Sony Vaio and Display Resolution

[pag]

Hope someone out there can help me as I have little knowledge with Windows 7 or NVIDIA drivers. I have a Sony VAIO Model VGN SZ650N that came installed with Vista (32 bit) and I upgraded in January to Windows 7 (32). The PC has NVIDIA GE Force 8400 M GS card. It worked perfectly for over 3 months, then suddenly my screen looks like it's taken a massive dose of LSD! All white areas are now hot pink and there are squiggly lines or dots everywhere. I can get the white areas white again by performing Color Calibration but that doesn't fix the weird lines. And it doesn't stick. I have to re-perform the calibration each time I turn the computer on.

I contacted Sony and paid $150 for a service contract (since mine is out of warranty) and they downloaded new NVIDIA drivers - to no avail. I perused the forum and saw someone else with a similar problem. The suggestion was to modify the NV_DISP.inf file ("Convert from Desktop to Mobile (Laptop); I tried it and it didn't work.

Is this a software issue or is my NVIDIA card going bad? Does anyone know cause Sony (in India) can't figure it out.

 

[Darryl Licht]

Hope someone out there can help me as I have little knowledge with Windows 7 or NVIDIA drivers. I have a Sony VAIO Model VGN SZ650N that came installed with Vista (32 bit) and I upgraded in January to Windows 7 (32). The PC has NVIDIA GE Force 8400 M GS card. It worked perfectly for over 3 months, then suddenly my screen looks like it's taken a massive dose of LSD! All white areas are now hot pink and there are squiggly lines or dots everywhere. I can get the white areas white again by performing Color Calibration but that doesn't fix the weird lines. And it doesn't stick. I have to re-perform the calibration each time I turn the computer on.

I contacted Sony and paid $150 for a service contract (since mine is out of warranty) and they downloaded new NVIDIA drivers - to no avail. I perused the forum and saw someone else with a similar problem. The suggestion was to modify the NV_DISP.inf file ("Convert from Desktop to Mobile (Laptop); I tried it and it didn't work.

Is this a software issue or is my NVIDIA card going bad? Does anyone know cause Sony (in India) can't figure it out.

Sorry to hear you are having problems pag, and welcome to the forums!

It could be sw or hw... Sure sounds more like sw... though.
Perhaps a recent windows update may have got you... did you have auto updates on?
I will throw out a few ideas:

• Have you tried a system restore to put it back when it worked fine?
• Have you moved any equipment lately?
• Check all the monitor cables make sure they are on securly.
• Also, if you have recently been inside the case perhaps the video card isnt seated all the way, try removing and reseating it.

 

[stormy13]

pag welcome to the forums.

Does anyone know cause Sony (in India) can't figure it out.

Or they won't admit to it, even more so because yours is out of warranty,

NVIDIA DISASTER: thousands of GPUs faulty

All nvidia g84 and g86s are bad - The Inquirer

I could post links till your eyes bleed, but that one is as good as any as to what can, did and looks like still is happening with that series of laptop GPU's. I wouldn't go as far as it affected all of them, but it was a good amount. This link,

Figuring out which NVIDIA GPUs are defective -- it's a lot -- Engadget

has additional links to where HP extended the warranty on quite a few of their laptops; and Dell issued a bios update that didn't nothing more than make the fan spin faster, to try and keep it cooler (haven't looked into it much further, so not sure if Dell actually started replacing them or not).

 

[sygnus21]

NVIDIA DISASTER: thousands of GPUs faulty

All nvidia g84 and g86s are bad - The Inquirer

I could post links till your eyes bleed, but that one is as good as any as to what can, did and looks like still is happening with that series of laptop GPU's. I wouldn't go as far as it affected all of them, but it was a good amount. This link,

Figuring out which NVIDIA GPUs are defective -- it's a lot -- Engadget.

Wowser

 

[pag]

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who replied. I tried restoring my system to a point prior to the weird colors appearing, but no luck. It didn't change anything. I'm now pretty certain it's the card as everyone else suggested. I'm taking the PC in today to see what can be done.

Thanks again as I had no idea the NVIDIA card in my PC was a known problem and weakness.