Sony Vaio TFT problem 1

[eman6]

A friend of mine has a Sony Vaio laptop.
It is working in double display mode and you cannot change it.
The problem is, the Laptop display is almost completely dark. It barely shows windows and dialog boxes even with maximum brightness setting.
The display Switch function keys do not work (cannot switch modes between internal/external display.)
The actualy display area shows bigger than the physical display area.
In the display properties you can't have the possibility to change monitor type (options inactive).
In Safe mode you have both internal and external displays working the same, but the TFT is extremely dim (dark) but not totally off.
The graphics display adapter is ATI and the even when restoring last working version driver nothing changes.

My guess is that the graphics card is defective.
Maybe the I/O part that is related to the display has a defect, or even (hopefully not) the TFT display itself.

If anybody has an idea or had such an experience before, I would appreciate your feedback.
Is it possible to change the graphics card? What if we change the graphics card and it does not resolve the problem?


_______________________________________

Eman_2005
Technical Communicator

http://www.smartistek.com

 

[Jeranamo]

VAIO's are known to have LCD/Display problems. I have one that has a working backlight, but the video connection has gone dead. This required a new video harness which costs about $250. Your problem on the other hand seems to be the exact opposite which is also common in VAIO's it seems. The problem may lie in your backlight for the LCD display.

 

[eman6]

Jeranamo
Thank you very much for your clarification.
Do you think this is repairable?
What would it approximately cost?

Just to have an idea, of course, before I advise my friend to contact the Sony reparation center.


_______________________________________

Eman_2005
Technical Communicator

http://www.smartistek.com

 

[eman6]

By the way, if it was the acklight and not the graphics card, why is the display switch not working?
I mean the one that allows you to switch between one display and another?

_______________________________________

Eman_2005
Technical Communicator

http://www.smartistek.com

 

[Jeranamo]

I said it may lie. I am not 100% sure, but working with vaio's in the past I have noticed that they have display problems a lot. What is your exact model so I can give you an acurate pricing. Usually you need to replace the whole LCD when it's a backlight problem in most cases, but if I had your exact model I could figure the aproximate cost for a new LCD display.

 

[eman6]

Thank you again. The model is:
PCG-GRX316MP

I would also like to know if I could replace the graphics card myself, like I could do the hard disk.

_______________________________________

Eman_2005
Technical Communicator

http://www.smartistek.com

 

[Jeranamo]

A new backlight will run you about $39 and can be purchased on

http://www.lcd-backlight-ccfl.com/.

If the backlight is NOT the problem, generally you cannot just replace a graphics card in a laptop. For your model laptop, there is actually no video card, just a video chipset on the motherboard itself. If you need to replace video, you will need to replace the whole motherboard.