Vaio FZ unscrewed; how-to tutorial

Vaio FZ unscrewed:


A while back i promised some of you i'd post some pictures of the inside of my FZ11S, and that moment is finally here.


I'm used to cleaning out my notebooks every 6 months or so since i use it in reasonably dusty environments, and because i share my apartment with a hairy cat. But since the FZ doesn't have a separate lid that covers the fan area that means the whole bottom has to come off first. Since i couldn't find a manual or any other documentation on how to open up this particular Vaio i had to find out myself how to do it, and i thought it could be helpful to do a little how-to-tutorial instead of just a simple photo shoot.


First of all; when you need to open up your FZ make sure you have enough room to work with and a clean environment to work in. Keep in mind that some parts can be really delicate so don't use to much force. The FZ is put together really well and is very easy to take apart an put back together again, so if you have to use force you're probably doing something wrong anyway. I take no responsibility whatsoever if you brake anything, and chances are that you will loose your warranty when you open up your Vaio (although i managed to put mine back together again without a scratch, and i don't think that there's anyway to see that it's been opened). It's also advisable to discharge yourself from static electricity to prevent damaging the sensitive electronics. You have special risk bands for that, but i just touch the pipes of my well grounded central heating system from time to time and make sure i don't wear any synthetics. All the tools you need are a screwdriver and a creditcard, and for cleaning an old toothbrush and a vacuum cleaner or a can of compressed air.




Getting started:


-Unplug your notebook and place it upside down on a towel or piece of cloth to avoid scratches on the lid, i also recommend placing the keyboard cover that came with the notebook (the thin sheet of Styrofoam) between the lid and the keyboard. Take out the battery, and remove the two lids that cover the hard drive and the memory banks. Now you can remove the hard drive by unscrewing the three screws that hold the bracket in place, after that you can slide it to the left and take it out. The memory can be left in place during this whole procedure.


-Now unscrew and remove the optical drive; it's held in place by the two screws that are right underneath the drive, take them out and just slide out the entire drive. If it doesn't slide out real easy just press with a creditcard or screwdriver on the aluminum strip you see shining between the notebook casing and the drive to release it. After the drive is removed you can unscrew the rest of the screws at the bottom of the notebook, don't forget the four screws besides the battery connector (not to be mistaken with the ac power-plug) and the two larger screws that were underneath the battery, they hold the speaker cover from the inside. Collect all the screws, you're gonna need 'm again and you wouldn't want to loose one of them to find it got stuck somewhere inside the notebook and cause a short circuit later.


-Then comes the trickiest part; turn the notebook back on it's feet again and open the screen as far as it will go, the back lid is almost loose but you have to unscrew the screen hinges to because the screws that hold them in place are screwed directly into the back lid. To access them you need to remove the lid that covers the speakers first. It's only clicked in place since you've already removed the two screws earlier, so you can just pry it off carefully. Be careful with this, i again used a creditcard myself to create some room to get my fingers underneath it. A screwdriver will surely leave some nasty marks, and you don't really have to use that much force to get it off. Don't worry about losing the media buttons, they are fixed to the speaker cover and wont come off.
When you've got the speaker cover off you can see the hinges that are held in place by 3 screws each, you might have to move around a few wires before you can acces them. The first thing i noticed was that there was a lot of dust collected around the left hinge, not that strange since the fan is placed closely to it but still a bit funny. Now is the time to be really careful, after you've taken out those 6 screws the screen is only held in place by it's wiring, try to put as little stress on them as possible. That can be a little hard because you have to turn the whole thing around again while you keep it all in place at the same time, it can be helpful to have some assistance at this point but it's do-able by yourself. Before you turn it around make sure you have a good surface to put it on in the funny shape it has now, i used a soft pillow for this myself as you might be able to see in the pictures below.



Now you're done, you can simply lift off the back cover and see the little electronic wonders inside.



