UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop

[tadazmas]

I cannot provide detailed log massages because laptop is bricked right now.

If you have courage to try it select UEFI boot from bios and than try to boot laptop using liveusb (made form Precise Pangolin 12.04.1 amd64).

Laptop hangs up in black screen. If you force power-off, after it, laptop wont start. I mean it not event start bios, just black screen no sounds nothing.

I filing this report, because i already bricked second laptop. At first i thought it was unrelated issue and laptop was fixed by warranty service (replaced motherboard), but after second time i quite sure.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Ludovico (aasonykk)]

I confirm it.

I selected UEFI from bios and durind the loading of Ubuntu 12.04.1 from liveusb it freeze. I long pressed power button and it bricked the laptop.

I have the same version 530U3C

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Bricking a laptop seems pretty evil on a live image; doubt this is actually debian-installer though.

[Alex (0k53dmx9cig8cqkasqs0-alex-f830mk0e7z07dk74sm41)]

I confirm it, too. Exact the same procedure - maybe I should have read this before. It seems not to happen, if UEFI-Boot-Support is deactivated in BIOS.
Same Laptop Version for me: 530U3C A01

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Yeesh. I hate UEFI - this should clearly be impossible with correctly-written firmware.

How did you go about creating the live USB image? The 12.04.x images don't have the right bits to make this work by just dding the image to a USB stick, but the usual failure mode is simply that the image is only bootable in legacy mode, not that it is available for UEFI booting but bricks the machine. Did you dd or otherwise raw-write the image to a USB stick, or did you use some program I don't know about to convert it?

If somebody has an unbricked but otherwise appropriate laptop and is willing to risk it, it would be worth trying out a recent 12.10 daily, because this is built in a somewhat different way which should allow for proper hybrid UEFI CD/USB booting. If this works, we could backport that to 12.04 without too much trouble.

[Ludovico (aasonykk)]

@ Alex : click on the top of this page "yes, this bug affect me"

@ Colin Watson: I created the live usb with "Startup Disk Creator" using Ubuntu 12.04.1. Sorry but now I can't try 12.10 with UEFI enabled.

[Alex (0k53dmx9cig8cqkasqs0-alex-f830mk0e7z07dk74sm41)]

... sorry I forgot. Now this bug infects me too.
I created the stick using "usb-creator-kde" from kubuntu version 11.xx., I think.

[Alex (0k53dmx9cig8cqkasqs0-alex-f830mk0e7z07dk74sm41)]

One more, maybe important notice.
I succsessfully booted the image, having UEFI-support disabled in BIOS.

But there was a difference in boot procedure, before it bricks the machine:
1. There was an message on a black screen: "Unknown prefix", or similar - it was not there, with UEFI-Support disabled.
2. The grub-boot-loader poped up and I could choose between installing or trying out.

First time I switched of the notebook, after seeing grub and it was still working (because I could remember, that I did not get this menu before - the installer just booted)
Second time I got grub again, I selected "Try .... ", then the machine freezes, I switched it off (by long pressing power-button) - and it was a brick.
Maybe this is a notice, for those, who want to try out 12.10 - if you see the grub-menu - be careful.

[Ludovico (aasonykk)]

I confirm that when I enabled UEFI and the beginning it displayed a black screen where I could choose between try Ubuntu, install ubuntu, test ram etc.
I selected the first option (I don't remember which was, try live cd ubuntu? ) and during the loading it crashed and bricked my laptop.

But when I replaced the laptop, with UEFI disabled, the live cd (usb) start automatically without the black screen.

[Martin Exner (martinexner)]

I managed to install ubuntu 12.04 amd64 right now on my 530U3C-A01DE.
What i did was:
First boot windows and do a BIOS-Update, then check that UEFI-Boot is disabled there (the BIOS lags like hell by the way, no idea why).
Then i flashed the ubuntu 12.04 ALTERNATE(!) iso to a sandisk curzer titanium 2GB usb key and bootet from that.
Everything worked perfectly and still works perfectly :-)

[tadazmas (tadas-mineikis)]

Could you write your BIOS version which works?

[tadazmas (tadas-mineikis)]

If you check UEFI boot disabled in BIOS it works for sure, but if you enable UEFI mode and try to boot live-usb you will brick laptop.

[Martin Exner (martinexner)]

BIOS version: P05AAJ

[Davpal (davpal)]

Same problem and waiting for laptop repairing.
In my case the scenario was the following:

- Update de bios to lastest.
- Enable UEFI-Support.
- boot ubuntu 12.10 Alpha from usb created with unetbootin.
- Install ubuntu.
- Reboot.
- Start windows 7.
- Reboot.
- Black screen.

Laptop model: NP530U3C A01

[XclusR (xclusr)]

Is there are any solution for this bug?

I have enabled UEFI-Support,
booted from Ubuntu 12.04 live-usb

Laptop stucks in blank screen.
After power-off cycle it shows only black screen.

