Vaio VGN FZ21S won't start/blank screen

[Perry85]

Hello there,had my vaio for bout 18mnths now,was surfing net on it 2day and the screen flickered and went blank,turnt it off from power button re started and was fine for bout 15 mins and same happened again,this time won't start up,power light is on and can hear sounds coming from machine but nothing on screen,left for hour or so tried againnnn Vaio startup screen poped up for a second,then flickering againnn and back to square one,laptop blank.as you can probably gather am not too computer savvy and am hoping someone on here can help me out as i'm worried i never get it started again and all my itunes library will be dead,i only use my laptop for itunes,bit of internet surfing and playing football manager.
Any help would be very much appreciated,thanks in advance.Cheers!

[rich912]

Hi Perry85 and welcome.

This could possibly be related to the known issue with some NVIDIA graphics chips. Sony have acknowledged the problem and will repair affected machines that are less than four years old free of charge. Below is a copy of the announcement. I suggest that you contact support via the ‘Support tab’ at the top of this page.

Distorted video, random characters or blank screen issues due to failure of the NVIDIA graphics chip

August 4th, 2009


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