Vaio PCG-K23 laptop won't boot.

[David Farber]

This Sony Vaio PCG-K23 over the last year would have good days and bad days.
Sometimes it would boot up on the first or second start. Other days, it
would take 20-30 starts to get it to boot. Other days it won't boot at all.
When I say boot, I mean the monitor powers on and the logo appears. If it
makes it that far, it's usually good to go. The XP operating system never
crashes and in that respect, it's very reliable. Getting back to the boot
problem, on several occasions it will hang at the logo and you will not be
able to enter the bios. When this happens, I remove the cmos battery, wait a
while, and reboot. Whether or not that has any direct effect other than
clearing out the bios settings is difficult to figure out because this isn't
an instant fix. Sometimes it takes another 20 times or an hour warm up
period before it will start normally again. Another clue is that if you're
shutting down Windows with a "restart," 99.9% of the time it will restart
perfectly. There has only been two occasions over the past year where the
monitor would not power up after a restart.

What happens presently when the power button is pressed is the power led
comes on and the three green led's blink on and off (for caps lock, num
lock, and scroll lock) the yellow power light comes on, and that's about it.
If left on for a while, the internal fans will crank up to a normal
operating speed. I am wondering if the startup circuit in the monitor is
flaky. Or more importantly, if the monitor doesn't come on, would that
prevent it from booting up? Of course the only way I would know if it were
booting up without being able to see a display would be to see the hard
drive activity light blinking and that doesn't happen when it doesn't boot.
I've had the mother board out of the case more times than I can remember
looking for cold solder joints, loose sockets, or anything that would point
to this kind of trouble. No luck. I also removed the dvd drive and modem
board to try and limit some of the hardware affecting the start. That
doesn't seem to matter either.

I've tried different ram sticks but that doesn't make any difference. This
last time it came on, the bios was reading only one stick of ram and despite
this, XP still ran smoothly. I have two 512mb sticks installed. This problem
is more seldom but it has mysteriously cleared itself up over time.

I've seen motherboards for sale on ebay but I hesitate to replace it if I
really can't pinpoint the trouble. I'd really like to replace the bios chip
but it's not a plug-in type and who knows if it's even available or if it
would even correct the problem.

And finally, it doesn't matter whether you use the AC power supply (which is
the original) or run it from the battery.

Thanks for any input you might have about this.

 

[propman]

This Sony Vaio PCG-K23 over the last year would have good days and bad days.

flaky. Or more importantly, if the monitor doesn't come on, would that
prevent it from booting up?

FWIW, in the case of a HP laptop I have here...yes definitely. Screen
failure probably the inverter (common problem).

Sending these along just in case you aren't aware of them:

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/

 

[David Farber]

This may be of no use to you at all, but I'll tell you anyway.

I tried to upgrade my Vaios hard drive to a larger capacity model. It
didn't work properly because the Vaio was not expecting to ever
encounter a drive bigger than, I think 80Gb. (not sure of this max
figure) On boot it didn't recognise the drive and switched to some
sort of limp home access mode which was very slow. Something to do
with DMA not able to work I seem to recall Perhaps yours is doing
something similar but not letting you boot at all?

I cured my problem by installing a different driver after asking
questions on the Net.. Now the Vaio thinks it has a SCSI system,
when it doesn't, but the large hard drive works no problem at all!

Has your drive been upgraded?





Gareth.

It's the original 60GB hard drive. Keep in mind I couldn't even change
drivers if I wanted to because I can't boot the system.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

FWIW, in the case of a HP laptop I have here...yes definitely. Screen
failure probably the inverter (common problem).

Sending these along just in case you aren't aware of them:

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/

The first link talked about the display going very dim. That is not what's
happening. It's not coming on at all. But then again, when it does work, it
comes on at full brightness. So maybe an intermittent inverter might explain
that?

Thanks for your reply.

 

[propman]

It's the original 60GB hard drive. Keep in mind I couldn't even change
drivers if I wanted to because I can't boot the system.

Thanks for your reply.

Just some thoughts....

Tried booting from CD, floppy? If the BIOS isn't set to boot from either
of those before the harddrive, this isn't going to work but it maybe
worth a shot to try.

Have you tried accessing the BIOS during bootup (ie press F1 key...which
actual key combination depends on the manufacturer/model and so you
might have to read the docs for the actual sequence)

Some laptops have an "external monitor" or S-video connector (Usually,
IIRC, F5 will switch the display to external...again you might have to
go to the docs for the actual key combo).

That said and done, none of these proceedures worked while I was
troubleshooting the HP laptop with a failed video display that I
mentioned in a previous message.

