Samsung Series 7: NP700G7C-S01UK - Laptop screen goes black when idle and randomly when booting

Hello!
I appreciate your help with some problem my laptop suddenly started presenting.
Yesterday i closed my laptop's lid and brought it too college, as i usually do. When i opened it, it didn't wake up, it just showed a black screen while the keyboard lights kept on.
I restarted it, but it wouldn't even show the samsung Bios screen. It actually goes into Windows because i can hear the Windows chime, and i even was able to activate Narrator and move around...in the darkness.

I thought the screen or video card messed up because not even connecting it to an hdmi external monitor worked. Then, suddenly, after restarting, closing and opening the lid a couple other times, the samsung logo reappeared.
Everything started working again, even the external monitor.

BUT if i close the lid, and open the laptop, it doesn't go to sleep and the screen goes black again. Restarting won't inmediatly solve the problem, it randomly will fix itself at some point.

The last thing i remembered changing was updating the BIOS through SW Update. So using the instructions here i rolled back to another version. This apparently solved the problem of the laptop NOT going to sleep when closing the lid. But then i discovered that if left Idle, if the HDD isn't doing anything for a while, it will suddenly go into this black screen mode. And i'm not even sure the OS still works when that happens. Again, restarting it will not inmediatly solve the problem, i need to close the lid open and restart a few more times.
I left it tonight downloading something, the whole night, and the problem didn't happen.

I have uninstalled and updated Nvidia drivers. I have disconnected the batter and pressed the power button for more than 60 seconds.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!:thumbsup:

 

Did the computer come pre-installed with Windows 8? If so, you may be encountering the type of problem described in this thread. Or it may be that even if you have Windows 7, the new BIOS has been optimised for Windows 8 and caused problems for Windows 7 or the update didn't carry through properly. There were a spate of problems a couple of months ago as discussed in this thread.

John

 

Thank you for your reply John.

Unfortunately i don't think this is the case. My laptop came with Windows 7. I installed Windows 8 several months ago and it was working perfectly up until now. If the lastest BIOS was optimized for Windows 8, i wouldn't know why i'm presenting those problems (and why rolling back wouldn't fix them).

Also i'm not having any of the issues named in the examples above. My laptop has no hanging, SDD is still recognized...

 

Thee might be similarities to the problem discussed here.

Do you have access to an external display? Connecting to that could help to eliminate the internal display as being the problem. The other possibility is corruption of power suspend behaviour.

John

 

Hi, I have just today have the same problem as in post 1 only my led screen isn't comming to life again I remember it taking a bios update from the update software, tried external monitor and hdmi but nothing, yet windows boots up as I hear the chimes, how am I going to roll bios back without being able to see the screen ?

Please advise as Its out of warrenty

 

Did you try repeatedly tapping F2 immediately after starting the computer (to get you into the BIOS)? If that still leaves you with a blank screen then the video is either broken or seriously messed up at a very low level.

You could try resetting the CMOS as discussed in the bricking thread.

Otherwise I wonder if the problem occurred immediately after a BIOS update then you could argue with Samsung support that it should be fixed at their expense. Phrases such as "Sale of Goods Act, 1975" and "latent defects" might get their attention. If Samsung aren't interested then target the retailer.

John

 

Update I can now get it to start up but only after removing the battery and holding the power button for a minute or two then replacing the battery and power up, when I shut down and leave for a while it happens again "blank screen" same as the OP in post 1 is there another bios version I could try, it was ok before the bios update but I don't know what version was on it before I it updated.

Thank you.

 

See this thread about reverting to an earlier BIOS. It can be done but Samsung don't make it easy.

I recently discovered that the Series 9s shipped with Windows 8 have a different BIOS family from those shipped with Windows 7 that were upgradable to Windows 8 (and more vulnerable to bricking) so there seem to be some deeper changes to enable better Windows 8 compatibility than could be provided in a BIOS update.

