A bit of back story.
I bought the laptop from ebay (Well outside of ebay, but still ebay seller). It was brand new but no receipt. Paid ~$1400 over a year ago which was a good deal.
I updated the ram by buying some non-oem 512mb pc3200 stick which has worked great for months.
Then i went on to upgrade the hard-drive
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=32699
From this thread, i figured out how to open it. I took it apart but much, much further than the whats shown in the thread. I applied artic silver on gpu & cpu to cool it down a bit and tried to figure out how to make the fan quieter but couldn't find a suitable replacement online.
I didn't have a new HD yet so i put it back together and it worked fine.
Went to newegg bought a Hitachi 60gb 7200rpm, went through the same steps on disassembling it but mistakenly broke the on/off (main lcd) plug. (Pulled too hard using pliars, plus there was no reason to do this but o well) & forgot to unplug the laptop so i fried a resistor by dropped the screw-driver on a bad area of the motherboard.
Here comes sony support, after repeat calls and basic if you have no receipt we can't service it. I got 1 rep. who in a way just told me, send it in but attach a detailed paper stating whats wrong etc. (I didn't recieve a RMA number but i just used my support #)
I did so, i put it back together, took out my extra ram + HD and shipped it UPS.
1 week later i find a express fedex box back at my house, sony tech. fixed the entire laptop and replaced a bunch of parts (Heat spreaders, motherboard, plugs, etc) as listed on the invoice all with N/C (No Charge).
Basic moral of the story - if your laptop is still within 1 year of "registration", screw the sony support reps. & send in your laptop directly to sony techs.
CAUTION - I don't endorse this, or will I be held liable if you never get you're laptop back ;p
Now im back to upgrading the HD but with more caution and I also want to update the video drivers with a clean install. (I dont use sony restore disc's, just bare windows and install drivers)
Does anyone know anymore tweaks for this laptop and how to properly update the drivers? The usual ones from ATI don't work and Sony's are a few yr's outdated.
I also heard about some type of pin-mod but I'm not sure if it works with this laptop.
Thanks
I bought the laptop from ebay (Well outside of ebay, but still ebay seller). It was brand new but no receipt. Paid ~$1400 over a year ago which was a good deal.
I updated the ram by buying some non-oem 512mb pc3200 stick which has worked great for months.
Then i went on to upgrade the hard-drive
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=32699
From this thread, i figured out how to open it. I took it apart but much, much further than the whats shown in the thread. I applied artic silver on gpu & cpu to cool it down a bit and tried to figure out how to make the fan quieter but couldn't find a suitable replacement online.
I didn't have a new HD yet so i put it back together and it worked fine.
Went to newegg bought a Hitachi 60gb 7200rpm, went through the same steps on disassembling it but mistakenly broke the on/off (main lcd) plug. (Pulled too hard using pliars, plus there was no reason to do this but o well) & forgot to unplug the laptop so i fried a resistor by dropped the screw-driver on a bad area of the motherboard.
Here comes sony support, after repeat calls and basic if you have no receipt we can't service it. I got 1 rep. who in a way just told me, send it in but attach a detailed paper stating whats wrong etc. (I didn't recieve a RMA number but i just used my support #)
I did so, i put it back together, took out my extra ram + HD and shipped it UPS.
1 week later i find a express fedex box back at my house, sony tech. fixed the entire laptop and replaced a bunch of parts (Heat spreaders, motherboard, plugs, etc) as listed on the invoice all with N/C (No Charge).
Basic moral of the story - if your laptop is still within 1 year of "registration", screw the sony support reps. & send in your laptop directly to sony techs.
CAUTION - I don't endorse this, or will I be held liable if you never get you're laptop back ;p
Now im back to upgrading the HD but with more caution and I also want to update the video drivers with a clean install. (I dont use sony restore disc's, just bare windows and install drivers)
Does anyone know anymore tweaks for this laptop and how to properly update the drivers? The usual ones from ATI don't work and Sony's are a few yr's outdated.
I also heard about some type of pin-mod but I'm not sure if it works with this laptop.
Thanks
