Help needed, blue screen of death.

[the_tramp]

I have a major problem with my laptop. Sony Vaio VGN-BX197XP if that helps at all.

A couple of days ago it randomly blue screen of death'ed on me. Upon restarting it says the usual 'Windows did not shut down correctly... safe mode or last known settings' etc but no matter which I select, after about 10-15 seconds it BSoD's again. I can access the Bios Setup Utility without it ever crashing on me but I can't really find anything here that I can do to fix it.

Is there anything that can be done from here? What are your opinions on disabling the harddrives that are on it, load windows on an external harddrive and somehow reconcile it?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

In before the 'go google it' and lock.
Please don't ban me.

 

[the_tramp]

I have googled it. I am simply gaining as much information as possible from a variety of sources, in case one of you lot have experienced the same thing and fixed it.

 

[poleboy]

Dunno if you can do this with a laptop, but there's a little button (usually on the motherboard I think) that resets the BIOS and stuff like that. Usually worked for me when it got so bad I couldn't even start up Windows. It should be mentioned in your manual, but I'm afraid I can't remember what it's called...

 

[Lord Krunk]

Reminds me of a conversation my friend made while talking to a tech guy.

"Hey, sorry about this, but I got a virus, fucked up my router."

"Geez, didn't your dad tell you to wear a condom?"

P.S. He pronounced "router" "rooter."

 

[mark_n_b]

Well, this is not a tech support kind of forum which is why you got the "google it" note, in all honestly google might give you better information.

I'd honestly need more information to delve the exact nature of the problem but I'll give you what I can:

If it is happening in under twenty seconds after start up and the bios is fine this suggests there is a conflict or some other crash bug (virus, corrupted app) in the set of applications that load on startup.

I am guessing this would be the result either of a recent install or update.

Start in safe mode and uninstall recent add ins that activate at start up. And where ever possible disable "activate on startup" (say for a Steam account or an Instant Messenger)

If this doesn't work, use system restore to go back to your system at a point before this was happening.

If this doesn't work, this is when you would either take it to a techie or rely on more suitable internet support because my only other suggestion is a reformat and clean OS reinstall.

If that doesn't work I feel really bad for you, physical repairs are probably required.

 

[the_tramp]

If you take the first hex code it throws at you in the BSoD and do a google search for it, you might be able to find something that will narrow down which piece of hardware is having difficulty. At 15-20secs into startup, I'm going to take a wild guess and say either new drivers for the onboard video are bad, or if you haven't upgraded the drivers lately, the cooling fan (if there is one on the video chipset) may have died and it's stopping to prevent damage, or is already damaged.

Just a guess, though, as it could be faulty memory or other issue. As it's a laptop, you're probably better off bringing it in to a shop to take a look at it. Unless you have someone with the same Vaio, or some components for one, that you can use to swap out one by one to find out the culprit.

 

[BaronAsh]

Email Sony Support.(or whatever its called you get the idea)

 

[Aumichan]

THat sounds like a pain. Whenever I get BSoD I call up the manufaturer right away, I've too many things that I can't let get wiped.
Don't mess around with it if you have no clue what's going on you can end up screwing it up even more. (been there done that -_-")

 

[TorqueZero]

OK, so it's crashing after the machine POSTs (the single beep) and before Windows loads (I assume you're using windows?)

I guess the BSOD occurs for only a split second before the machine reboots? You can tell the machine to stop rebooting, so that you can view the reason for the BSOD. To get this, hit the F8 key while the machine boots - you should get to the Safe Mode etc boot menu. There should be an option on that window to "Halt on Error" or something like that. Select it, and reboot. After the crash, check out the BSOD and post here the error message it is trying to spit out.

Oh yeah, although there's a load of bunk written all over the BSOD, the pertinent info is usually found in the third and fourth lines from the top of text. Don't worry about the memory addresses, they're usually not very helpful. I'd expect to see something like

NV4_DISP.DLL_INITIALIZATION FAILED

or somesuch. Then we'll have something to work with.

 

[scarbunny]

Also winddows normally throws a "windows cocked up because of this" type error after a BSOD.

However there are numerous reasons for a BSOD so with out some kind of error code or info we are as stuck as you.

 

[TorqueZero]

...or if you're based in the US and want to try something before I get to respond to your post, try running a checkdisk from the recovery console on your windows boot disk. I don't do Vista, but the XP recovery/install disk has this option:

-Boot the machine from the XP install disk.
(You may need to go into BIOS and choose 'Boot from CDROM' as the first boot option, then from HDD as the second)
-At the welcome screen, press 'R' to enter the Recovery Console.
-You should find yourself dumped-out to a black screen with a single command prompt.
-Type (without quotes) "chkdsk /r" and press the Enter key.

This will take a while, depending on the size of your harddrive. The program will attempt to recover any broken/corrupted files your PC may have or even block-out bad sectors on the HDD, if any. Afterwards, it should attempt to reboot, if not type 'reboot' and see if you get the BSOD again.

N.B. none of these suggestions are destructive, but please be very careful when accepting help from strangers over the internet. If all else fails though, you can still simply re-install as mark_n_b suggested.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Email Sony Support.(or whatever its called you get the idea)

He wants to get this fixed before he dies.

Email Sony tech support and make a veiled reference to warranties and the small claims court. It'll be fixed within a week.

 

[Xvito]

That's what you get for using Windows...

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

Normally when I BSOD I just cry and cut myself. Once I am through that, I call an expert, they can normally fix it just fine. Besides it's worth spending some money if you know it will be fixed properly.

 

[the_tramp]

That's what you get for using Windows...

If you had nothing constructive to stay, better to have not said anything at all, let alone try and start a flamewar. It's probably time to lock this thread before it gets ugly.

 

[runtheplacered]

THat sounds like a pain. Whenever I get BSoD I call up the manufaturer right away, I've too many things that I can't let get wiped.

You better backup your data. If not, I can promise you now that you will lose it one day.

 

[runtheplacered]

That's what you get for using Windows...

How does that even make sense? A blue Screen is just a way for windows to inform you there is a problem.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

 

[KSarty]

That's what you get for using Windows...

BSOD has to do with hardware, or the firmware for said hardware, so nice fail there.