Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Don't lose those screws...
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

It would have made a great post when I originally brought this laptop into my custody in 2009.

Original specs:
Mid 2006 production
13.3" LED backlit 1280x800
2GB ram
120GB HDD w/ fall sensor
Biometric
DVD burner
Cingular EDGE aircard w/ integrated antenna
Intel Core Duo T2500 (2GHz, like a dual Pentium M)
Dual graphics (Intel GMA950 or NVidia GeForce Go 7400)
Bluetooth
Firewire port
ExpressCard/34 slot
PCMCIA slot
Memorystick Duo card reader (thanks for nothing, Sony)
56k modem
Webcam
Trusted Platform Module
XP or Vista (this one shipped with XP)
3.75 lbs
Original MSRP ~$2900

Actually, I have three pics from that which I took with my old HTC Touch Pro (auto-focus on a phone in 2008 was pretty fancy).

Found this in an old e-mail in July 2009:
Looks like someone dropped it while plugged in and it cracked the power plug receptacle, which caused it to push in when you tried to plug it in. And the person who took it apart stopped when it got too hard, so it sat, unused, with this damage for...probably quite a while. So I used a combination of plastic welder epoxy and hot glue. That thing is in there. But then I had a shorting out problem with sparks and everything when I put it back together (long story). Finally got that resolved, too, with the strategic application of more hot glue.
This was the original surgery which put the laptop back into service (at 3 years old).
IMAG0033.jpg
IMAG0034.jpg
IMAG0035.jpg
Since then I've upgraded the specs over the years:

4GB ram (3GB usable due to both chipset and 32-bit OS)
240GB Intel 520 SSD
Intel Core 2 Duo T7600
Windows 8.1 32-bit

The CPU and RAM are very easy to access (from the bottom cover). The hard drive requires removing the keyboard (1 screw and some spring lock tabs) and wrist rest/trackpad (3 screws underneath, then another 3 with the keyboard removed) but even that isn't that bad.

I've also amassed 3 power supplies and a sweet port replicator (which has gigabit Ethernet and DVI output, and the laptop natively has neither).

The most recent ordeal? It looked like it had fallen. I'm not sure what happened. And I don't have a pic. But next to the left hinge, the plastic chassis had separated at the corner leaving a gap. I couldn't snap it back, either. To get to the rear left corner of the chassis, I had to strip it clear down, including the motherboard. The surgery above did not require motherboard removal. I've never gone this far captain. I have just a few pics to share.

This is the corner that had come apart.
DSC_2331.JPG
It is supposed to snap together but a tiny plastic piece had broken. Amazingly I did find it, but only after the laptop was all together. I may have tried super glue. The real problem was I couldn't get the two ports on the left to fit back around the headphone and mic jack. Perhaps if I had known the internal geometry I could have easily persuaded it back together. But I didn't. So I took it completely apart.

Here she is, down to the magnesium chassis. Aside from a bunch of screws, there are a bunch of cables, connectors and ribbons to deal with. Let the record show I had no directions whatsoever and didn't really even organize the screws, since I'm some kind of hotshot.
DSC_2332.JPG
I got the motherboard placed and a few screws into place. One thing that makes it difficult is that there's a metal shield that goes between the keyboard and motherboard. Some screws go through that and some don't. So I had to repeatedly overlay the shield to figure out which screws I would wait to install, and which I could just screw in. I am sure I don't have all the screws in the right place. BUT - I had not a single screw left over. Honestly, I consider that a major achievement. All you Sony haters, you must admit, this is quality hardware (it's going on 8 years old, original MB, hinges, display, etc. and it's survived a 30" fall onto tile while powered on). By the way, there's an easter egg in this pic.
DSC_2334.JPG
Did you find it?

I finally found the Cingular SIM card. It is a mini-SIM accessible from behind the battery. Never saw it before. It's ironic that it took a full disassembly to find it. Anyway, my Titan takes a mini-SIM. I wonder if it would work. Cingular is now AT&T so it just may....more to come?

