Sony Vpcz1 (vpcz12ahx) Suddenly Freezing

Two month-old VPCZ12AHX (VPCZ1)
500 GB solid state drive
Windows 7 64bit

NO exotic software or virus protection installed

It has just started intermittently seizing. I'm not taxing the CPU...I'll just be on the internet or checking email.

It happens with/without external monitor hooked up (HDMI).
It happens with/without USB dongle for wireless keyboard connected

Although, it does seem to happen more when attached to an external monitor--nothing empirical here, it just seems this way.

Anyone experience this?

Chris

 

FYI: At first I thought it may have been a recent Windows update, so I rolled it back a day or two...The freezing kept occuring. I then rolled it back a few more days....The freezing kept occuring. I then rolled it back about a week/10 days, and it kept freezing.

 

One other thing I notice: When it does freeze, you'll hear the fan, which is normally quiet. It gets 'louder' to the point of being audible--distinctly louder...Probably quieter than other laptops, but loud for this one. If this laptop were a year or two old, I might think it had a bunch of gunk/dust built up in it, but this laptop is babied and always carried around, in my bag, away from dust/elements, et al.

Anyone?

 

Another thing: When it freezes, it isn't a blue-screen. It simply freezes wherever it happens to be and nothing works to unfreeze it beyond holding onto the power button until it shuts off.

 

Mate, you need a live virus scanner, period.

From the sounds of it, freezing while browsing the net probably means your Z is being used as an external bot from some foreign server. It's being made to do junk processes from somewhere else, which is why you hear your fan speeding up. The thing with this particular thing is it stops your Z from interacting with you at all, focusing all hardware power on that bot-based process.

I ain't trying to scare you, but you are too optimistic if you think you are safe from viruses without a scanner, even if you go to 'safe' sites.

Don't bother installing a virus scanner now since the bot's probably stuck itself deep within the system. Virus scanners are only good at defense / as barriers. They are useless once the virus is actually in.

System restore has always been useless for me, for the exact reason you have mentioned above. That feature is really only designed for people who accidently delete important files from their machines.

I'll suggest you reinstall your windows from the recovery discs you made when you first got your machine; the chances are the bots probably gotten to the hidden recovery sector of your SSD as well.

 

According to Windows Defener, my computer was clean.

Virus Scanner: Ran it from an external drive...

Clean.

The freezing is intermittent. Sometimes I can use it for an hour or two. Sometimes it freezes after 10 minutes.

 

Windows Defender has what we in the software / I.T. industry call DCST (Don't Catch Sh!t Technology). Don't use that.

Microsoft released Security Essentials, which is a alot more superior.
I'm assuming you only ran a scan after your machine started experiencing issues? Running off an external drive doesn't really offer any live protection. And like I say, virus scanners are only effective as barriers; once you are infected, they have a hard time finding anything.

You mentioned that the freezing is intermittent. Though I'm guessing the freezes only occur when you are online?

Regardless, reinstall Windows using the recovery disks; System Restore and related restore points all house the virus so that's pretty much useless now.

 

Download these 2 free programs

Spybot Search and Destroy
Spybot - Search & Destroy - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware: Malwarebytes

You should't take your PC's health for granted, you NEED and least 1 antimalware program thesedays

 

CaNuCk92............Ran both programs. Problem free.

 

i am afraid this is the ssd problem, but u must try using hd tune 4.xx which include 4.01 or 4.50. you will see a shock after you scan...

 

I would advise you to download a bootcd e.g. like shown in this thread and test your system hardware entirely. Most important: memory test.
Another advantage of booting off a bootcd / live cd is, you are independend of software issues that may be already on your system.
You have also spyware / virus scan tools / registry tools included in most bootcds.

If your computer freezes even with that, I would say 98% chance that you have a hardware issue, like defective ram/motherboard etc.

 

this is ssd problem i am using vpcz1 and have had my ssd changed.
ah yes i remembered how to check it easily, check the WEI score for Hardisk Transfer Rate it will diplay any value below 7.9.

