Faulty nvidea card

[larunlady]

I have one of the Vaio computers on Sony's list of the ones using the known nvidea card which has caused problems for several computer manufacturers. It is less than four years old and Sony have stated that they will replace them free of charge on the listed computers which are less than that. The screen went blank. I am having difficulty in getting in touch with Sony to sort it out. Has anybody had this problem and had it solved? I would be extremely grateful for any help, I am a pensioner and certainly cannot afford another computer of this quality.

[rich912 · Accepted solution]

Hi larunlady,

You will need to telephone Vaio Support on the Out-of-Warranty premium telephone line. You will be asked for your serial number and possibly proof of purchase.

From the UK the number is 0905 0310006.

Rich

[petbarke9]

I also have one of the PCs on the list of laptops containing the potentially faulty Nvidia cards. As with the above post, mine has also recently failed, with random character display, corrupt display and blue lines.

As the warranty has been extended to 4 years for GPU issues, surely for this problem my PC is still in warranty and therefore we shouldn't have to ring a premium rate number.

I have previously rung the premium rate number for another reason and this has cost me a lot of money and got no result. Therefore I do not wish to use this number again for an issue that should still be covered by the extended warranty.

Any help would be appreciated

Pete

[rich912]

Hi Pete,

As your notebook is out of standard warranty you will be unable to contact support using normal in warranty methods.

Try asking for the cost of the call to be reinbursed....

Rich

[petbarke9]

Thanks for the info Rich. Might try ringing the in warranty number and see what happens. If no joy then i'll do what you suggested.

Many thanks

[daftdoug]

Just a thought, but try ringing the 'normal' help line, and when they say you have the wrong number, ask if they can put you through to the correct epartment. That way, the whole call may be at 'normal rate', perhaps??

[larunlady]

I took your advice and did ring the premium rate number, reluctantly, and on the third attempt finally got them to agree to collect the computer! They collected it last Tuesday and returned it on Thursday so cannot fault them on that! Works perfectly thank goodness and despite what the first person said (that it was another fault!) it was the chip as they called it. Incidentally between times I contacted John Lewis who were a huge help and I suspect it was their intervention which pushed Sony to repair it, although it was well out of their warrantly period. But how many people have given up and bought a new computer?