You’ve really taken a shine to fixing laptops, I see. A bit of information: No, DDR3L is not a step higher than DDR3. It’s a subtype, a “low-voltage” type, designed for efficiency. It draws 1.35 volts, compared to regular DDR3 which draws 1.5 volts. Also, there are two classes: DIMM (dual in-line memory module, used in desktop PCs) and SO-DIMM (small outline dual in-line memory module, used in laptops). DDR5 hasn’t been released to the mainstream yet, but it’s right at the doorstep. At this moment, DDR4 is the de-facto standard, but I’m certain DDR5 will take that mantle before long. POST stands for “Power-On Self-Test”; it is an integral part of the BIOS, and one of the first things (if not *the* first thing) to start before all else. One of the main things it does is locate, measure and verify the memory. The pin that was broken is one of the datalines, specifically a data strobe line (each line has a corresponding “inverted” line, which is used to filter out any noise; both lines will have opposing signals, but identical noise patterns. It’s kinda akin to the “twisted-pair”-method used in Ethernet cables: each line for each pair transfer opposing voltages, but the noise entering them will be nearly identical, so simply taking the voltage differences will yield the original signal. It’s called “Differential Signaling”). I believe the tiny white things they’re connected to behave like the tiny black things on the PS4 that connect the data lines of the HDMI port to the retimer chip: they contain twisted pairs of copper wires for Differential Signaling. In general, though: no RAM, no boot, even when one half of a data line is broken. POST is extremely strict, and with all the electromagnetic noise our devices are subjected to (and subject others and even *themselves* to), balanced lines and Differential Signaling have become a strict necessity.

Who else watches Vince just to see him fix things I don’t know why but He just makes it so entertaining

He fixed a ram stick that's awesome.

Merry Christmas Vince and once again thank you so much for all the entertainment throughout this year. Just know you and your channel are really appreciated. Thank you!!!

Yes, yes, YES a Sony VAIO video ! As a Sony VAIO collectioner, I love videos like these.

You're a Certified Sony tech.

I got my sister a used Thinkpad x260 with i7 - seller said the screen was dead, so I got it pretty cheap. Inspired by your videos, I felt confident enough to fix it.^^ Turned out, the seller tried to replace the screen but didn't disconnect the battery - a 0402 SMD fuse blow. This was the first time I ever soldered something so small. Now I'm just waiting for replacement parts from china for the chassis, and then I can gift it to her. :) Thanks a lot for your videos, merry christmas and a happy new year!

Fantastic!!!! =D So glad you remembered the kapton tape! Perfect job!!! Those bits of plastic on the memory contacts there, maybe it was due to the connection arcing a little, which melted a tiny bit of the plastic around the pins in the socket?!? Either that or perhaps it had been fixed at factory and covered with something, and due to the repeat failure in that spot the covering melted away?!? Have a fantastic Christmas Vince =D Here's looking forward to 2021 being better than 2020!

Just watched a couple of your MacBook fails as I work through your old stuff, nice to see a victory and such an unlikely one.

DDR3L isn't the next one on from DDR3, it's just a lower-power version with some better self-refresh stuff.

You are the only reliable customer service who don't even ask for money (at least not enormous ammount)

Didn’t realise how much satisfaction I get from Vinces reaction to fixing something #YESSS

Richard's "friend" didn't want Vince to see all of the iffy pictures of his wife, hence Richard removed his "friend's" hard drive to save his "friend's" blushes. What a great thoughtful, considerate & discrete guy Richard is.................................

Just so you know, you've inspired me to try my hand at a lot of repairing in 2020, I saved a lot of stuff from the bin, consoles, controllers, etc. So, thank you very much.

I know this is 2 years old , but a good practice with laptops that dont turn on or on and off is to always first check for bad ram sticks. Saved me a lot of time fixing things over the years

I love how you said that you love fixing the faulty things rather than swaping it with a other one love you Vince sir .❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🙏

I love how go go about finding whats wrong and not like all the other video's only the faults they can fix and allways a short, this is the way keep it up

Didn't know a RAM chip can brick an entire PC. Amazing fix, Vince.

this channel is so enthralling,even when he fails you know he's done his best and will learn from it.

I had a hunch it was RAM but nice to see you fix the stick not just bin it. Good job👍

My initial reaction after seeing the fault was memory, so I'm glad it turned out to be that. Nice job Vince.

Wow, that was impressive. You went far more thorough on this than most companies even would've. What I find odd is that it didn't even try to POST without RAM. IIRC most motherboards, even laptops, at least try to, they just tell you they can't. It might've just been a RAM stick in the end but it took a lot of trial and error to make sure. Nice work.

