Vaio VGN-FE31M Graphics card issue

For starters i do apologise if i failed to find within the stickies/older threads a similar issue that could help me out. But i would appreciate indeed some help.

I have the forementioned laptop that i bought a couple of years ago, and the warranty has expired. Today, while i was playing a game, suddenly the display messed up and all sorts of colours started appearing in mostly wavey-patterns. After a while the screen just when black, but i could still hear the in-game sound. After restarting i did notice that desktop had some minor display issues (such as thread-like colour mis-display) and i did login in the same game to test it out. Unfortunately i had the same issue, after some seconds display went fuzzy and later on all black. While i tried rolling back with system restore, and since Nvidia Geforce7600Go driver updates are hard to find i decided to reformat in hope that reinstalling windows and the applications the possible software issue would resolve. Unfortunatelly it didnt, and now laptop is going on-off not allowing me to restore applications (windows was installed) and display seems fuzzy still. I now get BSOD's since applications arent restored and cant seem to do much.

I know my description of the problem is not the best,i am convinced though in my pc/laptop newbness that it is a hardware issue of my nvidia. Question is what the appropriate action if any is. Or should i just try and send it to Belgium (i am UK resident and that's where Sony customer support seems to be) or try any other PC/Laptop repairs within UK? Or should i just consider it good as dead?

Again, sorry for long post and for failling to find similar stickys/older threads. Any help, or sharing of past expereinces with Sony's repair system is appreciated.

 

Seems like you got your self a dead laptop. Its part of a planned-obsolete program when its out of warranty thats when they pull the plug. Come on, they can't make any more money if things last forever

You can try to contact Sony Customer Care to see how much they will charge you to get that fixed. My assumption is that it will be more than what laptop is worth. Sorry man, best of luck.

 

well i know i got no helpful responces but i ll keep it on;

seems GPU is overheating. I reformated the whole system with the pre-installed drivers from NVIDIA, and also downloaded ntune to try and monitor the temperatures. After i try to play the forementioned game i get red lines everywhere (artifacts?) and then laptop screen goes dark. Tried some performance test from ntune and as soon as i run i got it again.

i ll try and clean the insides with compressed air hoping it might help. It seems though that it is very sensitive and overheats very fast...

well i be ****ed if i knew what to do.(other than send it to sony and pay fees that probably wont sort it out)

thanks for reading (hoping i ll get some helpful reply)

 

Well, i ll keep talking to myself.

Apparently sony's charges are:

£141 for just picking up and if i dont agree at any repair
£206 for minor repairs
£206+£137 for any repairs other than motherboard/screen
£206+£491 for motherboard/screen repairs

Seemingly its a GPU issue. Since, if i am not mistaken GPU is intergrated to the motherboard it is 60% possibility that they will have to change motherboard (thus £707) and 40% that they will just have to change the GPU. Thats what they said anyway.

It's not really worth for a 2+ year laptop is it now?

 

I think you want this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268277&page=40

 

thanks for the link...well that might be an explanation why my screen is of vegetable-green colour atm. And they are asking for £700 + to fix it...

meh what now...

 

Someone mentioned a petition...

The 700 Pounds - that'S a motherboard replacement...

 

well i ll be ****ed if i pay £700 for a 2 year old laptop that might had been faulty from production. and petition...doubt it will work...

vielen dank fur deine hilfe.

 

Gern geschehen.

(English: You're welcome)

 

I have exactly the same laptop and problem, the graphicds adapter is fried and because its intergrated on the motherboard, it means a new mb. Sony quoted me 850 euro which is absurd. my laptop is also onlt two years old, I think this might be a production fault. My question is can the mb be changed for cheaper, d.i.y.?

 

I suppose, if you know what you are doing and can get hold of one, yes.

I believe one member was quoted half the Sony price by a private company.