Cleaning:


To clean it up just check for dust, most of it will sit on and around the fan and you'll find a nice blanket between the fan and top heatpipe. If you find a lot of though-to-remove hairs around the fan -or find it necessary for any other reason- you could also unscrew the four screws that hold the fan casing in place to remove the fan and it's casing for better access.
Carefully pry and brush out all dust and dirt with the toothbrush and suck it up with the vacuum cleaner. I use a small hand size vacumer for that, it has a detachable rubber mouth (thats originally designed to suck up spilled fluids) that won't damage any components. Of course if you have a can of compressed air you can also use it to blow the dust out.



I took the pictures before i cleaned up the machine, so you can see how much -or little- dust it has collected within six months of heavy use. I did remove the dust i mentioned around the left-hinge before taking the pictures because i couldn't undo the screws otherwise.
Overall i'm quite pleased to see that it doesn't collect that much dust and that it is as easy to clean and work on, the FZ seems like a very well thought out and smartly put together piece of technology. Once you know how to you can take it apart and put it back together in ten minutes or so. Cleaning out the dust does help to keep the notebook quit(er) btw, the fan runs smooth again and it also doesn't turn on as much as it did and for a shorter period of time.
There were also a lot of questions about the fan or fan's, now we can see it has just one fan to cool both the CPU and GPU heat sink, just like it's predecessor the FE. Unlike the FE it does seem both heat sinks can be removed, they are both held in place with screws while the GPU heat sink of the FE was soldered on. I haven't tried it but i will next time i open it up and add some pictures of the CPU and GPU as well. Might take me while before i get to it though!

 

Nice job! Dutch people kick ass!

 

Haha, niet te chauvinistisch hè Dank u

 

Cool. Thanks!

 

much respect for taking the time to share your experience.. my book has been getting too dirty as well (need to carry it around a lot and often work in dusty environments) -- so i guess me's next

 

thx 4 sharing...i am hoping that the FZ and FS is similar. Cuz i just ordered a new burner for my fs...i will use ur pic for reference when i try to replace it with my dead burner. thx!

 

Great! And nice pictures, after watching them I want to open it.
I wonder how X3100 integrated card (mine) looks like, probably it hasn't got that copper heatsink leading heat to the fan.
Thanks man!

 

Well done Storm3016!!!!

Gary

 

Thanks guy's, my pleasure.

I looked around on the net, but i couldn't find a picture of the bottom side of an FS so i can't be entirely sure. But if you see just two screws at the height of the optical drive changes are good that it is the same system. Sony probably used this type of mounting for all optical drives for their F-series notebook. Let us know if it works for you when tried it out please, gl.

Me too, send or post a pic when you get to it please. The X3100 will probably need a heat sink to release it's warm to too, but i am kind of curious if they've used the same pipe or not.

 

I need to say scary pictures Its difficult for me to do same with my machine.

 

Your FZ looks like a dissected frog.

 

Then probably the best advice i can give you is: don't


I've been always taking stuff apart since i was a kid, a bit to curious i guess.
I learned a lot from that, but i also broke a lot that way. If you don't feel comfortable with doing it yourself, then please don't, it's an expensive machine to get fixed or replaced if you go wrong.

Sorry, I'm not to down with all this modern forum-type slang; is that a flame?

In case you're worried; it's been put together just fine after that shoot

 

has anyone swapped out the lan board for a gigabit one? looks pretty easy, just unscrew it and disconnect that connector. Question would be, where to buy a gigabit adapter and if any firmware would be needed.

 

Damn! man how much time i spent because of those 2 screws. I was afraid to push the back part away. Now after i saw your post i understand why the back part don't wanna go away......

I was forced to open it but without succes so i decided to use a vaccum cleaner to clean up the fan. I had a big success! Next time i will use your guide since i already do it once almost complete....
My problem was the CPU temp which was 80-84 when idle on max performance power scheme. So because of breaking afraid , after i removed all screws and no success of removal back part, i decided to put the screws back and close case thinking of another cleaning solution. Few hours later i have removed all the cables but i let it still runing. I took the vaccum cleaner i start to vacum on both sides for few minutes at maximal vaccum power. The temp at that time was 30C but after finishing steady at 56 when CPU idle on max performance power scheme.

