My one week old z540 just did a freaky thing... One of the LED backlights (near center of screen) went on the blink a few times then came back on. It looked like a dark vertical stripe coming up from the bottom. I run at only 33% brightness in advanced power management, and I'm plugged into AC power.
I guess I've got a year (minus a week) to send in for repair if it continues to go blinky, and I'll be checking with my seller on their return policy. Overall I'm happy with my Z, but this combined with the battery drain issue (I loose 10% overnight) is making me regret buying VAIO.
The problem got waaay worse today, less than two weeks of use Now the whole screen goes completely black except 4 or 5 of the backlights and others that flicker randomly (see picture below). I can temporarily get it back to normal if I reboot or even close the lid. But if I change the brightness to anything but 100%, then whole screen goes dark.
When I try to use the brightness level in between LOW and HIGH, my LCD backlight would go off, and the screen would be dark and almost not visible at all. There are also vertical bars at random spots, stretching from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. I can only use it with either LOW setting or HIGH setting, nothing in between.
This problem just started on its own. I have not installed anything such as drivers or programs. No updates(was updated after the problem occured to try to fix it).
I love this laptop to death and has been the best laptop in the past 15 years. I would hate to see it go so I need this fixed.
I will update later with pictures when it gets dark here b/c the pictures now are not showing up with the bars.
At last the day came.. after almost a month of waiting i got my new Z540 - very stylish and nice machine.. but unfortantly i noticed the top-panel (keyboard) seemed un-attached to the buttom.. see the pics:
Someone said the 6xx drivers work fine on the 5xx series if you extract them from the model wrapper, but looking at the drivers, it looks like some hardware is different.
The Sony site only lists a little amount of 64 bit drivers (they didn't used to list any about 6 months ago) but there are some hardware components that don't have 64 bit drivers listed and are different in the 6xx series.
Could I get everything 100% working on a Z540 with Vista or 7 64-bit?
I have just bought one Sony vaio Z - Model VGN-Z540 NCB( Series Nr: 3109242; PC Nr 28399382)- in Vietnam but it . My question is How can I know it is a real one or refurbished one? what site I can get information for this products?.
I just tried to install wiindows 7 on my z540, I already installed all drivers downloaded for sony's website, but the function keys still are not working.
Thinking of buying a Vaio X from Conics for use in the UK. Anybody who has experience with this? They seem to ship it with an English Windows 7 version, keyboard in their base model is Japanese international however.
Still a good deal it seems at 760GBP+shipping for the Z540 with 64gb SSD.
I'm trying to upgrade my VAIO Z540 from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7, but I am afraid of the incompatibility of the internal parts with the new system.
So, I would like to inquire if anyone has tried before and what results?
Also for the drivers, because I tried to search for it but unfortunately I have not found it. So I'll be grateful if you could help me to find them.
normally, when the battery power is low, PCs should go to 'standby/sleep mode' and save all current tasks in Memories. PCs will wake up and restore all previous tasks after plugging in AC power supply.
however, my z540 is weird, when the battery power is low, it does go to standby/sleep mode, but then it will wake up itself and go to standby/sleep mode again..Over And Over... until it runs out of all battery power. so all current opened operations will be lost, the only thing I can do to prevent form losing my job is to connect AC power supply immediately before the battery power is used up.
does any z owner encounter the same situation as mine?
Has anyone installed Windows 7 x 64 on your VGN-z540 laptop? I tried nvidia's web site, guru3d, sony etc. but I can't can't find drivers that Windows 7 will accept on my 540 laptop. Every other piece of hardware works including the intel video it natively detected. I can't seem to get it to recognize the nvidia driver. The driver won't install from setup. I can manually try to force it by selecting the device, update drivers, select manually but it says it wasn't the right driver even though it is the 64 bit driver for nvidia and it has the 9300m GS listed many many times in the list.
I am considering the two following models: SR290 and Z540. My question relates to the overall build quality of these models as well as battery life with the extended battery.
Basically Im deciding between these 2 and a lenovo. The lenovo is heavier than both, is well made, and has ridiculous battery life. Just curious as to how the sony's stand up over time.
new screen/inverter/ backlight installed. NEW screen still black, but visible with flashlight. Went ahead and got ANOTHER inverter off eBay and tried that - screen still black. Haven't ever replaced a backlight, and the operation looks delicate (and expensive to HAVE done) ...
I have a laptop which has a dim screen, I am not sure if its the inverter or the back light that needs to be replaced. Its a Sony FS-740/w series laptop. I want to be sure which one needs to be replaced so that i can order it online. way to check if the inverter is working correctly.
my FZ was sent in for repair in December because of Nvidia graphics card problem. I got it back a few days ago, and the screen died on me. I think the backlight LED on the LCD is broken, since I can see the things on the monitor (i.e. I can see the content) but it's REALLY dark that I literally have to put my face up against it. Of course I tried turning up the brightness, rebooting, turning it on after few hours and it still didn't work.
Anyone have an experience getting the screen repaired? Mine's out of warranty (over a year old) and I'm wondering how much it costs.
i have a sony vaio c2z - nvidia geforce 7400; x-black lcd
i have had a lot of problems with my display since august. although i didn't notice at the time, it happened soon after i installed the Win 7 RC.
when i start the laptop up the screen looks all distorted and the colours arent correct:
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but when i take screencaps and connect it to another monitor everything looks fine.
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i assumed the screen was knackered, but i installed a game a few weeks ago and it brought the display back to life, only for it to look crap again when i restarted. this also happened when i did a clean install of vista, only for the display to go bad when the updates installed.
i have tried many times, but have been unable to replicate this...............
My vaio's fan quit around the time I installed Windows 7. I cannot say for sure that Windows 7 caused the problem, but I cannot for the life of me get the fan to turn even one revolution now.
So I have looked into replacing the fan which actually seems very simple. My problem is, before I pay the money for a new fan, how do I ensure that the problem is actually the fan and not the thermostat on the motherboard which would make replacing the fan worthless.
The fan would be repairable, however, a failed thermostat means that I should just back up the hard drive and prepare for eventual component failure as it is heating up like a sun of a gun now.
After using my new Vaio Z for a few hours i noticed a slightly greenish hue at the bottom of the screen(1600x900). It's mostly visible with white or very light background.
There are a few of those spots and i think it originates from uneven LED backlight. It's not instantly obvious, but after i've noticed it I find it somewhat distracting.
gave me his VGN-NS140E a couple weeks back, saying his son F'd it up again, and needs me to do a reinstall of everything. Thought it'd be easy right? Well, Win7 installs about half way, and then says some files are unavailable or corrupted, and then quits. Same disk was used to install Win7 Pro on two of my other machines.
So I tried ubuntu, and found that after reaching the main screen, no matter which option I choose, install/run without install/check disk for defects/etc, it just reboots the machine.
I've worked with tons of thinkpads, only a couple of Vaios, but never came across anything like this...
Sony VGN-SR series bios update fail. now the computer is dead. battery light blinks. powers on, thats it. I know easiest way it to swap MB but warranty just over. damn viao updates!
How much longer is this going to take? I have seen the average is 2 to 3 days but mine has been in over 5 days now. The last time I ordered a notebook from Dell they showed in production for a week after I recieved it. I'm afraid I'm going to come home and it is going to sit on my porch all day.
Dell is sending me a replacement laptop and when I check the order details, it was placed on the 19th, it says In Production. When i call to check the status, it says my order is currently being processed. Normally replacement laptops are refurbs they just pull from teh outlet store. The delivery date is also "currently not available"
