vpcs12v9e - Faulty and Sony refuse to replace

whiting1999 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:28:12 GMT

Working for a local government who put loads of business Sony's way. Run into an issue with a vpcs12v9e a user has. It would suddenly turn off. Being the IT Engineer I brought it back to office and tested. Sure enough mid test it locked up. I boot it back up, pick it up to move it, it turns off.

Something is up. I do a scan on the HDD comes back fine. Do a scan on memory and it locks up half way through. So must be that. But no, next day it never locks up on memory scan on HDD scan. Leave over weekend. Then doesn't come back on without locking. Even locking in the BIOS. Warms up a bit and then it's fine.

I update BIOS when its stable. Then issues seem to go. Give back to user only to have them, a week later, say it's happening all over again.

More tests and find same issues.

Laptop can't leave the building withou encryption so sending it back to Sony may have been an issue. But I decided I'd wipe it before sending it back. Even if it had XP/Windows 7 on with no data, if it was stolen on return to Sony and the papers/news found out they'd reported an unencrypted laptop went missing and ignore that it had no data on. So wiping it was only option. I confirmed with Sony support who said wiping it fine.

Eventually it comes back and Sony have replaced the HDD. Yet straight out of the box it's doing same issue. In fact it was worse. Not only locking but no display on screen. Same on external monitor. Then warms up and is fine.

Leave for day or two and from cold locking up again.

Wipe again and test with NO SOFTWARE installed. Locking up in BIOS so diff not a software issue and clearly must be hardware.

Send back to Sony. What do they do, send it back with no fault found and claim it was a "Customer enduse error because there was no OS installed". That WASN'T the issue. I never sent it back because I couldn't get into the OS, I sent it back as the notes in the call said it was locking up.

I've had several arguments with Sony on the phone. RAM issues can cause oddness like this but they are refusing to even send RAM for us to replace ourselves. First they want to see that the fault. But everytime they get it, they never find it. Which suggests to me it might even be loose hardware inside.

Only thing I've managed to get them to agree to is a Loan Laptop while they try and find the fault with this one. But what's the point? I have it now and it's not locking up so I know they won't find the fault. But I bet once I give it back to the user it will start all over again.

Avoid Sony, their service is rubbish.

Message was edited by: -Soup-

vpcs12v9e - Faulty and Sony refuse to replace

Thalamus. — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:02:07 GMT

Hi whiting1999,

Welcome to Questions & Answers..:smileyhappy:

Hopefully someone from Vaio support should be in contact with you soon..:smileywink:

vpcs12v9e - Faulty and Sony refuse to replace

LaptopSpecialists — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:36:40 GMT

There are other Sony Specialists repairers out there who will repair these things at a decent price if Sony decide not to help.

It is unfortunate that when paying for such an expensive product companies cannot offer a certain level of support.

Message was edited by: rich912

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vpcs12v9e - Faulty and Sony refuse to replace