Defective Nvidia chipsets in your current Vaio?

How can Dell admit it, if Nvidia does not? Dell have nothing to do with GPUs, only the cooling system for it.

Anyhow, how come sony refuses to fix this under warrant?

 

Because Dell has to provide warranty. They offer an extra year of warranty on the GPU.

Dell explains NVIDIA GPU issues, throws out BIOS updates to help
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/26/dell-explains-nvidia-gpu-issues-throws-out-bios-updates-to-help/

 

IMO, the main reason for manufacturers to recall cars is because if something is seriously wrong, it could kill the driver and/or the passenger (A life is at stake here). A burnt out/broken GPU will not kill anyone (No life is at stake here).... Or am I wrong?

 

You are, but why did sony recall TZ then, it could burn a person, but nothing that big to kill or seriusly injur anybody.

 

Ok, something is wrong, no doubt about that.
And neither do I think that it's a lasting sollution.
I also got my most important data copied.

I intendt to do so, just have to find the time, but other persons with the same issue did so and didn't get any help really..
Please keep us posted to what happens with your vaio.

 

I did not read the whole topic, but why dont you return the laptop to sony so they repair it under warranty?

 

I see, that's because for many (most) of us the problems occured a short while after the warranty, in my case two months after.
Other computer manufacturers did extend their warranty to fix the problem, Sony hasn't done anything like that yet. Instead they want to repair my computer for 983,38 USD..
That's something i'm not willing to accept..

 

If your GPU fails on you, you complain, if your laptop starts burning in your lap, you sue them for all they have.

Also, I've heard that nVidia is in a position where admitting this problem probably would bring them to bankruptcy. If they admit their mistake, all of the models with these cards would be recalled, and the OEMs would send the bill to nVidia. In my opinion, there are two things that can fix our GPUs; SONY can fix this problem discretely like HP, Dell and Apple already has, or the people would maybe win their class action lawsuit against nVidia, something that could bring nVidia down, maybe to the point where we won't get anything back.

 

jonaas, i see...thats bad, did you only have 1 year warranty? Did you not insure your laptop?

Anyhow, the price is rather standard, because they replace the mobo, and 900$ for sony mobo is the real price, sorry :/

In my country we have a word "real error" which can be used in this case and it does not matter if the item is in warranty or not, "real error" can be used anytime and the store where you bought it from have to fix it for free, or replace the item.

Maybe talk to lawyer about it, or a national "consumer protection" office.

 

Yes only 1 year warranty, although in Sweden we do have a sort of general warranty thats 3 years (don't know the english word), although it's up to the customer to prove that the fault alreade were there when you bought the computer.
My next step is to call my local "consumer protection" office about this.

 

This makes sence, let's hope that Sony starts to listen the their customers.
I just started to notice som strange lines in windows, the monitor driver stoped working and the screen went black. But gpu temperature wasn't that high, around 65C..

 

Yes, do that. Also try to find as much as you can about this issue from various web sites, maybe some local magasines too. I am sure they wrote about it.

 

Just for testing...why dont you open your notebook up and compare results then.

 

I guess you mean to see if there is any difference in temperature?
Yesterday I had the computer close to an open window and had no signs of overheating at all, gpu temp 55C. Will try to run something demanding for the gpu and see, but not today, I need to be able to use the computer today.

 

No, not the temp. But the artifacts. you are saying you get them even when the gpu temp was low -65

"lines in windows" are called "artifacts"..or "artefacts"

 

I get you, i thought you meant temperature because I thought you meant that there could be a connection between the artefacts appearance and the temp.
Since my last post I havent seen anything out of the ordinary though..

 

Now it crashed again, back to how it behaved after first crash. Here's pictures of how it looks. http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n42/jonaaas/VAIO/

 

You don't need anything official from Nvidia for a lawsuit. I think there is more than enough info contained in these articles: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/378/1004378/why-nvidia-chips-defective

Gary

 

Thats exactly how mine looked at the early stages. And it did also at a random point boot up fine. Until it completely crashed at me.

I am sorry to say but you have a defective chip. Hopefully you can convince Sony to bring the charges down cause their quotation within UK was just absurd.

I just resulted in buying an HP (3 years warranty); will never look back at sony just for their horrible customer support, immense repair costs and their in general outrageous ignoring of the said issue.

 

I think we need to coordinate our efforts here a bit more. I suggest than all of of you who have had this failure contact Sony one more time and get a case number for the first call you made on this issue and the date. If that is NOT available, then place your claim again and get the case number, date and time the case is being opened and the name of the customer service rep. Then let's compile an actual list of those cases. Armed with that sort of documentation we might be able to garner some interest from Sony or a good class action lawyer. Fighting this battle one on one has and is getting us no where. A single unified front is our only chance of pushing this forward.

