URGENTTT SZ Screen gone haywire(pic incl)

HELPPPPP, as i speak my computer just started randomly showing signs of lagging and screen just started flickering these crazy patches of black/grey/white, multi coloured lines going up and down the screen

im really really scared that something might be happening with the GPU

as it cant be the screen(or can it?) here is the pic
i know i should of blurred things out but i want to show my prob as it is so please dont mind the stuff that you see

thanks

P.S.this happened exactly as i opened a youtubevideo and started playing it and even after i paused it the problem continued



its like what you see on the old TVs with reception problem im sorry i didnt save the whole image, i think i left some space at the top in paint and when i pasted it only the top half came up,
ideleted the extra space and blurred some bits and re upped the pic again
its 20 mins later i closed the video and short while later it disappeared, and it hasnt come back yet....

 

try running it in stamina mode and see if the problem occured.

if you are using the speed mode, i guess it either the gpu faulty (but rare case since you are using the nvidia 7400) or maybe you can update the gpu driver.
i have the same problem (screen showing lines of colors) but its on the login screen due to incompatible gpu driver. problem solved by roll back to the default driver. the point here, its either the gpu fault or the driver.

 

Like Miyabi has said, try running your Vaio SZ notebook in STAMINA mode. If the problem does not occur in that mode, then the Nvidia GPU (although not the 8000 series but a 7400) may be dying. Good luck.

 

okay umm, i dont know why the stamina mode isnt coming on, i dont know if this has to do with Win7 or i the switch isnt alligned properly with switch board, since ive opened the sz few times. i have never actually used the stamina mode on this laptop, since i had it, ive always kept it on Speed mode, so i cant really say what the problem is.

okay just tried to play a movie in fullscren mode using Media Player Classic
and this is what i get. its been over an hour later and the computer has been running fine since i closed the youtube video.

 

okay so i restarted my Laptop i guess that seemed to do the trick, everything is working okay, except for the switch button as always.
Win7 automatically installed the nivida driver for me still running the 7100 build. and i didnt touch it or was bothered to change it as everything was working okay as is.
at the moment Win7 installed NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 (Prerelease - WDDM 1.0)
Driver Date: 12/12/2008
Driver Version: 7.15.11.7929
Driver Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher
i just checked Nvida site and they dont have any drivers available for win7, i checked out the Vista 32bit section and i found this :
Version: 179.48 BETA
Release Date: 2009.02.11
Operating System: Windows Vista
Language: English (U.S.)
File Size: 122 MB

Should i update my current driver to the vista driver posted by nvidia? and if yes should i upgrade or uninstall old, and install new?

Thanks

 

do you have a webcam & 64 bit on your sz laptop at all? if so, is it working?

 

yes, i have a webcam, no its not working, i was given this laptop in feb of this year by my cousin so as far as i know it wasnt working when i got it, i didnt try until a couple of weeks ago with drivers and other things but it didnt seem to work, so im not sure if he messed up the webcam before i got it, or it doesnt work with win7.
i am using 32bit win7

Just to let everyone know the backstory, i got this laptop in feb '09 when my cousin had it laying around for few months after windows corruption problem,
he said i can borrow it and i checked it out and found out this is my 1st aero capable laptop so i decided to try win7, i 1st used F10 recovery then after windows was working okay i did a clean install of win7, then when RC1 came out i installed RC1, hopefully soon ill install the RTM version.
i didnt check if stamina/speed mode or if webcam worked when i installed vista. so i cant say if its win7 fault or a fault from before. in next few days or a week, before iinstall RTM i will do F10 recovery to vista, and see the situation of my laptop then ill install RTM

I dont know if i should install 64bit or not. HDD space is something im limited on, 100GB, and i heard 64bit needs more space then 32 bit, plus its not much of an advantage to me, i guess, im only using 2GB, and i rather save my money for a new laptop instead of upgrading this one, as i already spent £25 on a new charger and £17.95 on a new DC Power PIN adapter. and im really tight on money. as long as this is working for my day to day use, its fine with me, last upgrade i might do is the USB board cuz i think i did something to mine. another £17.50