Uprading HD and RAM to replace the factory ones...bad idea?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=52299

Somebody please help me. I am not getting any support whatsoever. I upgraded the HD and RAM, over the ones that came with the unit when bought. Does that at all void the warranty? Anyways, please read that link above as I need ideas on what to do, what to try to solve this problem. I dont know if its the HD, the RAM, a software O/S issue or what.

 

at least for dell, upgrading the ram and hd doesn't void the warranty, they just won't support those components.

 

im guessing i have to reformat, to find out. either that or i go out and buy another ram and hd to test and try.

 

Have you tested the ram and HD? Use HD Tune to test your HD and see if its healthy and performing well. For the ram use Rightmark memory analyzer. Make sure everything is fine.

Where did you make your purchases and what brands did you buy?

Dell should be willing to help you though maybe not on the stuff you upgraded.
You can also as a last resort stop by a local shop to have it looked at/repaired but that can be expensive.
A reformat may be a good move also if that doesn't work keep working on it.

 

Yeah, try reformatting and see if that fixes it, if it doesnt then it might hint at some other issue. Upgrading the hard drive or the RAM should not(in most cases) void the warranty. I dont know about Sony but most manufacturers condsider the RAM atleast as user upgradable. Was the RAM and HDD bays easily accessible in your laptop? If that is the case then Sony really shouldnt have any problems with diagnoising the issue. If the problem lies with the HDD or the RAM, then you'll need to follow up with the respective manufacturers.

 

I still cant figure out what it is. I just reformated and all of a sudden it was working until 2hrs ago...where the entire system just crawled down to a snail. 15mins to shut down, wow. It might have been this spyware that somehow got on though. I tried doing a restore back to when I just reformatted using the windows system restore but it keeps freezing (mouse still moves though), but what I did was listened to the HD and it would eventually sound like its stuttering or stuck or something.

So I dont know, is my HD toast? Can spyware/virus cause something like this? Not being able to do system restore through windows?

I dont know if I should go out buy a new stick of RAM or HD, reformat again or what? But whatever it is, its really starting to drive me nuts/

 

first what i would like to know is, im running HDtune and rightmark mem. an. right now but is this 100% proof whether or not my HD or ram has gone bad?

 

Yes both the RAM and HD were easily accessable.

The ram is Spectec and the HD is Samsung. Ya I know, not the best of brands. I really should have gone with Seagate and Kingston.

But the first step is to find out if its the Ram, HD, maybe the computer itself who knows, or just OS.

 

I just finished the tests. I would imagine for the ram, its just the stability test that im looking for right?

It passed that without any errors.

Same with the HD test.

So what does this mean?

 

..............

 

sound is skipping too, even after reboots.....and the startup and shutdown take noticeably longer. im really suspecting it being the HD, i will find out tommorow as im having it replaced.

I cant see the ram causing this or else it would have lagged right from when i reformatted.

 

I would suspect the HDD. Slow shutdown and general sluggishness might indicate imminent HDD failure. Although there might be other causes this is exactly the same symptoms I observed when my older Toshiba HD died. So, I would tend to believe it is the HDD. But any HDD monitoring software should be able to recognise any HDD related issues due to the SMART feature present in most HDD. Does Samsung have any HDD diagnostic utilities on their site to test HDD?? If so that might give you any errors that might be due to the hard drive.

 

Sounds like a tough problem to diagnose, but I doubt its RAM related, if you want can run another ram test program called Memtest86.

Question, when you've had these problems have you tried looking at your 'Event Viewer'? Its in your Control Panel, under Administrative Tools. When you go to the Event Viewer, check on System Logs. It should show errors logged when you had your problems.

My guess is that it is probably your HD based on what you have said so far. A bad/failing HD will have problems no matter what even if you reinstall. Bad as in bad sectors or failing parts.