I have no chance to boot up or enter to BIOS?

Is there any hardware way to reset BIOS settings? Will it help?

Laptop Samsung 530u3c with 24 Gb Express-cache.

[Ludovico (aasonykk)]

@ Xclusr: I think isn't possible reset the bios (cmos memory) without open it. Return the laptop to the seller and ask for a replacement.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

@Davpal (#14): I have no idea what unetbootin does to USB images, I'm afraid. 12.10 images should be bootable from USB if they're just written directly to the drive (dd or similar) - diagnostically, I'm a lot more interested in that.

[Thomas Gonet (gonet-thomas)]

Same bug with the same procedure as OP for me with a samsung serie 7 chronos (np700z5c). The problem seems to be samsung related and not model related ... 2 laptop bricked too.

Are we sure that if we doesn't enable UEFI support no more brick can happened ? I'm thinking about my next laptop (same model or other brand)

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Thomas:
  I doubt it's generic to other vendors, but it's not too surprising that Samsung are sharing code among different models in their range, and I think uefi support is required for some systems, so it's difficult to remove, and at this point it's difficult to say exactly
which bit is broken.

  Thomas (and any of the other victims), can you confirm which version of unetbootin you used to generate the USB image?

(And as per Colin's comments in #17 any reports of it happening with something other than unetbootin would also be interesting).

Dave

[Thomas Gonet (gonet-thomas)]

Thanks for your answer ! I have used the next version of Universal USB installer (1.9.1.1) (pendrivelinux.com), not unetbootin.

I love this laptop but this bug is annoying ... i'm waiting to decide if i'm going to buy the same one or an asus. (n56vz for exemple) but If we are sur that leaving uefi disabled solve this, it's ok for me ;)

[Ludovico (aasonykk)]

@20: after I disabled UEFI on 530U3C BIOS, I installed without problems Ubuntu 12.04.1

I think is the same with your laptop.

[Thomas Gonet (gonet-thomas)]

Thanks Ludovico. It's just post #8 that makes me ask ;) I'll probably re-order one tomorrow.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Just to add, on UEFI machines that got bricked like this I removed the battery and disconnected the CMOS NVRAM battery and this restored the machine to the factory default and fixed the issue for me.

[Thomas Gonet (gonet-thomas)]

It didn't work for me ... have you ever tried with a samsung's laptop ?

[antonio (emilmart10)]

Same problem here. I have a Samsung 300e5c and I have bricked 2 laptop. After formatting the HD and installing win7 ( from original CD ), then is appeared a black screen and I can do NOTHING.
Someone has resolved ?

[Miguel Muñoz P. (mmunoz)]

I have the same problem with a laptop (a second time)

Is a ubuntu-12.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

Usb created with Ubuntu Live USB creator

I have enabled UEFI-Support

Laptop stucks in blank screen.
After power-off cycle it shows only black screen

It is the second laptop and I do not think you can return to the warranty, you can reset the BIOS on this computer? help please

(sorry for my English, I have been supported by google translator)

Laptop: NP530U3C-A02CL

[Jose Padilla (sargepl)]

Same here.

In my case I enabled UEFI and then booted Ubuntu 12.04 from a USB drive created from Windows 7. I choose "Try" in Grub and when the Unity desktop was on the display I pressed one of the bright keys. Then the desktop hung up. After that I pressed the power button for a while in order to shutdown the system and when I turned it on it had been already bricked.

It's a pity this laptop is affected by this bug. I really like it and I would consider to buy another model from another brand if the support service doesn't repair my laptop.

Laptop: NP530U3C-A01ES

[Eirik Mikkelsen (eirikmik)]

Confirmed on a NP700Z3C. Wow, didn't realise this was even possible. I will turn off UEFI in BIOS from now on.

Since my laptop was bought less than 30 days ago, I was able to exchange it for a new one (last in stock) - no questions asked!

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

FWIW, I escalated to our folks internally who deal with BIOS issues and they agreed with me that this is likely a UEFI bug that Ubuntu can't do much about; but I haven't heard anything back regarding escalating it to Samsung yet.

[Pavel Tetyaev (pahanini)]

Confirmed at NP700Z7C, tried to install from USB Flash Ubuntu 12.04 desktop amd 64 created with unetbootin.

PS. Does anyone know how to unbrick laptop now?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

why have you assigned this bug to shim?

[Kate Stewart (kate.stewart)]

From discussions with Michael earlier: shim task was opened to make sure bug was on release team radar, and hopes that either shim or grub may be able to participate in detection/mitigation. Issue some sort of "WARNING: don't do this, Ubuntu can't run on this firmware" if specific firmware identifier is detected, before UEFI progresses? If this is not the case, task should be marked as invalid.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The conclusion from the kernel team is already that it's not possible to work around this bug; and shim is *definitely* not the place for such a workaround to live because each revision of shim involves a round-trip to Microsoft. If anything's going to block the boot, it needs to be the kernel itself.

