Questions about a notebook sony vaio (model no. PCG-9L1L)

[Saturnv7890]

hey guys i have this sony vaio that needs fixing. First problem is that its really slow. To reformat it i botted it up with the windows installation cd, deleted one partition, and then relized the arrow keys didnt work, so i couldnt go to the next partition. Nowhere in the house did we have a usb keyboard, so i couldnt plug one in to the computer. So i exited the installtion, and now when i try to boot it up from the cd, it says to press any key, so i press numerous different keys, but none of them work, so it tries to start up, and then it tells me its missing things in the system32 folder which was to be expected.

How do i install a new keyboard, and where? And will buying a usb keyboard for now fix my problems? or is there something in the system32 folder that makes keybaords work? Also, the computer is very slow, and i dont know why. It's had many viruses and has been restored many times. Will deleting the partitions and installing a fresh copy of windows speed it up? If not, what else can i do? How can i tell what speed of ram this supports? Theres some ddr pc2100 in there right now, but i dont know if i can higher.

Thanks!

 

[dude_se]

just find out the motherboard it has then look for a manual or something which will tell you the ram it takes.
reinstalling xp all fresh should speed it up, but if its got crap specs then it wont run at the speed of light.
try and get a ps/2 keyboard, sometimes usb ones dont work at the "press any key to boot from cd" bit. mine only works in the bios and then again once the os has loaded. might be different on your laptop though, but with a ps/2 you cant go wrong (provided its got a ps/2 port)

 

[Saturnv7890]

yeah it doesnt have a ps/2 port. Should i get a ps/2 to usb converter? Or does it have to do with the usb port itself?

 

[dude_se]

it depends how your computer boots up. my old one had usb in the bios then usb stopped working till xp loaded.
are there even ps/2 to usb converters? i know theres some the other way around.
some bios's let you boot usb devices first anyway, dunno if that would work.
basically usb sounds like your only choice so its worth a go

 

[Saturnv7890]

alright i'll give it a try once i get the extra cash

 

[Saturnv7890]

alrighty I'm just gonna bump this thread. I have about 100 dollars to spend, and I'm either gonna revive this laptop, or buy a 7600gt for my main computer.

Here is what i would buy for the laptop (found out the true model number for it is PCG-FRV31)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-PCG-FRV-FR...ryZ31568QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and that or 1 gig of ram

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-06ghz-Pentium...ryZ99251QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

i'll look at the specs to see what kinda cpu it has right now.

Do you think that would help my computer get a little more speed? or do you think an extra gig of ram would be more advantageous?