 

[David Farber]

Just some thoughts....

Tried booting from CD, floppy? If the BIOS isn't set to boot from
either of those before the harddrive, this isn't going to work but it
maybe worth a shot to try.

Have you tried accessing the BIOS during bootup (ie press F1
key...which actual key combination depends on the manufacturer/model
and so you might have to read the docs for the actual sequence)

Some laptops have an "external monitor" or S-video connector (Usually,
IIRC, F5 will switch the display to external...again you might have to
go to the docs for the actual key combo).

That said and done, none of these proceedures worked while I was
troubleshooting the HP laptop with a failed video display that I
mentioned in a previous message.

I can't access the BIOS when the screen doesn't light up. You have to press
F2 while the Vaio logo appears. Again, when the screen does light up and it
doesn't hang on the logo screen (the hanging happened very infrequently) the
system boots fine and there are no subsequent problems. I am familiar with
the key sequence to switch to an external monitor but you need to get past
the boot screen for that to even come into play.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

But first you might want to check that your Mater Boot Record is OK
and repair it if not. (Google it)

My Vaio once refused to boot and I thought I had lost everything,
Turned out my MBR was corrupted and I managed to restore it.



Good luck.



Gareth.

That's all well and good but in order for the system to boot, the BIOS has
to be "activated" so it can select which device to boot from.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

That's all well and good but in order for the system to boot, the BIOS has
to be "activated" so it can select which device to boot from.

Thanks for your reply.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the system won't p.o.s.t.

 

[propman]

The first link talked about the display going very dim. That is not what's
happening.

Yep....sent those urls along not specifically directed at your
particular problem but rather just as a general reference for
troubleshooting laptops.

It's not coming on at all. But then again, when it does work, it

comes on at full brightness. So maybe an intermittent inverter might explain
that?

One other thing that came to mind after posting this....have you checked
the lid switch to make sure it's not intermittent?

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I've had similar problems with an older ThinkPad. You might check the
lithium cell that backs up the configuration memory. Make sure you have the
configuration written down somewhere before removing the cell.

This is worth mentioning, particularly if you have modified the default.

 

[David Farber]

Might be a bad RAM socket. Try using one SIMM and switching it to
either socket. My Intel based Asus laptop acted similar and it turned
out to be the bottom socket.

I've been through the SIMM switching operation many times. Never helps. When
I upgraded the ram with some incompatible brand last year, the system still
posted and went to a bsod with a memory error. If I got that far now, that
would be an improvement.

Looks like a new (used) motherboard will be the next step.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

This just happened to mine again yesterday. Freeze solid in XP, no
post upon reboot. Remove bottom 512 SIMM and up and running. And it's
not the SIMM as it works fine in the other slot under the keyboard.

Sometimes it will work without problems for months. Forget about
trying to fix it though, must be something peripheral to the socket as
under magnification all the connections look perfect and the socket
"innards" look the same.

Good luck with the Vaio. I really hate working on laptops at that
level.

I have since bought a used and tested motherboard from eBay ($73 including
shipping). That fact that it was advertised as "tested" sealed the deal for
me. (-; Not much to my surprise when I installed it and turned it on,
nothing. Same problem. But after three power on attempts, it finally came on
reading only one of the two 512MB ram sticks. The OS worked fine after that.
Then I randomly selected one ram stick to remove and then it booted on the
first time. I swapped ram sticks and then it wouldn't boot at all. I called
the online company that sold me the ram sticks and asked about the warranty.
I was told it had a lifetime warranty. Not only that, they would pay for the
return shipping. It took about 3 days to receive the replacement ram
sticks.(They even agreed to replace both sticks even though only one was
definitely bad.) It's not even been a week since I got the new ram and much
to my surprise, the laptop will boot every time on the first time and read
the full amount of ram.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

Do you get any P.O.S.T. Beep Codes when it doesn't 'boot'?

No display, no beeps. Just the power l.e.d. illuminates and you hear the
drive spin up. When it boots properly, it beeps once.

If you didn't see my message from a couple of days ago, the replacement of
the motherboard and ram has made everything good again.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[David Farber]

No display, no beeps. Just the power l.e.d. illuminates and you hear
the drive spin up. When it boots properly, it beeps once.

If you didn't see my message from a couple of days ago, the
replacement of the motherboard and ram has made everything good again.

Thanks for your reply.

I'd like to amend my previous statement about the startup beep. There is no
beep even when it starts normally. The only time it beeps is when the cmos
battery has been removed and you are alerted to check the bios settings for
time, date, etc.