Samsung Series 7 Chronos Laptop + Ubuntu Live Cd = Brick

thaimite · December 27, 2012

Those who know me know my love of Samsung products and Ubuntu

Well I am sad to report the two do not play well together (but I do blame M$ for the root cause of the issue).

2 weeks ago I bought a great Samsung Series 7 (NP 700Z5C-S01AE) 15" laptop which works(ed) well is nice, light and a great performer.

Initially, with UEFI / Fastboot disabled I installed Ubuntu, Everything was fine and the machine was 99%, I had just one minor annoyance that I wanted to clear.

I then upgraded the firmware to the latests version (004) and enabled the Fastboot which also enables UEFI (BIG Mistake) UEFI = That horrible M$ invention to stop you installing anything other than M$ products on the computer YOU own.

Everything was still fine.

In an effort to fix that final 1% annoyance, I put in a Ubuntu live CD, set the system to boot from the CD and then after a few seconds of startig the boot process, a wirring CD and a brief flash on the screen to say UEFI:-

NOTHING...... It did not boot from the CD, it would not eject the CD, and would not even let me in to the BIOS. The machine was now a brick. I could not even enter the BIOS to change the boot order.

I had read about people bricking this same model of Samsung on the Internet by trying to install Ubuntu, but in my case , let alone begin an install or re-instalI I did not even get as far as the CD completing its boot up, to extract some files from it.

The computer is now back with Samsung and I HOPE they will return it to me soon fully working.

If anybody reading this is a member of any Ubuntu Forums, please warn others NOT to enable UEFI / Fastboot o their Samsung Laptop and hopefully Samsung will sonn bring out an updated firmware that allows a LIVE CD to play and any potential UEFI conflict will not brick a great machine

I will report more after I get my 2 week old machine back from the Samsung service depot

aarn · December 27, 2012

My Samsung is a series 5 with i7 3610QM processor, UEFI BIOS, purchased 26 Oct 2012. It came with win7 installed on the 750Gb hard drive.

To install Ubuntu (I settled on Lub 12.10) from a usb stick, required a bit of mucking around with BIOS boot options, but I managed a dual install.

Subsequently, I purchased a sandisk 120GB solid state drive, swapped drives, and installed Lubuntu on that (after more experimenting with BIOS).

Then reinserted the 750GB drive, brought up the 'Samsung 5 recovery option' partition (further mucking around with the BIOS),

and did a clean reinstall of win7. Enabled fastboot.

Anyway, a few things may be of interest:

mucking around with BIOS boot options may be necessary;

with my machine, changing hard drives (only one screw to fiddle with) is almost as fast as sifting through dual-boot options.

the win7 drive was ordered to follow Samsung's battery life prolonger scheme ie. charge to max 80%. The Ub ssd now does this too - I didn't tell it to.

Boot time when using Ub ~ 10 sec, when using win7 (never shutdown, just 'sleep' - wakes up in) 2 sec.

There was a rumour going round last year that newer win machines (Samsung series 7???) would not be compatible with linux, but mine is fine.

Very easy to change drives in series 5 machine, maybe worth buying a ssd (40GB is plenty for Ub), using your existing hard drive as storage?

Cheers, AA

thaimite · December 27, 2012

Thanks for the input. I almost bought the S5 model but at the last minute decided on the Series 7. My machine is dead, nothing so I was unable to do anything with the BIOS. Beofre returning it, I did open the case, move the HD and delete sensitive information to anotherdrive. Replacing the HD would be easy.

Since my original post the service centre has called to say that I need a new motherboard and it will take a 2 weeks to obtain. Obviously as my machine is new I am pushing for a replacement.

I am also seriousl considering whether I should change to some other make such as Sony S series I previously had a Sony VPCF111 and that worked flawlessly.

phil2 · December 28, 2012

http://askubuntu.com/questions/160389/does-ubuntu-12-04-supports-for-b75-boards

thaimite · December 28, 2012

http://askubuntu.com...-for-b75-boards

Thank you for the link however I think you missunderstood the issue

Ubuntu works and works very well with this machine whether UEFI /fast-boot is on or off

HOWEVER booting from a live CD with UEFI/fast-boot turned on just to try Ubuntu (and possibly other OS) will brick the machine requiring a new motherboard from Samsung

it did not even get to the stage on install or try

JakeBKK · January 3, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

thaimite · January 3, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

As Samsung have ordered a new motherboard under warranty for me I think it is pretty safe to assume it IS bricked

See this blog for many others suffering the same fate.

