P10

P10

Samsung P10

MPC T1000

vpr Matrix 120-170/180 Series

The Samsung P10 was OEM'ed in the USA by at least two companies, Best Buy and MPC. (formerly MicronPC) The Best Buy name for the P10 was the vpr Matrix (A house-brand) 120-170 and 120-180 series of laptops. MPC sold the P10 as their T1000 laptop. We'll use "P10" to describe all the various versions in the rest of this page.

VPR Matrix 120 Series Details

The P10's sold as the vpr Matrix 120-170B5 (1.7GHz CPU) or 120-180B5 (1.8GHz CPU) series appears to not have not included some of the "extra" features that are found on the MPC T1000 or Samsung's own P10. (as sold in Europe) The vpr Matrix models didn't include the CD-ROM player controls on the front speaker panel along the front edge of the laptop base. These CD player controls allowed one to control CD playing without opening the lid of the laptop. Also, the biometric (fingerprint) reader was not present on any of the vpr Matrix machines.

MPC T1000 Details

The MPC T1000 laptop was also a version of the Samsung P10, but has the CD-ROM player feature, The biometric reader (fingerprint reader) may have been an option. I guess that this reader would be handy if the laptop was being use for government security requirements. I've not had a T1000 here to play with a reader, so I can't comment on the usefulness of this feature. The T1000 seems to be closer to being exactly like the Samsung P10 as sold in Europe.

More details regarding the P10 components

Problem areas include the metal LCD lid hinges and the power jack.

Hinges need to be maintained with Lock-ease (SP?) graphite lubricant and if you notice increased effort is necessary to open the LCD lid - you must do something about it ASAP. If the hinges lock up you will break the plastic case. This is a major problem because new plastic case pieces are not available.

The motherboard power input jack is a very poorly designed part. I haven't found a high quality exact replacement at this time. It might be necessary to replace the jack with a totally different, but much more common jack. This would require a new AC adapter connector be grafted to the adapter output lead and/or just replaced with different adapter.

The P10 motherboard (Taurus) is an easy to remove board - the normal dozens of screws need to be removed, but no twisting of case pieces or other major tweaks needed to remove it. I had to disassemble my first P10 to replace a defective power jack, which had been damaged to the point that the laptop wasn't receiving power from the adapter. While I had the motherboard out I looked it over.

Other than the weak design AC adapter jack, the motherboard appears to mostly use very high quality electrical components and is well made. Not so regarding the plastic and metal parts of the case. In general, the plastic case is very prone to cracking when dropped or abused. The hinges are also a weak area and will break if abused. All of these light weight fragile problems appear to be the trade off of reducing a laptop's weight vs. having a robust design.

Back to the motherboard, there doesn't appear to be any fuses on the motherboard, so any short circuits will damage components.

The video signal cable for the LCD connects to a somewhat fragile connector on the motherboard, near the CPU cooling fan.

The CMOS battery is a plug-in and so should be easy to change. There's a power supply daughter-board that plugs into the motherboard on the left-hand side. You need to pull down most of the laptop to get to this board.

The cooling fan and heatsink are connected to each other via a copper heatpipe. The fan is easy to remove and all that's needed is to lift the keyboard and unscrew the fan from the heatpipe plus disconnect the fan at a connector. The fan is a custom design and I've been told by the distributor for the fan maker that it has been discontinued. So the fan needs to be maintained with a oil squirt upon first sign of trouble - before it goes south.

Samsung doesn't seem to have a USA parts depot for laptop parts and so most repairs will require having a donor machine to strip down. So this adapter jack is a big problem and does require the complete disassembly of the laptop to repair even when a replacement is available - making this repair very expensive to do at present.

Since Samsung laptop parts are hard to find in the USA, and this plastic case is fragile, there will be a great demand for used plastic parts that I don't think I can supply. So do be gentle and do take care of your laptop. Also, the vpr Matrix lid and base plastic differ from the Samsung & MPC parts - so little will exchange between brands.

It has been reported (elsewhere) that Best Buy stores are not supporting their version of the P10 and are not stocking any repair parts for these laptops. It is possible that vpr Matrix (there's a website for them) may still be supporting the laptops if you contact them directly. MPC, I believe, does still support their own T1000 model. However, non-warranty repairs may be very expensive. Samsung USA doesn't seem to have parts system being in place for supporting laptops sold by others and MPC doesn't sell parts to end-users. (or independent repair centers)

The P10 uses DDR 2100 RAM modules and 1GB of RAM is the maximum amount of RAM. RAM is located under a trapdoor on the bottom side of the laptop. Two RAM slots only.

The CPU's used are Intel Mobile P4's and the fastest CPU listed by the factory was 2.0GHz. Most have 1.7GHz or 1.8GHz CPU's from the factory. I believe that the 1.3 volt Vcc and 400 FSB speed are the only real limits - faster CPU's up to 2.4GHz do exist that meet these requirements. I'm going to see if faster CPU's will run without cooling problems in the near future. By my way of figuring, it's not worth upgrading unless there's at least a 25% increase in CPU speed if doesn't pay to swap a 1.7GHz CPU for a 1.8GHz CPU - unless the 1.8 is free.

The hard drive directly connects to the motherboard connector so a missing hard drive carrier isn't a major problem. The motherboard connector does NOT have the "missing" hard drive pin blocked and so it is very easy to offset a drive when plugging it in without the correct hdd carrier. (Don't ASK!)

I suggest that you take the time to disassemble the laptop, if you are going without a hdd carrier, and block the correct hole on the motherboard's connector with a toothpick or other means to prevent this from happening. Then you can change out hard drives with less fear of a major problem.

You can also shim the sides of the hard drive with plastic, balsa wood or cardboard to prevent side movement after you start using the laptop. Do not use metal shims.