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In this guide I will be taking apart a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ series laptop. In my case I’m working with a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ330p laptop but the guide should work for the entire VGN-SZ line.
In you need replacement parts, search here.
STEP 1.
Turn off the laptop, unplug AC adapter and remove battery.
Remove one screw securing the keyboard.
STEP 2.
There are two latches securing the keyboard. They are located above the F2 and Insert keys.
STEP 3.
Using a small screwdriver press on the locking latch above the Insert key and lift up the right side of the keyboard.
STEP 4.
Do the same with the second latch and lift up the keyboard from the laptop base.
STEP 5.
Place the keyboard upside down on the palm rest so you can access the cable connector underneath.
STEP 5.
In order to unlock the cable connector move the black clip about 2 millimeters towards the touch pad. The clip must stay attached to the connector base.
If you break the connector, you’ll have to remove the motherboard. Work very carefully.
STEP 6.
Release the keyboard cable. Remove the keyboard and replace it with a new one if needed.
STEP 7.
Remove four screw securing the heat sink cover. Remove the cover.
Remove two screws securing the memory cover. Remove the cover.
STEP 8.
Remove two screw securing the CPU heat sink.
STEP 9.
Remove heat sink from the laptop.
Now you can clean the cooling fan and heat sink with compressed air.
Also, you get an access to the CPU.
STEP 10.
Both memory modules could be access through the door on the bottom of the laptop.
STEP 11.
Remove four red screws securing the switch cover.
Remove three yellow screws securing the palm rest.
STEP 12.
Carefully lift up and remove the switch cover.
STEP 13.
Remove three screw securing the palm rest.
Unlock the touch pad cable connector and release the cable.
In order to unlock the connector simply lift up the right side of the locking clip with your finger nail.
On the picture below the connector is shown in the unlocked state.
STEP 14.
Release the touch pad cable and remove the palm rest assembly.
When the palm rest assembly is removed you get an access to the hard drive, DVD drive, wireless card and CMOS battery.
STEP 15.
Remove three screws securing the hard drive assembly.
Disconnect the hard drive cable connector from the motherboard.
STEP 16.
Remove the hard drive assembly from the laptop.
If you are replacing or upgrading the hard drive you’ll have to transfer the mounting bracket and cable from the old drive to a new one.
STEP 17.
Remove one screw securing the DVD drive.
STEP 18.
Slid the DVD drive to the right to disconnect it from the motherboard.
There is an adapter between the DVD drive and motherboard. This adapter has to stay attached to the motherboard.
STEP 19.
Remove DVD drive from the laptop.
STEP 20.
In order to remove the wireless card, disconnect two antenna cable from the card, remove two screws securing the card and pull the card from the slot on the motherboard.
If you would like to replace the CMOS battery, simply unplug it from the motherboard and replace with a new one.
In one of the previous guides I explain how to remove the LCD screen and inverter board from a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ series laptop.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
July 31st, 2010 at 12:14 am
Thanks a ton. need to pull out my noisy fan from sz650n. been web hunting for days and finally, thanks to you all guys…….i do a lot of web hunting for such stuff for my frds and family, and have been lucky to have found the solutions every time. So if you are stuck and need some help do drop me mail on gmail (santoshajadhav)…..
June 14th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Anyone replaced a motherboard in an SZ series? I bought a faulty battery off of ebay (1800emart.com BAD do not buy from!!!! ). Anyway, I have to replace the motherboards of TWO laptops (SZ480 and S260). S260 is not hard, but SZ480 looks like a major pain. I can’t even figure out how to get to the model number off of the laptop… anyone?
June 12th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Lio Mendonca,
You cannot tell without trying another fan. A new fan shouldn’t be very expensive.
June 12th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Aaron G,
It looks like you already tried reinstalling the operating system (downgrading from Vista to XP) and it didn’t fix it.
It tells me there is a problem with hardware. If there is no sound from external speakers and headphones, most likely it’s related to the sound card problem. In most laptop the sound card integrated into the motherboard and cannot be replaced separately. I guess you’ll have to use the laptop as is without sound, or replace the motherboard.
Did you test your laptop with another Wi-Fi router?
I had a similar problem at home. I have two different routers but my laptop was disconnecting from one of them all the time. Reinstalling the Wi-Fi driver and upgrading router firmware didn’t help. Finally, I changed security type from WPA2-Personal to WPA-Personal and it fixed the problem. Try changing the security type in the connection properties.
June 11th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Please help I have this Sony Vaio Vgn-sz430n And My sound is not working at all I no 100% my driver is correct. Its weird because i can only hear very little noise with my headphone plugged in and the volume all the way up? If anybody has figured out this issue or knows how to fix this please let me no.
Also When i Connect to my wifi it connects and disconnects at any time. I downgraded from vista to Xp pro thinking it would solve these problems but i am still having these issues. Let me no Anything .
