Sony Vaio laptop. What have I done?!

I have a friends Sony laptop which he asked if I could take a look at for him.

The laptop was already on its last legs, wouldnt charge properly, kept shutting down every 10 mins.

The laptop was switching on fine before i opened up the back case, removed HDD, CD, RAM and shot some compressed air through the vents to cleam em up a bit. I was wearing anti-static the whole time, and I didnt remove any components like heatsink or processor.

When i rebuilt the laptop to see if it stayed on a bit longer, it wouldnt post, not even the BIOS screen. The screen stays blank, the scroll lock/num lock/caps lock lights all stay on, and power and battery stay on. No HDD light, and certainly no XP boot noises.

Went back in to check monitor connections, other power connectors and all are fine.

I swapped his HDD into my laptop and it booted fine.

So i'm a bit lost!!! I have taken apart many laptops before, but mainly HP Toshiba. This is my first Sony.

Luckily he was after a new laptop, and i've filled him in on all the details and he's totally cool about it. He sees it as a good excuse to get a new one.

Any ideas? I really dont want to let him down, even if he's not bothered. Pride is on the line!

 

Weird. Have you tried your HD into his Laptop, to see if it would work?

And it seems that it has to be something on his laptop.
Let me know if you get his PC up using a different HD..
Best of luck.

 

I would not roll an HDD into a machine like that from a working one.

I would use an old scrap drive that I knew worked, otherwise yours could end up being harmed by your friend's laptop.

I would say this is a PSU, motherboard, or even CPU issue.

No BIOS means the board is not talking to the CPU for some reason, or the PSU is no longer supplying power to the HDD.

Most likely, it is a power issue.

 

Yeah. Sorry if I wasn't clear upon that. I do mean use a HDD that is a scrap incase that it may not be working properly or damage your HDD.

Thanks.

 

Cheers for the help guys.

Well unfortunately I happen to be away from home, and so is my friend. We are living and working in Milan for 6 months, therefore the only spare HDD i have is my second drive in my laptop which is purely for data. Would rather not use it just in case!

Mekanic, I guessed at a power problem too, but i checked EVERYTHING. No loose or dusty connections at all. All is present and correct.

Thinking about it, I only tested it on battery power (as his AC adaptor is also rather dodgy). May be an idea to try and test it with AC power instead. Could it be a bad battery connector? And me opening the case has just 'broken the camels back' so to speak.

 

These keys I believe provide diagnostic information [post LED codes] well at least they do on Dell laptops and I would also guess on Sonys.

The link below will illustrate the Dell codes. I am sure that Sony have similar ones. When you get to the Dell page select a laptop model ie 110L and you will see what I mean.

http://support.dell.com/support/top...d=6B0066A0C5CC11DB99A653905CB61B0B&l=en&s=dhs

Good Luck