Sony VGN S150 Boot Problem? Help?

I've had my Sony VGN S150 for over a year now and have been very satisfied until recently. About a month ago it started not always booting up. I would press the power button and the screen would stay off, but the power button would light up. I would simply have to turn it off/on and it would start up. Now it takes me about 10 to 15 times of turning off and on the computer before it actually boots up and the screen turns on.

I found a website of a computer repair company in NY that fixes this problem...but do not just want to send off my comp to NY.

Does anyone know why it has this problem and is there anything I can do??

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Rick

 

This is a software problem -- or at least when you first encountered it, not hardware. You should try to reinstall your Windows first before sending it.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

If I reinstall windows will I lose all my files on the hard drive?

Has anyone else encountered the boot problem on a S150? I wonder if it is a common problem.

 

I'm not so sure this is a software problem. Does this sound familiar?

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/5449/

My friend with a VAIO has the same problem, he did some research and found out that a lot of VAIO users have been experiencing bad solder joints on their memory slots. Do you have two sticks of ram? Try removing one and see if it helps the problem. =)

Steve

 

Thanks for the link. I also found this message board that was very helpful.

http://www.talkvaio.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=466&st=0

I wonder if it is my video chip or mother board or both?

Do you think Best Buy could fix the problem, my computer is still under warranty...but I don't want them to ship it off somewhere and it take 3 weeks to get it back. I need it for school.

 

Hello,

My name is Joe Kabalan and I'm the head technician for AQStech.com (the firm in NY as mentioned in this thread)

Please note: Everything I'm about to write about this VGN-S series problem is my own opinion and what I find to be accurate after my personal research and their results.

We've repaired a few of these VGN-S series laptops with the video problem. The video driver is reporting a problem because there is a fault with the hardware device. This is not a software issue.

This problem is a severe condition that is (from what I can tell) a result of board warpage and chip lifting that is influenced by the heat sink / fan assembly design.

Unfortunately, you will not find many repair facilities that are able to resolve this issue. The only time is suggest you try a "best buy" or someone similar is to have warranty repair done or motherboard replacement.

If you are still under warranty, use it! Use it because that is what you paid for.

This motherboard repair is highly complex.

Some of you may see results from applying pressure to the memory slots or surrounding areas of the board. This is because you're also influencing the area of the board under the video chip.

If you continue to apply pressure anywhere to the board you'll eventually create an even more severe and un-repairable condition.

To put this in perspective, this is such a severe condition that we're starting to not accept any motherboards that have had prior repair attempts on them from other facilities.



Joe K
http://www.aqstech.com

 

my Sony VGN S150 . has the same proplem the screen would stay off, . Now it takes me about 5 to 10 times of turning on and on the computer before it actually boots up and the screen turns on.and start .
can u help me

 

How would I repair the computer so it actually turns on and stays on. I hate to have to throw this $2k laptop in the garbage.

 

I had this problem on my S150p, its a motherboard issue. Pretty much had to send it in to Sony for them to fix it. Got it back within a week and no issues. Only thing is it was a big issue for certain models at the time so warranty was extended for like a year, but that was over a year ago now.

 

Ya I don't have a warranty and this laptop was dropped so its pretty banged up. So I have to fix it myself. Should I just buy a new motherboard? The green and yellow lights do turn on, just nothing happens. The fan doesn't even turn on

 

Here was the original thread from 2006:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=38162

You can certainly try that if you could get your hands on another motherboard, as it seems to be a motherboard issue. Though if you brick it please don't throw in the garbage, recycle. Not that i'm hoping you would, lol, but do it at your own discretion.

 

The laptop is already broken. I'm just playing with it taking it apart and messing with it. Since I know absolutely nothing about computers, I figured I'd take it apart and see whats inside. If I don't decide to fix it myself, I will sell it on Ebay or something.