HELP - Laptop just Died

[stevep-4]

Have been running my Z1-RSP for a few years with no problems.

This evening, it locked up and came back a minute later saying the display driver had caused an error. The XP message said to re-start the computer and upon restart, it would start OK and provide a message to send on to Microsoft (usual error reporting thing).

Tried restarting and there is nothing. No hard drive action and the screen remains blank.

Have connected an external screen to it, and again, no action.

Have put the RECOVERY CD in, and while this initially spins up, it stops after 10 seconds. (whether the computer is on or i do boot-up from cold.

With no screen to look at I cannot say if there is any action I must take next.


Of course, with this computer, the recovery procedure is started from Windows XP.



I am wondering if the Bios has crashed, or maybe the hard drive has become unplugged...

any ideas, or is this laptop headed for the grave??

[stevep-4]

The damaged Z1 arrived the otherday, ready for me to do some parts transfers to see if I could make one good laptop.

Revision. My laptop crashed a few times with video driver errors (lost SXGA resolution and all but 16 colours). I upgraded the video driver from Vaio-link. Rebooted and it looked to be going ok, then I touched the screen and that was the last time it fired up. Subsequent attempts at rebooting manage to spin up the hard drive and DVD drive, but never get the screen lit up and the VAIO sign. Booting stops. Tried booting from the recovery disk but again, the screen never comes to life.

The damaged Z1 had apparently suffered a drop onto kitchen worktop. Judging by the damage to the magnesium case, I guess this was from a fair height. This computer would not boot up at all. Pressing the power on button results in an audible CLICK from the motherboard. I think the motherboard has suffered physical pressure and a few circult tracks are cracked.

In a number of independant operations, I have swapped over the screens, hard drive, keyboards, DVD drive etc. etc. but to no avail. My laptop never gets the screen lit up.


I am beginning to think that apart from the video driver problem there is a problem with the BIOS. Even if the video driver is corrupt, there should be some action before XP loads either the correct video driver or a basic driver to get things started.

Since I have swapped screens, cables and checked the security of all connections, I guess the BIOS must be corrupted.
Any thoughts??

As far as I am aware, the BIOS should be in flash memory on the motherboard somewhere.

IS the entire BIOS info maintained by the CMOS batteries (look like a couple of peas in a pod), or does thebattery only maintain volatile info like passwords, date etc.??


Anyone got any ideas, or should I just auction off the laptops bit by bit on ebay????

[stevep-4]

The damaged Z1 arrived the otherday, ready for me to do some parts transfers to see if I could make one good laptop.

Revision. My laptop crashed a few times with video driver errors (lost SXGA resolution and all but 16 colours). I upgraded the video driver from Vaio-link. Rebooted and it looked to be going ok, then I touched the screen and that was the last time it fired up. Subsequent attempts at rebooting manage to spin up the hard drive and DVD drive, but never get the screen lit up and the VAIO sign. Booting stops. Tried booting from the recovery disk but again, the screen never comes to life.

The damaged Z1 had apparently suffered a drop onto kitchen worktop. Judging by the damage to the magnesium case, I guess this was from a fair height. This computer would not boot up at all. Pressing the power on button results in an audible CLICK from the motherboard. I think the motherboard has suffered physical pressure and a few circult tracks are cracked.

In a number of independant operations, I have swapped over the screens, hard drive, keyboards, DVD drive etc. etc. but to no avail. My laptop never gets the screen lit up.


I am beginning to think that apart from the video driver problem there is a problem with the BIOS. Even if the video driver is corrupt, there should be some action before XP loads either the correct video driver or a basic driver to get things started.

Since I have swapped screens, cables and checked the security of all connections, I guess the BIOS must be corrupted.
Any thoughts??

As far as I am aware, the BIOS should be in flash memory on the motherboard somewhere.

IS the entire BIOS info maintained by the CMOS batteries (look like a couple of peas in a pod), or does thebattery only maintain volatile info like passwords, date etc.??


Anyone got any ideas, or should I just auction off the laptops bit by bit on ebay????

[kee-lo_]

Hi Steve,

Sounds terrible
The CMOS mainly stores all the parameters for the BIOS, so you'd really need to swap the BIOS chip from the ebay on to yours. It's not an easy process, but the net has tons of resources on doing this.

Not for the faint hearted

[stevep-4]

I would certainly have a go at swapping the bios chips over.....except there is no indication which of the many chips is the bios one, and all are soldered to the motherboard !!!