Sony Ireland...?

TerrorFirmer

Not sure exactly where this should go, but I'm looking for an address for some sort of management position within Sony Ireland.

I bought a Sony Vaio for gaming, and despite being only 4 weeks old, its continuously giving me blue screens whilst gaming after only between 10-30 minutes...updating drivers doesn't help and googling the problems reveals dozens of people with the pinpoint same problem, and same blue screen - so its clearly a card fault rather then my specific laptop.

I brought it back to PC world, and it being 2 days outside the 28 day returns, they won't take it back as they can't see the problem even after I left it with them, and when I produced pages of printouts from forums with people describing identical problems they countered that with the fact it was unverifiable and for all they knew it could be me writing all this...

So I want to write directly to someone in Sony outlining my problem and the fact its clearly a widespread one and I henceforth want a different model vaio, but their website only has this pathetic e-support which basically told me to "update my drivers" even though I highlighted in bold I have tried the latest drivers

Anyone help here?

Ruu_Old

Well the postal address on the Sony Ireland gives an address in the UK (their Customer Service Centre it says) but then theres an address for spare parts or replacement accessories (as originally supplied with the product). I guess you could try calling that Dublin one and getting a hold of the manager or supervisors extension and/or address.

Sony Ireland
82 Broomhill Road
Tallaght
Dublin 24
Telephone: 00353 1 4131727
Fax: 00353 1 4519879
email: spares.ireland@eu.sony.com

TerrorFirmer

I'll try that Ruu, thanks, much appreciated

majiktripp

Very interested in this story and seeing how it pans out havok!

formatman

advice

go to PC world with a few friends , one that looks old enough to be a lawyer dressed in a suit and ask them to ask PC world to set up the PC there and then and let their client ( you ) use it for gaming and see if it blue screens

Alternatively ask them will they pay for it to be verified by a third party consultant or you will take them to court

No store likes a fuss in their store and once you keep the head you should get your way if you are prepared to stand it out for hour

Then when you get your cash back , do the research on the PC first and buy an alienware or get a Shop to build you a custom one or Kompletts latest pre built look very decent

TerrorFirmer

Its a laptop, not a desktop, and I tried playing it in store, but unfortunately it just wouldn't feckin blue screen while I was there, typical....its intermittent, it crashes 8 times outta ten but theres always the exception and luck have it, it was when I went to PC world. Thats why I want to get through to a manager at Sony and explain the predicament alongside the fact thats its a common problem within the gaming community using this particular laptop/card.

Its a Nvidia 6400 Turbocache, and apparentlys its the turbocache feature thats at fault, as games blue screen with "beginning physical dump of memory"

formatman

the forums are pointing towards drivers I take it or the way the driver interacts with the card

Have you tried turning off all the usual things in windows like system restore , anti virus , indexing and write cacheing on c: drive

and then set up windows for best performance with the win2000 style shell ?

apart frm that , what reinstall discs do sony give you ?

Might be worth wiping and building up the software from scratch and using the NEw nvidia drivers from scratch before the sony ones have a chance to get hold of th registry ( if it not a restore cd that is ) etc etc

TerrorFirmer

Yeah I tried that, latest forceware drivers, re-format (not from system restore partition), nothing seems to work....

formatman

ok then ,

set up a video camera beside the laptop and use it playing games for a few hours or a day so the problem will happen

then you have something to contact sony with

KamiKazi

just play games on it and when it blue screens head straight to pc world and slap it up on the counter and dont leave till you get a solution;)

HungryJoey

HavoK. A bit of advise with regard to PC world and my experience of the company. Speak to someone at the service desk and obviously when you dont get you're way demand to speak to a manager. 9/10 times you will get you're way with a manager once you dont give up and accept what they tell you. Be very firm with them and hopefully you will get a bit of luck. Try demand a new system but unfortunetly you won't get you're money back no matter what. As I said, try demand a new system or if you think its the whole line thats gone Sh!te, Demand pick a different laptop for similar price.

