Help with Sony Vaio PCG-GRX560 laptop shutdown

[Trevah]

My Sony Vaio PCG-GRX560 laptop will just turn itself off after a few minutes. I think it could be heat related but the heatsink on the processor does not seem to get hot at all... I read about the ram issues but I know it is not the ram as I can boot and run but after a few minutes it will just power down the hard drive and turn off. Please help!!

 

[LiLithTecH]

A lot of SONY VAIO laptops suffer from the same exact problem.

90%of the time it is bad (cold) wave solder joints on the motherboard, particularly in the
way the ram slots are connected to the board. The bad connections are clearly
visible with a 15X lupe, but require a SKILLED SOLDERER to repair.

The problem is when the laptop begins to heat up, the resistance changes and
opens the joint. (Heck, Sony WEGA TV's have this same issue).

 

[Trevah]

thanks i will look at this....

 

[Trevah]

well we had someone from the surface mount technology lab here in logan look at the connections and they said that they looked alright.....i read somewhere else that it is not uncommon for capacitors to be bad....any thoughts on this?

 

[johnjkr1]

Laptops with problems like that can be real hard to troubleshoot. The first thing i'd ask, is whether or not it shuts down in bios as well. If it does, you definetly have a hardware problem. Then you would pull out all of the removeable components (battery, hd, cards, etc) and see if the problem still persists. If so, you have a motherboard or cpu problem

 

[Trevah]

it downs shut down in the bios as well....tried pulling all components and it still does it....starting to lean toward a power supply problem....are the power supplies able to be changed on the laptops? or do i have to get a whole new motherboard? cuz they are pricey!!!! 695.....

 

[LiLithTecH]

I still think your problem is the MEMORY slots.

A quick check/fix is to add a little pad of felt in the slot area (some people use heat shrink tubing)
to help make better contact.

If it powers up, it is the (surface mount) socket. If it does power up, you will more than likely
get multiple BSOD's (not to mention it is not good to the other components).

Did whoever checked it for you try to move the leads?
They look fine under a scope or lupe but are actually loose.

 

[jcalcati]

I have a similiar issue with my sony (505tx) .

I changed cmos battery.. re-formatted the harddrive and install the original software it came with without any success.
I have one more issue besides shut-down problem. my laptop doesnt detect AC power when it is turned on. It runs on battery ( which dont get charged when laptop is on ) and as soon as battery dies, laptop shuts down as well. If i try to run it with batteries removed , it shuts down after powering up.

Today, i ripped the laptop apart. I found out that if i disconnect hard drive from the system, system powers up ok with no shut down. As soon as I reconnect hard drive, shut down issue starts again.

Just to clarify , the laptop doesnt shut off when i run it on battery.

Anyone has any ideas .....i will appreciate any help