Samsung to Micron and MPC model cross reference?

Micron, Micron PC and MPC Corporation laptops were all or mostly all Samsung laptops, usually with only minor cosmetic alterations. I've yet to come across one yet that's not a Samsung, though some of the earliest may not be. I've also yet to encounter a Micron PC or MPC laptop *without* a fingerprint reader.

Here's the matchups I've come up with so far for Micron PC or MPC to Samsung.

micronpc era with glowing, purple oval on the lid with TranSport script in white

GX2 - unknown
GX3 - T10 series, most likely T10 XVC. There seems to be at least two quite different T10 models. The XVC has the mostly purple case, matching the GX3
T1000 - P10

MPC era with boring chrome mpc on a black oval, starting with the T2300

T2000 - P20
T2200 - P30
T2300 - P40 with a purple instead of silver top case
T2500 - X65 One of the last, if not the last of the MPC models. I happen to have a six of these, all with 2.5 Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4 gig RAM, 160 gig HD and dual layer DVD burner. (Except for the one I use for my own I upgraded to a 500 gig and Windows 7.)

Complicating things a bunch is the T3000 is older than the T2500 and I think there are some other T3xxx models, all older than the T2500 - which is one reason a sticky thread to cross reference the laptops. Finding parts is another reason, especially when vendors put higher prices on an identical part for a Micron or MPC.

A very useful thing is all the drivers for pretty much every computer model Micron and MPC sold are at mpcdrivers.com , and I bet they'll also work on Samsungs if one cannot find a specific driver, especially the fingerprint scanner drivers and login software. Thus another reason for a cross reference.

Yet another use for a cross reference would be finding drivers for operating systems that MicronPC or MPC never had available on a specific model. To install Windows 7 on my T2500 I had to use some drivers from Dell and HP that matched the hardware. If someone has already figured out what they need for a Samsung, then matching up to the equivalent MicronPC or MPC will save searching.

An example, to get the Ricoh memory card reader for XD and Memory Stick, and the fingerprint scanner to work - I had to find compatible drivers from Dell and HP. Still haven't found Easy Button software that'll work with Win 7x64 for the small button below the power button. If someone has that figured out for a Samsung X65 it should work on the TransPort T2500.

Short history.

Micron got into the desktop PC business in the 1990's, either during the waning days of the 80386 or early 486 era, AFAIK designing and possibly producing their own motherboards - which were typically pretty high end quality. I don't know when they got into laptops.

The next phase was rebranding the computer division as Micron PC and making it a semi-autonomous company - with the advantage of getting very good prices on RAM from the parent company.

Then Micron sold off the computer division to focus on their core business of RAM and other chips. The new company continued under the Micron PC brand for a short while until the rebranding as MPC Corporation was complete.

Then teh stupid set in and the company bought up or into all kinds of things that had nothing to do with their core business of high end computers targeted mainly at business and government agencies. The computers were profitable (Samsung must have been giving MPC quite a discount on the laptops) but the other enterprises - not so much.

MPC filed for bankruptcy and was gone by 2008 - with a huge auction at which many people paid entirely too much $ for the new computers that were left over at the factory in Nampa, Idaho.

No MPC computer ever shipped with any version of Windows newer than Vista, but the later ones (and some of the not-so-later, like one tower I have with AGP video, a 3.0 Ghz P4 and up to 4 gig RAM) had such high specifications they have no problem running Windows 7 - if you can find compatible drivers.

 

Interesting.... I had previously thought the only rebadged Samsung was the Dell X1 (Samsung X20, IIRC).

In case you actually need a fingerprint driver for the X65 then you can get it from the Samsung Global Download Center. Only XP or Vista versions are offered since it is 2007/08.

I should warn that the Model List takes a long time to load.

John

 

Dell too, eh? Looks like there needs to be a "Samsungs in Disguise!" sticky to cover every incognito Samsung laptop.

 

This is great information, bizzybody! I have had an MPC T2500 since 2008 and love the thing to pieces. I have Win7 running on an 80GB Intel SSD and its as fast as my wife's new Latitude 6430 for most everything. I work for a company that did business with MPC and can tell you exactly what killed MPC: Gateway.

In late 2007 Acer wanted to buy Packard Bell but couldn't because of some EU rules so they approached Gateway in the US with a plan: Gateway buys Packard Bell and then, once it the deal is completed and PB legally absorbed into Gateway USA, Acer would buy Gateway, thereby circumventing EU rules. The plan worked, Acer bought Gateway after it bought PB, and then Acer made Gaeway USA sell off its business division, of which my company was a customer. MPC leveraged everything it had to buy the business division of Gateway, effectively doubling its size. Unfortunately the legal proceedings took a LOT longer than MPC thought so after 6 months they had a MASSIVE backlog of Gateway warranty support contracts to fulfill with newly acquired replacement parts so they hemoraged cash there. Then they had to find facilities to produce the Gateway machines they had aquired trights to but those were now a year out of date so no one wanted to buy them.

