VGN A215M, Problems after System recovery

[Tilli]

Hi all,


I am abolutely devastated, I have been fighting with this Laptop (the original problem was a broken GPU) for almost half a year now. This is partly due to the fact that I am in NYC and the warranty is only valid in Europe, but it has definitely been a long time.

Hardwarewise the Laptop is fine now (fixed under warranty), but the system (software) setup is a mess.

After a very rocky system recovery (it took three attempts, i failed a few times and the laptop shut itself down many times without properly shutting down..l) using the original and expensive Vaio recovery utility Disk, my Vaio is still not working.

I have followed all the guidelines, installed updates for the optical drive and updated the Vaio recovery utility after performing the recovery, but the Laptop constantly switches itself off. Especially when running the live update of Norton.

Even more notoriously the system almost immediately shuts down right after booting when I don't end the svchost.exe-process, which sucks up 100% CPU power. I know this is a system process, but it does cause my laptop to shut down and yes, I did check the spelling--it is not svchosts or svchost2 or sth. like that.

CAN ANYBODY HELP ME? I am going crazy!

I appreciate all answers and hints.

Thank you very much.

Till

[Blencogo]

Hi Till,

This is quite a common problem but unfortunately there is not an easy answer.

svchost.exe is an integral part of Windows and if you shut it down, all sorts of things won't work. The problem you have is finding the actual service that is causing the problem as svchost can run many services. The problem is that it is not the same service for everyone with the same problem!

You could try downloading the freeware Sysinternals Process Explorer which will enable you to find which Service svchost is running when using up your CPU.

The other way is to open Services (by Start>Run>services.msc /s) and look for which Service keeps starting and stopping.

If you identify the Service, you can do something about it - probably by right-clicking on it and changing the Properties>Recovery to 'Restart the Service' rather than the default - which is 'Restart the Computer' which causes your Vaio to shut down. A common culprit is the service 'Remote procedure Call' (RPC). This would explain the problem with Live Update or any other updates the Vaio is set to look for (MS Updates, Vaio Updates etc). You can often fix the problem by avoiding the option to "Advise me of any updates" and instead choosing "automatic updates" or "Off".

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble but many Services can cause your problem. You could also try ditching Norton - not my favorite ISS.

You have run a good Anti-Virus scan? This could also be a "Blaster" infection!

:smileythinking: