Removing the cover from a VGC-RC102 tower PC

[jad222]

I have a Sony Vaio VGC-RC102  tower PC which has 1GB of RAM but should take 2GB. In order to extend its life I plan to upgrade the RAM but am currently being frustrated by my inability to remove the cover from the tower unit.

The user manual describes removing 2 screws from the left hand panel and then pulling this panel off. This doesn't seem to work and as the graphic for this operation doesn't look like my unit it's very difficult to be sure that I am doing the right thing. I've now removed all 5 screws from the cover but nothing seems to want to budge and I'm reluctant to use any force for fear of damaging the unit. In the past when I've removed covers from tower or desktop PCs they've come off quite easily ... Any ideas or advice please?

[DuncanLMT]

Hi,

after reading this thread i have tried to upgrade the memory in my VGC RC 102.

I've got two 1gb sims from amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-ValueRAM-533MHz-DDR2-Non-ECC/dp/B0002H0CQS/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&i...

do these look correct, i took a chance on 1gbs as you have had success.

They were not recognised on booting, i put them in the slots occupied by the 512's and moved those the the spare slots. I tried taking out the 512's and the system just beeped.

Is there anything i need to do?

my intention is to install win7 and was hoping to get the memory working in XP beforehabd.

I hope you can help,

thanks inadvance,

Duncan

[jad222]

Duncan

Sorry, I used 2 additional 512Mb modules in addition to the original 2 already installed to get my 2GB. Once I could get to the slots these installed very easily and worked straight away.

I now have to decide whether to go the whole hog with Jon's suggestion of upgrading to Windows 7 and then 4GB.

By the way I also managed to sell my 2Gb module on eBay and got most of my meny back.

Julie

[jad222]

Hi Jon

I have decided to go with the Windows 7 upgrade and over the weekend I started to look into the memory possibilities however when I contacted support at the Mr Memory  website re the right chips they infomed me that the PC has a motherboard limitation of 2GB and that even upgrading to Windows 7 64 bit wouldn't alter that.

Obviously I don't want to go spending money on memory chips I won't be able to use or worse wreck the PC in the process of the upgrade. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thanks

Julie

[forza749s]

deleted

Message was edited by: forza749s

[JonStroud]

Hi Julie and Duncan

OK - first of all, here's the inevitable disclaimer... I'm not a techie person! I've figured this out myself by doing a bit of research and making a few educated decisions!

Julie - I would imagine that Mr Memory are just covering themselves. I ran a scan on my computer to establish what sort of motherboard was being used with the Pentium D processor (which, as already mentioned in a previous post, is dual core 64 bit). The scan revealed that its an Intel PRAGUE AAD12395-206.

There's a good scan routine here... http://www.memoryx.net/

Checking into this a bit further revealed that the PRAGUE can handle up to 4GB of RAM

http://www.offtek.co.uk/ram-memory-2/intel/intel-motherboard-memory/prague/mid115420

System Specifications

Standard Memory 512MB (Removable) Maximum Memory 4GB Number of Slots 4 Slots (4 Banks of 1) Notes If 4GB of memory is installed then the system may only recognise 3.5GB or less. To recognise more than 4GB of memory, a 64-bit Operating System is required

Note the last bit... if a 64-bit OS is being used

Duncan, this would answer your question too. I reckon you're memory is not being recognised because of the limitations of the 32 bit XP operating system.

So, to summarise...

I'm running W7 64bit with 4GB on board all of which is being recognised.

Hope that helps!

[jad222]

Hi

The latest stage in my saga of upgrading this PC is that it is now successfully running Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium and I have installed 4 x 1GB ram modules all of which are recognised. However, I have just noticed on the system properties screen that only 3.25GB are showing as usable despite the 64-bit O/S.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

Julie