Sony Vaio won't boot

[Jagerbomb71]

I recently got a Sony Vaio desktop from a friend and did some clean up on it. Defrag and disk scan. I shut the PC down that night and the next morning I pushed the ON button and the PC beeped 3 times and the fan is blowing louder than normal and the screen says no signal and hibernates. The machine worked fine for 3 days then I powered it off and now nothing but a fan motor. I have lights on the tower and NIC card. The cd opens and closes but it just hangs there with a blank screen and fan motor. Any ideas.??

 

[kjv1611]

Sounds like the display adapter/graphics card went out on the motherboard of the laptop. Either that, or the CPU, Ram, or possibly, the hard drive went bad. Since you did some stuff that would mainly affect the hard drive, I'd probabably trouble-shoot in this order:
1. Take out the hard drive, see if the system gets farther without it. If it does, it's the hard drive.
2. IF you can get the system to run longer than so far, try connecting to an external display/monitor, and see if you can see anything there. If not, then it's definitely something on the board - graphics, cpu, ram..
3. I'd next try removing one stick of memory at a time and seeing if it boots.

I will admit that the symptoms to me sound more like a heat issue or the graphics card going bad. But based on the scenerio, I'd check the above first... not to mention those are the easiest things to check.

You could also check to be sure the air flow isn't blocked.

Also, if you ran the system for an extended period of time, what sort of ambient room temps did you run the system in? Laptops generally run hot, and if you're running in a hot environment, it's a no win situation for sure.

 

[Jagerbomb71]

This is a PC tower not a laptop. The PC is actually by my vent and has the AC blowing right by it so temp shouldn't be an issue. It was the three beeps I get everytime I try and power on the PC. And the fan blowing the way it is ....It didn't do that or make those noises any time during the last 3 days it was powered on. And the last thing I did was a check disk on the hard drive. Aftre that completed the PC rebooted and everything was fine. Then I powered it down and now all it does is beep three times and run the fan.

 

[kjv1611]

Okay, desktop... sorry, I didn't notice the desktop keyword there.

Okay, thinking about this again, I'd re-order:
1. Ram - I'm thinking RAM is #1. I just recently fixed a desktop with the same/similar symptoms. Try booting with only one stick of RAM at a time. Remove all but one, and leave it. Easy way to diagnose the "bad" one, sometimes, is to turn the computer off (if already on), immediately see if one is warmer/hotter than the others. if it is, it's likely the culprit, so I'd remove it first.

2. Then the hard drive, since you were doing stuff there.

 

[vacunita]

Before anything else I'd start looking for a user guide for the PC, or at least for the motherboard to find out what the 3 beeps mean. The computer is telling you what's wrong with it through those 3 beeps, you need to figure out what they mean. Usually some type of hardware error, likely a Video adapter problem or maybe RAM.

It may be coincidental that one of the components just happened to die.







----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[Jagerbomb71]

I can boot the PC with the hard drive removed ??

 

[mscallisto]

I agree with vacunita

find out what the 3 beeps mean

The links below may not apply but a Google search for beep code for your bios type may help.

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=guide_beep_codes

sam

 

[vacunita]

Yeah sure it will start up, and say there's no hard drive. You can still access the BIOS, though, and that would let you know whether the HD is the issue or not.

If you can see the bootup sequence without the HD, and enter BIOS then you know it may be the HD casing the black out.

Personally I doubt that's the case unless its a power issue where the PSU doesn't have enough power to to run the HD and the video at the same time.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[kjv1611]

Jagerbomb71,

Technically, a computer can be booted with just the motherboard, CPU, Ram, PSU (for power), and display adapter - well, display adapter is only required for you to see it.

But as other suggested, 3 long beeps is trying to tell you something. You can find out what that means first, or you can try to swap out the RAM first. Choice is yours. It'd be good to find out what the beeps are supposed to mean, regardless.

 

[Stringbender]

Yeah, if you can find the make/model of the motherboard, it should be printed on it. Google that and find out what the 3 beeps are telling you.

From my experience, its going to be either RAM (memory sticks) or a video card problem.