Hi all,
Really hoping someone has some ideas or info on this as I’m really stuck.  My girlfriend left the laptop on overnight as she normally does, and in the morning found it needed to be turned on.  Not sure if it had crashed or turned itself off, but when you turn it on the LCD goes white, and the backlight comes on, and you hear the startup tone.  I can put in the bios password and see that the TR boots up to windows, but the lcd is all white and doesn’t change.  I’ve taken it apart and noticed that the fan doesn’t come on when powering on, is this normal? i.e it only starts the fan when the CPU reaches a certain temperature?
I don’t think the LCD is dead, i think it might be the VGA that overheated if the fan stopped working? Any possibility or replacing this? Am i right in thinking it’s situated to the left of the CPU, near the heat vent?

Hi there. The fan you are actually talking about is the CPU fan. There is no other fan in the TR. For as I know the VGA chip is placed right next to the CPU AND the chips on mainboards in general are SMD chips wich cannot be removed easily if you dont have the proder equipment (learned on this forum )

However. I can tell you that the FAN will not power on UNTIL it reaches some certain temperature. I had my keyboard removed and observed the FAN (because I thought it was out of order) and it took quite some time until it started)

If you believe that the whole system (except for the screen) is still working fine you could go connect the TR to an external monitor and see if theres a picture coming up. Remember to switch monitor output (FN + F7).

Thanks for the info on the fan, I can hear it running now after it’s warmed up.  Luckily, it’s still all works on the wireless network once it’s booted, so I’ve been able to remote desktop to it and copy off files etc.  I’ll try a ext monitor as you’ve suggested to see if the VGA controller is still alive…

Well the VGA isn’t dead, it swaps to an external monitor and works perfectly, the LCD even powers off.  When switching back however, i get the same white/grey screen. 
Is the whiteness created by the backlight only? If so it must be the lcd pannel, or its own controller?

this may be completely wrong but could it be a fault with lcd cable?

Yeah, the cables might be good hint since they are extremely thin. Guess youll have to open the case to check for cables and connections before you can find out some more info.

You should also try to get in touch with the member MandyChao as he seems to have lots of experience regarding Sony notebook repair. Hes not profesional but its his hobby to fix Sony Laptops!

Maybe he can tell what usually causes the screen to only show white-grey…

I’ve sent MandyChau a PM, hopefully he/she will be able to throw some light on this.  I did wonder about the cable when I had the TR in bits, but I did’t take the LCD pannel appart, so i’ll try finding some info on taking that apart and try this week sometime.  Could the cables be stressed or streched if the LCD lid is opened to it’s absolute max regulary?

hello every body!!
step 1:check fan…use a wire close the fan “-”....“black wire” to the case(ground),if the fan start work,then the fan controler id dead… :(

step 2:check lcd cable,if the cable is np problem,then lcd is dead,or board lcd inveter is dead…... :?

go to check it,then tell me!!

[quote author=“mandychao”]hello every body!!
step 1:check fan…use a wire close the fan “-”....“black wire” to the case(ground),if the fan start work,then the fan controler id dead… :(

step 2:check lcd cable,if the cable is np problem,then lcd is dead,or board lcd inveter is dead…... :?

go to check it,then tell me!!

I think the fan is ok as it’s now started up by itself, once the laptop heated up a bit.  Is a continuity test of each wire the best way to test the LCD cable?