Since this bug is already assigned to the release notes, it's already on the release team radar AFAICS. But in any case, our best firmware people have already concluded there's nothing we can reasonably do here and the firmware just needs to get fixed.

[crayzeewulf (crayzeewulf)]

I confirm that this happens even with Ubuntu 12.10. Bricked on today. :(

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

crayzeewulf, I'm sorry to hear that you've run into this bug. I hope you are able to get the machine recovered through the vendor.

It would help us to track this bug down and spare other users this pain if you could provide more information about how you were installing and what you experienced.

 * Can you confirm that you had specifically configured your BIOS to boot in UEFI mode?

 * Can you tell us how you prepared the USB stick for booting? For instance: did you write the image to the disk using unetbootin, or with Startup Disk Creator, or with another tool (which one)? If using unetbootin, what OS did you use to do the writing?

 * When you tried to boot the image, what happened? At what point did the machine become unresponsive?

Hopefully you can take the time to answer these questions.

[crayzeewulf (crayzeewulf)]

Steve:

I did not expect this to happen in my wildest imagination and, hence, did not pay too much attention to the exact steps I followed. But I will try to answer your questions the best I can:

> Can you confirm that you had specifically configured your BIOS to boot in UEFI mode?

Yes. I tried booting the computer using the 12.10 (64-bit) USB stick but it would not recognize it as a bootable device. I tried changing several obvious things in the BIOS such as the boot device order. But these changes did not work. Eventually, I found an option that said something to the effect that enabling it will allow both legacy and UEFI boot. I remember that it was on an unexpected place in the BIOS (AFAIK). This allowed me to boot from the USB stick.

> Can you tell us how you prepared the USB stick for booting?

I used Startup Disk Creator from another machine that was running Ubuntu 12.04.1 (64-bit).

> When you tried to boot the image, what happened? At what point did the machine become unresponsive?

The machine booted up from the USB stick. During the initial stages of the boot process the screen blinked and I saw a UEFI-related message on the top-left corner of the screen. The message was only displayed for a fraction of second so the only words that I remember were "UEFI" and "secure". Also, the message consisted of only about four of five words.

After this I saw the familiar Ubuntu bootup screen with the image of a keyboard and a person/stick-figure at the bottom of the screen. I usually press space bar at this stage and select the option for installing Ubuntu on the system instead of using it as a "live cd". This is what I ended up doing. I figured that it will do its thing and take me through the installation process next. At this point I went away to do something else hoping to return to the installation screen in a couple of minutes. However, I returned to a black screen containing several error messages. These were not kernel oops messages as far as I remember. The messages complained about something going wrong with the CPU (sorry, I should have written these down but that is all I remember).

I was using a really really really old 1GB USB stick that I had dug up from a forgotten corner of a couch. So, I immediately blamed it, ignored the error messages, recycled power, and started my quest for another USB stick. After this the computer never booted up. :(

> I hope you are able to get the machine recovered through the vendor.

Lets hope so.

[Albert Widiatmoko (albert-widiatmoko)]

My Samsung lappy brick twice, but it is different in my case. The BIOS always broken aftere doing update from update manager.

1. Install Ubuntu
2. Boot normaly(no grub)
3. Update(Update Manager)
4. Reboot
5. Grub appeared from nowhere
6. Select ubuntu
7. Boot forever
8. Power off
9. Black Screen

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Albert:
  Can you add some detail please;

   1) what model of laptop do you have?
   2) When you say it's bricked twice - that's confusing, do you mean you've permenantly unrecoverably bricked two laptops, or do you mean you somehow recovered them?
   3) What version of Ubuntu did you install at (1) ?
   4) The boot at (2) was that a normal boot after the installation?
   5) In (3) did it upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu (which?)
   6) Had you ever selecting the EFI boot options?

Dave

[allocerceau (pkhbdb)]

OK, so I just found out this bug while bricking my samsung laptop. I had trouble de install a windows 7 pro version over the home premium one, so I decided to try and install ubuntu.
I have (had ?) a series 3 samsung laptop, and tried to install 12.10 version of ubuntu.
The installation went well, until the computer rebooted to "blank" purple screen. I couldn't even shut down the laptop with a long press on the power button, so I forced shut down by removing the power cable. When I tried to power it on, I had and still have nothing on the screen (it powers on but nothing happens).

I tried to clear cmos by removing the battery inside but it was no use.
Connecting to another screen didn't help as well.
I also tried to long press the power button without any power supply (cable or battery).

I don't know what to do, and feel like I just lost 500€ (the laptop was never used). I am pretty upset.

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

pkhbdb/allocerceau: Can you state the exact version of the samsung laptop you had/have.

When you did the installation, how did you install - did you use a CD or USB stick? Did you at any point select 'EFI' during the boot process? If you used a USB stick how exactly did you right the thumb drive?

