Sony Vaio wont turn on after memory upgrade

[jwallace]

Hello, thanks in advance for your help

I upgraded the ram on Sony Vaio PCG F707 yesterday but I believe I have made a big mistake.

I bought 256mb ram 133mhz, problem is the laptop is designed to take 100mhz.

I put the 133mhz in not relising my mistake and now my computer wont switch on. The power light comes on and the harddrive light comes on and the HD makes a noise but nothing else happens. The DVD slot will open but thats it.

So far I tried putting the old ram back in, used the reset switch underneath but still no luck.

The ram is definately inserted correctly and it also works in my other laptop. (Which Im using now)

Any ideas on what the problem may be? Could the motherboard be fried? Or could there be a CPU problem?

Many thanks again for taking the time to read this.

[madoverclocker]

it's hard to tell, the mobo and cpu are the two most likely problems... but if it needs 100mhz ram the computer is probably too old to be worth repairing. if you can even find the parts.

[brchoate]

Hi jwallace,

Hopefully I can help you out a bit. I work at Kingston Technology. The act of putting a 133MHz module into a machine meant to use 100MHz in and of itself should not damage your machine. They have the same number of pins and use the same form factor. Typically the 133MHz should dumb itself down to 100MHz, but the 256MB 133MHz modules are finicky for some reason--if they aren't made with the correct chipset, then they don't downgrade and won't work.

I would try and see if you could reset the bios--maybe it got tweaked when you booted the 133MHz. Make sure the 100MHz chip is firmly and correctly inserted in the slot. Outside of that, it sounds more like you possibly have fried memory rather a fried MB. You could try picking up a new stick of 100MHz memory memory. If you want guaranteed compatibility you can always purchase directly from Kingston at www.kingston.com. It'll cost you a little more, but its guaranteed to work in your machine--which can be more of an issue with older "versions" of DRAM like PC100 and PC133 memory. Or you can just try and hunt down a PC100 stick.

Outside of that, if you got the dough, you might want to consider upgrading--we are about to see DDR3 hit the scene and that is three generations removed from PC100 memory.

Hope this helps!

Bryan
http://dukeofdram.blogspot.com/

Hello, thanks in advance for your help

I upgraded the ram on Sony Vaio PCG F707 yesterday but I believe I have made a big mistake.

I bought 256mb ram 133mhz, problem is the laptop is designed to take 100mhz.

I put the 133mhz in not relising my mistake and now my computer wont switch on. The power light comes on and the harddrive light comes on and the HD makes a noise but nothing else happens. The DVD slot will open but thats it.

So far I tried putting the old ram back in, used the reset switch underneath but still no luck.

The ram is definately inserted correctly and it also works in my other laptop. (Which Im using now)

Any ideas on what the problem may be? Could the motherboard be fried? Or could there be a CPU problem?

Many thanks again for taking the time to read this.