SONY TX Dying

Well it looks like my old TX51B is on the end of it's way.

Until last week it was on stock XP.

My wife experienced, that lately the computer often stuck (like 10x per day, can't move cursor, no response at all) and it's needed to turn it off by holding the power button. Also it restarted randomly.

I thought it could be the old disk, so I exchanged HDD for a new one and installed fresh Win7Pro 32bit. The Win7 works great on this computer, but unfortunately it's problems didn't disappear.

Anyone know what could be the real cause?

Thanks,
eM.

 

Well "old" could also fairly dusty and hot.

Prehaps we are seing some effects of hardware reaching critical temperatures, have you been able to check them at all?

http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

Well, what do you think? The ACPI temperature looks a bit high. On my Z it's 53C though, so it's not that big difference. When I was exchanging the HDD, I also cleaned the dust roughly with compressed air. Thermal paste (AS5) was exchanged about half a year back. The computer was working perfectly after that.


Edit: The nb just blocked again. When it happened, the ACPI temp was about 66C. Another "symptom" is, that sometimes the screen turns off, or even doesn't turns on on start, so it's needed to turn it off with the power button.

 

Hmm, if the screen is turning off and sometimes doesnt turn on, prehaps this is some problem associated with the GPU?

 

I have had a similar problem for a while now with my TX1 that I bought back in Dec 05 from the Sony Building in Ginza.
The machine locks up and the only response you can get out of it is that the battery light comes on whenever the power button is pressed. At this point you are forced to power down by holding the power button.

I have been able to replicate the problem by applying pressure to the back left area of the chassis - where the processor, fan, etc. are.
The only solution I came up with is to carry it around by making sure not to hold it near the problem area, preferably supported on a suitable flat surface (an A4 diary or placemat work well).

My problem is not related to temperature. I had a different problem in the meantime with overheating which was fixed by replacing the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU.
The issue with overheating was quite apparent- a few seconds after boot the fan runs constantly like a crazy little hair dryer.
I noted that SmartFan reported the CPU temperature as 67C. I do not trust SmartFan.

 

Had a very similar problem with my TX17 a couple of years back. Pressing the base slightly or twisting the base would cause it to freeze, screen blank etc. Sent it to Sony Service. Turned out that the RF tin shield that lines the inside of the base had buckled after a small drop, enabling intermittent contact with the electronics. They flattened out the tin, reassembled it and returned it with no guarantee (and in kindness no charge), but it's been 100% since (going well after four years faithful service).

The lack of rigidity of the case/chassis is a significant weakness of the TX series IHMO, thankfully remedied in the TT that I bought to replace the TX.

Hope that might help. Possibly a check you could do yourself - if I had known I would have removed the base myself.

Kendall