VAIO TZ Guide for SSD install or upgrade

NOTE: This is consolidated information that is available here on this board, albeit scattered about. I hope I can save some time for people who want to upgrade their Sony TZ with an SSD. Thanks to Nando4 for tons of help.
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Sony VAIO TZ Complete Guide for HDD to SSD: Installation and Optimization.
(aka: Removing the UDMA2 limitation and enabling UDMA5)
Updated 12/12/2010

OVERVIEW:

This guide is intended for TZ owners who have an HDD configuration and wish to upgrade to SSD. (If your TZ originally shipped with an SSD, this guide will probably not affect you).

This guide assumes that you have already replaced your HDD with an SSD that is compatible with the VAIO TZ. The hardware disassembly is much easier than I expected. There is only one semi-difficult part to disassembly. When you get to the part where you must remove the cylinder, you should guide a small flathead along the crack while pulling on the cylinder. Do not use a lot of force. If you have experience building desktops, then taking apart the laptop should not be an issue if following the guide linked above.

SSD installed? Your benchmarks are likely to suck if you replaced your HDD and did nothing more (see before and after numbers below). The TZ uses a PATA IDE controller, not a SATA controller like most newer machines. Even worse, the controller is set at UDMA2 by default. UDMA2 limits your speed to 33MB/sec. The guide on THIS PAGE is designed to help you remove the UDMA2 limitations of the TZ IDE controller and max out SSD performance.

The TZ IDE controller is capable of achieving UDMA5 levels, which is 100MB/sec. Unfortunately, it is not a simple matter of going into Device Manager and hitting a button. To do this, we will use HDPARM and BAREDIT. HDPARM will remove the READ limitation and BAREDIT will remove the WRITE limitation. Below are the BEFORE and AFTER speeds using a RENICE K3VLAR 64GB SSD.

SPEEDS BEFORE HDPARM & BAREDIT:



It's fast. Much faster than the stock Toshiba 4200rpm HDD that the TZ originally came with. Since most of the OS speed depends on the 4K random read speeds, the controller isn't the real limitation. Still, what's the point of having crippled hardware when we can easily uncripple it?

SPEEDS AFTER HDPARM & BAREDIT:



While these numbers are just shy of Nando4's RENICE 128GB SSD review, you can see the sequential reads are almost 3x faster, while sequential writes are 2x faster. Random 4K reads (the best measure of real world system speed) have also improved by 33%, however this seems to be a fluke. 13-14MB/sec is what I usually get from 4KB/random reads.

Okay let's do this thing!

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STEP 1: Download DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL HDPARM for Windows 32bit.
Don't do anything with this program after it is installed.
The instructions will be in the batch file below.

STEP 2: Download DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL BAR Edit 3.2

Open up BAR Edit.
There are three pull down menus on the right. Choose the middle/second one.
Choose Bus.0 Dev.31. Fct.1 (The top RIGHT blue box should now say "INTEL and IDE Controller"
Find the "04" column and the "050" row which is byte 54. SELECT IT.
At the bottom/left of the window, it should say "Offset: 054"
Next to it, on the right, there are EIGHT ZEROES.
You will edit this to read 00000033.
(Alternatively, you can use 00000011; apparently this is what is used for TZ systems that originally ship with an SSD. I have confirmed this works)



Click WRITE button. Then click SAVE button.
Then CHECK "Apply Save at Startup" box.
This will create a startup shortcut, which does not work, so we will delete it and fix it.
REBOOT your machine.

After reboot, go to your startup menu and delete the BAREDIT shortcut.

Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Program Files\BAR-Edit
Copy the BAR-Edit.exe and paste it into the "C:\BAR_Save" directory

STEP 3: CREATE A BATCH FILE

Next, in Windows Explorer, go to C:\Program Files\hdparm\bin
Right-click mouse and select "new text document"
Name it UDMA.bat
Open up the file, which is a blank notepad file.
Copy and paste this text inside the file and then SAVE:

C:\BAR_Save\Bar-Edit.exe
hdparm -X udma5 /dev/sda
exit

Whenever you run this batch file called "UDMA.bat" it will run both HDPARM and BAREDIT at the proper settings and enable UDMA5 speeds. Unfortunately, whenever you reboot, or logoff, or resume from standby, your TZ will revert back to the old UDMA2 speeds. What to do?

