Home
This guide will help you take apart a Sony Vaio Z1 series notebook. In this notebook all so-called user replaceable parts such as memory module, hard drive, DVD drive, etc… are hidden under the top cover making them hard to access or even find.
For cleaning the cooling fan and heat sink or replacing the memory module, all you have to do is remove the keyboard. You don’t have to disconnect the keyboard from the motherboard, simply lift it up and place upside down on the palm rest. The keyboard is secured to the notebook base by two screws marked “D” on the picture 1. You should be able to lift up the keyboard after you remove these two screws.
You can clean the cooling module with compressed air. There is only one memory expansion slot in this model and it will take a memory module up to 512MB (DDR226/PC2100).
If you want to replace the hard drive, CR-RW/DVD-ROM drive or wireless card, you’ll have to remove the top cover as it shown on the picture 7.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:45 am
How do you replace the ac connector on the this sony vaio z1 series
December 11th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Mario,
I believe the power jack for a Sony Vaio PCG-Z1 comes with the cable already attached to the jack.
Take a look at this picture.
It means you don’t have to do soldering job. Simply unplug the old power jack harness from the motherboard and replace it with a new one.
In order to access the power jack harness you’ll have to remove the laptop cover.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:18 am
I just replaced the mother board on Sony VAIO PCG-Z1VAP. The BIOS is prompting for a password. I bought this off EBay.
I tried some default passwords found on the Net and I have also removed the hard drive cable to no avail.
Is there a way to clear this password?
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:44 pm
sure there is ie: i presume it is asking for the password in the bios
remove the onboard battery for 10 minutes & then put it back in its place the system will reset & it should stopasking for the password
June 15th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
the integrated video card in this laptop sucks. it gets a 1.0 rating with windows, and lags when i play chess. it’s impossible to watch a dvd, too. my question is how do i fix this aboue a 16 mb? is there any way at all?
June 24th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Tokellin,
Do you have correct video driver installed? Maybe you are using default driver? Try updating the video driver.
July 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
no, my problem was that i had windows 7 on the laptop. it does not support it in any way.
basically the only thing that works on this laptop, with windows 7, is the ram. even my wifi card wasnt compatible. thank you Laptop Tech for your help.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:26 pm
hi… i finally got everything unscrewed, taken apart and was able to install a new hard drive. now i’m getting an error “MBR error 1 (and 2) Press any key yo boot from floppy” . i have no idea what this means or how to fix it. any suggestions?
July 27th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
chico,
Did you reinstall original factory software from the recovery disc after replacing the hard drive. I guess you are getting the error message because there is no software on the hard drive.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Hi I was wondering which harddrive is compatible for the Z1WAMP1 since i bought one and it didn’t fit….thanks!
August 20th, 2009 at 4:02 am
regarding the bios password, does taking out the onboard battery really work?
August 20th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
mike,
It did work on some older laptops. Will not work on newer models.
October 4th, 2009 at 3:49 am
can the screen be changed for a newer one?
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 am
I have a problem that the screen is almost impossible to use with lits of blue / red pixels all through it. This goes away if i press on the casing to the right of the touch pad. Do you happen to know what the problem is and how this can be fixed?
November 27th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Stephen,
Can you test video on an external monitor? Can you tell me if the external video output works fine and your problem appears only on the laptop screen?
December 20th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I have the same issue with my Z1 as Stephen. The screen gets blue and red dots. This comes up at initial boot screen and in Windows (at any resolution). This displays on the external display as well using the VGA output on the back. This laptop has ATI graphics. Is a motherboard replacement in my future?
December 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
In addition to my last comment.. This gets worse as the machine heats up. At first boot it is OK, but within 5 minutes the screen is almost unreadable with so much garbage. A blue screen reboot will occur with enough use.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Bob,
In this model the video card is integrated into the motherboard, correct? If the video card fails, replacing the whole motherboard would be the only option.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:42 am
Model: Sony Vaoi PCG-Z1WAMP
My question pertains to running Windows Media Center on Windows 7 Ultimate. I upgraded my RAM to 1G and hardrive to 150G, but my factory video card only has 16M of memory. WMC requires a minimum of 64M of video memory.
Can anyone please recommend some compatible video card that will let me run WMC and perhaps the aero effect, also. Or, is there a mod that will allow me to do this with the existing factory video card.
I am on eBay searching for a used replacement for under $50, money is a bit tight now.
Thanks in advance.
