Vaio FX-640 - hardware freeze

[cardosa]

I have just been passed this notbook from my niece. Her compaints is that it froze all the time.
So thinking it was possibly the driver problem, I updated whatever i could and still the same problem.
I then reinstalled everything. Windows XP Pro. Haha, same thing. It would hang suddenly, and not even ctrl alt del would do anything..
I thought it may be the temperature seeing its using a hot duron? So i made it a point to lift it off the table providing ample ventilation, but to no avail.
I then installed sp1 and after 2 tries, it managed to load. Then I progressed to sp2 and it hung again. when i rebooted, windows was corrupted. So i am now in the process of reinstalling via cdrom using repair installation.
As you can inmagine, it means i will have to do the sp1 update again etc.

Can anyone tell me if they have similar problems? and if so, what logical options there are?

I tried to go to e-support, but it seems my email address is not in the database and i cannot go any further...

aaaarrrrghhhhh.

[TygerTyger]

E-support doesn't work, quite possibly because Sony Support is incompetent, or that's the impression I'm increasingly getting. It may be heat, but if it is freezing fairly quickly after you turn it on I would imagine it isn't, especially as Windows tendency is to restart rather than just shut down or hang when it gets hot.
What it might be is that your hard drive has a large amount of corrupted clusters on it. After you repair Windows and before you do anything else, run chkdsk. (Open My Computer, right click on your hard drive, click Sharing and Security, click on the Tools tab, click Check Now) If your hard drive is partitioned I don't know if it checks both, so look out for that.

[kee-lo_]

SP2 is temprimental, some machines love it - others loathe it.
The best thing you can do is have a clean install, then add SP1, then SP2. If that doesn't work remove SP2.
Also make sure your download is complete, do not use unofficial SP2 releases or get it from anywhere else except MS.

Tyger, somedays I think we're the support, and the peeps in Sony sleep.

[cardosa]

OK here is the update.
1. i didnt do a clean install but after the sp2 installation froze, the windows files were corrupted and wouldnt start. So i reinstalled winxp and did a repair path.
2. Then i did checkdisk with fix and repair, then a defragment..
3. I instead of going through sp1 this time i did the sp2 install immediately. That completed rather surprisingly.
4. I have installed all other devices including the usb netgear wireless lan card, my ipod, my hp 4110 printer and my active sync for my O2 XDAII
5. I am pleased to report that i have not gotten a freeze so far and I am crossing my fingers for it not to happen again. I am now updating with msoffice xp's service pack after loading all my other appilcation software .

Phew, I pray that it doesnt freeze again. If you dont hear from me then it is confrmed that the freezing was a software matter (or at the least a harddisk fragmentation error (NTFS - no partitions)) and not necessarily the hardware. I pray that this conclusion is correct.

crossing my fingers now...

heheheheh
thanks for your ideas guys.

[kee-lo_]

Good luck

[TygerTyger]

Ah excellent. I was curious to know if my suggestion would work as Windows XP has a bug which prevents me from running chkdsk so I can't see if it will fix my problems. Never occurred to me to go straight to SP2 that might have done the trick.

Thanks for letting us know anyway.

[cardosa]

Unfortunately it still froze yesterday as i was doing some work on itunes. Re-booted... As bad as a BSOD Vaio style... heheh

[kee-lo_]

iTunes seems to use a lot of CPU cycles.

[salk31]

Pre SP2 I had a "reliable" freeze narrowed down to hotfix 811493.

ie withit died few times a day without it very reliable. I was OK
up to SP2 (had to upgrade because without XP is way
too insecure).

My machine is dying again so I assume they have rolled
811493 into SP2.

NB 811493 was bundled into another bundle pre-SP2.

Regards

Sam

[kee-lo_]

More than likely