Display doesn't turn on when first booting, have to hard reset each time

[Bus_ter]

Hi,

Hopefully someone can help me with this strange issue.

When I first turn my Vaio on (VPCEB4C5E) the display does not power up and turn on. The laptop otherwise boots normally and I can hear windows start. I have to hold down the power button until it hard reboots, then the display powers up and I see the VAIO logo and windows starts up.

The display works fine and I can do restarts without any problems. However if I do a full windows shutdown I'm back to square one, and the display won't power up until I do a hard power shutdown as described above.

The only thing I have changed recently is I updated the ATI display drivers. However I can't see how this can affect the display not turning on, as the display doesn't turn on even from before windows starts to boot.

Thanks for any help!

[Blencogo]

That seems very strange  - it sounds a bit like a Power Issue or a poor inverter/display electrical contact.

1.  Is it the same on battery power only?

2.  Can you see the desktop if you shine a torch on the screen?

3.  I know the graphics driver should not influence the pre-windows POST but to eliminate the possibility that the ATI update has caused this in some odd way, have you tried reinstalling the original graphics driver?

[Bus_ter]

Thanks for the reply.

1) Same problem on batteries or mains power.

2) It's not powering up the display at all. I can tell because when the screen comes on it goes from a deep black to a kind of dark grey colour and then shorlty afterwards I see the VAIO logo come come up. I don't even get this 'dark grey' effect of the display being on (but nothing being shown). I can even hit F2 and go into the bios without the screen coming on. Again if I hold the power button until the power dies, and then turn it back on it works fine!

3) I haven't tried this yet. Installing the latest catalyst drivers was a pain because Sony try to block it and I had to do a workaround I read online to get them to install. The new drivers gave me an fps boost and better support in newer games so I don't really want to go back to old 2010 'Sony approved' catalyst drivers.

[Blencogo]

I was trying to see if it is just the backlight that does not come on and the LCD Panel is still working.  It still seems like an intermittent power problem.

Let's see if anyone else comes up with an answer.

Presumably you are still within warranty should a repair be required - but Sony will ask for a full factory reset before they will accept it for repair, which will reinstall the original ATI Driver.

[Bus_ter]

Thanks again for the reply.

I've found a workaround that means I don't have to boot into windows and then hard power off (which can't be good for windows). If I press the 'WEB' button to the turn the laptop on and enter the quick web access the display powers up. If I then exit this mode and restart the laptop it will boot up into windows with the display on. A quicker and safer method.

The laptop is only a few weeks old, and this problem only started recently. I bought the laptop online with custom specs and it took nearly 6 weeks to arrive. I don't really want to send it back, plus it's still in immacualte factory condition. My experience of sending hardware back to Sony is that it comes back with scratches and scrapes or even worse they send out a different refurbished unit  instead.

I'm going to try reverting back to the old Sony drivers and see if that fixes the problem. I'll report back..

[stephanius]

I understand you've had an unpleasant experience before, but I'd recommend to go for a repair anyway. It shouldn't be software, and hardware that shows problems isn't likely to get better as time passes. You don't want it to pop up when you are out of warranty.

As I understand the problem, it happens every time - thats both annoying for use and awesome for fixing it - since the technician can reproduce the problem and confirm the solution easily.

If you are worried about scratches, take some pictures of your VAIO before you hand it to repair. Make sure to have a time/date tag in there, and make sure the pictures are sharp/in focus. Light at a shallow angle from the side (aka raking light), works best.

Don't contact Sony Store online - where I understand you bought it -  they are a sales outfit and cannot deliver technical service. Go directly  to the VAIO support and have them sort it out.

http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/contacts/index.aspx?l=en_GB

[Bus_ter]

Well would you believe it, reverting to the Sony 2010 ATI drivers fixed the problem!

Strange. I can't explain it, but somehow when using upto date ATI catalyst drivers when you go through the windows shutdown procedure it somehow tells the laptop not to turn on the display the next time it's turned on.

Can anyone explain this? and better yet does anyone have a solution.

Reverting back to the Sony drivers has dropped 0.5 from my windows experience index and introduced issues in 2011 games that drivers over the last year or so had fixed. Pretty annoying to have a brand new computer with such old drivers that Sony don't update. They also seem to have blocked SP1? Another issue altogether...

[Bus_ter]

Well I thought it solved the problem but it hasn't.

It seems that if I'm using the laptop reguarly (everyday) the problem is less frequent and the screen nearly always turns on with power up. However sometimes I can still turn it on the next day and the screen won't initiaze and I have to hard reboot to fix the problem.

If I don't use the laptop for a few days then it's much more likely not to power up (maybe 50% chance I don't need to do the hard reset fix).

It seems reinstalling the old drivers helped the problem, however that was about the time I started using the laptop reguarly.

So the problem remains 😞