I have a Sony Vaio VGN-A160 that will not boot up. It just shows a black screen with a blinking curser. Also there is a little light on that has never been there before and i cant shut it off. Can anybody help??? Im getting ready to throw it out of the window!!

I recently got a Sony VAIO FX220 donated by a friend. After some time, it would start up only intermittently. You never knew when it would start or not. After tearing it apart several times I finally found the problem. There is a very small shut down switch under where the latch is when you close it that was sticking in the down position. Since it was stuck it would not allow the laptop to start. I didn't know it was there as I am in the habit of shutting down before I close the laptop. I hope this helps someone with the same problem. I wonder how many people junked their FX series laptop just because the switch got stuck!!

Okay. My Vaio started the same EXACT thing as is described here. I've had this one quite a number of years so I suppose I am lucky that it is just now doing this. It is a PCG-F160.

Here's what to do to fix the problem: Just copy and past into your URL this address and follow the steps:
http://www.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~zwerger/cip/Vaio/indexeng.htm

I have the Sony Vaio model number PCG-GRX570 and it is displaying the same symptoms. I used a piece of a pencil erasure head to plce inside the memory area between the lid/cover and memory chip. It worked for a while but everntually went back to being unreliable. And it was very sensitive to typing vibration. I want to get this fixed. Has any one sent it in for the soldering repair? To who and what were the results?

TIA

I have the same problem 2 years after I bought my sony laptop. Now, it won't even start. A couple of years ago. I've replaced the memory from 2x128 to 1x512 and it helped for a while. I thought I was over the problems until it started to fail again last year. I noticed the machine would over heat. To fix this problem, I would clean out the fan area with an air can. This was somewhat helpful. This laptop has been a very costly mistake. Not worth the $2,100 I paid for it.

That's the bad thing about laptops. You can hardly upgrade them and it's too damn hard to operate on the inside.