Keyboard Error Due To RAM-New to Me!!

DCGPX

DCGPX

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Ok I've never seen this before, anyone who can explain-brilliant!

I had a Sony Vaio NS20E in where the middle row of keys wouldnt work.

Asked usual - when did they stop, any spillage etc, customer says @Just stopped working'

So... very luckily I have the same model as my work lappy. Swapped keyboards, mine didn't work on hers, hers did on mine.

So next removed cover and checked hers and everything looked pristine no spillage whatsoever

Ok- Removed ALL extras, DVD, bluetooth etc and tried again, nope no joy middle row still not working.

Next, dont know why I tried this but... swapped out RAM..success worked OK!!

To check put everything back and checked again still OK. Put her RAM in mine and yes middle row stopped working on mine!

I have googled till I'm insane and cannot find anything like this!!

Anyone shed a light??

At moment I am sooo grateful I had same model as I cannot see me fixing this without a swap by swap comparison, I might even have put a motherboard in and still had same issue and at £210+VAT for board glad I didnt!!:eek:

Add - Checked her RAM with MemTest and Windows MemTest and TuffTest Pro(Old but I like it!) - All passed it as fine??
 
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Is this one ram chip or two?. If you switch the ram chips to opposite slots does the error go away or possibly move to different keys or some other system failure?.

Isolate the faulty ram chip and swap its slot with the good one and boot. Let us know if anything changes.
 
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Her's was one single 1GB stick that caused the problem ( mine has 2 1GB sticks)

I swapped to the other slot and still caused the problem

I still cant fathom how memory can affect a keyboard this way, everything else was working Ok, Windows did not report any errors whatsoever!

yet another twist, I tried a Live LinuxCD and still same!! Whatever this is its hardware!
 
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What I am trying to determine is if the keyboard driver or software related to that is sitting on a segment of the bad ram stick. Just moving a stick from one slot to another will not change the ram size and where a window of ram will be used, it needs to be relocated in the memory map and that can only be done with multiple sticks of ram:

Only 1gb stick in slot 1 = Only 1gb stick in slot 2 (same ram location usages)

1gb stick(a) in slot 1 and 1gb stick(b) in slot 2 does not equal 1gb stick(b) in slot 1 and 1gb stick(a) in slot 2 , the memory use and locations change.

If you can do this test you might be able to tell if its a software location issue in ram, which would be identical in failure to your machine (if everything else is pretty much the same).
 
Ok.. BIOS on this model very basic(Ver R1040Y3 AMI ver 1.23.1109) Never noticed as I havent had to touch mine. Had a year as well, well done Sony!.. and I mean basic! No options whatsoever, only one are load Optimised defaults and factory defaults. Tried both no difference to test.

That said here's what I've done.

Lets call her 1Gb stick A, My two(1Gb as well) B, C - First letter in slot 1, second slot 2

A+B = Fault
B+A = Fault
A+C = Fault
C+A = Fault

B+C = OK
C+B = OK

It seems wherever her's is used fault happens???

I wish I had another LT to try hers in, besides mine! I think I'll be keeping this stick to see what happens when I do.
 
And each time it has a fault its only those specific keys on her keyboard?. Is there anything about her ram chip that is very different that
yours. Like timings or ECC or something.

This is weird, its gonna keep me up tonight.
 
Yep, only ever the middle keys! I did the same combo on mine and it happens then as well.

As far as I can tell sticks are genuine as supplied by Sony, very similar to mine except for serials etc. She swears she hasn't touched and I believe her.

Me is very flumexed by this big style!
 
DCGPX said:
Yep, only ever the middle keys! I did the same combo on mine and it happens then as well.

As far as I can tell sticks are genuine as supplied by Sony, very similar to mine except for serials etc. She swears she hasn't touched and I believe her.

Me is very flumexed by this big style!
Click to expand...

Well, in the end its just a ram replacement and shes back in business but if this really is the only thing causing this keyboard failure we are all going to have to add this to the list of hundreds of bizarre things we have to try when diagnosing problems. I already have a couple dozen things I test that dont make sense but have occured on customers machines. Well, this is going on that list.
 
Yep, I honestly wish I could get to bottom of it though, I know I will be thinking about this for a while!

Thanks for your input though appreciated, I thought I was losing it!!!

As you say very bizarre but we move on and lock knowledge away for future use before the gremlins get it!
 
I had a similar experience with a Dell E521, the Dell had 1.5gig ram and the customer wanted it upgrading to 2gig, I supplied and fitted the ram, within a couple of days all manner of errors started to appear, the usb ports at the rear of the machine would stop working intermittantly, the network card stopped working, every time the machine booted up it would go to the boot menu screen. Eventually after troubleshooting for a day or two I removed the new stick of ram and all returned to normal, very strange but one i will remember.
 
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