laptop (Sony Vaio) dead

fluppet

My sister's laptop was working fine (with fully-charged battery and AC plugged in) and then suddenly cut-out. It is now completely dead - no reaction when you try to turn it on, does not show any LED lights, not even charging LED when non fully-charged battery inserted.

Tried it with just AC plugged it, just battery plugged it, disconnecting everything and then reconnecting, nothing makes any difference.

The problem is not the power adapter or its connection to the computer - if that was the case it would have first started running on batteries and then when the batteries go low it would go into Hibernation. It did not do this - it just cut out as if there was no battery in it and the power cord had been disconnected. It would also show some life when another battery (not fully charged, but with some life in it) was inserted, but it doesn't. It had just been turned on for about 5 minutes before it cut out and had displayed the full battery tool-tip.

The laptop is 2.5 years old and so is out of warranty.

I have done some searching and it appears other people have had similar problems. Some people reported that they disconnected all power sources and left the laptop for a week, then reconnected and it worked. Unfortunately my sister is doing her master's and would have great difficulty without her laptop for that long.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks

Ghost Train

Whats the vaio model, is there a hole in the bottom of the case for pressing a reset button on the motherbaord? i know my vaio had one

doesn't sound good if it's not responding to anything you've tried

fluppet

Well after leaving it completely disconnected overnight (no AC power or battery) she tried it in the morning but it was still completely unresponsive (after plugging it in, obviously). She then took it over to a friend's house, and when she tried to show them the situation it turned on! It sounds to me like there is a loose connection inside it somewhere, so taking it over to the friend's house might have put it back in contact (for the moment anyway). I've told her to save what she is doing as often as possible because it could turn itself off again at any moment.

jayo2004

It is a very common problem with sony laptops. Its something to so with the "RAM Slot". There is 84 pages of people complaining with the same problem check this out

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/5449/?o=640

swingking

Step1: unplug all power souces including the battery and ac adapter
Step 2: Hold down the power button for 10-15 secs. This clears the charge in the mother boards capacitor
Step 3: Turn PC on

I can't tell the amount of time this has worked on sony and other laptops.

Good luck;)