[Duane in Japan]

My Sony will not boot up unless I put pressure in the RAM chip, I have to remove the door on the bottom of the laptop, push a little and it boots up. I have sprayed the contacts on the RAM and the bottom of the board and socket. It has gotten worse over time, now I have put a soft item between the door and the RAM, screwed the door back into place (it is now bulged a little) and this constant pressure will allow the laptop to boot up and run just fine.

In the very beginning, the RAM would get hot and shut down the laptop, it took many tries to finally figure out that a little pressure would keep things working, even tried different RAM chip (new). Several repair places have never heard of such a thing, I am guessing its just a poor solder contact, either power or ground but want to run it through here before sending it in to Sony so they can make me pay for an entire motherboard and the labor to change it.

Now to throw in a curve, it has two RAM sockets and both of them do the same so I am guessing that it is not a RAM socket or RAM solder issue but a motherboard issue in that area. Ever heard of such a thing. Could just be a solder job but its over my head to tear it apart.

[Flytrap]

Sounds like a "dry joint" on the board mate. (see here for a detailed definition of the term - http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2....56F2500358412).

Like you have guessed it is a solder job. The best is to take it to an expert. If that is too costly and you are a bit technical it is possible to repair. I have managed this in my own laptop twice not (an 8 year old Compaq P3).

Best to get the technical manual for your Sony, you don't say what model but I guess one of the Vaio's. The manual will give you detailed info on how to strip the chassis.

Next you need a magnifying glass, a half decent soldering iron and a steady hand.

Reading this article will help: EPE "Basic Soldering Guide"

Start on the board in the vicinity of the memory slots. From your description of it getting worse and worse I would guess you have a fracture in the solder joint. This will show as fine fractures in the solder joint under a magnifying glass. Sometimes merely melting the joint again helps but it is better to remove the solder (using a solder sucker) and redo it. I would try this if I was confident enough, but a hack job is sometimes all that is possible if given the option between something that works and looking at a dead screen. :) I think the watchwords are "slowly", "carefully", "thoughtfully" and "patiently". In this way I have repaired many computers that others have written off.