consistently crashing. I'm lost!

[Christyj]

I have a VGN-NW20SF/S, bought 14 months ago and a week ago it just started crashing during start up.

The point at which it crashes is not consistent, which is confusing.

It has even fully booted up once, let me open firefox and then crashed.

But now it just crashes about 3 seconds after I turn it on.

all it does is make a small noise somewhere over near the power button and then the screen goes black.

I have done the sytem restore back to an earlier date but with no success.

It works in safe mode but not in normal mode.

Any ideas?

thanks!

[Blencogo]

Have you updated any drivers or allowed Windows Update to load a new driver onto your system?

If it works in Safe Mode then this is a likely cause and the favourite will be the Graphics Driver - although Sony have not released a new one since October 2009..

Have a look in Event Viewer and see if any System Errors are logged.  To open Event Viewer, right-click on My Computer and choose 'Manage'.  Choose the Event Viewer from the Computer Management window.