Help me handle\upgrade this old Sony Vaio VGN-FW480J

[iSynthMan]

Hi everyone. I was browsing FaceBook Marketplace and I ended up buying this old Sony Vaio laptop for a bargain, the surprise of it having a blu-ray optical disc drive and a gorgeous 16.4" 1600x900 display (looks like an IPS panel to me, not sure though), proved too much for a film buff\bluray enthusiast like me to resist. The previous owner removed the HDD and installed a Kingston A400 SATA SSD that made it pretty snappy (within reason) and fast to boot. I'm not sure if the second ram stick was an upgrade, but I suspect that it originally came with only 4gigs.

 

 

 

Once home I immediately ran msinfo32 and CPU-Z to check out the detailed specs of the machine (detailed .txt below):

 

I did some research but I wasn't able to find any drivers or documentation for it on Sony's website or anywhere else. I then researched the motherboard's PM45 Chipset in order to try to come up with an upgrade path to make it a little snappier and more usable in Windows 10. My idea is to replace the 2gb ram stick with 4 and the P7350 with a C2D P8700 for about 20% more CPU performance, however, I have no way of knowing if it's going to work other than meeting the 25w tdp and going by what the chipset CPU support list indicates. If possible, I would also like to replace the wifi card with something that could support Wi-Fi 6 and BT 5.

 

One thing I fear is the possibility of this machine having any kind of parts whitelist on the bios to restrict upgrades, like some ThinkPads do. It seems like something Sony would do. I would also like to find the recovery discs that come with the original OEM software\drivers and the InterVideo WinDVD BD solution to play BD movies. (I have installed my copy of PowerDVD but I'd like to use the original software that came with it). I tried finding it on the archive but had no luck. Same thing trying to find any teardown\upgrade guides on iFixit or similar websites, nothing at all.

 

Can anyone help me out with this thing? Thanks!

DESKTOP-8P834NV.txt

[AbydosOne]

I ♥ old VAIOs.

11 minutes ago, iSynthMan said:

One thing I fear is the possibility of this machine having any kind of parts whitelist on the bios to restrict upgrades

My VAIO (from the next generation) didn't have any whitelisting issues when I upgraded the wifi. I used an Intel AC7260 (check your slot type first).

 

12 minutes ago, iSynthMan said:

I would also like to find the recovery discs that come with the original OEM software\drivers and the InterVideo WinDVD BD solution to play BD movies.

As I understand it, the AACS keys get updated occasionally, and the software needs to be updated to support them. I doubt the OEM software is still getting updates for that, so you're probably better off sticking to PowerDVD.

[Bombastinator]

One other thought that may not work out:

that’s a pretty old laptop.  Old enough to maybe have its video card on a socket instead of soldered down.  If the cpu is in a socket and not soldered down the gpu might be too.  There’s a guy around here who messes with such things.  If you get really lucky you might be able to put in a faster dGPU as well.  You might not need it.  Clearly the thing can play blu-rays. Does it have only one replacable stick of memory?  If so chances go down.  Having both sticks the same size will make it run in dual channel.  Having them different sizes may make it run single channel. Single channel is slower. Might still be worth it if you’re running into a lot of pagefile hits though. 6gb is actually enough for windows10 generally if you’re careful with your chrome tabs.  Maybe see if you’re hitting pagefile a lot before upgrading the memory.  That thing isn’t going to play games no matter what you do I think.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Bombastinator

[iSynthMan]

17 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

I ♥ old VAIOs.

My VAIO (from the next generation) didn't have any whitelisting issues when I upgraded the wifi. I used an Intel AC7260 (check your slot type first).

 

As I understand it, the AACS keys get updated occasionally, and the software needs to be updated to support them. I doubt the OEM software is still getting updates for that, so you're probably better off sticking to PowerDVD.

That's great. One less thing to worry about then. I guess I'll stick to PowerDVD. I'll check out the wi-fi card slot type before I buy a replacement, thanks for the reminder.

 

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

One other thought that may not work out:

that’s a pretty old laptop.  Old enough to maybe have its video card on a socket instead of soldered down.  If the cpu is in a socket and not soldered down the gpu might be too.  There’s a guy around here who messes with such things.  If you get really lucky you might be able to put in a faster dGPU as well.  You might not need it.  Clearly the thing can play blu-rays. Does it have only one replacable stick of memory?  If so chances go down.  Having both sticks the same size will make it run in dual channel.  Having them different sizes may make it run single channel.  Might still be worth it if you’re running into a lot of pagefile hits though

Both RAM slots are modular. From what I could dig up online (not much), the GPU is soldered down and only the CPU is upgradable. I'm not worried about it though, bluray playback was flawless, I watched a movie on it without a single hitch. Didn't try on an external, fully 1080p display through HDMI yet though. 

