Hi, my approx 4yr old Sony Vaio laptop crashed yesterday and I had no option but to power off as the screen was blank. Now when I power up it shows the Vaio logo then a blinking cursor in the top left corner for a couple of seconds then a blank screen. I have taken the battery out and switched the power off but no luck.  I can F2 into the BIOS screen (but have no idea what I should do once there) but F8 doesn't bring up the option to get into Safe Mode (it just beeps every time I hit F8 and still goes to the cursor then blank).

Is there anything else I should try before calling the experts?  I don't want to open the case as I know nothing about it.

I had 2GB RAM put in a few weeks ago. The laptop says maximum of 2GB but my receipt says I now have 3GB. I read some posts online suggesting this could be a problem? Could it be, particularly given it hasn't given me any trouble for the last 3-4 weeks?   My laptop also has a history of freezing when it goes to sleeps and I've had to force it to reboot in the past. It has always booted with the safe mode screen and on the times I've run it in safe mode there were no problems.