Samsung Series 9 - NP900X4D - Random crash (Weird lines on screen, see pic)

Hello community,

Lately, I have a problem occuring "sometimes" at a "cold" start of my Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D notebook. It is similar to the problem described at:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/717590-samsung-series-7-damaged-screen.html

But the system crashes totally, I cannot move the mouse and have to force-shutdown with holding the power button. This mostly happens, when I start my notebook in the morning, let's call it a cold start. If I shutdown the notebook, wait a little, it will not come again before the next cold start. It happens after Windows is booted, about 2 Minutes after I started the machine at a random point (not by opening a program, just crashes without doing anything). The screen looks like this:



I have never seen something like this before, could it be a graphic crash or memory related? I have upgraded my notebook to 8 GB of ram from 4 GB, but the error came much later after the upgrade.

Thank you for your time!

 

Hi germanuel. Welcome to the forum. That's a nasty looking screen, I can definitely see that.

I could actually see how bad RAM might cause something like this (particularly since the HD4000 uses system RAM as video memory). That said, I am no hardware expert. Let's hope others chime in too.

Personally, I would try two things:

1) Remove that last RAM stick and see if the problem goes away.

2) Backup the system and restore the factory image (if you still have your Recovery). Otherwise do a clean Windows install. The purpose of this is not to give up your current installation, but merely to test if you can reproduce the problem with a factory/clean installation. If the problem persists, we can assume it's a hardware issue, requiring you to contact Samsung.

But if you can NOT reproduce the problem with a factory/clean installation, we have reason to assume it's a software issue. You can then restore your backup and start looking for causes (mainly uninstall/re-install drivers). OR you could keep that factory/clean install and turn it into your new work installation.

But do wait a few hours to see if others here have more informed suggestions. There are many knowledgeable and helpful members in this forum

 

My initial thought was the display cable which can cause a corrupted display but this doesn't usually cause the computer to crash.

I would therefore agree with Dannemand's recommendation to first remove the second RAM stick and see if the problem goes away and, if not then to restore the factory image. If that has problems then it's a hardware problem and Samsung should be asked to fix it under warranty.

John

 

Good Shout about the memory, Make sure you are running memory rated no higher than 1.5v also or you could damage the memory controller on Sandy/Ivy bridge CPU's
Obviously check the memory is seated correctly but pull 1 stick and test with Memtest, the fact the PC is also locking up I would guess means it's not anything more than
bad Memory,

DO NOT RESTORE OR BACKUP ANYTHING until you sort out the memory, It is non error correcting memory and you will just have corrupted files and a dead PC to show for it

Memtest86 - Download now!

 

Good point!

 

I have already reinstalled my OS several times, and the error persists. It is, as you said, definaitly a hardware error. I didn't know that my HD4000 uses the RAM, so I will remove the additional 4GB RAM and see, if the error is gone! Thank you for your tips and help!