Going Back to My Home Town

This is to inform that this Saturday morning I’m flying back to my hometown where I born. It has been 4 years that I have never gone back there. I miss the place so much. Most importantly this is the place where I enjoy my doggie life. So I will be off for 1 whole week and will not able to update this blog.

My hometown is called Taman Sibuga, Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia. I bet you’ve never heard about it. It is okay, it is a very small town in east Malaysia. Well, that’s all I have to say and one last thing is I’m in holiday mood now. :D

Dell Inspiron 640m Review

I have bought this laptop for few months and I think it is time for me to review this guy. As for all the good things, I am not going to mention them here because you can check them out from the Dell website. So, I only list down the things what this guy screw up and you can decide whether you want to buy it or not.

1. Memory leak in PCMService.exe

If you open your tasks bar and you will notice this PCMService.exe consumes a lot of memory resources. That is okay but the problem is if you check few seconds later, the memory used by this guy is increasing. What the heck? If you leave your laptop for few hours, it shoots up to 1G bytes of memory. What is wrong, Dell? Why this simple thing can’t be caught by Dell? So the solution I did is to disable this service during Windows startup. Honestly, I don't know what the use of this PCMService.exe but anyway my laptop still operate perfectly without this thing.

2. No Build-in Microphone

I’m aware of this before I bought this guy. The problem is Dell does not mention this at all in their website. Again, what’s wrong Dell? How hard to have a build-in microphone? As for myself, I’m still okay with it because I seldom use microphone. If I must use it, I can use the microphone in port instead but it may not be that convenient. However for those who wants the build-in microphone for whatever reasons (e.g. chatting or recording) and you don't want to plug in the new microphone, please do not buy this Dell Inspiron 640m product. I’m sure you will regret.

3. Incompatible Sonic Drivers with Vista

Hmm… When you boot up your windows and you always have the “This Driver is blocked due to compatibility issues” Now I think there is already a solution for this. Not a big deal, just to search around and I think you will able to find the patch to download.

4. Display Resolution Change after wakeup from Sleep

Ok, what is wrong Dell? Or should I say, what is wrong Intel? But I prefer to blame Dell as they do not test this properly before they introduce the product even though this is Intel Chipset Graphic issue. The problem is when you put your laptop in sleep mode and wake up later, the resolution change from 1280 * 800 (My original Setting) to 1024 * 768 (which is lower). Strangely, sometimes it doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, I do not have time to figure this out in what condition it triggers this. Anyway for the solution, I just change back to 1280 * 800 whenever this happens or I just shut down my laptop instead of put my laptop into sleep mode. This is what Dell people recommended me too.

In summary, if you’re okay with the top 4 issues above for Dell Inspiron 640m (perhaps it also applies to other models), then this laptop is a good buy. The main advantages for Dell product at least the reason I buy it is cheap and less expensive as you compared to other brand. Also another advantange to buy from Dell is you have more freedom to customize it (e.g. add extra memory, change your LCD screen display and etc.). Anyway this laptop is my baby now and I will bring him with me for all my vacation.