Dave

[Fabio (mr-fabio90)]

Mine's not a problem concering GRUB. My problem is that during installation Win8 is not recognized so that i could choose "Install Ubuntu alongside windows 8". So is there a full guide on installing ubuntu safley on these machines? or can someone wrote one? PLEASE HELP! Thanks!

[Fabio (mr-fabio90)]

Oh ok..i'll Try your guide on the second link!! Thanks..i'll wrote in case of success ;)

[Fabio (mr-fabio90)]

So here's my STORY(Long Story) with my Samsung computers.
I think what i'm going to write could be a:

GUIDE IN INSTALLING UBUNTU 12.04.2 ON SAMSUNG 535U3C-A02 AND SAMSUNG 535U3C-A03(A02=AMD A6 - A03=AMD A4)

1) Update BIOS using windows 8(or Win7) preinstalled. My version was P04RAS updated to P07RAS!
2) Create a boot disk using unetbootin on windows 8
3)Go to BIOS>FastBoot>Disabled
4) Go to BIOS>SecureBoot>Disabled>CSM OS(IMPORTANT DO NOT SELECT "CSM OS AND UEFI OS")
5) Select your USB-DRIVE as primary device for boot.
6) Boot into Live.

--BREAK--
At this point the computer should work but there are several problems:
1)Ati drivers(KEEP THE COMPUTER SCREEN ON AND NEVER GO ON SUSPEND..MAYBE CLOSING THE SCREEN OR YOU'LL HAVE TO REBOOT INTO LIVE!!)
2)On AC-plugged in the computer is very slow so please charge your battery before installing. The solution to this problem is installing Jupiter during your live session..so if you install jupiter you can use your computer with AC-in.

--Continue--

7)Install UBUNTU 12.04.2 choosing the option to install Updates and third part software.
8)At this point (for me) WIN 8 is not recognized so chose "Other" in installation option.
9)Editing Partitions:

You just DO NOT TOUCH BOOT PARTIOTION!! Resize Win 8 one(NTFS partition) and create, using the new free space, an EXT4 partition and a SWAP partition. CHOOSE THE HDD(SDA) AS DISK TO INSTALL BOOTLOADER, NO OTHER PARTITION!

10) Let Ubuntu install!
11) On the first reboot install all of the updates needed.
12) After installing updates go to: http://support.amd.com/it/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx and download BETA DRIVERS 13.8!!
13) Install drivers using terminal(go to directory and type "sudo 'name-of-the-driver'")
14) On reboot YOU HAVE YOUR CARD FULLY WORKING AND WAKEUP AFTER SUSPEND WORKS PERFECTLY!!
NOTE:
DO NOT REMOVE THE DRIVER SETUP AFTER INSTALL!! EVERY TIME YOU'LL UPDATE THE KERNEL YOU'LL HAVE TO REINSTALL DRIVERS MANUALLY FROM CONSOLE AND REBOOT. THEN EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AGAIN!

15) INSTALL JUPITER!!! Is very important so that the fan works correctly AND TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF SLOW PC ON AC IN!
16) Use the Plymouth fix proposed here: http://www.mobilegeek.it/2010/05/ubuntu-10-04-fix-veloce-per-plymouth/ to make plymouth show correctly on boot!

17) More or less you've DONE!! Enjoy
18) Battery Life is good..3H on 80% charge..
19) Backlight start working when you install ATI drivers.
20) Camera works with skype!

Everything is OK. I use this trick to disable bluetooth on boot: http://www.lffl.org/2011/12/ubuntu-disattivare-il-bluetooth-o-wifi.html

I hope this guide could Help so much people using the same machine. SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH! GOOD LUCK!

[Jethro (jethro-belman)]

Hi guys,

Apologies for my lack of response. I had been running fine Ubuntu by manually enabling CSM as boot option in BIOS and booting but GRUB would give an error trying to load Windows 8, I had to manually change back to UEFI boot option to load Win 8. I hadn't had time to find a fix to this.

FYI when I installed Ubuntu I used the option install alongside Win 8.

I have subsequently used the excellently tool here to fix this: http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/ I used this by installing via Ubuntu and just running standard options, upon reboot im running fine.

And GRUB now boots fine into Ubuntu or Win 8. When I get time i'm going to actually dig a bit deeper and write a guide and figure out the actual issue but as a Linux noob I've not had the time to go too deep into the root cause.

In essence using my above steps and then using the boot repair tool I'm able to dual boot fine. Will update in the future again.

[keghn (keghn)]

 I had to use boot repair on insulation of 11.04, 11.10,and 12.04 to make Ubuntu visible on
My grub table. 11.04 and 11.10 I had on my Sony viao. Then I moved up to a Samsung NP700Z5C
laptop.
 Put 12.04 on that. When 12.10 came out I bricked my rig trying it out, on A live usb thumb drive.
 Ubuntu is getting harder and with every new distro to install on my computer.
 I wish Ubuntu would slow down for just for one year to chase out most of there bugs.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jethro <email address hidden>
To: keghn <email address hidden>
Sent: Sun, Aug 4, 2013 1:05 pm
Subject: [Bug 1040557] Re: UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C, np700z5c laptop

Hi guys,

Apologies for my lack of response. I had been running fine Ubuntu by
manually enabling CSM as boot option in BIOS and booting but GRUB would
give an error trying to load Windows 8, I had to manually change back to
UEFI boot option to load Win 8. I hadn't had time to find a fix to this.

