I've had a laptop for quite a while now, it doesn't work or anything, but it was given to me by someone who had gotten a new one and thought I might be able to fix it and use it. It's a Gateway Solo 1450. When I got it I plugged it up and tried to turn it on and immediately found out why its previous owner didn't want it, all the led lights would come on, but the screen never did light up. At first I thought it was a problem with the monitor, but even with an external monitor, it wouldn't work. I fooled around with it for a while but couldn't get it to do anything. I decided I'd take a look inside if I could(don't know enough to have done much, but I was interested). I opened it up as much as I could and took a look at it, then for no real reason, I moved the RAM from one slot to the other. I reassembled the computer and tried to boot it up once more in desperation. I was amazed when the screen came on and I saw the little Gateway splash screen for the first time...then it froze. I turned it on again and quickly hit F2 to take a look at the setup, it started loading the setup menu, but froze again. I tried one more time, but this time it reacted as it had been previously, it didn't even get to the boot screen. I tried moving around the RAM again, but it didn't have any effect. After a little more tinkering, I finally resigned the computer and haven't done anything with it for quite some time.

I just got another laptop, this one working. It's an old Dell Latitude C600/C500. I hadn't used it for long when I decided to look at it's specs. Intel Pentium III Processor, 996 MHz, 320 MB of RAM. I was happy with that until I started getting really slow while running Firefox and having a couple of tabs open where my desktop with 2.6 GHz and 512 MB RAM would work perfectly. I was also kind of confused as to how you would end up with 320 rather than a more normal amount like 256. I took a quick peek in the laptop and found two sticks in it, I couldn't tell the size of either one from looking at them. I suddenly had an idea that I would grab the stick from the old Gateway(it actually says 256 MB on the side of the RAM) and make nice with Firefox again. I replaced the RAM in the left slot with the one from the Gateway(I'll refer to as the Dell RAM due to the sticker on the side that says something similar to "Upgrade with Dell Memory"). I anxiously booted up the computer to have it tell me that the System Memory has been decreased. I looked at the Setup page and it said that I now had 36 MB of RAM. I confusedly moved the Dell RAM to the other side and put the left side RAM where it had started. I booted it up again but to my dismay, the screen didn't come on, the little activity lights on the side lit up and messed around for a few seconds, then the computer shut off. I tried putting the RAM from the Latitude into the Gateway and starting the Gateway up, but it was the same as always. Thinking I'd just ruined my perfectly good computer, I moved all the RAM back to where it had began and tried booting it again, it did the same thing as before(no screen, shuts off after a few seconds). I put the evil Dell RAM back in the Gateway and put it aside and tried my good laptop again. It didn't work. Desperately I tried one last time and it finally worked again. It told me some stuff about how the System Memory had been changed, but after that it worked like normal. I'm wondering if that RAM had anything to do with why my Gateway doesn't work, and if so how I could fix the Gateway(as the RAM from my Latitude didn't work in it).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello Yeloshu..


if your old Solo 1450 is like my Solo 2150 then you can take that ram out and see if it boots. The Solo 2150 came with 64meg onboard plus one slot for added ram. Also some of the older Solo laptops had 190 meg limit. I'm not sure on the Solo 1450.

Oh! I almost forgot... Welcome Yeloshu. Enjoy yourself here at PCHF. The most helpful place on the WEB...

LC

Thanks. I did all that you told me, I took the RAM out of the Gateway and tried turning it on a few times, it just stayed black and turned off after a few seconds. Then I put the RAM back into one of the slots and turned it back on. It got to the splash screen but then it went faded to black and shut off. I tried turning it on a few times after that but it didn't get so far. Could it be the power supply? And can you even replace power supplies in laptops?

Yes Yeloshu, It could be the power supply. Sounds like the battery is holding just enough charge to let the laptop try to boot. You can get universal power supplies for laptops. The original brick (power supply) for your Solo is about 45 watts. The universal supplies run 75 watts to 90 watts. If you decide to take a chance then a 75 watt supply should work fine.

By the way...The following link may give you some information about your Solo

Gateway Support - 3501269 Solo 1450

LC

I'll try a new power supply when I get the money to do so. I'll make sure to come back for any help I need as y'all are great. Thanks.