maybe its time to talk to sony? or get a decent laptop like an ibm thinkpad
;O)

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
This is a saga! I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FX215 notebook computer that came
with 128mb of RAM. The machine came with Windows ME, but a year ago, I
reformatted the HD and installed XP Pro. A month ago, I ordered another
128mb module from Kingston Technology. (By the way, Sony recommends them,
and Crucial Technology to customers who want to buy more RAM). The
computer
has two slots, and a limit of 256mb.

Anyway....with the 2nd module added, the computer runs for random periods
of
time, sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes a couple of hours, and then freezes
in
the middle of whatever I'm doing. No blue screen, no error messages. It
just
stops responding completely. Not funny.

Kingston apparently saw this as a challenge - they were terrific in terms
of
trying various different modules, and finally sending me a single 256mb
module to try. That didn't work, either. Other things we tried:

- All Sony drivers (including BIOS) were updated to the ones specified as
compatible with WinXP. (Machine froze)
- Old & new modules were swapped between the two slots, in case position
was
important. (Machine froze)
- Two identical Kingston 128mb modules were tried, in case there was a
mismatch with the original Sony module. (Machine froze)
- Ran one Kingston 128mb module at a time. Machine did NOT freeze.
- Ran one Kingston 256mb module with other slot empty. (Machine froze)

Finally, Kingston gave up. I just received a 256mb chip from Crucial
Technology. Same problem. The machine doesn't seem to like running with
256mb of RAM. Is there anything I can tweak in WinXP to deal with this, or
does it seem more like a hardware issue?