Vaio Z11 crashes (not related to Flash or video!)

Hello All,

I purchased my Vaio Z11 with the knowledge of the potential Nvidia/Flash crashes (and fixes). It's a Core i5 2.40, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.

I've had the Vaio for one day:

- Installed Firefox, Zone Alarm Pro, Dropbox, Adobe Masters Collection, MS Office 2010 Home and Business, AIM and Skype
- I've not been watching any videos on YouTube or Hulu

3 times today while doing normal things like comping an email in Gmail or even browsing this forum (!) the Vaio suddenly turns into a black screen, the system automatically reboots and displays the 'safe mode options'. I hit start normal and it resumes to reboot and everything's fine.

The Windows Reliability tools shows unexpected shutdown error messages (about 2.5 to 3 hours apart). Otherwise, there are no error messages either prior to the black screen of death or post reboot. It's almost as if it's HARDWARE related because the shutdown is so sudden (as if it's running with the battery taken out and you simply unplug the AC adaptor!).

On a related note, the laptop is plugged in and sitting on a Belkin cooling fan-tray (so it's not an overheating issue). I do have the Dynamic Hybrid Graphics System set to "Speed". It's connected via VGA to a Dell Widescreen LCD monitor with resolution 1920x1080.

Obviously, I'm very concerned by this and hope that others have experienced this and there's a solution (that doesn't involve sending the laptop back).

 

Open HWMonitor and report the highest temperatures recorded for each component. (ie open the program, leave it running in the background for 2 hours and check the temperatures) However, if you open it now and you see any temps around 70C then that is quite high.

When a HDMI monitor is connected, the GPU has to run at it's fastest speed, but I do not think this is the case for VGA connection.

 

Were there any Windows updates during that day, close to the times the crashes occurred?

 

Thanks for your responses!

Haven't been using laptop over weekend. Turned it on again about 9AM this morning. Crashed around 2PM - was in Firefox, click on a link to WSJ article from Google. Instant black screen. Automatically rebooted.

HWMonitor reading when I ran it just now (note: laptop has been sitting on the Belkin cooling tray all morning):

ACPI 57

Intel Core i5 520M
Core 0 52
Core 2 56

Nvidia Geoforce
GPU Core 60

There were no Windows updates on day of crashes.

 

Crashed again couple of mins ago. Rebooted. I ran HWMonitor immediately and ACPI temperature was 72. But within a couple of seconds it dropped to 60. Any thoughts?

 

Which application was open when the crashes occurred? I have Resource Monitor handy on the taskbar so that when temperatures (and fan) go up, I check the offending apps immediately.

I tracked the reliability report and there are two main sources of crashes:

1. Adobe Flash running in IE8. I switched to Firefox and things stabilized.

2. Games. I think this is why OS X and Linux seems so stable: because I can't run games on them

 

Sounds like your computer is defective.
I would suggest trying a restore and if you have problems after that I would get warranty servicing.
52 and 56c is nothing, I would only worry if it broke the 100c mark.

 

@TofuTurkey I use Firefox only. And no games. The program I was last using when it crashed was Firefox (no video, etc) I was Facebook.

 

Facebook uses Flash FYI, I have never had the crashes you have described.

 

Where's the air intake on the Belkin cooler? If its intake is near the Z's exhaust, it'll pump the hot air back into the notebook, and is likely the cause of your problems.

 

It's in the base, here's a pic:
http://www.irbit.com.ar/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/cool-stand.jpg

Do you think it could be the cause?

 

dont think it's a problem with the cooler, but why don't you try using your laptop without the cooler to make sure?

 

Sure thing, I'll try it without the cooler tomorrow and report back.

 

Lol, he hasn't?

 

Well, I guessed with the cooler (fan at the base) it should be running at lower temperature ... ;-)

Anyway, running it by itself right now so let's see how it goes!

 

Is the fan in the middle pushing air up or pulling it in from there? The z pulls air in from the bottom so if that fan is pulling down also it will cause more harm than good.

Also, how does it power itself? If via usb it could be a problem as well.

IME nearly everything belkin makes (markets) is total crap.

 

It's in the middle and pushes up. And it powers itself via AC (though it can be run from USB only). So it was running on AC while plugged in to the Z via USB - it has 4 ports (connected to iPhone, mouse and keyboard). But I don't know if the AC was powering the USB ports on the tray or just the fan; or whether it's taking power from the Z as well.

