sony vaio pcv m370

[deji]

hello i was wondering if it;s posible to upgrade the bios on my sony vaio pcv m370.i just got it from a friend and when i tried instaling windows 2000 and winxp on it i got a message that says "the bios is not acp compliant" i finally instaled winxp by pressing f7 during the loading if winxp setup files

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by deji hello i was wondering if it;s posible to upgrade the bios on my sony vaio pcv m370.i just got it from a friend and when i tried instaling windows 2000 and winxp on it i got a message that says "the bios is not acp compliant" i finally instaled winxp by pressing f7 during the loading if winxp setup files

Windows XP and 2000 should be able to install anyway. It doesn't matter that the laptop isn't compatible with ACPI; you'll just lose some of Windows's power management features because of it. I don't think a BIOS update would fix the problem, but there may be an option in the BIOS to turn ACPI on and off, so you can look around in it and see if there is one.

[deji]

yes i finally suceded in instaling winxp the only snag is when it shuts down i have to press the power buton before it goes off and for a reason i dont know the 128mb ram is detected as 64mb even in "power on self test"

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by deji yes i finally suceded in instaling winxp the only snag is when it shuts down i have to press the power buton before it goes off and for a reason i dont know the 128mb ram is detected as 64mb even in "power on self test"

Wait, you're running Windows XP on 64 MB of RAM? A RAM upgrade would definitely be a big performance boost.

As for having to press the power button after you shut down the computer... Yeah, that happens when the computer isn't ACPI compiant. It's no biggie in my opinion, though.

[deji]

hi u got me wrong am certainly not running winxp on 64mb of ram the problem is d chip is a 128mb chip but the board sees it as 64mb the chip is seen as 128mb on my other system

[glc]

Then that 128mb module is not compatible with your system. Your machine probably requires low density SDRAM, and your 128mb module is probably high density. Crucial does not list that model in their configurator, so I'm just guessing here. I personally do not recommend running 2K or XP on a non-ACPI bios anyway.

[deji]

k but how do i differentiate a high density mobule from a low density module and culd u pls exlain the difference between pc100 and pc133 ram

[glc]

Density refers to the amount of memory cells on each chip on the module. Most newer production SDRAM is high density, it's cheaper to make, but older motherboards can't handle it. You can't tell just by *looking* at the module.

PC100 and PC133 refer to the design bus speed.

[TheJackal]

How old is this laptop?

It may not be worth it to upgrade... You may be better off running Windows 9x with 64mb of RAM, then paying for a large upgrade on an old machine.

[deji]

it;s not a laptop its a sony vaio the model no is pcv m370 and has an amd k6 processor running at 400mhz