How can I prevent Sony ripping me off when I send my laptop for it's free repair?

dgi_n

For the past year I have had problems with the graphics card on my Sony Vaio C2Z, which I bought in May 2007. The graphics had reverted to VGA and the Nvidia card was no longer recognised.

This first happened when I installed the Windows 7 RC, but it did not happen right away so I had no reason to connect the two. I just figured I had overused and broken it by leaving the display on for hours.

I was installing a game last month and it suddenly brought my screen back to life with full colour - I thought my luck was in, but when I restarted the laptop the faulty display was back.

I further tested this by doing a clean install of Vista, and yes the graphics looked normal, but as soon as my Windows updates installed the ugly display was back.


Anyway, Sony have basically admitted that there is a problem with the card and I am entitled to a free repair: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/08/13/sony-admits-issues-with-nvidia-chips-in-vaio-pc/

But speaking on the phone with the support woman today she gave me all the usual garbage:

This repair offer only covers problems with the graphics card.

If there are any other hardware faults these will have to be repaired at your expense before we can continue.

and then the best of all:

If there are no faults to be found, or you do not wish to go ahead with the repair you will be charged £150 to cover collection and delivery costs.

She also mentioned that the repair may take a while because there are lots of other people who also have the same problem.


Are Sony going to fix this for free, or is it more likely that I, and everyone else, will be blamed and have to pay extra for replacement motherboards etc. so they can cover all their costs?

C_Mababejive

I would tend to trust them. Other than paying for an independent examination..(where...?) you have not much choice.

4743hudsonj

or take pictures? or a video of the problem......

also not any cosmetic damage to your laptop on the video as these things do get scratched and when they do you have little comeback without proof.

totalsolutions

I'm sure they are very nice people over at Sony UK

>But speaking on the phone with the support woman today she gave me all the usual garbage:

This first happened when I installed the Windows 7 RC, but it did not happen right away so I had no reason to connect the two. I just figured I had overused and broken it by leaving the display on for hours.

The only person here speaking garbage is you dear.

Sounds like a simple driver issue putting Win 7 on a three year old design, laptop and expecting it to jump to life...

Donnie

totalsolutions wrote: »

I'm sure they are very nice people over at Sony UK

>But speaking on the phone with the support woman today she gave me all the usual garbage:

This first happened when I installed the Windows 7 RC, but it did not happen right away so I had no reason to connect the two. I just figured I had overused and broken it by leaving the display on for hours.

The only person here speaking garbage is you dear.

Sounds like a simple driver issue putting Win 7 on a three year old design, laptop and expecting it to jump to life...

Are you sure? They did mention that they did a clean install of Vista.

Oneday77

A clean install of Vista may not have corrected the driver issue but then the updates may have downloaded a specific driver that then highlighted a problem with the graphics card.

Totalsolutions - that statement is a little harsh and elitist. The OP said the system was fine initially and why shouldn't Win7 work on a 3 year old laptop? The OP has a genuine cause to be concerned as they could be charged for work they don't want over the reported fault.

OP - Sony is just reading the standard disclaimer to you. Repairs of any kind by any manufacturer of any product tends to have the same conditions. They haven't seen it and the machine could resemble a road traffic accident. Document it's condition, mark, scratches and run a few utiliteis that maybe test the performance of other components to make sure their OK to limit what they could say is also faulty.
Since they are stating that it is a know fault you could request that you take it personally to an authorised Sony repair agent if your that worried.

missile

I would trust Sony, just had my charger replaced free of charge.

Think you are damn lucky. Not many companies would offer to repair a 2+ year old laptop, foc.

dgi_n

here are some pictures of the problem:
http://i50.tinypic.com/1zvam0x.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2zg55qa.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/34euej5.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/a4rd3r.jpg


would you say they are a graphics card or screen problem?

if it is a screen problem, what is the likely hood it has been caused by the graphics problem?

or does this show signs of another problem?

mr_fishbulb

dgi_n wrote: »

here are some pictures of the problem:
http://i50.tinypic.com/1zvam0x.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2zg55qa.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/34euej5.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/a4rd3r.jpg


would you say they are a graphics card or screen problem?

if it is a screen problem, what is the likely hood it has been caused by the graphics problem?

or does this show signs of another problem?

I'd guess that is a card problem. If it was a screen problem then the distortion/strange images should be consistent. The last pic very consistent with problems I've seen with cards before.

dgi_n

i got a screengrab of the card details i thought were important:

http://i46.tinypic.com/iba1iw.jpg

the thing that worries me is that this isnt distorted at all, does this mean it is nothing to do with the graphics card?

dgi_n

i connected it to my monitor and there were no problems - a vibrant display with nice bright colours.

initially this led my to think i must have a bad connection or faulty wire somewhere, but there's something about the numbers here which just don't seem right: http://i46.tinypic.com/iba1iw.jpg

they shouldn't be that low should they? can i fix them?

should my monitor be showing up as a "generic pnp monitor"? or should it involve WXGA X-Black LCD?

do you think it is just a driver issue? should I do a fresh install of Win 7? how about a fresh install of XP?