Thank You
June 9th, 2010 at 8:05 am
I have just been reading your fantastic guide on removing the VGN vaio series heat sink and cooling fan, I have thePCG-6G4L which I believe is the VGN-S460. I cannot get the fan to run but I am not sure if there is a heat sensor which may be the problem instead of the fan itself. But my point your guide is so encouraging and informative which is a stark contrast to others who offer help such as “take it to a service center” or even sites such as fix fixya.com. Great, I hope you get your reward in the satisfaction of helping other people or go on to financial benefit.
Lenthy but thank you
May 29th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Janet,
Take a look at this manual for Sony Vaio VGN-R series, maybe it’s similar to Vaio VGN-NR series.
You can see the CMOS battery on the page 14, it’s plugged into the motherboard.
May 28th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I can’t seem to find the instructions to replace the rtc or cmos battery on the Sony VGN-NR120E can you help?
March 6th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
I successfully changed my old hard disk with a new Intel X-25M G2 80GIG and used the recovery disks to recover the OS and other sony applications, thanks the excellent instructions provided by you.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Hi everyone
Very happy to have found this great website. I have a VGN-SZ340P and the speed of the hard drive is killing me. I have bought a new Intel X-25M SDD and now with these instructions, I can easily replace it. My question however might be silly to you. I want to know how can I transfer the windows and sony softwares to the new SDD? Can I replace it first and then use the recovery DVD I made earlier by sony recovery program? Or I need to use the Norton Ghost? I already know about the transfer kits lijke Apricot, but not an option for me!
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Dennis King,
Did you break the keyboard connector clip?
Take a look at this post, I think it’s still possible to fix the connector.
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2009/11/17/fix-broken-keyboard-connector-on-laptop-motherboard/
I hope you didn’t though away the broken piece.
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:03 pm
I read a posting for the wrong model when I went to replace the keyboard on my vgn-sz240 laptop and messed up. I wish to God I had seen your site first. Anyway, I did snap the connector and now I’m wondering what my options are. I had just finished upgrading this puppy with new memory and a blazing fast hard drive and it was running great. Now I can’t even log on.
A tech at Sony Style suggested a USB keyboard and it may come to that. Is it possible that I might find a new clip assembly from an old mother board. You say that the mother board has to be removed if that clip is broken. Is it actually possible to fix this puppy without buying a whole new mother board. Obviously, I would be better putting that money toward a new computer.
At any rate, anyone’s experience or help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much in advance. Dennis
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:08 am
hello admin..nice works..
but could u help me..i want to know where is the cmos battery for asus f series located?
i’ve going crazy becouse of this cmos batt. located..can u place a picture of it?
February 18th, 2010 at 9:00 am
These instructions are fabulous. I had to replace a DVD drive and a display. Right on.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Nino,
I think it’s onboard.
I don’t see any discrete video card on the pictures of the motherboard posted here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=457860
You cannot replace onboard video card. If the video card failed, you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
@UTtheGeek
I have the same problem, seems like the VGA 8400GS has failed, I don’t know if it have a single replacable module or onboard. but you should sacrifice graphic performance and switch to stamina mode, it should switch the 8400 to intel GMA 3100 and will run just fine. but you cant utilize the 8400 anymore. I heard that this chipset has many troubles.
anyone knows how to replace the 8400GS dedicated VGA? I need to replace this to play games
February 9th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Very nice..easy to follow with these excellent pics! Thank you very much..
February 8th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Sergiy,
Nice work!!!
February 7th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Hi,
I have put together a DIY for replacing the fan in Sony Vaio VGN-SZ series. Please check it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=457860
January 29th, 2010 at 6:44 am
Sound card doesn’t works , so is there any way to change sound card on this motherboard, i opened it but I couldn’t found sound card.
Any ideas ?
Thanks
December 29th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I’d like to add my thanks for taking the time to put up this guide. Need to sort out my noisy fan
Many Thanks!
David
December 27th, 2009 at 10:41 am
i hav VGN-SZ430N, there is a problem with my LCD, dead cells are appearing continuously. Can any body tell me how to prevent from dead cells on LCD????
December 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Thanks for the instruction.
I just cleaned the heat sink which is full of dust! Now the computer should be cooler.
Thanks brillant info.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
For those looking for fan removal instructions for the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ laptops, you can find a link to a manual that goes all the way to motherboard removal at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=176866
Good luck!
December 9th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
The instructions provide are absolutely fantastic. However I have the same issue as Douglas and James of December 7th. I really need to replace the cooling fan on my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ series laptop and it is not at all obvious how to get from the point where your guidance stops to the point where the entire mother board can be removed – I’m assuming that’s what’s needed since there are screws going in both directions on the fan unit mount. If you can provide some pointers on that it would be absolutely great.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
How do you go about replacing the fan?
December 7th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
My fan is doing a terrible noise. Do you know how to fix it, or how to replace the fan?
December 1st, 2009 at 1:53 am
Brilliant! Thanks
November 25th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
At last, finally got I’ve looking for..cheers
November 8th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
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