Hey connygronlund and welcome to Club Vaio.

Sony confirmed that there was a problem with some of the grahics on some AR11 - AR31 models but not on the AR41's.

Why are you sure it is a graphic problem and not a screen issue?

Contrary to the previous post, I also have an AR41 which failed with a graphics issue earlier this.  thank fully I took 3 year warranty and it was repaired FOC very quickly.  Sony told me that it was a known problem in this range and they also changed the wireless card and some other part (which I cant remember) which were apparently also common faults.

Interesting anvelvi77, do you written evidence that Sony admitted that there was a known problem with with the AR41 series

As you have a three year warranty I suspect this could have been the reason your Vaio was repaired because Sony have only ever made an official statement confirming that the VGN-AR11x, VGN-AR21x, VGN-AR31x are affected.

As you can see in the attached statement.

My sony ar41e has also recently gave up the ghost with a faulty gpu.

During boot I get weird dotted and dashed lines, then the pc stops with the lights on and won't go any further.  Entering safe mode and deactivating the gpu allows it to boot, but only with the gpu disabled.

As someone has posted above, Sony need to get off their ass and get the list updated.

I have had my laptop inspected by a specialist repair company and the faulty gpu has been diagnosed and confirmed.

I will post a link to a very helpful website if someone can tell me if external links are allowed.

I wouldn't want Sony deleting my post, not that they would have anything to hide?

Cheers

ok, so there seem to be links to other websites elsewhere, so have a look here:  http://www.nvidiadefect.com/  hope it helps some folk out

We repair these models and also advertise on ebay.

There are two main repair methods:

1. Reflow (cheaper option) - melting existing lead free solder

2. Reball. - replacing old lead free solder with new leaded solder

I would always advise having your GPU reballed with leaded solder - ask repairer for proof (picture of your your chip removed)

I can confirm the AR41S models are also faulty. Make sure if you do get a company to repair that with the 8600M GT model I recommend to replace the GPU for an updated one. We offer this option to our customers. The new updated chip gets reballed in leaded solder also. ebay@bgarepairs.co.uk if you need any advise. Its up to you what repair company you choose obviously.

I had exactly the same problem with my VGN-AR41MR. I was told by a local computer repair shop that the motherboard had failed but they were not sure it would be possible to repair. Contacted Sony and they wanted a non-refundable payment before they would look at the computer as it was just outside the guarantee period and then upwards of £500 to replace the board. Paint had started to peel off the case and despite careful use the computer is looking really tatty and there was no way of knowing what might go wrong next. Decided in the end to write the thing off. Am sitting here with a Sony Vaio RX-306 PC that had to be reformatted to ditch all the junk Sony and Vaio software that was preloaded and made the computer after a year ridiculously slow to boot up. The Sony version of Windows that was supplied meant that I could not upgrade the OS to the professional version without setting up a conflict with my P232W Sony monitor ... a problem that Sony support in Ireland and Sony support in Belgium could not resolve. I could have the high resolution image on the screen with the supplied OS or update to Pro and have a truncated poor resolution image on the screen. The only way I could resolve that problem was to abandon the Windows update I had bought and buy a new copy of the full operating system from Microsoft and install that. In a cupboard is a Sony Cyber shot camera that failed after taking the equivalent of just 40 rolls of film. Again it was just outside the guarantee and although Sony had admitted on other sites that there was a glue problem causing the "blue screen of death" they still wanted a non-refundable fee to look at the camera and that was more than it's ongoing value to me. I put the money not spent on the repair towards a camera from Leica who have a superb record for customer care. I will never buy another Sony product. OK the image on the AR41 screen particularly with blue ray was superb and the P232W is a pleasure to use (and so it should be for the money I paid) but the hassle of dealing with Sony and the increasingly poor build quality of their products have to be resolved before I will consider buying another Sony product.