FYI when I installed Ubuntu I used the option install alongside Win 8.

I have subsequently used the excellently tool here to fix this:
http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/ I used this by
installing via Ubuntu and just running standard options, upon reboot im
running fine.

And GRUB now boots fine into Ubuntu or Win 8. When I get time i'm going
to actually dig a bit deeper and write a guide and figure out the actual
issue but as a Linux noob I've not had the time to go too deep into the
root cause.

In essence using my above steps and then using the boot repair tool I'm
able to dual boot fine. Will update in the future again.

--
You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
duplicate bug report (1124616).
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557

Title:
  UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop

Status in Ubuntu CD image build software:
  Invalid
Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu quantal series:
  Fix Released
Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Committed
Status in “linux” source package in Oneiric:
  Fix Released
Status in “linux” source package in Precise:
  Fix Released
Status in “linux” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  I cannot provide detailed log massages because laptop is bricked right
  now.

  If you have courage to try it select UEFI boot from bios and than try
  to boot laptop using liveusb (made form Precise Pangolin 12.04.1
  amd64).

  Laptop hangs up in black screen. If you force power-off, after it,
  laptop wont start. I mean it not event start bios, just black screen
  no sounds nothing.

  I filing this report, because i already bricked second laptop. At
  first i thought it was unrelated issue and laptop was fixed by
  warranty service (replaced motherboard), but after second time i quite
  sure.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions

[nob0dy (kib0rg1337)]

Can anyone confirm that this bug did not affect the Samsung Series 3 (370R5E)?

It has been 2 BIOS updates since the release of the laptop (of course, changelog's has not been provided), and I wonder whether this is fixed now, or just do not have this bug.

I can not find any information on the internet about 370r5e (users only talk about the 300/350 models).

Does anyone have this laptop, and have you had experience of installing on it two OS's (Win8 + Ubuntu) with EFI?

[Casper Alant (caalant)]

So I figure the safest thing to do is to wait for Ubuntu 13.10 release? Since this uses linux kernel 3.11 which contains the anti brick patch?

[Chinmay Rajhans (rajhanschinmay)]

So is this problem only with Samsung laptops/
Is this only for 64 bit or it is also for 32 bit.
Kindly inform on this.

Thank you in advance.

[Casper Alant (caalant)]

It is only on Samsung laptops. I don't know if the version affects the issue.

[Žygimantas Beručka (zygis)]

Calant, let me put it this way. There were no confirmations either from
SAMSUNG or from Ubuntu/kernel devs that the fixes released necessarily
solve those issues (no info from SAMSUNG at all). However, as you can see,
there are almost no new reports that people are still facing the issue.

If you are interested in my way of dealing with the situation, as I wrote
somewhere above, I installed vanilla 13.04 (it already has the
hypothetically bug triggering 'samsung-laptop' module disabled) and
afterwards (on the first boot) made sure to have a 3.10 kernel installed
from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/. (Just in case; as 3.10
– still a -rc at the time – was the first kernel containing some
significant Matthew Garrett's anti-bricking patches that should in theory
remove even a slightest possibility to be affected by the issue.) Have not
looked back since then, everything has been working flawlessly (I have a
530U3C-EE05 machine).

So you can wait or just do the same as I did (just take the 3.11 mainline
kernel instead, as it is already out). And I am not the only one who did
this, as you can see in this thread.

2013/9/11 calant <email address hidden>

> So I figure the safest thing to do is to wait for Ubuntu 13.10 release?
> Since this uses linux kernel 3.11 which contains the anti brick patch?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

[Žygimantas Beručka (zygis)]

And do not forget to get the latest Samsung BIOS updates from within
Windows first! This is of utmost importance.

2013/9/11 calant <email address hidden>

> So I figure the safest thing to do is to wait for Ubuntu 13.10 release?
> Since this uses linux kernel 3.11 which contains the anti brick patch?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

[Germán Becker (german-becker)]

Hi everybody,

I have just purchased a 530U3C. I have read through all the comments. I would like if someone could clarify some points.

About the specific issue:

Is it reasonable safe to try/install Ubuntu disabling UEFI?

Does current release 13.04 come with a kernel containing the patch mentioned above?

The BIOS menu does not have "secure boot", or "cms", just enable or disable UEFI. disabling that setting would be enough?

What are the disadvantages of disabling UEFI?

What would be the "best way" to create the booteable pen drive?

I upgraded the BIOS using samsung's updater (version info below) . Do we have any info yet ragarding the fix?

