Sony VAIO Upgrade Help

Hello,

This looks like a great forum to get some advice for a non-techy.

I have a SONY VAIO VGN-SR940GJB which has Intel COre 2 Duo running at 2.2Ghz, 4GB Ram and 300GB HDD.

However I am currently running some very heavy resource intensive programs and wanted to upgrade.

I would like to the following, so is it possible on this model?

1. Increase RAM to 8/12/16GB?
Will my motherboard support it ? Any other problems or what is the maximum RAM I can install on this machine?

2. CPU: Can I upgrade the CPU to Intel i5 or i7?

3. Would I be able to upgrade the HDD to a Solid State drive - this is not essential but would be the cherry on top.

4. Oh and USB 3.0 (I could get an express card?)

Essentially if I can just upgrade memory and if that would make my system perform better I would be happy and the rest isn't as important.

Is it cheaper to upgrade or buy a new machine?

Your advise is most welcome and highly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

1) What operating system are you running, and what bit, 32 or 64? If you're running a 32-bit OS, then going over 4GB of memory will have no benefit. And if you are running a 64-bit OS, what bit are the applications you're running? The same applies to those as well.

3) An SSD (Solid State Drive) would probably increase speeds for reads/writes to the hard drive.

4) Do you use USB 3.0 external devices that would benefit from this upgrade?

You also might want to post this in the Sony forum so more knowledgeable people on the actual hardware could help out.

 

Hi WackyT,

Thanks for your reply.

1. 64bit Windows 7 Pro

2. I'm running Windows 2003 Server with, DBs and ERP, as well as web design apps.

3. SSD drive, if I can get an internal one (256 GB+)

4. Yes I have an internal USB 3.0 drive

So on a 64bit OS what is the maximum memory I can upgrade to and specifically for his model?
Thanks

 

It appears as though 8 GB is the maximum this machine can support. It likely already came with a 64-bit OS installed, so you should be good there.

No.

I'm sure the drive can be upgraded, but you might have the hassle of having to disassemble most of the notebook in order to get to it. I'm not sure on how it is with your exact machine.

If you an Expresscard slot, absolutely. In order to take advantage, you obviously need USB 3.0 peripherals.

 

What operating system are you running, and what bit, 32 or 64? If you're running a 32-bit OS, then going over 4GB of memory will have no benefit. And if you are running a 64-bit OS, what bit are the applications you're running? The same applies to those as well.

 

Yes it came with a 64bit OS.

How can I find out, if it is one 4GB or two 2GBs?

If 8 is the max, then, I'd need to buy two new 4GBs, presuming it came with 2 x 2GBs.

Sorry, just out of curiosity, why can't I upgrade to i5 or i7 CPU? Is it because of the motherboard or something else?

I really don't mind getting rid of that CD/DVD drive, I have never used it and hate it. I never wanted to get a laptop with an optical drive and still don't know why they make laptops with optical drives but I guess there's a market. I had no option but to upgrade to a Z series if I wanted no optical drive.

Yes I have an external usb drive with usb 3.0 which has my server running on it.

Thanks for your help

 

CPU-Z ( CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting ) can tell you what's in each memory slot.

 

Thanks for your reply Banleno007.

64bit Windows 7 Pro, so it can handle more than 4GB, but what is the maximum?

The apps are also 64bit.

 

Different motherboard, different CPU socket. If you want an i5 or i7 badly, you'll need a completely new system.

That's certainly another option. On some notebooks, it's much easier to remove the optical drive than the hard drive (Dell Vostro 3450 is one). Then you could have the best of both worlds - SSD for the operating system and your most disk-intensive applications and the traditional platter drive for data/media/game storage.

 

Thanks Wacky,

I installed it but before that I was on a thread of Sony Vaio Z series and followed a link to Crucial which did a scan or something of my system and gave full details of the memory.

But funny enough it has the model name as VPCZ133GX, maybe that's the internal model number or something.

Anyhow, the CPUZ says memory Type: DDR2 BUT the Crucial link says it's DDR3 ?

So is my memory installed DDR2 or DDR3 and does it matter? More importantly what type do I need to buy?

Also what is the best, the ultimate memory that I can buy given it can only be a max of 8GB. Also why can't I buy 2 X 8GBs since it's a 64bit OS?

Thanks

[EDIT] The online scan from Crucial was fake, I guess my model number is correct and it's DDR2, so should I get DDR3 and is that the best type of memory I can get?

Thanks to all

 

If CPU-Z says DDR2, that's what you have. You can't use DDR3 for the same reason you can't have an i5 CPU - physical incompatibility.

Whatever is the cheapest, honestly. RAM quality is pretty much the same across the board. Unfortunately, since there are no more DDR2 notebooks in production, the price of that RAM actually goes up, so this upgrade will be a bit on the pricey side. While 8 GB of DDR3 can cost as little as $30-40, the same quantity of DDR2 is at least 2-3x more expensive.

Because no such DDR2 modules exist. Even if they did, for what they would cost, you would be better off buying a brand new notebook.

 

I'd trust what CPU-Z says on the SPD tab as to the type, speed, and size of the memory modules.

 

Thanks for your reply dude, would any express card do or do I need to get a specific card and how do I even know that's an exrepss card?!

 

Yes I agree Wacky, trust CPU-Z; because the Crucial site and Live support couldn't find my model (I'm in the UK but bought the laptop from the US).

Ahhh man, just checked out the prices on ebay for DDR ram 2* 4GB & it's damn expensive.

Thanks to everyone for your support, highly appreciate it and thank you once again and would recommend others as well as returning back here.

Shame about the official Sony VAIO forum....i've been waiting weeks and days for some replies and yet no reply, a shame indeed.

Good work here guys.

 

Hi, you might want to search through the last part of the SR Owners Thread. According to go-ahead-ed, He was only able to get 6gb ram working in his SR. Granted his were a SR 240 and 290, but I have followed the SR series and there were really no changes to them as far as i know, only model updates with better cpu's and hdd storage.

You cant upgrade to a "core i" series cpu. the 2 best cpu's you could upgrade to would be the t9900 or the p9700. the SR can only take a T or P series cpu.
see this post.

You can upgrade to a SSD, in fact that would be a very good upgrade.

Usb 3.0 express card? yes you can use these, just remember the SR uses Expresscard /34 size only.

 

Thanks for that S.Prime....I guess would have to keep my tradition of VAIOs for personal use and get a power horse for work.

 

Hi all,

Will my VAIO SR motherboard/Memory slot be able to take two 4GB DDR2 memory ? I might invest in these:

Specifications
Type
: DDR2 DIMM
Capacity : 8GB (2x4GB)
Speed : DDR2 667Mhz PC5300
Bitz : 256 x 8 Low Density
Pins : 240Pin
Voltage : 1.8 V
ECC : No
Registered
Dual Channel
CAS Latency
Warranty
UnBuffered Memory : No
: Ready
: CL5

Will these be OK ? From the US for about $100

Thanks