dead computer

[OPM]

I have a Sony Vaio pcg-v505bx that went dead on me today. I mean I can't get the thing to turn on, I charged the battery and use it the the damm thing won't turn on. Any suggestions? I need to get all my data out.

[njcurveball]

Is the adapter green light on? If so, you have power going to the PC. When you plug it in, does the battery charge light come on? If not, try turning it on without the battery.

Try another socket? Try another room? Do you see any evidence of power at all?

If you do have power and it is not booting up then you move on the hard drive.

Let us know some more details if you can.


Jim

[OPM]

The battery charging light does not come on at all. The power cord is working since it works on another Vaio that I have. I don't know if it's the hard drive but it could be. I put the power cord in and there are no lights coming on. I put a fully charged battery and there is no boot up whatsoever. I don't know if the hard drive is burnt out or if this is an electrical circuitry problem. Will probably have to take it in and get all my data move to another computer. However, I would sure like to get this one up and running again as a back-up and to avoid the hassle of moving to another computer. Thanks for any help.

[BillW]

It could be the battery. Have you tried to move it to the other computer? BTW if it was your hard drive the computer would power up but you would get an error message on the screen almost immediately after the power on self test.

[Donnie]

Try this O--
take the battery out. now hold down the power button for 30 seconds. do not have an a/c cord plugged in. continue to hold the power switch for the whole 30 seconds.
sounds stupid but sometimes your power button on a laptop actually builds up a charge and you need to disapate it before the machine will start.

if that does not work, I would suggest a new power supply...this is the "box" into which the cord is plug on either a laptop or a desktop. power supplies have been known to go out. $40 replacement. since you are not getting a light when plugged in, I suggest it is probably your power supply.

[OPM]

Yeah, that what I thought. I am not getting any power whatsoever. I think it has something to do with the electrical wiring, since I have tried both power cord and a fully charged battery.

[BillW]

If you are sure the battery you tried was fully charged, It's sounds like it's time to take it into the shop as you have said. Best of luck OPM.

Bill

[OPM]

I did what you suggested by it did not work on my laptop. Just curious, if you have a fully charged battery, would a burnt out power adapter connection affect this also? I would think they would be powering up through a different route but I could be wrong(probably). Well I was hoping this laptop was going to hold up for another couple of months while they get the bugs out of Vista but I guess not.
Now, I was a laptop with 2G RAM, Duo 2 processor, x-brite screen with multimedia that weighs about 4 lbs. I need to run Access, a stock charting program(Telechart 2007) that is continously updated throughout the day, I want two video screen of youbet on and possible have it hook up to the TV to watch CNBC or TVG. I would like all this at the same time along with HTR of course. Do you think I have enough power. The wt. is probably the most important thing to me since I travel with it alot(daily). Also, it needs to be durable. Screen can be from 12-14inches.
Anyone with any ideas, I will listen to.

[BillW]

If your only problem was your adapter/charger, the computer would work fine with a fully charged battery and the adapter not plugged into the computer - until the battery discharged of course. As far as your other questions, I will defer to those more experienced with what you are trying to do.

Bill

[OPM]

Thanks guys. But don't you guys ever sleep it's close to 1AM your time:D
I just hope I can get my stuff off the old computer but then again, other than my htr files, everthing else was expendable. I'll have to make some calls tomorrow. President day sales are next weekend so it's a good time to break down.

[BillW]

Thanks guys. But don't you guys ever sleep it's close to 1AM your time:D


It's a tough life being retired :D .

Donnie may have been on the right track with the power switch being the problem (i.e. broken). I'd be curious to know what the diagnosis is. Please report back.

[njcurveball]

OK,

From what I have read so far, you put a battery with a fresh charge in and nothing happens. Plug it in with the battery out, nothing happens.

You have probably tried holding in and wiggling the power button with it plugged in and with the battery in and out. Heck, by now you probably tried everything but a sledge hammer.

Best case sounds like your power button somehow took a vacation. However, the more likely problem with these symptoms is something got fried. :-(

Laptop Hard Drives usually pop in and out easily, so if you have another Sony with the same specs, you could try putting it in there. If not, I am sure a computer guy could do this.

I am sorry, but at this point, it may be cheaper to bury the soldier and get another one if something is fried. :-(

If there is any good news, it is that External Hard Drives have went down in price faster than Jose Canseco rookie cards. ;-)

I would use one for a back-up, well actually I do use one for a back-up and extra storage. If you can wait a few months, it looks like you will be getting 500gb for $250 in the future!

