Samsung laptops bricked by using UEFI

AnandTech - Samsung Laptops Bricked by Booting Linux Using UEFI

You can readmore of what is known at H-Online, but the short summary is this: Samsung’s UEFI implementation appears to be faulty. It was most likely tested with Windows only and found to work, but thorough testing with other operating systems doesn’t appear to have been a priority—or perhaps a consideration at all. At present, the bug appears to affect Samsung 530U3C, 300E5C, NP700Z5C, NP700Z7C, and NP900X4C series laptops; if you have one of those laptops, we recommend you exercise extreme caution if you have a need to boot into a Linux environment.

 

Thanks for this. It gives a bit more detail about the problem that has been encountered by several members here who have ended up with unbootable machines and have had to send them back to Samsung for resuscitation.

I would be much broader with the list of potentially affected models and make it any Samsung notebook in production with Windows 8 in late 2012 since they all share a few common platforms.

I would expect that firmware updates to fix this problem is high on Samsung's list. However, since they never provide any log file with the BIOS updates we won't know when they have fixed this bug unless they make a specific announcement.

John

 

Great post, this explains a lot. To those who have been pulling their hair in frustration in recent months: it was NOT your fault -- in case there was ever any doubt about that.

I notice Anandtech's update says opening the laptop to clear CMOS solves the brick. I remember John mentioned at one point that CMOS clearing can be accomplished by keeping the battery disconnect (paperclip) and power buttons pressed simultaneously for one minute. (Hope I am quoting that correctly, otherwise please correct me, John). I never tried that myself, but it would seem worth trying for anybody with severe boot problems.

 

I've not had need to try it myself. I recall someone being advised by Samsung to do the above and then wait 48 hours before trying to restart. The attempts to fix these problems are scattered in a few threads. Perhaps those who have had these problems can put their experiences here.

John

 

If you can just clear the system by clearing cmos then in reality it is not a BRICK. Is it a lock up and or hard crash, you bet. What Samsung, and other OEMs, need to do is make a better and simpler procedure for clearing cmos. Especially with the UEFI bios as the tables do not constantly get reset. It is too easy for some hardware resources to get set to somewhere there will be problems initializing especially between different OS's etc.

 

This firmware bug causes a bit wider scope of malfunctions ranging from corrupt NVRAM (solvable by clear CMOS) to damaged firmware. Despite recent set of kernel patches issue is still not fixed. Also it seems there are several other ways to trip this kind of behavior, including some Windows userspace programs according to Matthew Garrett blog.

 

http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/22855.html

Can we change the sticky to "Samsung laptops bricked by using UEFI?"

Because when I tried to use UEFI on my Ivy Bridge Series 7 Chronos I basically ran into hell before windows could even finish installing... seems safe to just not recommend UEFI.

 

Paging for John to revise thread title, what neotheOne said is true.

 

Your wish is my command (on this occasion).

John

 

Thanks John.

I'm pretty sure Anandtech writers do read the forums here.

AnandTech - Samsung Laptop UEFI Bugs: Not Just for Linux

 

I think they just look for the proper source of information Matthew Garrett i s RedHat employee, responsible for Fedora/RH UEFI/Secure/Boot implementation

 

This is no more a linux problem. The author suggests stops using UEFI in any Samsung laptops.

Source

 

This is already documented in the sticky at the top pf the forum.

 

Oh I didn't see that. Could the admin merge this thread under the older one?

 

Ok I did something terrible. I tried booting up a LiveUSB to test if the flash drive I prepared actually works, but ended up bricking it (didn't expect it). The screen now is off at boot up and the keyboard doesn't work. I unplugged the power cord and tried pushing in the battery cut off hole using a paper clip and I think I broke that switch at the bottom. I can still switch it on, but the power cut off button seems to have been pushed somewhere in the battery compartment. Since it did power up from main power switch, I switched the laptop off my holding the power button and started taking off the bottom cover. I found where the CMOS battery attaches to the mobo and unplugged it. Waited for several seconds and plugged it back in. But the laptop was still bricked.

I assume that wire from CMOS battery to the mobo is for charging that battery itself? Now that battery cut off switch is not working (broken) what can I do clear the CMOS?

 

If you have removed the base of the computer then you can physically remove the battery.

John

 

There was actually some black adhesive tape over the entire CMOS battery area which is why I still didn't take it off. Once I do, I will let you know how it goes. Should I be worried about the battery cut off hole which seems non-functional?

 

I was suggesting removing the main battery since you are worried about the switch. You would also need to remove the CMOS battery.

