Weird problem in laptop!

[ThE iNsAnE]

Hello everyone,

 

So i have a Sony Vaio Laptop VPCEA45FG.

 

Basically, it has been serving me well since many years. I use it for my office work and i use it almost everyday.

 

The battery is dead and i run it directly through AC power.

 

Now during lockdown, I did not use it for 2 months straight.

 

After 2 months when i tried booting it again, as soon as i press the power button, the LED will light on and within a few seconds it will shut down. Sometimes it shuts down within 1 second even before the VAIO logo appears and sometimes it shuts down when trying to load the OS.

 

It takes me between 3 to 8 attempts usually to boot it. Once booted, it starts normally after shut down in one attempt. However, if i leave it for a long time say overnight, again the next morning same problem. Once booted, i can shut down and restart again without issues.

 

I gave it for repairing to a local shop. They said they could not identify any issues in the hardware. Ultimately they told me that most probably issue might be in the hard drive.

 

Now i am confused what to do. If problem is in hard drive, at least the laptop should boot into BIOS right?

 

What can i do for it? I am afraid that it can cause trouble in my office work any day if i continue using like that...also I don't want to just replace my machine as it has served me well for so many years and i feel it will serve more if correct problem can be identified.

 

Sorry for keeping the post long.

 

Need some experienced advice from experts with hardware knowledge.

 

Regards

 

 

 

 

[MrZeb]

It seems the machine have a easily way to access the Hard Drive and disconnected it to confirm if the problem is the detection of the Hard Drive or not.

 

Older HDD's can give troubles of long time initializing when they are cold for example.

[mp68terr]

Sounds like the computer tries to boot from the hard-drive and mostly fails, no reason for it to go to the bios after the failure. Is there a way to boot from something else than your drive, like from a USB key (or CD/DVD)?

Here it's F8 to select the booting device.

 

Edit: maybe your bios is set to some kind of quick boot (with only the logo on the screen), would be good for you to have the full info regarding what is going on at boot. Maybe check your manual to see the info at boot and how to access the bios at boot.

[DLord]

The reason is the dead battery.  With no battery to back up CMOS battery, your BIOS settings (needed for boot) are not available therefore you cannot boot.  After few times trying to turn the laptop on, enough charge gets to CMOS battery and BIOS settings and therefore boot information becomes available. 

Get a new battery or do not leave your laptop disconnected from power for long periods of time.

[andy2004]

slight addon to Dlord post/.. you might need to replace the CMOS battery.. you didnt say how old the laptop was.. just said OLD..

[spudboy]

I can't believe the repair shop didn't near immediately diagnose the problem as the battery/CMOS battery. What a worthless place. I hope you didn't have to pay them.

[wolfie]

Agree 100% with @DLord - I have an old laptop with no battery. I just hit the F2 button to allow it continue to boot and then it resets the time online.

[ThE iNsAnE]

3 hours ago, DLord said:

The reason is the dead battery.  With no battery to back up CMOS battery, your BIOS settings (needed for boot) are not available therefore you cannot boot.  After few times trying to turn the laptop on, enough charge gets to CMOS battery and BIOS settings and therefore boot information becomes available. 

Get a new battery or do not leave your laptop disconnected from power for long periods of time.

Dead CMOS battery should reset the system time right? However, when the laptop boots, the system time and date is correct even if it is not connected to the internet. I even tried leaving the laptop connected to the external power for sometime before trying to boot. Same results. 

 

The problem is, it is highly unpredictable when the laptop will boot normally and when it will not boot.

 

2 hours ago, andy2004 said:

slight addon to Dlord post/.. you might need to replace the CMOS battery.. you didnt say how old the laptop was.. just said OLD..

Its 9 years old. Serving me extremely well. Never gave me trouble until now. I am sure if i would have kept on using it without leaving it off for 2 months, thos problem would not have come.

[ThE iNsAnE]

2 hours ago, spudboy said:

I can't believe the repair shop didn't near immediately diagnose the problem as the battery/CMOS battery. What a worthless place. I hope you didn't have to pay them.

The place is worthless i am sure. Still had to pay service charge to them as they had to tear the piece down completely and see if any hardware is damaged. I am sure CMOS battery is not dead as system time and date as well as bios settings remain same after power down. It does not reset.

4 hours ago, mp68terr said:

Sounds like the computer tries to boot from the hard-drive and mostly fails, no reason for it to go to the bios after the failure. Is there a way to boot from something else than your drive, like from a USB key (or CD/DVD)?

Here it's F8 to select the booting device.