STEP 4: RUN THE BATCH FILE AUTOMATICALLY

NOTE: If you do not use authentication on your machine, then you might want to read this to make a script. I'm sorry, I can't answer any questions about setfsb. I've never used this method myself. I use the Task Scheduler method...

If you do authenticate (login with a password) on your VAIO, then you can use Windows Task Scheduler to run the batch file every time the machine logs in from cold boot, or from resume standby. I use fingerprint authentication on my TZ on startup and also from resume standby.
In Windows Task Scheduler, click on "create basic task" on the right hand side, in the action panel.
Name it whatever, like UDMA5.
Set trigger to "At startup" and click next.
Task to perform is "start a program."
For Program/script, hit the browse button and point to UDMA.bat file in the hdparm\bin directory.
Select Finish. But we're not done.

Look for the task in Task Scheduler. Double click it.

in the GENERAL tab:
click "change user or group" button. write USER in the box and "check name" - hit OK.
Select "run with highest privileges"
Select "hidden"

click the TRIGGERS tab.
Select "At startup" trigger, and hit "edit"
Settings: No additional settings required.
Check Delay task for: "30 seconds."
Check Repeat task every: "1 hour" for a duration of "indefinitely"
Check "enabled" at the bottom and hit "OK."

Select "New" and in the dropdown menu, choose "on workstation unlock"
Choose settings "any user"
Check Delay task for: "30 seconds."
Repeat task every "1 hour" for a duration of "indefinitely"
Check "enabled" at the bottom and hit "OK."

click the CONDITIONS tab.
UNCHECK "Start the task only if the computer is on AC power."
HIT OK.

You're done.

 

6.4 disk data rate on a notebook is not bad!! My desktop gets 5.9

 

Nice job well explained.//

 

thanks! Great info!

edit:
Well I did exactly the steps you described on my TZ-90s. I have a orginal sammy 64 GB and there was no performance gain whatsover.
I did notice the value of the byte 54 in step 2 was 00000011 already when I opened baredit.

 

Ahh. This guide is for people who bought a TZ that came with an HDD and replacing it with an SSD. I'd imagine that Sony wouldn't cripple systems that originated with an SSD. I've edited the text so that it's clearer.

What does it say in Device Manager -> IDE ATA controller -> ATA Channel 0 -> Advanced Settings ?
Mine says UDMA2.

 

Um :O It didn't work.

I'm having this trouble http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ades/410815-how-setfsb-works.html#post5231625

I also try the "Task Scheduler" method, still display UDMA2 in the end :O

--- I follow the procedure, even restore it to just Win7 to do it no dice

If anything, think it was this step specifically :O that I got confused. If not, I dunno where I went wrong :<

click the TRIGGERS tab.
Select "At log on" trigger, and hit "edit"
Choose settings "any user"
Check Delay task for: "30 seconds."
Check "enabled" at the bottom and hit "OK."

"New" and in the dropdown menu, choose "on workstation unlock."
Select "At log on" trigger, and hit "edit" (you selection workstation, but if you select workstation, you can't select "at log on"... not sure about this step)
Choose settings "any user"
Check Delay task for: "30 seconds."
Check "enabled" at the bottom and hit "OK."

Thanks for any help :O really clueless at this point :O

 

I didn't write the setfsb instructions, so I don't know much about it.
I don't use setfsb myself because I don't understand it.
Setfsb and task scheduler method is only to automate the UDMA5 settings.

First question is: Did you achieve UDMA5 speeds at all?
Please crystalmark test or another benchmark and reply.
Task Scheduler will not do anything unless you confirm you achieved UDMA5 speeds first.

For task scheduler, I've updated the instructions to have a better chance of success. These are the settings I use myself. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the computer will lose the UDMA5 setting and revert back to UDMA2. It can drive you nuts. For example, if you run the Windows Experience Index, the UDMA5 settings will get lost. Weird.

Anyway, that's why I have the "repeat every one hour" option checked. If you ever lose UDMA5, eventually you'll get it back without having to manually do anything.

 

Thanks for helping out

First of all, its a Renice K3VLAR SSD, 64GB version.

I did a few test, like uninstalling the IDE controller to be redetected, registry and even clean install, no dice.

Anyway, here's the result. It is quite funny, my read speed is just...lol won't go up!

Without any edit of the 054 offset.



Editing the offset to 00000011



Editing the offset to 00000033



Just for comparison, my 2nd internal HDD is a WD blue 500gb 2.5" on the same machine is running at speed.