From the first 10 seconds I said that’s a RAM issue but an amazing diagnosis. Great job at repairing I would even have attempted that but spot on mate!

when the green light was going on and off it reminded me of when I was mucking about with my old Toshiba laptop, and I had taken the stick of ram out, but I didn't re-insert it correctly (which resulted in the computer attempting to power on and then cutting out when I tried to turn it on afterwards) I very much doubt that would be the issue here though

You've acquired the knack of being able to read thimgs upside down quite well now.Interesting video.

Back in the days, computers always beeped some kind of error code at you when they couldn't boot. And the manual contained a table that would translate that beep code to the actual problem. But nowadays, I guess, this capability has been canceled for manufacturing cost savings. And this particular laptop did not do anything different with or without the RAM stick. Anyway, kudos for actually fixing it, instead of just swapping modules.

These are very good videos for experts, to learn a lot, or just to learn for fun. I usually lubricate the fan’s ball bearing, and use a sticky tape to make sure, dust doesn’t go inside. It doesn’t need to fully disassemble the fan, the oil goes into both ball bearings after a few minutes of spinning. A 5 v power supply, charger can run the fan. About 10 min is needed, to lubricate both ball bearings. The fan’s sound will be better, and will last longer. Every 10 years it is needed to lubricate the fan.

Hi Vince :) I started watching your videos last year and since then I’ve gotten interested in repairing things on my own! Your videos are super educational and entertaining, thank you so much for what you do :)

I'm a computer repair tech and have a few words of advice. Start with RAM, always start by swapping a different ram stick in. Then try without the hard drive or SSD connected (some machines won't boot without a storage device so be aware of this). Then try removing the wifi card. Then move onto screen, daughterboards and anything else you can try removing. After that delve into power. Saves a lot of time. Also, if you plan to sell a machine, always replace RAM. It has a limited lifespan, and its best just to put some fresh stuff in there. If you're keeping the machine yourself, a bodge of a trace like this is totally fine. But, well done for fixing it, and saving it from the easte pile, and as I said above, start with the simple stuff. (Keeping a few parts on hand like ram is also well worth it). As for PC3 vs PC3L, the L stands for low voltage. Just depends on the machine as to which it takes, but you're switched onto this, so thats ace.

I had a 15 inch version of that laptop and loved it! If I recall correctly, they were just called "Vaio Flip 13/15" (number being the screen size) and when they were new (released approximately 2011-2012, I think), the i5 models were somewhere in the $700-800 USD range. The pen, unfortunately, did not come with it and was quite pricey. I actually still used it as my primary laptop right up until this year when I finally decided the battery life wasn't acceptable anymore. Folding flat and having pen input came in handy so often in school. The wifi card died at one point and I had to replace it, and somewhere along the way I upgraded the hard drive to an ssd, but other than that it performed admirably.

I had the 13 inch version of this model with an i7 back in the day. Other students in class were baffled how awesome I just flipped the screen to turn my laptop into a notetaking device. These light-weight convertibles are great studying devices: allowing for conveniently taking notes and scribbles. But still potent enough to also run some more demanding tasks, like numerical computation, CAD or programming.

Hey vince today I found out that my local repair shop watches your channel for repair advice even though you clearly state at the beginning of your videos "do not use this as a HOW TO video watch it for ENTERTAINMENT purposes only because I'm not a professional" they just ignore that 😂😂😂

Awesome Job! other shops actually don't do that effort. they just rip customers off

Congratulations on the Sony fix and a happy new year 2021, Let's hope 2021 can be a better year then 2020

Hi Vince really love all your video's very educational and entertaining. you really go all the way to try and find the faults you don't give up so easy.

This was a nice little test for myself, I'm not a technician or anything like that but I've always had massive love for computers and I've always messed around them and done little repairs here and there and from the first second when I saw how and when it turned on and then back off I said RAM is the issue and it's such a treat that I was correct, I still got it :D

I only recently found your channel and I am thoroughly enjoying it. It was good to see you have a complete success on this one as I'm always disappointed for you whenever you have only a partial success, or worse, the hardware just won't play the game.

That RAM repair, I loved that you fixed the actual issue! A bit unconventional, most people would switch out the RAM first before doing a tedious repair like that.

Nice one V. Skills. 👍🏻. Bios battery, then Ram. Well diagnosed. Always the obvious which we tend to overlook.

First thought when I hear no post is faulty ram, great repair on the ram stick!