 

Edit: maybe your bios is set to some kind of quick boot (with only the logo on the screen), would be good for you to have the full info regarding what is going on at boot. Maybe check your manual to see the info at boot and how to access the bios at boot.

Before getting to the option of booting from other sources, it shuts down. Infact the VAIO logo also doesn't appear many times. Sometimes it starts booting and then shuts down. Many a times it starts and before display appears, it shuts down. Occasionally it boots without any issues.

[wolfie]

My old Philips laptop has no battery and no CMOS cell - still works fine even when left off power for ages. There should be a boot option to skip past the BIOS date check and carry on into Windows.

[neofita]

if it was the faulty hard drive when he tries to boot you'd have a BSOD.
for me it's a power supply problem.

 

 

regards

[napalm.neca]

I guess  you should  check fan free rotation -if it fails-boot might be canceled to prevent damage. You can  also try to block fan from spinning to check if laptop goes off.

[DLord]

15 hours ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

Dead CMOS battery should reset the system time right? However, when the laptop boots, the system time and date is correct even if it is not connected to the internet. I even tried leaving the laptop connected to the external power for sometime before trying to boot. Same results. 

Indeed dead CMOS battery should reset date and time, so that is really puzzling. 

As for leaving the system connected to power source, while it is off and there is no main battery present/functioning no charge gets to CMOS battery.  It will receive charge when the current is running through the system (when its on or booting).  Current goes from power supply to the main battery, and from main battery to CMOS battery.  It does not go directly from power supply to CMOS battery.  Hope this explains what I meant.

I would also update or reinstall the BIOS to rule out a faulty BIOS, only to be sure.

[shamu726]

Just sharing my own experience, don't know if this will help your case.

 

I had the same problem once. An old laptop I still use (dead battery, using AC power) started shutting down without any notice, sometimes while in Windows, sometimes just after powering up. I later found a clue that it was related to the keyboard, so just on a whim I disconnected the keyboard and the problem was gone. Don't ask me why, I'm not a technician.

[ThE iNsAnE]

39 minutes ago, DLord said:

Indeed dead CMOS battery should reset date and time, so that is really puzzling. 

As for leaving the system connected to power source, while it is off and there is no main battery present/functioning no charge gets to CMOS battery.  It will receive charge when the current is running through the system (when its on or booting).  Current goes from power supply to the main battery, and from main battery to CMOS battery.  It does not go directly from power supply to CMOS battery.  Hope this explains what I meant.

I would also update or reinstall the BIOS to rule out a faulty BIOS, only to be sure.

Ok then i will leave my laptop booted on for sometime. However, as system date/time remains proper, we can rule out faulty CMOS battery. 

 

I have never reinstalled the BIOS. Would you advise me to attempt? If yes, any guide would be appreciated.

 

As for the hard disk, do you feel any fault in hard disk can result in the problem that i explained?

3 minutes ago, shamu726 said:

Just sharing my own experience, don't know if this will help your case.

 

I had the same problem once. An old laptop I still use (dead battery, using AC power) started shutting down without any notice, sometimes while in Windows, sometimes just after powering up. I later found a clue that it was related to the keyboard, so just on a whim I disconnected the keyboard and the problem was gone. Don't ask me why, I'm not a technician.

My laptop just shuts down only while booting. Few attempts are needed to get it running. Sometimes it starts in one go. Very unpredictable. However, once booted, it never shuts down. 

[ThE iNsAnE]

17 minutes ago, shamu726 said:

Just sharing my own experience, don't know if this will help your case.

 

I had the same problem once. An old laptop I still use (dead battery, using AC power) started shutting down without any notice, sometimes while in Windows, sometimes just after powering up. I later found a clue that it was related to the keyboard, so just on a whim I disconnected the keyboard and the problem was gone. Don't ask me why, I'm not a technician.

Also, is it possible to have a fully functional keyboard that is actually causing trouble? My keyboard is functioning as normal as it can be.

[DLord]

16 minutes ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

Ok then i will leave my laptop booted on for sometime.

Yeah that would be a good idea.  Leave it on for a while and try to reboot after a minute or two to see what happens.

 

17 minutes ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

I have never reinstalled the BIOS. Would you advise me to attempt? If yes, any guide would be appreciated.

Well I have done it before on an old IBM Thinkpad, and it's not complicated but very risky process.  If anything goes wrong (power loss, etc.) you may not be able to boot at all, so I would rather advice you to go to your laptop's support page and follow their procedure instead.  You will also need the BIOs file itself that you need to download.  From what I see there are lot of firmware updates (for various hardware components) available, chances are one of them might solve your problem if you have not updated them already.  That should be the first step before BIOS update.

https://www.sony-asia.com/electronics/support/laptop-pc-vpc-series/vpcea45fg/downloads

[DLord]

42 minutes ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

However, as system date/time remains proper, we can rule out faulty CMOS battery.

