Sony Vaio won't boot. At all.

July 15, 2007 10:59 PM

Sony Vaio VGN-B88GP (OS is XP) won't start. No little lights... just nothing. We've all established anthing Sony is garbage and it would be great if you would note this is not my question.

Now what I've read usually indicates ram issues and indicates 2 slots and a reset. I have 1 slot and appears to have no reset? (There's one on the CPU but you'd kinda have to take it out to poke it so we dismissed that?)

The week beforehand any start/restart was a pain. It would just sit on the 'loading your personal XP settings page'. After screwing around with it a bit it would start and everything else would be the same as usual.

And just to be clear when I say there's nothing - there is absolutely nothing!

What the fuck is it's problem?

posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har to computers & internet (9 comments total)

What do you mean by "nothing"? If you mean no noises whatsoever not even a fan or hard drive spinning up then it's probably a broken power supply.
posted by delmoi at 11:04 PM on July 15, 2007

What delmoi said. If there is literally nothing happening (not even the slightest noise, light, click, whirr, et cetera), it means power is not getting to the, well, anything. The power supply and/or the complementary circuitry are to blame.

The problem before sounds bad too, but is most likely unrelated.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 11:31 PM on July 15, 2007

I don't know what your problem is, but it is not the RAM.
posted by unixrat at 11:57 PM on July 15, 2007

The week beforehand any start/restart was a pain. It would just sit on the 'loading your personal XP settings page'.

This makes me suspicious of the HDD, though it can't be that as you should see the bios come up long before the machine accesses the HDD.
I had a similar problem with my laptop. I tried a bunch of stuff, but eventually it was a new motherboard off ebay that fixed it.

In the mean time, you probably want to back up the drive by temporarily installing it in a desktop machine (image it, rather than copy) as the standard sigil to ward off demons that one performs when the spooky sounds of the technology goblins in the night are making you nervous.
posted by -harlequin- at 12:05 AM on July 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I had a VAIO FS-series go brick on me. No lights, no sounds. It's almost certainly the power supply. Unfortunately, with VAIO laptops, more often than not this will necessitate a new motherboard. What happened with me was this: the thin copper band that connects the AC jack to the motherboard dislodged, broke, disappeared, whatever. So no power could get from the AC adapter to the motherboard. WHen this happens, you are basically SOL. It MAY be fixable with a little luck and some expert soldering. Try googling "VAIO AC jack motherboard."

ps. Geek Squad wanted $850+ to fix this, which was about 70% of the cost of the laptop when it was brand new. The internets warned me, and I didn't listen. Please don't go to Geek Squad.
posted by gettingpaidforthis at 10:48 AM on July 16, 2007

As folks have said, it's a power problem. This being a laptop, it could easily be the battery and/or AC power brick. Even taking out the battery and putting it back in can sometimes cure what ails you.
posted by phoenixy at 11:11 AM on July 16, 2007

Ok yep to clarify when I says nutin I means nutin! No sounds, lights or signs of life whatsoever... You know how you can just tell if a tv is on inside a house? Yeah well it felt real cold and empty if you know what I mean...

Hard Drive was/is sweet - using it as we speak. Yeah I agree it's not ram (wouldn't I still have lights?). I just googled SOL - fuck it!

Wanna hear the best part of this story? Not 24hrs earlier I finally located a new screen for it that fit my rather narrow criteria after... months possibly. I don't want to think about it - a good chunk of time. And now this... dirty rotten motherfucker!!

And yeah battery, that was the first thing I did. Various combinations of battery and power cord - no joy. Got out my sweet little screw driver - some joy but not exactly what I was after.

SO took one look at it all laid out across my bed... As if he wouldn't have done the same thing, where does he think I learnt to do that! :)
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 11:32 AM on July 21, 2007

Oh yeah and I'm investigating all possibilities from AC Jack onwards. So I'll letcha's know...
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 11:35 AM on July 21, 2007

Live from her Vaio!

I would like to thank - gettingpaidforthis, a very awesome site I stumbled upon um... Just google laptopfreak you can't miss it. And most importantly SO the man that made it all happen!! What a fucking Champ!!

Okay from what I understood AC Jack to motherboard - was fucked. He started from scratch and went through it bit by bit. There were miscellaneous things that may have contributed but reconnecting those appears to be significant. A CMOS was reset and a battery issue was explained and resolved and that's about all I know.

I am so happy neh neh-neh neh neh because it's working neh neh-neh neh neh made him BIG cup cakes neh neh-neh neh neh new screen is comming neh neh-neh nehhh neehhhh!!
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 10:46 PM on July 23, 2007