Any more info on the freezing problem with most Kseries notebooks?

[mattbees]

As the title says... Also, has anyone ever had any satisfactory service from sony and have they had anything repaired by them? I bought my k215z in october, which is used mainly for leaving complaints on here and esupport. It was finally picked up for repair about 2 weeks ago after failing to pick it up 6 previously arranged times. It freezes frequently, there are 2 unexplainable bright blue dots on the screen which tend to stay for a while and then dissappear and move somewhere else or fade or get brighter, there is also 1 stuck pixel (which I know all the info about but I thought Id it mention anyway), and it also cant keep a wifi connection for longer than 1 hour. Since its been gone, the oh so useful "repair status" feature has said the same old thing: "dear customer, your vaio is being repaired at this very moment", although its not because I had a phonecall with some guy trying to tell me that there is nothing wrong.
Personally, when I spend £1400 on a piece of foldable plastic, I expect it to be damn good quality, reliable, and have a decent support package supplied for at least a year. It seems sony provides none of this, just a fancy logo to make other ppl think your cool.
Anyway, ill try to stop moaning now, but is there any 15yr old computer buffs (mainly cos its you guys who can actually sort out a computer, unlike these huge multinational companies who send your laptop to germany where they plug it into a bbc which runs pathetic tests to check if everything is plugged in properly, and then try and charge you £41 to have it back with no repairs made) who have solved the freezing mystery and maybe know what could be causing the blue dots and wifi problem, so I can then ring sony and tell them how to fix my laptop?

Any kind of response will be much appreciated, its interesting to know how many other people are experiencing problems with their notebook and sonys poor half-assed money grabbing service.

Cheers

PS-
Im currently using my Dell dimension v400 PII 400mhz pc to leave this post. Ive never had a serious problem with this computer for the 5 years ive had it, and even when I wanted to find something out, they helped me with no charge outside of the warranty. Dell computers are great and come with outstanding customer support services, Sony will have to do a hell of a lot of work and ass-kissing to even come close to Dell's excellent service.

[schouw]

It seems to we finally (as customers) dare to say something to SONY. Lately there are some people who really say what terrible machines SONY delivers.

We should do more so because more peolple should be aware of the bad quality of SONY

[schouw]

It looks nice such a site, but I got the impression, we are only talking in the air and no Sony-employee will ever be aware what's happening here on this site.

[mattbees]

Its not so much the actual machine as the quality of service. I think sony notebooks are beautiful to look at and nice to use IF they are working properly. The majority of faults sony laptops have are most likely fairly common accross all computers available on the market, the difference is sony are so big and make so much money from selling TVs and Walkmans that they dont feel the need to care about their Vaio customers. To sony, us Vaio users are nothing more than a source of extra profit on the side. The biggest joke is when they try and charge you for their service if no faults are found, even though its still well within the warranty and when there clearly are faults, regardless of their nature, otherwise we wouldnt bother wasting our time sending them our notebooks. What if someone who is less experienced decides to have their notebook looked at because they feel there is a problem? how are they supposed to know if it is software or hardware related? People are just getting ripped off and having nothing done about their faulty notebook. Considering sony charge the highest possible price for a notebook which you would find cheaper and with a higher spec if manufactured by another company, you would think that they have no need to charge for their weak support service when "no faults" are found. Sony will have to improve phenominally before I or any of my friends or family members even consider purchasing a vaio computer system from them in the future.

[TygerTyger]

I have had a computer repaired by Sony. The repair was not satisfactory, and has to go back someday so they can do it again properly. This is not unusual if the forum is anything to go by. They even created a new problem while it was gone :smileywink:.

I would leave the Wifi connection problem aside, I can say with 99% certainty that is down to drivers or your router somewhere so don't get on their back about that. The blue dots MAY come under the same terms as the stuck pixel but since you know about that I will say no more. It's a bit of a grey area whether or not you could force them to fix that.

The freezing is different entirely. I've seen plenty of people have this problem with the K-Series, you may want to mention the reports on their own official forum if you're feeling helpful or they are pretending they never heard of it. If they are still refusing to make themselves useful, this is taken verbatim from the trading standards (uk) website. I hope you're in the UK I have a feeling you are.