I forgot to mention, it powered up first try after re-assembly. Yay!
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

So while I had the SIM out of my Titan, I decided to vacuum my phone as it collects dust and other grunge inside and at the edges. I also pulled the Cingular SIM from the Vaio. As I was vacuuming my phone, I decided to get a couple pieces of lint off the laptop...yup, I sucked up the Cingular SIM. Now I don't really need it but I wanted it for posterity purposes. The bag was full so I went outside (cold as hell) and sorted through the dust and dirt. I found the SIM.

Anyway, back to my experiment. In short, I couldn't get it to work. While this laptop is mostly functional with Win 8.1, that is in spite of the way Sony does their drivers (also it was only supported up to Vista). First, the wireless switch on the chassis seems like it's a hardware switch that would turn on the WiFi radio. But actually it's a switch that enables ALL the radios to work (Bluetooth, Cingular and WiFi). Then, in software, you can select to actually present the radio to the OS. You must use a proprietary and creaky bit of software to do this. Thankfully, once you enable what you want, it sticks and the wireless switch then operates the radios as you've enabled/disabled them in software.

But I had issues with the aircard radio. I actually did get it to initialize and present to the OS. It's a Sony-Ericsson EDGE (2G) modem. Yes, modem. It interfaces to the OS via COM4 serial. Since it's a modem, it also needs proprietary software to "dial" into the cellular network. I could not get the connection manager to load. Probably Win 8.1 compatibility issues.

No real loss, as wifi tethering would be significantly faster than a 2G connection. It would have been cool, though.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Not to be deterred, I found the Cingular Connection Manager as a stand-alone download on Sony's website (for XP). I didn't have it installed before. Using a heavy dose of XP mode and run as administrator, I got this far:
cingular connection manager.png
Next step: swap my AT&T SIM and see what happens!
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Well it works.
cingular connection manager att connected.png
And it is ludicrously slow. I thought it might saturate the EDGE connection and get me 400-500kbps but no such luck. Also, Windows sees the modem as an Ethernet device so I cannot set it as a metered connection. Which means all the background stuff is trying to use this tube (notice the singular rather than plural use of tube).
vaio wwan ethernet device.png
Image

Still I am quite satisfied that it worked at all. There is a process online for unlocking the modem to work with other GSM networks. Thankfully Cingular IS AT&T now so it works as locked.

It even has an SMS client.
cingular connection manager SMS inbox.png
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Holy old thread!

Yeah this machine is still kicking around. I used it heavily during my graduate school work from 2011-2014 and sort of less frequently as the years progressed, with my Surface 2 tablet (which I've had since August 2014, so like 8 months after I posted this) taking on more of the light computing tasks. But, the kids use it more and more for Netflix so I often find myself either stuck with my phone (which is acceptable but even at 6" pales to a real screen and keyboard), or having to go upstairs to use the desktop. Sometimes neither of those are appropriate. Enter this post.

I finally ordered a new 6 cell battery. It is advertising better cells which I guess I believe because even the worst Li-Ion battery in 2019 is going to be a lot better than 2006 (maybe Bob has an opinion on this). I had a 9 cell before because battery life was never this laptop's forte. This must be the 3rd or 4th battery. But battery life even with the 9 cell was down to like 35 mins. Pretty bad. So if I am going to actually use this it would be nice to have a halfway functional battery. With a good 6 cell, I expect 2.5 to 3.5 hours life. Hey, it was a fairly high power but small machine for 2006 so that's kind of what you end up with. That's probably enough anyway for what I'd use it for. $41.60 w/ tax which isn't super cheap but is still quite affordable.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/121492627105
image.png
Specification:
Condition: Brand New - Grade A cells.
Battery Type: Li-ion
Voltage: 11.1 Volt (10.8 Volt compatible)
Capacity: 5200mAh (better than 4400mAh)
Smart surge short circuit protection
High quality UL SA CE RoHS approved

This product is good for the following Models and Part#
Battery for Sony Vaio VGN-S56C/S VGN-S59CP/B VGN-S90PSY6 VGN-SZ25CP VGN-SZ280P

100% New Components - never refurbished, recycles, or used
Non-OEM but 100% Compatible - Guaranteed to meet the specifications of your original device
Nearly all our products have UL, CE and RoHS certificates.
I love the last line. Nearly all our cars are safe!