Well honestly I really can't say that.  From all that I know and as much as I search around, as well as personal experience everything points to the CMOS battery issue.  Maybe its not completely dead, but receives and holds so little charge that not all data can be recovered and passed on boot.

 

Here is quote from a user on steam community with similar problem:

Quote

The battery isn't dead. I never lost time and date. I don't know, but I'm not the only one where replacing the CMOS battery fixed the issue. Hopefully some expert drops along and gives some possible explainations.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/618460171318429760/?ctp=1

[Mutton]

I vaguely recall seeing something like that on a much older Tosh; can't remember if a new CMOS battery fixed it but it would certainly be the first thing I would try if it's really old. I think the battery in those is a 2.4V NiMH rechargeable... probably. That's two button cells. Depending on the circuitry I think it could keep the RTC running (they are often extremely low power) while not having enough capacity to keep the CMOS going for long after its unplugged. It does sound like a battery issue to me.

 

Another slight possibility is that a component has developed a problematic connection when cold. With repeated boot attempts the parts warm slightly, expand, and make better contact. Hence it then boots and runs OK. That is something I've seen personally on an old motherboard. Took a while to troubleshoot that one but noticing that a very slight flex of the board would crash the thing gave me a hint.

[ThE iNsAnE]

2 hours ago, Mutton said:

I vaguely recall seeing something like that on a much older Tosh; can't remember if a new CMOS battery fixed it but it would certainly be the first thing I would try if it's really old. I think the battery in those is a 2.4V NiMH rechargeable... probably. That's two button cells. Depending on the circuitry I think it could keep the RTC running (they are often extremely low power) while not having enough capacity to keep the CMOS going for long after its unplugged. It does sound like a battery issue to me.

 

Another slight possibility is that a component has developed a problematic connection when cold. With repeated boot attempts the parts warm slightly, expand, and make better contact. Hence it then boots and runs OK. That is something I've seen personally on an old motherboard. Took a while to troubleshoot that one but noticing that a very slight flex of the board would crash the thing gave me a hint.

Yes i guess its a 2.4 V NiMH rechargeable. I am not sure whether new one will be available also or not near my place. I'll try and see if i get a new battery. 

 

Another issue i faced is sometimes the computer boots but display is black. Everything else works. External display works. The issue is fixed by keeping the computer off for a while and then restarting. Can this be also related to CMOS battery? Tagging you too @DLord@spudboy

[DLord]

12 hours ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

Can this be also related to CMOS battery?

No that's whole different issue, which could in turn affect the boot process as well.  Since the external display works it cannot be the graphic card.  It's either your display connection, or the display selection setting corruption (it switches internal to external display, something that can be done by combination of keys on keyboard!).  How about @shamu726 keyboard comment??

[ThE iNsAnE]

10 minutes ago, DLord said:

No that's whole different issue, which could in turn affect the boot process as well.  Since the external display works it cannot be the graphic card.  It's either your display connection, or the display selection setting corruption (it switches internal to external display, something that can be done by combination of keys on keyboard!).  How about @shamu726 keyboard comment??

The keyboard works fine. The technician opened it, examined and then connected back. Seemed ok. 

[DLord]

Well my friend beyond this point it is very difficult to further help you out without having physical access to the laptop for further and complete inspection and diagnosis.  If you are unable to fix it so far, better to take to an expert to take a look at, not the same old place though

[ThE iNsAnE]

9 hours ago, DLord said:

Well my friend beyond this point it is very difficult to further help you out without having physical access to the laptop for further and complete inspection and diagnosis.  If you are unable to fix it so far, better to take to an expert to take a look at, not the same old place though

Thanks a lot!

 

Today my laptop was working fine when all of a sudden during reboot, the display went completely dark. I did not touch the lid. Just rebooted. I could see that the display was working but backlight was gone. External display was fine. Even after several attempts, i could not get the display working.

 

So I went to a " so called expert" today! He tore the machine apart completely. Could not get the display working. Later he told me that the inbuilt graphics card of the mobo might be toast. He said that it would be difficult to repair the mobo and even if repaired, it would not last for a long time. 

 

Ultimately he asked me to get the mobo replaced.

 

I bought my laptop back. 

 

As for the CMOS battery, the output voltage was perfect so the technician refused to replace it.

 

Really missing a good expert here. I think experts here are not capable of such tasks.

 

 

 

 

[DLord]

14 hours ago, ThE iNsAnE said:

Really missing a good expert here. I think experts here are not capable of such tasks.