Nvidia G84m/G86m faulty chip happen to Vaio??

[6800gt]

I just wonder if anyone has the alleged graphic problem with your vaio series. I got AR51J with 8400m GT early this year. So far it works fine, but not sure it would die shortly :smileysad:. What's the sony's response?

origin story: All Nvidia G84 and G86s are bad
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/09/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

Channel Vendors Demand Graphics Cards Suppliers to Recall Potentially Faulty Nvidia GeForce Graphics Cards.
Resellers Want to Return Potentially Faulty Nvidia GeForce Graphics Boards to Makers
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20080725123120_Channel_Vendors_Demand_Graphics_Cards_Supp...

[abhtalla]

HI Thalamus,

Thanks for the instant concert and reply. I have now read all these 271 posts of agony and I am getting a grim feeling about the future of my laptop. Anyway, vaio people have seemed to start responding and started repairing the defective pieces in recent times.

I had bought the FZ31M from UK but now I am in India.

The customer service here is terrible. I have been there a month ago and they dont even acknowledge the already delcared problem.( I even showed them the sony site showing the declatration.)

Anyway, I have again mailed them at customersupport.en@vaio-link.com about my status.

Lets see what they do about it.

Regards,

Abhinav

Hyderabad,

India.

[happytourist]

I have also encountered this problem. I have a VAIO VGN AR71E with Nvidia G84M, which i bought in 2008. A couple of weeks ago I got a blank screen.

Does anyone know if Sony UK are fixing this problem for free? My laptop is now well out of warranty, and for the price they seem to charge to get this fixed I could buy a new laptop.

I was also wondering anyone knows whether the VGN AR71E's graphics card is discrete? I've heard that a lot of Vaio laptops have to get the entire moterboard replaced when the graphics card is broken. Could anybody tell me if they know?

[Jane2012]

Hi,

Anyone have this problem lately?

Is it true that the extended warranty only covers 4 years from date of purchase?

Anyone get it fixed?

[a000qw]

I've had the same problem with my Nvidia 8400 M-GT on my VGN-AR61E. Vertical stripes all over the screen underVista or square colored dotsand stripes in BIOS.

Sony told me warranty was out of date and that my model wasn't recognized faulty.

So before throwing away my laptop, I opened it, protected with aluminium pare all the parts I couldn't remove and heated the Nvidia chip for 2 minutes with a heat gun (I had seen this on Youtube). And it works!!!

My VAIO is now perfectly working.

With no other solution, maybe you can try this...

[klauzser]

I just exchanged my Vaio running Nvidia with my friend's Vaio Y running AMD Radeon. That actually solves my problem.

[thecooltool_87]

Hey,

My VGN-FZ21Z just started showing the same symptoms just over a week ago. It didn't take me long to find out about this infamous 'faulty chip' issue, prior to which I was not aware.

Based on this, I am 100% certain this is the issue. After a diagnosis from a local laptop repair shop they recommended to get onto Sony as Sony said they would replace it up to 4 years from purchase date. Unfortunatly, I purchased the laptop in November 2007 so looks like I've just missed this by a lousy 3/4 months!

Talk about bad timing!

Does anybody know/have any experience in Sony granting several months grace after this period and covering laptop repair due to this issue? Are they in anyway understanding/reasonable to make exceptions or will they point blank refuse me when I ask them because i'm 3/4 months too far gone?

Cheers guys!

[wilbury8]

Hi Guys I'm new here and i hope i am posting in the proper place? I have a vaio vgn-ar88e and recently experiencing the blue screen of death which indicates the fault of the nvidia 8400 gpu. The machine will start in safe mode. Sometimes it will start and i can surf the net for a few hours, but if i reboot i get bsod or corrupted graphics then blue screen of death. My question is if i was to aquire a new nvidia chip would it come pre-balled and would it be with the lead free solder that seems to be causing the problem ( read on other forums that it is the problem) ? Would love Sony to repair, but as my machine is not on their list and out of warranty, i have to try something myself as its driving me nuts........wilbury8

[jrukos]

My Sony Vaio VGN-NR21S have the same problem in video card. What can I do to solve the problem?