Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with fujitsu

Rental of Fujitsu ScanSnap (or Similar) in Chicago Area? Or General Advice?

WCityMike — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:20:54 -0800

At some point in the future, I'd like to follow the recommendations of some various sites I've seen online and scan most of my paper archives to PDF. It looks like this would be the best solution (I'm a Mac user) – or, at least, that's the device I've seen recommended a few million times. However, I really can't see having the discretionary $417+ to purchase this device, not for a very, very long time. Does anyone offer this device for rental? (I live in Chicago.) Is there a RipDigital equivalent for this kind of thing (a very long time ago, they did the initial move of my music from CDs to MP3s)? Are there cheaper alternatives that are just as good?

What's causing erratic wifi behaviour?

thoughtless — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:51:24 -0800

What would make my laptop sporadically lose visibility of all wireless networks? I have a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 2515 laptop, running Vista Home Premium, which is behaving erratically wifi-wise. Very frequently it will stop detecting that there are any wireless networks around, and disconnect me if I'm connected at the time. It may then detect them again a minute or two later but then will usually lose them again shortly afterwards, and then the cycle continues. When connected it works perfectly, and it has no other problems. Even when not detecting the networks it will believe that everything is fine - it just can't find any networks.

This behaviour isn't predictable; sometimes it can stay in one state for an hour or so before changing. There doesn't seem to be any way to make it change - moving etc. doesn't really seem to do anything. Upgrading the drivers has had no effect, and I also tried booting from an Ubuntu live cd, which showed exactly the same symptoms.

What could be causing this inordinately frustrating weirdness? The only explanations I can think of are that either there's some loose connection internally (maybe to an antenna? do they have them?) or that the wireless component itself (an Intel 3945abg) is borked. As it's out of warranty both of these sound pretty expensive to fix; might I be best off just buying a wireless card to plug in to the expresscard slot? I'd like to be confident that it will work before spending that money.

New laptop - help me choose!

aimeel — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:53:39 -0800

New laptop choices - Fujitsu? Sony? Dell? HP? I know what I want in a notebook, but trying to figure out which maker will best meet my needs. I'm an English and Theatre teacher soon to move to Norway and I don't think my old laptop will last much longer. Looking for a Core 2 Duo and up, a 4-500 gig hard drive, Nividia or ATI graphics, a decent amount of RAM about a 16" screen. As a teacher, I have about 60 gigs right now of documents and photos, another 60 of music, and I do a lot with music, photographs, and not a lot of gaming. (That could change she suggests unrealistically). I do a lot of work on the internet and usually don't travel around much with the laptop. If I weren't headed to Norway I'd probably get a desktop, but there it is. It would be nice to be able to help my students with editing short films on my laptop, but not vital. And oh yes, can it be a dependable machine?

Big note- I am an old school typist. I like to feel definable keys under my fingertips. And I hate the whale-snot, smear magnet surfaces of most of the laptops I saw when I went to Frys. I did like the texture of the keyboards/touchpad on Sony and Fujitsu. I know it's cosmetic, but I like a clean deck. Suggestions? And am I better off buying through Frys, Best Buy, online through ?? or manufacturer? I'll have to live with it for a long time so I want to make a good choice. And I thank the hive mind in advance - you guys are the best.

Help me make my computer quiet again, please!

JDHarper — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:28:25 -0800

Where can I find a new fan for my Fujitsu T4215 laptop? I have a Fujitsu T4215, and its fan is dying noisily.

I tried taking it apart and putting some Arctic Silver on the CPU, which helped reduce the heat, and I blew the dust out of the fan, but the laptop is still making fan noise constantly after it's been on for more than an hour. I need to replace the fan.

This is where I need help: I can't find a replacement fan for this thing. I've searched ebay and google to no avail; I can find fans for other series of laptop, and I can find other parts for this laptop, but I haven't found a fan for this laptop.

Can someone help me find the part that I need?