Jim

[OPM]

Well, I went to Best Buy since that is where I got the computer from and they told me it will be sent to their repair center and will be back by the middle of March for a minimum charge of $109. After I stopped laughing, I quietly left the store.
I then called up a couple of local laptop repair shops. One quoted me a flat rate of $195 and computer will be back in 10 business days-not bad but if I wanted the expedited service of 24-48hrs, it will cost $499. This is what I can get a new laptop for.
Call up another shop, johnsoncomputer.us and told them I thought I had a problem with the DC input. I was told if this was the problem, it would cost $180 and will be ready in 24hrs. I drove through sleet, a driving rainstorm, with hail the size of balled up polytrack hitting me on all side to get to this place(well maybe the hail was a little smaller). The owner of the shop took my laptop, my $50 non-refundable diagnostic fee and said she would call me if it was anything other than the DC input. Well, it's 7:15, their store closed at 7:00, so I am hoping I will have my baby back(Chili's baby back, hmmm) tomorrow. Of course, if it's something more serious, I will just use that laptop for spare parts.

It's funny, I was searching on the web last night and it turns out this is not an uncommon problem with the DC input or something getting fried.
Thanks everyone for their input.

[njcurveball]

That is the cross we bear as "techies"!

My friend was fixing up a Gateway for his friend and then asked me what I thought it would cost to upgrade the memory. I told him memory goes about $99 a gig these days. Boy is that some techie speak or what? :-)

Then I looked for GATEWAY memory and found theirs is more than double that. I sent him a brand new BETTER PC with 2 gig for about $600. Seems these things depreciate faster than Mercedes!

My "big deal" Compaq X6000 which I built is adding lines on the screen every day. I am up to 9 of them now. I contacted Compaq and since it was 15 months old, no more warranty for me.

I have owned laptops from the Model 100 days and this is the screen to do this to me! I told them if they did nothing, this would be my last Compaq! They read me my "warranty rights", so this will be my last Compaq! I priced displays and it is cheaper to buy an external monitor!

Such is life in techie world. We pay a lot of money for a few years worth of service.

I hope they work some magic for you Mr. OPM! Of course in this case it be YM (Your Money). :-(

No worries, just check out the spot play thread and you will recoup it quickly. :-)

Good luck with your laptop. Any of us could be in the same boat tomorrow, so my humble suggestion is make sure you have a way to get the data after you toss the laptop out the window!!

Jim

[Zaf]

I had a Sony Vaio laptop act in the same exact manner a few years back. Nothing of importance on the hard drive, so i took it out in the back yard along with my 5 iron. As you can see I have very little respect for my golf clubs.

[BillW]

My money is on a failure inside, blowing a fuse that protected the battery from shorting. This is of course a SWAG as I'm not familiar with the specifics of the insides of this laptop. :D

[OPM]

Well, I just got a call from the repair shop and they said it's not the DC jack although it is loose, it is working well. It must be something on the motherboard. The price has gone up to $275 from $185 to troubleshoot and repair. If they are unable to repair it, I will pay only $50 diagnostic fee. Turnaround is 1-3 days. Oh well, onward.
Gupta

[OPM]

Well, it turns out that the MIB(power connector ) on the mother board was loose and need to be fixed. It cost $275 but for 24hr service, that's about 50% cheaper than I was quoted at other places. The other option was to let Best Buy repair it for 150 but it would take a month. I was pretty impressed with this place, at least they know what the heck they are doing. Johnsoncomputer.us if any need them in the future.'
Thanks to everyone for their input.

[BillW]

Glad to hear it OPM - cheaper than a new computer for sure.

[Zaf]

Glad to hear it worked out :) I'll put the five iron back in the bag :eek:

[OPM]

Just as an aside, how do you figure out if some loaded a trojan program on you computer. Is there somewhere in the registry that shows when a program was added? I am running Spyware Doctor and McAffee as we speak but want to take all precautions.
Gupta

[Zaf]

I would assume that the Spy Doctor program would catch that. However I have used others, such as C Cleaner, Spy Bot, Windows Defender and have never really had any problems.

[OPM]

Funny, I run Spyware, it removes 130 cookies. I then run CCleaner and it removes another 92 mb of cookies, temp files, etc. Never a bad idea to have as much protection as possible.
Now let's hope my computer will last another 6 months.
Gupta

[OPM]

bastard died again, same exact MO. Luckily it's less than 1 month and hoping they can fix it.
I did order a new computer and it will be here on the 8th. Can't wait to get the new one, should be smoking with a Core2Duo and 2gig of Ram and 128MB of video ram.

[DanG]

I’m not the close to the computer expert many of you are. I have learned as much as I need to use them as a tool…

However…when you mention “RAM” I’ve found it to be as big an upgrade as I've made. 2+ Gig’s of ram have made such a difference in my main system I can’t begin to stress just how much.

I have yet to run enough applications where the “system resource limit” :eek: error message has occurred.

For what its worth…as I said, many of you guys / gals are way over my head. But, “RAM” seems to be near the top of a computer shoppers want list.

[OPM]

RAM is it, Dan. I was looking at a Dell with 4Gig of RAM but they wanted an extra $1500 for the extra 2Gig of Ram which I thought was too much. FWIW, XP can only handle 3Gig of RAM,(I think), I am not sure about XP. I am very excited about the Video RAM. I currently have only 512 MB of Ram and only 16 MB of video RAM, but my system is 4yrs old and almost dead!!!