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Laptop water damage repair procedure

I'd love some advice in repairing a water-damaged laptop.

My girlfriend spilled a glass of water on her Sony Vaio and now it doesn't turn on...at all...dead! What steps should I go through to work out where the problem is and which part(s) I'll need to replace?

I can't seem to find out what has happened by just looking at the circuit boards. I'm new to electronics but could buy relevant volt-meters etc. I'm just looking for a decent trouble-shooting guide.

Vaio Smart Network on Windows 7

Has anybody been able to get the Vaio Smart Network tool working on Windows 7? I'm using 2.2 but the UI is completely messed up and it doesnt work.

I need to enable the wireless devices in my laptop

Sony Vaio: Battery Level stuck at 80%

I have a Sony Vaio VPCF120FD laptop. The battery level seems maximum when it's plugged but when I click on the battery icon, it says the battery level is 80%, plugged in, and not charging. How can I fix this as it can be charged up to 100%?

Is my mobile AMD card being used?

I have a new Sony E Series Vaio with an intel i5 and an AMD 7xxx mobile card. Despite making sure sure my app (game) is set to High Performance in switchable gfx and choosing high performance power plan I'm not entirely convinced the gfx card is being used over the CPU's HD4000 chipset. Is there anyway I can prove for sure the AMD card is being used?

thanks for reading

(OS is Win8 64bit)

Sony Vaio Keyboard light never turns off

I formatted my Sony Vaio Vpc F13wfx/bc, and all components has working correctly, except for the keyboard backlight.

The problem is that the keyboard light never turns off.

I tried to install this it: Sony® Notebook Utilities but neither worked.

I installed the windows 7 ultimate 64bits

Anyone ever had this problem? know of any driver that works, or how I permanently turn off the lights?

Thanks

Brightness settings gone, how do I bring it back?

I have a VAIO CW laptop with Windows 7 x64, and after installing new NVIDIA drivers, my screen brightness controls are no longer available. (Not in the control center, not in the power options, buttons don't work even though VAIO's brightness adjust window pops up, etc.).

My display doesn't dim either.

It works fine on other OSes (e.g. Windows 8).

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling a bunch of drivers (even tried installing the factory-default NVIDIA driver) and software (including the VAIO event service), but it doesn't work.

Any idea how to fix this?

Latest Catalyst drivers on a Sony VAIO (Windows 7 64-bit)

Is there a way to install the latest Catalyst drivers on my Sony VAIO (VGN-SR21M, Mobility Radeon HD 3450)? The ATI installer refuses to install it. The AMD website states that for Sony VAIO notebooks I have to use OEM drivers, but the drivers on the Sony website are out of date.

Boot Sony VAIO SVS1511V9RB from CD or USB

I bought Sony VAIO SVS1511V9RB today and can't boot it from neither USB flash drive nor bootable CD. I've changed priority of boot drives to Internal CD-ROM, External devices, Internal Hard Disk, Network, and enabled external device boot. But after this only Windows was loaded. Also I tried to press F8, F9, F11 and F12, but also without success, Windows loaded from hard drive instead. I checked that my desktop booted from CD. Notebook can read CD in Windows, and it tries to read it while booting but don't print any messages and just load Windows. BIOS is Insyde H2O, version R0140C5.

Any ideas how to boot it from CD or USB Flash drive?

SpeedFan cannot find my fan

My laptop (SONY VAIO VGN-CR390) is getting hot recently and the fan doesn't seem to work at high speed. I installed SpeedFan and it reads my CPU temperature @60C+ consistently. However, it cannot find my fan, the FANS list is empty, so there's no fan speed reading or control whatsoever. Any idea how I can check and control my fan speed?

Sorry, I forgot to mention, it runs Winwdows 7 32bit.

Is Intel/Nvidia Optimus technology supposed to switch instantly between GPUs?

I have a brand new Sony Vaio Flip 15, and it takes at least 1 second to switch between GPUs, during which time my screen goes off. Is this expected? Or should the switch be instant and happen between frames?