How much is my tablet worth?

smartless — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:14:04 -0800

I'm trying to determine the value of my Fujitsu Tablet pc. It is a Fujitsu Lifebook T2010. I bought it in May ('08), and have barely used it since June... Specs to follow: Specs:
intel core 2 duo @1.20 GHz 1.20 GHz
2GB RAM
120GB HD
It's really lightweight, has fingerprint reader, smart card reader, media card reader. No materialistic flaws.

I don't know how the value of laptops works. Anyone know how much I should sell it for?

Optimal OS for my ultramobile PC?

Phred182 — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:28:55 -0800

What operating system should I use for my Fujitsu U1010 UMPC? A gift that I'll need to show I use, but I also like the form factor: it's the size of a paperback book and weighs a pound or two. It came loaded with Vista Business, which is barely functional on 1G Ram. Battery life is short as well--so a couple of Vista boot cycles and it's dead. Considering XP because I have a spare XP dvd and license, but would like to know about other options. It will be used to edit and distribute office docs; for contact management; and to keep up with email and mefi on the road. I'd really like mobile Team Fortress 2, but since that's not going to happen, my preferred applications are:

MS office or OpenOffice
Skype
Opera
Mp3 player
Tablet functions

My priorities are: 1) speed; 2) battery conservation; and 3) matching all of the original functionality. An additional complication: I have no external cd/dvd drive, so ideally I'd be able to do some kind of usb transfer from my desktop or my 4g flash drive. If the best solution is XP, how do I do it? Any and all suggestions appreciated.

Picking out a hard drive

crapmatic — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:15:57 -0800

I have a very old laptop whose 3 GB (!) hard drive died. Can I put a fresh new 100 GB hard drive in there or should I replace with the exact model I took out? Details inside. The laptop is a 1999-vintage Fujitsu LifeBook E335 that I've been using for menial, specialized tasks. The original factory hard drive, a Fujitsu MHD2032AT 3GB hard drive, finally kicked the bucket over the weekend.

Should I be safe and buy another MHD2032AT from a reseller, or is there a reasonable chance that there's a 50-100 GB hard drive somewhere that will work in this laptop? I'm concerned about BIOS incompatibility issues, a thing that I saw last year when trying to put a 50 GB WD drive in a 2000-model Compaq workstation that balked at anything over 20 GB. Furthermore I don't even know what kind of connector I'm shopping for... will anything listed as "ATA-33" work?

Fujitsu T4220!

aeighty — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:50:43 -0800

Where can I take a look at a Fujitsu laptop around Vancouver, BC/Seattle, WA area? Well, it's time to upgrade my laptop and Fujitsu has quite a nice line up.. The only problem is that I've never fondled one. I feel uncomfortable spending so much money on a product I've never played with before. Is there a store or whatever around Vancouver/Seattle area that has these fujitsu laptops in stock that I can play with?

I'm thinking of getting a tablet PC, specificly the Fujitsu T4215.

EasyLover — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 11:13:08 -0800

This will be my first tablet. Does anyone have any expirience with these Tablets? I'm thinking of buying this tablet before Christmas, would it be cheaper after. Also, all I want the pen for is graphic design and notes, I somehow don't feel that justifies the extra grand for the tablet. Also there are issues with Vista becoming the new OS of choice. Whats your take on all this?

help me hear you

yonation — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:59:38 -0800

laptop hardware fix-it-yourself question: a shoddy headphone out port on an old laptop controls my audio. depending on how far the headphones are plugged in, i get sound variously from speakers or half headphones. there's so, my fujitsu s5020 4-5 year old laptop has always worked well, but for the last few months a strange problem has taken hold: when the headphones are plugged all the way in, i only get sound from one side of them. when they're halfway in, i get sound from internal speakers AND both ears of the headphones. when they're out i get nothing from the internal speakers at all.

the variations on getting sound sometimes matter only by a few micrometers of movement. my question: aside from ordering new motherboards, etc, can anyone recommend a solution? i'm pretty handy with fixing PC hardware but have never opened a laptop. even some build-and-fix solution like duct tape at the right place would make me happy. this is so frustrating! am i just stuck with this problem until my next laptop?

