Compaq Armada 3500 with bad onboard memory problem

[jyates]

Hi all,

Trying to work on a buddy's Compaq laptop and it appears that
the onboard memory (64mb) has a read/write error. You can't
install windows and when you try to do a scandisk it always
says that the drive size is not being reported correctly.

I took out the removeable memory sodimm and ran a compaq
diagnostic and ramexam and they both reported a read/write
error with the onboard memory.

Is this memory removeable from the motherboard or is it new
motherboard time for the Armada?

By the way.....I've changed out the hard drive just to make sure
I didn't have a flakey drive but that didn't make any difference.

Both the compaq diagnostic and ramexam find the read write
error in the onboard memory right away.

Thanks for any and all help!

Jim

 

[jyates]

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[fuxxociety]

This has the capability of getting into some really, REALLY technical stuff.

I'm not sure if your laptop has a way to simply disable the onboard memory, that would be the easiest and safest route. However, it's probably not possible.

It theoretically IS possible to replace the actual memory chips on the onboard RAM, however it takes some serious soldering skills if you can even find the chips. (think along the lines of replacing a memory chip on a SDRAM stick.)

aside from those two options, I think your only remaining option will be to replace the system mainboard.