SZ1XP - Separating the fan from the motherboard.

Hi, I have extracted the motherboard from my SZ1XP/C but I need to remove the fan... It seems to have been attached with sort of plastic rivets which have been melted to seal them in place.. What's the easiest way to remove these? Drill through the plastic from the top side?

The first 2 photos are of the fan from front and back, 3rd is a close up of one of the melted rivet thingies (number 1 on the first 2 pics).

Bearing in mind I'd like to reattach the new fan (which hasn't arrived yet) in it's place... what's my best option for getting this one out and installing the new one with as little peripheral damage as possible? Thanks!

 

Hulkenburg, it would be best to see if the new fan arrives in the housing or on its own before you crack open the rivets! I remember that my plan was to file the plastic until the housing parts could be separated but the replacement was the wrong model so I never did it in the end. Or possibly to take a craft knife to slice off the top, melted protruding bit. I find the SZ a mission to dismantle compared to most of my other machines so I try to minimise the amount of times I completely strip it down.

 

That's a good point well made irishsumo, I will wait until the new one arrives before I proceed.

This is what it's advertised as on the site that I bought it from, it looks like it's just the fan but you never know until it shows up.


And tell me about it, I had to take the chassis out to get to the fan and I had to remove the screen to get to the last screw holding the chassis on. Then I needed to remove the optical drive and the hard drive and then disconnect *everything* and pull out the motherboard. It's in a very sorry state in about a dozen pieces right now, it will be a minor miracle if it boots properly when I put it back together.

 

I always have a bit of paper with a plan indicating where each screw comes from. For the SZ, I need the most paper as you need the screws from the bottom in one plan, the plastic chassis under the keyboard in another plan, then the motherboard screws in a third plan, as well as the screws from the back where the screen attaches. I know the one you mean - back corner, where the screen screws are at different heights? and the mobo has a screw hidden beneath the screen attachment assembly?

In all fairness, last time I reassembled it (after the incorrect fan incident... I should email the ebay shop!) I did have one screw leftover, probably from the motherboard/HDD bracket. Make sure to reattach all the cables - I once spent weeks playing with audio drivers as the headphones weren't working on a machine, then realised the sound daughter board hadn't been reattached! A proper facepalm moment...

 

I couldn't have described it better myself! I couldn't believe they had designed it like that when I realised. It wasn't really a hassle to get the screen off (easier than I thought it would be tbh) but still...

And I relied totally on the disassembly pdf posted by cj2600, it is very very helpful. I have labelled pots with all the different size screws in, and the hinge caps, I just have to go through the pdf backwards to put it all back together is how I'm thinking about it at the moment.

 

For removing, just slice off the melted pads. I would recommend next time getting it as a whole assembly if you can. For re-attachment, a soldering iron will work, do it in a well ventilated area and be sure to clean the iron after it has cooled off. If you don't have one of those check dollar stores (seriously!), or see what you can figure out.


The SZ isn't THAT bad.
I can swap the HD in about 5 minutes at this point. I have that down to a science. The motherboard is in depth, but honestly, almost every laptop is. The boards are always buried pretty deep. The one exception I have found is Fujitsu tablets, they are ridiculously simple to get the board out, however their arrangement and methods leave a bit to be desired.

While every laptop seems to have something that is a pain, thinner laptops are often a bit more hassle because of the construction methods used and the small size. Everything is very cramped, so everything is extremely precise.

Don't think it's only thin ones though. While the SZ uses that upper place, and lots of screws, everything is laid out well, in nice easy to figure out layers. I have worked on a few Dell and HP where the internal frame is not a simple magnesium layer, they used a multi level, monococoque frame with parts tucked into 3 levels, and wires running throughout. Under that is can be more sub-frames. I worked on a Dell, and I have an old HP here that takes easily twice as long as the SZ to pull the motherboard on.

Sony ultra thins are always difficult, they are usually well made but complex. That complexity is what makes them so strong though. The engineering is superb. These others it seems the main method of adding strength was to add more plastic to the insanely complex plastic frame. It's sort of like comparing a world class skyscraper to the Winchester House.


Winchester Mystery House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Leslieann, I think you have the advantage here because judging by your posts, you've dismantled your SZ many, MANY times!