A little off-topic / if someone insalled ubuntu in this model:

Does dual booting work ok? i.e. may i risk the Windows 7 installation by installing GRUB, etc?

Is it safe to delete the partitions on the SSD drive and install linux there or would that bring problems to windows?

Many thanks in advance and sorry if this is a misuse of the bug-report. If I devcide to try it i will report the results.

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  Nombre: BaseBoardManufacturer
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.

Valor 5
  Nombre: BaseBoardProduct
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: SAMSUNG_NP1234567890

Valor 6
  Nombre: BaseBoardVersion
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: FAB1

Valor 7
  Nombre: BIOSReleaseDate
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: 04/15/2013

Valor 8
  Nombre: BIOSVendor
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: Phoenix Technologies Ltd.

Valor 9
  Nombre: BIOSVersion
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: P14AAJ

Valor 10
  Nombre: SystemFamily
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: ChiefRiver System

Valor 11
  Nombre: SystemManufacturer
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.

Valor 12
  Nombre: SystemProductName
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: 530U3C/530U4C

Valor 13
  Nombre: SystemSKU
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: System SKUNumber

Valor 14
  Nombre: SystemVersion
  Tipo: REG_SZ
  Datos: 0.1

[keghn (keghn)]

 Hello,
What model is you laptop?
 Did you up date the bios in Windows?
 Is the computer still under warranty?
 I have 12.04 working on my laptop right now.
 I believe 12.04.1 to 12.10* are bricks for My Samsung
notebook.
 Wish you better luck,
     keghn

.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

BTW the "latest" is 13.10 and NOT 13.04

[Casper Alant (caalant)]

My System came installed with Windows 8, which I updated to 8.1. and I am succesfully dual booting it and Ubuntu 13.10.
Name NP700Z5C-S02ZA
Vendor SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. (www.samsung.com)
BIOS
Date 11/04/2013
Vendor Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (www.phoenix.com)
Version P07ABJ
Computer
Processor 8x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3615QM CPU @ 2.30GHz
Memory 7873MB (997MB used)
Operating System Ubuntu 13.10

I updated to the latest bios drivers, deactivated fast boot/quick boot(in windows and in bios), intel rapid responce etc.
Shrinked my main drive to allow space for Ubuntu. Booted the Ubuntu live usb with UEFI and SecureBoot stil enabled.
Installed Ubuntu using the existing efi partition and the HDD as to location for the bootloader.
It installed fine and Ubuntu worked just like that, however Windows 8.1 did not work until I disabled SecureBoot.(I'm not sure why.)
I did not even run repair-boot. :)

[Fabio (mr-fabio90)]

I confirm Calant procedure:
ON SAMSUNG 535U3C A03DE

1) Updated Bios to P07RAS
2) Disabled Fastboot on both Windows8 and bios
3) Run usb boot with SecureBoot Enabled and UEFI selected
4) Normally installed Ubuntu selecting Other during install and partitioning the hdd.
5) Selected the hdd for bootloader
6) On reboot Everything worked fine.
IMPORTANT!! Using emulated bios..Ubuntu was really slow on AC-IN(100% CPU usage while charging)...but with UEFI Installation the problem seems to be solved. :D Oh i use AMD Catalyst Version 13.11 beta V9.95..Site version...wokrs wel.. FINALLY UBUNTU SEEMS TO BE FINE ON THIS MACHINE!!!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Anders, please stop walking around Launchpad and changing the status of random bugs.

[José Matos (miguelcm86)]

The problem is solved in samsung serie 7 chronos (np700z5c) ?
In the version ubuntu 14.04?

Can I activate the secureboot and install new ubuntu?

Thanks,
Miguel

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Mathew, thanks for getting involved in helping with Ubuntu. Please don't change the statuses or assignments of this bug (or similar bugs), it is used for the tracking of progress on the Samsung UEFI boot bug. If you want to get involved, please see http://www.ubuntu.com/community/get-involved. Thanks in advance.

[Andrea Biolo (andrewbiolo89)]

Hi! I have the ultrabook Samsung np530u3c-a07. The Bios is updated, I think (P12ABH, 25/10/2013). I want install ubuntu 14.04, but I don't want risk. Someone have installed ubuntu 14.04 in a pc with this parameter whitout problems?

[Žygimantas Beručka (zygis)]

Andrea, it should work just fine. Which basically means: there were no new
reports of machines getting bricked that I know of since many months. For
example, I've been using np530U3C-A05 in UEFI mode just fine since June.

