fx 101 upgrade

[james81]

hi people my first time posting on here so here goes....

i have a vaio fx 101 notebook , had it some time now i think bout 3 years, am looking to upgrade it as its gone from the best computer i own to the slowest and most frustrating.

im looking at upgrading to a bigger processor as its got a celeron 600 in it, and i want to add more memory as its only got 64mb. can anyone tell me where to buy parts from and any tips on how to upgrade, if its worth it?

one other question, how do i find out what the largest processor is the motherboard in the laptop will take?

thanx people

james

[paddy_uk]

Here's a link on how to upgrade you RAM.
http://www.vaio-link.com/common/addmem.asp?L=uk&ID=256

You can easily buy your RAM from the likes of Crucial ( http://www.crucial.com/uk ).

I just added another 256 Mb to my brother's Compaq Pressario the other day giving him 384 Mb & it's gone from a snail to a pretty good flyer, so I would probably just go for the RAM upgrade. You can stick in a max of 512 Mb into your rig & that's what I would upgrade to as you would see a big difference performence wise.

[Oxigun]

Upgrading the CPU will not be as easy since mobile processors are normally not sold seperatly... Best then is to buy a completely new notebook...
But do you want a notebook or a DTR (desktop replacement). Because in the last category there are CPU's like the brandnew AMD64 (don't know who sells them). But if you want a notebook/laptop with a battery that lasts a long time you have to look for a Centrino one (Pentium-Mobile, NOT P4-Mobile).
The non-mobile processors (P4, AMD XP and so forth) can really drain your battery really fast.

[William]

If you are intent on upgrading the processor check out the maximum processor spedd for your mainboard and then look on Ebay.

I puchased two P4M processors at very good prices this way.

William

[dunk]

Hi James.

Don`t know about upgrading the processor, but adding RAM is a safe bet for a marked performance improvement, and if you`ve only got the 64MB that the FX101 ships with, then you`ll have a spare memory slot and the procedure should be quite straightforward.

Migrating to Windows 2000 also made a huge difference with my 101. It was noticeably faster and a whole load more stable than when running WinME. There is a section of sony vaio support dedicated to providing relevant drivers...don`t have the details to hand just now though, I`m afraid.

Good luck
Duncan

[netBookBabe]

On behalf of a friend of mine, I'm pleased to hear that Win2000 can run OK on the FX101 - WinME is causing her no end of frustration! Does anybody know whether there's any chance of WinXP being a feasible option?

Thanks in advance
Julie

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Processor upgrading is quite popular on the whole FX range. See:

www.myplc.com/sony/

The guy who put it all together (Brad White, if memory serves, and it's a massive site) really knows his stuff. There are techincal explanations, with pictures, that show all the ins and outs of upgrading. And not just the processors either...

There is also a group link on the site - groups.yahoo.com/group/fx210 - which is a gold mine of technical help. Go for it, James!

Cheers,

Chris

[ChrisOfTheOT]

On behalf of a friend of mine, I'm pleased to hear that Win2000 can run OK on the FX101 - WinME is causing her no end of frustration!  Does anybody know whether there's any chance of WinXP being a feasible option?

Thanks in advance
Julie

With enough RAM, it should be fine. (I would guess 256MB as a minumum...) I've been running Win XP on an 800 Duron/384MB system for ever and it's always been perfectly happy.

Remember the rule: you can never have too much RAM.

Cheers,

Chris

[boltonlad2k3]

On behalf of a friend of mine, I'm pleased to hear that Win2000 can run OK on the FX101 - WinME is causing her no end of frustration!  Does anybody know whether there's any chance of WinXP being a feasible option?

Thanks in advance
Julie

Have been running Win XP Professional now for over a year on a standard FX101 with 192Mb Ram. Not the fastest laptop in the world but it's certainly more reliable and stable than it was with Win ME installed.