Is my Mom dying just because she is losing her memory?

I've been told by a computer shop my motherboard is dying because it will only read one of two memory strips.

Sony Vaio Laptop
2yrs old
Pent 4
2.56 GHZ Processor
768 Ram installed
512 or 256 actual read. depends on which slot I use. Only one slot can be read, but both sticks can be read in the one good slot. Plus I have tried two other know good 256k sticks as well. same results

ctrl+shift scrambles my keyboard really bad as well. I can be typing along and accidently hit those mbdjg ,ajdhcsgac ,nbcl,halbh ,mabcxlgreob x ljbddb See what I mean?

Before I ship this to Sony for motherboard replacement, is that the true sign of my motherboard dying? If so, is it even worth replacing a mother board? The computer cost $3200 new and is now crap. Not to mention the docking station that will not fit any newer Viaos that was expensive as well. Plus the 2 batteries, the custom bag for the big screen. I tied a lot on money up in this laptop.

Well doctors, what is your diagnosis? Call a funeral home, or radiation treatment?

I have no clue what it cost to replace a motherboard, but only Sony can do it I am told.

 

if it is 2 years old, you may still be under warranty with Sony. I'd look into this first.

that said, if your RAM slots are bad, its clearly your motherboard's problem. this doesnt mean the rest of it will die, but if you are under warranty you should definetly get it fixed while you can. by the specs posted, i wouldnt call that crap, its still a decent laptop

 

No warranty. I'm cheap like a dummy when it comes to warranties.

I just finished setting up a network that consist of two new Dell Insperion 9200's loaded to the gills for performance. I ordered them when I was told my motherboard was dying because I cannot be without a computer for more than a day of my business could be in jeporday. I was cheap with the warranty on those as well. 1 yr standard. I wonder if Dell would let me upgrade my warranties? I bought a couple flat screens and docking stations and batteries as well. $7200 for it all. maybe I need to quit being so cheap when it comes to warranties

 

what made this hole problem start just won day you noticed less ram or trying to put more in or what... somtimes the ram just might not be getting counted correct...

 

Poor performance. Sept I had to hire a company to reload the operating system and reinstall all my stuff. I needed it done quickly. At that time I had 512 ram. I decided to guy another stick and for about 2 months or so things went well. Then poor performance for another month. Finally I decided to look at the properties on My Computer and that was when I realize 256 megs of ram were not being counted. I think it finally croaked 5 minutes ago. I can hear it running. Nothing appears on the screen. Not even a blue screen. I didn't have everything I needed off of it yet.

 

dont worry, all the data is still on the hard drive and can easily be taken off. to my understanding, you have been operating it without the 'invisible' stick of RAM, correct? i guess try turning it on again after it cools down and see if you get anything... good luck to you

 

...laptops can be real picky on compatable ram ....i think your having software problems ..so what if if if if you have a bad ram bay that would be odd you would have to be very unlucky or damaged it yourself..look at the slot make sure its not dirty or anything take the new stick see if it works with out the old one ....that is not going to make your computer die....give us more info ....what is this computers job were does it sit is it on a network was it a good company that worked on it and most of all does it have alot of people using it diffrent people ...this working better from month to month thing is odd.....256 megs of ram its resonable the computer should be able to work just fine with that ......i'm going to for software problems ....and it lieing about how much ram you really have or the two sticks don't work togeather ....see what the bios says for a ram count...check your hard drive space too ......

 

I took it to the computer shop. It is the mother board. Put in one good stick on one slot and nothing. Switched slots booted up. I powered down just to check one more time. Nothing on boot. You could hear but not see. The tech said he was confident that the mother board is gone. Took out my hard drive and sold me a hard drive case with USB cable to run it from my Dell. We should of opened the case at the shop. Does not fit the fittings on the hard drive. I suspect he did not sell me a laptop hard drive case. Anyway, they are open tomorrow and it appears my hard drive will be accessible once I get the right case.

I'll call Sony tomorrow and if it is under $1k to replace the mb, I guess it would still be worth fixing considering the money already put into it.

The computer's job was a work horse. Multi task computer that ran all office programs, and when office 2003 was installed, major slow down, and graphic programs and web wysiwyg, and some databases. It was not unusual to have 10 or more windows going at any time. Often stayed on for days at a time.

Here is what I suspect happened.

During hurricane Ivan, (my personal Ivan web page http://blameivan.com complete with several I10 bridge pics, and other IVAN things, I took from the water) we evacuated and I forgot to get the power source. So I bought one of those one size fits all at radio shack. It didn't work right. Intermittent between battery and power for three days before I could get back and get the right power source. I have since found out that the voltages are different from mfg to mfg power sources, and using those one size things were not a good idea. Anyhow, it has been down hill since.

I think that intermittent thing is what caused the problem because that is when the performance problems started as well. The very first day matter of fact. 3 days after Ivan I had a tech come in that was able to get to where we were and he backed up everything, fdisked, and reinstalled in about 7 hours on a Saturday. So $800 later I was back in business. That IVAN surchard was pretty big. It appeared to do better until norton 2004 was installed over 2003. I thought it Norton and Office 2003 were the reasons for all the sudden freezes, and reboots, which it is very unusual to have a lot of freezes with XP. I figured Norton hijacked my computer, until the day I discovered only one slot would read memory when there were two slots with memory in them. Past few days several serious error recoveries. I was just hoping for one more day before it quit. Bio count was 1000 mb. Which is what my 2 new Dells have in them. HD still had 60 gigs space. Only 40 gigs used.

 

thats ruff......well it happens ....

 

Ultra Compact External 2.5 USB disk cases. I didn't even know anything like this existed. $39.95 pulled the hd out of Vaio, put in this case and plug USB cable into new computer and I'm back in business. I also found how I am going to do my backups while going through this. I'm going to get another one of these cases and a hard drive and Norton Ghost. I'm told Ghost can be automated to backup at pre defined times. Hook this up to the server where I am backing up these new computers and ghost to the case and hard drive. Intranet server needed a way for backup because of shared programs we use in office. So all in all this has been a good learning lesson and problem solver. I didn't know of a way to automate backups of the server.

Todd

 

This may or may not be applicable or useful, but...
Some motherboards have 2 types of slots (mine does!) but you can not have memory in BOTH at the same time. Also you can not mix and match memory types.
Make sure you ahve the correct memory and that you have it in the correct place and that it is compatible with your other memory.