Need help upgrade old VAIO VGN-S1XP PATA HD/SSD

Hi,
5 years ago, I bought this machine which is slow at startup and when accessing a new url. I don't use games. I surf on the web and use WORD, EXCEL and POWERPOINT. The VAIO Z SSD model is nice but too expensive

Specs : Intel Pentium M735 1,7GHz 2Mo L2 cache, 400MHz FSB
60Go Ultra ATA/100 (enough space for me)
512Mo DDR SDRAM (PC2700-DDR333) installed, 1Go max
13,3" TFT 1280X800 (definition OK for me)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, up to 64Mo

Should I :
Add 512 SDRAM? Which one?
Replace my HDD by a 64Go SSD? Is it possible? Which?
Any other smart idea?

Bernard, Chambéry, France.

 

Can you look in the device manager to find out the existing HD you have?
It's probably a 2.5 IDE but it is also worth checking.
If that is the case then you're looking at a Kingspec or Photofast IDE SSD drive.
Kingspec 2.5" 64GB MLC SSD IDE PATA Solid State Drive on eBay (end time 09-Nov-10 18:27:17 GMT)

Unless anyone has tried it no-one can guarantee that of course it will be compatible for sure, so i cannot guarantee that. Of course don't expect those SSD's to be as fast as laptops that support Sata 2 SSD speeds.

You might want to look at going for a 7,200rpm HD as well as with a clean install and the 1GB in XP you should notice a real difference.

Ebay looks to be your best bet to get 512GB X2 172pin pc2700 ram at a decent price as sites like Crucial are pretty expensive.

512MB, 172-pin MICRO-DIMM, DDR PC2700 upgrades for Sony VAIO VGN-S1 Series Laptop/Notebook, CT435519 from Crucial.com

512MB DDR333 172 pin Microdimm Micro dimm Sony Vaio UK on eBay (end time 20-Nov-10 13:35:22 GMT)

512mb PC2700 MICRODIMM - for various Sony Vaio PCG VGN on eBay (end time 08-Nov-10 17:56:14 GMT)

 

the extra 512mb of memory is a must, you should also do a clean install if it hasnt been done for a few years, windows tends to bog down a bit as installs get older.

SSD may be overkill on an IDE machine as the drives are pretty meh compared to current Sata SSDs

 

Hi again,
Thanks a lot for the hints. I ordered the RAM already!

About the HDD, it's a Hitachi DK23FA-60 2.5" 60GB ATA-6 9.5mm 4200RPM Notebook Hard Drive (DK23FA60).
The Hitachi Travelstar DK23FA-60 is a 9.5mm high, 4200 RPM, 2.5-inch mobile hard disk drive.
Features:
* Model: 7K60
* Hard Drive Capacity: 60 GB
* Hard Drive Type: Standard
* Enclosure Type: Internal
* Operating System Compatibility: PC
* Interface Type: ATA-6, ATA, ATA-100
Specifications:
Configuration
Interface ATA-6
Data heads 4
Disks 2
Max. areal density (Gbits/sq.inch) 50
Performance
Data buffer (MB) 8
Rotational speed (rpm) 4,200
Latency (average ms) 4.2
Max. media transfer rate (Mbits/sec) 518
Max. interface transfer rate (MB/sec) 100MB/sec Ultra DMA mode-5
16.6MB/sec PIO mode-4
Physical size
Height (mm) 9.5
Width (mm) 70
Depth (mm) 100
Weight (g) 115

I guess I should buy a 7200rpm HD, less expensive than SSD (and bigger storage capacity), and hopefully with a more probable compatibility. Agree?
Which one?

Finally, I recently bought my first backup external drive, a Transcend 640Go USB3.0. I read that you can have USB3.0 speed on a PC with USB2.0 only by simply using an Express card providing USB3.0. There is a PC Card slot on my machine (never used it). The hole dimensions are 5X55mm.
Is is an Express card slot?

I begin to smile. I now hope the machine to be quicker with little expense!
Bernard.

