Sony FS550 Upgrades - Help me figure out which HD I need? Plus

I want my laptop to last me another year or two if possible. I was cleaning it the other day when I broke off a key, ugg....anyway I found a replacement keyboard for $35, which I will be fixing.

Ok, being I have seen I can also change the hard drive. I am confused though, do I need an Ultra ATA-6, a SATA, IDE, EIDE, I just can't seem to figure out which one I need. Can someone help me? I want to get at least 160 Gig HD for it. I see one for $35 here
http://www4.shopping.com/xPO-Seagate-Seagate-160GB-UDMA-100-7200RPM-8MB-IDE-Hard-Drive
would this work?

Also am I right in that I can also change the CPU if I get a Centrino 2.1Ghz, 400mhz as long as I use the Artic Gel stuff? If I do these 3 things I think the laptop would be great for another year. I am out of the country without much money hehe, so for me buying a new one is not an option, besides I cannot get a real normal QWERTY keyboard here....so that would frustrate the crap out of me. I am too old to learn a new keyboard!

I already am upgrading the memory from 512 to 1024, I got the chips on ebay for $11. Wish it would support more, but that is the max for this laptop.

Thanks
Laura

 

Please if someone knows what harddrive to use with this laptop, please let me know, I really do want to buy one. I just don't know what type I should get. I have knowledge of desktops, but not much with laptops....it is a VGN-FS550 and I want to put in something larger than the 80gig that is in it now.

Thanks so much! PLEASE!! hehe

 

This is the specs for your laptop.
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/specs/VGNFS550P_mksp.pdf

This is the removal guide
http://home.comcast.net/~nw_systems/vgnFS.pdf

The CPU is removable and you should be able to upgrade to a Intel Pentium M Processor 780 2.26ghz
http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=41878

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=27599&processor=780&spec-codes=SL7VB,SL8QK,SL8RF

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=27586&processor=730&spec-codes=SL86G,SL86M

However, depending on what you do you might not notice the difference.
If you do this i suggest you use a good thermal compound like Innovative Cooling Diamond 7 (ICD7).

Your chipset supports up to 2GB but Sony might have limited the amount of ram it can take to 1GB. Getting hold of higher capacity older ram is quite difficult and the ram is also sometimes quite expensive. You can get PC2-5300 ram that downclocks to support 333mhz. Some forum members have used this ram in older laptops.

You need an IDE 2.5 ATA 9.5 HD. The problem with some of these older laptops is that some of them are restricted to only supporting 120GB. I don't know if this is the case with your laptop. A 7,200rpm HD should give you a nice speed boost.

With these laptops some upgrades are experimental if nobody has done them before. Anyway, good luck with this.

 

Thank you so much for the info. I have a few questions: I will not hold you to any of this of course! hehe
1. Do you think that my laptop can handle a 7200 rpm drive? I have read that alot of people ask these questions but no one gives feedback on if it worked or not, so like you say, it is experimental for sure. I am only going to upgrade to the 1gb that it says it can handle.
2. I will try to upgrade the CPU too, with hopes that if I can do the 7200 rpm drive with the CPU and see some difference? Of course it will have more RAM too. With this combo do you think it will pick it up a tad? Although frankly I don't think it is too slow as is....but it does have to resize Virtual Memory occasionally and I want to get past that problem.

Thanks again.

 

One more question what is the difference between SATA and ATA? Is it different for my application?

 

Yes, a 7,200rpm should work. Other forum members have upgrades their FS series with 7,200rpm HD's. The thing is some 7,200rpm HD's and especially older ones can be a little noisy and create more heat.
It can depend on the HD that you go for.
Some 5400 perpendicular HD's with decent amount of cache like the Seagate drives also perform decently.

I upgraded an older computer once that had a 4200rpm HD, 512GB and a 1.8 M processor to a 5400 RPM Perpendicular, 1GB and 2 M processor and my laptop did feel more speedy. I didn't really need to upgrade the CPU but i wanted at least 2ghz lol.

SATA is for newer technology.

 

Thanks so much for clearing up some things in my mind. I know a tad, but it has been a while since I fooled with upgrades hehe. I will be giving it a slow go....as funds permit! Thanks a bundle. I think I will be going for the seagate drive....seems like it will be a tad better and less heat is always better. It is hot where I am and the machine needs help in that dept. btw, going to clean the fan/fans too...while I am at it.

Thanks again