But you are totally right in that there are machines built as you describe with multiple layers sandwiching components - I have an old HP Pavilion like that and an Asus RoG which is similar, but they both have access hatches for all the components, which means the bits are easy to pop out and get to, but the major gubbins like the mobo is nigh on impossible to get to. Maybe because they are gaming machines, but the entire cooling system is removable, including fans, through the access hatches.

However, I have also experience with machines that are so much easier to open up, such as the Vaio TR which is just screws on the bottom, one on top under the keyboard, remove the top panel and all the bits are right there and accessible. The SZ falls somewhere in the middle, but leaning heavily towards the hard end - the heatpipe access is excellent, though it needs to be as I find myself renewing the paste often but to get to the rest of it requires quite a bit of effort. For me it is a proper sit down at a desk with a spare hour bit of effort, rather than 10 minute open and shut like the Vaio TR is. But that is the difference between building a thin'n'light (for its time) compared to the much chunkier but smaller ultraportable several years earlier.

Hulkenberg, that pdf saved my bacon more than once. Of course, the first time I downloaded it, I did so to my SZ and only realised I needed it when too much had been removed already...

 

Thanks guys. Leslieann, I would imagine the HD would be pretty easy - unscrew the kb from behind, pop out those 2 detents and then take it and the palm rest off and you are in. I haven't really ever delved as deeply into any laptop as I have just on this SZ so I have little to compare it to. It was all very neat and tidy inside though and, for the most part, very well laid out (making the best use of very limited space).

When you say "slice off the melted pads", there really isn't much protruding - they are quite flush to the metal. Do you mean with a craft knife or something similar? Also, there is a bit of copper (coloured) tape that starts just underneath the "2" in the first photo, wraps around, and ends up under the "3" in the second photo on the other side. Is this thermally important or is it just belt and braces to keep it all together? It's not just "a bit of tape", it's shaped to the radius of the aperture in the fan housing (first pic).

Thanks! Fan still hasn't arrived so this is all still "to do".

 

Umm... Yeah, I have had it apart a few times. Haha.
Let's see, I took it most of the way down to remove the WWAN card. Another to fix a side plate, another time to put the WWAN back, and still another to replace the motherboard after I damaged it. There was also rewiring of and replacing the wireless card a few times. I also took it mostly apart to redo all of the heat sink paste not long after I bought it, it was a Best Buy demo model for 6 months before I got it and was just trying to freshen it up.

Then there is the hard drive. I have used at least 6 different drives that I know of, and while experimenting while building the guide, Linux and Mac, I have pulled the drive dozens upon dozens of times (probably over 40). I have calculated that Windows 7 alone has been installed close to 200 times now, and no, I'm not exaggerating that, that is a pretty accurate estimate. I've changed out the wireless a few times as well.

I think I have to go in and check some cables as the lan card and a usb port has been acting funny. They may have slipped out of place.

Start upside down, pull the KB screw and three along the front edge. Flip it over and place it like you are going to use it. Put the screen almost vertical but leaning away from you, pop the tabs (I pry the keyboard, the tabs are a hassle), hook the lower middle tab of the keyboard on the wireless switch and lean it against the screen, so it doesn't slide. Remove the three silver screws, slide the palm rest towards you then flip it over and place it where the keyboard sits normally, now pop the drive cable and remove the three drive screws.

No cables to remove other than the drive cable, nothing flopping around or in your way. It's a 5 minute job.

Yes.
A file or sandpaper could also work, but a sharp razor or similar would make fast work of them.

I don't remember there being copper tape like that on mine, but it's not for anything thermal or electrically conductive near as I can tell. The only possible exception being there to help ground the top plate to the lower plate, but there are other parts doing that same function. If it was electrically important, it would have a more positive way to connect them like a screw or some paste to help with conductivity.

It's mostly up against the plastic side plate so I think it's probably there to seal it from air leaks and maybe help hold it together. Possibly during assembly. It also may act a s shim to help hold it in place between the upper and lower plates, maybe it also helps with damping vibration.

If it was me, I would just use a layer or two of electrical tape or something similar to help make sure it seals better there and is of similar thickness. Just my 2 cents.

 

Success! I think.

