Z-series won't start... Need help

I'm typing this to all of you on my old D610

My Z550 shut down by itself and won't start now.

Here's the details. I was playing WoW on battery power, which I've done quite a bit before. I had it in stamina mode. While I was playing, it shut down, and I thought it was just that the battery ran out, even though it seemed a little premature.

I take the laptop to my room, plug it in, and hit the start button. It starts up, and says that it was shutdown improperly and wants to know if I want to start it in safe mode or just resume. I choose resume, and it begins the windows resume process. I log in using the fingerprint reader, but all I get is the the task bar, a black screen and the little wow hand for a pointer. It goes nowhere after that, so I hold the power button down to shut it down, and it tries to resume again... this happens maybe twice, and now the laptop doesn't respond to anything.

It is completely shutdown now, when I plug it in, the little light doesn't flash to show that it's charging, and it definitely won't startup.

Any suggestions?

 

Try to boot without battery with plug in ?

 

Press the space bar when it's resuming to windows ?

 

Can you get into BIOS? If you can, the next time choose Safe Mode to start. I had one manual shut-down last night too and the first time I chose resume to reboot, despite getting into Windows, everything is weird and then it doesn't shut down. So I had to manual shut-down again, this time I chose Safe Mode to restart. And once I got into Safe Mode, I just restart normally without doing anything else. Everything is fine now.

 

if all else fails, reformat... hit the f10 key upon start up.

 

Can you boost with CD? If yes, you can use recovery DVD get into recovery center and fix start up with it.
GOOD LUCK

 

thanks for the suggestions everyone... unfortunately i didn't start in safe mode. i should have.

but now the computer won't even respond to anything. so when i hit the power button, it won't even attempt to start up. it's almost like it's dead. and when i plug in, normally the power button starts glowing on/off to show it's charging. well, it doesn't do that either.

i'm at a loss! i've never had my laptop completely die like this...

 

I would contact Sony about it, I'm afraid.

BTW, on my Z... the power button/lamp glows on/off in orange when in sleep mode, not charging. There's a separate battery LED on the front of the notebook which is steady orange when the battery is charging (the LED goes out again when the battery is fully charged). Just an observation.

 

yah, that was my point, mine does that too normally. but not now. argh!

thanks hombre. i'll probably call sony...

 

omg Takashi - that is indeed strange, what happens when you leave the battery out and just plug in adaptor?

Did you upgrade RAM or HD? check their connectors arent lose?

 

Takashi, do the following:

Unplug the unit.
Remove the battery.
Press and hold the power button for 5-10 seconds.
Plug the laptop in without battery.
Press the power button to power it on.
See if it shows VAIO (post screen) and let us know if it helped.

 

haven't tried the battery thing yet, so i'll let you know if that does anything.

and no, didn't change any hardware.

falang - i'll also try this technique when i get home... half day today, so going to focus my time on taking care of this.

thanks again for the helpful suggestions! keep em coming.

 

try booting with Vista or Sony recovery DVD and select repair..you should be ok unless you have a HW failure...

 

for me to try this, i think i have to get the laptop to try to boot in the first place... it won't even do that.

 

I think the motherboard may be dead. Sorry to hear that but it's time to call Sony. Hope you get it fixed ASAP. Good luck.

 

yea, something is wrong with your motherboard. Sorry to say this dude!

 

UPDATE!

z up and working again.

called sony, assuming i'd be sending it back to them... but they walked me through a cycle very similar to what falang suggested. but instead of holding the power down for 5-10 secs, they had me do it for 30 secs. the rest was the same, and it worked.

i was shocked.

obviously they had no insight on what caused the problem, all they care about is getting it running...

thanks for all the help everyone!

 

This can happen when using the sleepmode I guess...
My WLan card disappeared on my Medion NB after waking up. Holding the power button down with electricity removed worked like magic =)

 

Great to hear/read that you've solved your issue without having to sent it in to Sony. Congrats.