Sony Vaio Overheating!

Hi, I bought a VPCF111FD about 3 months ago and on my 3rd day of purchase, my laptop froze while browsing firefox with 3 browsers open and a youtube link. The fan started to make a lot of noise and I could feel a lot of heat coming from the side grill. I had to manually shut it off.

Just last week, the problem began again when it was a warm day in the house. I was playing a video game (League of Legends) and the computer froze while the image on the screen turned purple as heat began to pour out of the machine. I freaked out and shut down the computer, and when I came back an hour later to turn it on, it would get to the Vaio screen (or Windows screen sometimes) and then just freeze as the fan picked up again. This happened several times until a message displayed saying, "The i7 processor is now booting from the factory image".

The next day, everything ran completely fine and I even tested by running Team Fortress 2 and doing CAD modelling and no freezes occured. I made sure by doing a spybot, Avast, Defragment, and System restore scans. Then today, the same thing happened with the laptop freezing while I'm playing a video game.

I think the problem is with the fans since they don't get loud until the computer freezes, but I'm not entirely sure if heat is the problem since there are days when I can game for hours on end with nothing happening.
Any ideas on what might be happening?

 

Sounds pretty bad - you will probably have to send it in for warranty repairs as you are experiencing hard freezes, but could you download and run Hardware Monitor ( http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) and post up your computer's temperatures at mild-load.

 

Thanks for the tip. Here is the info about 10 minutes after my last hard freeze.
Is this a common problem for computers with Nvidia and i7 cores?

Also, is there an app that I can use to run the fan on max speed all the time so I don't freeze?

 

Here is the info about 10 minutes after my last hard freeze.
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Unfortunately, but the temps look quite normal.

Is this a common problem for computers with Nvidia and i7 cores?
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Probably not. Such a problem makes the computer quite unusable and as such I believe you would hear more about it. You could have a look in other parts of the Sony Forum if there is anything: http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8

Also, is there an app that I can use to run the fan on max speed all the time so I don't freeze?
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You can have a look if Sony provides any such settings in their power management utility, if they have one.

 

The power management options don't have it at all, and I'm not sure how to access the Bios on windows 7 either. The main problem is that yesterday, I ran it to max capacity and it worked, but today, it's freezing like crazy whenever I play any kind of game. I might just take it to a tech shop tomorrow, but they will put in on a backlog and I really don't want that.

Is there an external program that I can use to change the fan speed?

 

You could try SpeedFan, but generally there are no programs to change the fan speed.
You should be able to access the BIOS by (repetedly) pressing F2 or F10 or one of the function keys when you first turn on your PC.

 

I already have speedfan, but that didn't detect any fans.
Here are the specs right after my crash just 2 minutes ago: what is the normal operating temperature for a laptop? I don't know if these are high or not, but I'd thought I just post them here for reference anyways.

Thanks for your help by the way!

 

Cut off temp of ~100C for both. Keep below 70-80C if possible.

Your laptop's temps aren't unusual.

However, is your laptop on High Performance? If so, switch it to Balanced.

 

I set it to balance and it still crashes. It's been happening all this week, which is weird because it only froze once every 2 weeks or so before.

 

I think you're gonna have to send it in.

 

I dont think the freezing is not because the laptop is overheating as I believe if the laptop is overheating, it will shut down instead or displaying BSOD (but then I could be wrong).

I would guess the freezing itself that caused the fan to run faster as the processors were "thinking hard" (which would make a lot of heat). I am not sure what is the cause of the freezing, could be software-related or hardware-related.

You can try re-installing windows first (or doing clean install if possible), update the drivers, etc. If the freezing persist, then it might be hardware-related and you should have that issues checked with sony under the warranty.

Just my $0.02