Sony VGN-SR420D/H CPU/other Upgrade?

So I talked to sony support ppl on chat, and they said I can't upgrade the Harddrive to a SSD.. blah. (true?) and they were unhelpful on bios support

Questions:

- Can I swap out the T6500 for the T8300? - or even a 1066fsb chip? I think the chipset supports it.

- What is the GPU like? Is it removable or replaceable? Its the ATI 4570 512mb - not mxm for sure..

- Bios hacks???

I want someone who actually knows, not just theoretically, i can find out chipset, socket, thermal, volts etc to make sure it works, its just that from experience I know some manufactures tend to limit the bios with what it can support so that upgrading is hard. Maybe I can swap bios to a relatively similiar speced asus/acer etc? I come from working with Dells Sagers and other laptops and building PC's but never played with a Sony.

Lemme know!

 

Sony will always tell you that internal mods are NOT possible; heck, I've heard some support team telling me RAM is not upgradable (darn level one supports...)

Considering you have the T6500 as a stock CPU, technically you can take your CPU upgrade to a T9900 (3.06GHz / CPU). Though I don't know whether you'll be getting the full 1066MHz FSB clock speed.

GPU is NOT upgradable. It's hotwired onto the motherboard so unless you have an eye-surgeon's steady hand (plus an extremely expensive soldering iron station), you'll end up killing your motherboard in the GPU removal process. But yeah, theoretically speaking it is possible.

Hard drive, the upgrade is possible (any 2.5' should be fine)

I own the VGN-Z and have been planning on a number of performance mods for some time (been saving up). An internal bluray writer is priority for me (actually, I might buy one next week).

If you search around the forums, you can read people who have modified their VGN-Zs with all sorts of parts (some of them custom-made by the users here themselves; the WWAN with the soldered SIM daughter board for example). There's even the odd fellow with the X9100 CPU and got his local silver-smith to make him a better heat-sink.

There are SOME reports of Intel WifiLink 5300 Half-height cards NOT working on some models. Sellers from eBay have a bad habit of selling fake cards (or OEM parts intended for Dell machines), which don't seem to play well with Sonys. And it's darn hard finding genuine generic (non-OEM-intended) parts these days as it is...

Why are you upgrading your machine?

 

I just opened it up and ya the gpu is on the motherboard. Its a pretty ok GPU except the 64bit mem - but still i want more lol

The chipset is supposed to be PM45 - so it should support 1066fsb and DDR3. Its just that darn BIOS that I have no access to and no idea what it can support.

When you say the sony VGN-Zs (i didn't research) - how is it similar to the VGN-SR420? Same modelish? Newer model? - if so if the size is the same and it has a faster GPU maybe I can switch the motherboard.

I always have a tendency to take apart whatever I have and build it, it would sick to have a 13" with DX11 support 128bit 512gddr? 1066fsb with 2.5+ghz DDR2800 is fine though, SSD HDD - and ya eventually a Bluray drive too. (dreams are wonderful) Of course I can just go out and buy one like that.... but I prefer to build and mess with it and do it over time.

Thanks for the info though, it was a quick, accurate and relevant.

 

The VGN-Z came out at around the same time as the VGN-SR. Though mine is a 2nd gen, yours is a 4th.

The Z has a 13.1' screen and the SR a 13.3. Plus the Z is 1.5kg and the SR is 2kg. So basically, the motherboards between the two models are different. ...And the Z has a hybrid nVidia 9300GM and Intel graphics (which is slightly inferior to the ATI found on the SR).

I'm not too sure what GPU intended for laptops has a 128bit 512MB GDDR5 (that's compatible with the SR). The only one I know of is the GT330m and the GT335m found on the newer VPC-Zs... But those have a completely different motherboard structure.

Just keep in mind a T9900 CPU is around US$350 off ebay. Not too sure if they are knock-offs (yes, there are knock-off CPUs) but if not eBay, you are looking at US$1k for the T9900 from Sony USA's parts department.

 

I was thinking more of a P8700 - 2.53ghz 1066fsb 3mb cache for $100. I think that should be fine.