I just bought a vaio last night and I wanted to boot from my flash drive to use Gparted to change my partitions for a dual-booting laptop. so I download the BIOS update from sony eSupport and run it. I am not sure that it finished updating the bios but it turned off (by what seemed like having the power cut off). Now when I try to boot there is nothing except the CD light comes on and then goes off again. I did some googling and I think the BIOS is dead. this is really sad 'cause I just bought it last night. it is an older laptop and has no warranty and I can't bring it to sony to be serviced (too much $). did I just brick my laptop, or can I replace the bios easy?
I've been all over the internet, gathering whatever info I can find, but I'm stuck. It's a Vaio PCG-FRV26 (PCG-9J5L) that just shut down one day, had a very slight 'burn' smell & will not power on, no lights. Opening it up it was full of dust balls & the fans were filthy - cleaned it real nice with vacuum & compressed air. I replaced the power jack, had it tested & there definitely is power to the board, also had the AC adapter/charger tested & it's good. I also played with various combinations of RAM chips in & out, re-set button, on/off with adapter & battery in/out combinations, holding on button variations etc. Still no lights or power. I've opened it up 3 times now, everything looks new/intact/great.
I have a PDF manual for this series, but cannot find the CMOS battery in the laptop! I don't think the manual is that great, not enough info, detailed explode schematic is not enough, tricky to follow, says where the CMOS/RTC bat is but I can't find it. Is it under the motherboard? do I have to remove MB?
night before last a cup of water spilled over my keyboard. I quickly picked laptop up, dried it upside down then left it running. About an hour later I went to type something in and realised the keyboard wasnt working. I turned it off and took the battery and power supply off.
The next day I turned it back on and it was coming on but the keyboard still not working (if you press one key then another key would be pressed and 6 and w were pressed the whole time) so then we lifted the keyboard up and dried the area underneath with a hairdryer- only saw a few drops of water. Then tried turning it bakc on and it would come on but the keyboard still not working.
Then few hours later I tried turning it on again, and now, although the green light comes on and it sounds like it's gonna start, the screen is completely black.
I bought SONY VAIO VPCF115 Model Laptop from Best Buy in Austin,TX in Feb 2010.
Up till now everything was working perfectly fine , until today morning when I powered ON my laptop nothing would come up! NO DISPLAY! I tried taking out the battery and putting back again, tried removing RAM and all possible options tried! the laptop is powering ON but its not displaying anything! nor the Hard drive is being read.
I am currently in India on vacation and having this problem.I don't know whether this is covered with SONY VAIO warranty , b'caz I didn't buy the accidental warranty from Best Buy.
I gave my laptop at SONY SERVICE Center here in India and they told me the MOTHERBOARD IS faulty and its not functioning , hence they need to repair the motherboard! I was like WHAT? how can that be possible even in the first place.
I am at my wits end with my e1705. I had a sudden meltdown about 2 weeks ago... screen went scrambled, BSOD,etc...
Performed diagnostic, memory on video card came back as bad. Replaced with new card (from Dell), reinstalled OS, completely reinstalled nVidea drivers from Dell (Used driver cleaner too)...
Everything went smooth for a couple hours after this was completed yesterday (full diagnostic showed no errors), but after booting up today, after about 5 or 10 minutes of use screen freezes and turns either solid cyan or black... a small pattern of thin lines appears also.
Trying to get rid of these questionably useful programs -- but I don't see entries for them in add/remove programs in the control panel (or for any of the other useless VAIO software packages that come on OEM machines sans "fresh start")
I received my Vaio Z21WN/B last week and it is a spectacular laptop. However I was pretty miffed when I found there was a glowing pixel in the middle of the screen.
Upon inspection on a black background I have managed to single out over SEVEN of these pixels, all of them seem white apart from one which is red.
Now the pixels are very hard to see, some more difficult than others and you do have to look for them to find them but it's like anything of this nature, once you know they're there you just go looking for them and they gradually become more annoying each time
I bought the laptop from an eBay seller and really it wasn't his fault for selling this as it was as the unit was sealed and he would not of known this until it was opened. It'd be pretty bad of me to ask for my money back when he was a private seller.
Do you reckon I'm within my right to phone Sony and ask for a replacement screen or should I not bother?
any users on here who have dead pixels on their laptop screen and just put up with them? Is this a widespread problem with most people worldwide or is it just the select minority people such as myself that are bothered about it?
Very little water made its way onto the keyboard, and probably leaked down and killed the motherboard. I bought a used motherboard from a semi-local store - same symptoms - few lights come on, fan comes on, no boot. Took motherboard and laptop back to the store, the guy said he tried 2-3 other motherboards, all with the same symptoms. It *is* possible all 3-4 boards he had are bad, but unlikely?
I'm pretty sure the power board is okay. He tried another CPU and memory, same symptoms.
I am looking for any advice you might have. I really need to get it fixed. I am still 99% sure its the motherboard, but the fact that all the ones he tried yielded the same results, maybe something else went out as well?
On the back of my Sony laptop, the model says PCG-6L2L, but when I took it in to servicing to a SONY authorized dealer for a diagnosis, the paper it came back with said Model VGNSZ260P. What's up with that? Is this the same thing, just different numbers? My laptop is a Z series, but nowhere on my laptop does it say anything about Z series or VGN. Similarily, my friend just bought a brand new Z series laptop that was sold as a VGN (over $2500), yet again, on the back of his there is a PCG model number and nowhere does it say anything about VGN or Z series?
Secondly, and more importantly.
