ATTN: ALL SONY VAIO OWNERS WITH WIN XP OS

[Calvin Lai]

My Sony Vaio PCG-V505BX arrived yesterday. It comes with Win XP home
edition. I noticed that a few times, even when I turn the laptop on for
the first time last nite, the system would hang for no apparent reason.
Sometimes, the system even hangs at the Win XP splash screen when it's
restarting.

I formatted the HD and put on Win XP Pro. Same result but not as often.

I did a search on google and I noticed quite a handful of posts from
Vaio owners with Win XP having similar issues.

Has anyone tried contacting Sony to address the issue??? There seem to
be some sort of compatibility problems with Win XP. If you are reading
this, please post in this thread or send me an email.

As I type this, I am in the process of install Windows 2000 Pro on the
laptop. Hopefully I'll have better luck.

 

[Alvin A Brown]

Hello

Well since your inthe process did you even call Sony and ask them
what;s going on, I mean that is what I would do because you have a
brand new laptop and it's still under warranty. As you know Sony
will not provide support when you change the OS, so kkeep that
in mind, contact their Tech Support Dept.

Alvin

 

[Mike Brearley]

You'll want to use the restore CD and put XP Home back on. Then call Sony's
tech support to resolve the issue. If it can't be resolved, send the system
back and buy a real laptop, Vaio's suck!

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley

 

[Yves Leclerc]

You do know that the laptop's warranty will be "null and void" if you do not
use to installed operating system that was shipped with it. This is a
problem with all pre-installed systems.

Y.

 

[Quaoar]

My Sony Vaio PCG-V505BX arrived yesterday. It comes with Win XP home
edition. I noticed that a few times, even when I turn the laptop on
for the first time last nite, the system would hang for no apparent
reason. Sometimes, the system even hangs at the Win XP splash screen
when it's restarting.

1. Check the Sony support site for your laptop model and install any
program and driver updates you find. BIOS and Video adapter drivers, in
particular.
http://ciscdb.sel.sony.com/cgi-bin/select-p-n.pl

2. Check Event Viewer logs for warnings or failures.

3. Disable unnecessary startup applications. This site provides info on
startup apps:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm

4. Run Disk Cleanup and Defragmenter; run the latter even if it says you
don't need to run it.


Q

 

[Calvin Lai]

Welp, bad installing WINDOWS 2000 PRO didn't help either. It gave
me the infamous blue screen while I was at windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
I then did a cold reboot, the system hung right after the win 2000
splash screen disappear. Did another cold reboot, system hung without
even displaying the Sony logo in the beginning. I let it sit for 1 min.
Turn it back on, Windows loaded up fine, but then it hung.

My suspicion is that the damn laptop is overheating. Even right now at
this instant, my restoring from the recovery cd that came with the
laptop stalled at sony.img, mouse froze up, keyboard not responding,
etc.

Oddly enough, I found this website http://www.vaioshutdown.com

I am going to call tech support about this, if I can even get the
recovery cd to fully reinstall win xp home (i may have to wait a few hrs
before powering up the laptop).

 

[TheCrewser]

Overheating or other problems. If you can't even do a full restore I
would look toward a hardware issue, such as a hard drive or RAM.

I would call Sony and bitch to everyone who would listen until they
agree to send a new laptop ASAP.

Good Luck...

GLCrews,MCP

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

By changing the OS, the OP has voided his warranty and is no
longer entitled to support from Sony.

Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Mike Brearley]

See, and everyone is soooooooo quick to blame XP. I hope Sony sends you a
new laptop as I don't think I'd want to spend a month having them send out
different components until they found the one that was causing the problems.
I'd guess it would either be the hard drive or memory, but it could be a
number of other components as well, even the motherboard.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley