Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Long days with my old Samsung laptop is finally over...

It's been a while since I didn't make any new Blogspot posts lately, so I decided to tell you about what was going on with me with that cheap Samsung laptop that I bought from almost 8 years ago. That cheap laptop worked just fine, until all of it's own flaws that I encountered in last few years of service. Until in the late of 2020, that old laptop just went wrong with it's own screen that looked like this:
White screen...
Yes... White! White! And again, WHITE! That's how my old laptop's screen would actually look like as of today. Before I'm gonna tell you about the problem itself, let's take a retrospect about this old laptop that I got from almost 8 years ago until that problem occurred. Here's my story about it, right away:

1. General 💻

In case you've wondering about the brand and the model of the particular laptop that I bought from a local electronic store in around 8 years ago, it's just a Samsung with model number is 300E4V-A01 (according to it's own box), yet it has it's own respective specifications that mentioned below here:
  • Processor: Intel Celeron 847 ("Celery!"-Garret Claridge)
  • Screen size: 14"
  • RAM: Only 2 GB
  • Storage: 320 GB of HDD
  • Color: Black
I bought this laptop from back then in order to replace my very first laptop that I ever owned, which was that Acer Aspire 47xx laptop with Intel Pentium processor on it. That laptop got it's own weird problem, such as constant BSODs that occurred many times, yet it's own BSOD itself only lasted just few seconds before it shuts itself off every time, instead of stayed there like it should be until I simply remove the battery or unplug it off... I also felt guilty at that time for buying it instead of fixing the Acer, it's definitely due to that Acer was fixable yet upgradeable, since there were no physical damage on itself from what one of the sellers in the electronic store told me in order to do so. Unfortunately though, I took another way to solve that problem by simply exchanged it with the cheap Samsung laptop with weak "Celery!" processor for roughly almost the same price as that Acer that I bought it back in 2009 from the same electronic store.

2. Performance and results 💻

In the early days of me with this laptop, it performed just exactly the same like my old Acer, except with minor differences. One of the main examples is the way how it's own audio enhancements has an additional feature called SoundAlive, while the Acer didn't (or did it though). Other than that, here are my lists about performance and results about my old Samsung laptop through the years since I bought it until it broke in the late of 2020.
  • It has Windows 7 64-bit version installed on this laptop, which sounded a bit overkill to me. Because it has a 2 GB of RAM, this and my old Acer didn't do any multitasking with ease.
  • Playing any audio files on it is fine, no matter what kind of audio programs that I open on it.
  • Playing any video files is okay, but it does stutter while tried to play any videos that has 720p video quality or higher.
  • Typing or making any Office related stuffs (such as documents in Microsoft Office Word, presentations in Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and so on) is on and off. Sometimes any of the programs in there just crashed by itself, even they're just 2007 versions that installed on there (well, at least they had an autosave feature when it occurs).
  • Editing photos with certain programs (such as PhotoScape, Adobe Photoshop, and so on) is also on and off. While most of them do work decently, but on the other hand, sometimes they also tend to crash while it's running on most of the time.
  • Video editing on it was absolutely terrible. Because it had really weak "Celery" processor and RAM that it had, that's obviously why. I tested the VSDC on it, and it performs... really poorly on it, and it actually wanted to crash it while it's running.
  • Playing games on it is okay. However, there were good old 64 GameHouse games in it, which most of them wouldn't work for Windows 7 or newer anyway. I played some good old games on it, such as Plants vs. Zombies (of course), Puzzle Express, Airstrike (Divo Games), Collapse Crunch, or even NES games through a NES emulator program (which was the FCEUX). All of them did work just okay as what I expected.
  • I was once installed a Google Earth on it, and it performed just less than decent. It did crashed for multiple times though.
  • Browsing anything on it with certain browsers (such as Firefox, Google Chrome) was between on par and subpar sides. Sometimes they tend to crash or gone unresponsive if there are too much background apps running, such as that Avira Antivirus that was once installed on there, which caused the whole system to lag very badly.
  • It had a BSOD just once, with code: Kernel Memory In-Page Error. This was occurred due to I tried to play anything with sounds on it, then suddenly the system froze yet it went to the aforementioned BSOD itself. At least the BSOD stayed there until I unplug it off.

