severe problems with Sony VAIO Notebook

[agent2099]

My friend lent me her Vaio laptop to sell for her (either locally or on eBay), as she needs the cash.

It's a Centrino PCG-V505EX with a 1.5 GHZ Pentium M and a Radeon 9200.

So the first thing I do is format using the VAIO recovery utility. The format takes about 10-15 minutes.

After the format I began using it.

5 minutes in and the thing completely locks up. I restart. 3 minutes later I get a BSOD and a reboot. 4 minutes later it locks up again.

Long story short this computer will not refrain from either locking up or rebooting for more than 10 minutes. However it seems to be stable enough complete the format process.

This is both with and without AC power.
I removed the back plate to see if there was a dust issue. There wasn't but I hit it with some compressed air anyway.

I have no idea what is wrong this laptop. I called her about the problems and she apparently never had any issues with this computer in over a year of ownership. I'm stumped here, any ideas?



On a side note I set up the wireless LAN settings and the connection pops right up. "Local area connection, 11MBPS, Signal strength: Excellent." However, when using IE or Netscape all I get is "This page cannot be displayed", even though my taskbar shows a perfectly good connection.

Meanwhile my 700M which is connected to the same wireless network is working just fine and is able to pull up WebPages and upload/download with ease.

Aside from those issues and the shoddy workmanship I have no problems with this computer.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: agent2099
Aside from those issues and the shoddy workmanship I have no problems with this computer.

Those sound like pretty big issues.

Find out what brand the HDD is, go to the company's website, and DL their drive test software.

DL Memtest86, burn the bootable CD, and run all tests overnight.

Just for fun, DL Notebook Hardware Control and check the temperature in Windows. If its over 60C just sitting there, something is wrong.

 

[phisrow]

Try running Memtest, to see if the RAM is in order. Also, make sure you've installed all the vendor drivers. I've heard about Vaios needing a lot of funny system drivers.

 

[agent2099]

Thanks for the responses guys. Indirectly, I think your suggestions may have solved the problem.

So I downloaded Memtest86 (I don't know why I didn't think of this myself, I guess because it's a laptop and I'd didn' t know if I could get into DOS or a boot menu) and Notebook hardware.

To do this I had to unplug the LAN connection and while doing it I noticed the Wireless LAN was still on. One convenient feature of Sony laptops is they have an on/off switch for the wireless LAN to save battery power.

So I flip the switch to OFF, and the computer has not rebooted in the lat 30 minutes! So it seems it's a driver or hardware conflict with the wireless adapter. This will still take some troubleshooting but at least for now it looks like I'll have a reasonably stable notebook to fix.

This also coincides with my previous problem of the wireless connection not ?working? even though the taskbar showed it to be working just fine.


What still puzzles me is why Sony would ship a Laptop with "factory settings" that could cause random reboots if the customer used the computer wirelessly, especially with that being one of the major centrino features. So I guess that means it's a hardware and not a driver issue.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: agent2099
Thanks for the responses guys. Indirectly, I think your suggestions may have solved the problem.

So I downloaded Memtest86 (I don't know why I didn't think of this myself, I guess because it's a laptop and I'd didn' t know if I could get into DOS or a boot menu) and Notebook hardware.

To do this I had to unplug the LAN connection and while doing it I noticed the Wireless LAN was still on. One convenient feature of Sony laptops is they have an on/off switch for the wireless LAN to save battery power.

So I flip the switch to OFF, and the computer has not rebooted in the lat 30 minutes! So it seems it's a driver or hardware conflict with the wireless adapter. This will still take some troubleshooting but at least for now it looks like I'll have a reasonably stable notebook to fix.

This also coincides with my previous problem of the wireless connection not ?working? even though the taskbar showed it to be working just fine.


What still puzzles me is why Sony would ship a Laptop with "factory settings" that could cause random reboots if the customer used the computer wirelessly, especially with that being one of the major centrino features. So I guess that means it's a hardware and not a driver issue.

because its sony
Ive had 3 VAIOS, and they all simply sucked hard core. Even there most expensive X505 is complete and utter junk as mine broke because a girl and i say GIRL accidentally sat on it and it snaped in half. :X

Anyhow, just wanted to join your rant on how much sony blows

 

[agent2099]

Yeah tell me about it :\. I ran memtest86 overnight just for the heck of it. The system was stable as a rock, not one reboot in the past 24 hours of being on. It's defintely a problem with the wireless card.