Hj

Liber8or

HungryJoey wrote:

HavoK. A bit of advise with regard to PC world and my experience of the company. Speak to someone at the service desk and obviously when you dont get you're way demand to speak to a manager. 9/10 times you will get you're way with a manager once you dont give up and accept what they tell you. Be very firm with them and hopefully you will get a bit of luck. Try demand a new system but unfortunetly you won't get you're money back no matter what. As I said, try demand a new system or if you think its the whole line thats gone Sh!te, Demand pick a different laptop for similar price.

Hj

Exactly, i worked in PC World for 4 months on the Customer Service Desk, ( i quit for reasons i wont get into here ) but you have to be firm. Because it is out of the 28 day warranty you are not entitled to a refund but you can get a straight exchange or swap for a more expensive model and you make up the difference.

Somebody above (sorry, i forget the name) suggested waiting for the Blue Screen then bringing it into PC World. I would HIGHLY recommend this as a person who worked for them. Most technicians in there will just turn it on, move around Windows for a while and if everything is ok then they classify it as "Fine". But if you show them the BlueScreen with the error on they have no option but to investigate it further.

Also, im sure the BS Error gives some info as to the cause so, if the Technician sees this he can establish there and then if it is a hardware fault, which corresponds to an exchange of laptop.

In future, dont buy from PC World. Also i hope you didnt get screwed over for the "Insurance" plan. All that does is insures that if your PC/Laptop is broken they will take it away from you for 1-2months... :rolleyes:

Hope this helps...

L31mr0d

em, wouldn't the fault cause an error to be saved in the "event log" in you administrative tools? Look under system, and at the times the game crashed you should get either a warning or an error being saved. I'm surprised the PC world guys didn't at least check this?

TomCo

L31mr0d wrote:

em, wouldn't the fault cause an error to be saved in the "event log" in you administrative tools? Look under system, and at the times the game crashed you should get either a warning or an error being saved. I'm surprised the PC world guys didn't at least check this?

I'd be surprised if they knew about it :rolleyes:

calex71

Get a full memory dump also when it blue screens, this may help you.

right click my computer , properties / advanced click settings under start up and recovery.

when it blue screens let it sit till its finished dumping the memory.

Also - ruu gave you the address for sony above. I delt with the folks at this address about 4 years ago with a minidisc player that was on the fritz, it was 2 years out of warrentee.
After mailing them one of the techies called me and asked me about the problem. With in 10mins he'd given me that same address and asked me to send the player by sds. the only charge i payed was the postage. The guy even called me when i got it back to make sure it was working ok.

TempestSabre

Find a demo or 3D mark test to run that bluescreens it. If its doing it after 10-30mins it could be overheating. So run something that really maxes it out.

Karoma

Which model is it?
Which games?
You bought a VAIO for gaming... *boggle*

CuLT

Karoma wrote:

Which model is it?
Which games?
You bought a VAIO for gaming... *boggle*

Mine does perfectly for gaming o_O

that said, I don't do much gaming, but it runs Q4 at top settings no hassle.

I've played CS for hours on end on it without problems too.

TempestSabre

Karoma wrote:

Which model is it?
Which games?
You bought a VAIO for gaming... *boggle*

Buying any laptop for gaming doesn't make that much sense. That said I used my own VAIO for games for a couple of years till I stopped played older titles.

zilog_jones

I second checking the Event Viewer (in Computer Management), and the memory dump stuff.

PC World can go shove their "28 day" crap - the laptop is not fit for its purpose, and it is still under its warranty (I'd be quite scared if a laptop only had a 28 day warranty - surely it's at least a year!), so you are entitled by law to get a full refund or replacement of equal worth.

The only problem is giving sufficient proof that it's not working properly, and it's not just caused by like one game or something.

WillieDH

What you may find out is that PC World "buy out" the warranty from vendors, so contacting Sony will do no good.

You need to put pressure on PC World to give you something different.