What legal protection do I get with warranties and guarantees?

As both are contracts, warranties and guarantees give you the right to make a legal claim against the person issuing them (guarantees are contracts because the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 say that they are). This means that if the manufacturer refuses to honour the warranty or guarantee, you can take them to court to force them to meet their promises. For example, if the company that issued the warranty will not carry out a repair within a reasonable time when the guarantee says it will, you could sue for the cost of employing someone else to put the problem right. You need to follow certain procedures before you do this, see 'Services - how to solve your problems' leaflet.

Now although it doesn't specifically cover insisting that there is no problem, I'm willing to bet that you could claim against them under these very terms. i.e. there is a problem they wont/cant fix, then you can make them pay for the repairs you were forced to have carried out elsewhere. Try reading that paragraph to them.

They are a chronic pain, I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people say here 'Sony can't find anything wrong, they want to charge me for getting a repair done.'

[mattbees]

Thanks Tyger, thats really helpful, in fact if sony were providing that information then I would probably have been charged thousands of pounds for it. Anyway, when the bloke rang and tried to tell me that nothing is wrong, I told him that I know there is a fault and went over the symptoms for the 8th time (though I really shouldnt need to since its all pretty clear in the esupport history and everyone Ive spoken to has been told and I even enclosed a letter with my laptop explaining...) and he said something like "oh right, I didnt know they were disappearing, that doesnt sound like a stuck pixel to me, how strange. ok, Ill send it back to germany with that information..." so Im now waiting for a phonecall in about 3 weeks time saying "we have just received your vaio from germany again and they still cant find anything wrong with it, they have brand new stethoscopes too..."

I really do regret buying that laptop now. If I just waited untill now to buy it, then Id have a newer/higher spec one and might not have had the same problems and it would probably have been cheaper and I would have had about the same amount of use out of it (none) and I might have realised the stupidity of buying a laptop from a tv company and instead bought something which is actually good. oh well, ill let you know how it ends up if your interested.

Cheers

[Fid]

Hmmm, maybe I have this freezing problem to come? lol
I have the K series (PCG-K315B) but haven't yet experienced any problems and it has run brilliantly.
When does this problem crop up? Should I worry about that?

Also, a second question if I may post it here, how much does it normally cost to fix the hinges on a laptop if they get really loose?

[mattbees]

The freezing usually happens when the processor isnt doing much, though it happens when your surfing the net and that kinda thing aswell. It wont freeze if you have something running constantly, like a huge music playlist or something.

As for the loose hinges, I dont know how much its likely to cost but i know for a fact that sony will definately rip you off. they wont class it as a fault and they will probably say "theres nothing wrong, its meant to be loose. we will have to charge you £41 to send it back bla bla bla". Can you put up with the looseness? If you can then it would probably be a lot less hassle to do that and when your warranty is up then get a much better 3rd party service to sort it. Or you could throw it away and buy a scientific calculator. Sorry, I couldnt resist putting a sarcastic comment, sony have been a huge let down for me recently...

[Fid]

Hiya,

Well I've left my notebook on for hours doing absolutely nothing and it hasn't froze yet (fingers crossed).

About the loose hinges, mine arn't (because it's pretty new!) I was just thinking about it lol, then someone told me that they'd probably been designed to be opened and shut looooaaads of times.

Thanks for your answer

[TygerTyger]

Excellent, good luck. They usually take no more than a week to do the repairs, 10 days at the most. But there are always exceptions. Don't be too disappointed with your computer, I have an older K-Series and I think it's a fine computer. Yes you get overcharged a bit and the customer service is below par, but the screen almost makes up for it. At least, that's pretty much the reason I got mine and I'm never sorry.

As for the loose hinges, I have no idea whether they would repair that under warranty. I have a feeling they would actually. At least they can't fail to find the problem :smileywink:. At any rate, I have never heard of anyone have a problem with loose hinges yet so I wouldn't worry.

It's funny you should say that about Dell, I had a Dell once a good 7 years ago or so and their service blew Sony out of the water. They were far better. Maybe not anymore lol from what I've heard, but I was extremely impressed.