Their customers are frustrated with poor support, delays on replacement parts, and no new models in the pipeline to replace older PCs that need to be retired. This led to many companies switching to other PC makers like Dell and HP. We stuck with them, though as we had a sweet deal in place that as going to be honored by MPC. Meanwhile though, the employees of MPC are fed up, not being paid, and being overworked. Around November 2008 the employees all deciced not to show up for work. The remaining mgmt basically auctioned everything off and had to walk away.

Its pretty sad as, like bizzybody pointed out above, MPC made good computers at one time and I think they aspired to again make great computers, but their ambitions were larger than their bank account. Myself, I really like the T2500 and often buy them from eBay for relatives and friends. I've never seen a Samsung X65 here in the states so I assume it was mainly for the European and Asian markets.

Sources:
Me
MPC completes acquisition of Gateway Professional business | Idaho Business Review
MPC Corp. closes its doors | Idaho Business Review

 

By the way, does anyone know of any great mods or upgrades to the X65/T2500? Now is the time as parts are very affordable compared to just a few years ago!

So far I have a twin USB 2.0 card in the PC Card slot, a 64GB SDHC card, 80GB SSD, docking station connected to three monitors, and have ordered an IDE-socketed Blu-ray/DVD-RW drive for it. I was hoping to max out the CPU with the highest supportable option and get it to recognize an mSATA SSD so I could then put a 1TB 5400rpm drive in the HDD bay for storage. I've put a working mSATA SSD into the PCIx socket made for TurboMemory but the BIOS and Windows do not see anything as being present.

Any ideas, advice, or success stories you can share with me?

 

You'll need to look into editing the BIOS to modify or eliminate the "whitelist" for the turbo memory slot. I got someone to update the SLIC code to 2.1 to support an "OEM" install of Windows 7. ;-)

I wasn't having any success doing the mod myself with the software tools I found. Sure does run 7 quite nicely.

I'd love to be able to install a USB 3.0 card in that second slot, and replace the right side 2.0 port with a 3.0 port, drawing extra power from where that 2.0 port connects to the main board. The catch is finding a mPCIe USB 3.0 board with a low enough height to fit under the memory cover - and editing the BIOS to recognize it. Having a CardBus slot instead of the ExpressCard slot it should have is the only negative of this laptop VS pretty much every other laptop from 2008 and many newer ones.

As for upgrading the CPU, I don't know how fast of one it might support, if it can go faster than 2.5 Ghz. That was the top CPU option in the X65/T2500.

Yup, MPC should have just been happy in the pond they were in, making/rebranding high end desktops and laptops with a focus on corporate and government customers. One possible reason for branching out (and grabbing 'third rails' they should've left alone) was the Idaho government procurement agencies kept writing contracts for bids on computer systems tailored specifically for IBM or Dell and rejecting bids by MPC which should've enjoyed a home court advantage at all levels of Idaho Gov. IIRC MPC even sued the State over their un-competitive practices and the courts (which were one of the entities flagrantly violating the procurement process regulations) told MPC to shove off. One instance involved "needing" a built in keyboard light (but not a backlit keyboard) on laptops, which so conveniently only IBM offered, so despite the higher costs the contract went to IBM instead of MPC.

The Idaho State Police (which is where I got seven T2500 from) must have behaved themselves on following the rules, I also have a GX3, T2000, T2200 and T2300 formerly owned by the ISP but passed on some GX2 and even older models. They also had a largish stack of Lenovo laptops but donated them to a school - yet I ended up with Thirty-Four (34!) Lenovo Docking stations but no power bricks.

 

I have looked at some forums such as mydigitallife that have BIOS modding communities on them so I could ask them about the mPCIe possibilities on these, however I have not reached out for help on this front yet. Have you had any conversations with anyone about modding the BIOS to run other things on the mPCIe slot?

 

Nope, I haven't asked about that sort of modding, just updating the BIOS to SLIC 2.1. If you get anywhere on that I'd like to know about it.

A USB 3.0 port or two would be just the thing the X65/T2500 needs. www.mpcdrivers.com has drivers, BIOS and other free downloads for MicronPC, MPC and Gateway computers.

 

Can someone post the model number off the bottom of their X65? That's the only way I'm going to get the Samsung drivers because they can't be bothered to link directly to the specific drivers page from the laptop's page. Samsung For Business | Products | Notebooks | Business Class | X65

I want to try the Samsung version of the Easy Button Manager for Vista on Windows 7. The MPC one won't fully install, and what did install won't uninstall.

 

Go to the Samsung Global Download Center, Select Computer under category, Notebook under Sub-Category, then wait a minute or two or the list of models to load. Then scroll down the list. NP-X65 is about 1/8th of the way down.

I can't see anything called Easy Button Manager. If my memory is correct then the keyboard stuff is included in Easy Display Manager.

John