TerrorFirmer

It's going back to Sony, but looking into the topic online shows that its a model wide problem with the card (Geforce 6400) rather then a specific gpu fault in my particular laptop - loads of people reporting the same problem on forums all over the place, whether or not Sony will acknowledge this is another question, but I've been nice so far but will really stick it to them should they attempt to return it with "we tested it, found nothing wrong", which I am to be honest, expecting 100%.

Regarding gaming, it wasn't bought solely for gaming, but I do play games an awful lot and play lan at my friends house a fair bit so wanted something that could play games when and if I wanted. It cost 999 euro euro and I can run Unreal 2K4/Day of Defeat Source on high settings no problems, there was actually no other model remotely in that price range with a dedicated card capable of the same performance.

Karoma

I was stating that buying a laptop with lots of gaming in mind is silly- yes, well done bright sparks, a laptop can indeed be used for gaming. However, you'll find a Playstation,etc. cheaper and in some ways better (You won't run down an expensive battery for one.)

Which game is causing a problem?!
You've stated that it works for other programs and games ... If it is only th e one game: tough, TBH.

Sony's policy: "There are no known issues" and "We cannot guarantee compatibility with every piece of software."
The second one is reasonable.
TBH, if do a 3D Mark test or similar yourself, and research. If you send that off, you'll be without the laptop for 1-3 weeks before it's returned N.P.F. (No Problem Found). They'll tell you that you may even be liable for a fee to cover the cost of inspection and P&P. Take it up with the shop & get in touch with consumer rights/association.

TempestSabre

Sony like many big corporates are not good at taking ownship of problems like this. But your contract is with the retailer not the manufacturer. Do some more work on reproducing the error and then bring it back.

TerrorFirmer

Karoma wrote:

I was stating that buying a laptop with lots of gaming in mind is silly- yes, well done bright sparks, a laptop can indeed be used for gaming. However, you'll find a Playstation,etc. cheaper and in some ways better (You won't run down an expensive battery for one.)

Which game is causing a problem?!
You've stated that it works for other programs and games ... If it is only the one game: tough, TBH.

I'm not a spanner; I know a laptop is generally not for gaming, however, as stated I play LAN games fairly regularly so I don't fancy lugging my gaming desktop around the town on a daily basis, that is why I bought the laptop and also why it had to have a decent dedicated card for gaming.

Nowhere did I say it was a problem in one game, I said both in fact it is a problem across the board with every game as well as the fact that its a very common problem online within the gaming community, so I don't know why you think I said its only happening in one game as well as trying to imply I'm a clueless noob? Obviously if I was having a problem in a particular game I'd put it down to bad luck, however each and every game I try bluescreens after an hour or so, be they new releases or older titles.

TempestSabre

Karoma wrote:

I was stating that buying a laptop with lots of gaming in mind is silly- yes, well done bright sparks, a laptop can indeed be used for gaming. However, you'll find a Playstation,etc. cheaper and in some ways better (You won't run down an expensive battery for one.)....

Theres lots of games that can't be played on a console, and theres lots of games which are better on the PC then on a console.

TempestSabre

Did you try the omega drivers, or blowing dusk out of the laptop?

TerrorFirmer

TempestSabre wrote:

Did you try the omega drivers, or blowing dusk out of the laptop?

Tried omega, they don't work because the vaio only accepts official sony drivers unless you use a modded inf file and there doesn't seem to be any modded inf file with omega for laptop cards - but I did install modded forceware drivers and drivers from laptop2go, both work fine but both still give the same result: blue screen.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Dust out of a 1 month old laptop?

Give me a break....


The guy isn't asking for technical support, he's researched this and knows exactly what the problem is, so i cant see why so many people are throwing in their oar when they clearly know less about the subject (technical wise) then the OP.

savemejebus

Sounds like it's just a bit of a crap gfx card in the machine. Does it crash during normal use or just in games. Turbocache and games don't really go together that well do they?

Karoma

That wasn't aimed solely at you HavoK.

