i have a sony vaio PCG-FXA53 that stopped working a few months ago and it's the infamous memory solder problem, i suspect. you can find other users with the same problem here.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/5449

it's just a 256mb stick in the socket A and it doesn't boot at all. moving it to the socket B doesn't do anything. i cleaned the contacts on the ram and the socket and it was booting for about 5 seconds, showing the sony logo for the first time in 3 months, but then it went dead again and it's never booted since.

this guy seems to have fixed the same problem on his but i'm not too experienced with soldering tools.

http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/sony_laptop_fix.html

i'm looking at mine and at its solder legs and they're so tiny that i'm not sure i can do anything with them.

if you have some experience with notebook repairs, please post your opinions.

2/12/2006 8:55:39 PM

I think my laptop has the same kind of problem. Looks like I'll need to take a look at all of this stuff as well.

2/12/2006 9:44:42 PM

Won't the manufacturer fix this?

2/12/2006 10:20:41 PM

what I hear is that sony will charge $600 - 700 for soldering... what their defective machines forgot to solder at their manufacturing factory.

i've looked a bit more into it. i might buy a 60-100x microscope for this and try to find the problematic solder legs myself. only $8 - 10 at radioshack.

2/13/2006 12:00:14 AM

Mine will post if I put the memory chip in the slot farthest from the back, but it will then lock up when in Windows.

I'm guessing both my memory slot is bad and the memory stick is probably at least a little fucked too.

2/13/2006 12:47:17 AM

I bet any console modder could do this

2/13/2006 10:23:11 AM

I have a feeling the solder points on an XBOX are larger than a 200pin SODIMM memory slot.

2/13/2006 10:26:27 AM

you'd have a wrong feeling

2/13/2006 10:41:20 AM

are you kidding me?


http://www.psxtune.com/xbox/images/duox2/wire.jpg

http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2005/1577/sodimm_slot.jpg

2/13/2006 10:47:18 AM

yeah you can solder the xbox with a lighter and a philips head car screwdriver


ok upon actually looking at the link in the first post, anyone who has ever moded a ps2 could do this

[Edited on February 13, 2006 at 12:32 PM. Reason : . all bets are still off with regards to the sexbox]

[Edited on February 13, 2006 at 12:43 PM. Reason : .]

2/13/2006 12:28:40 PM

The PS2 is only marginally more difficult.

Unless I'm looking at the wrong mod here.
http://www.modchipstore.com/files/ps2/magic5k6/magic5k6position.jpg

The SODIMM looks like it would be damn near fucking impossible without some serious fucking tools.

2/13/2006 12:37:19 PM

well i just took my roomies laptop apart and looked at it

its about like soldering on a nand flash chip, except its got 1233123123 more contacts

2/13/2006 12:44:02 PM

sorry, I modded my xbox with the original 12 wire chip that had connections all over the board. (well I tried to anyway) pc-bioxx or whatever from germany.

2/13/2006 1:43:16 PM

Granted it is the memory slot problem, I'll fix it for a flat fee of $65.

2/13/2006 9:06:16 PM

i dunno what carl's smoking, but before it wears off, i'd jump on that deal.

[Edited on February 15, 2006 at 1:43 AM. Reason : ]

2/15/2006 1:43:07 AM