Advice needed: options for beefing up an older VGN SZ-370P laptop

Hello fellow VAIO enthusiasts,

I am trying to figure out a way to upgrade different components on this older machine the VGN SZ-370P, which unfortunately is not appearing easy to do.
Searches on this and other forums have either not yielded much results, or some with thousands of pages that I couldn't possibly read, hence my questions here,
apologies if they have already been answered.

The original specs for this late 2006 model are 2 Gigs of RAM (max) , NVIDIA® GeForce Go 7400 128 Meg, and a 2.0 GHz T7200 Core 2 Duo processor, FSB Speed: 667MHz.

I have already upgraded the hard drive to a larger 7200 rpm unit, and re-installed a clean, uncluttered Windows XP system as per this most excellent tutorial,
as well as gone dual-boot with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty.

• Can the graphics card be upgraded to the 256-Meg model of same (gaming is difficult with 128 Megs)?
• Can the T7200 processor be swapped for a faster one, and if so with what gains? (like a T7600 Merom at 2.33 GHz, looks expensive at around $250 on eBay)
• Is there a way to overclock this machine to try and yet squeeze a bit more performance out of it?
• Will Windows 7 run on it, or are there missing drivers for some of the hardware?

Having invested in accessories like docking station and so on, I would love to be able to get a bit more useful life out of it, as it had been a lovely machine otherwise.

Any hints and help appreciated.

sg

 

It does not make much sense/benfit to upgrade the CPU. You could get more out of XP upgrading RAM to 3G and of course the HDD to bigger, faster depending on your needs.

 

Already did the HD upgrade. But wasn't aware of whether or not RAM can be taken beyond 2 Gig on this model. Has this been done successfully to their SZ ??

Obviously, any comments on my other questions very welcome as well!

sg

 

I don't know what tasks you do but if you don't do CPU intensive tasks you won't benefit at all from upgrading your processor.

I think this thread will be quite helpful to you.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=411714

 

Hello Rachel, thanks for this link, this is part of what I was looking to find out.

Would audio editing, sequencing and real-time efx processing be considered CPU-intensive? I would definitely think so.

sg

 

There is no simple answer some apps like reason are CPU economical. Some are seemingly aimed to kill and CPU like Arthuria or many NI VSTs.
It is fine notebook for the purpose with decent CPU, if you get more power there will be more heat so does not make much sense. What is your DAW?
Anyway max the RAM, the most important for music.

 

Ableton Live 8 with a good bunch of plug-ins, running RME Multiface / cardbus.
usually at least 2 stereo ins and 2 stereo outs.
When I bought the machine, it said RAM = 2 Gigs Max.
Could someone confirm that the memory can be indeed swapped for two 2Gigs sticks for a total of 4 Gigs?
(all of which will only be recognized if I upgrade to Windows 7, otherwise 3 Gig under XP , right?)

TIA

sg

 

Why would you go Vista or even 7 ? XP is indeed primitive but I keep my stage notebook SZ380 XP pro. 7 becomes interesting for use if you can go 6G RAM or more but that is definitely not possible with SZ. I suppose if 380 can handle 3G so should yours. My studio machine runs Vista but despite faster, better everything the DPC is 10 times higher then of the old/gold SZ. I had SZ before as main machine and used to run over 20-30 tracks on Live 5 without issues. I bought SZ again because it is so well build and reliable. And of course, I paid 25% of what it was 4 years back.
Now with Live 8 run some 20+ tracks projects. With RME you can definitely sqeeze 1-2 more then me with Konnekt 24 or Indigo. You know it is all VST depending, add few Ozones, Arturias etc and you can choke even the newest CPUs.