It is official... NP700Z7C-S01US is a lemon - Part 2

For some reason the backlight has stopped working also...

 

Probability here then is the UEFI hardware initialization file is not being read. This file probably also turns the power to the keyboard on as well. TBH there may be a way to get it back but this too could also put you back with an unbootable system.

Edit; TBH again they most likely will never tell you what was done. They could be cornering a market here.

 

Good to see this chatter here. I sent the HDD on 6/30 before I went to Washington State for a mini vacation. Still have not heard back from them. I will call tomorrow.

To the 15 second delay. Question: What if joot were to reformat his drive and load Win7 instead of Win8(.1). Would that solve any problems with the delay? As for the backlit keyboard, that is a mystery in and of itself.

 

The UEFI table is loaded from under the format and allocation. In this way just playing with Disc Manager will not screw the pouch, so to say. Again more than likely not finding this where it expects it then is not initializing the backlit keyboard. Another school of thought is the UEFI is trying to initialize but not seeing the keyboard then kicks out but this is highly, and I mean highly, unlikely.

I caution against an OS change as it could easily restart the boot issue. This is the problem with not knowing what was done and also what exactly is happening to cause the delay. If we knew it were just re-pointing the UEFI boot location and setting it properly then it could be fixed, notice I did not say easily.

 

I just got off the phone with L2 Computers in NYC. They shipped out my machine on 7/8 and I should have it on 7/14.

According to the "technician", all he did was reflash the BIOS. Well, I wonder how they did that? If that is what it takes to fix one of these lemons then is this something any computer repair facility can do?

Joot, did you access your BIOS and see what version it was? Is it the current or maybe they loaded a different version and that might be what is causing your delay. I don't know, just trying to help figure out what went wrong.

I know I have seen instructions on how to reflash a BIOS, but how does one "break" into the bios if the machine will not boot at all? This would be an interesting topic I would think.

When I get it back tomorrow I will install my HDD and see what happens. But, is there something I should do first before installing the HDD? Maybe start the machine without any media and confirm setting of the BIOS so that I can at least read from USB or DVD?

Thanks
Brian D

 

We all know a reflash will bring most of these back. It resets the UEFI data and position, IE. it fixes all the UEFI corruption issues. This is where most fixes here go awry. When the UEFI corrupts it makes it almost impossible to flash a new/same bios. Now if the Bios Emergency Recovery were used, and this system supporsts that, I could easily see that. Same is true if he has an eprom burner that was used.

 

Andy, I tried to use the BIOS Emergency Recovery but could not get into the BIOS by any means. I am sure if the BIOS was set to allow USB/DVD access then it might be a different story. However, I had my BIOS setup so it would fast boot and did not give me access to USB or DVD. I am sure that was my downfall. Lesson learned here, serious lesson learned.

There is a possibility that L2 removed the BIOS and reflashed it. I am not sure, but it would seem the logical route. Or, they could have replaced the BIOS and then flashed it. I am not sure and they did not offer that information.

 

It would be nice to know the procedure, especially if it were one that can be preformed at home. It would be nice though to say the third system got recovered though.

 

Bios version is the same exact one. There is only one bios version for this BestBuy laptop. As far as installing different OS version, I've tried Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10 Preview, no difference, they all have the 15 second delay booting from a cold boot.. Note however, if you perform a system restart and not a shut down, then cold boot restart, there is no delay. There's a delay only if you shut the computer down and re-start it again with the power button.

 

Thanks Joot...

Well it arrived. Same issue that joot is having is what I am having. Seems as though it takes me about 19 seconds before the splash screen comes on. I have BIOS access via F2 and recovery access via F4. But the recovery does not work. Nor will the machine boot.

I get a BCD file error 0XC000034. I have Win8.1 DVD and tried that. Boots up from DVD but cannot repair. I checked the BIOS to see if UEFI was enabled and it is. But something about the BIOS menus looked strange.

Checked the BIOS version and it is P03AAE which I think is the first generation of BIOS. I seem to recall the BIOS for this machine should be P03APB. This could very well be the root cause of not booting right now. The reason I remember is when I was starting to have issues I did a search on BIOS versions for this machine. I also seem to recall looking at the BIOS version when I still had F2 BIOS access.

So there we are. Still a lemon. LOL but maybe with some more digging around I can upgrade the BIOS and get it to boot. If not, I will have to get a working copy of Samsung's Win8 with recovery. I have a full recovery of the HDD but I also have all the files from my user account. So either way, but I would like to have F4 recovery back on the machine.

Thanks again for all your help!

added: I thought I sent my power supply with the computer to NYC. I can't find it and it was not in the box. I was pretty sure I sent it but that was 4 months ago. So I will chalk it up to old age. Can anyone tell me what the model number for the NP700Z7C-S01US power brick? Thanks.