John

 

Didn't work. I disconnected both the main battery and CMOS battery for several minutes and tried again. Same black screen. The CMOS battery is attached to the mobo my an adhesive core. No connections other than the pin labelled CMOS on the mobo. Now what can I do?

I still am only my 24 months international warranty. Though I am not in the US at the moment, should I give up and send it to Samsung locally?

 

@fresco: You probably tried this already, but just in case: With both batteries disconnected, plugged in, power turned off, try and hold the power button for 15 secs.

Or re-connect the CMOS battery and try again (15 secs). Maybe CMOS cannot be read at all without that battery.

John also mentioned that advice someone had received from Samsung to hold power button AND battery disconnect for one minute (that was to clear CMOS, which we must assume was thoroughly accomplished in your case) then leave it for 48 hours.

These are just ideas, John is the real expert here.

 

That was 48 hours, IIRC.

My expertise is in following the problems of others and trying to avoid having first-hand encounters with the big ones (so I've kept clear of UEFI).

John

 

You were real fast there: I corrected that to 48 hours within minutes after posting, but that still wasn't fast enough

No seriously, you clearly know a lot about these hardware issues -- while I have yet to even open up my Sammy.

 

I tried the first method without holding it for 15s as it powers on an powers off within 7s or so. I tried the second method too and didn't work. Unfortunately I accidentally broke off the battery cut or disconnect switch when trying to cut the power before my first attempt to take off the bottom cover

Thanks for trying. So nothing else I can do?

 

Only the 48 hour wait. But if you are sure the battery disconnect is broken then that will have to go back to be fixed.

John

 

Yeah, I am sorry, that was all I got. As John says, I think you'll need to have it serviced. Even if you manage to boot it, with that battery disconnect switch stuck in the disconnect position, you don't really have a laptop...

 

I will try the following:
Since the battery cut off switch simply disconnects the battery until the power plug is plugged back in, I will disconnect the mobo'a connection to the main battery (because my battery disconnect switch kind of disappeared after I applied too much force). After that I will hold the power button for a minute and wait 48hrs to see our it helps. I'm trying do the steps that happen with the usual 48hr wait steps except for disconnecting the battery manually as I cannot do that the easy way.

I will update what happens on this thread and if all else fails I will start prepping for the servicing. Thanks to both John and Dannemand for all your help!

 

Update: After waiting 48hrs, I still have a black screen. Should I repeat the steps but this time by unplugging the CMOS wire to the mobo?

 

You deserve much credit for your patience and tenacity with this, freco. But honestly, I think you're gonna have to get that unit serviced and have the battery disconnect switch repaired. I am sorry, I wish I could tell you something happier...

 

Aight, I will send it in for servicing

 

Yeah, sorry buddy. And apologies for mistyping your handle

 

LOL, I cannot even send it for servicing. I now reside in Saudi Arabia and the Customer Care Center just told me that they cannot help me as it needs to be send to the US. After chatting for two hours with a Samsung Rep, it turns out that I cannot ship it to the US w/o paying for it. It costs around 550USD to ship it to and another 550 to ship it back which is 1100USD, thats a 100 dollars less than the original price of my laptop. LOL, should've never tried testing that LiveUSB.

I know its OT, but I felt like sharing this

 

That really does suck. I am surprised Samsung doesn't provide international warranty.

Would a local repair shop be an option? Even if they cannot fix the broken battery switch, if only they can cut it out so it doesn't prevent the machine from running.

I hope you find some solution to save that - otherwise very nice - PC.

 

Saudi Arabia isn't listed in the international warranty list of countries. I would suggest you try to contact the UAE support people as the next nearest location. Shipping costs should be more reasonable (and $550 each way to USA is ridiculous, but it could be $100).

John

 

Saudi Arabia is listed there as KSA, but yes I will give UAE a try either ways. Thanks.

 

Thanks for pointing that out.

However, UAE may well have a more customer-focused support team familiar with international warranty requirements.

John

 

I can tell you that linux has nothing to do with it. I manged to brick my NP900X4C by simply turning uefi off in order to boot from my portable dvd. No warning, no nothing. Returned it to Best Buy for service. They said they've seen it before and has to be sent to Samsung. Samsung needs to make booting from a usb port far more easy. This combined with windows 8 is making what I thought was my best notebook ever to be the worst notebook ever.

btw, I don't know for sure but just before my problems I was using Shadow Defender. Not immediately before but it might mean something as I've been reading on other forums that Shadow Defender can brick computers with SSD's.

 

Hi there.

I have a NP700Z7C that i got in july 2012 with win 7.

I wonder if I can intall Linux mint on it or if its gonna crack. I've updated the bios and I dont know if it was a good idea with this whole UEFI by default thing... I still can change it though.

