WEIRDEST VAIO GLITCH - Have you ever seen this????

Has any of you seen or heard of this VERY weird glitch?

The Vaios laptops in questions are the more expensive models that have 1080 res monitor (I believe they also have a dedicated graphics card?) such as model PCG - 81312L.

Glitch is as follows: All of a sudden, the laptop display starts taking chunks of the screen and shuffling them around, duplicating certain area in other areas of the screen. Please see screen grabs below.

This behavior is erratic, comes and goes, laptop may be fine for a week then glitch for 3 weeks straight, then go back to normal. There are no patterns and the abberation appears in all software you use, but is very predominent in Excel.

The only way to keep working is to minimize the software and maximize it again, then glitch will be temporary gone and you may be able to work again for 20 to 40 seconds without seeing the glitch again.

HERE IS THE PART THAT IS EVEN WEIRDER:

I experienced this very annoying problem with a first VAIO (started to glitch about 4 weeks out of the box), and since I am currently travelling for one year (on a tour, bouncing from town to town every 2 to 3 days) and unable to take laptop back to the store, I had to bite the bullet and go get a replacement one, thinking my first one may simply have been a 'freak accident' (aka:defective). Second VAIO worked prefect (for about 4 months) until a week ago I saw my display suddenly split inforkation and duplicate it before my vwery eyes.At the time this happened, I was not typing or using the laptop, just looking at it screen. And since that day, it has been glitching like crazy IN THE SAME WAY AS MY PREVIOUS VIAO.

A few notes worthy of reading before replying:

1- I don't have a virus
2- I don't have any crack software on my laptops
3- I don't even have a lot of software on my laptops, and the ones I have are all from very reputable companies (aka: SONY, MICROSOFT, ADOBE).
4- I have another laptop ($500 acer) at home and have never experienced this problem with it, running same software.
5- I don't download junk off the net.
6- I use my laptop for work and it is my only connection to the outside world while travelling, so I can process my onine store orders, read emails, and basically keep my business going.
7- I am currently on tour (I am a filmmaker) and have been on the road since April. It is not feasable for me right now to send laptops in for repairs because they need a minimum of 3 weeks to fix and ship back and they don't offer overnight delivery (even if I pay for it) and since I am bouncing from town to town, I'd never get my laptop back via normal ground shipping.
8- I have spoken to SONY tech support and they had no answers, except to send it in for repairs, which I cannot do for above reason.
9- I am using Windows 7 and have 8 GIG of ram!! (plenty of extra ram)


Today I decided to see if any other user has experienced this glitch and may be able to tell me what it is and if it can be avoided / fixed.




SCREEN GRABS:


Here are a few exemples:

1. Notice here how the top of screen has been duplicated









2. Notice how a piece of the screen has been duplicated above and to the left, and partially removed from where it should have been displayed.








3. Notice how the spreadsheet is acting weird: I highlihgted one cell but it highlited two more random areas on the screen.









Funny: As I typed this post, the glitch was trying to stop me - look at how it duplicated the bottom part of display:






PLEASE ANYONE - HELP????

 

Which computer do you have? Which drivers version?

 

I am absolutely sure the problem is software related, probably a display driver. If it had anything to do with a VAIO display it wouldn't show up on screenshots.

What are the two VAIO models you had issues with?

 

I would update your video card drivers.

 

BOTH LAPTOPS are the SONY VIAO PCG - 81312L, which I believe have a dedicated graphics card.

After reading your replies I have three questions:

1- (just curious) Why is one not able to take a screengrab of an error generated by a hardware problem? Are you all 100% sure that my being able to capture the error via a screengrab means it is software related?

2- My laptops came fully loaded from two different stores: FRYS ELECTRONICS (first laptop) and then MICRO COMPUTER (second laptop)They worked fine for respectively one month (first laptop) and four months (second laptop). If the wrong driver (or outdated driver) had been installed by above stores, would the laptops not have malfunctioned since day one? - OR - Are you meaning that the driver got somehow corrupted over time?

3- How do I find out what driver I have? And how do I update it?

NOTE: I had called the SONY techs about first laptop and they guided me thru a series of things over the phone, none of which solved the problem. I believe checking the video card driver was the first step they had me check and update, but it was back in July and I cannot remember for sure. I am willing to invest some time to do this again if you are able to guide me thru the steps.

MANY THANKS

 

Is there a different product code written somewhere on the computers or on the box that they came in? Preferably one that starts with VPC or VGN?

 

Looks like an F series, possibly with an Nvidia 540m.

Seems like a common problem.

 

1) well, depends what is failing, if it's the LCD panel in your laptop, then screen grabbing won't capture the problem because the image being produced by your GPU is correct, it's just the display that's displaying it wrong. However, since the image being sent is wrong, it either points to a GPU related problem (since the problem isn't isolated to 1 program) but at that point it *should* probably be a software issue as a GPU hardware issue would have more dire consequences (usually)

2) Well, there could be many reasons to explain it. It might just be a bad driver to start with and it just didnt exhibit the problem until later.

3) you can check your Driver version by going into Programs and Features in your control panel and look for the thing that says Nvidia Graphics Driver (image attached below) and the number should be your Driver version.

For the community, so assuming he has a F series with a 540m, (i didn't check the sony model number, so OP, can you confirm you have a VPC-F series, at least tell us the screen size), he can just download drivers directly from Nvidia because the F doesn't have switchable graphics correct?

 

I've never had any luck with past Vaios being able to use "off the shelf" drivers...I always had to use forceware.

OP, try LaptopVideo2Go and download the latest drivers for your OS, along with the modified .inf.

