Vaio SA manual memory and SSD upgrade, and carrying pouch

Hey,

I was very lucky to have ordered an SA before the price rose £300-£400 a few days ago. It should be here by the end of this week/the middle of next week.

As the title suggests, I intend on upgrading the memory to 8GB and the HDD to an SSD. I also would like to buy a carry pouch. I was just wondering whether someone would be kind enough to confirm I have chosen compatible products before I purchase them.

1) Pouch: VGP-CP24 (VGPCP24, VGPCP24.AE) : Technical Specifications : VAIO & computing : Sony
2) Memory: Corsair CMSO4GX3M1A1333C9 4GB DDR3 Laptop Memory: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
3) SSD: CRUCIAL M4 SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD) - 2.5 - SATA-600 - 128 GB review cheap prices M4 SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD) - 2.5 - SATA-600 - 128 GB CRUCIAL best buy discount online uk shop

From what I've read I think that the latter will be okay, but any last minute comments would be appreciated. I'm asking about the case as I'm not sure what the fit will be like since I believe it was initially designed for older Vaio models? And there are so many memory factors (e.g. ECC, the number of pins, latency etc.) that I thought it would be wise to check I have found the correct memory. Is this memory of poor quality (since it is so cheap) or does it make no difference (since it is still 1333mhz)? It's very cheap compared to the £60 upgrade offered by Sony.

Also, with the SSD, do I need to do anything else after physically installing it as per the instructions on this site? For example, changing settings in the BIOS (e.g. I've read something about changing SATA mode from ATA/IDE to AHCI) or in windows 7 itself? Also, might it be beneficial to upgrade the firmware if a new version is available, or is this unnecessary? And do I need to worry about LPM (Link Power Management)?

Thank you very much for your time,
Clare.

 

They are all fine. The pouch fits the Vaio SB so it 99.99% will fit SA also. Memory should be okay, the latency C9 and speed 1333Mhz matches the onboard one.

As for SSD, there can be a lot of things to do and problems (BSODs, freezing) you may encounter. It is best you go to the Crucial website/forum to check FAQs

 

I went ahead and bought the 4GB stick and the pouch, but I'm not sure what to do about the SSD.

Do you simply replace the HDD with the SSD, change the BIOS SATA setting to AHCI and do a clean install of Windows 7? My worry with a clean install is re-installing all the drivers. There seems to be a very large number of them and I'm concerned about something going wrong like the function keys or switchable graphics not working. Are these likely to happen or is it relatively simple?

 

follow instructions here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...al-sony-sb-sa-sc-sd-series-owners-thread.html

I think it's already in AHCI mode though u can go BIOS to double-check it.

 

I notice that guide is for the Vaio SB. Are there any major differences in the drivers between the SA/SB? I have been through the following link on the Sony UK eSupport website and have tried matching each of the drivers to the clean install post: VAIO : Sony Europe

The Sony UK eSupport page for my SA model (VPC-SA2C5E) has all drivers from the clean install post that follow ‘First installed the following:’ except for (1) ‘AMD Radeon (TM) HD 6470M 6630M and Mobile Intel HD Graphics’ and (2) ‘SATA Driver Registry Patch’.

Also, how do the drivers immediately following ‘For others, you need:’ on the clean install post fit in to this process? Of these drivers:
1. ‘Sony shared library’ is available on the eSupport site
2. ‘SFEP Driver’ is repeated in the list at the bottom of the post and available on the eSupport site
3. ‘Setting Utility Series’ is not available on the eSupport site and not mentioned in the list at the bottom of the post (however, it has a similar name to 'Sony Notebook Utilities’; is this the same thing?)
4. ‘Vaio Event Service’ is not mentioned on the list at the bottom of the post and is not available on the eSupport site
5. ‘Radeon Registry Patch’ is not mentioned in the list at the bottom of the post and is not available from the ‘Support’ page on the eSupport site as is suggested in the clean install post: VAIO Support Europe
6. ‘Intel GMA HD Drivers’ I guess I will have to get from the Intel site, but the clean install post does not specify the exact graphics card number; however, there is an auto-detect feature on the Intel site which might detect this automatically when I’m actually on the SA
7. ‘AMD Radeon (TM) HD 6470M 6630M and Mobile Intel HD Graphics’ as mentioned above is on the list at the bottom of the post, but not available on the eSupport site; both this and #5 (the ‘Radeon Registry Patch’ are available at the following link, but this is the eSupport site is for the US, not the UK, and is for the SB and not the SA: Sony eSupport - VPCSB11FX/B - Software Updates & Drivers; does this make a difference? For example, because the SB now has 512MB and the SA has 1GB.

Additionally, the Sony UK eSupport site has the following (not mentioned in the clean install post) that I suppose I will also need to install:
1. Authentec Truesuite
2. TPM Infineon Package
3. WWAN Driver
I’m guessing the first 2 are for the fingerprint sensor.

Any help on the differences here would be a lot of help and I’d greatly appreciate it. I hope this post is clear and not too confusing!

 

The TPM Infineon Package is for encrypting your drive with Bitlocker through Windows 7. All you need for the finger print sensor to function properly is the Authentec Truesuite Package.

 

Basically for the SA the only difference is there are more updated drivers. The steps are the same, install all the drivers first, then the software in the correct order as in the previous post I linked to.

WWAN driver is only if your SA has the mobile broadband integrated 3G modem.

TPM should be installed as the SA has it, however take note if you want to use BitLocker or other encryption, you'll have to enable TPM in BIOS (it is disabled by default, no idea why)

Authentec is for the fingerprint sensor.