So , it might be a sollution for somebody. Next time i will do it your way, the "service"way because now i know about tricky front speakers pannel.


Thanks man ,!

 

Yw, and if it helps; it took me a while to figure out what else was still stuck to the first time, hehe
Maybe it's wiser to turn of the notebook completely and maybe even take out the battery though, next time you use a vacumer like that. I'm not sure if it's possible, but i can imagine that the airstream gets grip on the fan and maybe damage or even blow the fan motor. There's also some dust that you can only remove when you open it up like the blanker i mentioned between the heatpipes, so i would recommend opening it first. But i'm sure if you'd use a vacumer regular it would reduce the times you'd have to open it up to really clean it up at least.

 

does this void warranty?

 

Does what? Taking the case apart? Yep it sure does.

Gary

 

Do I need to remove the keyboard and the main top and bottom casings if I simply want to replace the hard drive and RAM?

 

Hendra,

No both have access panels on the bottom.

Gary

 

If I want to want a add a 1GB stick to my FZ already with 2GB , can I do that from the bottom panel?

 

Yes, but ONLY if the machine has a single 2gb stick in it now. There are only two slots.

Gary

 

Can you get out the palmrest ( black ) off the case ??

The reason I'm asking is I want to apply the vinyl sheet to it . Mine is white and I want to keep it clean

Thanks

 

anyone changed a hinge or top cover of the fz model

 

Does Anyone Know If You Can Get Hold Of A Blu Ray Drive Internal In Order To Upgrade My Dvd Drive Is It Easy To.... How Much Wold This Part Cost

 

I haven't actually changed a hinge, but they aren't that hard to remove or replace. It does depend on which part you need to replace tho, some parts like the outer casing of the hinge or a part of the entire chassis. You'd have to contact Sony for that drive, i have no idea about availability or pricing, but i expect them to be overpriced like most accessories.

Zolec: i'm not sure about the palmrest, i haven't tried removing it myself. Since it comes in a few different colors i expect it's just clicked in place and not to hard to remove, but i can't be sure of it. Let me know how it's connected if you're gonna try it please.

 

Hi, I tried to remove the lid that covers the hard drive. It appears that there is only 1 screw that holds the lid. But when I unscrewed it, I only managed to lift 1 corner of the lid. I can't take the whole lid off. How do you take out the lid?

 

The lid is only held in place by that one screw, i assume it just got stuck a little or something but i think it's safe to gradually use a little more force until it comes off.

 

Thanks, I managed to take it off. It's just a bit scary and I had to be very careful. I used an old credit card and a semi thick paper. I wish Sony made it easier. I prefer that they use 2 or more screws to secure the lid rather than just 1 but make it rather difficult to take it off.

 

Since you all are owners of an fz, I'm thinking about ordering it and I cant find any info about its battery (VGP-BPS8Α . Could you tell me the num of cells or mAmps and a quick estimation of battery-life time? I cant decide whether to buy an extended battery pack or not. Thanks!

 

This thread is about disassembly only. Please don't hijack the thread with other questions. There is a generic FZ owners thread that would be a more appropriate thread.

Gary

 

@storm3016 - did you ever get round to removing the heatsink to the GPU?

 

Hey Spiddy. Sorry, not yet. I've been very busy lately and haven't been doing much with my FZ other then using it. I'm afraid that isn't gonna change anywhere in the near future either, but when it it needs another thorough cleaning i'll have a look at it and post my findings here asap.

 

with all these questions about disassembly, does anyone know where the cmos battery is located ?

 

I just answered your pm, but for everyone else:

It's the green thing at the bottom of the second pic, it's located exactly underneath the touchpad buttons at the bottom side of the notebook.

 

Thanks for the informative tutorial. That's the problem with all computers these days. They get more noisy and sometimes even overheat because of all the dust and dirt that gets into the system. I personally like keeping my computer clean every month.
Do you think that with the help of this tutorial, there is any chance to upgrade the graphics card to a more decent one?