 

OP, either u mean a 500 GB HARD DRIVE or
512 GB SSD

no such thing as a 500 GB ssd

 

I guess he has a HTS545050KTA300 as I read an earlier post of eucalifornia.

 

he mentioned ssd which means it is the (128 GB*4) SSD, beside it is Z12 not Z11.

 

Did you checked you're not in power saver mode with lower CPU frequency ?

 

My money is he's got his thermal strategy set to silent. Been there, done that.

 

Right: I have a 512GB.

 

How would I know?

 

Please elaborate...Thermal Strategy?

 

Received a score of 7.9 on my primary hard disk.

Just ran WEI, again, to verify.

 

Control Panel-->Vaio Control Center-->

Under power management then power options You will see "Thermal Control Strategy". Make sure it's not set to silent.

 

It is set to BALANCED with SILENT & PERFORMANCE being the other two options.

 

@eucalifornia,

How full is your drive? If your drive is full, you might be experiencing degredation with garbage collection unable to function properly. SSD degredation would display symptoms similar to the ones you are describing (intermittent freezes).

 

As much as it makes me sound like a Level 1 Sony Technical Support rep, I'd be thinking about doing a system restore (with either DVD recovery discs that you created or with the restore partition). If the problem goes away after that, a hardware problem will have been elliminated and I'd start persuing driver-based issues.

Of course, I'd make a disk-image-based backup before doing the restore, but that would be my next step.

 

It's well known "Black Screen of Death" issue...

It's related with NVidia driver of course only appear in "Speed" mode..

There are several threats about it..

I'm waiting fix from Sony too..

 

bsod with nvidia 188.80 provided by sony?

 

If bundled with Vaio, primary responsible is Sony..

A question, 188.80 related bsod is familiar ?!? any suggestions...

 

i never face any bsod with nvidia 188.80

you can update from nvidia 188.80 intel 2021 to
nvidia 189.92 intel 2104
or
nvidia 189.99 intel 2141
or
nvidia 189.99 intel 2189 > need to be signed
from the following link...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/342947-my-discoveries-vaio-z-s-hybrid-graphics.html

 

Thanks Andrew08

Update drivers to 189.99 & 2141.. and voila..

After this, never experienced any BSOD, at least now IMO, especially 1080p vidplays cause this BSOD's..

After driver update i'm execute really hard torture test on my Z1.. Three different player (KMP, Gom, VLC) play 1080p vid same time !!!!! Is that enough for sweat our i7 machines ??? Absolutely No ! Open many office document, copy-paste hundreds & hundreds pages on word... PS CS5 filter processing... Batch process of many high res images.... Of course three 1080p vids playing fluently same time !!!

No crash, no bsod...

If i'm stayed stock drivers, bsod appear in first seconds or minutes on same situaton..

Only thing to produce BSOD with stock drivers is; (......not happen frequently (maybe 3-4 times a week) but if you push really hard you can produce bsod easyl..)

1 - SPEED MODE

2 - Play vids on Background (divx, xvid... it doesn't matter..)

3 - Some CPU stress (especially flash based web pages)

Sorry for my poor English...

 

for the vaio z freeze problem please check service of superfetch...
you must disable superfetch!!

 

I concur. The SSD issue is the most likely source of your intermittent freezing.

A potential workaround for web-browsing related activity.

1. Install a RAM disk (256MB is enough)

2. Install your browser, it's profile AND cache on the RAM disk

3. Run the browser from RAM disk and enjoy stutter free use of browser (system may still stall every now and then and there's little you can do to help it).

 

install this driver...
Sony eSupport - VPCZ12AHX/XQ - Software Updates & Drivers

 

Holy hell...That driver attempts to solve the EXACT problem I'm experiencing...And it is dated two days ago!

Talk about timing...

I've just installed the patch...I'll see if it makes a difference.

Stay tuned.

 

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem, with a VPCZ117GG
256GB SSD
8GB RAM

It occasionally freezes completely. No BSOD, just becomes completely unresponsive and requires a reboot. Typically this happens once a day or once every two days. The machine is used for about 15 hours per day on average.

Also, when switching between apps, it *sometimes* freezes momentarily (maybe for 1 second)

There are no events in the event log that make me suspicious about anything.