You've stated that other games do play OK. You haven't posted anything other than reports from other people who experienced problems with the game. Other people have chipped in that it's "not fit for purpose" - which, coincidentally, you've yet to prove; and is in itself a complaint to be taken up with the store not Sony as they're paraphrasing the Sales of Goods & supply of Services act which is between you (The customer) and the store not Sony.

The original post was a request for something people cannot give. Sony VAIO is dealt with seperately from other Sony products. The highest / best that you could hope for is C.R.O. - and the nearest rep's are in England. Check your PM.

TempestSabre

Julian Narrow Satire wrote:

Dust out of a 1 month old laptop?

Give me a break....


The guy isn't asking for technical support, he's researched this and knows exactly what the problem is, so i cant see why so many people are throwing in their oar when they clearly know less about the subject (technical wise) then the OP.

Fans suck in dusk. On the earlier GRT models they used to overheat very badly from new. The forums were full of it. Turns out they didn't put enough paste on the gfx heatsink when they were made. Any dust at all and the problem became apparent. On other models they used to overhead so badly it caused problems with the Simm slots. Sony never recalled either. :mad:

The problem here is with PC World. Not Sony. Hes been told that, and yes he knows that too. If you have a problem with people helping him to fix or reproduce the problem for PC World. Don't read the thread. :rolleyes:

ChRoMe

I havnt gone looking but I'll take the OP's word that he has seen many other people report the same issue of forums which suggests that it is a wide spread issue.

First of all yes it sucks that you were outside the 28 day limit with pc world but thats life. I agree totally with the member of staff that told you that print outs of a couple of internet forums in no way enough evidence to support your claim (its a internet forum for gods sake!).

But why you were getting so upset I dont understand. Pc world as a reseller will only extend them selves so much with warranty issues becuase they are box shifts not manufacturers.

Its the same with most (all?) consumer electronics and other similar goods that if the issue can not be resolved within the remit of the retailer that it will be returned to the manufacturer. I know your pissed that your shiny new vaio had issues but getting all hot headed and marching into the retailer with print outs from the internet as you have now learned wont really accomplish anything

Karoma

The forums were full of it.

Sums it up TBH. (Well said-even if out of context.:p)


Then/than - please, learn the difference.

wingnut

Laptops are not for gaming... pish. Have you seen Rock's Xtreme? 2 X 256MB GeForce 7900 GTXs in SLI. My old Vaio S1XP game me endless trouble with the gpu.

ozt9vdujny3srf

TempestSabre wrote:

Fans suck in dusk. On the earlier GRT models they used to overheat very badly from new. The forums were full of it. Turns out they didn't put enough paste on the gfx heatsink when they were made. Any dust at all and the problem became apparent. On other models they used to overhead so badly it caused problems with the Simm slots. Sony never recalled either. :mad:

The problem here is with PC World. Not Sony. Hes been told that, and yes he knows that too. If you have a problem with people helping him to fix or reproduce the problem for PC World. Don't read the thread. :rolleyes:

Sod off with your rolleyes smiley, and your "dont read the thread" argument sucks. If someone posts a thread full of child pornography, should I just not read the thread because i don't like child pornography instead of complaining about it and leave it at that?

Anyway, you've missed my point: If you cant answer the question that the OP asked, don't reply to the thread :rolleyes:.

TerrorFirmer

Karoma wrote:

That wasn't aimed solely at you HavoK.

You've stated that other games do play OK. You haven't posted anything other than reports from other people who experienced problems with the game. Other people have chipped in that it's "not fit for purpose" - which, coincidentally, you've yet to prove; and is in itself a complaint to be taken up with the store not Sony as they're paraphrasing the Sales of Goods & supply of Services act which is between you (The customer) and the store not Sony.

The original post was a request for something people cannot give. Sony VAIO is dealt with seperately from other Sony products. The highest / best that you could hope for is C.R.O. - and the nearest rep's are in England. Check your PM.

