Boot and BIOS Problem with Chronos 7 after SSD upgrade

I was asked by a friend to install a Samsung SSD hard drive into his Samsung Chronos 7 series (Np700z7c-s01us). After referring to this site for some help on how to get the thing opened, the installation process was pretty painless. I formatted the ExpressCache drive, installed Windows 7 on the new SSD, and went through and downloaded all the drivers from the website. Since then, I have developed two strange problems, and was wondering if anyone had similar experience or advice.

1.) Boot problems. I first noticed during one of the first times I had to restart the computer. The computer would go through the shutdown process, the screen would go blank, but would never actually turn off and begin the boot process again. You would have to hold down the power button for a couple seconds, let it shut down completely, then boot it back up. Turning the computer on also posed a bit of a problem. It seemed like every other time you try and turn it on, the computer would turn on (the power button would light up blue, you could hear the DVD drive whirring if there was something in it), but it wouldn't continue the boot process. There was no beep and nothing displayed on the screen. The only solution appeared to be holding down the power button until it turned off and then trying again. Most times it would only take doing this once, but there were a few times where we'd have to do it four or five times before it finally booted. Once it did boot, however, it started up nice and quick with no problems while it was running.

2.) BIOS problem. Compounding this is my ability to get to the BIOS. When you turn it on and it decides to work, the SAMSUNG screen states, "Press F2 to enter setup". Pressing F2, however, loads the Windows Boot Manager, asking if I want to load Windows 7 or use different settings. This makes it difficult to check on boot problems in problem #1 without access to the BIOS.

I'm by no means an expert on computer hardware, and I'm officially out of ideas. I opened it back up and made sure the connections were tight, but that's about all I can think of. I have been scouring the internet for anyone with the same problem. Any ideas?

 

For #1, please post a screenshot of what your partitions look like.

Something like this:

 

I don't have any advice but i wanted to say you are a nice guy helping out your friend with a job like that. I try to never take on those kind of jobs because it becomes your responsibility when something goes wrong. You become the free tech support guy

 

^^ I know how that feels. I'm actually one of those tech support guy for my relatives and friends, probably booted over 50 times for people. All questions go to me and I do enjoy helping people out. :]

 

Thanks for the response. I got this screen from Administrative Tools


Just deleted the partition of the little 8Gb extra drive and haven't tried restarting since, but while I'd love it if that fixed the problem, I'm doubtful that'll be all it takes.

Disk 2 is a portable hard drive that's currently plugged in, but isn't plugged in when the computer is booted up.

 

And for the record, this guy is paying me for my time, which kind of makes me feel worse I haven't given him back a finished, working product. I know all too well about the free tech support thing, though, as I'm currently doing the tour of every extended family members' laptop / phone / remote control while I'm home for Christmas.

 

Your partitions look okay. I'm confident you are using Windows 7 because of the 100 MB system reserved space to the left of the C: drive. However, there is something different about your partition--it is EFI System Partition. I wonder if that has to do with anything. Mine is not an EFI System Partition:

350 MB (NTFS)
Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

There is an option in the BIOS that enable/disable UEFI boot mode, but looks like you need to get to the BIOS first. Can you see which BIOS version you have? Perhaps try to update BIOS in Windows whenever you can.

 

I have a similiar problem.
In my case I trun the computer on and nothing shows up besides at the begining the HD led, wich turns off after a second, and the power led.
My guess is a BIOS problem but since killcast said he can manage to boot after some tries I guess I can solve the problem in some way. Problem is I tried like 10 times to turn on and off and nothing happens.

 

Just an update about the problem.

Found in another place that reseting CMOS would help.

I opened up the computer, unplugged the CMOS battery but it still didn't help. I guess the only option is to send to samsung since it's on warranty still.

 

Try (i) removing the single RAM module and (ii) disconnecting the HDD. If the BIOS has problems interrogating either of these the boot process will stop. If they are absent then the boot process will go a little further.

John

 

Interesting advances. Following John's advice, I unplugged the HDD and RAM, and the computer seemed to boot up fine. It would restart after the initial screen of course, but it never once got hung up. I plugged in just the HDD and skipped the RAM, and the computer booted Windows, which seemed surprising. Apparently there's 4GB of RAM built into the motherboard? With the RAM removed, I can now get into the BIOS. I thought I was completely out of the woods, but the boot process has gotten hung up twice now. I want to say it's happening less frequently, but the truth is there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to the hang ups. Sometimes it'll work 5 times in a row, then it won't boot for 15 minutes. Regardless, I can now get into the BIOS. hanime, are you saying I should disable UEFI Boot support now? It tells me I have version P03AAE if that is helpful information at all. I haven't had any luck with Samsung's BIOS updating software. It just gives me the error of "Cannot download update".

This seems like good progress, and I'd be interested to hear what you guys think.

 

Hi guys, I have a np700z5c-s01, I randomly found that forum and I would like to ask you help:
1) recently when I power on the laptop, after win7 boots and when desktop (but not sidebar) is loaded, the system starts lagging, mouse goes at almost 1fps and if I click nothing happens, but at the click I can hear a beep like old style bios beeps, but I think it comes out from the speaker as windows sound. Does anyone of you have ever had this problem or something like that?!? Do you know what could be??
2) Some months ago while installing an alternative os the installation formatted the samsung restore partition... now I have the free space and i would like to ripristinate the partition from dvds, but i don' know how to format it(NTFS, FAT32 or what). Can you guys please check how is your restore partition formatted?

 

Bonjour Chyaddo, tu dois faire : Paramètre / modifier les parametres du PC / Général / démarrage avancé = redémarer.
Et là F2 et tu sera sur ton bios.