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sharger

Hi all

I've got an AR31M and its just started to show very thin vertical multicoloured lines on the screen. Sometimes more than others?

Any ideas? Could something of come loose inside or is it a bit more terminal?

cheers

Steve

Blencogo

Hi Steve,

Difficult to say how serious the problem is - but it doesn't sound too good.

Have you tried connecting to an external monitor? Does the problem still appear?

Do you get these lines showing on the boot screens before Windows loads?

What version of the nVidia driver are you using? There have been similar issues caused by old drivers.

sharger

The lines do appear on the boot screen before windows loads. They are 1 pixel in width and can be as many as 12 lines and some times only 2. I wondered if it could be a loose connection?

As for drivers I've checked Vaio update site and there are no updates outstanding?

Its not even 2 years old yet!!

many thanks

Thalamus.

Hi Steve,

try connecting your Vaio to an external monitor, do you still have the same problem.?

sharger

Hi

I've not had chance to connect up to a monitor yet, but I don't think i'm alone in this issue. I spotted a post albeit in spanish with what looks like the same problem. So can I ask what the warranty situation is with a Vaio Laptop, and bearing in mind it is only 17 months old is there not something in sale of goods act about being fit for purpose in or out of warranty?

many thanks

Steve

Blencogo

Hi Steve,

Before jumping to conclusions it is important to eliminate all other possible causes. That is what we are trying to do. Eliminating the driver version and the screen itself is a step further.

I think you will have to check everything possible and then as a final check you will have to carry out a full system recovery back to factory settings before you contact Sony. If you don't, these will be the first things Sony will ask you to do.

The well publicised nVidia problem is very rare in Vaios and up to the last few days, Sony Japan have been monitoring the repair data worldwide and have not yet identified that any Vaio definitely has this problem.

However, a handful of cases have emerged in recent days that cause concern and seem to point at a fault in the video chip. We will have to wait for Sony to investigate and see if this is indeed THE nVidia problem or not. I would expect a significant number of video cards to develop a fault worldwide anyway.

This problem is common to other manufacturers like Dell and HP. I expect robust discussions are taking place with nVidia over payment for repairs to affected laptops - even those outside warranty - and we will have to wait for the outcome.

We will ask Sony to expedite their investigations and let us know what is happening.

sharger

Many thanks for the reply, will get a chance to connect to external monitor tomorrow.

You say about going back to factory settings, does this mean I will lose all the programs / updates I have loaded onto the laptop? (by this I mean ones I've downladed off the net and things like Itunes etc)

Thanks again for your time.

Blencogo

If it comes to a system recovery, it may be an idea to buy some drive imaging software first - I use Acronis True Image.

This will let you make a mirror image copy of your hard drive onto an external drive or dvds. You can then put this back on your Vaio or onto a new hard drive either in total or one program or file at a time.