In either case I haven't had a crash today. Too early to say for sure though, I think.

What puzzles me is that when it was running on the tray, if you lifted it up the bottom of the Z felt very cool/cold to the touch - with only mild warmth on the left hand side vent. So unless it was running seriously hot at its core it's confusing.

Probably needs another day to test. I'm very paranoid now though and wonder if it's best just to replace the unit or have it looked at.

EDIT: Could it be that the air is being pushed up to the base of the Z, and being circulated to the sides of the Z, with the vent on the left then sucking in warmer air than it would otherwise?

 

I doubt it's a heat issue. There could be an issue with the USB though. I'd try it without the USB plugged in to rule that out.

 

OK, no crashes yesterday. All the USB devices mentioned above are now plugged in directly.

The thing is ... I was previously running an Acer 3810TZ on the cooling tray with USB plugged in and never had a 'related' crash once.

Could it be that the USB port on the right hand on the Vaio Z11 is underpowered?

Or do you think I have a faulty unit?

 

OK, so I've been running the Z11 on a desk (ie. no Belkin cooling tray). Connected via USB: standard keyboard, standard mouse and iPhone dock. Connected via HDMI (using single HDMI to DVI cable) to Dell LCD widescreen monitor in 1920x1080.

I sudden shut-down black screen crashed 4 times today Interesting, Reliability report said that a MEMORY.dmp file had been generated:

Code:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x0000009f (0x0000000000000003, 0xfffffa80046e6060, 0xfffff80000b9c518, 0xfffffa8009fa8010). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 062310-16988-01.

After much Googling I managed to read the .dmp file. Here are instructions in case any one is searching the forum in future:

1. Downloaded Microsoft .net Framework 4 (required for step 2)
2. Installed 64-bit Windows Debugger Tool
3. Installed 64-bit Windows 7 Symbols for Debugger (required for step 4)
4. I then followed the instructions to download Debugwiz.exe utility.

5) I ran debugwiz.exe as Administrator (right click the file and select Run as Administrator) with generates a log file

I've attached the generated debuglog.txt. From what I can tell the error is caused by:

Code:

BugCheck 9F, {3, fffffa80046e6060, fffff80000b9c518, fffffa8009fa8010}

Probably caused by : pci.sys

And then:

Code:

DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (9f)
A driver is causing an inconsistent power state.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000003, A device object has been blocking an Irp for too long a time
Arg2: fffffa80046e6060, Physical Device Object of the stack
Arg3: fffff80000b9c518, Functional Device Object of the stack
Arg4: fffffa8009fa8010, The blocked IRP

Debugging Details:
------------------


DRVPOWERSTATE_SUBCODE:  3

IMAGE_NAME:  pci.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  4a5bc117

MODULE_NAME: pci

FAULTING_MODULE: fffff88000f9e000 pci

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR:  0x9F

PROCESS_NAME:  System

CURRENT_IRQL:  2

STACK_COMMAND:  kb

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x9F_3_NETw5s64_IMAGE_pci.sys

BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x9F_3_NETw5s64_IMAGE_pci.sys

At this point I'm doing more Googling. If anyone has any info to help me decipher the above I would very much appreciate it.

Again, I thank everyone whose responded so far!

EDIT: One of the crashes involved the laptop hanging (black screen, but with green light on, and keyboard unresponsive) after I closed the lid for a minute or two and reopened it - it hung and after another couple of minutes, there were vertical white flickering lines flashing on the screen before it shutdown automatically. I think the above bugcheck was caused by this crash. The other crashes just say "The previous system shutdown at 5:18:29 PM on ‎6/‎23/‎2010 was unexpected." and do not offer any other clues.

 

That's pretty cool debugging!

Perhaps it would help to search for the following strings in the registry, to try and figure out which device triggered the power state issue:

X64_0x9F_3_NETw5s64_IMAGE_pci.sys
fffff88000f9e000

I couldn't find those in my registry, I'm wondering if they are specific to the devices that are connected via USB. I'm also wondering if changing the power settings (e.g. don't allow device to sleep / wake up system) helps: perhaps the device captures the interrupt, and before it returns control to the OS, goes to sleep.

 

No luck, couldn't find either string in the registry!?

