Dropped my Vaio Z!!! no!

Sad news, i was just trying to catch my laptop in my Covertec racer bag and just dropped my laptop in his sleeve bag!!!

I used the bag protection with foam shield and used a Sony sleeve bag for the z and the unit dropped only 50-60 cm high on the inferior corner.
Was so worry about the choc because of its sound like i dropped a piece of book from one meter high. What s incredible the laptop is entirely ruined!
the palm rest is bented the screen cover needed to be clip again. but the worst thing is the bottom cas with a crack near the headphone jack and bented underneath... this laptop is so fragile i can see the plastic case all over with small pieces it s no carbon reinforced one.

ill post picture tonight, if people can advice me what is the procedure.
The laptop is till under warantly, but can apply for this.

The z runs well, maybe try to sell for working laptop with damaged cosmetic.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your laptop. By any chance, do you have Accidental Damage from Handling Protection from Sony? If so, they you should be covered from this mishap.

 

sound like a serious damage even the notebook is all cover with protection..
i wonder if its without the cover sleeve. the impact is strong.

 

the lcd doesnt crack and the bottom doesnt change the form, only the aluminum palmrest?

*sorry for double post, somehow the delete button has been removed :/

 

You can see the damage here http://img121.imageshack.us/g/dsc00395rc.jpg/

Thanks for posting back, unfortunately i haven t any special extension warrantly for such situation...only have IRSP one but Sony say it s only cover malfunction hardware and no impacts.

I am afraid i can t repair the laptop, even if i send it for repair they will ask me to pay for almost the price of new one.

As you can see bottom case, palmrest and screen bezel need to be change.
Le laptop dropped in his sleeve bag, only 50-60 cm while but dropped on his corner, if only i droppet straight on bottom case.

Seems the laptop absorbed the whole impact but the "carbon fiber" case didn t resist it is plastic rather reinforced one.

 

Well first let me say it sucks and I'm really sorry for you.

Now the question is if you want to continue using this one or buy a new nb. You said that everything's working?　If so, I would try to bend the palmrest back, it goes quite easily. I've found out that after my first swapping for SSD the palmrest was slightly bend on the upright corner. I was able to bend it back and even played with it for a while to eliminate all squeaking which appeared after some time of use.

 

Somthing is wondering me,

are any screws missing?
The palmrest is srewed together with the mainboard and the bottom case.

The palmrest didn't loose the connection to the bottom case at the designed point, part of the bottom case is still on the palmrest.

If it is working and you don't care about how it looks take it apart and repair it yourself. As far as the electronics are ok it should can be done.

If you like to sell it, I'm maybe interesed, I have a Z31 since some days now and like it to be my main working horse. So it would be nice to have spare and I don't care how it looks.

 

Hm, I expected the most expensive sony model to be stronger than that. I once forgot to remove a usb stick from my laptop and I put my laptop with that usb stick the bag. So obviously the laptop didn't go in because the stick was in the way but I didn't see it. I started pushing real hard to get it in xD As a result, my usb stick was totaly dead (cracked) but the usb port in my acer still looked like new, while you would definitly expect that the the usb port and the plastic casing surrounding it should have been cracked.
So...acer plastic > sony metal?

 

Well you can't compare it so easily. I did serious scratch in the wall with my Z while carrying it, while after wiping out the white paint I didn't find any mark on the (reinforced) carbon fiber body.

On the other hand, aluminum is surely not the best material for nbs, it looks quite cool, but is also very fragile. I was surprised how my co's macbook looked like after carrying just for a week...there was no single port with the original shape anymore.

 

It's not 'carbon fiber' as most people know it - what you're looking at with the plastic case is actually the 'carbon fiber'. It's plastic with a bunch of carbon fibres dumped in it to make it stronger than regular ol' plastic, not what most people equate as the stronger 'carbon fiber'. We've discussed this in the past, but the fact is that in carbon fiber as most people know it, there's usually more fiber than plastic. With moulded CFRP - Sony's 'carbon fiber' - it's the other way around. Still - it's a durable material in everyday use.