Excellent job Vince, methodically done and you've rekindled my love for fixing electronics

Very good demonstration- And as for cleaning the rubber edge of the screen that is dissolving, try to clean it or apply isopropyl alcohol for cleaning, I have done this on rubbers as well as jog well controls of Dj controllers, as well as other applications and it solves, many of them in the case of Jog of controllers even shine like originals after cleaning, thanks for the video and I'm still here diagnosing my Sony Vaio Z Flip-SVF14N13CXB. Tks

Great work!! Time saver tip. If you have the lights on that means the 19v and 3.3 v rails are present. Pushing power button causes the super I/O chip to try to turn on the ram, vcore and 5v rails. If any failure is detected it will turn off for safety. Thus the lights turning on and then off. Great vid!

The "L" on the ram means Low Power. DDR3L or DDR4L for example

Another great video and fix. Well done Vince. Have a great New Year

When you get excited and fix stuff is best part ur videos. Subscribed ;)

Well done Vinny. Great bit of fault finding

Great work. Talk about 'For the want of a nail the Kingdom was lost!" Unbelievable! How complicated that whole system is and a simple line on a pad failed. I always try re-seating the RAM first but would never have thought to check the data lines on the module itself. Great spot and great fix.

Excellent fix. I've learnt from experience, check HDD first then ram. That said I would never have fixed that trace! Well done!!!

So glad you are getting many supporters Vince! You've come a long way.

I kid you not but before you even opened this i said to myself it'd be the ram, well done 👍🏻

Great work Vince! Who would have thought such a tiny fault would have been the issue?

I’m glad you fixed it. I was about to comment about how the ram was likely faulty as ram is needed to display something as everything that is running is stored on ram

Another great fix! Hope you and yours have a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Years! 🍾🎉

well done Vince great bit of troubleshooting and its Very rewarding finding a lead good job

This video inspired me to look for an old Pentium 3/4 Vaio laptop for my collection

Fantastic work on that fix. I recently repaired an old Toshiba satellite L755 laptop with windows 7 premium. I also updated the ram too and it works great. Thanks for sharing this. Kind regards. Paul.

That was awesome!!!! Loved this fix. Keep them coming. Can't wait to see what you'll be up to in 2021.

Another great fix Vince Merry Xmas and Happy new year to you from germany :)

Hi Vince. Patreon supporter, but not the massive. Enjoy your videos.

I was yelling 'RAM!' at the screen the moment you first started looking for issues inside. But then I do this for a living ;) Nice job, Vince. tbh I would have swapped out the SODIMM and charged the customer for a new module, but your excellent repair would have saved the guy a nice chunk of change if you were doing this as a paid service!

Happy New Year, to you and your family Vince, thank you for the great entertainment over the years.

Vince, I am happy for you. Can you do a video on how to fix a Hard disk drive. It would be awesome to watch it. Nice video and Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year and einen guten Rutsch, like we say in germany.

Nice fix, Vince! I probably wouldn't have seen that super small gap between the pin and the trace. I also have no idea what that strange residue on the pin was. Kinda looked like.. paint? Just a quick advice: If a PC/Laptop is boot looping like that, it's almost always the RAM or a faulty BIOS/BIOS setting... atleast in my 15+ years of experience with PCs it was almost always that. That's the first thing I check, when I get an faulty PC. Thanks for another great video! Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you too, Vince :)

Well done Vince. The moment I saw the problem knew it was ram related. Awesome fix though cost just your time and tiny bit of solder and mask.

I still have a Vaio from 2010 and upgraded the ram, removed the bluray drive and replaced it with a 1TB drive and upgraded upgraded standard hdd with a ssd and it runs beautifully. Has a 1gb ATi graphics and a 1080p screen, for a 2010 laptop that was a big thing to have. Love the laptop.

when you were testing power i was shouting RAM. but no way would i have checked the pins. nice one

I bought a Sony vio last year from second hand shop it had a doggy ram as well, replace both ram and updated the HD’s with an SSD and it works fine

that's a brilliant repair, Vince. you just got a new subscriber. i really enjoy watching your steps to hunt the problem down and tackle it. 👍

Of the two MOSFETs you tested, the one without a gate signal is likely the low-side MOSFET for Vcore. The high and low side MOSFETs are controlled by another power IC which in turn requires a signal from DDR3 before it gives a PWR_GD signal for the entire system to turn on. By restoring the DDR3 subsystem, this likely restored the DDR3 prerequisite of the power IC. I've encountered this fault in a Lenovo laptop before. Good job!

the support cell can make such problems. how ever nice job

The first video I watch on New Years Day on youtube is a MMV video, and an awesome and cheap (free) fix of a dodgy ram stick. Nice one! Happy New Year Vince!

As the laptop continued to shut off, my fingers kept itching to tell you to look for a blown capasitor, but then i completely forgot that a faulty ram module could be the issue aswell 😅 Nice fix Vince :)

The first diode you measured on the board had one side to power and the other to ground. It is reverse polarity and is used for TVS (Transient Voltage Suppression). It will not conduct up to a specific voltage and then it will conduct like a short. The reverse voltage is picked to be a safe voltage with some margin above the expected input range.

