pcg-fx103 memory slot 2 no longer functions, any ideas?

[jifster]

Hi people,

I've had my trusty vaio since 2000 but recently it stopped recognising the memory in slot 2 and I presumed my memory had died. I purchased another dimm but this was also not seen. The memory works as i've used it in my other vaio, a pcg-fx401.

Any idea's why a dimm slot would stop working? I've tried brushing it out and blowing, but there is no dust in there.

The strange thing was it was intermitent for a week or two, sometimes booting with the extra memory but now it does not every see that dimm in that slot.

I run xp on this laptop as I did not like windows ME, I installed all the drivers as per the vaio help pages but I dont think this is software related unless it's a bios thing?

Thanks for any info, apart from this my vaio is a very trust worthy machine.

Kind regards too all and a merry christmas.

[William]

I would suspect that you are experiencing the dreaded Memory Slot Problem which affects several Vaio models.

Assuming my diagnosis is correct Sony would replace the Motherboard for you (Very expensive) or you could try to find someone capable of resoldering the DIMM slot.

Conversely, you may find that your Vaio will continue working indefinately albeit with only one working memory slot.

My own advice would be to leave the "faulty" slot empty otherwise you will experience intermittent non-booting and lockups.

[kee-lo_]

This is one of the biggest problems with VAIOs, memory issues, and Sony have never had the decency to admit they were wrong.

[carthorian]

This is one of the biggest problems with VAIOs, memory issues, and Sony have never had the decency to admit they were wrong.

Actually Sony recommends letting them do your memory upgrading. I believe they even state it is obligated as waranty will be lost when you open the machine yourself. If you let Sony upgrade your memory and there is a problem, they will fix it.

Sony simply doesn't care if you want to change something about your laptop yourself, as they think it is done by amateurs and you caused the problem.

Personnaly I configure and assemble about 5 pc's a day for work, so I understand everyone's point of doing it yourself and that you have the know-how. But otherwise as member of a company, I don't like working on computers that other people, often amateurs, have opened up and screwed some things up and then blaming the company.

So if there is a malfunction, just send it to Sony and they will take care of it, if you did it in the first place, you would have had less problems, but ofcourse I know people don't like that.

In my opinion a laptop (especially VAIO) is a complete product and you do not change anything about it yourself. The notebook market hasn't evolved enough for that I believe.

I hope your memory upgrade will be succesful eventually.

Good luck and Merry Christmas

[jifster]

Thanks for all your replies on this subject. Looks like I will just do with the one slot, it's not exactly unusable but it would have been nice to use the 2nd slot since xp is a little slow with just 256mb and when I installed Nortons system works it ground to a halt it was so slow, I uninstalled that monster and am now looking for a virus checked with a smaller footprint.

I may try to install win2k and see if I can find all the drivers needed. Someone on ebay was selling a pcg-fx103 recently and said he uses win2k on it with no problem.

As for sending a laptop back to Sony to upgrade the memory, I may not be an engineer but I do build my own desktop machines without a problem and certainly know how to put memory in but I guess the point about Sony repairing it if it malfunctioned is valid but probably not so far out of warrenty as the laptop is 6 years old now. When I bought the laptop it had 64mb which was almost unusable even back then.

[William]

This is one of the biggest problems with VAIOs, memory issues, and Sony have never had the decency to admit they were wrong.

Actually Sony recommends letting them do your memory upgrading. I believe they even state it is obligated as waranty will be lost when you open the machine yourself. If you let Sony upgrade your memory and there is a problem, they will fix it.

Sony simply doesn't care if you want to change something about your laptop yourself, as they think it is done by amateurs and you caused the problem.

Personnaly I configure and assemble about 5 pc's a day for work, so I understand everyone's point of doing it yourself and that you have the know-how. But otherwise as member of a company, I don't like working on computers that other people, often amateurs, have opened up and screwed some things up and then blaming the company.

So if there is a malfunction, just send it to Sony and they will take care of it, if you did it in the first place, you would have had less problems, but ofcourse I know people don't like that.

In my opinion a laptop (especially VAIO) is a complete product and you do not change anything about it yourself. The notebook market hasn't evolved enough for that I believe.

I hope your memory upgrade will be succesful eventually.

Good luck and Merry Christmas

Sony do not encourage upgrading and are usually unwilling to help or advise. However, they do publish instructions for installing DIMM modules.

I personally doubt that even if Sony were paid to fit an overpriced "Sony" DIMM that they they would be sympathetic if the DIMM socket failed some time after the warranty expired..

[kee-lo_]

I think you'd have to be pretty crazy to let Sony do it, for a start they'd want at least £100 for just the delivery, then £200 for 512MB then service charges, by that time I could buy another laptop

In the GRX days they told you how to do it, and that was it

This is not related to inproper installation anyway, it's because they don't know how to solder