No games play ok - every game crashes, the technician in PC World backed this up with the event log which repeatedly shows the fatal error in the display driver. Therefore I think at this stage I've proved enough that it is not fit for its purpose, the technician agreed with me but the manager seemed to be sticking by the fact he and his gamers couldn't get it to blue screen and therefore it wasnt faulty. I spoke to a newer manager yesterday and today and thank god he seems to accept the situation and is sending it back to sony, great guy and very helpful

I wasn't getting hot-headed at all; I was really nice to the guys in PC World who in fairness were equally nice. But I was getting frustrated that they were simply dismissing my claim as unproven and such until finally a tech looked at it and confirmed my claims and they had no other option. That was the only reason i initially brought in the print outs as they didn't and seemed to refuse to believe me until a tech could agree with me.

anyway, thanks for the help lads. i will keep the thread updated. Furthermore here are some links to those with identical problems...

http://anaaman.blogspot.com/2006/05/sony-vaio-vgn-fs315s-and-geforce-go.html

http://forums.techguy.org/games/454575-problem-nvidia-6400-css.html

http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39800

This is what someone posted on one of those the threads and this is my angle I'm trying to portray to the manager of PC world:

I don't think it's a driver problem as if the drivers you have on your Vaio install disk don't work then Sony would be getting a colossal quantity of complaints as effectively every one of these machines they sold wouldn't be fit for it's purpose. As this is from the states they'd be being sued like there was no tomorrow. I am standing by my "It's a hardware issue" I'm afraid and I suspect there's no easy solution to this one but I wish you good luck.

Some people report using the latest drivers decreases the amount of blue screens but I get them all the time regardless of drivers.

TempestSabre

Julian Narrow Satire wrote:

Sod off with your rolleyes smiley, and your "dont read the thread" argument sucks. If someone posts a thread full of child pornography, should just not read the thread because i don't like child pornography and leave it at that?

Anyway, you've missed my point: If you cant answer the question that the OP asked, don't reply to the thread :rolleyes:.

Unless you a masochist, that would be the sensible thing to do. :rolleyes: But then you'd have nothing to whine about.
Go on get a hug from someone. Someone obviously stole your last rolo.

TempestSabre

HavoK wrote:

...the technician in PC World backed this up with the event log which repeatedly shows the fatal error in the display driver. Therefore I think at this stage I've proved enough that it is not fit for its purpose, the technician agreed with me but the manager seemed to be sticking by the fact he and his gamers couldn't get it to blue screen and therefore it wasnt faulty. I spoke to a newer manager yesterday and today and thank god he seems to accept the situation and is sending it back to sony, great guy and very helpful...

Amazing how much of a difference getting the right person helps.

savemejebus

At the end of the day i don't think the 'not fit for the purpose' argument will really hold water as vaios aren't 'gaming laptops' unlike the rock that wingnut mentioned.

if the machine crashes when doing office tasks, browsing or watching dvds then you might have a better case but at the end of the day a laptop with a 6400 turbocache gfx card isn't a gaming machine.

TerrorFirmer

savemejebus wrote:

if the machine crashes when doing office tasks, browsing or watching dvds then you might have a better case but at the end of the day a laptop with a 6400 turbocache gfx card isn't a gaming machine.

Sorry but thats completely ridiculous. Are you saying playing any games and getting an error blue screen after a short time is acceptable simply because its not a high end gaming card? I don't think so. The 6400 may not be a high end card but its still a gaming card, designed for games, and that statement you've made is 100% false.

savemejebus

hang on, you actually think the 6400 with turbocrap, oops turbocache is a gaming card...

savemejebus

Oh and i don't think the bluescreen is acceptable just because of the card, i just don't think that you can bring it back under "fit for purposes intended" as it is not a gaming machine

HungryJoey

savemejebus wrote:

Oh and i don't think the bluescreen is acceptable just because of the card, i just don't think that you can bring it back under "fit for purposes intended" as it is not a gaming machine

Are you serious man ? So you go buy a nice shiny laptop, IT blue screens while gaming, REGARDLESS if it uses Turbocache or not.. You are just going to accept it ?

