VGN-NW Freezes When Moved

Hi.

I've been encountering a huge problem for the past two months or so.
I bought my computer, a VGN-NW350F, back in July, and it ran perfectly until January. Out of nowhere, the laptop would freeze quite often.

If I happened to move the laptop, from a desk to my lap (very gently, mind you), it would freeze. The mouse wouldn't respond, none of the keys would work, nothing. When this happens, I have to force a shutdown with the power button. If I have it running on my lap, if I shift my weight for a moment, it sometimes freezes.
As if that wasn't bad enough, often when I try and boot up, it gets to the Windows logo, shows the Windows flag waving, and then everything freezes, requiring a reboot then.

I took the laptop to Sony, and they ran a test and told me that it could be malware somehow disrupting the C drive. They recommended that I do a complete C drive restore, which I did. For a few days, that seemed to do the trick. The laptop never froze, and everything ran smoothly.

But in the past few days, it's gotten just as bad as before. Just this morning, I had to reboot the computer five times before it was able to load past the Windows logo.

I want to take it back to Sony and have them take another look at it. They concluded before that the hard drive was working fine, but I can't wrap my mind around why it freezes when it's physically moved, and yet something's not physically broken inside.

If anyone has any advice or input before I bring it back to Sony again, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Oh and if I need to give any more specs, just let me know!

 

Even if nothing is broken, something could be loose inside like the RAM. You could try check it yourself if you are confident that it will not void your warranty (or ask them to check it).

Your computer would seem to still be under warranty as you purchased it less than a year ago. I hope that Sony will be able to diagnose and fix the issue.

 

I have had something similar occur with my Vaio Z, as far is it freezing when moved. I have not had an issue with it starting up, but usually it will freeze several times in a row then work perfectly fine. I think the main reason this doesn't happen to me more often is I usually use it on a table, but I have intentionally tried to get it to freeze by using it for more than an hour on my lap and gently shaking it around every so often, and it wont freeze. Other times I will pick it up to move it to a new location and it WILL freeze.

I also can't really think of a good reason why this happens to me, so I am very curious to hear if you find the cause or if you send it back what they determined the problem was.

 

Based on your description (problem only occurring on movement), it certainly seems to be a physical problem (loose/faulty connector or dodgy solder joint?)

I would recommend trying to find a particular motion or movement that always reproduces the issue, that can be demonstrated to the Sony staff when you take it in.

Additionally, does the Windows Event Viewer give any further details on what is causing the crash/error? This may help direct you to a certain subsystem, RAM, hard drive or similar, to look for the bad connection.

 

I can't believe it didn't occur to me that something may have been loose inside (but I'm more surprised Sony didn't think of that either, haha)

ssssssssss, Could you please tell me exactly what to do with the Event Viewer? I've never used it before. I know there are probably tutorials, but you seem to know exactly what it should be looking for.

 

What information appears in event logs (Event Viewer)?

You mainly want to look at System 'error' events I think (relate them to times/dates of the crashes if you can) - they will probably say 'The system recovered from a serious error' or some such vague wording, but may contain more details about what exactly the error was, like if it's along the lines of 'woah dude, your computer crashed because some idiot took the RAM out while it was running' then obviously you'd be looking for a physical problem relating to the RAM or the connectors it fits into.

I'm on an XP machine atm, which I suspect you're not, so can't give you any exact advice on what wording will appear or to look for in case it differs & I confuse you, but if you can't understand any of it then copypasta me some relevant looking system error stuff in this thread & I will see if it tells me anything.

 

If you force shutdown your computer when not frozen you will also be able to rule out several things in the event viewer that are related to that and not anything causing it to freeze. In my case I get errors for things like my wireless, touchpad, fingerprint scanner, etc... but nothing that isn't related to the force shutdown itself.

 

I found the events on the log relating to the few times it's frozen today.

First is this one.

"The previous system shutdown at 1:42:24 PM on ‎3/‎17/‎2011 was unexpected."

In the table below that,
Log Name: System
Source: EventLog
Event ID: 6008
Level: Error
User: N/A
Logged 3/17/2011 1:43:25 PM
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic
Computer: My Name


Then above that one

"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Log Name: System
Source: Kernel-Power
Event ID: 41
Level: Critical
User: SYSTEM
OpCode: Info
Logged 3/17/2011 1:43:17 PM
Task Category: (63)
Keywords: (2)
Computer: My Name



So what part of any of that should I specifically be looking for?
I greatly appreciate the help everyone's been giving so far!

 

Oh, and just in case it's something worth mentioning,

The three icons that are on the front-side, next to the SD Card slots, One of them is power, the other I think is a symbol for charging, and the right most one I think is battery activity.
Usually the power light is always lit, and the right most icon flashes orange.
I've recently noticed that when it freezes, the battery (?) icon stops flashing completely.

Just in case that could mean something.

 

I had some stuttering followed by a crash again today, with it on the table so nothing was moving. My hard drive activity LED (blinking orange) stopped flashing completely. Just to test something out I waited 5 minutes before I force shut down to see what times showed up in the Event Viewer for some things turning off unexpectedly- the times were when I shut it down not when I stopped responding.

Would a loose HDD cable cause windows to freeze without shutting down, and do the later timestamps in my event viewer mean information was written out during the shutdown after it had frozen? I might open up my Z to play with some cables but I'm reluctant to do so.