I blame Samsung, as in my opinion it should not be p[ossible for ANY software to brick a piece of hardware, and if Ubuntu (or other software is able to access and corrupt the BIOS code then that is a bug in the machine.

JakeBKK · January 3, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

As Samsung have ordered a new motherboard under warranty for me I think it is pretty safe to assume it IS bricked

See this blog for many others suffering the same fate.

I blame Samsung, as in my opinion it should not be p[ossible for ANY software to brick a piece of hardware, and if Ubuntu (or other software is able to access and corrupt the BIOS code then that is a bug in the machine.

''

Happened to me too. Managed to mess it up with windows 7 (all i saw was a flashing samsung logo) - got a new one the first time. Reproduced the error , and was to lazy to go again. Did a factory wipe with that machine and next install was a go.

thaimite · January 3, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

As Samsung have ordered a new motherboard under warranty for me I think it is pretty safe to assume it IS bricked

See this blog for many others suffering the same fate.

I blame Samsung, as in my opinion it should not be p[ossible for ANY software to brick a piece of hardware, and if Ubuntu (or other software is able to access and corrupt the BIOS code then that is a bug in the machine.

''
Happened to me too. Managed to mess it up with windows 7 (all i saw was a flashing samsung logo) - got a new one the first time. Reproduced the error , and was to lazy to go again. Did a factory wipe with that machine and next install was a go.

You cannot do a factory wipe on a machine that will not boot. There was no way in to the BIOS, nothing on the screen (not even a logo or a prompt) and even the CD in the drive would not eject.

I am sure your case was different, and happy you managed to sort it.

frankold · January 6, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

As Samsung have ordered a new motherboard under warranty for me I think it is pretty safe to assume it IS bricked

See this blog for many others suffering the same fate.

I blame Samsung, as in my opinion it should not be p[ossible for ANY software to brick a piece of hardware, and if Ubuntu (or other software is able to access and corrupt the BIOS code then that is a bug in the machine.

''
Happened to me too. Managed to mess it up with windows 7 (all i saw was a flashing samsung logo) - got a new one the first time. Reproduced the error , and was to lazy to go again. Did a factory wipe with that machine and next install was a go.

You cannot do a factory wipe on a machine that will not boot. There was no way in to the BIOS, nothing on the screen (not even a logo or a prompt) and even the CD in the drive would not eject.

I am sure your case was different, and happy you managed to sort it.

Reset the BIOS? And I think you mean POST rather than boot

thaimite · January 6, 2013

Like you I would agree that resetting the BIOS would be the first step, but I have no idea how to do that on this laptop.

As I am now waiting for a replacement motherboard from the Samsung repair centre (Main dealer, not a back street shop) for over a week, I assume they do not know how to do that either.

On many desktop machines there is a separate battery to power the BIOS, but as this is a laptop, I did not want to void the warranty looking for such an item which may well be soldered in place.

I did mean no access to the BIOS. After switching the power I was unable to enter the BIOS setup by pressing F2 let alone witness a POST screen being displayed. As I said it is a brick. Apart from a power on LED and a brief whirr of the DVD drive there was no sign of life at all.

JSixpack · February 11, 2013

The notebook is NOT bricked. I does a similar stunt with win 7.

As Samsung have ordered a new motherboard under warranty for me I think it is pretty safe to assume it IS bricked

See this blog for many others suffering the same fate.

I blame Samsung, as in my opinion it should not be p[ossible for ANY software to brick a piece of hardware, and if Ubuntu (or other software is able to access and corrupt the BIOS code then that is a bug in the machine.

''
Happened to me too. Managed to mess it up with windows 7 (all i saw was a flashing samsung logo) - got a new one the first time. Reproduced the error , and was to lazy to go again. Did a factory wipe with that machine and next install was a go.