Are you off the top of you're head ?? ? The OP is WELL within his rights to bring it back and I know if it was me, I'd be going back the same side of an hour once I discovered the problem. The OP's machine Is crashing when he trys to fulfill a certain task, Isn't that enough ? And if it was never to be gamed on, why would sony insert a 6400 And to improve its perforamance pack it with the turbo cache feature.

I can't believe you think the OP doesn't have a reasonable argument to bring it back. If you can find ANY where were sony states the laptop is not intended for gaming or even better again where sony states the laptop is only for Internet use or Documentation use, I will agree with you. But Until then and I can pretty much imagine I'll be waiting a long time for you to find where sony may state this.

Infact, to make this more intense for you... Who ever stated that a desktop PC is perfectly acceptable for gaming ? Now come on...

The end,

Hj

*ends rants*

Karoma

Agreed - the whole "not fit for purpose" claim is generally fuzzy at best when it comes to something like a computer, which can obviously fit many purposes.


The not fit for purpose argument doesn't hold water if it is only an issue with some games, which is the impression that I got from

It cost 999 euro euro and I can run Unreal 2K4/Day of Defeat Source on high settings no problems...

However, it should be able to play most games that its spec. can support. I was of the impression that it was only one or two games causing an issue.

If it is every game (As you later said): fight PC World for a refund or new model. You may also wish to test whether crashes occur when encoding video files using Sony software from a borrowed Sony DV camera and let them know whether it crashes with similar symptoms... ahem.

savemejebus

i didn't say that the OP wasn't within his rights to bring it back, i said that he might have a hard time bringing it back under the argument 'not fit for the purpose intended' (I know that the OP didn't say he was doing this but it was mentioned a few times in the thread). There is a difference

I'd bring the machine back in a shot but I would not say that i'm bringing it back because 'its not fit for the purpose intended' unless it catagorically stated in the manual that 'this is a state of the art gaming machine using the latest tech blah blah blah.'

it would be like bringing a tesco iqon pc back because it doesn't play FEAR at 1600 X 1050.

TerrorFirmer

savemejebus wrote:

it would be like bringing a tesco iqon pc back because it doesn't play FEAR at 1600 X 1050.

Once again, the 6400 is a gaming card. Iqon features integrated graphics. Hell, even if it was integrated graphics blue screening id be bringing it back in a flash. the 6400 may not be overly great but it was designed for games nonetheless

so your comparison there is useless as it has pretty much no relevance. now that you mention it i can run fear at 1024x768 on medium, just because the 6400, once again, cannot run new games on full settings doesn't mean its not a gaming card. good luck getting it to even install on an iqon machine let alone run on lowest of low settings.

Snowbat

HavoK wrote:

the 6400 may not be overly great but it was designed for games nonetheless

Nvidia indicates as much:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/go_6400.html

However, in product descriptions for Vaio models with GeForce Go hardware on sonystyle.com, references to gaming are conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps the cooling systems in these Vaio models are not up to the demands of heavy-duty gaming, even if the GPU is (to some degree).

This reminds me of the Sony Music Clip "mp3 player" debacle. Sony of course were very careful to not call it an "mp3 player" though they were quite happy for customers to think that it was.
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2000/sonyno.html

TempestSabre

Don't be daft. What on earth would you need a 6400 for other than 3D apps and games?

TerrorFirmer

sorry for the confusion karoma, i meant it runs those games on high settings before it crashes

TerrorFirmer

Update: due to all the messing that went on with me having to collect, return, collect on an almost daily basis with my faulty Vaio - that said a few of them were great...I got the following as a replacement from the manager for the E999 Vaio today after many arguments ...

Core Duo T2300 1.66ghz
1GB DDR2 Ram
256Mb Geforce 7400

Not too bad I think....playing games happily all afternoon, no problems, thank god