Vaio pops and won't power up

hi, i've have had my beloved vaio (t-series) - will be 3 years in august... i plugged the adaptor into my extension cord and as i turned the switch on, i heard a loud POP and it doesn't power up on the adaptor or battery. just sent it to sony for them to assess the problem... won't hear from till end of next week - the wait is literally killing me. any idea what happened or has this happened to anyone? i asked the sony peeps and they said hasn't happened to anyone of their customers... did it short circuit? any other guesses? much appreciated...

 

Yup sounds like it short circuted to me. Maybe an exposed wire inside caused the problem. Any problems with overheating?

 

thanks willy. it does tend to get quite warm though i've not had any problems whatsoever previously with my vaio. and admittedly, the last time i used it (before i tried to turn it on this morning), it was on for the last 48 hours (though it was probably on standby for 30 hours). while i await sony's response, any guesses on the likelihood of salvaging it?

 

You're most likely looking at a mother board replacement, my headphone jack stopped working and i'd have to get mine replaced aswel. Hopefully they have an old one left lying around and they'll give it to you cheap Just curious, did you try to turn it on plugged in with the battery out? My old laptop stopped working yesterday and that worked.. strangely enough.

 

cheers for that. jee sorry to hear abt your headphone jack. if my laptop can't be fixed or if sony slaps with a bill of 1k, i might just look at getting a mac lol. yep have tried to turn it on plugged it with the battery out , in fact this was how it short-circuited. i also tried to power it up with just the battery but didn't work either.

 

Ya a mac could be.. interesting Hopefully sony cuts you a break but when you think about it if they repaired old models cheap then they'd probably stand to lose money.. hope it goes your way

 

what's with the mac could be interesting comment? my vaio is abt 1.38kg and the only mac that is as light as my vaio (which is my primary consideration for a laptop along with battery life) is unfortunately the macbook air which i won't be considering... it simply looks too fragile and i'm such a klutz... i guess if it comes down to it and i wanna get a mac, i will have to be prepared to lug an additional 1kg onto the normal laptop weight i have been used to.... oh well still keeping my options and fingers crossed!

 

Ya those air's are way too expensive! Add an extended warranty to the mix and well.. Fujitsu esprimo or toshiba portege should save a bit of money and there's always the thinkpad Wow thats really light:O Hope it works out for you!

 

just an update, you were right willy on needing to get the motherboard fixed which would set me back $1129.

sony's diagnosis was that the usb hub (possibly mouse) fried my motherboard. can't believe that some silly thing that probably cost me $20-$30(??) wrecked my vaio which i paid $3500 for.

i guess i can only learn from this. would like to know whether anyone has any advice how to avoid such an incident from recurring? cheers.

 

Couldn't tell you lilvaio :? If the mouse malfunctioned then there wasn't alot you could have done.. aside from sueing the company of course

Are you going to get it repaired or just buying a new laptop?

 

i didn't get to talk to the technician today, had to speak through one of the customer service peeps who spoke to the technician. they said it was the usb hub/mouse - didn't pinpoint which.

i inspected the usb hub myself, there were some burnt metal bits inside it so quite sure it was the usb hub. anyway, i reckon as soon as sony found out that the fault didn't lie in the vaio itself, they pretty much weren't interested in speaking to me... lol and it was especially evident when they didn't even let me speak to the technician today. coz initially, when they couldn't find the fault, the technician rang me, spoke to me at length and asked me to bring in my adaptor/usb hub/mouse and also told me they were getting an engineer to look at my laptop.

going to pick it up tomorrow from sony and am going to shop for a new laptop. i might bring my laptop the next time i'm in singapore (sony told me that's where they will ship the parts from) to see whether i can get the motherboard fixed for cheaper.

just curious, does getting a new motherboard mean the computer is effectively kind of new?

 

Good idea about singapore

They will probably install your old processor, ram, hard drive on the new motherboard but there may be a new gpu and soundcard

A worthy upgrade if you want a new feel to your computer would be to get a bigger, faster hard drive and reinstall windows on it.
I'm thinkin about doing it with mine