 

I'm kind of afraid to open up this thing without a proper teardown guide...spare parts would probably be next to impossible to find and any mistake could destroy the laptop. In the worst case scenario, I could just take out the bluray drive and install it in a more capable laptop. I plan to use this thing to be the content source to a projector in a theater room I plan to build soon-ish.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, iSynthMan said:

That's great. One less thing to worry about then. I guess I'll stick to PowerDVD. I'll check out the wi-fi card slot type before I buy a replacement, thanks for the reminder.

 

Both RAM slots are modular. From what I could dig up online (not much), the GPU is soldered down and only the CPU is upgradable. I'm not worried about it though, bluray playback was flawless, I watched a movie on it without a single hitch. Didn't try on an external, fully 1080p display through HDMI yet though. 

 

I'm kind of afraid to open up this thing without a proper teardown guide...spare parts would probably be next to impossible to find and any mistake could destroy the laptop. In the worst case scenario, I could just take out the bluray drive and install it in a more capable laptop. I plan to use this thing to be the content source to a projector in a theater room I plan to build soon-ish.

Ifixit might have a guide.  Ddr2 dimms should be Uber cheap.  No reason not to get the biggest fastest ones you can I guess.  I don’t know if QVL will matter for that laptop or not.  Might do to check.  It would suck to buy memory and have it not work.  There may also be a max ram speed for that thing.  That pcie1.0 worries me.  Pcie2.0 should have been out by then so that it’s running pcie1.0 is interesting.  Is it supposed to?  Could be it is in which case it could be a factor of the low power nature of the thing.  Also there’s a good chance the battery on the thing is shot.  That might also want to be looked into.  There’s kind of a hard limit on how much money you want to throw at something like that though.

[iSynthMan]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Ifixit might have a guide.  Ddr2 dimms should be Uber cheap.  No reason not to get the biggest fastest ones you can I guess.  I don’t know if QVL will matter for that laptop or not.  Might do to check.  It would suck to buy memory and have it not work.  There may also be a max ram speed for that thing.  That pcie1.0 worries me.  Pcie2.0 should have been out by then so that it’s running pcie1.0 is interesting.  Is it supposed to?  Could be it is in which case it could be a factor of the low power nature of the thing.  Also there’s a good chance the battery on the thing is shot.  That might also want to be looked into.  There’s kind of a hard limit on how much money you want to throw at something like that though.

It's kind of a passion project, so I don't necessarily need the money spent on it to "make sense" in the traditional way you would upgrade something. Most of the potential upgrades are dirt cheap anyway, since most of it is probably ewaste and useless to most people by now. I just want it to be a decent bluray player, if I can make it faster than it is now, that's great.

 

The battery is dead, but since I won't be using this outside the house (it's a big frigging 4kg chungus) it doesn't really matter. Why do you say the PCIe 1.0 is a big deal?

 

 

[kmgr1100rt]

Can you get it to run Windows 10?  I tried using the upgrade on mine several times, but it failed each time.

[iSynthMan]

On 11/26/2022 at 2:26 PM, kmgr1100rt said:

Can you get it to run Windows 10?  I tried using the upgrade on mine several times, but it failed each time.

Sorry for the delay! Yes, I did manage to make it run windows 10, I made my install USB drive with rufus.

[Bombastinator]

On 9/23/2022 at 7:42 PM, iSynthMan said:

It's kind of a passion project, so I don't necessarily need the money spent on it to "make sense" in the traditional way you would upgrade something. Most of the potential upgrades are dirt cheap anyway, since most of it is probably ewaste and useless to most people by now. I just want it to be a decent bluray player, if I can make it faster than it is now, that's great.

 

The battery is dead, but since I won't be using this outside the house (it's a big frigging 4kg chungus) it doesn't really matter. Why do you say the PCIe 1.0 is a big deal?

 

 

Yeah, I understand.  I put a stupid amount of money into a soldering gun my dad bought before I was born, not because it was worth anything (it wasn’t) but because It was his and I used to run around his shop playing ray gun blaster with it.  The thing was very 50’s and actually streamlined.  Nobody collects soldering guns though.  I probably put 5 times what the thing was worth fixing it.  It’s in my toolbox now though.  Works great.  It was designed for through hole components which is something not done anymore and it’s got tons of power.  It’s sort of a blunt instrument so soldering things together is a bit much for it but it’s bangin at recovering components.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Bombastinator