 

You might find these threads helpful, the first contains a link to a teardown guide for your laptop.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/114814-sony-models-specs-support-dissassembly-links.html

The 2nd documents other user upgrades. I see from a forum members' sig that someone is using 1.5gb in this laptop.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/23546-sony-vaio-s-series-upgrade-guides-pics.html

You can also see this old thread that i posted. Some 7200 HD's do vibrate more than 5400 HD's. With these old laptops there is meant to be a physical limit up to 137GB.
The Seagate 7.200.1 ST910021A is meant to be a good drive. Also, is the Hitachi 7K100. They would really be the two 7200 HD's to consider.
Face Off: Hitachi 7K100 vs Seagate 7200.1 - LaptopLogic.com

This is the old thread i started.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-best-silent-pata-ata100-2-5-hard-drives.html

A 5400 perpendicular drive will give you a real boost over a 4200rpm HD.

These drives are very old and very hard to get now, ebay is probably your best source for these drives now.

I'm going to move this thread for you to the hardware forum to see you can get may be other recommendations for HD's to use.

You can get 54mm->34mm expresscard convertors on ebay. I think it might be a pcmcia slot but check the specs of your laptop. You can though get expresscard USB 3.0 adapters but whether it will work in your laptop i don't know.

 

You may run into overheating problems with some hard drives. I had a VGN-S560P, which is a later revision of the same machine. Mine had a Pentium M 750, 100GB 4200 rpm SATA1 hard drive, and a GeForce Go 6400. Incremental updates over yours, but otherwise identical.

I tried a 7200 rpm drive in it and the drive ran hot and died within a couple weeks. I also had issues with a Hitachi 5400 rpm drive which made strange noises when the laptop would heat up unless I used a laptop cooler. The problem is that the drive is mounted between the motherboard and the right side of the palmrest, with a thin plastic shield stuck onto the bottom of the drive for electrical isolation from the motherboard. The cooling air that comes in via the right front vent mostly goes between the motherboard and the drive, and that plastic shield blocks any cooling air from reaching the drive. The CPU, GPU, and chipset are also nearby and they warm up the environment around the drive. I might have been able to get away without that plastic sheet because there is a small air gap between the drive and the MB components. That might have helped cool the drive, but I didn't feel comfortable second guessing Sony's engineers.

An SSD should work fine, but it might not be worth putting that kind of money into a 5 year old laptop. If you upgrade to a faster hard drive, monitor the HD temps closely. You might have better luck than me because yours is slightly lower spec, but be careful.

Also, I assume you're running Windows XP. The laptop should still perform well under XP for the kind of things you are using it for. I think you may be suffering from accumulated bloat. You might be able to improve things a lot just by cleaning up: deleting unused files & programs, deleting old restore points, minimizing the number of system tray apps, blocking startup programs and services you don't need, etc. Or better yet, a clean install. Also, some virus scanning programs are major resource hogs.

EDIT: It is a PCMCIA slot.

 

I thought I would add my experience.

RAM is still pretty cheap DDR2 SODIMM, so I would upgrade that anyway. EBay or similar you can probably get a few Gb for not too much of your budget.

My SZ1, I upgraded the processor to the T7600. It was a reasonable upgrade and certainly helped when I was running large DBs or VMs. I bought the processor off EBay and fitted it in about 2 minutes.

Memory, I bought 4Gb and the laptop allows you to use about 3.2Gb. Again, a reasonable upgrade for what I needed to do.

WIndows 7. Simply brilliant upgrade. Speed of XP but with all the benefits you get with a modern OS.

Final upgrade, 256 C300 SSD. This upgrade was by far the best upgrade I made. Yes an SSD might be expensive, but I could go from power button to on (normal boot) in less than 15s and a proper full shut down in 2 to 3s. You dont need a large SSD if all you do is browsing, Office, downloading etc... So if you can find a decent SSD (laptop only as Sata 1) that is small, will fit your OS on MS Office, maybe a few Gb of programs and 10 to 15Gb free for docs, you will have an amazing little machine.


I upgraded to a Sony EB3, full HD, i5. I put my C300 256Gb in it. Must say, whilst the screen is bigger and more pixels, the speed is very similar. Yes 8Gb of ram allows me to do a bit more, but honestly, only at the extremes of use do I get the impression my SZ1 would have held me back.

Oh, also upgraded the wireless in the SZ1 and fitted a third antenna behind the LCD. Ended up with an intel 6300 in it. Fantastic.

 

Hi all,
Thanks a lot. You are fantastic!
I need time to explore all this stuff and approach some decision about the drive.
About the PCMCIA slot, any possibility to get a suitable USB3.0 adapter?
Bye now,
Bernard, Chambéry, France.