2014-05-09 11:24 GMT+02:00 Andrea Biolo <email address hidden>:

> Hi! I have the ultrabook Samsung np530u3c-a07. The Bios is updated, I
> think (P12ABH, 25/10/2013). I want install ubuntu 14.04, but I don't
> want risk. Someone have installed ubuntu 14.04 in a pc with this
> parameter whitout problems?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

[nanolight (adrian-lamy)]

Hi all,
I own an Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP540U3C with Windows 8. I updated the bios to P12ABH and want to install Kubuntu 14.04.
I understand that the bug seems fixed with kernels >3.10 and this bios but I am not sure about the procedure as people explained different setups.
If I want to keep windows, should I select CSM or UEFI in the bios? Secure and Fast Boot? Do I have to do anything with /boot/efi? Can I install / on the SSD alongside windows and install /home on the HDD?

Sorry if my questions are a bit trivial but I have been lost in the plethora of feedbacks.
My laptop is still on warranty for a couple more weeks.

Thanks
Adrian

[Žygimantas Beručka (zygis)]

Hey Adrian,

Let me just quote what I wrote above 11 months ago:

"First of all, I have installed SAMSUNG BIOS upgrades from within Windows 8,
then reduced Windows partition to leave around 40–50 Gb of free space, the
remaining free space on a HDD was allocated for Ubuntu's "/home" directory.
Next I disabled Intel rapid start technology, in Windows, (for I might need
to copy files from Ubuntu to that Windows partition in the future, and
AFAIK having that enabled would lead to filesystem errors) and disabled
secure boot in BIOS. Having made those preparations, I went to install
Ubuntu 13.04 amd64 from a USB flash drive. (I have a 500 Gb hard drive and
a SanDisk SSD i100 24GB. As I do not boot into Windows very often, I wiped
everything present on the SSD and allocated it for Ubuntu's "/" partition
(great boot/app launch speeds!).)

All is well. Later I realized Windows would not boot out of the box,
complaining something about an invalid path or something, I do not recall
the exact message. However, installing and using Repair-Boot did the trick;
now I am able to boot into both Ubuntu and Windows 8 just fine."

For the record, I'm still running the same install only upgraded to Trusty.
I can confirm everything is working fine, dual boot works etc. I installed
it in the UEFI mode; keep in mind that otherwise you would't be able to
boot Windows.

2014-05-20 21:14 GMT+02:00 nanolight <email address hidden>:

> Hi all,
> I own an Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP540U3C with Windows 8. I updated the
> bios to P12ABH and want to install Kubuntu 14.04.
> I understand that the bug seems fixed with kernels >3.10 and this bios but
> I am not sure about the procedure as people explained different setups.
> If I want to keep windows, should I select CSM or UEFI in the bios? Secure
> and Fast Boot? Do I have to do anything with /boot/efi? Can I install / on
> the SSD alongside windows and install /home on the HDD?
>
> Sorry if my questions are a bit trivial but I have been lost in the
> plethora of feedbacks.
> My laptop is still on warranty for a couple more weeks.
>
> Thanks
> Adrian
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

[stblack (stblack-linux)]

I have installed ubuntu on my NP770Z5C setting "CSM OS and UEFI" and disabling Fastboot and secureboot (Windows boot is working). Quite all seems ok.
I would like to have also che Backlight keyboard functioning, but not bricking all.
Is it possible to use what is listed in this page (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62941) and have it working?
Could someone help me ?

Thanks.
Stblack

[Val (vk1266)]

@stblack: the "fix" for this bug involved blackisting the samsung-laptop module for the UEFI mode. In CMS, the samsung-laptop module is not blacklisted. Therefore you must use the CMS mode in order to have the functionality of the samsung-laptop module which includes keyboard backlighting.

[Theis Christensen (christensen-theis)]

the so called "fix" has been there for over a year, what is the status on this bug?
is it closed and people has accepted that they have a laptop where not all features are working, or is someone working on it?

[Aki Rossi (lorkki)]

Blacklisting the samsung-laptop module in UEFI mode fixes the related but
separate issue of the kernel crashing on bootup. The root cause of the
bricking was that Samsung's firmware had an undocumented requirement of 5KB
of free UEFI variable space to be able to start up. The kernel crash would
cause a log dump, which could cause the variable store to be filled beyond
this limit. (Matthew Garrett provided a more detailed report in his blog
last year: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/25091.html )

Handling of UEFI variables was changed in the kernel (in Ubuntu 13.10 and
newer), and Samsung supposedly made fixes to their firmware, so the
bricking issue is fixed. As far as this bug is concerned, the installation
procedure is to update your firmware to the newest version and then install
Ubuntu as usual.

Driver support for particular laptop models should probably be addressed in
separate bug reports.

On 23 May 2014 21:05, Theis Christensen <email address hidden> wrote:

> the so called "fix" has been there for over a year, what is the status on
> this bug?
> is it closed and people has accepted that they have a laptop where not all
> features are working, or is someone working on it?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

--
Aki Rossi

[keghn (keghn)]

Hi,

 I did the up date to the firmware in windows and have not up graded from 12.04.
 Is there way from the Linux side, with bash, to see if the firmware, and all others parts, are set
up right for doing the install, of 14.04?