--

System is running on Win 7, U7600 2GB ram, a TZ91NS.

The write is up to par.. but read is just lol.

Under device manager, the ATA channel 0 for the SSD still says its running at UDMA 2 =(

Thanks for any help I dunno... what could be wrong. The Win7 is a fresh copy (well, upgraded from Vista since i need the drivers, but I did try just installing Win7 fresh and nothing has changed). My old SSD (ASAX), can read at 70mb, just writes at 20mb, so I know it can read that high. However, this one gave me a boost of 10mb write speed but lol, significantly decreased in read speed.

 

I did a few more troubleshooting, but still unable to understand why my read speed maintains this slow.

I first ensure that the drive is not at fault. Plugged it to my desktop and performed just right.

Below is my test running on my desktop with a ZIF to SATA caddy. Renice 64GB SSD Crystal Disk Mark follow by Crystal Disk Info



I tried the registry fix with the Renice SSD but no dice. I also modded the Reset Error Counters registry to 1 and no success.

Last is I plugged my old SSD back into my TZ just for one final test, just to ensure the cable wasn't damaged during swap and still performing good on the read. Though it's on UDMA5.



Both SSD used a Windows 7 image to reduce the chance of some OS driver issue, but same image, one detects UDMA5 but one on UDMA2.
I even went to update the 945 driver directly from Intel... follow by uninstalling the ATA Channel 0 from device manager and let it detect again, no dice

I'm super confused '.' at my slow reading rate :O will continue digging around but if anyone have an idea that'd be great

Thanks ahead of time

 

It looks like you didn't run the hdparm instruction.
If you didn't:

open a command line in the hdparm directory.
type this:
hdparm -X udma5 /dev/sda

re-run crystal disk mark.

If that doesn't work, I don't know what could be wrong.
Sorry, I don't have an image of my computer. You don't want an image anyway from what I've read.
Something about drives not aligning correctly, so you should do a fresh install.

 

lol, I fail in reading comprehension.

What I missed was. Bar-Edit was only 1/2 of the solution (boosting write speed).
hdparm was the other half of the solution in boosting read speed.



I was really scratching my head... for the longest time, i was looking for "UDMA5", but wasn't specifically looking at "UDMA5 SPEED". I thought these magic bullet modify Windows to use UDMA5, so I was looking into that parameter more :x, and totally neglected hdparm was the other 1/2 of this solution.

Thanks man !

 

I figured that was it. I updated the instructions to make it a little clearer. I bet your TZ feels a lot more useable now.

 

It's a little complicated now. I was doing that on Windows Vista. On Windows 7.... it doesn't work - -" but at least I know if it really doesn't work on 7, I can use vista to enjoy the SSD speed.

I did exactly what I did in Vista, ran hdparm manually just to see if it works.. and it didn't. The Bar-Edit portion works though.

 

Lol now hdparm doesn't work :< well I don't know why. The screenshot I showed u above, worked once, then after reboot it doesn't work.

I reformatted, work once then it doesn't work again, and it's always the 1st time that it works.

Here's a screenshot of me just manually doing hdparm, am I doing something wrong? :O

 

Yes, that's normal. That's why you run task scheduler to run the batch file so you don't have to run hdparm manually. By running hdparm, it doesn't permanently set UDMA5.
You will lose UDMA5 every time you reboot, go to sleep, logout, etc.

You want task scheduler to run hdparm/baredit every time one of the above actions happens. If you are authenticating, then you only need 2 triggers listed in the above.
It is unlikely there is something wrong with your drive. It's Sony's stupid IDE controller.

 

Well the problem is that screen was taken after I ran that line under hdpram with elevated privilege, it doesn't work under manual (and yes I've already automated that) and still no go. My bar-edit already automated and is working fine.

Anyway, I've contacted mydigitaldiscount and they are seeing if I can just change it to the EWS720 version of their SSD (K3VLAR-E), avoiding the trouble of a PATA SATA bridge, which is probably causing the trouble.

Anyway, I've already sent a full benchmark report and relevant details to renice.cn and their engineers and see if they can fix this in their future firmware but for now, I guess it's either a hit or a miss well at least I tried lolz

 

Sorry for your troubles.
That must have been frustrating.
I don't know what it can be since I have the exact same SSD,
and you are clearly getting it to run full speed outside of the TZ,
and even once in the TZ.

