external monitor display the bios screen?

Or if that is not possible, can anyone record the process(video would be great!) of how to change the boot order to boot from USB. Like press F2, move 2 spaces to the right, press enter, go down 2 spaces, etc... Sounds crazy but I don't have a better idea. I video would be great though!

Or any other idea?

Thank you so much in advance!

 

I would expect the BIOS to automatically detect any external screen at bootup - I'm sure I have used that in the past to get round a broken internal display. However, there should be a Fn+F something option to step between the display options.

You can also get to a one-time boot menu by press Esc at the BIOS screen. So you can try different options by stepping down the list a different number of times. However, I'm not sure whether Enter is enough to make the selection or whether something such as F10 is required. Perhaps the manual will help with the BIOS selection command although it doesn't mention the Esc option.

John

 

Hey thanks for the reply. The BIOS doesn't recognize the screen automatically, it may be an option in it to then recognize the external screen but I didn't change it before. The Fn+F(F4) key you referring is to switch display in the OS, or you mean I can switch screens like that before the OS is loaded? I tried but nothing. I also tried the ESC key while in BIOS but without seeing anything(or even imaging how it looks like) it was impossible for me to set it up too boot from USB.

I can't find any info or pictures about the BIOS, I've been Googling around but it seems that not enough people have this Samsung.

Any chance I can get pictures from the BIOS and boot order section? That would be really helpful!

Thank you!

 

Do you mind if I asked how it died? did it not turn on anymore, I've had issues when connecting an ethernet internet cable the laptop just freezes. It makes me suspect the motherboard.

I'm probably flooding you but, for anyone who is interested.

I have finally got everything working with ubuntu

Graphics card: Nvidia optimus 310m (with Optimus technology) using ironhide
so HW acceleration is good.

Trackpad driver: functions exactly like MBP now one giant button. exception is 3 finger swipe browser navigation 2 finger works..

All FN keys work.
Hibernate works
Wireless works

Since 11.10 I would say better UI. apt-get is still great. I'm doing some graphics work and animation so it's worthy.

Let me know if anyone wants a tutorial on setting it up

 

Anyone who can give me the "blind steps" to properly enable the USB boot option please?

 

i have the QX410...it has stopped taking a charge or stopped charging. i plug it in and it does not say at the bottom charging...like it was not plugged in at all...i bought a new AC charger and that didnt fix it. i would think if the battery was bad it would still run plugged in but nope...wont run, no power..i took it to a mom and pop computer fix it place and they replaced the plug on the laptop and that didnt work. so now they say they think it might be the motherboard. anyone had this problem before? thanks in advance for the help

 

Hello,

I see my last posts on this page. Just an update I ended up finding the whole screen (with cover, hinges and webcam, wifi cables) on ebay for a good price and I have my Laptop back and running fine.

I'm back here to ask if somebody can take a screenshot of their sound playback devices to see if it looks like mine.



I think there should be a Digital Output option who has disappeared.

Anyone can share their Playback devices list?

Thank you in advance.

 

Thanks for closing the loop on the display problem.

Do you need to connect something such as an HDMI device in order for the digital output to appear?

John

 

The Digital Output never shows up, even if I connect a HDMI device. But I'm almost 100% sure that it was sitting there before (with a plugged device or not). I don't know why it has disappeared but I can't get it back.. I tried uninstalling sound device itself, driver itself, both, updating driver. Nothing bring it back. So now I'm doubting and maybe it was never there?

The only devices listed are the ones from the picture: HDMI and Speakers.
Do you have a QX410 to check it for me?

Thank you

 

I don't have a QX410. Perhaps the trouble-shooting tips here might help.

John