Bbest regards,
   keghn

[Val (vk1266)]

@Aki Rossi: if handling of UEFI variables was changed in Ubuntu 13.10 to prevent tickling this bug and (supposedly) the newer Samsung firmware is not vulnerable to this bug, is it now good time to remove the samsung-laptop driver from blacklist?

[Aki Rossi (lorkki)]

No. Despite not directly causing the bricking, the samsung-laptop driver
will only work in CMS mode and will cause random and potentially very bad
problems when running under UEFI. The driver support issue is separate from
this bug.

On 23 May 2014 22:59, Val <email address hidden> wrote:

> @Aki Rossi: if handling of UEFI variables was changed in Ubuntu 13.10 to
> prevent tickling this bug and (supposedly) the newer Samsung firmware is
> not vulnerable to this bug, is it now good time to remove the samsung-
> laptop driver from blacklist?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040557
>
> Title:
> UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557/+subscriptions
>

--
Aki Rossi

[Fabio (mr-fabio90)]

So no plans to fix samsung-laptop under UEFI? Ubuntu in CSM mode is faster then in UEFI and there's no bug with AC-IN(in UEFI I still notice some slowness), but is "not natural" installing in CSM: I mean..we've new machines but we can't use UEFI.

[Mantas (mantasmarkeviciuslt)]

Can confirm that this bug is still not fixed on Ubuntu 14.04.1, cannot provide the bios version, because I cannot access it, but I believe it was an old version. Did anyone find a way to unbrick the laptop?

[Reimundo Heluani (rheluani)]

I apologize for flooding this bug report but I posted in several samsung/linux related forums with no reply. I guess I got lucky with this laptop (530u3c-ad5br BIOS:p07abh) since the bios is supposed to be still affected by the bug but I installed gentoo with a kernel new enough to have the samsung-laptop module checking for UEFI at start and blacklisting itself. So I installed normally in UEFI modes without bricking it. However, none of my leds work. Not even the "AC-outlet connected" one when it's powered down. I don't think this is a software issue and I suspect that probably it will need to have the BIOS reflashed, but since I got rid of windows and reflashing is a hassle, I wanted to find out first if someone else is experiencing the same problem, or even if someone else is not (at this point I have no clue if all, some or none other 530u3c have this problem).

I already tried unpluging and pressing the hole/button that powers the battery in the back, as well as going through the code in the kernel and in the DSDT tables for clues, to find nothing.

[Val (vk1266)]

@Reimundo: like in your case, many of my LEDs do not work in the UEFI mode. I ended up switching to the CSM where the samsung-laptop module is not blacklisted. Bluetooth and all LEDs on my laptop work just fine in the CSM. Until the samsung-laptop module is ported to the UEFI, our Samsung laptops are not very useful when booted via UEFI.

[Alex SImon (asimon880)]

I installed ubuntu 14.04 and f2 doesnt work. it just takes me to to the grub menu. also booting from a cd/dvd/usb is not working. i thought right away to reset the bios but my laptop 300e5c doesnt have a way to do that. it says a fix was released. i also saw something about flashing the bios using a usb but how the heck is that going to work if my machine cant boot usbs.

ugh.

[BartaSzili (bartaszili)]

Hi everyone,
I'm gonna try to install Ubuntu 15.04 x64 on my Samsung NP700Z3C-S02HU. In live mode seems everything OK. Minor thing is, that just the left speaker is active for some reason I don't know why? I'll be back soon with my happy update hopefully...

[Aki Rossi (lorkki)]

You seem to have responded to an old, closed bug that's unrelated to
your problem. You're much more likely to find help if you bring this
up on the forums or (if you can debug this further than "it doesn't
work") file a new bug report about your audio ordeals.

On 6 August 2015 at 15:28, BartaSzili <email address hidden> wrote:
> I'm gonna try to install Ubuntu 15.04 x64 on my Samsung NP700Z3C-S02HU. In live mode seems everything OK. Minor thing is, that just the left speaker is active for some reason I don't know why? I'll be back soon with my happy update hopefully...

--
Aki Rossi

[InF3rN0 (inf3rn0)]

Hi, I could not imagine an OS installation could corrupt the BIOS (whether be Samsung's fault or Linux's).

The problem happened to me with a NP300E4X-A04CO; don't know BIOS version. Ubuntu 18.04 (LTS).

I'm able to use F3 (CD boot), but I haven't tried to update BIOS since I haven't found a BIOS for such laptop (if anyone has any that works, I would thank you). I don't know yet if Online BIOS Update is working.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Wed, Dec 04, 2019 at 06:27:02PM -0000, InF3rN0 wrote:
> Hi, I could not imagine an OS installation could corrupt the BIOS
> (whether be Samsung's fault or Linux's).

> The problem happened to me with a NP300E4X-A04CO; don't know BIOS
> version. Ubuntu 18.04 (LTS).

You are responding to an old, closed bug that was not reported on Ubuntu
18.04. Please file a new bug report for your issue and describe exactly
what happened.