Windows 7 Sony VAIO PCG-71511L

[Henry Wong]

I am attempting to run a reinstall of Windows 7 for a friend. The system boots and gets into the Windows install, though when it gets to Expanding Files ... 75%, the system acts like it is rebooting and then shuts off.

I have thought about that it could be bad RAM or HDD. Though the times that I have seen that it would give some sort of error code first. I also though that it could be the mother board overheating. Though wouldn't it just shut down not try and reboot first then shut down. On top of that wouldn't it need to cool down before it would work properly again.

Have you heard of this? What did you do? Got any ideas?

 

[Neemobeer]

Generally if there were a BSOD, the system would reboot. If the CPU was overheating, it would shutdown. It might be worth opening the computer and re-applying thermal paste to the heat sink and clearing any dust on the vent and heat sink.

 

[Henry Wong]

That's exactly what I was hoping it wouldn't be. I wouldn't mind doing that if I was going to get paid well. Though that is a little more work than I want to do for a 6" sub and soda. Thank you for the help.

 

[Neemobeer]

Is this a laptop or desktop, and whats the make/model?

 

[Henry Wong]

Its a laptop. Its a Sony VAIO PCG-71511L.

 

[Neemobeer]

Oh duh it's the title, lol.

 

[Henry Wong]

It's all good. I have done that before too. I wasn't going to say anything. Keep the embarrassment to a minimum. lOl

 

[Neemobeer]

Yeah VAIOs can be a bit of a pain to take apart.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Depends on the age; anything older than 9 years old can cause aneurisms reassembling them.
I would take a look at my general troubleshooting article which works for both laptops as well as desktop PCs.
Take a look here: Windows 10 - Unclickable Task Bar

I'm sure you've asked your friend if they have their personal data backed up, but I would ask them that before starting repair attempts, and if you don't want to do it yourself for free, you can recommend they take it to their local computer shop and pay a Tech to do for them. Most shops do data backups for $35-$85 US; much less than a full laptop repair. You can then come back and troubleshoot possibly repair the problem or at least identify the problem for your friend if it's a problem inside that requires disassembly or complete teardown of the laptop. Many of my Clients no longer pay me to tear apart their laptops, as they can buy brand new ones for $179 US.
My current laptop repair charge is around $200 now as I'm not motivated to do them much as they are such a pain as neemo mentioned.

I have some other laptop specific resources as well if you're interested post back.

I do about 60% laptops in my repair shop versus desktop PCs, so I see lots of them.

Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Neemobeer]

@BIGBEARJEDI maybe you should recommend people buy the HP pro laptops. I made this video of how hard it is to get to the guts of an HP 840G1

 

[Henry Wong]

I don't mind doing backups. I have a server with a 1TB drive devoted to back up data and a 500GB devoted to video/audio. Back up isn't a big deal to me. I have done some just for the fun of it. Its the installing Windows that it is having problems with. They tried to do it themselves and lost all the data so I didn't have to worry about that in this case. They just ran into the same problem I am having now where it will shut off for no apparent reason. I told them today about it and they haven't gotten back to me about what they want to do. We shall see what they want to do.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

@BIGBEARJEDI maybe you should recommend people buy the HP pro laptops. I made this video of how hard it is to get to the guts of an HP 840G1

>>>Wow! Impressive video. I was expecting it to be several minutes long. LMAO! Wow!! Maybe I will recommend this HP. That's so rare these days that designers ever take the servicing aspect of laptops into consideration. I wish more laptop makers would do this. It also seems that the new All-in-One desktop PCs, at least the one I worked on from Dell (Dell Inspiron 2305) was very easy to get into, and engineers worked hard to make it serviceable; including swap out/removal of HDD, RAM sticks, and even the Motherboard and Backlight/Inverter for the LCD display!<<<
BBJ

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

I don't mind doing backups. I have a server with a 1TB drive devoted to back up data and a 500GB devoted to video/audio. Back up isn't a big deal to me. I have done some just for the fun of it. Its the installing Windows that it is having problems with. They tried to do it themselves and lost all the data so I didn't have to worry about that in this case. They just ran into the same problem I am having now where it will shut off for no apparent reason. I told them today about it and they haven't gotten back to me about what they want to do. We shall see what they want to do.

>>>Hi, thanks for your reply back. You are certainly in good shape then. We see this situation a lot here, as several of us run repair shops or work in IT (or both!). We try to educate folks on the reasons for doing this, as no one wants to experience irretrievable data loss, nor do we wish that to happen to our friends. I teach workshops and classes on Backups and have for years. Another thing I do, is to offer FREE backups to all of my Customers whenever they let me come over to service their computer(s), and never charge for that service. Many of my competitors do charge for this service, especially for small businesses they have on annual maintenance contracts. I feel differently, as it's sort of my thing, that we should try and take responsibility for Customer's making mistakes. This is why I keep backups (and for the last 2 years Image Backups) of all my Customer computers that I can. I try and keep them for 10 years; which places a tremendous burden on me to keep those intact and available. I've been able to provide partial data restoration to a few of my Customers when they thought they lost everything they had on a Windows upgrade or had a nasty virus attack. They called me, and I was able to get some, but not all of their data back. In a few cases, this included business and tax records for the Customer going back several years. Tell your friend that you can help him do a backup the next time around, and give him/her info on local storage, free cloud storage alternatives, etc. If he/she allows you to do it, you can use Macrium, Acronis, or EASETodo and make them an Image backup once they get their computer going again or buy a new computer and start over from scratch. They may thank you down the road! <<<
Best,
BBJ