How does that work ? Do i have to enable or disable UEFI? I dont even know what it is, I just know I m fed up with windows security holes... I want something new and safe and stable.

Oh one thing though, anyone managed to make the fan silent in linux? I LOVE the quiet fan software and i dont think easy settings works on linux right?

 

Bricking hasn't been a problem with Windows 7 machines without UEFI enabled (the default). You can check the settings in the BIOS (press F2 at the BIOS screen).

The Fan Silent mode primarily works by locking the CPU speed down to the minimum. I would expect that there's a utility in Linux that can enable a low power mode.

John

 

Thanks John but I know that about win 7, my question was about Linux. Can I install it safely ?

I can enable or disable UEFI. It's disabled by default.

 

I've booted a PartEd Magic LiveCD many times on my Series 7 (Sandy Bridge) with UEFI disabled. Admittedly, last time was awhile ago, before my latest BIOS update. And I never installed it to boot from my HDD.

Still, from the reports I have seen, this is only a problem with UEFI enabled. And possibly only on newer Win8-delivered models that have SecureBoot.

Of course I cannot guarantee anything on your specific PC. You may want to wait for a few more posts to confirm this.

 

All I can add is that I can boot Acronis True Image from a flash drive on both my X3B and X4C (Windows 7 and no UEFI) without problems. I believe that it runs on Linux. However, the latest BIOS update for the X4C post-dates my last backup image so there's a small chance that something won't now work.

There are numerous reports buried in the threads here of people successfully installing Linux on Windows 7 machines without UEFI enabled. The usual issue was throwing the right switches (eg disabling the Fast Boot) to get the Linux installer to run.

John

 

Sabre, I'll send you a message regarding your problem.

 

Hi.
I have also a problem with my 700Z5C. I install ubuntu on the 8gb cache disk with UEFI. Then I cannot boot on windows but ubuntu was functionnal.
So I tried to go to bios to set my true hdd first at boot and I had the bad surprise that it doesn't launch the setup by pressing F2 anymore (liveCD doesn't boot either)! When I press F2 I have Wait... -> then grub to start ubuntu.
So I delete uefi boot partition on the 8 gb disk hoping that it will boot on my hdd but now all I can see at start up is:

- the bios screen very briefly (longer with a livecd in the drive but doesnt boot on the liveCD)
View attachment 92875

- the menu I could access via F10 at start up but only offers ubuntu which do nothing
View attachment 92876

I don't know if someone already have this issue with innaccessible bios and if it is due to my installation of ubuntu UEFI (very likely no problem before with it).
If someone has an idea of which is my next step for the moment I own a brick.
Sorry for my approximate english, thanks reading me.

 

I have a Samsung Series 7 Chronos Np700Z5B whose build date is, I think, March 2012. Back in September, I decided to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion on it and so I switched to UEFI, reformatted my HD to GPT, installed OS X and reinstalled Windows 7. Windows worked great and booted fine and Mac OS needed some kext work, but also booted.

Then I installed Ubuntu into the next partition (I think it was the 5th or 6th one due to the various GPT overhead partitions used by Windows and OS X). The Grub boot process worked fine for Ubuntu, but Windows was "broken", so I used the Ubuntu Windows boot fix (the exact method I used escapes me right now) and was able to boot all the OSes again.

Everything was fine for a couple of weeks and then I installed some updates to Windows and the machine started to reboot. Instead of going to black screen, then the firmware splash screen, the machine powered off right before it would have shown the Samsung logo. From that point forward, when I pressed the power button, the machine would light up the leds and then power off again after 1-3 seconds.

So I went to Google and read about this problem, but I kept thinking that these symptoms could indicate that the machine was acting as if the heat sinks were loose. So I opened 'er up, cleaned the CPU and GPU, applied Arctic Silver and put everything back together. *And it worked!*

The machine was fine for about three hours, and several more reboots, and then it went to sleep and when I tried to wake it up the same thing happened. Since I hadn't replaced the screws yet (not wanting to tempt Murphy), I opened it up, loosened some of the heatsink screws and the machine worked solidly for a week or so. But, every time I tightened those screws it would malfunction as before!

I assumed that the BGA CPU and/or GPU solder adhesion had some problems on this motherboard, so I sent it back for warranty repair. And, even though it took a total of 3 replacement MBs (and eventually almost every other part except the bottom cover and the optical drive) to fix the problem, I finally got a working Series 7, but I'm not so sure that I trust it!

My point here is that the Ubuntu 12.04 UEFI install worked fine on my machine with it's then freshly updated BIOS and caused no problems whatsoever with that particular Samsung S7. (Other than the known Windows 7 boot problem and related fix.) So I suspect that there is more to this situation than meets the eye - but since I got the machine back, I installed Windows 8 in UEFI mode and I'll confine my Mac OS X and Linux booting to VMware... for now.

