Broken computer

[dartagnon]

My student son phoned last night to say that his Sony Vaio laptop wasn't working. He'd taken it to the local repair shop who informed him that it was the motherboard which was broken and he would require either a new motherboard at £600 or new computer at £850
I think I'm clutching at straws here, but I'm hoping that some ABers may be able to help.
The computer was purchased on 30/05/08 from Tesco and paid for by Mastercard.
We weren't offered the extended warranty and the Sony warranty is only for one year, but it's annoying that a computer which costs just under £800 when new is now useless in less than 3 years. my son assured me that it wasn't misuse or abuse which caused the damage, and this was confirmed by the repair shop who said it was "just one of those things"
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated and thanks in advance.

[ChuckFickens]

Sorry, not a legal answer as such, but What is the model number? and what is the fault it's displaying?

Several models of sony were supplied with a nvidea graphics chip that has a known manufacturing fault in them, sony will repair those certain models with the effected chips even outside the normal guarantee period if it is that causing the fault.

[dartagnon]

Thanks Chuck, I'll get in touch with my son to get as much info as possible and post it as soon as I can.

[ChuckFickens]

The extended period applies to sony Vaios of the following models
* VGN-AR1xx, VGN-AR2xx, VGN-AR3xx
* VGN-FZ1xx, VGN-FZ2xx, VGN-FZ3xx, VGN-FZ4xx
* VGC-LT1xx, VGC-LT2xx

http://esupport.sony....mplate=EN&news_id=349

[jake-the-peg]

Sony vaio motherboard £200 although you'd need your friedly local computer repairman to fit it

[jake-the-peg]

http://www.codemicro....a1369752a/Refurbished

whoops

[jake-the-peg]

or try here:

http://www.laptoprepa...otherboard-repair.php

[Whickerman]

for £600 I'll whittle a new one using a stanley knife. That's a bloody expensive repair!