I have a Sony VAIO PCG-FXA32 that I truly love. It has no OEM software on it, as I preferred to have Windows XP Pro, instead of WinXP Home. The problem I am running into now is that when left on for more than an hour or so, and no work is being done (whether with the screen down, or up on a screen saver) it will go to a black screen, and lockup. It is not possible to recover from this error, as I have tried using key commands to remedy the problem. Anyone who can tell me whether this is a software problem or a hardware problem, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like a Video driver problem... try updating your video drivers.

the oem disk comes with specialized drivers for your machine the xp off the shelf comes with more generic drivers,assuming you arent adding incompatible software and hardware its one of these more generic drivers,you will have to use trial and error to find it, but the above response is correct i would start with the video drivers

Hi Seth, I have an FX405 which is the UK equivalent of the FXA36. It came with XP home, and it did the same thing to me. I had been using the Webshots screensaver when it happened, so I changed that and it never did it again. This may not be your case because I have since found out that it is a known issue with XP, in fact there is a windows update called "Resuming from Standby Update", which is available on MS update site. Tryt installing that and hope it fixes it for you.

Hi Seth, I have an FX405 which is the UK equivalent of the FXA36. It came with XP home, and it did the same thing to me. I had been using the Webshots screensaver when it happened, so I changed that and it never did it again. This may not be your case because I have since found out that it is a known issue with XP, in fact there is a windows update called "Resuming from Standby Update", which is available on MS update site. Try installing that and hope it fixes it for you.