VAIO Z parts list (older gen)

It seems that I may need to go back to Sony's Service Centre to get my DVD drive replaced now. It is seldom playing DVDs and CDs anymore. If this helps, my drive is a 1.5 year old stock part, and I have made it burn and read data off single and even dual layer discs for 2-3 hour stints at a time as my hobby demands (video encoding, NOT illegal incase you are worried...).
But then, I made my 4 year old Samsung lappie do worse for 2 whole years and it still goes without a hitch, albiet slowly (that has the Toshiba-Samsung joint TSST drive).

So I put in a disc, and as soon as I close the disc tray, the drive makes the usual loading sound for a split second then abruptly stops. It will not read (regardless whether it is a CD, DVD, DVD movie, burned disc, what-have-you), and Windows says insert a disc (and ejects the drive again). I'm assuming it is not spinning at all whenever this happens.

I just noticed this now, but that circular thing that goes through the middle of discs seems to be loose whenever a disc on loaded on the tray. If I snap on a disc that circular thing pops upwards about 2 - 3 mm, and I can easily push it back down with my finger... When the disc is removed / snapped off the tray, the circular wheel / thing returns back to its original height, and will not budge back upwards until a disc is snapped back in.

Another note; I noticed that the disc drive started making strange sounds while I was overseas, 5 months ago. I was archiving some irreplaceable data for long-term storage, and thought DVD would be a good idea. I inserted a blank disc, and it almost sounded like something wasn't 'in-gear'; the disc sounded as if it was spinning on that circular thing in a loose manner. I didn't think much of it then since it burned the required data without issues, and I was extremely busy with a tight time schedule...

I have read around the net and it seems that Matsh!ta drives have been labelled by many as 'cheap' OEM drives which manufacturers (obviously) favour, and as such these brands suffer early deaths and are of sub-par quality. Alas, I am rethinking whether I should push ahead with the bluray swap-out; many of you following this thread now know these older Zs are only compatible with Matsh!ta BD drives. I'm about 4/5 of the way into saving up for that drive, so getting quite close to the purchase stage....

I just need to confirm this with fellow OLDER Z users. Do you suffer from that 'strange' sound phenomena when the drive is reading discs? It mostly occur(ed) when the disc was being slowed down or being sped up. My drive, at the moment as it is, provided I fiddle around with that circular thing, will play a disc 1 out of 10 times. Can't take my machine into service at the moment since university exams are 2 weeks away; need lappie for coding practice.

The attached are the sounds, recorded at highest recording settings using my IC recorder (a Sony ICD-UX91...). Would appreciate feedback; pretty sure something is wrong.
- "Reading, with some issues.zip" just indicates the 'sounds' that my drive has been making since January
- "No reading.zip" are all the sounds that my drive makes and just, doesn't read / spin. The sound there sounds like the lens moving around, but nothing else afterwards.

 

Just confirmed the issue with the (current) drive. The black circular thing that you 'click' your disc middle into has quite literally fallen off the motor now while I was checking whether it would play this and that disc.

Seems that it didn't have enough grip to immediately speed up / down a spinning disc, which explains the sounds it made when it was able to read data.

Unfortunately, the black circular thing has pretty much lost its grip with the motor, and will now not read at all. I have considered superglue but thought it would be better to get the drive replaced under warranty...

Though I'm curious (if ehosey2 is around). Does your black circular thing on the UJ232a seem to have been merely pushed onto the drive shaft of the motor like the UJ286a (the stock DVD drive of the older Z)? I would appreciate a photo or a real-life image of an UJ232a with the tray open so that I can confirm...

 

Here is the picture of my Z820's Blu-ray drive. It seems like to be of decent quality.

 

Ah. I can't tell FOR SURE, but that does seem ok.

That black thing on my drive started 'popping' up whenever I clicked in a disc, sometime late last year. I thought that was normal and continued using till early January when the sounds started.... leading up to the carnage above.

Regardless, thanks for your reply.

 

I'll keep my eye on it but it seems the only concern for these drives would be any dust that could get into it, thus creating performance issues.

 

I was just running CPU-Z a few minutes ago and it seems something is off...

