New Laptop freezing

[Woodenhorse]

Hi all
Got myself a "A317m"
Works fine apart from when playing games I get a screen freeze, sometimes accompanied with a blue screen of death and restarts.
Error logs point to the x600 ati card, driver or hardware fault.
I have tried it with 3 different games and crashed on all three, dvd's have no prob.
My questions is has anybody else had this prob, would ati drivers help (from there website) as there are no updates from sony.
How do you isolate this kind of problem, what can I do to see if its hardware or software related, not sure if I can play these games in safe mode with standard vga drivers.
Cpu temps are @ 55-60 idle????? Is this normal for a centrino 1.7

Error codes are useless as they they don't pinpoint to anything when you research them. Unless you are a TSE.

Any responses apreciated

PS I have blowed any dust out of fan/vents with compressed air, not that I think they needed it.

Is it time for RMA already???

[kee-lo_]

Sounds like Sony doesn't know what the left hand is doing.............

[Woodenhorse]

Update and Lovely news, I think
Harware Fault was Confirmed
They have only had it 3 days and offered a Replacement within a Week
The Best News is they have offered me the next Model up
They said they have no more 317M in Stock
A417M
with 750m CPU
and
ATI MOBILITY RADEON¿ X600 with 256MB HyperMemory
It is cheaper for some Reason but from the Specs I can only see that diff
Fingers crossed all is ok
Goona go check the Specs again lol

[kee-lo_]

See this is what really gets me, no offence to you woodernhorse, but some people seem to get sterling support from Sony, replacement VAIOs, even upgrades, but when someone else goes for the repairs they nearly as good as refuse to give them a replacement, when they know the VAIO is in a serious state.

For example, Dom's VAIO, broken latches, buzzing screen, brightness totally screwed yet they don't replace it? What gives?

Sorry - I don't mean to use your example on purpose here - I am doing it to illustrate Sony's lack of consistancy towards customers here and offline. It's not right, maybe it's because they have none in stock, but I have heard people waiting 3 weeks for new stock.

Does anyone else think Sony are being unfair?

[Woodenhorse]

No Offence Taken and I understand your Concern
I felt I was in the same boat until today
And from what I can gather from the vaio link suport notes there was quite an issue going on between the Company (which I Purchased it from) and Sony.
The best thing anybody can do is to apply Pressure constantly until they get a Satisfactory Outcome.
Maybe they stoped building the A317M's or found a major fault in them, dunno, or it was the fact that I asked for a reduction in Price due to the Inconvenience they would cause by sorting out the Problem within 3-4 Weeks, which is Unacceptable, and my Legal right to do so, I doubt very much they were doing me any favours.
All I know is that I got what I was Entitled too, probably more (Pure luck), and I hope everyone else can too.

[kee-lo_]

Well I am pleased you excercised your rights, about time more people did.

The problem is Sony are not consistant, thats whats bugging me - one guy MUST pay £70 for his recovery DVD and another gets it free as he pleads ignorance? Thats not the way, it's either/or.

And from what I can gather from the vaio link suport notes there was quite an issue going on between the Company (which I Purchased it from) and Sony.

That really doesn't suprise me, they probably wanted the company to replace it, when the company has paid Sony for the unit in the first place.

Well best of luck with the new VAIO!

[Woodenhorse]

24th of June and the Replacement is finaly in the Uk
Will have it tommorow after nearly 2 months
I have been advised that the Warranty will be 12 Months on it, and its actualy the A417M version ( Brand New).
Gonna spend the Day testing it and hopefully be posting off that with good Comments tomoz.

[kee-lo_]

Excellent, hope it all goes well

[Woodenhorse]

Thanks Kee-Loo
The Laptop is fine so far, temps are roughly the same as last one so they must be right.
After this experience I can honestly say that I won't ever be buying off Sony again, and all due to there after sales support.

[kee-lo_]

I can understand that

The fonts on this site must really be cr4p - everything thinks it's double o when it's single o

[Woodenhorse]

Ok so here is the Brand New replacement they sent me.


1)Everytime I install any game, vaio Launch doesn't operate properly anymore, None of the shortcuts on it it work anymore and there is no way of fixing it apart from doing a system restore, and removing the game.

2)Everytime System boots up I get a hissing sound, and also everytime I click on a link.

3)Mouse pointer keeps disappearing from screen and suddenly after 3-4 secs appears somewhere else on screen, this was also happening on the other A317M Laptop.

4)There is a lot of pausing during game play and its not the FPS.

I have done a number of things to try and fix these problems including a recovery with no success.

To top all of that up I can't create a case on Vaio Link or see my Warrant Expiry Date, and when I called them none of these issues were resolved although they said they will contact the Webmaster of Vaio Link to rectify that Problem.

Also the Xp License Sticker seems to have been scratched a bit to verify that its authentic, is this what Sony Does?