All i wanted was to find out why my laptop makes noise

Is this the best place to express my discontent with Sony Authorized Repair Center?

 

Well, kind of. But we might be able to help you solve the issue. What's wrong specifically? Try to be as descriptive as possible, so we get the best idea of how to help.

 

I have had a Canadian model Z series laptop for 2.5 years, use it daily. It has seen a lot of action once it had a car chair squeeze it inside its bag to a point where it cracked the LCD Display. $1000 later and a crappy repair job later (sony repair in central America) it was back up and running. Apart from this i take good care of it.

Recently it has been making a lot of noise so i decided to send it to a sony repair center in Australia where i live. Obviously not before backing it up.

Anyway 2 days later i get a call from a guy there telling me what bad condition my loud but currently 100% functioning laptop is in.

The laptop is my preferred work horse. it see's 9 hour of hard work daily. So anyway the guy tells me how everything is broken and needs replacement and in order to test the fan and hard drive (find the source of the sound) it will cost me almost another $200 to clean and test I already paid $100 up front when i dropped it off.

I expected for this $100 a diagnostic on the sound problem, and the chance to buy and install a new part to rectify the problem. When i dropped it off I was told the $100 was so they could take a look and that $100 would be taken off the cost of the repairs.

Please excuse my spelling as my licensed copy of microsoft word is on my laptop that they still have.

 

Would anyone care to see the email i sent sony Australia?

 

Well first I wonder how a Z series laptop can be 2,5 years old, as its only a little under a year old - excluding the pre SZ Z which would be more than 3 or more years old...

But anyway.

Outside warranty repairs are always expensive - no matter what.
It would be interesting to see if they couls indicate what was broken.

For example, say they read te SMART data - and it said the HDD was likely to fail (which doesn't mean it will, jut that it's more likely to) then that would be broken.

I'm not sure what you can do, or what the best course of action is...

 

yea its a SZ, i don't remember the model number off by hart. My point is i take it to them expecting a professional diagnostic of a noise not for a $300 clean. Mater of fact i don't think a true expert would even need to take the machine apart.

 

You know, fan noise is an odd thing.

Our old Asusdeveloped it... and after I took it apart (with nothing to loose years later) - cleaning didn't help, unscrewing the fan and reseeting it didn't help either... so you know what it is (blades hitting something) but you can't change it... ??? (without a replacement part)

And as I said - any repair outside of warranty is expensive... same on cars, etc. mobile phones hey don't even repair any more...

 

The "true expert" was telling you, without taking the machine apart, that it sounded like the machine needed to be cleaned, which, by the way, is the single most common source for fan noise and ALWAYS the first thing to be tried. But, you didn't want to hear that, so what did you want them to say or do?

Gary

 

I decided these fools think they are the experts, then clean it see if it works, of course I was right and the fan is was not working proper anymore, so I finally got what I wanted a new fan and a couple other things fixed. Now I’m home with the new fan and I notice it still is working hard, the guy told me it’s because I don’t have the original windows install anymore. I don’t see how this makes such a difference, the guy was convinced.
Anyway I don’t have the original boot anymore, I never made one when I first opened the computer up. Did not even see a prompt to.
A) Will this make such a difference that the fan no longer needs to work so hard.
B) Where can I get a installer for one?

I’m running a original copy of Windows XP Professional with SP3 on a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ220P

 

It shouldn't be different - clean instal/original instal - maybe the original one was a bit more optimized, maybe it had more bloat - overal it should not lead to a noticeable difference in "fan-work".

 

If repairs get too expensive, consider buying a used SZ from eBay, craiglist or elsewhere. It would probably be a better investment.

 

If the Sony drivers and power mangement apps are not in place the fan might very well run at full speed all the time, these drivers and apps are what throttles the fan.

Gary

 

First, Gary's correct that the proprietary .Sony drivers and power management apps (and things like the sonyutilities dll file) should be installed. If they aren't, the system won't manage it's power and cooling settings properly, which could cause the fan to default to the run-all-the-time config as a safety to make sure the system doesn't overheat (which will, of course, kill your battery life).

Second, my condolences on your run-in with the hit-squad popularly known as .Sony Support. I have an even more ancient Z-series than you, a 6 y.o. VAIO Z1A from when the VAIO line was first introduced (full model no. is PCG-Z1A). I have generally stayed away from .Sony Support because of the obnoxious way they dealt with the question of how to upgrade/replace the hdd in the PCG-Z1A. .Sony sez, flatly, "it cannot be upgraded," which technically does not include replacement. I call support up to ask about it, and get all sorts of silly run-around answers, all of which end in some version of "but if you send it in to us, we'll fix/replace/upgrade it for you" - since the warranty wasn't even a vague memory any more, that meant lotsa $$$ if I was dumb enough to send it in (thankfully, I was too poor at the time to be as dumb as I am inclined to be sometimes). Quite honestly, you'd get better support from NBR than from .Sony Support any day of the week.

 

ok I’m gona try install these 2 files available on sony.ca (one for power management and one for a error I noticed before with hibernating) I swear they were not there before all this after I get some 1 to buy me the original CD after Sony Canada told me it was the only way.

 

My old SZ, and my S before it both developed some god awful fan noise somewhere around the 2-3yr mark. Tried tightening everything inside of the laptop thinking it was some loose parts rattling in there to no avail. What finally fixed it on the S was a replacement of the heatpipe and fan assembly, and the addition of artic silver instead of the standard thermal grease sony puts on things on the cpu, as well as on the gpu (though i don't remember if i actually put it on the gpu might have just been the processor, this was about 2 maybe 3 years ago). I haven't tried to fix the SZ yet (my Z's become my primary computer), though i figure it'd be a similar fix.