December 24th, 2009 at 5:32 am
What is the easiest way to determine if my Z1 laptop has an integrated video card or can be replaced?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:11 am
PCG-Z1VA has integrated video on mobo. I have the same problem with my 4.5 yrs. “new” machine. Unfortunatelu, the only way to fix this is to replace the mobo (yikes!).
(
My question: Where can we obtain a reliable replacement that won’t cost us an arm and the leg, have buggy BIOS and be hiddenly damaged? (Sony wants to set us back for at least $600!!). Any ideas? I love this unit for its 4:3 matte screen, a rarity these days.
My Problem: “The two screws holding the keyboard” — I do not see them on Z1VA !! I see four tiny ones in the back, that’s all.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Kapulica,
Search for a sticker with the motherboard part number. Probably you can it in the memory compartment.
Find the part number and google it.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:03 am
I am told my graphics card is failing on Sony Vaio PCG-Z1RMP looking at comments this looks like its intergrated and new MOBO only option. Any recomendations for sourcing this without buying shares in the company.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Bob,
Not really, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
Unless… you want to try this trick:
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/fix-video-failure-hp-pavilion-dv2000-dv6000-dv9000-notebooks/
I don’t know if it works in your case and never done it myself, but if you have nothing to lose…
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:16 am
I have the pcg-z1va and it first started to give me randomly blue screens of death. Lately however, as soon as windows xp loads, the blue screen appears and the laptop restarts. I can only access the xp in safe mode, where it can stay on for hours or days. As soon as I try to load windows normally, I’lI get the screen of death. The error that keeps appearing is ‘irql not less or equal’. I tested if for memory errors with Memtest86 and it gives me no errors. Last resort, I decided to use the Vaio recovery cds to reinstall the system on the C drive (thinking it was drivers error). The installation worked until disk 3, when I’m asked to restart the machine to finish the installation. Obviously (in hindsight) this cannot be completed because the blue screen appears and pc restarts. What’s worse, if I load it in safe mode I get the message ‘installation not complete’ so it asks me to complete installation: impossible! I’m left with a half installed xp and no way of fixing the blue screen error. Am I right these symptoms indicate a hardware failure, motherboard or graphics? How could I test and find this out? Thanks.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:56 am
Chris,
It’s possible you have a faulty hard drive.
You can try booting your laptop from a Live Linux CD. I use Knoppix and here’s a good explanation how to boot your laptop with Knoppix CD:
http://www.datarecoverytutorial.com/how-to-recover-files-from-laptop-with-crashed-windows/
If the laptop works fine with Knoppix, I would assume the motherboard and video card works properly.
It’s possible you have a bad hard drive. Try testing it with Hitachi’s drive fitness test. It works fine for most hard drives.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Thanks for the advice, I checked hard drive by installing Knoppix and it all works fine, so I assume neither the hard drive nor the motherboard or graphics are faulty. I’ve noticed something though; as soon as I disable the wireless from the switch below the monitor, the xp loads okay. However, as soon as I connect the wireless. the blue screen of death reappears. Could it be that I found the problem? What can cause the wireless switch to damage the system in such a dramatic way? Thanks.
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Chris,
Maybe the wireless card is going bad? You can try uninstalling the wireless card drivers in Safe Mode and after that restart the laptop in normal mode. Will it work?
June 29th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Replacing a laptop hard drive – Help!
Model: Sony Vaio PCG-Z1MP
I’m using this model with a 40 GB HD and I would like to replace it with better one.
I have two questions -
1. All 2.5″ hard drive will work on this model – e.g. 320GB or 500GB?
2. How can I reinstall original factory software from the old hard drive (the new drive will be new from the box, with no software installed on it)
thanks in advance.
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
i was reading this and you guys said that they will only take up to 512 ram in that slot but i have a pcg-z1wamp with 1.5 gb of ram,built in 512mb and 1gb pc-2700 that it reads and accepts
July 12th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Bob,
Having not bothered to look at things for a while, today I baked my motherboard for 7 mins at gas mark 6 which has fixed the graphics card problem.
Best of luck
Stephen
June 1st, 2011 at 11:16 pm
@ Chris – the laptop tech doesn’t know wtf he is talking about….the issue you are experiencing is due to an incompatible wireless driver from INTEL. Everytime I would turn on wireless my comp would BSOD ….so much so that it corrupted XP to the point where I would constantly BSOD w and w/out turning on wireless. It drove me crazy. Even worse, the fools at SONY didn’t even acknowledge or fix the problem ….I guess they don’t expect their laptops to be around for 6 years +. I ended up installing 4 different versions of the INTEL pro/set driver until I found the right one. I would let you know which but I don’t have it in front of me.