sony laptop chrashes

<p>Hi all. I have a Sony Vaio laptop approx 4 years old that has started to crashe persistantly of late. As in this morning it was running fine then just rebooted. Now it just starts and frezzes before any thing loads. Or starts and reboots. Or doesn't reboot at all. This has been getting progresivly worse over the last two weeks. Currently running windows repair, which already froze once. I'm running vista 32 bit home edition with cs5. The only additional software is from vista updates. I tried a couple of restore points over the last few days and when I tried the last one it said there was no restore point. Is the laptop in it's deaththroes or are the vista updates screwing things up? The laptop came with preinstalled vista so I have no boot disk to reinstall vista and don't want to do a complete f10 reinstall due to obvious reasons. Is there a way to get vista back to basic's without losing all my app's and data. All important data is backed up by the way. Is it worth getting windows 7 given the age of the laptop? Or just pony up for a new desktop? Thanks all for your advice.<br>

Good luck, take care.<br>

Al</p>

<p>there is a very good chance that the problem is really a dying hard disk or possibly RAM that has gone bad.</p>

<p>thanks howard.</p>

<p>Doesn't sound like an OS issue - couple of things to check on - is it one of the laptops covered by the Nvidea settlement? There were a bunch of them from various makers that had graphics chips that overheated and eventually either just died (video) or melted other parts that caused weird problems. </p>

<p>If possible run a hardware diagnostic (f1 or something like that when it boots) </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>In my experience computers screw up after a couple of years, could well be software or OS related (as well as Howard's suggestion of harddisk/RAM failure). Computer magazines frequently publish ways to clean a system (have a look at these or do a google search) but my preference is to do a clean install every few years. In fact I used to do so but this is increasingly difficult because most software needs registration through internet instead of just using the original license number.</p>

<p>"<em>preinstalled vista so I have no boot disk to reinstall vista</em>" - Sony Vaio does not come with Vista system boot discs, but you should be able to generate set of <strong>system recovery discs</strong> (3 DVD blank media needed), that contain all the system and drivers needed for non-standard internal devices (e.g. sound, video, network). See if you get a chance and can generate them ?, try to generate if you did not do it before(?), just in case things get worse. Failing system could possibly generate failing system recovery discs ? - but you will need to try?</p>

<p>Also you could purchase (perhaps $15) system recovery discs from Sony support for your model of Vaio, if you registered the computer with Sony or otherwise have proof of purchase.</p>

<p>Generic Microsoft Vista bootable system discs would not be suficient since Vaio has some non-standard devices, but drivers for them could be downloaded separately from Sony support. If you do not get system recovery discs, last chance would be to get and install generic Microsoft bootable Vista discs, and then see what does not work, and get separate device drivers for non-working devices.</p>

<p>Most likely only hard disc needs replacement (?) - Then you will face headache of reinstalling your applications software..</p>

<p> SONY computer users: <strong>Always generate System Recovery Discs, as the first thing you do on your new Sony computer. </strong> </p>

<p>The non-standard devices in Sony hardware is something that computer repair people hate. <em>By non-standard I mean devices that Sony failed to provide drivers to Microsoft for inclusion at the time of generation of generic versions of Microsoft operatiing systams.</em></p>

<p>I have used laptops as my main working computer. When I did this, I replaced the hard disk as routine after approx. 2 years. I think this is your problem - bad sectors on the hard disk. Sounds as if you have made 2 mistakes, firstly not making recovery disks when the computer was new, and secondly not backing up your data onto an external hard disk. If you can boot the computer at all, try to copy off your data to a backup medium before you do anything else, and then try to buy a set of recovery disks from Sony (anything on your present HDD might be corrupted). Don't waste time re-installing on the old HDD, change the hard disk - I presume you would need a 2.5" SATA disk, Seagate, Maxtor or similar might cost £50 to 60 on e-bay new, fitting is just a matter of undoing a couple of screws in the base of the laptop, removing the small panel covering the HDD, lifting out the old HDD and replacing it with a new one (maybe changing the shield plate over from the old one to the new one). Lessons to be learned: Recovery disks and backup, and also react quickly to boot-up problems before they progress from occasional and annoying to constant and terminal!</p>

<p>Random rebooting and freezing can be heat related. After four years dust and pet dander/hair can clog internal heat sinks. If you're not comfortable opening it up to check, a repair shop might be in order.</p>

<p>thanks all for your responses. <br>

Brad - took the back cover off and blew everything with a gitzo pocket rocket. loads of dust outa the cooling fan and outlet at the back of the computer. Been up and running perfect for 8 odd hours now. not a problem. many thanks.<br>

Good luck to all, take care,<br>

Al</p>