Laptop won't start after memory upgrade!

I have a Sony Vaio S460 laptop.

Recently it had been lagging really bad, and so I was advised that it might be a power supply problem, or, another solution would be to upgrade the memory.

I went to my local computer store asking about it, and he recommended trying to upgrade the memory (I currently had two 256 MB memory sticks, for a total of 512). I told him my model number, and he pointed me to a Kingston 1 GB memory stick, and said he was pretty sure that it would be compatible. Since it was only $10, I bought two of them.

Ok, so I went ahead and replaced the two 256 MB memory sticks with my newly acquired 1 GB memory sticks. But after I put the laptop back together, and I pushed the power button, nothing showed up on the screen (although the lights indicated the power was at least on).

I went back and replaced one of the 1 GB with a 256 MB, but now in addition to the blank screen, it wasn't even showing the light that power was on!

At that point, I went ahead and put the other 256 MB stick in (so this would be how it was before I upgraded), and again, it wouldn't even turn on!

I took out the memory stick from inside the computer, and tried to have the computer turn on with just the 256 MB in the other slot, no luck. I tried to turn it on with the 1 GB in the other slot (and again, leaving the other slot empty), and still, no power!

What's going on?!?! I really hope it isn't something major, but I don't understand how it could be considering all I did was swap out the memory sticks, and even then, I went back to how it was and still no power.

I'm stumped.

 

Well first off are you sure it is compatible? Maybe something happened when you pushed the ram in.

Or unless your body had static and that area was fried....were you staticy?

 

I don't think I was staticy or fried anything in that manner. And I think the RAM are compatible, and I actually may be one step closer to figuring out the problem, though I don't know what to make of the following:

I took the battery out and any other connection, and held the power button for a few seconds. After that, without reinserting the batter, I only connected the adapter to the laptop, and it turned on! I have the new 1 GB or RAM, and it was recognized on my computer. So, at that point, I thought I was in the clear.

Except there still is a problem. I shut off the computer, reinsert the battery, but I was back to the same problem where the computer wouldn't turn on! So I figured maybe it's a bad battery, and since I have another one, I went to try the other. Still didn't work. I unhooked the adapter, took out the battery, held the power button for a few seconds, hooked the adapter back in, and again, the computer worked fine.

What's the problem? How could both batteries be bad? When I initially tried to put the two new sticks of RAM, the computer would power on, but have a blank screen. After that, I didn't get anything. I may have changed the battery in both instances, but logically only one of then would be bad at this point since the computer didn't even work except for that one time.

Suggestions?

 

actually the interesting thing is you were suppose to that BEFORE you installed the ram press the power button with no battery that lets out all the additional power.

I think that's actually whats wrong, maybe if you had taken out the battery before maybe this wouldn't have happened that is an assumption of course.

Installing the ram without taking out the battery/ pressing power button for a couple of seconds may have somehow caused a problem with your battery...if i find anything i will let you know, good luck

 

And I've been kicking myself over it. This was the second time I had to open up my laptop. The first time was a few weeks ago for something else, and I thoroughly read through the instructions (including the very first step that said after taking out the batter, hold the power button for a few seconds before going through with everything).

This time, while I did remove the battery before I did everything, I forgot to hold down the power button before I went through with everything.

The only thing is, I can understand how that may have messed up one battery, but what about the other one? After I got the blank screen (but the power still turned on), I went through and put the original RAM back in, and then put in a different battery. Except when I turned on the computer with that setup, I didn't get any power at all, so I don't know how that battery would have been effected.

Thanks for your efforts, hopefully you can help me out further because I'm really confused!

(Is there anything wrong with running off just the adapter with no battery inserted? Seems strange, and obviously it wouldn't be portable, but I'm just curious.)

 

Unless you have a power failure - in which case you'd loose data - there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the laptop with just the AC supply and no battery.

(Think about is as a weak desktop)

 

To answer the bold question no, there isn't anything wrong many people actually do that.

Well something is probably wrong with the area where the battery goes in not the battery itself but that golden area from the notebook.

Have you found any kind of fix of yet?