Notebook Video Ram broken. Now?

[Ape]

Well,
In December 2004 I both A Vaio VGN-A215M.
After 10 days I deleted Windows Xp to put gentoo linux.
On gentoo, my vaio works nicely. Everythinks worked fine, wireless and ati (accelerated) too.

Yestarday, I power on my vaio, I leave it alone on my desk and I had lunch, but when I coming back the screen shows some artifacts.
I shutdown the system and then I power on the device. There wasn't any artifcats then, but 3 hour ago I switch on the vaio and the screen result in graphical corruption.

In my opinion the corruption was generated of a bad video ram, also because the logo Vaio at the beginning of bootup is corrupted(the bios menu is also corrupted). The corruptions is always different so I shure that the problem isn't a monitor lcd.
Now if I switch on the laptop, sometimes there is no artifacts, but after 2 minutes the artifacts returned.

Now I have some questions...

Does my Vaio's warranty cover this?
Can sony fix the ram video or it must replace laptop?
Is there any problems with warranty because I put in linux?

Thanks and sorry for my really bad english.

[kee-lo_]

Yes, the warranty will cover this - but you must restore the machine to when ti arrived - or they'll say Linux is your problem and probably try not to help

[Ape]

This is a big problem for me.

I can't restore anything because I deleted the resore/backup partition and I have no cd.
If it helps I can put a normal Windows Home edition and drivers.

P.s. the linux is not the problem, also because bios and the "Vaio"Logo is loaded BEFORE any operating system.

Thank you very much.

[kee-lo_]

Hmmmmmm
Well I would install XP Home and your drivers, they don't support Linux at Sony, thats why I advise to do this.

If they find no fault they'll charge you, so doing this will lower this chance

[Ape]

2 hours ago I tried to put Windows Xp Home on it, but the installation hangs at the really beginning, I think it is for video card problem.
Now the corruption is heavy and I can't see anything(except some colors and some lines)on the screen, vaio logo is corrupted too.

I hope the warranty cover this even if I put linux on vaio.

[rich912]

Ape,

Just format the hard disk and then tell Sony that the re-installation will not work. You should then be OK with the warranty issue.

[kee-lo_]

Yep, say the display is so corrupted (as it is) so you couldn't reinstall