The diagnosis came back negative. Everything works (cpu, ram, video, lcd, etc etc), but the actual system board, motherboard, is dead. When I boot up, it shows the SONY screen and I can get to BIOS, but as soon as it hits bios, or about 5 seconds after SONY symbol, everything freezes.
Naturally, the $800 they wanted is ridiculous. I am very tech savvy, especially with computers, I've been building them for a very long time, but have little experience with laptops. I am convinced that I can fix this if I can find a motherboard for it....
Something very unexpected broke today. I'm not sure but I think my SZ360 speakers die on me. The headphone jack still work but nothing is coming out of the speakers above my keyboard.
I try the following
1. Mute and Unmute 2. Went to device manager, uninstall driver, restart, installer driver and restart 3. Went to every sound setting possible and play with it
My headphone jack is working fine but speaker is not. Any ideas why this is happen? My speakers die?
I also went to BIOS setting and allow turn the VAIO boot logo volume to level 8 but no sound at all. My headphone on the other hand have the VAIO boot sound.
Speakers is the last thing I expect to die on any laptop. Is there any other way I can accurately diagnose this problem? I want to make sure its my speakers before I search for replacement.
I was playing stalker a few days ago getting 50-70 FPS and now come today its so much lower at 20-30(not playable) and I tried CS:S, and COD4, and they all seen dramatic fall in FPS. I don't notice any artifacts but I just notice huge FPS hits. I also think my fan isn't running anymore but I am not sure. Does anyone one know what I should do now? Its out of warranty already.
I have just been given a VAIO PCG8A2M (GRX316MP) , i was told "it's broken but if you can fix it yo can have it" so having a quick look at it there's no sign of life on the display but the lights come on and i can here the HDD heads moving about.
Looking a little more i found that all the ram is missing , so now im not sure if its worth buying some ram to see if it works or not ? The lack of ram would prob explain the lack of display but i wonder if i should be getting POST beeps at least, which im not.
So my question is if a VAIO had no ram should (if all else was working) it be getting POST beeps ?
Just performed a successful XP downgrade on my Vaio Z520, but have noticed that on this copy of the Vaio Silver Desktop Theme/Appearance doesn't exist.
I had it on my SZ and loved it over the XP Blue. Is there a way to get it back? I still have the restore discs from the SZ.
I don't know whats the diference (besides the price), between VAIO TZ295N & VAIO TZ395N. Specs in all the websites I've checked say they have exactly the same components: Intel coreduo 1.33Ghz 2GB RAM DVD-RW and 64GB SSD Hardrive. I was wonder if the diference might be in the hard drive interface, with the TZ295N being PATA and TZ395N being SATA.
I'm wondering if the Blu-ray optical drive (Panasonic UJ-232A) of the (old) VAIO Z series will be able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series? I would really appreciate it if anyone is able to answer my question.
The reason I'm asking is because I'm seriously thinking of selling my VAIO Z690 & just buying the base Sony VAIO Z (VPCZ112GX/S). I may just be able to afford that base model & the icing on the cake will definitely be the UJ-232A drive being able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series & work.
Am planning to get a sony laptop for me. The design simply rocks I am getting mixed reviews about cw and E series. But i made up my mind to get one.
My budget is aroung 40000rupees. Thats around 800$. So suggest me a better one between these two for occasional moderate and less(mosltly) demanding games. I dont care whether its 14 or 15 inch.
Am looking at lower end versions of both the models.
Only difference is CW uses Nvidia Geforce 310 and the E series uses some Radeon 5000 series one. CW has 14 inch screen whereas E series has a 15.5 inch screen. In the models which i am looking at both have matte finish and both has WXGA:1366 x 768 VAIO Display.
which one should i go for. whether the screen quality will be on par to Inspiron one atleast? ( I dont need HD).
im planning on using the laptop for videos, photoshop and a bit of gaming, maybe even a bit more gaming :-)
The Vaio F Series only has 330M Nvidia Graphics Card with i7QM and up to 8GB of Ram and up to 256GB SSD.
The E Series has ATI 5650 (a less powerful version, reduced clock speed) combined with a i5 520M with up to 6Gb of Ram and up to 500GB of HDD ? Why can i not choose SSD ?
if I can use the AC Adapter of a Vaio TT on the Vaio Z. The standard AC Adapter that comes with the Vaio Z is of 19.5V and the one for the Vaio TT is of 16V, which I don't know if it's enough for the Vaio Z to function properly or if there could be any problem or damage. Both machines have batteries of 10,8V.
I have an undervolted Vaio Z by the way (last multiplier at 0.9875) so I don't know if this could help in any way for my Z to work ok with the TT AC Adapter.
I have this "problem" since I got my Z. When I start vaio update 3 utility I get this error "messageID=0008" there are no updates for your model bla bla...
However when I go to vaio support page, there are some new updates for my Z590N model (new Bios, USB patch...)
I have downloaded new version of Viao Update utility 3.2.something but I had to uninstall my current version (3.1.something), which I did. However when I started this new setup message poped up "there is no previous version installed" - abort.
I have checked esupport page where is said if you have problems with Vaio Update 3, to download Sony Shared Library which suppose to contain vaio update utility), I run installation but it doesn't install Vaio Update 3
Now, I can live with this esupport page regular visit updates,
Whats the major difference between 16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900) and 16.4" VAIO extra-wide HD display (1920x1080). Upto what angle I could see my display in VAIO Display (1600x900)? Can I watch HD movies perfectly in VAIO Display (1600x900) ?