First off, my Z has the P8600 C2D Processor, which has a clock speed of 2.4GHz. Though it seems that CPU-Z is rating it as 2527MHz (to about 2530MHz; it's fluctuating around that range). Is this normal? I haven't over-clocked anything...

Granted, I know these analysis tools are sometimes inaccurate, but don't think to the point where it says I'm getting 130MHz-ish more clock speed than what it's rated for...

Just curious since if a 2.4GHz CPU does this, what about a 2.8GHz (P9700) or even a T9900 (3.06GHz)?

 

Some (but not all) of the Core 2 CPUs have speedboost, where if one core is idle, the other can run 133 MHz faster. The P9500 and 9700, for example, have this, while the P9600 does not.
This can affect tools like CPU-Z.
Try running a multi-threaded program in the background and see whether that changes anything.

 

I guess this is one HUGE bump.
I'm no closer to any mod as my savings have been drained paying for another semester of university...

Though I thought I'd share this with you today. Well, I'm not too sure how happy ehosey2 will be seeing this...
Centrix-intl.com - Panasonic UJ232A Wholesale Price, Ships Same Day!

Granted the warranty is not as long as I'd like, but it's a warranty nonetheless since there are some on ebay offering nothing at all.

The UJ232a for US$214, +US$40 for international shipping. They are even selling these on eBay, and I think I can nego off the shipping fee if I'm lucky...
Heck, that gives me refreshed motivation to try and save even more for the blu-ray mod.

I have been searching eBay occasionally for the Intel 5300AGN half-height but no luck; pretty much all the sellers are from China / Hong Kong, and they all post up generic images, some cards not even having the Intel logo. I'm rather reluctant on buying the 5300AGN until someone can guarantee that their cards are genuine; the people I have PMed so far haven't replied, a reason for which I can probably guess why.

The lid swap, as well as the CPU swap, I have been made aware that Sony Korea's AS (after sales service) can do for me. Considering Korea has some of the worlds best after-sales service (competition fuelled by Samsung's own AS), I think I'll be safe there. Apparently they even provide the parts and have same-day servicing for no extra charge (ie, only pay for the parts), depending on how backed up they are. And incase people are curious, any one carbon lid is in the high US$200, regardless of whether it being premium or not. ...And Sparepartswarehouse didn't have the one I was looking for...

 

I did that BD mod in another laptop and also upgraded to SSD. Prices have dropped a little but it doesn't really bother me as you expect that months on.

Good luck with your upgrades. Btw, i have done the 5300 upgrade and my antenna is located in the bezel. I changed my mind about where to locate it.

This looks like it might be ok.

Intel WiFi Link 5300 half size mini PCI-E wireless card on eBay (end time 21-Aug-10 03:07:03 BST)

It seems like you want more guarantee though.

 

My laptop's being used extensively at the moment, and will continue to be for a couple of months to come. If it handles the first week, then I'd be pretty safe in assuming it will last a decent while.

I've been getting BSODs from the 5100 network driver recently, but only when the Z is being used on battery (with the wireless connected to an unsecured network). Here's me hoping that installing virtualbox and WindowsXP Mode is causing a driver conflict, not the recent repair Sony has done; they replaced my motherboard for no apparent reason and I upon disassembly I don't see anything wrong...

...Which is why I thought I'd restart my search for the 5300.

I've sent that 5300 seller a question to confirm some things here and there. Hopefully will be able to source an antenna soon too.

Thanks Rachel.

 

A bit surprising addition on DX today...

 

...A massive bump of sorts...

UJ232a for sale on eBay.
The drives this seller seems to be selling are made for Sony machines (the labelling on the drive enclosure is one sign)

Panasonic UJ232A 9.5mm Ultra Slim Blu-ray Burner Reader - eBay (item 250698652955 end time Sep-22-10 17:32:17 PDT)

US$65 at the moment, and it is a no-reserve auction. I managed to get mine fo US$133.50, and another buyer for another identical auction got it for US$125. Someone here might be lucky to get themselves a drive for even lower.

 

Ok - finally bought a UJ232a and just installed it on my VGN-Z.
It works (yay). But before I post the installation pictures I took, I have a question...

My drive is making an 'iffy' sound, as if a motor is not greased too well. I can't confirm where it's coming from, but it sounds like the motor that is responsible for moving the lens to and from varying disc radii.