I, too, have a screw left over. I know where it's supposed to go but it just doesn't fit. The "Blue-B9" from the left hand side of the chassis (p22 of the disassembly guide). I have a screw left over and it isn't thick enough. There are lots of "B8", then one that is the same as B8 but a bit longer and then one that is the same again but even longer. I thought the longest one held the kb in place from behind but it could be the middle one that does that and the long one goes on the left of the chassis...

Now, the CPU is not going above high 50's (c) under sustained 100% usage. It's hovering around 45-48c atm with a big WinRAR archive test. I've forgotten what acceptable temps are for the Core Duo but is that ok? It's certainly better than the 80s I was experiencing before. Re-applying the thermal paste probably helped.

Should the fan show up in a program like SpeedFan? Because it doesn't. It's going round, and obviously having some cooling effect (it's pushing warm air out of the heatsink pipe) but it's not adjusting itself like the old one used to for different CPU loads. It's not going round very fast, it's not making any noise at all. But hey, at least it's doing something, which is a definite improvement.

Edit - Also, is it worth putting a SATA 3gb/s SSD in there? Something like the Kingston SSDNOW V100 128GB SV100S2/128G is pretty cheap right now, I understand it will run on a SATA 1.5gb/s interface. Also thinking about getting 2gb of this RAM (that's 2gb of DDR2-667 where I have 1gb of DDR2-533 at the moment) to breathe some new life into the laptop. Any thoughts anyone? A pointless upgrade?

The laptop has been running for an hour-ish and it is now idling at temps of mid to high 30's.

 

Ugh, I think I need to go back in again.

I apparently don't have a LAN port, I'm looking at the pdf right now and I honestly don't remember re-attaching the harness to the bottom of the IFX-435 board.

Also, I'm getting weird errors with Firefox addons (LastPass and XMarks) refusing security certificates. And LogMeIn will not behave itself and connect, it keeps saying it is "turned on but inaccessible". The log, again, references certificates. TPM? That's the only hardware thing I can think of that might cause such oddness. I can browse the internet fine via wifi but it's all being a bit strange.

I ordered that SSD and the RAM so when the drive arrives I will have to go in and take the chassis out to see what I forgot to re-attach.

Bright side, the fan is altering speed based on demand, it's just a lot quieter than the previous one.

 

Those temps are sounding much better - the Core 2s were quite warm in the mobile form, and my SZ4MN has the Coretemp gadget for the sidebar which normally sits up in the 60-80 range. I know the fan is definitely failing as it makes a racket, and doesn't work when the machine is tilted off horizontal, which I think indicates a failed bearing. Incidentally, where did you get your replacement fan, and did it arrive as the entire package or just as the fan?

As for the other problems...

LAN port I think is the little ZIF connector on the mobo near the fan - IIRC there are 2 connectors side by side? Working off fading memory but that sounds about right! I reassembled an HP TX once and installed Win7 but couldn't get sound out of it, reading about driver problems where were apparently common with dual headphone socketed machines and spent a week playing this software. Then opened it up and realised that little daughter board was sitting screwed in, but not attached!

My machine doesn't have TPM so can't help there I'm afraid, but sounds like the only culprit - have a look to make sure everything is connected next time you have it open.

The RAM will help in terms of speed and hitting disk less, as will the SSD to a massive degree. I upgraded the HDD to a bigger one but I can feel it putting out more heat than the old one under the palm, so was thinking about 3GB of RAM and an SSD like you said, as the mid sized SATA2 ones are coming down in price by a significant amount. Unfortunately, this is a slippery slope to get on as it isn't my primary machine and is semi retired, but tinkering is just too much fun...

 

Tinkering IS too much fun. I had all but written this laptop off but now I've fixed the fan I want to breathe some new life into it. I bought a Kingston SSDNOW V100 128GB for just shy of £1 per GB and the 2GB of RAM from Crucial was just £30 (and it's DDR2-667 and not DDR2-533 like the 1GB that the lappy came with), it was hard to refuse. The silver lining here, if there is one, is that with it being a laptop there is not much else I can spend money on unless something breaks. There's actually nothing else I can upgrade.

