Comments on: How to take apart Sony Vaio Z1 series notebook

By: THE REAL Laptop Tech

THE REAL Laptop Tech — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:16:13 +0000

@ 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.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:19:27 +0000

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

By: randy

randy — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:53:25 +0000

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

By: Nio

Nio — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:03:20 +0000

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.

By: Laptop Tech

Laptop Tech — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:28:30 +0000

Chris,

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.

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?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:03:40 +0000

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.

By: Laptop Tech

Laptop Tech — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:56:23 +0000

Chris,

Am I right these symptoms indicate a hardware failure, motherboard or graphics? How could I test and find this out?

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.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:16:16 +0000

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.

By: Laptop Tech

Laptop Tech — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:14:22 +0000

Bob,

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.

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…

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:03:16 +0000

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.