I'll try playing around with the different power settings, which would probably solve the sleep shutdown issue ... but I'm still puzzled/annoyed by the black screen sudden shut down issue which appears to happen randomly when I'm using the laptop.

 

I'll continue logging my experience trying to fix this issue in case I a) find a solution and b) might help someone troubleshoot in the future.

So the driver is for the Intel Wireless Adapter (Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 AGN ) -
download latest driver from Intel.

The latest driver is 13.1.1. from 2/26/2010. While the original Vaio Z11 driver ( download original driver from Sony) is 13.0.0.107 from 02/24/2010.

I've just updated (funny aside, I crashed while I was looking at the Intel page ... just a good think Z11 is so damned fast at rebooting ). Will report any progress.

 

I might have missed it but do you have the 1080p screen?

 

Nope.

OK, so some further Google searching and I found this thread with a bunch of people waiting for a fix from Intel: NETw5s64.sys keeps on giving me bluescreens

Most people have isolated the random crashing to:

1. Coming in and out of hibernation/sleep while connected to WiFi
2. Heavy downloading over WiFi

It appears the same two laptops (e.g. people working in the same office) may not be affected, which probably means there's a third-party software that could be causing the conflict.

It looks like the 13.1.1 driver will not be stable and we have to wait for an update from Intel.

Ironically, the very last comment is from a VPCZ1 user.

EDIT: Here is another Vaio user experiencing the same problem with the driver.

 

Does unchecking the power saving option help? It'll burn more energy, but better than crashing I guess.

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try that in the next couple of days.

Right now I'm trying to see if the updated driver helped.

My concern is that it crashes when it's NOT in sleep mode (ie. the Wifi is active because I'm browsing a page, downloading, etc.) so appears to be separate to the sleep/device turning off power issue.

 

Updated driver did not help. 4 crashes this afternoon.

Last .dmp files now refer to PxHlpa64.sys (Sonic Solutions driver, related to the CD/DVD pre-installed software) causing blue screen.

My problems have evolved ... ;-)

 

Thanks to this helpful chap I think I'm getting closer to a solution (that doesn't involve sending the laptop back).

So here's an update on the crashes for the PxHlpa64.sys driver which ever poor soul is finding this from Google (I feel for you buddy!).

According to this thread PxHlpa64.sys is a Sonic Solutions driver used by any one of these programs:

Code:

RecordNow!
ESSSONIC
Sonic RecordNow!/Sonic_PrimoSDK
Dell Media Experience
Pioneer RecordNow DX
Sonic MyDVD/RecordNow!/RecordNow DX/MyDVD Plus/PrimoSDK
Microsoft Plus! Digital Media/Digital Image Suite
Corel Photo Album
HP RecordNow/DigitalMedia Archive
IBM RecordNow!
Roxio Easy Media Creator/RecordNow Copy/Drag-to-Disc/Creator Basic v/Media Manager/CinePlayer
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Yahoo! Music Jukebox or Roxio
Napster Burn Engine
1CLICK DivxToDVD
OLYMPUS muvee theaterPack
by Sonic Solutions (www.sonic.com) or VERITAS Software, Inc (www.veritas.com).

On the Vaio Z11 it's used by the pre-installed Roxio software.

I used Revo Uninstaller to remove Roxio and rebooted. Unfortunately the driver continues to load and crash the laptop. It looks like it's stored separately and tied to PX Engine used by Roxio.

If you search for "PxHlpa64.sys" at Roxio's Knowledgebase you get this result which seems to suggest that it's a cause of instability issues: "A Driver is installed that causes stability problems with ..." But unfortunately the solution page doesn't load - "page has moved". Typical.

So I used Autoruns (click on the Drivers tab and untick the driver) to disable it from auto-starting at boot time.

I'll report back if it fixes the random crashes.

 

Good luck mate, let us know!

 

Thanks mate!

So ... once I rebooted I realized that my CD/DVD drive was missing (not recognized) in Windows Explorer. Nice. I inserted a DVD. Nothing.

Cut a long story short, I went to Roxio's support site and discovered that even Revo Uninstaller doesn't uninstall all the crap that Roxio hides on your Vaio ...

Follow instructions here to remove as much as possible left behind by Roxio and Sonic.