Your Western Digital is on a different IDE channel or USB?

 

it's on a different IDE yes. According to Windows, the ZIF is shared with the memory stick reader. The 2nd channel is WD and SD card reader.

I disabled the memory stick AND SD reader for troubleshooting purposes before, but it didn't do anything. =(

& lets hope Renice actually release a firmware that somehow magically fix this issue rather than us working around it

 

Late to the conversation but hopefully can get this going. Love my TZ and still haven't found a worthy upgrade.

TZ340
Windows 7 32 bit
2gb RAM
60gb Renice K3e (native PATA)

Upgraded over the weekend to the new drive from the stock 100gb 4200rpm Toshiba and it is great. Didn't have too many complaints previously about this machine but I'm preparing it to go back to school and want to maximize its potential.

As you can see below, my write speeds are terrible. I'm getting UDMA5 in a fresh install with the native PATA controller and my boot times are damn fast. Write times seem really low and file transfers across the disk are awful. I tried copying a 9gb folder of video files and it started out 50MB/s and quickly slowed down to around 20MB/s.

 

Your reads look normal. The write side should be: 50, 50, 5, 5 (ballpark).
You show UDMA5, so I'm guessing your TZ shipped with an SSD?

I've sold my TZ, so I can't check now, but I'm pretty sure mine never said "UDMA5" in device manager. I could only confirm I was getting close to "enabled" speeds.

So, if your TZ did in fact ship with an SSD, this is the wrong place to post about your problems.

 

No, it did not come stock with an SSD. As I said in my original post, "upgraded over the weekend to the new drive from the stock 100gb 4200rpm Toshiba."

I'm quite happy with the read speed, as that is what I should be getting. It is the write times that seem low.

I have the Renice K3E 60gb drive which uses a native PATA controller which may be why it is being configured automatically to use UDMA5. I believe you were using the K3A, which uses a SATA-PATA adapter. Nando lists the differences in his comprehensive thread.

So, since my TZ did NOT ship with an SSD, I don't think this is the wrong place to post my problems and observations.

 

Well, I wrote the original guide. Did your device manager say UDMA5 with the original HDD in? Mine said UDMA2 and likely stayed at UDMA2 even after the SSD was installed.

So, what I was saying in my original post is this:
If your laptop came enabled with UDMA5, right out the box, then it doesn't matter whether you had an SSD or HDD. This isn't the right place to post because I wrote this guide for people showing UDMA2 in device manager. Yes, your write speeds do not seem normal. However, it would be good to know if you had UDMA2 or UDMA5 before installing the SSD.

 

Hello everyone, long-term TZ owner, first time poster!

I bought a VAIO TZ150N about six years ago and it's done sterling service. But over the past few months, it's been randomly hanging. I suspected my 100GB hard disk was at fault, so before giving up on the laptop, decided to take a punt on swapping it for an SSD.

The guides on this forum have been fantastic, so I wanted to thank everyone here for their advice, especially sugarkang here.

Following the compatible SSD thread elsewhere on the forum, I settled on a Renice K3VLAR K3E 64GB. I admit to wanting TRIM support, but liked the lower power consumption on this drive, plus it was the only one available at the short notice I had to get it. I ordered it from MemoryC, paying $152 USD. I realise this is higher than some other stores, but they didn't have it in stock and I needed it ASAP. It took five working days to wing its way from Ireland to New Zealand using the premium shipping option.

Thanks to the excellent TZ drive swap guide, I had the SSD installed in less than half an hour, although despite being my first open-laptop surgery, I have built many desktops. Probably the fiddliest part for me was getting the cable out of the old drive and into the new one.

My TZ150N originally came with Vista, which I replaced for XP hours after unpacking it. This time I went straight to Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit, booting from an external USB drive. The installation hung at the file extraction point, but going back and manually initiating a drive format fixed that.

I installed the Sony Windows 7 drivers, but went for the Vista camera driver as the 7 driver didn't work properly.

Now everything seems to work, including the camera with Skype, although the only active Fn keys are the volume and mute ones - no brightness control, so any help there much appreciated!

As for the UDMA mode, Device Manager already reports UDMA 5. Since the old disk kept crashing, I couldn't get far enough into Windows to confirm the previous UDMA setting with the hard disk, so I can't say if it was always UDMA 5.

