System hangs when power lead is unplugged

[kstewart]

I recently bought an FE41Z which came with Vista pre-installed. It has recently developed a problem where the computer hangs whenever the power lead is unplugged. The orange battery light stays lit but the mouse pointer will not move, the keys don't respond and the hard disk light does not turn on. All I can do is turn it off by holding down the power button.

I have done a clean install of Vista and installed the most recent BIOS (R0200J3) but this has not helped.

Any ideas?

[rich912]

Hi kstewart and welcome to the forum.

I suggest that you contact Support as the problem you describe would appear to be hardware related.

[kstewart]

Thanks for the info - I'll give them a call (again). I have to say that buying this notebook has been the single worst purchasing decision of my life - nothing but problems from the day I took it out of the box, all of 2 months ago. I'll never buy nor recommend Sony ever again - lesson learned.

[rich912]

If you get no joy from support then please post back and we will escalate this for you.

Don’t give up on your Vaio just yet as, one way or another, I’m sure that we can get the problem resolved…

[kstewart]

Some more information FYI...

For the first time, when I unplugged the power lead today the screen went blue with the following text:

Hardware malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity check / Memory parity error
The system has halted

It seems like your diagnosis was spot on!

I'll let you know what Support says.

[AndrewDenty]

I have the exact same problem with a VGN FS-315s in vista, but not XP!

[kstewart]

Quick update - I returned the notebook to the seller and received a replacement as they confirmed it was a hardware error (though they didn't give any specifics). Let's hope this one is more reliable....

[rich912]

Thanks for the update kstewart