 

Yw, and true, i still don't understand why a lot of notebooks don't have a removable fan cover to make it a little easier to keep them clean.

The GPU is soldered on to the motherboard, so unfortunately it's not that easy to replace.

 

Notebooks should have a removable fan cover. It would be easier to clean all the dust and dirt that accumulates in the system instead of taking the notebook apart...
It's too bad the GPU is soldered to the motherboard. Since the GPU is not upgradeable at all, I don't see why Sony doesn't offer us any higher-end graphics options. The 8400GS isn't enough. They should offer something like the 8700GT or 8800GTS!

 

Hi

I just got a replacement fz31s from a fz21s and the fan grill is a little diffrent. now theres a mesh grill behind the slots and from what I see the fan dont sit behind the grill anymore as I cant see the blades.

I wonder if sony was aware of this problem? hence the grill!

mines the new t8100 cpu its way cooler then my last laptop it just get lukewarm now as aposed to hairdryer hot lol!

 

It totally depends on what you want to do with your notebook. For most people a 8400gt/8600gs or even integrated graphics are more then good enough, and a faster GPU would only up the price, drain the battery much faster and heat up laps. If you want a kick ass gaming monster you'd probably should choose a different notebook.

Congrats with the free upgrade! Could you post a pic (or e-mail me one) of that grill perhaps? I doubt it's really able to keep out dust but i would like to have a look at it myself.

 

The reason is because of the thickness of the laptop. With Vaio laptops going thinner & thinner, it is just not possible. The 8800 GPU is too thick for Vaio laptops & because of the thinness of the Vaio laptops, heat dissipation is a big problem. This sort of GPU issue has been discussed in a lot of threads in other sections of this forum too.

 

Note that Penryn CPUs are generally cooler than Merom CPUs.

 

I'm just saying...why won't Sony offer more options for higher-end graphics card? For some people, having a thin notebook isn't as important as performance. Maybe Sony should just improve their notebook cooling systems for people who want higher-end GPUs?

 

hi,

has anyone managed to take the palm rest off yet?? I really need to know
how to do that - got it cracked a bit and want to replace it...

pls help ;D

 

hey storm,

nice work!
can you tell me what material the cooling element (cpu&gpu) and heatpipes are made of?
if it´s made of copper (and, of course, if it can be removed; go on storm, DO IT! ) i´m considering to replace the thermal compound with coollaboratory liquid pro.
sure, dust makes the system go hotter but the thermal compound is important as well.
what do you think?

 

nice job!
but picture is no explained

 

Fantastic!

Quite as a baby now!

 

Hello

I m new on this forum, recently I bought sony vaio laptop FZ180E everything is wokring flawesly but unforutnatly I notice that there is missing internal bluetoth module, could you provide some pictures of this module?? or at least name of model which can be installed there?? (I think this module should be instaled under RAM memory slot)

 

I get everything up to this step, but am confused why this has to be done. Surly, after you've removed the HD, optical drive, every screw, the back cover just comes off? Do the screws on the hinges need to be removed to allow the back cover to come off?

I just want to clean up my gpu since my temperatures are going dangerously high ~ 95C when gaming.

 

If I want to replace the keyboard, should I go in through the back as described above or some other way? Thanks

 

hi guys ( and girls )
Anyways, I have a vaio FZ31Z and am planning to replace the 4200 rpm hard drive with a 7200 rpm 320 GB drive.
Just wondering if I understood the story correctly.
To remove hard drive you just need to remove the cover at the left bottom of the device? (when its is on his back) And then you can take the hard drive out? Cause that lid looks a bit small to me

And 2nd question: I read that the HD in the notebook is a 12,5 mm Bulk drive. Would it matter if I put a 9.5 mm bulk drive in there? Would it sit lose in there and make sounds when shaking the notebook?

And anyone here has some advice on which HD. Doubting between Western Digital Scorpio Black and Seagate Momentus 7200.3.

Thanks

ps Dutch people pwn!