OK - so it's a front corner impact that made the palmrest deform to absorb the shock. And you say it's about 50cm in a bag? That's pretty unfortunate - the only Z I've dropped seriously took a ~2-metre drop straight down onto a thinly carpeted hard floor on the power connector corner and it didn't look anywhere near that bad.

It's got to have been a weird drop though - Given the weight balance on the Z, the half-metre distance would have been enough to make the laptop fall on the rear edge or flat, not the front. Perhaps it was a heavy sleeve?

It could be worth claiming that the level of the drop and the damage sustained doesn't meet what Sony claims in their promotional matrials?
http://b2b.sony.com/vaio/durability/durability_overview.html

 

I agree, its surprising the notebook got so damaged after seeing the claims they make in the video. I guess the "carbon fiber" is more about minimizing weight than gaining strength.

 

Just took appart my z after i found the service manual to remove the palmrest.

Didnt have time to take picture maybe this evening (France time) to show you that this laptop is rather plastic than "carbon". In fact only the bottom is carbon reinforced you can see the texture of it when removing the hard disk.

The weird is that the outline of the z where the screw were fixed is additional layer of cheap plastic: one screw exploded the small amount of plastic arround... so i ve to deal with glue waiting for estimation to get piece of bottom case maybe 250$ or something for bunch of plastic.

two, the palmrest is real tight and feel good i ve just finish to fix it using little piece of furniture to press and go back to the right form.

But the weird is that i check carefully the impact zone, exactly in the audio jack area and see that the additional pcb, the soundcard? i see realtek logo on it is damaged because of the screw inside (screw to fix the palmrest) so i need to find this part also....

About the strenght of the drop, i was holding the bag with two hands but when realize that i dropped the sleeve bag i try to stop it but i simply guided the drop in the corner that amplified the inertial mass.

So the laptop hit the wrong side, if only it dropped like the video...
In real use dont expected to have a "carbon" one...
Try to fix it and sell it to get cheaper one and dont worry with such expensive plastic laptop.

 

When you shave as much as Sony does in order to meet the target weight and still have a roadable machine, it's a compromise of ultimate strength vs weight - and cost.

If you actually built the laptop out of what we normally think of carbon fibre, then although it'd be stronger it'd also be about a thousand or two more expensive at the very least, and the machine would have to be very slightly thicker (as well as other changes). Moulded carbon-reinforced plastic allows for very thin mouldings at low production cost without compromising strength over regular plastic, aluminium and even magnesium.

Looks like the OP found a case where the case engineering reached it's limits. Like he says, it's possible that by trying to save it he actually flubbed it harder into the ground.

OP:

Look on the bright side - at least you don't own a unibody Macbook. As you can see by the state of your palmrest - which is the same material and included in the Z for better tactile feel than the 'carbon fibre' (compare the TT and Z - the TT feels a whole lot cheaper in use thanks to the 'carbon' palmrest area) - that would have been catastrophically bent in similar circumstances.

Taking it apart yourself at this stage is a bad idea - if the JB has international warranty? If it's under warranty where you are, I would still consider visiting a Sony Store, explaining the circumstances, outline the claims against drops made by Sony themselves and ask for a repair.

 

Hum... After entire day of hard repair on my i finally get it back... no as pretty he was but from distance you cannot see anything just i can t stand thinking i dropped my 2k$ laptop.

So you re right, when tried to stop my laptop falling i obvously projected my laptop more in his corner but... the promotional video is not right for me... the same test on the corner will exploded the laptop as mine was.

Other bad design,the outline itself is just plastique very thin and soft and the harddisk is just few milimeters inside that when opened my laptop the disk has been pushed and crash every aluminium frame and real carbon is just layered at the bottom.


Here is the picture before...

http://img121.imageshack.us/g/dsc00395rc.jpg/

and after...

http://img163.imageshack.us/g/dsc00405y.jpg/

how does it look??

used epoxy glue to reform a screw hole, he was expoloded inside i only found 70% of the piece all inside the chassis and glued together again.

