Sony Vaio laptop: Frozen PC & vertical lines on screen

[r0adrunner]

1. Yesterday when I switched on my Sony Vaio laptop I was immediately directed to the CTRL-ALT-DEL commands, requiring me to start Windows from there.

 

This morning, while Windows started normally, the laptop froze after several minutes and I had to use hold down the power button in order to switch it off and then switch it on again using the power button in order for it to become responsive again.

 

I then ran a full MS Security Essentials scan that found no threats.

 

Any advice about what I can do would be appreciated.

 

 

2. For the last few months I have had two narrow vertical lines appear on the screen, towards the left-hand side. They come and go - right now they have disappeared - but they are usually there. I connected the laptop to the TV today using a HDMI cable while the lines appeared on the laptop screen, but they did not appear on the TV screen.

 

Again, any advice would be appreciated.

 

Thank you.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, the lines on the screen may not be a part of the present problem and are entirely separate. If they don't show on an external monitor, in this case your TV, I suspect a faulty screen.

 

The other problem that has just surfaced could be an operating system glitch, or worse a hard drive glitch.

 

So to start lets see what a system file check finds and if it can, repairs under an elevated command prompt.

 

Click the start orb and type in the search box,-- cmd.exe

 

That should then appear at the top of the list.

 

You must right click on it and select "Run as administrator"

 

you may get the window asking to allow the program to run, click yes.

 

In the window at the flashing cursor type-- sfc /scannow

 

please note there must be a space between the sfc and the /

 

Click on the enter key, it will then check and attempt to repair any damaged files within the system. It will take some time and should display a percentage of its check while it runs.

 

Let us know if it finds anything.

If it does and reports it can't fix some files, run it again and even one or two times more as it does sometimes fix things on the second or third attempt.

 

Nev.

[r0adrunner]

Thank you.

 

When I click (with right or left button) on the cmd icon - the only one to appear when I type cmd.exe in the Serach box - a dialogue box appears,with a prompt, there are no actual options.

 

Thanks.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, Is this computer running Windows 7 ?

 

You just might have got something slightly wrong, here are some screen shots of what you should see for each stage.

 

After typing cmd.exe in the search bar, you should first see this.

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/Elevatedcmdp1_zps092b792a.png

 

As shown right click on the cmd.exe and you should then see this box open up, ordinary left click on "Run as administrator"

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/Elevatedcmdp2_zps07be95a5.png

 

You will possibly see the security window asking if you wish to run this program, click on "Yes" if you do, and you should then see this window opens.

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/Elevatedcmdp3_zps07be95a5.png

 

No need to click anything, just type sfc /scannow, make sure of the space between sfc and the /scannow as shown here,

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/Elevatedcmdp4_zps758f7b9b.png

 

next is to hit the enter key on the keyboard, the system file check will start, let it run till it finishes.

 

Let us know please if anything is still not as shown and if possible can you show us a screen shot.

 

If it works this time, let us know the result at the end of the check.

 

Nev.

[r0adrunner]

Since I can only go directly to the Security Window, I typed sfc /scannow at the prompt C:\Users\James> but the following error message was received: You must be an administrator running a console session in order to run the sfc utility.

 

(I cannot post screenshots because I receive an error message saying they take up too much data.)

 

Thanks.

[Plastic Nev]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by you can only get to the security window? which window do you mean, is it this window you mean, if so just click on YES.

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/Accountcontrol_zps077d5db9.jpg

[KenB]

Hi,

 

Try this ...

 

Start > in the box type .......cmd .....DO NOT hit ENTER yet ........

now right click on "cmd.exe" that appears top left of screen > now click on "Run as Administrator"

 

This will take you to the "elevated" command prompt.

 

See Nev's post #4.

[r0adrunner]

I tried that too but it makes no difference, I still only get "cmd" appear, not "cmd.exe". Left or right click on it brings the same black background dialogue box with the prompt as in post #4 above with the prompt C:\Users\James>

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, are you sure you are using the right hand side mouse button and not the left, as that which you are seeing is what you will get if using the ordinary left click button.

It must be the right button when you see the cmd.exe.

 

If all you are seeing is just cmd, and no .exe after it you may be only using an ordinary user account and not an administrator account in the first place.

You must choose an administrator account at boot up if you have password access set.

 

If that is not possible for whatever reason, then the other way is to get to the command prompt window from safe mode.

 

first restart the computer and start tapping the F8 key, that should get you the advanced boot options page.

 

Once that is opened up, use the up and down keyboard keys to move the highlight down to "Safe mode with command prompt", then click the enter key.

 

It will take a short time first showing a list of drivers then the windows loading page, eventually you will see the administrator cmd.exe black with white writing page as I showed earlier, you can then type in the sfc /scannow as above.

 

try that and let us know if that works for you please.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

This wouldn't be XP would it ??

[r0adrunner]

Sorry for the delay in replying.

 

I re-started the laptop, tapping the F8 key as suggested, and I was able to perform the sfc /scannow in Safe Mode.

 

It began with this message Beginning verification of system scan then it did the scan, showing the % progress, until the final messages appeared Verification 100% complete followed by Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

 

Did I do the scan correctly? If so, is there anything else I can do?

 

Thank you.

[KenB]

Did I do the scan correctly? If so, is there anything else I can do?

Yes you did it correctly.

You could try running sfc /scannow again.

Sometimes it picks things up on the second scan that were missed on the first.

 

Is your system still freezing ?

 

Or was the freezing just a one-off ?

[r0adrunner]

I performed the same scan again twice this morning as recommended, but again no violations were found.

 

The laptop has been running normally ever since the original incident which caused me to open this thread.

 

I notice it might be connected to watching video streams.

 

Shall I let things be for now or is there anything further I can do?

 

Meanwhile, in the first reply to my original post, Plastic Nev suspected I have a faulty screen. The vertical lines are still there. Shall I get it repaired?

 

Thanks for your help.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, if those lines are still there it does look like a faulty screen, some laptops the screen itself can be replaced, others require the complete lid.

 

If you can let us know the exact model number of that Sony, we can look it up, sometimes for some makes the complete full service manuals are available on line so we can determine from that what can be done.

 

Nev.