Concerns about new laptop

Discussion in 'Mobile Technology' started by megamaced, Sep 7, 2006.

  1. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    Hey guys

    I've just bought what I consider a bargain of a laptop :D

    For £29.99 I got myself a Samsung GS6000:

    Pentium 2 333MHz
    256MB RAM
    6.4GB HDD
    DVD-ROM drive (but it's broken)

    Anyway one of the reasons it was going cheap is the LCD screen has 10 small lines going across it. Is this a sign of the screen dying out?
     
  2. zeus

    zeus out of date

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    Mines been like that for 5-6 years... its still running OK.
    Mine go down though. If I push the side of the screen they sometimes go away! :)

    If it looks like it has ever been opened up it might be worth checking to see if the connector to the display board is in place properly, but it probably is the lcd.
     
  3. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    Well I got the laptop last night. The seller had left a copy of XP on it so I could use the laptop straight away. I noticed just how slow it took to load up, then I realised that the laptop only had 64MB of RAM installed - not the 256MB advertised :x: . Got in contact with the seller and he reckons he checked it before hand. If he doesn't compensate me then I'll report his ass.

    Theres about 12 small lines going down the LCD screen and they are all different colours! Some lines are red, some blue, green and white. Does this sound like a faulty screen connection or perhaps just a bad LCD screen?

    The CD-ROM drive is pretty dead. I tried to boot the laptop with an Xubuntu CD and it looked like it was going to work at first. I got as far as the CD welcome screen and it wouldn't go any further. I could hear the CD-ROM choking on the CD...

    Thinking about replacing the CD-ROM - Must I buy the EXACT same model that came with the laptop? Do you think a similar CD-ROM drive manufacturered by Samsung would be OK?
     
  4. Matt555

    Matt555 iMod

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    I would think you're perfectally entitled to a full refund as the item doesn't match the description - I have to say 256MB for a laptop of that age seems a bit strange :p

    I would think a similar model would be okay - maybe look on eBay for the same laptop as spares / repair - often you can nab a few parts from those to use.
     
  5. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    The seller is going to send me a 128MB stick of RAM so at least i'll have 192MB in total. Still, it's not the 256MB as promised :x:

    Managed to get the exact same CD-ROM drive off eBay so that's sorted now :) Can't wait to whack Xubuntu on this b1tch...... :D
     
  6. Matt555

    Matt555 iMod

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    Good stuff - it's 00:10 here so I should be getting my laptop today ^_^
     
  7. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    Wanna swap laptops? :D
     
  8. Matt555

    Matt555 iMod

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    [ot]*thinks*

    Nah - it's okay - I'll stick with the one I'm getting :p[/ot]
     
  9. Willz

    Willz MiCrO$oFt $uK$ :D

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    Pentium 2 333Mhz, damn that must be older than me :p
     
  10. zeus

    zeus out of date

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    nerrrr. January 25th 1999 the Mobile PII 333mhz came out ;)
    Intel released 4 processors in 1989 (assuming thats when you were born) January '89 the 80386SX-20mhz and April '89 was the 80386DX-33mhz, 80486DX-25 and 80386DX-40mhz.
     
  11. Willz

    Willz MiCrO$oFt $uK$ :D

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    1999 :eek: that wasent long ago, wow technology really has advanced quick :eek:
     
  12. zeus

    zeus out of date

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    Its always advanced this quick.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
     
  13. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    Arrghhh crap! :x:

    For whatever reason, the new CD-ROM drive is not working in the laptop. It spins up and the light flashes but the laptop refuses to detect it. I've tried setting the secondary IDE channel to 'Auto' as well as forcing it to 'CD-ROM mode'.

    Both CD-ROM drives are called the 'CD MASTER 24E'. Yet the old CD-ROM drive has an extra name of 'SCR-2438' and the new one has the name 'SN-124'.

    It would be simple to say that the CD MASTER 24E model SN-124 is just not compatible with my laptop. But I've been looking on eBay and there is another SN-124 for sale that explicitily says it's compatible with the GS6000 :confused:

    Which do you think is the most probable reason for it not working?

    1) The new CD-ROM drive is not compatible with my laptop
    2) The new CD-ROM drive is DOA
    3) My laptop's IDE channel is not functioning properly (the old 'broken' CD-ROM drive model SCR-2438 was always detected though)
     
  14. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    Well, 1 and 2 are both more likely, but without testing the unit on another known good laptop, it's hard to come to a solid conclusion that it's 1. It may be incompatible, but more than likely, you just got a DOA drive.
     
  15. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    When I get back tonight I am going to remove the caddy from the old CD-ROM drive and place it on the new CD-ROM drive. I am not sure if this will make any difference because both caddies look identical! But it's worth a try I suppose.

    I didn't even know CD-ROM drives used caddies until now :doh:
     
  16. Willz

    Willz MiCrO$oFt $uK$ :D

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    Caddies ;s, what are those? :s
     
  17. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    A caddy is basically a frame that sits around the outside of the hard disk or CD-ROM. The frame is designed to fit into the laptop and make sure the connections are in sync.

    AN UPDATE:

    I switched around the caddies but the laptop BIOS still will not recognise the 'new' CD-ROM.

    So I turned my attention back to the old CD-ROM drive and realised that the only type of CD that had been tried in it was a CD-R. And then I recalled that older CD-ROM drives have big troubles with CD-Rs. Finally I was on to something! :chk: So I took out an exceptionally clean Kubuntu install CD, crossed my fingers and turned on the computer. BINGO! The CD-ROM drive worked! And as I type this I am installing Kubuntu on to the laptop - slowly :)

    I'll probably install the Xubuntu desktop on top of Kubuntu because theres no way that this old laptop can run KDE :)
     
  18. Matt555

    Matt555 iMod

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    megamaced > laptop technology

    :)

    [ot]Apologies for the spammy-ness of this post :p[/ot]
     
  19. zeus

    zeus out of date

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    I can seconf that!

    I was given a CD-r by someone which worked fine. All the ones I have simply wont have it. Ive had this problme with 3.5" ROM drives too.

    Glad to hear your laptop is up and running!
     
  20. megamaced

    megamaced Geek Geek Geek!

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    I was going to install XFCE but KDE is running suprisingly well on this old laptop! I didn't realise that KDE would be so responsive on an old 333MHz 192MB RAM :) Eat that, Windows Vista! :p
     

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