I suggest that once we have a list of users and case numbers we enlist the author of the inquirer articles and see if he will help take our case to Sony directly.

Gary

 

I'm not really expecting my computer to work properly again, not until sony does something to "help".

Good idea, I think a coordinated effort is a good way to go, that we at least collect our case numbers and send to the Inquirer.
My case number on Sony e-support is: 3568229

By the way, I never heard of the inquirer before, what can you tell me about it, is it reliable etc? Seems quite good..

 

What about the date? If you have a Customer Rep name and a time add those too.

Gary

 

Name: Mikael Persson

Country: Sweden

Vaio model: VGN-FZ11S

Case#: 3356231

Rep name: Mikael

First contact: Sep 11 2008

Latest contact: Dec 10 2008

 

Ok, I've been in contact with different persons, through phone and e-support, but the one that gives best feedback and that I'm focusing on is through e-support, here's the details.

Name: Jonas Nygaard

Country: Sweden

Vaio model: VGN-FZ21M

Case#: 3568229

Rep name: Colin

First contact: Dec 10 2008 (Phone 9 Dec 2008)

Latest contact: Dec 12 2008

 

Hi everybody!

Unfortunately, I have also this serious problem with the graphic card in my Vaio VGN-FZ11Z (nVidia 8400 GT). Description and pictures are at Vaio Club website (I could not give you a link as I do not have enough posts to be allowed to do so).


Wiaterek

 

I have been having heat problems quite freqently on my Sony Vaio SZ340p. Awhile back I had the problem with my video card over heating and completley malfunctioning. After calling Sony several times before this happened I mentioned to them that my laptop was burning me when it was on my lap. The guy from Sony told me that this is a Laptop and not a "notebook" and this was normal. Then few days later poof. Video card went. I was wondering if this is one of the possible cards with a problem
"NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7400 and Intel® Graphics Media
Accelerator 950"
Thanks.

 

Yes, your GPU also seems to be affected. Sign our petiton, complain to Sony, get a case number and post it here, please.

 

Thanks for posting your pictures at Club VAIO. You can post a link if your leave out the "http://www"-part. Also, don't forget to sign our petition that I'm using in my letter to Sony.

 

I have had this laptop for about 14 months and it has been nothing but serious trouble. I will contact Sony again today and raise another concern about this issue. I wish I stumbled upon this forum alot earlier it would have clearly addressed numerous issue that were arising from my machine.

 

I'm very sorry to hear you have a lot of problems with you SZ3...

I absolutely love my SZ7...

But do put a bit of pressure on Sony - especially if you are in the US or Uk, say you have talked to a lawyer bla, bla...
(But stay friendly)

 

My beloved Vaio should be sent off to Vaio service tomorrow. If the courier gets in time...

The Sony consultant ensured that they do not have many similar cases...



Description and pictures of my defective Vaio:
http://club.vaio.sony.pl/clubvaio/pl/pl/forum/viewthread?thread=55888&offset=30

 

It's strange that they say that, they do have similar cases, this forum and the club vaio forum has several users with the same issue. Feel free to tell them my reference number.

Update: I spoke with the store where I bought the computer, they said that I should bring them the computer and they will send it somewhere and check whats wrong, standard procedure I guess.

I also have contact with Sony through e-support, and agent should call me soon.

 

Please post the specific case number, date, time and name of the Customer Support Rep you spoke to when you reported this to Sony. We are compiling a list of these.

Gary

 

Well obviously they can't aknowledge several complaints and deny that the issue exists.

 

Hence the need for a list of specific case numbers!

Gary

 

I just went back through all 54 pages of this thread. I sent an email or a PM to everyone who has reported the issue, asking them to document their case numbers etc. Let's se how many we can get.

If any of your are club vaio members, please ask over there for folks to do the same thing. I know there is some dicusssions there but I am in the US so I don't have access.

Gary

 

I need my laptop for the next 3 months with or without the proper video card working so I haven't been able to complain to Sony yet =(

 

I'm guessing your computer was still under warranty?

 

I will edit this post tomorrow when i get some details from Sony that i dont have now;

Case Number 3499799
Date 21/11/2008
Owner’s name Andreas Koumpatis

Lol thats all i have for now.

 

This was the case number #3535114, I got from Sony. My last contact with Sony was on 2nd December 2008. My computer went wrong on Tuesday 11th November. I am now going through the retailer to try and get a repair.