Though keep in mind; the drive plays discs without issues.

So yeah... Was wondering if other UJ232a owners are having the same sound issue? Listen to the attached files.

File '1' is one where I insert the tray with a disc inside. Keeping listening as I tell the drive to EJECT. That 'I'm griding to a halt' sound...

File '2' is one where I insert the tray WITHOUT a disc. Again, near the end, a really 'frictious' sound...

Everything else 'sounds' right. Just that grinding sound is not something I would expect a blu-ray drive to make. If this is indeed not right, I'll have to send it back immediately to ask for a replacement (or refund should it come to that)...
Thanks in advance to all those who help~

 

Hey, just a quick question, can i put any newer SSD drive into the vaio vgn-z41 series laptop (lets say ocz or intel or whichever) i would just want one and will it support than ?

 

I haven't been keeping up-to-date with newer SSDs, but they should work. The VGN-Z doesn't have proprietary connectors like the VPC-Z, so any SATA connection should be fine. You can reuse the caddy and connector, so a simple process provided you know what you're doing. Some people here have gotten quite a range of 2.5 SSDs to work with the VGN-Z.

But that all changes if you decide to go down the dual SSD (RAID0) path. If your VGN-Z came with a standard HDD, then you'll need to hunt down the dual SSD bracket (and screws, as I don't think it includes them?), and the dual SSD connection flex cable (FPC-126). Those two alone go into the US$100 ranges, so they're not cheap. Plus, you can only use 2x, stripped-down uSATA 1.8' SSDs for the RAID option as there simply is not enough space for 2x 2.5's

 

Hey, thanks for the info, seems good, i think ill wait some time till the ssds get cheaper, but i never had the intention and probably never will do raid into this laptop. just another quick question, will trim work (forgot to write it last time) and ye well ive disassembeled and reassembeled some older laptops and im screwing on desktops since im like 10 years old (so got 10+ years of experience of screwing around), however i was checking the thread how to change the hdd (remove the keyboard sort of to get to the hdd) and i didnt rly find it how to loosen the keyboard plate. anyhow thanks

 

TRIM in a RAID setup does not work (well, not at the moment with restrictions thanks to Intel; there might be an update from them in the future with their RAID controller drivers from what I hear).

That said, if you have a single SSD (ie, no RAID), Windows 7 supports TRIM within the OS itself. Even then, there seems to be some SSDs that implement TRIM-like features built right into the drive like garbage collection on the VPC-Zs for example.

I have been planning on getting 2x 256GB generation 2 Samsung SSDs provided I go to Korea this year (that's a maybe). I'm considering Samsung because they're the only confirmed RAID0 setup that works in a VGN-Z.

 

hmm thanks for the info, my plan is for sure that i wont do raid (really too much work in my opinion and not that much faster than, i mean the ssds have like 285mb/s read / 275mb/s write for instance look at this one ok this one has 275/265 but seriously who cares lol its like 2-5 times faster than normal hdds
OCZ Onyx 2 240GB, 2.5", SATA II (OCZSSD2-2ONX240G) | Geizhals.at EU and its rather cheap aswell i mean 240gb for 360e

 

OK - another huge bumpage of sorts.

I bought 2x SAMSUNG 4GB sticks (PC8500, the 1066MHz variant), with each stick having 8x chips each. It was bought in Korea, and I paid a total of US$110.

I can now confirm that despite having 8x chips each, both are being properly recognised and are working without issues.

I disabled system paging altogether, and now see that I've shaved startup times by around 5 seconds, and full HD movies are less demanding on the HDD (less blinking of the HDD light).

Though I have a small question...
The first time I booted into windows (W7 x64) after adding the 2x 4GB sticks, my HDD was showing a 10GB loss. I disabled system paging altogether (0MB used) and rebooted. But it seems the OS is using 1GB or so of HDD space?

In actual fact, running dxdiag it states that my paging file is actually 2028MB, from a total of 6092MB. But from the ADVANCED SYSTEM PROPERTIES window, it says it's 0MB...

I remember reading this could be due to hibernation size increase, but despite changing back to my old ELPIDA sticks, the HDD usage remains unchanged...

Can someone advise of what could be eating up the extra gigabyte of space, and how to get that space back?