Possible Hardware Issue?

Adamcp898

Ok first things first I'm running Windows 8 on this Sony Vaio laptop.

My problems first started a couple of weeks ago, out of no where the laptop starting taking ages to do simple tasks (opening folders, webpages etc.) which it had previously be doing no problem. I tried to do a System Restore but it told me it wasn't possible and both CHKDSK and scannow were returning errors that they were unable to fix. And so I thought that the Windows installation had become corrupted somehow and so I did a complete System Recovery.

I did the recovery but noticed that when I looked at my advanced System Information it was telling me that I only had 256 MB of Graphics Memory as opposed to the 4GB I knew I had and it was running games sluggishly that would previously have been perfect. No amount of troubleshooting and AMD drivers updates would solve the problem and so having not put anything back on the laptop yet I did another recovery.

On the next one everything was running smoothly for around a week or so until I began having problems again. I noticed Windows hadn't assigned the recovery partitions a drive letter and Disk management wouldn't give the option to do so either despite being able to see them. I downloaded Partition Magic and used that to assign drive letters (could this have caused the issues if the registry had already pointed certain processes to these drives unlettered? I did not change the main C: drive letter).

It was fine for another day or two until the laptop wouldn't boot completely every time, and when it did, things like the audio drivers and stuff would appear as not detected and so I'd have no sound, CHKDSK and scannow both returned errors they couldn't fix again. System Protection told me I had no restore points created even though I knew I had created several manually (I was creating them after every little update/program install by this stage).

There were also a number of various BSOD errors returned when I was trying to get the laptop working like 'Memory_Dump', 'Memory_management', 'Kernal_Data_Inpage_Error', and I'd receive error popups like 'The memory could not be read at....'. There were others too that I have written down and will add to the thread later. And so I backed up my data and another recovery was carried out (I should point out I really need to use this laptop for work hence not being able to give up straight away and leave it in to be fixed).

Things were going well for the last 10 days or so until it has now started to do things a little sluggishly at times again.

-CHKDSK /C: is not returning any errors but it gets to 65% of stage 2 with ~60000 index entries left and it jumps on to stage 3 which literally finishes instantaneously so I'm not sure how thorough it is testing.
-Third party software like HDTUNE after a long error test says there are some bad sectors and even recognises some in it's realtime drive health feature. Western Digital Diagnostic tool passes the drive on a quick test (haven't had a chance to do a long one as this will take several hours.
-SFC /SCANNOW gets to 63% then stops and says it has found errors it can't fix.
-DISM/..../SCANHEALTH says there are errors it can fix.
-It passes anti-virus and malware scans

And now to the main crux of the matter, I have no doubt another recovery will have things running smoothly again but are my chronic problems indicative more of a hardware part that is failing and if so is it possible to say with any degree of certainty which one? This is of particular interest as the warranty on the laptop runs out on Dec 1st and so time is winding down fast . I'm not sure which error logs to attach as I've built up quite a few by now so if someone could tell me which are needed I'll happily attach but unfortunately I don't have any of the ones pre-system recovery.

Many many thanks to anyone that can help me solve this as I'm really trying to avoid a possible hefty repair fee and sorry for the long winded story.

riclad

HOW much free space have you got on drive c?
windows needs about 5gig free ,
for temp files etc,
run ccleaner ,you may have too many old temp files.
run a virus scan .
MOST drive s have a few bad sectors ,thats normal.
i,ve seen pcs,with gigs of old temp files, browser history files.
You can download free test software to test the drive from seagate ,etc hardrive manufacturer.
i seen pcs get real slow because ,low free space ,too many temp, files.

Adamcp898

riclad wrote: »

HOW much free space have you got on drive c?
windows needs about 5gig free ,
for temp files etc,
run ccleaner ,you may have too many old temp files.
run a virus scan .
MOST drive s have a few bad sectors ,thats normal.
i,ve seen pcs,with gigs of old temp files, browser history files.

Thanks for your reply, I've tonnes of free space 720 GB. It passes anti-virus and malware tests too. Just don't know how to figure out exactly what my problem is.

wheresmybeaver

I'm leaning towards a failing hard drive. Random unusual failures at unusual times can be a result of failing sectors on the disk, randomly taking out drivers when booting and causing windows to slow down or not boot at all. Restoring the computer starts from scratch but bad sectors will pop up more and more.

The only one I'm not sure about is that issue with the graphics memory being under reported.. But as graphics memory on these laptops is usually shared it might actually check out.

things you can try- first try removing the memory modules from the laptop, give them a bit of a dust and pop them back in. Faulty or loose memory can cause intermittent issues. But i would put my money on a bad hard drive. Since you're only using about 150gb of your 1tb hd i would recommend investing in a cheap replacement 2.5inch drive with a small capacity like 200 - 300gb.. These are dirt cheap now. Replace the 1tb drive and put a fresh image on there and give it a few days to test.

beyond these two items I'm afraid you're likely looking at returning the laptop to Sony for repair. If its out of warranty it could cost you as the likely fix here would be a new motherboard. Hopefully that won't be necessary. Best of luck!

riclad

you could make a 10 gig partition,on drive c, install linux, MINT 7 as another os,dual boot ,into mint,see is it more stable.
if mint crashes its probably a faulty hardrive.
INSTALLIng mint makes a start menu, on bootup,
click load win8,or mint 7.
download, the iso,burn to a cdr ,
load it from cd ,live cd.
SEE does it load ok.
it has built in webrowser, music player .

Adamcp898

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

I'm leaning towards a failing hard drive. Random unusual failures at unusual times can be a result of failing sectors on the disk, randomly taking out drivers when booting and causing windows to slow down or not boot at all. Restoring the computer starts from scratch but bad sectors will pop up more and more.

The only one I'm not sure about is that issue with the graphics memory being under reported.. But as graphics memory on these laptops is usually shared it might actually check out.

things you can try- first try removing the memory modules from the laptop, give them a bit of a dust and pop them back in. Faulty or loose memory can cause intermittent issues. But i would put my money on a bad hard drive. Since you're only using about 150gb of your 1tb hd i would recommend investing in a cheap replacement 2.5inch drive with a small capacity like 200 - 300gb.. These are dirt cheap now. Replace the 1tb drive and put a fresh image on there and give it a few days to test.

beyond these two items I'm afraid you're likely looking at returning the laptop to Sony for repair. If its out of warranty it could cost you as the likely fix here would be a new motherboard. Hopefully that won't be necessary. Best of luck!

I just finished a memory test using memtest and it checked out ok anyway.

My main problem is the warranty actually runs out on December 1st which isn't long away so I just want some definite sign as to what is about to go in the laptop before then so that any cost is covered.