John

 

So I'm having this problem again after it suddenly disappeared some months ago.
I have no idea how to find the source of the problem.
Symptoms right now:
1. Sleep mode is broken. If in the power settings, the laptop is set to go to sleep when the lid is closed or when the power button is pressed, the screen would turn black when doing either of this but they keyboard lights will remain on and you can still hear some activity inside. You need to power off and power on the laptop again.
2. Restart doesn't work. If you restart the laptop through windows, or if it needs to automatically restart after installing some software, it will shutdown instead, This got me particularly worried yesterday while installing Windows 8.1, since after every step it needed to restart to continue to do something else, but instead it would shutdown, and I wasn't sure if it would resume when I turned it on. Fortunately it upgraded with problem.

Solutions I've tried: Different power settings, sfc scan, chkdisk, virus and spyware scan, downgrading and upgrading bios, uninstalling all drivers, updating all drivers, taking out the battery and pressing the power button for 1 minute.

Any suggestion?

 

it may be your drivers and 120hz. if the display is not set to full brightness on older drivers it will go black. Once booted try FN+F3..........

 

As I said, all drivers have been updated to latest version. Also, my brightness is always to the max, so that can't be it.
I don't think that would explain why the laptop shutdown instead of restarting anyway.
Thanks!

 

Interesting, what's different in the 501uk model, never heard of that one....

Or is that 5 supposed to be an S..

 

Hahaha, yeah,its supposed to be an S. I can't change the name of the thread though

 

But I can. So, now this error has been pointed out, I've made the correction.

John

 

Thank you

Also, I want to clear up that this issue is unrelated to Windows 8.1, since it was happening before the upgrade.

 

Ok read the issue you have again, my bad. I had assumed on the S01-uk. It sound like, as is obvious, that restart is broken. a question though is are you running the default drive and issd express cache. since a lot of windows 8.1 drivers are broken with Samsung could their express cache software be causing issues?

 

I issue started before upgrading to 8.1. In any case, Disabling express cache doesn't seem to solve the problem either unfortunately

Any other suggestions?

 

Unfortunately I'm not on Win8 so other than extrapolating ideas from what I see other users have issues with I'm of little use. One question though, so others may help you too, is when you go to the start button is sleep broken selecting from there too? I ask as you say from power settings but again doesn't Samsung use power setting software as well. I don't use the entire suite from Samsung either but I know they at least have mode shift.

I do know with mode shift and easy settings they can behave strangely to setting things up in normal windows dialogs. This even with Windows 7, the reason I run a minimal install of just Easy Settings and Mode shift. With Mode Shift I have all kinds of issues until in easy settings I disabled it from doing my themes etc..

 

The thing is, I've tested the sleep functionality even with the whole samsung suite uninstalled and the problem persists.

 

The video BIOS is in fact contained within the System BIOS, so that MAY have done something. I'm running the latest BIOS available and the latest nVidia WHQL drivers available.

The fact that this is happening when you cold start the unit would take the OS and drivers out of the equation. Try upgrading back to the latest BIOS as usually it's fixing something for a reason, I forget the release notes on it, but it's been quite some time since it's been updated.

If you can finagle yourself back into the BIOS with the display working try resetting everything to defaults. Unfortunately it does sound like some hardware problem.

 

Right now I'm able to boot the laptop without problems. The issue is only when going into sleep; and that it shutdowns instead of restarting. I'm too inclined to think it is a BIOS problem, but I've already downgraded and upgraded back to the last version and none have helped.

EDIT: I'm in the latest beta drivers right now, gonna try rolling back to WHQL. Is it possible that one of the times that I downgraded the BIOS something went wrong and now it's permanently f* up?

 

You should, even on each change of bios, load the system defaults. This assures the bios does not have an erroneous setting from the prior loaded version..................

 

Nothing! I'll just have to get used to it.

 

Ok, nothing as in that did not help, going to bios to load defaults?

Edit; Another question, does it restart like you had actually shut down or power up like it was in hibernation? The reason I ask is there is an option in power settings to go to hibernation after a certain time and if you disabled hibernation it may just be shutting you down instead.

