Hardware Issue

[dbuchan]

Last week my computer started crashing on me after I took it apart and cleaned it. Since then Ive been getting odd BSOD crashes that are not making any sense. Here's my process of fixing it:

Most common crash: Kernel_INPAGE_DATA_ERROR

Which Im assuming is a corrupt OS installation. So I tried a repair install. Didn't Work.

Also did chkdsk which found no bad sectors or corrupt files.

Sometimes I get just a BSOD crash that tells me something along the lines of a system process has crashed and it needs to restart, does a memory dump and restarts.

When it restarts it tells me "Operating System Not Found" and I have to wait a few minutes and try restarting. Eventually it will reboot correctly.

After all this I thought maybe its My hard drive dying. SO I bought a new one at Best Buy........

Did a fresh Install, Installed WoW and played for about 1hr and a half to get another crash...

This one is something about the system process that crashed and memory dumps and restarts. On this restart it sometimes hangs at the VAIO screen, which Im assuming is the BIOS, or does not give me any keyboard support so I must wait the 30 seconds for startup.

Is there anything anyone has some input on? Id like to figure out the problem so I can get it fixed. If you think its not a faulty hard drive Im going to return the new one.

I have tried running on ONE stick of my 2GB ram and then the other 2GB stick to see if its a RAM issue but it will crash on either stick.

PLEASE HELP lol.. Sorry for the long post.

Sony Vaio VPCEC3DFX
Intel i5 2.53
4gb ddr3
ATI Radeon HD 5470
Windows 7 Home Premium

 

[hedwar2011]

Last week my computer started crashing on me after I took it apart and cleaned it. Since then Ive been getting odd BSOD crashes that are not making any sense. Here's my process of fixing it:

Most common crash: Kernel_INPAGE_DATA_ERROR

Which Im assuming is a corrupt OS installation. So I tried a repair install. Didn't Work.

Also did chkdsk which found no bad sectors or corrupt files.

Sometimes I get just a BSOD crash that tells me something along the lines of a system process has crashed and it needs to restart, does a memory dump and restarts.

When it restarts it tells me "Operating System Not Found" and I have to wait a few minutes and try restarting. Eventually it will reboot correctly.

After all this I thought maybe its My hard drive dying. SO I bought a new one at Best Buy........

Did a fresh Install, Installed WoW and played for about 1hr and a half to get another crash...

This one is something about the system process that crashed and memory dumps and restarts. On this restart it sometimes hangs at the VAIO screen, which Im assuming is the BIOS, or does not give me any keyboard support so I must wait the 30 seconds for startup.

Is there anything anyone has some input on? Id like to figure out the problem so I can get it fixed. If you think its not a faulty hard drive Im going to return the new one.

I have tried running on ONE stick of my 2GB ram and then the other 2GB stick to see if its a RAM issue but it will crash on either stick.

PLEASE HELP lol.. Sorry for the long post.

Sony Vaio VPCEC3DFX
Intel i5 2.53
4gb ddr3
ATI Radeon HD 5470
Windows 7 Home Premium

It would be safe to say that the HDD is not your culprit since the issues continued after installing a fresh drive and OS. With it hanging at the VAIO (yes this is the BIOS Post screen) and also randomly giving you keyboard errors, it is really sounding like something is going bad on the system board. It really drives the point home if you have eliminated it down to one stick of memory (regardless of which one you use) and the errors keep coming.

Sony's eSupport site for the VAIO line is very lacking.....as usual.

Long story short it sounds like the motherboard on the laptop is on the fritz. How old is the computer?

 

[dbuchan]

Its about 3 years old this coming Feb. if I remember correctly.

 

[hedwar2011]

Its about 3 years old this coming Feb. if I remember correctly.

Sony does have hardware diagnostics that can be ran on the computer. They can be found HERE.

I would recommend downloading these and running ASAP and hopefully it will kick up some results.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

I had a Vaio like that once. Before almost every piece of hardware in the thing failed. In my opinion, don't waste your time bringing it to any computer repair shop. It sounds like maybe a connector issue.

Does it get extremely hot? A lot of these Vaio's are prone to heatsink clogging.

 

[dbuchan]

Yes, sometimes it gets Hot. That's why i took it apart to check for clogs and clean. I even reapplied thermal paste since it was hard as a rock. I know there's enough on there and not too much either, part of my day job.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Alright, well as long as it doesn't get unbearably hot, we can rule out the CPU and heatsink. The RAM is able to dump so we can rule out that...