I folded again the alumium frame inside, metal holder that contained the harddisk.

The bad is the audio module the screw pushed away a small transistor for the audio output and ask for my father help to soldering again and it work.
I need to find a new one maybe give a try on ebay.

The botom case is crashed on multiple side arround usb and use glue to reinforce them

finally i bent again the palmrest slowly, slowy , palmrest right screw was smashed out but it hold enough...

Now i can use my z again with no fear to scratch it,


I contacted french Sony repair center for cost estimation about pieces, and ll try to go in Sony showroom to meet support and try to force them to admit that the video is not true.

sorry for my rough english,thanks for your support this website is really the LAPTOP community site,

 

@podam, wow you made it look as new again xD I'm glad for you, working with something ugly isn't fun.

 

You've done a good job with the repair. They have a clear disclaimer on their site about those videos so using the video as a defense i don't think will do any good. Vaiorefurbs on ebay sometimes sell Z parts. Keep an eye on his auctions.

 

Won't hurt to try.

Although... well, it's a Sony and therefore the impression of good support is generally make.believe.

 

So is "premium carbon fiber" supposed to be better in some way?

 

I truly feel bad about the drop of your precious Z.

However, what truly did you in was the fact that the impact happened on a corner. That is a totally different ballgame than a flat impact, since the surface area of the impact is a VERY tiny portion during a corner impact, which in turn does not have the area to spread out the force (like with a flat impact or any impact where the impacting area is relatively wide/large).

I am glad that you were able to bring it back to an almost new state by bending it back. Yes, and it may be worthwhile to try and get a repair estimate.

 

Youre right, the corner impact is the worst situation a laptop can handel but after spending one day of intense repair of my z, i can say that z layout and frame is not that sturdy... only flat impact may be ok for this laptop.
The inner frame is inexistant in this laptop, that why the impact pushed away the audio/usb module again harddisk and then hardisk crashed in lower part of moother board...
Again i feel better i can use again my laptop but i really want to get it back and look for bottom case.
I found audio/usb module on ebay, any idea for botom case??

 

Unbelievable! Nice repair job. I can't tell by the "after" pictures that there was damage.

 

Very good job, congrats!! I believe you could buy the bottom at some spare shop, but in that way it would be probably higher price than you're willing to pay. Maybe it's worth asking some sellers on eBay.

I would say you're also lucky the HDD didn't break.

 

If you are looking for japanese parts its much more likely that you would find them on the yahoo.jp auction site. Most of japan uses yahoo not ebay. I took a quick look and I didn't see any Z cases but that might change in the future if you still need the parts.

 

It glitters when the light hits it right. That's about it.

The videos of Vaio Zs falling are, as I've said before, worthless. A falling laptop never hits flat, but almost always on a corner, or the edge hitting another edge.

My Cherry mechanical switch keyboard weighs about the same as the Z, and I have dropped it numerous times without problems. Because it isn't recycled carbon fibre weakened epoxy, but real plastic, which is tougher.

Why isn't the "premium carbon fibre" tougher? When you add milled fibres to the plastic, you increase the stiffness, but reduce the toughness, simply because there are thousands of micro-cracks wherever graphite fibres touch each other without epoxy between them. The end result is that it shatters more easily.
In short, "premium carbon fibre" is a sales gimmick, and nothing like the carbon fibre used in airplanes, helmets or skis. That's a weave, and not chopped fibres.
To use recycled fibres for laptops is good for the environment, though, I'll give Sony that.

 

Actually, I believe Sony was one of the consumer-use pioneers in solving problems like the above in a comparative point of view to mitigate parts from failing in this way. It doesn't change the fact that it's weaker than 'real' carbon fibre, but it is tougher than the plastic used on your keyboard - mould the same part with the same thickness and see which fails first - it's not going to be Sony's kinda-faux-carbon. But yeah, it is kind of crappy that they can't hit us up for 'real' carbon on at least the lid - although there are people who probably look it up on Wikipedia and get a bit confused as a result without understanding the differences in the manufacturing processes.