 

Thank you for sticking around
Yes, nothing as in nothing in that helped. Loading defaults in BIOS did not make any difference.
The laptop is set to never go to hibernation in the power settings. When I restart the laptop, and it shut downs instead, if I power it up it will do as if came from an actual shutdown. Not resuming or anything.

 

If you go to sleep there is a setting to go to hibernation after a certain period of time, with hibernation disabled it probably can't. Again this is the sleep issue possibly not the restart one..............

Edit; I know Windows 7 but.

 

I see what you mean, but Hibernation is not disabled, just set to never go into hibernation.
Also, I have the power button and the closing lid set to sleep, so I can command the laptop to go to sleep whenever I want. By doing so though, the screen just go to black and the keyboard lights stay on. That can't be related to the hibernation problem you are describing, can it?

 

My thought was somehow the registry was telling it to create a hibernation file but since disabled it could not so it just shutdown and since no hibernation file to start up with just did a normal start up. If you do not have this disabled and the hibernation file is healthy this would not be your issue. Shutdown on reboot has to be another issue but well could be related.

Just to be sure it is not a hardware related issue from a cold boot go to bios. Do a three finger salute and see it if does a restart that way.

 

Phew...the ctrl+alt+del from boot worked At least.

 

you might try this;
Windows 8 Pro will not sleep - Microsoft Community

 

The mystery thickens.
I've replaced my hard drive with a SSD, thus a new windows 8.1 installation, and from the problem continues: Laptop shutdowns instead of restarting and doesn't come back from sleep when lid is down (keyboard remains lit).
Considering I rolled back through different bios versions and tried the latest one, I suppose this is now a hardware problem with my laptop.

 

I've the same problem with my NP700Z5 S02UB..I've also replaced my hard drive with a SSD and the problem continued..

 

Could it be related to any of this?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/716489-fast-start-technology-how-works.html

 

Any updates on this? I put an SSD in my ATIV book 8 and I am experiencing the same issues.

 

What SSD are you using? I've got a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO..this problem started when I placed the new SSD in a caddy because I had to back up data from the old HDD.I didn't realised then what could be the problem, and at that time I didn't give it to much attention because I was going to replace the HDD with the SSD(all this time the SSD was in caddy).After I replaced the HDD with the SSD the problem contiunued..so in week-end i'll mount the hdd back,reinstall windows (a lot of fun for me of course) and see what happens then..maybe it's the ssd fault..

 

I do have a 120GB Samsung 840 Evo. But then again, my problem started before replacing the HDD with an SDD. :/
What OS are you guys using? Windows 8.1?

 

Just for reference: There has been much discussion about black screen issues in the Win 8.1 update thread (linked below). The problem occurs most frequently when resuming from sleep or hibernation -- which also includes power on after Shutdown with Fast Startup enabled (which is default).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...pgrade-until-samsung-has-updated-drivers.html

In the context of Win 8.1, it is related to the version of Intel Graphics (IGX) driver and sequence of installation. I would post the details if I remembered, you'll have to search that thread

Of course this thread here dates back before Win 8.1. But for those who come here after upgrading, Win 8.1 my be a more likely cause than SSD vs HDD or any other issues specific to the G7C.

 

8.1..tomorrow is the big day )

 

Hello,

Here are my results:
-changed the ssd with the old hdd and got the same behaviour;
-tried liunx mint 16 to see if it's really a win 8.1 problem..and..I got the same result.

I belive now that this problem is hardware related, and not a software issue.Don't know what to try anymore

 

If you have Recovery on the old HDD, you could perform a Factory Restore and see if the problem is still there. That is most likely what Samsung would ask you to do if you contacted them about repair (I realize you may be out of warranty). If it's still there after a factory restore, I agree it is most likely a hardware issue. A loose or worn LCD cable could cause intermittent screen issues -- and is replaceable.

 

I don't have the recovery partition anymore,and no warranty .The only solution that I see is to bring it to a service for debugging..

 

Sorry for the late response. I had to read up on this to remember your situation. I wish I had some other suggestions...

Instead of sending it to Samsung, maybe a 3rd party service store can take a quick look inside at lower cost. Or you can do it yourself, if you get the service manual and a good screwdriver.