The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
prob fixes the system hang at boot up as it tries to poll an external unit that doesn't exist to boot off. Workaround is to disable external boot devices from the BIOS. I know that it affects my SZ90, but never seen it on the 160.
You know its happened because after booting BIOS and the Vaio splashscreen the cursor justs sits on the top left hand corner of the very black screen. Forever.
My first sz160p/c has this same exact problem 3 days after I bought it. The computer would hang at boot with a black screen and a cursor at the left corner (I dont remember if the cursor was blinking or not). Booting from DVD would hang too.
The problem started to happened after 2 days of configuring and installing software for software development work. I only installed the standard tools (MS Visual Studio, etc.). Then I did a Windows Update which never could complete (the machine would reboots during the update). An hour of so later, I got the problem above (no longer can boot).
So I returned the unit to the Sony store I bought it from. I told him the story and he seemed to try to blame it on me for installing stuff, lol. So I told him that if I cant install my own software on this machine to do my work, then it is a useless laptop. I am not interested in a $3000 toy.
Anyway, I was promptly given a replacement 160p/c. And so far, it is still running after about 3weeks of use. If the problem ever show up again, I am going to ask for my money back and try a non-sony laptop.
mobile-meister, instead of returning it turn of "boot from external devices" (or similarly phased) option in the BIOS before you return it.
This solved the problem on my SZ.
This BIOS Update fixes following issue :
- When the External Drive Boot function is enabled, System hangs with the cursor on the left-top.
- TPM error happens when boot up after force shutdown from Standby.
- Sometime LCD Display noise will appear with nVIDIA graphics.
- When resume from suspend mode with nVIDIA graphics the system become unstable .
- Improvement of the CPU control setting regarding VAIO Power Management."
Installed the BIOS and it disabled the TPM chip. There is an option to enable it again, but it asked to reboot. When system returns the TPM is still enabled. What you have to do is enter the BIOS (press F2), and go to one of the screens and enable the chip. There is an option to clear the chip, which I didn't take. Haven't tested anything else.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
