T23 - Poor Grip on Memory

[ArtShapiro]

In October, I reported a failure on my sporadically-used T23, which Admin Ray correctly diagnosed as an issue with the memory SODIMMS. After a complete teardown and reassembly, it turned out that all I would have needed to do is to remove and reinsert the two half giggers.

The last several weeks, the machine consistently boots up with the 1-3-3-1 memory error pattern. I've found that opening the memory door and reseating the two SODIMMS lets me boot normally.

The issue is that the SODIMMS are really, really loose in their sockets. Normally there's obvious pressure as one inserts or removes a memory module; on my machine there is essentially no pressure. I'm thus not the last bit surprised about the POST code beeps, and am somewhat surprised that I can boot it after jiggling the memory.

I suspect that there's nothing I can do short of replacing the planar, which is ridiculous on a machine of that vintage. But it doesn't hurt to ask if anyone has run into a weird situation like this before and stumbled upon a solution.

Art

[craigmontHunter]

Duct tape that is all I can think of.

Good Luck

[ArtShapiro]

Duct tape

Alas, with contacts on both sides of the memory modules, there's no way to use that Magic Elixir!

Perhaps if I laboriously took my soldering station and put a tiny dab of solder on each of the several hundred contacts to increase the thickness...

Art

[RealBlackStuff]

One temporary solution might be to put shims/layers of paper/carton between the RAM modules and the RAM lid, to press them down.
Can't think of why it would loose its 'tension'...

[rkawakami]

If the "lack of pressure" when you insert or remove the memory modules means that you can push down or pull up the modules without spreading out the metal arms attached to the socket, then I'd suspect that those arms are slightly out of position. With the modules removed, you can (gently) bend them in towards each other and see if that helps. When they are aligned correctly and a module is installed, the curled end of the arm should be resting firmly against the semi-circular indentation on the end of the module. The arm should actually cross atop the end of the module; this is what keeps it from popping up. If the modules don't pop up by themselves when you pull the arms apart, then the spring contacts inside the memory socket have been worn down and there's not much you can do beside replacing the motherboard. Unless you have the eyes and equipment to deal with taking off the surface mount socket and putting another one on (and doing so without disturbing any of the adjacent components).