Sony Vaio laptop screen is acting up

As soon as the machine powers on, the screen starts doing this thing, making strange patterns all over. The thing seems to start up okay, it makes the usual little chime, just the display is screwed. I've no idea where to start looking, to fix this. Any help would be super appreciated.

 

I'm 99% sure you have a dead GPU.

 

Which SONY model have you got? If it's got a dual switchable gpu, do you get this issue on both of them?

 

VGN FE48G.

I don't know if it has a switchable GPU, how would I find out, and how would I switch them?

Under the hinge cover, the display plug (long narrow black one that I'm pretty sure carries the display signal) plugs directly into the motherboard, so I just assumed it's onboard video card, not discrete, though I might be wrong there.

 

Sounds like the GPU might need to take a trip to your oven. No, really, look it up. People have "baked" their GPU's to get the solder to remelt and close up cracks that have formed in the traces due to too much heat.

 

Perhaps you got also one of the affected nvidia gpus, have a read here : http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/407410-sony-comes-clean-faulty-nvidia-chips.html

Oven? NO! Completely disassemble your motherboard and wrap it in aluminium foil. Only leave the GPU stick out and heat its area on the board with a hot-air gun. Don't overdo that of course.

That's how M$ repairs ROD XBOX360's.

Anyway, if you have nothing to lose, you can try that - otherwise buy a new mainboard or a new computer. If you have no experience in such stuff, better keep your hands away from that and give it to someone experienced.

 

Sounds like the old cold solder joint BGA issue. I wouldn't use an oven, some do. Others use a blow torch and a penny. I use a heat gun. You get more control. If it's under warranty, have Sony fix it. If it's not..... then go buy a heat gun and try to fix it yourself. If you have to pay to get it fix, they'll just replace the MB which would probably cost more than the machine is worth. I've fixed this issue on a few laptops, mainly Macs. I'm about at a 75% success rate. Make sure to do it right the first time. Everything time you try to redo it makes it less and less likely to succeed.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the help.

I watched a few YT videos on heatgunning screwed GPU's last night.

I almost was not going to bother trying, but it turned out we did have an industrial heat gun at work, and so on a whim, I took the back cover off, found the GPU, and gave it a blast on the lowest setting. That didn't work, so I turned the temperature up a notch, blasted it again, and lo and behold, the thing came good. The battery ran out before it got to start up properly, but it displayed the VAIO and windows Vista (ugh) logos perfectly.

The dude who it belonged to is going to try it out tonight, but I'm confident that the problem should be fixed. So now that I've saved him from having to buy a new $1200 laptop (for a little while), I'll be getting half a gallon of delicious scotch for my effort (I'd share it with you if I could, really!). Thanks, notebook review!

I'm really surprised that it worked, and on my very first time, without even being certain that I was heating the right chip. I'm standing there with a blazing heatgun, a little cardboard shield, and smelling hot plastic fumes thinking "This must be a practical joke".

 

So, it's not an urban legend. That's awesome.

Glad it worked!

 

Cheers dude, great you made it. Enjoy your scotch.