NP900X3E - new mobo or is there another fix?

I have this laptop here that has a borked bios and fried SSD. From what I've read these past 1.5 years is that you need a fully working SSD with Samsungs crap on it order for it to actually boot.

BIOS does detect Windows Boot Manager wherever an SSD is inserted or not. It's actually the only boot option apart from Setup/Bios. However when you press WBM it only goes to a black screen before going back to boot menu hence it probably needs a working mSATA with Samsung partitions on it.

I've thought about buying a replacement mobo but will that solve the issue? From what I understand I need a working mSATA SSD with the right partitions or I'll end up in the same boat.

Since I sold my UX32A/VD to another person that managed to fix it. I'm now lacking a ultrabook for all around work. Not to mention the form-factor and design beats anything out there.

edit: Does it matter which USB port I use for booting? It has 1x USB 2.0 and 1x USB 3.0 port.

 

You could be experiencing a side-effect of UEFI. Samsung's implemention of UEFI has been a bit buggy although the headaches have been reduced by BIOS updates. See if any of the threads listed here are relevant to your situation.

A clean installation of Windows from an optical drive should rebuild all the appropriate partitions. You can first copy over all your personal files by putting the SSD into a mSATA - USB adapter.

It is safer to use the USB 2.0 port. USB 3.0 may work if it is supported by the BIOS as happens on newer notebooks with only USB 3.0 ports.

John

 

Bump. I bought a Samsung Slim DVD drive, the one driven by only one USB cable but still nothing. On another note, if I remove the mSATA SSD (it's detected if I plug it in) the BIOS becomes much more responsive so please the ignore the pics below:




I'm willing to pay over Paypal if anyone manages to get this one going as forking up for a 300€~ mobo is kinda meh at this point.

edit: Pressing F10 only shows Windows Boot Manager or pressing Tab -> Setup. This is wherever an DVD Reader, USB Drive or mSATA SSD is plugged in or not. This also applies to pic #2.

 

Your comment about booting into the BIOS improving if you remove the SSD has me wondering if the basic problem is the SSD. If it's connected, but dead or close to dead, then the BIOS will try to interrogate it and start communication. Eventually, the BIOS will give up. If no SSD is connected then the BIOS doesn't waste time trying.

Did you have a bootable disc in the optical drive when you tried it? If a bootable disc isn't present then I don't think that the optical drive shows up as a boot device even if connected. There is also an issue with the Samsung BIOS not recognising some brands of flash drives.

I note that your BIOS is P05ABK whereas, I think, the most recent is P10ABK. The updates tried to fix UEFI-related issues so you are much more vulnerable to problems. I think your first challenge is to create bootable media containing the BIOS update and get that to boot. I think all the info about how to do this is in other threads. Start with the Boot and Bricking Problems section in the Sticky List. The full name of the P10ABK BIOS installer is ITEM_20131114_21268_WIN_P10ABK.

John

 

I've tried all my mSATA SSD's so far ranging from 16GB to 256GB ones without any luck. They're all detected in the BIOS but not in the Boot Menu/Manager.These are 100% working ones as I mostly use them for testing and whatnot.

edit: long-shot I know, but could it be this BIOS version only supports bootable Win8 media?

edit2: I only use well-known brands for my USB drives that even work on P3 based PCs so there's shouldn't be an issue there. As for the bootable DVD's I've tried 7, 8.1 and W10 and it doesn't even detect the drive itself. Even a flash drive with memtest should be detected but still a no-go.

Hence my thought that Samsung maybe looked out any type of bootable media unless it's Win8 running. If this booted any type of external media we wouldn't be having this discussion now

edit3: I have the old 900X3A for instance, thinking I'll install windows on that one and then move the SSD to my 900X3E? Or am I just swimming in deep water now?

 

It can run Linux too, so really looks like the bios is corrupted, like John Ratsey suggested. Do check the thread he posted for quite a nifty range of possible unbricking solutions.

Boot order and devices are stored in a portion of the bios that should be updated/rewritten upon each boot. Either that part is now read-only or written to the brim with something else, which would be quite Samsung-ish. One other cause might be a drained cmos battery, but the system's too new for that and it still shows the current date and time, so ... can't be that.

If nothing avails then I could hardware-flash the bios for you, if you like. But then you'd need to disassemble the motherboard and re-install it later on. Shipping one-way between our countries is ~€10, so €20 should cover it. Can make some pictures of the steps/tools required, for anyone else outside of warranty and not minding a diy fix.

 

Nope... A very clean Windows installation (7, 8, 8.1, 10) does run well, although you need SOME Samsung 'crap' (e.g. the settings application for the advanced Fn stuff). You DO NOT NEED any of the recovery SW bits if you are willing to sacrifice that functionality.

Regarding your boot problem try: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/sflash64-patch-cvar-the-solution-to-many-problems.779991/