As we say in Manchester. You are f'in amazing mate. Cheers.

Nice fix. Looked like a bent pin in the socket too, probably made bad contact that speeded up so,e type of corrosion

I never thought that a simple small thin broken copper track on a ram stick would be enough to stop a laptop from booting-up, that's a new one on me.

Incredible repair! I wish you a happy new year!!!

A very very good job, bravo from France !

Vince, been watching your stuff for ages. Love the chan. Everytime i see you fix something I wish i had "tech skills" like you. Keep up the good work. Maybe I can send you something to fix sometime :)

Well done Vince. Good job.

@My Mate VINCE, Hi very nice fix when you started the video I immediately thought of ram, This is a classic sign of "no ram" fault, The diode is for reverse polarity protection, Marry Christmas and happy new year 👍

i dont want to look like the smartest person typing this just after watching whole video but normally when pc´s are in this ,,startup loop,, it means 1 of your components failed or need to be reseated. Mostly in 1st place its RAM like we saw here but i guess..this is a laptop so cpu and gpu are actually soldered probablly on the board so it is probablly RAM problem in about 80-90%. Still pretty interesting fix. Better this way than find out it was badly seated or whatever!! I love these videos...keep them comming. No wonder u have so many MV Massive members!!!! hahahhaha...if i had enough spare money to contribute i would do it too!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Good to see another of your Trying to Fix vlogs there Vince i have been following your channel for for some time now and have finally subscribed to you keep up the good work mate and i wish you and your family a Happy and better new year for 2021 all the best Vince 👍

I love it when a my mate vince video drops happy new year dude 😊👍🎉

Restarting like that would suggest there's a problem powering-up, and one of the first things I would have done was check the memory by reseating it. Seems the problem was bit more complicated than that, but still it was memory related. Back when I was a technician that RAM module would have been replaced. 😁

For laptops the barrel-type connectors almost always get cold solder joints, Memory failing might be the most common issue too :-) good to see that you are able to fix it too :)

i have one of these but it is the i7 13" version it has 2 major problems, one is the barrel jack which on mine is not the same as on yours at all , it is a special proprietary one that is supposed to be like an Apple magsafe but it doesn't use magnets it uses some weird spring clips , the thing will not charge unless you hold the adapter on it or wrap the cord around the laptop to put pressure on it , it is a huge PITA i can't even find a replacement part for it anywhere, i saw one once but it was in the UK and i am in the US and the place didn't ship to the US plus it was out of stock and it was also like 200 pound so not even worth it even if i could get it, i really want to change it out to a regular barrel jack another problem i have is the fan ,i have replaced the fan in this thing about 5 times already since i got it in 2014 when it was new , the body is very flimsy and the fan breaks constantly, it makes a god awful grinding noise , if i slap the laptop it sometimes fixes it for awhile , move the laptop and let the flimsy frame flex and it will happen again , eventually the fan needs to be replaced ,it eats fans also there is no way to make it suspend or hibernate so when it stops getting power cause of the ridiculous charge port design it reboots , sometimes it suspends mostly it doesn't and i lose my work i been dealing with these problems for years , too bad because it has such a nice triluminous IPS display and i like the N-trig digitizer pen you are lucky the one you got has the normal barrel jack, ut i got this one because i wanted smaller lighter laptop ,i almost never use the flip ,i never use it in tablet mode also you are lucky is has a DIMM slot i am pretty sire mine has memory soldered to the board but mine has a m.2 SATA SSD also the SD reader is broke ,the card have to be forced in and out the spring broke

Great fix, Vince! Hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas, thanks for all the great videos and good fun this year!

Well done ! Interesting that it failed to boot even with the RAM removed, guess the holder was shorting as well

Hey Vince hope had great Christmas happy new year great repair as few previous comments state ram is a common problem with computers it normally 1 the 1st thing to check in situations like this years ago would beep to inform of issues. Keep up great repairs you do always great see something repaired than just replacing

Happy New year from Slovenia, you are the best, Good to Look and Listen all of your KZfaq videos. Thank you.

Love your videos. Glad you worked your way to the ram as I was shouting at the screen check the ram haha. Keep the videos coming always look forward to watching your videos and like you a total amateur and doing it purely for fun and a hobby.

Sometimes it’s beneficial to put the iron in the other hand at that angle. Another fine, interesting video.

Lovely job. I found it educational. Thanks!

Hope you have a happy new year

when a laptop/PC bootloops it usually is a Ram problem from my experiance

I enjoy how you say “Z” and “H.” Never change!

That mic quality is amazing. Voice sounding crisp!