3. When it broke...💻

Since this laptop was cheaply made compared to my Acer (I think), it started to come apart by it's own in 2017. Started of by one of it's own hinges is broken by itself. Even though I dropped it by accident wasn't the reason about why it broke, I didn't even know about why it occurred... Then, the damage on it was slowly increased overtime, so I just "fixed" it by taping the broken part on it with bunch of tapes. Again, even with tapes on it, the bottom-left of the bezel also got damaged very easily due to the pressure every time I open and close it. Until in the end of 2020, the damage on the hinge itself was caused the screen went all white by itself. Because of that, I felt so worried for that, yet the fact I also broke my Dell that I mentioned in my aforementioned post of it too in the same year.

4. Tried to repair that s**t... Plus my new replacement... 😁

During that white screen problem occurred, I tried to repair that laptop to 3 different computer repairmen. First, it was one of my old neighborhoods, then followed by the same computer repairmen who tried to fix my Dell, and another computer repairmen who works outside my hometown. Unfortunately, NONE of them dared to repair it due to severe damage that it had. Here are the reasons why:
  • One of my neighborhood simply refused to repair it due to severe damage that it had, even I waited for at least a week to do so.
  • The same computer repairmen who tried to fix my Dell earlier just refused right off the bat, due to severe damage that it had, again.
  • Lastly, another computer repairmen who works outside my hometown. I brought it to a small cell phone store nearest from my current house, and I asked to the owner who have a phone number of the computer repairmen itself by showing the damage of my old laptop that it had through a video call. Then, he brought it into the computer repairmen place itself until they checked the condition of it, and... Bah! They also didn't repair it due to severe damage that it had, once again.
Well, yeah... Double trouble for me! Not only the fact my old Dell laptop broke, I also broke this old Samsung laptop too. Until I decided to buy an actual new laptop from a typical laptop store in my hometown, which is this one!


Yes! It's my brand new laptop... Which is the Lenovo V14-ADA. Although it has really expensive price to buy one right off the bat, I decided to buy it anyway using money installment system for it, until it reaches the total amount of price of it. Here's my specifications of it:
  • Processor: AMD Athlon 3020e with Radeon Graphics
  • Screen size: 14"
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • Storage: 256 GB of SSD
  • Color: Grey
Although this performs a lot faster than my old Samsung did yet it has newer Windows 10 activated, it did have it's own flaws for a bit, such as connecting into my home Wi-Fi router is tactical. Sometimes it says "No internet access" right after I turned it on, even though my Wi-Fi clearly has it's own internet access (well, if it works though), until I unplug my Wi-Fi router off and plugging it back in for at least 10 seconds. Other than that, it works just well thanks to it's own performance that it has. Right now, I keep searching the simple video editor that almost exactly the same way as the YouCut or Video Guru (both by InShot) would be... 😁

So, what happened to that old Samsung laptop then? Well, I just simply don't do anything to it due to severe damage that it has that caused those three different repairmen were totally refused to repair that messed up thing. I'm going to plan to rescue it's own HDD out to use it as an external HDD, and so for my Dell too (unless the Dell's LCD screen magically works by itself now, but due to it's own flaws that I discovered, so yeah...). And there you have it for my long days with my old Samsung laptop is finally, over... I'm not gonna say anything that much to that old cheap thing, because it's own physical flaws that it has. I know if there were lot of my files and data in there, but whatever... Unless I have an external SATA cable and external HDD's casing in order to do it, so. Anyway, that's it from what I can say to that old Samsung laptop after around 8 years of service with myself from my first time obtained it to the time when it's own LCD screen went all white. Thanks for reading this post, and hope you can pay the attention related to this post.