6 replies to this topic

[grauken]

Hello I am really out of ideas on this one. Sony Vaio PCG-K33 windows home basic xp 32bit I have a PCG-K33 that shuts off very shortly after the ac power is connected. It will run fine on battery power to the end of it's charge. Once the battery is out of juice, it is out of commission until it gets another charge. It charges the battery while shut down and it runs fine on the battery, It just doesn't like to be plugged in while in use. I have opened the case and observed the motherboard for any signs of heat. I have cleared out all of the dust. I have seen the fans run. Everything looks good but I have not gone so far as to check any of the motherboard components like diodes and such for problems. I have gone through the windows power management settings numerous times and even looked at the pitifully limited bios options on power management with nothing left to try. I have even used a newer viao power supply 19.5v with the same results in shutdown. I have ran it with the power supply plugged in and no battery---shutdown. Thinking that it might be a corrupt OS, I re-installed XP and still, same shutdowns. My thinking leaves to think that it has something to do with how the power bridges from AC to DC once I plug up the cord. Perhaps a diode thats near or works with the power jack. Has anyone seen this type of issue before. Lappy doesn't have enough value to me to spend a sum on a replacement motherboard and certainly not useful as is but from a learning standpoint, I would love to fix it for use, even at the cost of breaking it worse. I treat it like it's broken already by just not using it at all. Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated folks. Thanks and Happy St. Pattys Day. chug a lug

[paws]

Hi and welcome to the WTT forums.

Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine.
Firstly congratulations on performing all the tests that you have. You have already done almost everything most repair shops would do,

1 If you have a mobo tester then try it and see if any of the error codes are useful.....most private owners dont have them, but a kindly repair shop owner may lend you one.....you will also need the code book decoder (some imported mobo testers are pretty inexpensive now, but are not in any way guaranteed to help pinpoint the problem, however they can point you in the right direction, if your friendly neighbourhood repair shop won't lend you one then there is always ebay........ do a search and you will find how cheap they can be.......however as with most things in life the cheapest article is not necessarily the best (or safest!) so if you go down this route, as always, take all personal safety and ESD precautions.
2 Next try to ascertain if its a hardware issue (likely) or a software issue (less likely but still possible. Here's what I suggest you try:
3 Dowload and burn as an iso, Linux Puppy, set the laptop's BIOS to boot from CD and restart the laptop with the Linux Puppy disc in the CD tray and follow onscreen directions...allow Puppy to load into memory (do not install it to hard drive) Puppy will be quite happy to run in memory (as long as you have a reasonable amount) and will create its own RAM drive
4 Puppy is an independent operating system (free licence..GNU) and does not use Windows, or indeed does not use your hard drive but runs completely in RAM...........if it runs Ok then we have eliminated hardware as an issue and its a software issue.........however its likely that hardware is the main suspect here and if it is the problem then Puppy will not run!
5 Linux Puppy available from here:
http://puppylinux.or...p?file=Overview and Getting Started.htm
ImgBurn to burn the iso available from here:
http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Note you must burn it as an "image" hence the use of ImgBurn..just copying will not work!
Good luck and let us know how you get on
Regards
paws

Edited by paws, 18 March 2010 - 03:41 AM.

[grauken]

Mobo tester ok Im familiar with that and.....Linux Puppy, cool...... now see, I am already learning something here. I will certainly give these a try and post back with my results and thank you again for allowing me to join. I really appreciate your assistance with this Paws. Grauken

Edited by grauken, 19 March 2010 - 12:42 PM.

[paws]

[gtgtgt]

Hello Grauken I just finished working on a pcg-k33 with your exact problem, Checked all hardware first and same results as you,How I got it to run on AC was to start it on battery then go into vaio power management and set the cpu option to battery optimised on AC and the fan passive. That worked for me and its been running for 2 weeks no problems. If you run a real time cpu meter I used CrystalCPUID just google it you will see when you plug it in it goes full throttle on cpu for more than 20 sec, it will cut it self off . Hope this helps.

[paws]

Hi gtgtgt, and welcome to the WTT forums This is a topic that is over a year old now so I guess the problem may have already been resolved.... however it may not be... and the old machine may be in a desk drawer somewhere....just waiting for your solution. Thanks for your suggestion, that sounds like a good way of tackling things ..... the search engines that index these pages will hopefully assist folks, in the future, by directing them to this topic and your suggested fix. Regards paws

[ChristopherARLee]

Hi Everyone,

 

I am reading JTJTJT's post - "How I got it to run on AC was to start it on battery then go into vaio power management and set the cpu option to battery optimised on AC and the fan passive"

 

Just real quick, the only thing that I see listed as an item is the LCD (video). I don't a CPU option listed here. Can you please point me in the right direction? Thanks so much. Hope you stll read this after your post being 3 years old.

 

This problem has got me so frustated, I just went through a complete computer restore

 

Christopher Lee