Graphically editing multi-page PDFs

anonymoose — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:38:19 -0800

Graphically editing multi-page PDFs quickly (erasing things, mostly) So I got this ScanSnap scanner from Fujitsu, that's allowing me to scan large volumes of sheet music to pdf.

This is awesome.

Now sometimes I like to clean up my scanned music: Erase stupid translations, get rid of big black copy marks; mostly draw white boxes over things I don't want to see. I've been doing this by opening each page of the pdf in Photoshop, making my edits, saving them again as a multipage pdf, taking THAT pdf to Acrobat and optimizing it (recompressing the images so it's 0.2-1 MB instead of 10-30 MB. This is time consuming.

Is there some way to edit the pdf directly, without rendering into an image file and back to a pdf? The only tools in Acrobat I've found that resemble drawing tools seem to be for commenting, and don't change the printed output. Am I just missing something obvious?

Mac OS X.4, Adobe CS 2, Fujitsu ScanSnap

Fujitsu Lifebook C-series disassembly manuals

loquacious — Wed, 28 Jul 2004 12:13:07 -0800

LaptopRepairFilter: I need to remove the bezel on a Fujitsu Lifebook C-series (C-6530) to measure and replace the cold cathode lamps that have failed. I've Googled off and on for a few months now, looking for service or dis-assembly manuals, with no love to be found. (Much more inside) Yes, I'm quite handy with tools and a soldering iron. Yes, I've opened up laptops before to do soldering and general repair, and re-assembled them successfully. However, this Fujitsu C-series Lifebook is like some sort of cheap but delicate and watch-like piece of jewelry. It's fragile, to understate the issue.

Taking it to an authorized (or unauthorized) repair center is out of the question, and totally out of the budget. The repair costs would most likely exceed the value of the laptop. I can get cold cathode lamps for 10-20 bucks each, so I could probably repair my screen for well under $50 USD.

While the prospect of cracking open the bezel on this thing doesn't give me the screaming fantods, it does worry me a bit. I can only imagine that the bezel/screen assembly on this laptop is one of those Sony-Vaio-esque monstrosities of adhesive, brittle plastics, and hidden screws. Only two screws are available on the bezel. (These were behind rubber button cushions on the top of the bezel. There aren't any other such rubber bits or screw-hole covering stickers.

Does anyone out there have a service manual for this laptop series? If you're reading this and don't have a MeFi account, please feel free to email me or IM me from my contacts directly.

Does anyone have any general tips and suggestions for bezel removal and lamp replacement? Personal experience with replacing screen lamps? Funny stories involving monkeys and underpants to distract me from this task?

Many, many thanks in advance. If someone can get me the actual service manual (PDF, jpegs, or paper!), I'll trade them one of my huge and insanely detailed eyeball and brain- torturing optical art prints, or perhaps a custom large format bubblejet output of their choice.

Looking for Light Laptop <$1.5k for Web and Word Processing, And/Or Website to Compare Laptops

CunningLinguist — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:25:09 -0800

Suggest an ultralight laptop? (more inside) Yes I know I could go to epinions and cnet but I trust you guys more.

I’m looking for something really light that does wireless - a new and mystifying realm for me. I’d like to spend less than $1,500, if possible. Dell’s website makes comparing laptops very easy, but I get lost when they start offering all these choices. And the other manufacturers are even more confusing.

All I really need to do is browse the web wirelessly and do word processing. A DVD player or burner would be nice, but not crucial. Are external DVD drives a good idea?

Are all new laptops pretty standard about wireless capability? There seem to be different types and I don’t understand the differences.

Also, is there some sort of website that allows you to plug in the features you want and spits out suggestions? (If not, there should be. Then I wouldn’t have to expose my ignorance here.)