But running Crystal Disk Mark with 5 runs / 1000MB on my 64GB drive reporting 30% (17/56) gives the following results:

85.01 / 56.40
78.33 / 15.23
13.21 / 2.137
15.65 / 1.855

See attached screengrab

How do those figures sound? Do you think I should run your batch file?

Anyway the good news is 24 hours into my upgrade, the laptop hasn't crashed yet and feels much faster than before, so I'm very happy.

Thankyou again for all the guides.

Gordon

 

I have used this and my FN keys do work F1>F6

 

Thanks zimbros12, I'll give it a shot...

In the meantime, another problem has recurred: random lockups, some in Windows, some even as the machine first boots before starting Windows. I'll post about it in the Vaio TZ owners thread...

 

Just FYI Windows 7 reports UDMA5 on my Sony Vaio TZ150N with its original 100GB non-ssd hard drive.

 

Very nice to know.

When I wrote this guide, I did it on a TZ-2000E. If you've already got UDMA5, you don't need this guide.

 

I'm getting lockups with greater frequency when the laptop comes out of sleep. I installed the K3E about a month and a half ago. I'm going to reinstall the OS to see if that has any effect as quickly waking from sleep was a major reason for the SSD upgrade.

I hope I don't have a faulty drive.

 

Dear Mr. Sugarkang

I read your post it is very interesting, I have Sony TZ150 with Toshiba-100GB-MK1011GAH hard disk can you guide me that which SSD will be its replacement.
thanks

 

You need a 40 pin zif pata...

Look at this chart

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...orage/531052-1-8-zif-pata-ssds-available.html

 

Probably to late to try and help you now since it's such an old thread.
But i think it may be because your hdparm parameter is wrong. Are you sure your drive is at sda channel and not sdb channel? It won't help to try to set some settings if there is no drive there.

 

Very good guide man! I have tried hdparm before, but i did not about bar-edit so my writing speed was very low.
I tried this on my old ty sparelaptop that my girlfriend is still using and where i have gotten an owc ssd ata disk that can also be uses as a sata ssd disk when that time come.
Anyway on my computer i could run hdparm but after i have run it on some benchmarks it would lower speed , so i used task scheduler to run it every 1 minute since it is an easy task that does not affect overall speed. But the cmd window just started to irritate me when it pops up in my face as it run the batch job. So i found a program called hstart(short for hidden start) that could run batch files in hidden mode

I found out that it was enough to run bar-edit only once pr login as it does not lower write speed.

Anyway, now everything works as good as this old pc ever did.
And btw, you can export your scheduled tasks as an xml file so other could import it without having to make it all by them self.
Save it as an xml file and start task scheduler and import the task, easy as that. And by the record, i have now split the bar-edit into another task so i don't have to load it more than once pr session i log into as my write speed never goes down after the first time i run it and the program flashes over my screen, and it irritates me

 

got mx-nano 120gb
installed in tz2rxnb
did all the things. write speeds are quite terrible. can't get better (
windows says udma5 is on
baredit- wrote 00000033

speeds:
85/38
77/19
12/ 1.7
14/ 1.5

dec 9 edit:
write speeds are same, but setting udma6 in hdparm instead of udma5 increased seq and 512k reading speeds to 103 and 90 mbs

 

hi All,

very very nasty problem arised - when laptop returns back from sleep, SSD does not! ((( system halts in few seconds
any ideas?

i had to turn off sleep for hdd...

 

Hello,
I recently bought a Vaio TZ 31. It was under vista business. I replaced it with win 7 pro and also replaced the original 100gb HDD (Toshiba) with a 128 gb SSD (KingSpec KSD-ZF 18.6-128MS). I followed some advises on the web to optimize windows 7 for SSD. The booting time is particularly quicker than before and the overall performances seem definitelt better.

I thought I had done everything possible to better the performances; then I read your lines and I am now hesitating to do it.

I wanted to know whether it was worthy according to you? I use windows seven pro; is your guide OK for this OS? Are you still online and available to provide a little assistance in case I face problems either when following your guide or after it's done?

Thanks a lot and best regards from Brussels, Belgium,

 

Hi sebchtibxl,
I'm very interested in this upgrade too. I have a small vaio tz11 with a 1.8" 100Gb toshiba HDD (P-ATA, lif connector). Do you think that I could replace it with the same SSD as you? would you please link me more precise info about it, and where I can find it? thanks.

 

I upgraded mine with a RENICE K3VLAR E 120GB which has being running well over 1 year without any hiccups.