Any Series 7 Owners with HDD failure?

Hello all,

Was wondering if anyone with the Samsung Series 7 has experienced any HDD failures? I like to be pretty thorough with my research, so I checked out this notebook at the local future shop (best buy) and checked it's HDD, the model is a 1TB 5400 rpm, model number ST100LM024 HN-M101MBB. Newegg Link: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291

So about 30% of Newegg customers writing reviews claimed failure, many in the 2-3 month range. I also came across similar stories looking at Best Buy (USA) reviews. This is obviously very concerning, as I really like this laptop.

Has anyone experienced or heard of any problems like this with their Series 7?
Thanks

 

HDD failure is a rare event. Those who have suffered a problem are most likely to report it and those who haven't (the vast majority) keep quiet. Someone here during the past few weeks reported a problem that I suspect was a dying HDD but I never saw confirmation.

I wouldn't let the reports of HDD problems affect your purchasing decision except to encourage you to invest in a separate backup device or two.

John

 

I had a fan failure in mine within 3 weeks. melted the HDD and cpu. was a nightmare trying to return it. had to send it in for a refurbished one. Wouldnt reccomend buying one honestly. it has had so many issues even since then. software,hardware, you name it.

 

Something abnormal there: The CPU has built-in thermal protection: It starts to throttle at 95C and shuts down down at 100C.

John

 

I really couldn't tell you if there is a problems with the HDD 1TB 5400 rpm that was installed in my Series 7 Chronos laptop. Reason being is that i immediately brought my computer home from Best Buy and i made a couple backups and removed it the first day and installed a Samsung 840 512 gig SSD and it is the best upgrade you can possibly install on this particular laptop considering one of the two sticks of RAM is soldered into the mother board. There's absolutely no good reason why Samsung would do that to one of their Elite models. While i'm on the topic of possible upgrades i also installed a 8 gig stick of ram bringing the ram up to 12 gigs, witch Samsung said 8 gig was the max for this laptop. Well the laptop immediately recognized the additional ram i installed and seems to be running real smooth. Anyway this is a excellent laptop especially after $400 in upgrades. I still saved a boatload of $$$ considering i was eyeing a MacBook Pro with exact specs but with a smaller screen and a lower screen resolution.Oh well hit me up with any info you may need to know about this Samsung Series 7 17.3" 700z7c-us01.:hi2::hi2::hi2:

 

I moved my 750GB 5400rpm HDD to the optical bay and replaced it with a 256GB Crucial M4. I've had mine for about 10 months now and no issues with the HDD apart from Windows occasionally not being able to "see it" in "My Computer". A reboot resolves that issue whenever it occasionally pops up.

Apart from the mediocre display and some sensitivity issues with the track pad, I highly recommend the series 7. Very good bang for the buck and nice design too.

There was also that annoying issue with certain applications and games not running on the AMD GPU, but that was resolved via a driver update quite a few months ago.

 

I immediately replaced my internal hard drive with a 256GB Crucial M4 also. I bought an external enclosure for the 750GB hard drive. It has been running fine ever since.

 

I did the same as everyone else, except I replaced both the hdd and optical drive with two Plextor SSDs (M5 Pro Xtreme & M3; both 256GB). I do use the 1TB in an external Usb 3.0 enclosure quite a bit, and I've yet to have any problems with it.

Oh and as usual, I agree with what John posted.

Sent from my Galaxy Note II using Tapatalk

 

Kind of related to this, I'm not exactly sure which bios update did it but one of them increased fan speeds significantly. This was probably to reduce heat and increase stability. I updated to 15FD and noticed my system was much louder. I reverted back to 8FD and it got quieter again. I never had stability problems anyway so it wasn't worth it but i thought it was worth mentioning for anyone considering installing the bios updates. Reverting bios updates isn't easy... to say the least.

 

I also upgraded to 15FD, and because of the fan cycles I would like to revert bios update. Could you explain how you did this ?

 

See this thread.

John

 

Thanks a lot.
But unfortunately I have the same problem as nisse.l page 5 : the files only extract with 14FD or 15 FD, not with 13FD or earlier... So I can only flash the BIOS to 14FD, not the MICOM...

 

Hi. New to this. Was on a flight to Mexico and battery was fully charged and while working the laptop just "died" . But the "charging" light is glowing orange. Laptop doesnt switch on at all. Not sure if this is a HDD failure?? Can anyone help please? Thanks!

 

You can try holding the power button down for several seconds till the LED turns off completely. Then see if it starts normally after that. Otherwise check the sticky thread about UEFI and bricking. I don't think that's what happened to you, but it describes a CMOS reset procedure.

If none of this solves it (and if no other clever solutions are suggested) I think it's time to call Samsung. Sometimes hardware fails

That's all I can think of.

 

I wouldn't expect an HDD failure to cause the orange light. The user guide for my X4C says the power indicator may be red or orange when the battery is charging but i don't know what conditions will cause it to go orange instead of the normal red.

The bricking thread is here. You can do a more thorough attempt to reset the system by unplugging the mains, disconnecting the battery by poking a straightened paperclip or similar through the hole in the bottom (next to a rectangle with a cross inside) and holding down the power button for a minute or two. The battery will automatically reconnect when the mains power is reconnected.

If you get the computer running again then run the battery calibration in the BIOS and check the battery wear.

John