Suppose I don't know anything about computers (and likewise I might not even be asking a question here): I would think my laptop is broken/glitchy because every time I plug or unplug the power adapter the screen goes off for 1 whole second (I'm oblivious to the fact that GPUs are switching).

Is the switch supposed to be fast?

Sony Vaio CPU fan runs at full speed after installing Windows 8.1 preview

I installed the Windows 8.1 preview on my Sony Vaio E Series 14P (http://www.sony.com.au/product/sve14a27cg) and now my CPU fan is running at full speed all the time. When I first start my computer it runs normally, but a few seconds after reaching the Windows login screen the fan speed will suddenly jump up to max. It's pretty loud, so I'm hoping there's a solution!

I've tried updating my bios to the latest version but that didn't help. I've tried programs like SpeedFan, but that wasn't able to detect my CPU fan at all. My CPU usage and temperature is normal and doesn't warrant the max fan speed.

Someone else has reported the issue here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1_pr-hardware/sony-vaio-e-series-sve14a35cxh100-fan-throttle/45ec823a-2bc8-43ea-8557-b1a5dd0a6870

Is there any way to fix this without having to refresh/reinstall Windows?

Windows 8.1 asking for product key after recovery

My laptop was not starting. I understood that the battery had run out of charging as soon as I plugged in the charger and started my laptop. Meanwhile, for a second I had removed the plug again and plugged in to another socket which corrupted my Windows 8.1 which was earlier upgraded from Windows 8.

Then it was showing me only a blue screen with Windows 8 error code oxc000000d.

After going through many solutions, I understood that I'm not able to connect my recovery media which is inside one of the drives of my laptop, so I downloaded a Windows 8.1 Pro from the internet to a bootable USB and tried to repair using Recovery options. I got the following error:

The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.

I found a quick solution on it, which at least lead me to unlock my drive, and I installed a fresh copy using Reset your PC from Advanced options of UEFI firmware. This installed Windows 8.1 Pro probably from the USB which I had downloaded from the internet.

Now the current installation is asking for an Activation Code.

• Is there any way to recover from my old recovery media which is in my Windows RE or Recovery drive of the same laptop?

I'm getting an error on reset or refresh Windows 8 without installation disc.

Update:Removing disk management to shorten the question. I assigned letter to my recovery partitions I'm able to see the files in it. Diskpart - Here is Recovery drive -

Sony HDD Protection - Would the laptop work whilst in freefall?

I often have to move my Vaio around and most times the HDD Protection engages. After reading a bit about it I gather it's function is to protect the Hard Drive from falls/drops, so I wondered...

If I jumped from an airplane (or aeroplane, if you wish) and was in freefall, could the laptop actually function properly with this HDD Protection engaged?

It's always good to know in case I have to do a sponsored Skydive/Excel charity jump.

Laptop won't boot with both memory slots used

I'm currently trying to upgrade my old Sony VAIO VGN-SZ1HP/B to 2GB of RAM. It already had 1GB of Crucial RAM in one of its slots, and one empty. I checked on Crucial.com and it confirms that each bank can hold 1GB of PC2-5300.

The 1GB stick already installed was this, but Crucial's page recommended this... The two are identical from what I can make out, so I just ordered another one of the former. Unfortunately the machine refuses to even POST with both sticks installed.

If I remove the old RAM from Slot 1 and replace it with the new RAM it runs fine. If I leave Slot 1 empty and put RAM (either stick) in Slot 2, it won't POST.

Basically it seems that Slot 2 just isn't working properly.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem? Or perhaps has some experience with this sort of thing with Sony VAIOs?

Sony Vaio incompatible battery

I have had this laptop for over a year now and it has just come up with an error message that states:

• The installed battery may not be properly connected to the computer or may not be compatible with the computer. Click OK to enter Hibernation mode.

The battery is connected to the laptop properly and it is the battery I received with the laptop. How can I disable the computer from going into hibernation mode or fix this problem?