The fan was from batterymall.co.uk. I was sceptical at first because "mall" is SO not a UK word. I thought it would be shipped from America but it actually came from Hong Kong. Like I said, I was sceptical but hey; it arrived, it fits like a plastic fan-shaped glove and it works. And it was just the fan, exactly as per the pic I posted on the first page and the website. A quick search leads me to believe that you would need exactly the same unit for your SZ4MN. Ignore the generic installation instructions, they are utterly useless! Removing the fan from the housing was no trouble at all - the knife sliced right through those plastic pads and I didn't have access to a soldering iron so I just heated the tip of an old screwdriver and pressed it against the new prongs to flatten them out.

As for the LAN port I'm pretty confident that I attached the board to the mobo but I'm also 99% sure I didn't connect the "harness" to the back of the board before putting it in place. I have no LAN device at all in device manager and network connections so it is just physically not there, must be something not attached (is my hope).

And as for the TPM board; I didn't take it out, it's a tiny little thing attached to the front of the mobo with a flat cable. Guess I could've dislodged it, only getting back inside will tell me.

 

Check the system time and date, it can cause this.

 

Genius, leslieann. The clock was about 6 years out (give or take), it never even occurred to me that that would be linked to the certificates issue. I kept meaning to change it when I rebooted but kept forgetting. Thanks.

Haven't had time do go in looking for the LAN port culprit but I'm reasonably sure I know what I didn't do when I put it all back together.

 

OK. It was the FDC connecting the IFX-435 board to the mobo that wasn't in properly. Fixed that and have a functioning LAN port again.

Also, how much difference does a SSD make?! It's so nippy and responsive now, Windows boot times are about a quarter of what they were before, and I haven't even received the RAM that I ordered last week yet. So this is exactly the same hardware config as a stock SZ1XP/C but with the Kingston SSD in place of the Fujitsu 5400RPM 100gb HDD. It feels like a new machine. So much so that I ditched the VAIO recovery disks and went straight to a Windows 7 install.

I mostly followed your excellent guide, leslieann, but had to go off-piste a few times to get things working. There are still a couple of things not doing what I expect but nothing serious. TPM (which I never actually made use of anyway) and there is a popup when I start Windows that says I need to plug in a biometric device, even though I just used my fingerprint to login to Windows. I don't know if the second one is a Windows thing or a Protector Suite QL thing. Also the biometric software seems have created a faux user with an icon on the login screen to "guide me" through the login process. I can't find a way to get rid of it which is a bit annoying.

Overall though, I am over the moon with the SSD upgrade.

 

If you note the guide says it is for the sz750- but should help others, it's not 100% perfect and older models especially have some issues with Win7 64bit It should get you close and get you pointed in the right direction. My advice is take notes of what you did differently so you can duplicate it again next time.

Windows has it's own biometric system, remove the Protector Suite and it will probably fix your problems. However, I really haven't messed with it a whole lot.


SSD's can make a tremendous difference, especially on boot. Hard drives have been holding us back for many, many years. Also bear in mind, the Fujitsu that comes with the SZ line, was pretty pathetic. The access times were not atrocious, but they were not good, either, a bit slow compared to a normal laptop HD. The transfer rate however was pretty BAD. If I remember right, in tests mine was pulling 50meg average transfer rates It went up some when I enabled AHCI, but it was still a dog compared to the WD Black I put in, which was a dog compared to the Intel SSD, which is slower than the C300.

Congrats on getting things going again.


I plan on performing some open heart surgery on mine later today. I think I found a way to fix my old motherboard (that I ripped the lcd inverter off of) which will get my Nvidia system working again. I also managed to straighten out my chassis some. When closed the screen at the pamrest was cocked 2mm towards the dvd. As I have said a few times, mine has been through hell. LOL

I also have been doing some experiments with the function keys and Sony software. I have it narrowed down as to what enables what to function. My goal is to break it all down to the basic parts, allowing me to make a guide that will more accurately work on all SZ's and make a Win8 guide that will work on all of them and without excess junk.

Next step, 8gigs of memory.

 

I approached your guide thinking it was for more recent Vaio's than mine but it was still very helpful. Oh yeah that's another thing; no functioning function keys for me yet. S1, S2 and the Fn + F2-F7 (volume, screen brightness etc) do nothing. Not a major problem (well, the volume is a bit annoying). I tried the Vista DLL's and things from the Sony page for my model but where it said "there's a newer version already installed" I chickened out and left the newer one alone. Maybe I should uninstall some of the things that were in your guide and try these ones...