With nearly 58Wh of claimed capacity, you can kind of see how my projected battery life is in the ballpark. The CPU alone has a TDP of 34W, and it is probably going to be run pretty hard even for light computing tasks (it's 12+ years old!!). So, assuming it is run at heavy loads a lot of the time, call it 50% of TDP on average (which is quite high considering it still tries to idle as much as possible), that means the battery powering the CPU alone would only last for 3.4 hours. Plus there's the screen, rest of the board, SSD, fan, etc. So 2.5-3.5 is really all it could possibly do. Because physics (or chemistry?).

The other niggle is the wifi card. Ever since one of the earlier Win 10 updates (I think) the wifi card needs to be reset every single time the machine wakes up from sleep. This gets old. It is all over the internet and multiple Intel chipset Wifi cards have the issue. I'm sure it's between MS and Intel and this shit is just too old for that to get fixed.

I was settled on a Qualcomm Atheros card but ended up back with Intel. I guess I can't help but trust them. I went all in on their SSDs a few years ago and have had zero issues. But yeah my Sony takes full height mini-PCIe cards for the wifi and has two antenna ports. So this matches that except is half height so I need to buy an adapter so it can be screwed in properly.

Card - $13.90 w/ tax.
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260. Kind of hilarious that I'll have 802.11AC and BT4.0 on this old laptop. It was launched in Q2-13 so it is quite modern compared to what I am used to, which is 802.11G on this machine.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/283629467194
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... -7260.html
image.png
Look, he has a box of them!
image.png
image.png

Adapter - $6.40 w/ tax.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072R ... UTF8&psc=1
image.png
Also I found a disassembly article that I may as well save for posterity. I much prefer this to trying to watch and pause a YouTube video.
https://www.insidemylaptop.com/how-take ... es-laptop/
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

kevm14 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:33 pm Hey, it was a fairly high power but small machine for 2006 so that's kind of what you end up with. That's probably enough anyway for what I'd use it for. $41.60 w/ tax which isn't super cheap but is still quite affordable.

...

I'm sure it's between MS and Intel and this shit is just too old for that to get fixed.
Speaking of too old to get fixed...

This is hardware from 2006 running on the latest Windows 10 OS and still being usable for light tasks.

macOS 10.15 came out 3 months ago. Minimum hardware requirement?
Intel Macs (64-bit) released in:
2013 (Mac Pro), 2012 (other) or later
4 GB
Not that most people who can afford Macs can't afford to have at least a 6-7 year old machine but it's more an ethos commentary than anything else. I could cut them a little slack because Microsoft actually sells their operating system. Apple does not, as far as I know.

Perhaps more interestingly, this laptop's original CPU was a Core Duo, a 32-bit CPU. There were Macbooks with this hardware back in 2006. The latest macOS that you can run? Snow Leapard, 10.6, released August 2009, with support ending in Sept 2014. Quite a stark difference, no?
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Old 9 cell. Claimed to be Sony branded. Not sure if that was real.
Spec on the unit says 11.1V and 7200mAh which calculates to 80Wh.

Here is what a battery utility said about it. 68.82Wh? Misreporting? Lying? Who knows. Shows 51% wear but it seemed way worse than that to me based on usage.
Sony old 9 cell.png
Sony old 9 cell.png (9.85 KiB) Viewed 780 times
New battery installed and charging. 47.52Wh? Should be 58Wh. Dunno.
Sony new 6 cell.png
Sony new 6 cell.png (9.04 KiB) Viewed 780 times
We'll see how it does after it charges. Hope it works OK. Posted this from the Sony of course.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Look at this. 10.8V * 4400mAh = 47.52Wh which is exactly what the battery is reporting. So they must do that for compatibility purposes though I don't think it's necessary.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

Downloading a Windows 10 32-bit driver for that wireless card. Amazing.

Driver date: 5/21/2019

Awesome.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Sony Vaio VGN-SZ280P: stripped to the chassis

Post by kevm14 »

93% charged.
Sony 6 cell charging.png
Sony 6 cell charging.png (9.49 KiB) Viewed 778 times
Projected runtime is probably updated due to just sitting. So my 2.5-3.5 hour estimate looks damn close if those estimates are accurate.
Post Reply