SO the Lappy Doctor has pronounced my pooter as being ‘late of this parish. Pushing up the daisies, bereft of life……..’ It wont boot form the CD drive or any other medium and the fixer chap reckons it’[s the gfx card, or rather the gfx chip as it’s welded to the sodding motherboard and is a know weakness of this design. Apparently heat stress eventually kills em. Anyhoo he reckoned I could contact Sony and get charged anything up to £800 for a new one, or look around for an identical one (a risk in itself) and still pay a couple of hundred quid for something that might not work and even then the laptop is a few years old. It’s a SONY AR41S and has a beautiful screen. Great colours and HD. Don’t suppose anyone has a bit of magic advice tucked away. The Laptop chap didn’t even charge me for his diagnosis and time, which I though was pretty good really and make sme think he is an honest and probably knowledgeable person (I gave him a £10 for his trouble so I am not that tight!)[/font]

I thought I would have a quick look at Sonys current flagship model………..hmmm nearly £3K!!! Perhaps not. Still I have my trusty cheapo Acer and I did manage to get all ‘My Documents and My Pictures’ out of the now dead Sony on it’s final burst of life, so I should count myself lucky really.

Anyone got a Sony 18” AW series laptop? The RGB Led backlight sounds interesting, if a little expensive still

stick it under your arm and wander around moss side for ten mins.

its broke then , only i wasnt sure from the description , best 1 we had was an advent , never had a problem with , just upgraded eventually .

stick it under your arm and wander around moss side for ten mins.

its broke then , only i wasnt sure from the description , best 1 we had was an advent , never had a problem with , just upgraded eventually .

Thought about using it as a tea tray, but it’s too heavy to keep on your lap for any length of time. Don’t suppose any one knows a laptop exorcist as that’s the only was it’s coming back.

Amanda, do you get a picture when you turn it on. If you do then the GFX chip is fine. I have resucued and got working several laptops which were apparently dead. Some computer experts no very little about laptops and their inner workings. If you were more local I could have taken a look at it.

Amanda, do you get a picture when you turn it on. If you do then the GFX chip is fine. I have resucued and got working several laptops which were apparently dead. Some computer experts no very little about laptops and their inner workings. If you were more local I could have taken a look at it.

Nothing at all comes up. The PSU light comes on, the illuminated Sony logo on the lid comes on (it’s not a screen logo) and the m/c beeps then nothing. The HDD light doesn’t even flicker.

Have you tried an external monitor plugged into the VGA port to see if you then get a picture.

OR

Switch the laptop on in a brightly lit room, and angle the screen at the light. Do you see a faint image of the boot screen on the display.

Have you tried an external monitor plugged into the VGA port to see if you then get a picture.

Yes, the Lappy Doctor did that for me. It is totally silent when you try to power up, only the fan seems to whir and I am not sure it does that any more. put the recovery disc in and ..........nothing :(

See if you can find the CMOS reset function, its possible its corrupted and needs to be reset.

OR

Switch the laptop on in a brightly lit room, and angle the screen at the light. Do you see a faint image of the boot screen on the display.

Oops missed the second bit. Funnily enough I did that as only last week used a high power walkie talkie next to a laptop and tripped the back light off!! Only way I could switch the laptop off was to angle the screen and use ambient light

It could just be that the heatsink has come loose.

Also I may be wrong here, but three different sony repair centres told me sony have a fixed £100 repair fee for anything, be it a 10p fix or a £1000 fix.

I'd suggest contacting sony directly.

See if you can find the CMOS reset function, its possible its corrupted and needs to be reset.

Oooh that sounds interesting. Will do a bit of research. I don’t hold out too much hope but you never know

It could just be that the heatsink has come loose.

Also I may be wrong here, but three different sony repair centres told me sony have a fixed £100 repair fee for anything, be it a 10p fix or a £1000 fix.

I'd suggest contacting sony directly.

Good shout, thanks

If even the HDD isnt whirring, then sounds like a dead HDD or mobo to me.

As above, Sony have fixed prices for most repairs. Just go to your nearest Sony centre.

Bearing in mind that most of the chip dies can tolerate 90 degree celcuis (Near the boiling point of water) before something happens, that they usually incorporate stepping down software once they hit the temperature limit and that chip design of the last generation concentrated on power reduction and cool running rather than pure computing power, I wonder if its another component isn't playing up ?

A completely depleted Battery ? Presume that you tried running it from the mains adapter ?

Or Is the processor fan delivering the correct rotation R.P.M. ?

Many older desktops don't start if the fan RPM falls below a control limit set in the CMOS Ram. That's a lovely Catch-22, the machine won't start so you can't read the CMOS value, and the only way of telling whether the fan is at fault is to substitute a replacement.

