Screen problem for Vaio FZ190

Hi guys, I hope you can help me out here.

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ190 that I bought last year with the help of a friend. So it's been working fine, but lately I've noticed the screen keeps going black on me when I start it up. It blacks out completely, but the computer runs on fine. So I press the start button (on the laptop) to turn the power off and on, and the screen usually comes back up and shows me the "User locked" page - I just press on the tab and it unlocks and I'm back to my screen.

Today, it started fine but the screen flickered on and off and went completely black after I loaded my Windows Media Player. The music played on but the screen just remained black. So I pressed the start button and got the user locked page, and then everything was back to normal.

This has happened for a few times this month. I'm wondering what's wrong and whether I should be giving my local Sony store a call about this (I don't live in the States). I asked a friend and he said it could be the inverter going wonky.

Please help.

Many thanks in advance!

 

Go into windows power options, and set Screen goes off to "never"

 

^ Thanks, mr__bean! I did as you said and set the screen options to "never". I hope that solves the problem. It's just strange that when I start it up, ie right at the start when it should usually show the Vaio logo, it sometimes doesn't and just goes black. Does the flickering part mean anything though?

 

Hmm im not sure, that sounds like windows isnt re-loading the graphics drivers again. usualy happens after a system goes into hybernate e.t.c

Hope that setting it to never helps though

 

I think i've gotten a similar problem with my fz11s. It generally happens to me if i'm moving the screen, i get a fairly heavy flicker followed by the screen going black. My solution was closing the screen completely and opening it again. I have a feeling its a lose or faulty connection so i'll be dismantling the screen connections soon.

 

No, unfortunately the screen went screwy again. And I found that my settings jumped back to the old one, so I reset it to "never" and updated some driver that coolguy had recommended in the Vaio FZ owners thread for someone with a similar flickering screen problem. I dunno how to fix it. I guess I'll have to call my local Sony store and blow a bomb on repairs I told my friend what happened and she said it could be a Vista problem.

Yeah, I sometimes think it might be because I tilt the screen slightly backwards (ie, not ramrod straight 90deg to the keyboard). I haven't tried closing/opening the screen again though. Will keep that in mind if the screen screws up again.

Thanks both of you for the advice so far.

 

Had a similar problem on my FZ in October.

A week before the warranty expired I contacted Sony and they arranged for it to be inspected and although the repair company couldn't detect a problem (it was an intermittent and very fustrating blackscreen fault) they replaced the motherboard and the fault hasn't reoccurred since.

I was also getting CPU and GPU temps of 80+ degrees celcius, since the repair it sits at 38 idle and tops out at aroung 50 under load! Very impressed with the customer service...but I did buy at a Sony Centre.