I would maybe point to the graphics card if you are having trouble playing games. Try moving the graphics to the Intel integrated graphics and see if that works. Also try updating your BIOS and drivers if you can get that far.

If none of that works, I would say it was a burnt out connection on the motherboard, a lot of relatively old laptops tend to fry themselves once they get out of warranty.

 

[dbuchan]

Well Im in the process of installing all my drivers now for the laptop. Something Im starting to notice is if I type alot or type really fast the PC will start to lag pretty good. And Ill try switching the graphics.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Lagging can sometimes mean the CPU, but before I throw the blame around, do what you are doing, update the BIOS and let me know.

 

[dbuchan]

Well no crash through all that updating but I did manage to run the Vaio hard drive test and the windows memory diagnostics again and they seem to have found no problems other than my disk being a little fragmented. Only because all the downloads and installs of the drivers and updates i assume.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Well pay around with it for a little, play some games, and hopefully it will be fixed.

 

[dbuchan]

Another crash while surfing the web buying new parts for a desktop lol.. I think I'm going to take it apart again and check for bad connections.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Be careful when taking it apart, just in case we can fix it, we don't want the keyboard inserts to snap or something.

When you take it apart, look for any minor imperfections on the board. If a small section of it is brown, that it the part that burnt out. Otherwise, look for scratches or soldering cracks.

 

[dbuchan]

So I took it apart and reseated the CPU and reapplied thermal paste with some I have here in the shop. Its industrial strength.. But Ive ran Memtest86+ 4 passes on 1 stick in 1 slot so far and its good. Ill update with the other stick and the other slot later.

 

[dbuchan]

Ive got no clue now.. Maybe there was a bad connection somewhere but I finished out running memtest86+ on both sticks in both slots with at least 3 passes each and they passed. So I took it home and plugged it in and right away I got an "OS not Found" Issue so I checked the HDD cable and restarted and it worked all night long playing WoW with no crashes.

This was also while running the laptop with a second monitor and using the net on the other. So it appears to be fixed but Im not curious if maybe the old hard drive was not bad but possibly a bad connection that was fixed yesterday? I think Im going to try the old one tonight when I get home and see what happens.

 

[hedwar2011]

Ive got no clue now.. Maybe there was a bad connection somewhere but I finished out running memtest86+ on both sticks in both slots with at least 3 passes each and they passed. So I took it home and plugged it in and right away I got an "OS not Found" Issue so I checked the HDD cable and restarted and it worked all night long playing WoW with no crashes.

This was also while running the laptop with a second monitor and using the net on the other. So it appears to be fixed but Im not curious if maybe the old hard drive was not bad but possibly a bad connection that was fixed yesterday? I think Im going to try the old one tonight when I get home and see what happens.

I still want to think that it is a problematic mobo that is covering itself up somehow.

Did you go and download the Sony Hardware diagnostics?
You've pretty much isolated all other hardware except for the motherboard at this point. Especially with it giving you random OS not found issues.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Ive got no clue now.. Maybe there was a bad connection somewhere but I finished out running memtest86+ on both sticks in both slots with at least 3 passes each and they passed. So I took it home and plugged it in and right away I got an "OS not Found" Issue so I checked the HDD cable and restarted and it worked all night long playing WoW with no crashes.

This was also while running the laptop with a second monitor and using the net on the other. So it appears to be fixed but Im not curious if maybe the old hard drive was not bad but possibly a bad connection that was fixed yesterday? I think Im going to try the old one tonight when I get home and see what happens.

Sounds like maybe the SATA connector could be malfunctioning, or the harddrive came out, but that still wouldnt explain lagging... hmmm this is turning into an episode of House... well we can at least rule out Lupus... lol

Anyways, if it fixed itself, then I guess that's it. Let me know if there's anymore problems and what happens with the old HDD.

Happy end of the world!

 

[dbuchan]

I switched out the old drive last night after playing WoW for about 3 hours. The old drive actually ran just fine. I did a bunch of quest and a dungeon and I had some lag but Im thinking that Ive got too much running on the laptop. So its been working good so far. I am however going to save the "New" drive until I get my desktop parts in then if it continues to work with the "Old" drive Im going to return it.

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Sounds like a good plan. Sometimes I think some of these mainstream laptops just throw "hissy fits" because they are made from low quality components that are prone to malfunctioning. Glad your problem seems to be gone.