Nick

Is it still in the doldrums? If you're passing my good town, I'm more than happy to have a look at it for you. Or if I'm feeling brave, I'll venture out into 'da hood'

Steve

As laptops now are fairly cheap even new ones, take your old one to the local re-cycle plant.

My Windows XP laptop cost £900 in 2005, my daughter bought a Vista laptop recently £289, and it runs rings around mine, dual-core processor 160 GB Hard-drive 4GB memory, the list goes on and on.

Treat yourself, you deserve it.

Ian. 16/10/2009.

I don't think you've seen how much the sony machines cost still and depending on the model how well built and portable they are.

well built and portable.

Translation: "Over engineered and over priced"

Might as well have an Apple badge

No, I'll admit the Sony's are lovely bits of kit, but I'd never part with the cash for one.

Translation: "Over engineered and over priced"

Might as well have an Apple badge

No, I'll admit the Sony's are lovely bits of kit, but I'd never part with the cash for one.

IME I think they are engineered to last, as opposed to engineered to a time line.

I do however agree that I wouldn't part my cash, but since Amanda has one, I'd probably spend the £100 to get it fixed if that still stands.

My Windows XP laptop cost £900 in 2005, my daughter bought a Vista laptop recently £289, and it runs rings around mine, dual-core processor 160 GB Hard-drive 4GB memory, the list goes on and on.

that you've just compared a sub-£300 laptop to this one!

Ah well...

IME I think they are engineered to last, as opposed to engineered to a time line.

I do however agree that I wouldn't part my cash, but since Amanda has one, I'd probably spend the £100 to get it fixed if that still stands.

I wouldn't necessarily agree, after my old Vaio melted it's power supply while I was using it to run a training course. "What's that funny smell? Oh.:eek:"

Still I suppose even Sony have a bad day from time to time.......

Phil

I've found it does depend on the VAIO series and model line. Some are better than others.

Saying that I've found them to be the best designed and built.

Steve

Is it still in the doldrums? If you're passing my good town, I'm more than happy to have a look at it for you. Or if I'm feeling brave, I'll venture out into 'da hood'

Steve

Thanks Steve, that’s a very kind offer. The laptop doctor did tell me an interesting bit of news, The gfx chip on my motherboard has a history of going pop in laptops! Where abouts is your ‘good town’ btw? I think it is proper dead though. only the psu light comes on and then it does it's death beeps at you:(

As laptops now are fairly cheap even new ones, take your old one to the local re-cycle plant.

My Windows XP laptop cost £900 in 2005, my daughter bought a Vista laptop recently £289, and it runs rings around mine, dual-core processor 160 GB Hard-drive 4GB memory, the list goes on and on.

Treat yourself, you deserve it.

Ian. 16/10/2009.

Thanks for the thought, but I have a cheap Acer laptop (this one) which cost bugger all and it has 3gb of memory, unsurprisingly it can do some tasks faste than my older Sony. But the big difference (apart from weight) is the Sony has a full 17” 1920x1200 screen and it’s not just the numbers that are impressive. I have seen many HD screens that look under-saturated, hav narrow viewing angles and in general do not look convincing with flesh tones etc. the Sony has none of these problems and is the best screen I had ever seen. There are better screens nowadays, but they are seriously expensive (my Sony cost a bomb when I got it, but nothing like as much as it’s replacement would). I like to photo edit so the screen is important. You should check out the specs on the m/c, it was an amazing thing a few years ago and still has a good spec by today’s standards (HDMI/BluRAY/DBT tuner/2x160GB HDDs etc)

IME I think they are engineered to last, as opposed to engineered to a time line.

I do however agree that I wouldn't part my cash, but since Amanda has one, I'd probably spend the £100 to get it fixed if that still stands.

Just got a number for the Sony Fix-it centre, will give then a ring this afternoon .

If worst comes to worst you could sell it on ebay starting at 99p fully and clearly describing the issues, stating spares or repairs only. With a slimline Bluray drive and 2x 160gb hard disks that could be scavenged it might fetch £100.

There are different types of LCD panel, a short overview is in the 6th point here Liquid crystal display - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If worst comes to worst you could sell it on ebay starting at 99p fully and clearly describing the issues, stating spares or repairs only. With a slimline Bluray drive and 2x 160gb hard disks that could be scavenged it might fetch £100.

There are different types of LCD panel, a short overview is in the 6th point here Liquid crystal display - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If I ever find time, I will get Sony to give me an estimate for repair, but the idea of flogging the chassis minus the HDDs has some appeal .

When I look at the LCD monitors on Laptops, I basically go off my instinct and eyesight. I take along a a few images that I know well and have viewed on Colour corrected monitors (a perk of working in telly ) and simply look at the display. But the top end Sonys are consistently very good and I rarely see anything to match them. I have seen pretty good Toshiba and HP displays too however.