New Laptop Big Problems Windows 7-Help!

[Stevesearcher]

Hello,

I have just bought a new Laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium. Its a Samsung R530.

The Problem is this. All video looks bad on it. The quality is bad. It looks washed out and very grainy. Movement and sound is fine its picture quality which is the problem. DVD, Youtube, whatever if its a video file it just is inferior.

My old Laptop running XP did not have this problem. I have read other posts by other people who have migrated to Windows 7 who have had this problem.

My drivers are all up to date. That was the first thing I checked so thats not it.
I installed new Codecs(K-Lite) and did not help.
I have used several Media Player(VLC, Windows Media Player etc but changing Media Players had no effect.

I dont know a lot about either Windows 7 or Graphics issues as I am more into recording audio which I do in Windows XP so I could be missing something.

My screen resolution is at 1366*768 which is the recommended screen resolution.

Basically the video playback looks jaded lifeless as well as very grainy. There is absolutely no clarity. Although my Graphics card is not great it should be able to play DVDs with at least the same quality as my old 2004 Toshiba Laptop which plays all video fine.

I honestly dont know whats wrong. The video should be working perfectly out of the box. Its put a real downer on my new Laptop.

Any help or suggestions would be most gratefully received. I am willing to try anything.

 

[zigzag3143]

Hello,

I have just bought a new Laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium. Its a Samsung R530.

The Problem is this. All video looks bad on it. The quality is bad. It looks washed out and very grainy. Movement and sound is fine its picture quality which is the problem. DVD, Youtube, whatever if its a video file it just is inferior.

My old Laptop running XP did not have this problem. I have read other posts by other people who have migrated to Windows 7 who have had this problem.

My drivers are all up to date. That was the first thing I checked so thats not it.
I installed new Codecs(K-Lite) and did not help.
I have used several Media Player(VLC, Windows Media Player etc but changing Media Players had no effect.

I dont know a lot about either Windows 7 or Graphics issues as I am more into recording audio which I do in Windows XP so I could be missing something.

My screen resolution is at 1366*768 which is the recommended screen resolution.

Basically the video playback looks jaded lifeless as well as very grainy. There is absolutely no clarity. Although my Graphics card is not great it should be able to play DVDs with at least the same quality as my old 2004 Toshiba Laptop which plays all video fine.

I honestly dont know whats wrong. The video should be working perfectly out of the box. Its put a real downer on my new Laptop.

Any help or suggestions would be most gratefully received. I am willing to try anything.

I suspect it is your graphics chipset. It is an onboard chip that uses a max memory of 384 mb of main memory. The absolute least video memory that Win 7 can use is 256 Mb. Win 7 because of its much more effects uses more vram. If you are having problems there are several things you can do. You can adjust the video affects to use less, you could even turn off aero if you had to.

Let us know if we can help

Ken

 

[Stevesearcher]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for your reply. Yes I was thinking that it was hardware related.

Could you give me precise instructions how to turn off Aero? I never used Vista so I am going straight to 7 from XP. Its a whole new thing for me. Also any other ways to maximise my video playback by cutting off any unnecessary devices or effects that might eat into the amount of RAM available to play back my Video files.

Thanks Steve

 

[whs]

Right click on desktop > Personalize > set it to the windows classic theme.

 

[Stevesearcher]

WHS-Thanks for your reply.

Does that disable all Aero functions such as Aero Sneek etc. Also what about some other setting "Desktop composition" or something like that.

 

[whs]

Not 100% sure. But if it does not, you can apply those:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3069-aero-snap-turn-off.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/74845-aero-shake-enable-disable.html

 

[Stevesearcher]

Just did that and played a DVD. Unfortunately it didnt make any difference to DVD quality.

I am beginning to think that there is no solution to this problem. Not feeling very confident about solving this problem. I guess its back to Toshiba for me.

 

[Stevesearcher]

WHS-Thanks for those links. I just saw your post after my last post.

 

[whs]

I think the best for you would be to bring the Samsung back and get one with a better graphics card. You will probably never be happy with this Samsung.

 

[Stevesearcher]

WHS-Thats what I am going to have to do. I think I got a bad graphics card in this machine. I think I will try and get a new Toshiba. I have two of them with no problems. This is my first Samsung and the last. I am sure I was just unlucky and I am sure there are thousands of satisfied Samsung Users out there. Unfortunately I am not one of them.

Anyway thanks for your help. I appreciate your help with this matter. What you told me is what my brother told me. This Laptop is going to have to go back.

 

[whs]

Toshibas are nice. I nearly bought one the other day - with an I7 processor and a very nice graphics. But my finance minister kept me from spending the $1000 - she converts everything into "shoe currency", LOL. I ended up with a Gateway for half that much. But that works well too. I only use it for teaching at the computer club.

 

[antharr]

I am on my 2nd Toshiba and very happy with it. The older one is 5 years old and still chugging away.

 

[Stevesearcher]

Antharr-Yes I never had a moments trouble with my Toshiba Laptops. DVD playback was fine in both of them.

I learned my lesson the hard way. Just saw a cheap Toshiba Model with an ATI Radeon 3200 graphics card. That card would be no good for serious gaming but I am not a Gamer and it would be better than the Intel GMA 4500 that I have in the Samsung. Even a low end ATI radeon model is going to be superior than any Intel GMA 4500 card.