I purchased this HP4540s back in late 2013 brand new and out of the box I started noticing CHKDSK errors. Never crashed or hung, just a few errors that were always repairable, system ran great, no speed issues etc. Full sector scans of the HDD (Hitichi 750gig 7200rpm) yeilded zero issus with the drive. A few months later I removed a Sandisk Pro 256gig SSD from an older DV6000 laptop which worked perfectly and cloned the drive to install in the 4540s. After the install the same thing began to happen, except worse. About once a day, 12-16hrs continous operation the system will become unresponsive, the SSD/HDD light lights 100% for about a minute and then goes off. About a minute later I either get a BSOD or the system re-boots itself and then tries to connect to some DHCP source, most likely because BIOS doesn't even see the SSD. A (4) second power button turns it off and then upon re-powering it I get the Windows was shutdown incorrctly screen and I just choose start Windows normally and all is OK but usally but not always I have CHKDSK errors again and sometimes damaged files, to the point I've had to re-install applications. Both HDD and SSD perform flawlessly in other computers. I'm beginning to wonder if I have an issue with the primary SATA channel or a chipset issue and I want to resolve this before warranty ends and it turns out I need a motherboard replaced. Anyone have any tests/tips that I can try on this thing to track this down. It's slowly eating my files away day after day (yes I do have 6 month old image files of the drive saved just in case and create new ones often but most likely backing up damaged files at this point - found an old pdf file yesterday that was corrupted - thank god for image files). I haven't tried a 3rd drive as I see no point since the (2) I'm working with work fine in other machines and test perfectly sector wise. The problem gets worse as you push data harder on the primary SDD/HDD. Some mornings I'll bring it out of hibernate and it'll crash in minutes (not heat related there), restart it and its OK for the day, might crash again later in the evening but usually once a day, very intermittent but always reproducable. No excessive CPU, in fact zero issues with the thing when its working; system is lightening fast with the SSD but the errors occur more often then with a platter as well which again points me towards a chipset or SATA channel problem as the SSD can load the SATA channel so much harder than the platter drive ever could. Also, just an observation, the issue seems more prevelent during operations that delete large numbers of files such as emptying the recycled bin with a couple of hundred files in the bin. I have 2 of these 4540s laptops, the other is my wifes and her's is on basically the same duty cycle. I haven't seen a single CHKDSK error on that laptop to date. The only difference in the machines is her's has a 750gig 7200rpm WD Black HDD. Also, I have a 1 terabyte 7200rmp external drive on one of the USB3 port 24/7 that reads/writes gigs and gigs of data per day (media center activity - DVR recording) and it has NEVER had a CHKDSK error either however it is storage only, no OS. There are no heat issues at all. CPU usage even with Media Center recording HD is under 10% with CPU @ 1.2gig clock, in other words, a fast idle. The system also runs in extended desktop with a second large LCD display.
Thanks in advance