I took it to the local Sony service centre and they said they ran diagnostics on it overnight and it performed normally. Of course, once I got it home, it froze within an hour !

Would it be unwise to try installing this patch ?

Any other ides ?

 

it is the best to install, can you check your WEI score first is it 7.9 or 7.6?

 

Processor: 6.9
RAM: 6.9
Graphics: 6.4
Gaming: 6.4
Primary HD: 7.9

So I should apply the patch even though it's for a different model ?

 

doesn't matter...
my model is VPCZ129GG

 

My scores were 7.9. I was experiencing the freezing. I installed the patch, last night. I've only used it less than an hour since the patch.

So far, so good...

I (also) use my laptop, continuously, for eight to 12 hours per day.

Stay tuned.

 

Well the patch doesn't seem to have worked for me - it has frozen twice since I applied it.

It's beginning to worry me a lot. The last time, during reboot, I thought it had frozen during the "starting windows" splash screen - it was stuck there for 10 mins !! Then it just booted as if everthing was normal, with no event log entries to indicate why it took so long to boot.

 

Don't know if it was an anomaly, or not, but just had a freeze at the Windows login screen (post-patch-installation).

Currently have wireless keyboard & mouse USB dongle connected
Currently have HDMI monitor connected
Currently plugged in.

Stay tuned...

 

Well....That didn't take long. Less than three minutes after my last post (below), I had a freeze. My freezes are usually accompanied by higher-than-normal fan-activity & fan-noise.

is going on?

Someone (earlier) asked me how full my hard drive was: 220 GB's used out of 512....Almost half-full...Probably shouldn't make a difference.

For the first three weeks I used my laptop, this never occurred. It's only been going on for the last two weeks.

I have (only) MS Office & Adobe CS5 installed on my machine (outside of the factory image).

Kind of at wits end....

 

I left the machine on overnight. No apps running, external monitor (switched off). It had frozen in the middle of the night

 

Same thing is happening to me

 

eucalifornia: have you tried switching he graphics system switch to "stamina" ? Did it have any effect ? I've tried this today and so far no freezes.

 

Can some of you please try this when it looks like it's frozen? Move the graphics switch to auto and back to speed/stamina or vice versa. Does that work to "unfreeze" the computer?

 

I am doing this now...I have hesitated from doing this because I was using an external montior (HDMI).

When using the external monitor you have two switch settings: Auto & Speed. Stamina doesn't work with two monitors.

I've tried so many different iterations to see what will/won't work. My guess is that it has frozen without any monitor plugged in....Right now, no external monitor and it is in Stamina-mode.

 

I thought I had tried this, but I will try it again after my current test:

No external monitor/running in Stamina-mode, alone.

 

Anecdotally: Sony is sending out a tech, to visit me on site, to see if they can rectify the problem. The tech I spoke to (800-282-2848) said he had, specifically, heard about this problem and that restoring the computer to its factory image resolved the problem.

Digression: I felt gratified when the tech told me that he was familiar with the problem. I was then pissed/dissapointed when he told me that restoring the machine to its factory specs solves the problem. This felt like he was 'kicking' the can down the block. The basic tech-support response: Re-image/reinstall your operating system. I (obviously) don't know what the problem is, but I'm pretty damned certain it is hardware. Not software. If it is software, it is the RAID or Display Adatper (video) driver. Subsequently, I told the tech I couldn't restore my computer to the factory image because I would need to backup my material. In order to backup my computer, it has to stay on long-enough for me to transfer information. I'm supposed to get a call back in the next two days to schedule a tech-visit to my office.....

 

I've been experiencing these "apparent" lockups, but they aren't really lockups. Both with an external VGA and internal monitor. This seems to happen after the power management wakes up the screen. It will appear to lockup--cursor stops blinking, key, touchpad, usb mouse doesn't work. The screen isn't black either--just everything is frozen.

I stumbled on the fix, because I was trying all the different keys and buttons to unfreeze it. Seems like in my case, I just switch the graphics button from speed to auto and back, then everything works again. I am using the original Video drivers that came with my VPCZ11FHX.