I must admit, though, I'll probably yield to temptation and install one or both into the partitions that I've reserved for "future expansion", LOL. One thing's for sure, I won't wait for my warranty to expire before I do that! Meanwhile, that strange Windows 8 freezing or hanging problem is bothering me once or twice a week - well, that and the fact that I don't have standalone OS X anymore!

 

Great story, ace, thanks for sharing it!

I have a feeling that the bricking is mostly with new models that have SecureBoot. Even with the latest update, I bet your BIOS is still different from those newer models.

I'm not sure, though. I think, for now, anybody venturing down UEFI lane has to assume there are some risks.

 

It has SecureBoot - and that has caused some consternation getting USB and sometimes CD/DVDs to boot - so much so that I've had to resort to turning off UEFI.

But if I were installing, say Windows 7, onto one of my "spare" partitions, I might not be able to get it to be installed in UEFI mode unless I could boot it that way. In which case I'd end up with one of those ghost partition tables - and I'd have to be sure to put it into one of the first 4 physical partitions because GPT support is really flaky with W7 and "standard" BIOS.

The first time I sent the machine back to Samsung, they replaced the MB and then it couldn't see the disk (due to it being GPT) - as a result, they replaced the original Seagate 1TB unit with an (even slower, if possible) Samsung 5400-RPM one. So I lost the fruits of all that labor I expended in getting it to triple-boot. I did back it all up before sending it back, but every time they returned it to me there was something else I wanted to try, so I've never restored any of those partition images. The point here is that they never thought to try UEFI!

 

Wow, you've been through a lot here. Again, thanks for sharing.

I am surprised that this model has SecureBoot, I thought it only came on the later Win8-delivered models. Was that after they replaced the motherboard or did you have it all along?

 

This UEFI thing has been around for 2 years now (since Jan 2011 I believe). I guess it's really hard to upgrade from the BIOS since it's been around for a really long time. I had thought about using UEFI but it seemed so complicated to feel any benefit from it (changing files and folders in my Windows 7/8 installation USBs, wiping and converting entire disk to GPT, dealing with multiple partitions, especially when dual/multi-booting, and now the risk of bugs and bricking a machine...)

Sorry to hear all that. And you really didn't need to push the reset button THAT HARD!

If you can get a working Series 7 laptop, instead of using the reset-button hole you can just open up the back and disconnect the battery. I stopped using the reset button myself and just started using that method as a sure way to know the laptop is not powered.

 

Tell me about it! I have tried everything in the world to do with the power and CMOS battery and nothing helps, FYI.

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, I guess you could eliminate that battery as a cause of your problem by replacing it. They're available on eBay, and the switch seems to be part of the battery.

That's a very easy replacement:
1-Remove the ten or so bottom screws;
2-Pry the bottom cover off with your fingernails starting at the back.
3-Unscrew the HD (the battery needs to slide that way before it'll release.
4-Unscrew and remove then replace the battery.

The hardest part for me was finding a bit that fit the screws snugly. Turned out I had several in some various toolkits.

Replacements on eBay are around $100 US. If your problem is the switch stuck open, that could be a quick fix. Another option is to open it up, remove your old battery and see if you can fix the problem with your switch.

There aren't any seals to indicate that you've ever been inside, and I've totally disassembled my own machine in the hopes that I could avoid another warranty repair. When I couldn't find anything visible that was wrong, I sent it in and they fixed the problem under warranty.

Here's hoping you don't need to send yours back multiple times if you're forced to go down that road. Good luck.

I know that I wouldn't have used UEFI if I could have done a triple boot without GPT. I actually tried and had a workable kludge going, but I just needed too many partitions and couldn't stand that ghost MBR partition that Windows 7 installed when I used GPT without UEFI - set up that way it could only see the first 4 partitions on the HD. And Windows 8 didn't address the problem any differently!

I could make it work by using all the first 4 partitions for Windows, plus user data, plus swap and reserved - but then it was a major PITA dealing with Mac OS and Ubuntu waaay out there on partitions 7 or 8! The UEFI + GPTpartitioning works great, but I don't know if I'll ever put Ubuntu into the multi-boot scheme again. I just hate the thought of going back to my Core 2 Duo machines for my main development activities while I wait for a warranty repair. Especially now that I've finally got this machine all setup the way I want it - or, almost all setup.

Well, maybe if I get a replacement for this machine before the warranty ends... lol.

Does this problem exist for, say the Lenovo W520 or W530?