A couple of days ago my computer froze multiple times in a row, each time more quickly after startup.  It started freezing while I was just starting to type my login.  Finally it simply wouldn’t boot at all, even though the power was on. 

I tried reseating the memory (no good) and then removed half the memory (512 of a 1 GB set).  That worked.  I also tested the broken 512 module in a working PCG-TR3AP, which then refused to boot, so clearly that module is dead.

I then replaced the 512 module with a new one, and things appeared to be back to normal.  But today it bluescreened (“system error”, event ID 1003, category 102) while I was browsing normally.

Should I be concerned that more serious hardware problems are in the works?  Has anyone seen this pattern before?  Do you have suggestions for how to diagnose?

Any advice would be much appreciated…

Sorry to hear about the problems you’re having. I was gonna suggest resetting the laptop. Have you tried that. There is a small pin hole next to the XP sticker on the bottom of the laptop. Personally speaking, that has saved me once when my laptop just shutdown and wouldnt bootup again. Hope everything works out for you. Good Luck.

KK!

Thanks for the suggestion!

I see the hole, but what exactly needs to be done—hold it down for several seconds, with the computer on or off? powered or not?

And more generally, what does a hard reset do for the machine?  What kind of configuration will I need to do after the hard reset?  Are there any values I need to note down before a hard reset?

I just ran a memory test (memtest86+), by the way, which came back with no memory errors on the first pass.