Case Number #3535114
Time: 8am
Date of Last Contact on Subject: 2nd December 2008
Customer Service Rep Name: Buggered if I know, I don't do so well at 8 am
Owner Name: Phillip Hemmings

Sorry it's not much help.

 

Yes, it is still under warranty.

I have just done full recovery again and installed all updates form MS and Sony Vaio websites. And it is at least 4 hours since Vaio has not crashed ...but it looked like that after the first full recovery... I do not know what to think and what to do... I would not like to send off my Vaio to service and pay for unwarranty diagnostics...

 

That's how it started for me, crashed, did system recovery, it seemed to work, it crashed and so on. At last it crashed completely..

 

It is really frustrating. I spent a lot of money for my Vaio and my expectations concerning Vaio are as high as the price. Meanwhile it will be my second Vaio repair since August 2007 (when I bought it).

@jonass What does it mean that your Vaio crashed completely?

 

Sorry to hear that, at least you're not alone being frustrated.. And you have warranty left =P

It means that it freezes before it enters windows, after the "loading bar" shows. Only way i can acces windows is through safe mode, which isn't that fun..
Will hand over my computer to the retailer later today or tomorrow.
And I'm waiting to hear from Sony (again).

 

I have recently looked into buying a sony vaio with the a graphics card in question. I stumbled accross this forum and other articles while doing my intense research. Is this still a problem for laptops bought today? has the problem been fixed for new buyers? Im looking to buy this laptop: Sony VAIO VGN-NR32Z/T .Its not one of their newest so im not sure whether to buy, can anyone advise me?

 

As the NVidia issue is at the moment a bit "open ended" I wouldn't recommend getting an old laptop with an NVidia card.

Look at the successor - the NS I believe (maybe also CS)

Then:
No NRs have failed yet - at least in this forum.

 

As DetlevCM mentions, no NRs have been reported here or anywhere else I can find. On the other hand, I'm assuming there are many cases where people send their laptop directly to Sony without doing heavy research first, and the 8400m series has a high failure rate here. The Inquirer also found faults on the newer 96 series, even though nVidia promised that they were different.

If you buy one now, you can either wait and see if Sony offers an extended warranty soon for these cases, and if not, buy the extended warranty and include that in its price when you compare to other models. I'm all over skeptical to nVidia nowadays, but stil...the VAIOs are undoubtedly good machines when they work.

 

I still haven't heard anything from Sony, waiting for them to call me.
Earlier today I went to the store where I bought the computer and they are now shipping it somewhere to test whats wrong and how it went wrong.
Could take up to three weeks, I'll keep you posted.

 

Same problems as everyone else. Couple months after my warranty ran out, my computer froze one day. Shut down my computer, turned it back on and the Vaio boot screen had green vertical lines all over it, and the lines turned yellow during the Windows Progress Bar screen, and were in a pattern like this: ....::.....::.....::....::....::.... all the way across the screen. At that point, the progress bar would go away is if it were about to boot up windows, but it just stayed on a blank, black screen with the yellow vertical ...::... pattern. I've tried reformatting, reinstalling a NEW copy of windows, installing Sony's official drivers, but the problem persists. After reformatting I usually get a few hours of error-less use, then it will freeze and the whole process starts over again. Many others are facing this same problem, and I am convinced that it is a faulty GPU problem, and someone, be it nVIDIA or Sony, needs to admit to the mistake, and find a way to help their consumers.

I can only boot in safe mode, with an occasional (one in every 15 boot attempts or thereabouts) opportunity to boot regularly and have everything work correctly, before freezing once again and starting the cycle once again. Right now I am posting this from safe mode vista in a sony Vaio VGNFZ190 with an nVidia 8400M GT video card. I can't even install Java in order to access the Sony Live Chat service because in Safe Mode you can do no such installation operation. If I get lucky enough to get windows to boot normally I will install Java and try to get in the support chat to get my case heard.

This is ridiculous. There IS a problem, and it needs to be acknowledged.


edit: I typed this post up in safe mode in notepad but forgot to post it. Shut down the computer for maybe 40 minutes and then tried booting it up again. It worked properly, so I installed java and got in the chat thing. I will post my transcript if i can. it's nothing new; just me complaining and the analyst not helping and blaming it on my lcd or something.

 

A minor update in my case: Sony called me yesterday and asked about my problem, they said that they have looked in this forum-thread and the one at club-vaio. But the person i spoke to insisted on that the nvidia issue doesn't affect their computers, a different batch he said. Then it was the usual stuff, pay for computer pickup, pay for checkup and pay for a repair. They should call me again tomorrow. I will tell them that i wont pay for a repair..