Problem with notebook, please help

A

ari_veru

A close friend of mine has a problem with his Sony Vaio notebook. It has a KP-700/256 INTEL Pentium III 700Mhz Micro PGA2 processor, and the stupid computer periodically restarts itself.

We thought the problem was with the processor, because when we change the speed of the processor to work at 550 (or was it 500) Mhz, when it worked fine. So we got a new processor, but it didn't' fix the problem.

The computer was purchased a couple of years ago and is not under warranty. The Sony support guys weren't of much help.

I would really appreciate if you share your thoughts or experiences with a similar problem, or provide a link to a tech oriented website where I might get an answer.

Good trading to all of you.
 
Quote from ChaosNSX:

First thing is have you done any reinstalls of operating systems?

Did you keep the same operating system as the computer came with?

I have a Vaio as well and I have heard of considerable problems when linux or another operating system other than the one preinstalled is added.

also this link may help.

http://cip.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~zwerger/Vaio/VAIO-Prob.pdf

good luck trading and fixing your vaio,
More...

Been told Sony is notoriously "proprietary". The more proprietary (as laptops are prone to be), the less likely ANY change is OS is going to work well. Have experienced it myself. :D
 
In addition to what Chaos said, make sure you have the manufacturer's drivers installed for things like power management, etc. I know my Toshiba Portege acts really funky if I use the XP/2000 native power management instead of the Toshiba one.

Good luck!
 
Quote from ChaosNSX:

First thing is have you done any reinstalls of operating systems?

Did you keep the same operating system as the computer came with?

I have a Vaio as well and I have heard of considerable problems when linux or another operating system other than the one preinstalled is added.

also this link may help.

http://cip.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~zwerger/Vaio/VAIO-Prob.pdf

good luck trading and fixing your vaio,
More...

Thank you all for the replies and the link.

You guys are right, the problem started after OS has been modified.

Still hope it can be fixed.
 
When you say it periodically "restarts", what exactly do you mean?

Does it go blank for a moment and then completely reboot?

Does it GPF and then automatically reboot?

???

Your problem could be as simple as a faulty connection in the power supply or an intermittently problematic memory chip. More specific info would help.
 
Quote from ari_veru:

A close friend of mine has a problem with his Sony Vaio notebook. It has a KP-700/256 INTEL Pentium III 700Mhz Micro PGA2 processor, and the stupid computer periodically restarts itself.

We thought the problem was with the processor, because when we change the speed of the processor to work at 550 (or was it 500) Mhz, when it worked fine. So we got a new processor, but it didn't' fix the problem.

The computer was purchased a couple of years ago and is not under warranty. The Sony support guys weren't of much help.

I would really appreciate if you share your thoughts or experiences with a similar problem, or provide a link to a tech oriented website where I might get an answer.

Good trading to all of you.
More...

As a tech, I am hoping I am wrong in my internal thinking, I'll try to help. Sony had several classifications of the Vaio line. And all of them have limitations as every model does. My search would begin with the verification of the 700MHz setup.

You stated that the computer was purchased a few years ago. I am assuming that your friend was the first/original owner and that the 700MHz was what he purchased it as. The fact that the system works with a lower powered processor leads me to question the original setup though. Give me a little more information about how you determined (and verified) that the unit was 700MHz. :)
 
You never said that you changed the OS. Your description was implying that there was a hardware (alone) issue. To which upgrade did you move? That is a major issue here. :)
 
Quote from canyonman00:

You never said that you changed the OS. Your description was implying that there was a hardware (alone) issue. To which upgrade did you move? That is a major issue here. :)
More...

canyonman00 and ArchAngel thank you for trying to help
I will give more details a little later

and please excuse my ignorance in past and future posts in the technical matters
 
Here's some more info about the computer. Hope this will help to find a solution.

The notebook is SONY VAIO PCG FX120
The processor is SpeedStep, 700-550 MHZ, I believe it was the original processor.


My friend had done two updates for the BIOS (to BS211U0 and later to R0217U0 versions)http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/pc/pcgfx120fx140fx150/windows2000/ http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/pc/pcgfx120fx140fx150/
you can see the red warning not to do the upgrades if additional memory had been installed, at the time of the upgrade that warning wasn't there, and my friend did have additional memory on the notebook

after the upgrades there were some problems with USB ports, but they are not the major issue

the main problem is that the computer will reboot itself, sometimes it might do it after working normally for some period of time, and sometimes it might reboot right after turning on

this started a month or two after the BIOS upgrades, so we thought it's not correlated

also the problems seemed to be with the hardware because the computer will restart itself even if working under plain DOS, and also if it's left at the BIOS setup

this friend of mine is currently at a former soviet republic, doing some useful work for the people there, and really needs the comp. working, I'll probably just buy him a new laptop, but I wanted to see first if some of you guys had similar problems

thank you all for taking the time and trying to help.
 
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