 

As for harddrive, your best bet would probably be the Samsung HM160HC 160gb or Western Digital WD3200BEVE 320gb. These are 160gb per platter 5400rpm drives.

See also this thread:

Review of the SAMSUNG HM160HC, World's fastest ATA/IDE notebook hard drive

 

I have the Kingspec SSD, to be honest, it doesn't make that much difference to speed, though I got it to get the benefit of portability without worrying about dropping the thing.

Anyone got some recommendations for a replacement battery?

Plus, the worst thing about this laptop is the whining fan, again, any recommendations about how to eliminate or minimise this feature?

Other than that, it is a great laptop in many ways.

rjstep3

 

Hunt down the 2.5" version of the drives listed in http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-1-8-zif-pata-ssds-available.html#post6866801 .

 

I've seen USB 2.0 PCMCIA/CardBus adapters, but not USB 3.0. There are also PCMCIA to ExpressCard adapters, but they're limited to USB 2.0 speeds.

A USB 3.0 PCMCIA card may be very hard or impossible to find because the PCMCIA/CardBus interface is obsolete and USB 3.0 is new. Also, the PCMCIA interface maxes out at 132 MB/s in burst mode so it couldn't deliver full USB 3.0 speeds anyway.

Use Firewire if your backup drive supports it. In practice it's somewhat faster than USB 2.0.

This goes without saying, but make sure there are no processes consuming CPU in the background.

If you're running Win XP, change to the VAIO Maximum Battery profile, then go into the VAIO Power Management settings and set the CPU Control option to Battery Life and the CPU Fan Control option to Level 1 (Quiet) even when plugged in. There might also be a graphics option there too. Performance will decrease with these settings but it shouldn't be too noticeable unless you're running something CPU intensive. With this config, mine remained fairly quiet with the fan running at its lowest speed most of the time.

If you're running Vista or 7, there's not much you can do besides setting the maximum CPU state to 50% or lower. I haven't found a version of VAIO Power Management that works with this laptop under Vista or 7. And even after tweaking a bunch of things with the command line powercfg utility, I couldn't get it to run as cool & quiet under 7 as under XP.

One other thing: all else being equal, this laptop runs cooler off the battery than AC power. Under XP, I made all the settings the same for the VAIO Maximum Battery profile regardless of whether it was running off the battery or not. And under 7, I made all the settings the same for the Power Saver profile. But it still ran cooler off the battery.

 

thanks dmk2 - your suggestions are very sound. I think this one needs to stay with xp for the reasons you have given.

I think also you need to remove Adobe Flash - there are just too many web pages with flash running which really gets the CPU excited, and the whining fan then cuts in - so all in all, not really a laptop for today's world, but still a beautiful looking and practical device for ordinary Office tasks.

rjstep3

 

I agree that Flash can be a real hog, especially with sites that place several animated/video ads per page. I recommend using Adblock with Firefox, or Flashblock if you really want to aggressively block Flash.

 

flash and anti-virus are the two thing that push the hardware upgrade cycle.

 

I had never heard of Flashblock - I'll search it out and give it a go. thanks.

rjstep3

 

Hi again & thanks all,

I received & installed 512Mo RAM for a total 1Go now. A bit quicker but not much. I guess Avast antivirus slows down the boot.

I have just ordered a new HDD, Samsung HM160HC 5400 rpm at Redcoon for 48€ (euro) shipmt included. This means I am going to open the machine!!!

2 more Q now :

-Several advised me to perform a clean install. I guess it is about the OS (W XP SP3). I have never done that. I perform defrag, delete temp files and not much more. How to do this clean install?

-SONY delivered the machine with this partition on the HDD : C: and D:, with 28Go for each and, since then, I lived with it, with only 12Go free on C: (OS & programs) and much more free space on D data). Why this partition in the first place? Could I suppress D: in order to get more free space on C:? How to proceed?

As you can see, after 5 years sleeping, am finally waking up...

 

Congratulations - taking her apart is a bit fiddly, but easy to do really.

To do a clean install you will need the initial recovery disks - after that, just go online and let Windows xp get all the updates including sp3.

As regards the partitions, they are only there as suggestions, so that you can put your data on D:, keeping it separate from your operating system and application files on C:. You can change it if you want - the recovery disks will give you the same setup, but just download partition manager software to change it to what you want. Try Paragon's free partition software, it is good and easy to use.

rjstep3

 

sorry, I sent it twice!