I rebooted. Only to find that the Vaio STILL doesn't recognize the drive. More Googling I came across this on HP's support site (isn't it ironic!) which will work on your Vaio. Follow the MANUAL path in Step 4 to change filters in your registry. Reboot.

Drive is recognized once more.

Unbelievable. All these hours wasted. Just to remove Roxio - which I never intended to use anyway - so that I can have a stable $2000 laptop. A laptop I purchased instantly so as to replace my 2 year old Acer and not stop my work productivity.

Thanks Sony. I remember why I abandoned you 2 years ago. You've screwed me every time. I've owned 5 Vaios in the past and each one died conveniently after warranty run out. I finally quit 2 years ago. I thought the Vaio Z11 was going to be a step forward.

Anyway, glad that at least those crashes don't seem to be appearing. I guess it'll take a couple of days to really know.

Fingers crossed!

 

If you get the "Fresh Start" option, does that prevent you from getting Roxio and similar crap?

 

Indeed it does. Funnily enough the reason I considered Sony again was because of the Fresh Start option. Alas, when i realized my configuration would take at least 2 weeks I opted for a similar stock build from Amazon/J&R with next day delivery.

In hindsight of course I should have CTO'd considering I've wasted a week so far just to get a stable laptop anyway.

You live and learn.

I should add, the amount of crappy bloatware on the VZ11 is about half that found in the early Vaios of the 2000s.

Though, beware, Fresh Start still comes with some Sony crap - I'm sure someone has a post on the internet that describes what it comprises.

 

I wanted to update (and close this thread) to help any poor souls who suffered as I did.

I tried updating to the latest drivers, uninstalled various apps, etc. and continued to get random crashes.

I then uninstalled Zone Alarm Pro (using the special Zone Alarm removal tool - Google it, it's impossible to find on their site) and I've had 0 crashes for a couple of weeks.

My lay interpretation is that it was somehow not recognizing the driver or device after the driver updates. And this was somehow causing the hardware to freak out and shutdown without warning.

Anyway, no more crashing. Not totally happy running only Windows Firewall but so far it's doing its job.

I may try reinstalling Zone Alarm Pro to see if it acknowledges the device drivers (since they already exist) but in no hurry

 

Does it only crash in speed mode?

Did you try using the computer in stamina mode and see if you still get the crashes? I would only be worried if your computer crashed in stamina mode.
I try to use my computer with the internal intel graphics card whenever possible to reduce temperature.

 

im having similar problem, random crash...

if i left my laptop unattended for 30mins+ , the screen goes blank and the system goes unresponsive.. after the restart i get a blue screen on start up, before even i look at the msg, the system shutdown itself.

How to disable the auto shutdown on crash ? i checked the bios menu, i couldnt find .

-Vaio Z11

 

I have same issue but only in auto-speed mode...

But not occur frequently as clie2k.. My Z11 connected via HDMI cable all of work hours entire day ... CPU temperature arround 55-65C at normal condititions.. Sometimes hit 70's especially on flash based web pages..

Crash 2 times in last week (Suddenly black screen--> no response any keyboard entry--> shutdown with 5 sec continuous power button press..)

I'm noticed both of crashes related with flash or any other html troubles,, IMHO...

 

hm...i'm also running the auto-speed mode. i also get the black screen and no response from the keyboard thing. cept i had one more symptom, when i shut down by holding the power button then power it back up, halfway thru bootup it'll go to sleep. then when i hit the power button, it'll wake up, and start the bootup from the very beginning.

wonder if they're all defective...

 

I wonder if this problem occurs in Z12 refresh. some response from Z12 users would be nice.

 

Same problems here! Bought my vpcz1 in Sweden and it goes blank/unresp after left alone for a while -> forced restart -> bluescreen -> win restore -> works again

For a change I tried starting it in failsafe mode once it had went blank and then it froze on loading the file classpnp.sys. When I forced a restart it went into powersaving (pulsating orange light) and when pressing the on/off-button again it resumed again and then worked fine for a while...

I also noticed that the gobi webtogo-app is crashing when coming out from a sleep-mode.

What can be done to solve this? I dont want to send it in just yet...

This "Fresh Start"-thingy... is it only for new orders? or can I restore to a fresh start after buying somehow?

my spec: VPC-Z12Z9E/X - Core i7 620M / 8GB / 256SSD / 13.1" TFT / GT 330M / Win 7 Pro