[topgazza]

Its not quite as straight forward as that as follows.

Laptop appeared to not recover from Sleep mode but even removing battery and power lead refused to power up again. There was no screen or lights on the front. Without warning it burst into life after an hour and worked all evening. It just went blank around 9.30 and refused to restart regardless of what I did. But decided to burst into life again around midnight so I ran it for 30 mins then shut down via Windows. However the next morning it refused to boot up with no bleeps, or any sign of life other than green power light on switch and HDD spinning and CPU getting warm. No front indicator lights and a blank screen. This morning the laptop powered up without a complaint and has been running all day. So its a bit varible to say the least

I should point that I am a computer engineer...well at least I used to be . So today in work I gave the laptop to my companies desktop/laptop engineer and he did the following.

1. Ran general Sony hardware diags on laptop testing CPU, hard disk drive , graphics and everything else but memory
2. Ran Sony Vaio Care diagnostics on memory and it failed half way through the tests with laptop powering off completely
3. Changed memory for new DIMMS and ran diagnostics again and again they failed with complete power off
4. Oddly the laptop recovered on pressing power on/off button each time

Interestingly the laptop boots up every time now...at least for the time being...but clearly there is a catastrophic problem

His opinion is that the memory controller on the motherboard is faulty and a new motherboard is required. Whilst initially it seemed to be a "not recovering from sleep mode" type of thing I always suspected memory as of course that's the first thing, just about, the computer needs to do anything assuming CPU/BIOS is ok etc.

Hopefully I have given enough detail

But any advice...even if its just confirmation that my thoughts are in the right area would be appreciated. Nice site by the way...glad I found it

Edit: Forgot to add model number

Sony Vaio VPCEE2E1E
Windows 7 64bit Home Edition

Edited by topgazza, 30 October 2012 - 01:37 PM.

[Advertisements]

Hello topgazza

Couple of suggestions for you, 1: In case of a bad MB setting remove the CMOS battery for a short time and then replace it. 2: Try booting with only one stick of Ram in slot 1, then slot 2, repeat the Ram process with any other Ram, this is in case there is a bad Ram slot on the MB.

[phillpower2]

Hello topgazza

Couple of suggestions for you, 1: In case of a bad MB setting remove the CMOS battery for a short time and then replace it. 2: Try booting with only one stick of Ram in slot 1, then slot 2, repeat the Ram process with any other Ram, this is in case there is a bad Ram slot on the MB.

[topgazza]

Thanks phil...I'll give that a go. Must confess I can't remember seeing a CMOS battery...but there must be one somewhere.

[phillpower2]

You are welcome topgazza

Sorry I have had no luck finding information on swapping the CMOS battery in a Sony Vaio VPCEE2E1E, possibly because it is a newer model.

[topgazza]

Its OK its tucked away under the MBD......crafty Sony

[phillpower2]

Not very helpful of them

[Alphawaves]

I had the same problem, replaced the bad ram and it fixed it

EDIT:

My model: Sony Vaio VPCEE2E1E
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium Edition

Edited by Alphawaves, 09 December 2012 - 07:26 PM.

[topgazza]

Good news is I stripped my Vaio right down as suggested to get at the CMOS battery. As I removed the motherboard, what nightmare that is, I saw several large pieces of fluff under the motherboard. I know this conducts static and electricity so I cleaned it all out and blow me down on reassembling the laptop it all works OK...

[phillpower2]

That is great news topgazza and thanks for the follow up

Thanks for your contribution to the topic also Alphawaves

[topgazza]

No problem and thanks for every ones help.

Little tip for anyone stripping down a Vaio for the first time. Be very, very careful removing the keyboard and motherboard particularly the many ribbon cables. The connectors they sit in are very delicate and possible a bit brittle if old. Lift the black locking bars very gently as a couple of mine popped off and they are difficult to fix as the locating pins break off too easy.

Don't tug....be gentle.....

Edited by topgazza, 11 December 2012 - 12:36 PM.

[phillpower2]

Thanks for the tip topgazza, I`ll be sure to ship mine straight to you if I have any problems with it

[topgazza]

Hammer and chisel at the ready.......

[phillpower2]

[Alphawaves]

Cool you got it sorted topgazza, i also took my laptop to pieces to get to the cmos battery. After finding it was ok i then done what i should have done in the first place (replace ram with a known working one) and it fixed it.. Happy days..