Taking care of a defective Sony Vaio, part I

“CALVIN!! DO SOMETHING! IT’S MELTING!”

My wife, Michelle, yelled at me on Saturday morning, September 27 as she was writing, on her Sony Vaio notebook computer, an account of our current stay in Beijing. She had purchased the computer less than a year ago, through a Sony Style store outside Philadelphia. She is attending Tsinghua University as a visiting scholar at their school of art, and I am studying and teaching at their school of law. Our apartment is northeast of the Olympic Village, right by Bei Yuan Lu North station, on the newly-constructed #5 subway line, finished weeks before the Olympics began.

As Michelle was working on her computer, it suddenly became significantly warmer by the left hinge, at which the AC power adapter is plugged into the computer. Suddenly, the left side of the monitor frame began to melt. We immediately shut down the computer and unplugged the AC adapter, but by that time a small section of metal underneath the lid frame had become exposed.

Here’s where the real fun began.

In searching the Internet, we learned that certain Vaio computers were being recalled due to wiring problems that could cause short circuits and overheating. http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?template_id=1&news_id=272 We called Sony customer service, in the U.S., and they confirmed that our Vaio was affected by this recall. We asked about the procedures for having the problem fixed, and they told us that they would send us an empty shipping container. Their plan called for us to pack the Vaio inside and ship everything back to a Sony facility in San Diego.

We naturally expressed concern over this plan, saying that it would take too long, and asked instead if we could find a facility in China, and if we could receive service at this facility. The Sony person we spoke to said that he couldn’t answer the question, and would have to escalate the call to a level 2 person. After forty five minutes on hold, we reached that person. However, he also did not know the answer, but said he would have his supervisor e-mail us with an answer.

A day went by, and we heard nothing from anyone at Sony. We called back, and after another long wait, reached another level 2 person. This second person told us that the first person really had misspoken in committing an answer to us. Because our call occurred on the weekend, no supervisors were available. In addition, the computer systems that might contain the desired information, regarding Sony repair centers in Beijing, also were unavailable.

He probably meant well, but this second Sony person then made an unbelievable statement to us: he suggested that we go to the Sony China web site and try to look up the information ourselves. We replied that this idea had two complications. First, the web site is in Chinese, with no apparent way to display an English version. Second, even if we did locate this center, we had concerns over whether they would know how to handle our situation. He apologized, but said that until the weekend was finished, he could do nothing more.

Next: The Sony answer, and our response