Are Sony going to screw me over if I get my Vaio repaired?
I got my VGN-C2Z in early 2007. Since I installed the Windows 7 RC, I have had problems with the graphics - the card was no longer detected and the display reverted to VGA. I put up with this for a few months because I thought I had broken it, but I installed a game a few weeks ago which suddenly brought the display back to life and looking like it should, only for it to look shit again when I restarted.
I reinstalled Vista from scratch, and my display looked all shiny and new again, only to go back to looking like crap after installing all my updates. I repeated this a few times to be sure with the exact same effect. So it's quite obviously an issue with the graphics card, nothing else.
After some research, I found it to be a technical issue with the Nvidia graphics card, and Sony have agreed to repair all models affected:
Sony Website wrote: In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a failure associated with some of their graphics processors (GPU) due to a manufacturing defect in the graphics chip packaging. At that time Sony and NVIDIA jointly investigated whether VAIO models equipped with this GPU were impacted by this issue. This investigation revealed that the issue had not occurred in such VAIO models.
However, after closely monitoring the situation, Sony has now determined that a very small percentage of VAIO computers with the NVIDIA graphics chips may be affected.
These PCs may exhibit distorted video, random characters or a blank screen due to a failure of the NVIDIA graphics chip.
Resolution
As a part of our commitment to quality, for any customer who requires repair of their VAIO computer due to the NVIDIA graphics processor issue, Sony will cover the cost of repair (parts and labor) at no charge during the first four years following the date of purchase of the models in question (see list below).
In case your model is shown in the list below, we invite you to contact VAIO Support to arrange service for your VAIO.
Applicable Models
• VGN-FZ11x, VGN-FZ18x, VGN-FZ21x, VGN-FZ31x, VGN-FZ38x
• VGN-AR11x, VGN-AR21x, VGN-AR31x
• VGN-C1Zx, VGN-C2Zx
• VGC-LM1xx, VGC-LM2xx
• VGC-LT1xx, VGC-LT2xx
Now I have just got off the phone with a woman who gave me all the old lines:
Sony woman wrote: This repair offer only covers problems with the graphics card.
If there are any other hardware faults these will have to be repaired at your expense before we can continue.
If there are no faults to be found, or you do not wish to go ahead with the repair you will be charged £150 to cover collection and delivery costs.
She also mentioned that the repair may take a while because there are lots of other people who also have the same problem.
Are Sony going to fix this, or is it more likely that everyone else will be blamed and have to pay extra for replacement motherboards etc. so they can cover their costs?