Extract the drivers and drop the modified .inf into the folder "display.driver" and install using the setup.exe in the root of the extracted folder. Make sure to do a clean install, ie, when it asks for installation type, go to custom and check the box for "Perform clean installation."

If it has to uninstall your current drivers, it may restart before installation, but will pick right back up where it was when you log back in.

 

Yes both laptops are VPC F serie. the one I currently am using (showing the glitches I captured via screengrabs, above is a VPCF22KFX. Both laptops have a display size of 16 " measured from corner of image to corner of image DIAGNOLY. (if I measure from corner of image to corner of image across (upper left corner to upper right corner0 the display then measures 14"1/4.

Resolution is 1080.

 

NOTE: i WENT INTO DEVICE MANAGER AND it indicates I have an NVIDIA Geforce GT 520M. I asked it to update the driver and it looked for new version online, then told me I have the latest version already installed. but I guess that does not mean that latest version is not corrupted LOL - so I guess I should uninstall and reinstall? See if it makes a difference...

 

IMPORTANT QUESTION: If I uninstall the graphics driver, will I lose my ability to see a display and end up in DOS? Sorry, I am not the most savvy computer person on the planet. LOL... Basically, if this driverhas become corrupted, how do I "refresh it", meaning re-install it, can you guide me step by step? usually you first uninstall something and then reinstall it. But this being my display, I am nervous about uninstalling and becoming BLIND sort of speak .

 

I visted the home page of above site but could not figure out how to look for my driver. (sigh)... Ifeel like the retarded cousin, despite my 163 IQ.

You might need to guide me through the steps...

 

Now here is a bit of info to spice things up a bit. Yesterday I used my spreadsheet intensively and NOT a single glitch. I almost thought the laptop self fixed itself HAHA! Today it is FULL OF WEIRDNESS. Nothing but glitches...

Go figure.

Note: I do let my laptop run 24/7. I close the lid when I am done and it goes to sleep... I rarely turn it off. Rebooting when the problem is showing up does not seem to fix the problem. Even letting it sit for a good 15 minutes or an hour. Is it possible the laptop is getting hot and malfunctioning because of heat? Those models do have a fan that cools them down nicely, heat escapes from the side. Still, I ponder whether I shoud always turn it off when not in use? It's just my use of it is very much on and off, 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there, etc... Throughout the day... battery is attached to laptop, because when I drive the RV, we no longer have shore power, so the laptop survives on battery while we drive from town to town. when we get to destination, we plug to shore power again and the battery charges while I work.

 

Once you uninstall the driver, the worst that can happen is you go to a 640x480 resolution, which, with the 1080p screen, means everything is HUGE. Windows will always drive the display, it's just that the generic driver it installs is not the best.

Yes, the site is not the most intuitive...at the very top of the screen, you'll see a green bar that says Home, Drivers, INF enhancer, etc...

Click Drivers

If you're running Win 7 64 bit you'll click on the very first (latest) version, which at the time of posting is 295.18.

On the next page you'll see (right below the green bar) "Click here to download driver and INF files."

Next you'll go to the bottom/middle and hit the first two links...one for the driver and one for the modified INF.

As mentioned before, once downloaded, extract the drivers and drop the INF in the display.driver folder.

 

Also note, the latest driver may not always be the best for your card. You may have to try an older one.

 

awenthol, I am curious, that modified INF file, I am dropping in "at my own risks" (to quote their website), are you sure it will fix the problem?

In other words, if I just install their driver but don't alter the INF file, could I still fix the problem, in your opinion? I was thinking maybe I could try that first and then, if it does not do the job, then drop that INF file and reinstall?

Have you fixed similar problem yourself using above method?

 

The modified INF is modified to allow driver installation for your video card. That is literally the only difference between it and the one that is included in NVIDIA's package. You won't be able to install the package without first replacing the included INF.

The "at your own risk" is because NVIDIA didn't specifically release that driver version for your card. There is then a possibility that that specific version of the drivers are not ideal for your card...which is why you may have to try older versions.

I have never had an issue like you, but I have had a Vaio that started getting weird pixilation and had to use this method to update the drivers (which then fixed most of the issue).

I had to do this on another Vaio because it originally shipped with 32bit Vista and when I installed 64 bit Win7, I couldn't load any Sony drivers and of course, NVIDIA drivers popped up saying they don't support my computer and I have to get the drivers from Sony (circle of failure). Drop the modded INF in and it installed just fine, and never had a single issue with graphics on it.

 

It's plenty safe.
We have to do this on the SZ series.

 

UPDATE: I have followed all yru instructions above and just did clean install of driver after dropping file in driver folder. Display looks good when PC rebootedand I am now using it to see if it fixed the problem. I will let you know either way ...

Keeping my fingers crossed

 

PROBLEM NOT SOLVED. GRRRRRR....

What should I do next? if I am to revert to a previous driver version, how / where do I locate one online?

Any other suggestions?

 

Looks to me like you could have bad VRAM. Might be time for service.

 

You still have the issue exactly as it was before?

If that is the case, then I agree, it is likely hardware related. One other thing I would try, and this is a little more involved, would be doing a clean install. If you have a second HDD you could stick in, just to try it, that would be ideal, otherwise you would want to do an image backup and reload windows.

 

Have you tried running windows in Safe Mode? That would be a good test to see if its a driver related issue. If it works fine in safe mode, then it's less likely to be a hardware issue.

 

^Not true, if you disable hardware acceleration and run in VESA mode it will hide many hardware problems as well.

 

Maybe I should call NVidia support and see what they say?

After installing the driver as per your suggestions, the glitch was even stronger. ( . My display is a mess.

 

The other suggestion I would have is run Vaio Care, which has hardware diagnostics for the video card. It might highlight a problem.