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Free Tech Support Part 2
Do you have questions about computers, software, networking, or the Internet? Any current problems or issues? Need recommendations? Let me help. You can ask a question by posting a comment to this post. Try to be as specific as possible. The more details the better. Ask away!
ANSWERED 5/7/08
Question:
John asked, "I formatted my computer because it was slow (going to 100% CPU usage constantly for no reason), sometimes everything would just freeze. After formatting, the computer seemed ok for a bit but then started being slow again. I just had 2 1-gigabytes of RAM put in, replacing the 2 512s I had. It SEEMS to be faster but when I start Windows, the sound is distorted like it's struggling. A diagnosis done by Best Buy confirmed everything is ok and working. Even with 2 gigabytes, it is still slow. I have a 1.73 ghz Pentium M running on Windows XP with 60 gigabytes hard disk My question is: is it possible my hard drive might need to be replaced?To be more specific, my computer is the Sony Vaio FS980"
Answer:
Thank you John for including all of the details. The details you provided makes it easier to diagnose the problem. First of all, I guess you bought your Sony laptop before reading my post about how Sony products suck. In any case, if you do a clean install of Windows XP and you are still experiencing the same issues that is not a good sign because it looks to me like a hardware problem. But before we go on, are you sure that after the clean install of Windows XP, you didnt install anything else? I just want to eliminate the fact that maybe some software programs you are installing are causing the issue. So if its a laptop hardware issue, I would say that it's either the memory (RAM) or the hard drive. You said that you changed out the memory, so that eliminates that. So it might well be the hard drive. But before you go and throw more money at it, Im not sure if its really worth it. You took it over to best buy and had them check it out. You bought 2GB of laptop memory, which aint cheap. And next you might "try" to fix it by replacing the hard drive? Here is my advice:
- Try Googling and see if anyone else is having similar issues.
- Call Sony support to see if they have anything useful to say.
- You can try installing some programs that specifically test out the different parts of the computer (ie. Memory, Video Card, Hard Drive) to figure out which part is having problems.
- You can try swapping out parts, but that might be difficult and expensive.
- Sell your laptop.
- Get a Dell laptop instead. I can help you find one :)
Labels: computer
5.07.2008 ::
8 comments
