Serious Problem With My Sony Vaio FE31z

[Iwaaan]

Hi guys, yesterday a serious fault occured with my FE31z, which is very hard to explain. Many of the pixels on the screen appear in block colours (red, blue or green usually) in strips across the page during the vista boot/loading screens (I hope somebody understands what i mean). I am unable to run my computer in full mode, only in safe mode. This leads me to believe that it is a software issue rather than a hardware issue? Allthough after syaing that i must point out that the stripes of pixels still appear before i am prompted to choose which mode i want to boot vista in.

Sometimes i also get a blue screen with a display driver error leading me to bleieve that this is the cause of the problem? I have been searching the internet for hours trying to find a solution for my problem but i have not turned up anything.

Can anybody here please advise me on which steps to take next? What do you think the problem may be and/or what options are available to me. My laptop is out of warranty so it is likely that this is going to cost me alot?

NB.
At the moment i am making backups of important files onto my external HD because i fear that the large amount of HARD Reboots i have to do is damaging my system. After backing up i suppose i will then try and run driver updates and see if that solves the problem?

Thanks for any help your going to give guys.

Iwz

[Blencogo]

Hi iwz,

Try pluggung in to an external monitor and see if you get the same problem. If you don't then your LCD screen is suspect. If you get the same problem on the external display then try a new driver as the first thing to check as the problem will be with the driver of the graphics chip.

However, if the problem occurs before Windows loads then it is unlikely to be the driver which will not have loaded until Windows loads.

[Iwaaan]

Thanks for the help mate. I will try loading with an external monitor tomorrow. Where can i find the necessary drivers for the graphics card?

Like i said i can run my computer in safe mode without any problems so i assume that it is driver or similar that is loading when booting the full version that is causing problems?

Thanks again mate.
Iwz