I had some fun trying to get the Toshiba Bluetooth Stack working in Win7 (x86), had to get a new one from here (iirc). I also have no bluetooth visible in my wireless switching utility, just 2.4ghz and 5ghz wireless. Under XP there was also an option to enable/disable bluetooh. I never use bluetooth so again, not a major inconvenience - although even disabling it through the Toshiba (I presume) app doesn't turn the blue LED off under the screen.

Still very much a work in progress though, everything important is doing what it should.

Oh, and very much agree about the Fujitsu drive, the boot times were horrendous with it. After logging into XP I was waiting a good few minutes before it was "ready" and that was with hardly anything starting up. This is mainly why I'm so impressed with the SSD - boot and app loading times. I mean, fair enough, it's a fresh install and 7 boots quicker than XP anyway but still... it's like a fresh machine not just a fresh install.

 

Exactly, a new lease on life.

For function keys to work, you only need Vaio Event Service and Sony Shared Library. If the guide ones won't work, your model may have these included with other things on install, Universal Extractor will let you pull out the individual installers if you want just that.

Another thing that happens is some utilities don't always install properly and a reinstall may uninstall what did install rather than repair the old one. You have to watch that. If nothing else, you could always use 32bit Win7 and just use the original Vista stuff, on older models that is sometimes a better option.

Good luck and congrats on your "new" laptop.

 

Biometrics sorted. Spent a few hours hunting around for drivers earlier, whatever I found would work with Protector Suite but would not be recognised by Windows as a biometric device. Soooooo it turns out that UPEK were bought out 2 or 3 times between when the lappy was released and now and is now Authentec. I don't know how many of the SZ range this applies to but there is a guide here to figure out which model you have based on hardware ID's (I think mine was the TCD21/TCD4x). Then goto the download page and grab the WBF (Windows Biometric Framework) version of the driver. My mistake was I was always getting the non-WBF ones before because Vista was the most recent "Sony" version I could find and it obviously didn't support WBF. I installed that and bingo, it all showed up in Control Panel, I enrolled and it just works for Windows login and nothing else, which is exactly what I want. If you ever do another guide which includes early SZ's feel free to include all that - the fingerprint reader actually works better than under XP (no annoying 3rd party pop-ups with big green ticks when I successfully scan - it just logs in).

Now for all the other minor annoyances.

 

Glad you got that sorted.
Like I said, document everything for next time, and yeah, it's a bit of a process getting it all working but when it's all done and you are happy, it's great. These laptops are still very capable and with extra ram and ssd, they beat just about anything under $1000 in every day use.

 

Hi guys, apologies for returning to an old thread, but I finally got my fan, and opened up the laptop. Makes interesting viewing - apologies for the quality of pictures as there is no macro function on my smartphone!



The is the old fan - notice it has the circular disc surrounding the fan blades that sits almost flush to the metal housing. This was making the racket when it was rubbing against the metal, and I believe that a failed bearing allows the fan to tilt enough to touch the housing.



The new fan - without the doughnot bit - with lots more clearance, though if it does rub against the metal, it may destroy the blades. You can see the shiny arc where the rubbing had polished the metal to a mirrorlike sheen!

 

I take it that it's alive again?
I just had to replace my cpu, it was sitting on a desk idle and just went out. I also swapped in another mobo with working nvidia.

At this point I thing I have replaced half the components in it, not all due to failure, and while it looks good, it hasn't led an easy life.

 

Yeah, all good, and back to whisperlike noise as well - peace and quiet! Threw an SSD in as well and everything seems cooler to the touch as well. Looking at the design of the original fan, the airflow seems to be rather limited due to the circular plastic rims above and below it. The only problems I have are the plastic sides are a bit wobbly where the connections at the very front of the machine being broken. The left side is okay, but the right is very flimsy above the optical drive so it can flex a lot, but it is all cosmetic so not too much of an issue. I'm pondering getting 3GB or RAM as well... if I see a good deal I will probably snap it up!

 

Be careful buying right side trim, everyone on Ebay seems to be a gorilla when they go to remove it and break the front mount.

 

They aren't the only ones! My one has not only snapped where the screw is, but also the narrow neck above the front edge of the optical drive. I might just use a small bit of electrical tape tape to hold it together.