Solved! Sony Vaio VGN A270 P upgrade

[jonymacmadcap]

OK, I have a some what elderly Sony Vaio VGN A 270 P that I have just upgraded the RAM to it's max. Now I am hoping that someone can point me in a direction to locate an upgraded (More GB) hard drive for this machine. I have the 40GB version of this hard drive, (see below for basics on what is currently installed in my machine.) I am hoping to replace it with a drive that runs at a significantly higher RPM. I am guessing my machine will not support the 7200 RPM drives, but something faster than the 4200 RPM (5200?) currently.

Any advice, hints, places to procure the drive, critiques are greatly appreciated. Also, I see in the specs below, that I got from the Hitachi website, that it says the interface is ATA-6...is this the same as SATA?

Thank you all ahead of time,

JDM

Current specs on my HD right now

Travelstar 4K40 hard disk drives specifications

Travelstar 4K40 model summary Capacity (GB) RPM Interface
HTS424040M9AT00
40 4200 ATA-6
HTS424030M9AT00
30 4200 ATA-6
HTS424020M9AT00
20 4200 ATA-6


Configuration
Interface ATA-6
Capacity (GB)1 40/30/20
Sector size (bytes) 512
Recording zones 24
Data heads (physical) 2/2/1
Data disks 1
Max. areal density (Gbits/sq.inch) 70

Performance
Data buffer (MB) 2
Rotational speed (RPM) 4,200
Latency average (ms) 7.1
Media transfer rate (Mbits/sec, max) 370
Interface transfer rate (MB/sec, max) 100MB/sec Ultra DMA mode-5
PIO 16.6MB/sec PIO mode-4
Seek time (read, typical)
Average (ms) 12
Track to track (ms) 2.5
Full track (ms) 23

Reliability
Error rate (non-recoverable) < 1 per 1013 bits transferred
Load/Unload cycle 600,000

Power
Requirement +5VDC(±5%)
Dissipation
Startup current (peak, max.) 4.7 W
Seek (avg.) 2.3 W
Read (avg.) 2.0 W
Write (avg.) 2.1 W
Performance idle (avg.) 1.85 W
Active idle (avg.) 0.85 W
Low power idle (avg.) 0.65 W
Standby (avg.) 0.25 W
Sleep 0.1 W
Power consump. efficiency index (W/GB) 0.016/0.022/0.033

Physical size
Height (mm) 9.5
Width (mm) 70
Depth (mm) 100
Weight - typical (g) 95

Environmental characteristics

Operating
Ambient temperature 5° to 55° C
Relative humidity (non-condensing) 8% - 90%
Maximum wet bulb (non-condensing) 29.4° C
Shock (half sine wave) 300G/2ms
Vibration (random (RMS)) 0.67 G (5 - 500 Hz)
Swept sine 1 G 0 - P (5 - 500 Hz)

Non-operating
Ambient temp -40° to 65 ° C
Relative humidity (non-condensing) 5% - 95%
Maximum wet bulb (non-condensing) 40° C
Shock (half sine wave) 1000G/1ms
Vibration (random (RMS)) 3.01 G (5 - 500 Hz)

Acoustics (A-Weighted Sound Power (Bels))
Idle (typ.) 2.1
Op (typ.) 2.4
Idle (max.) 2.4
Op (max.) 2.6

 

[buwish]

It can handle a 7200rpm drive, just ensure that you get the correct interface (i.e. SATA) and ensure that you get a 2.5'' drive to make sure it fits correctly.

 

[edmunda]

Word of warning: The VGN-A270/A290 series machines were engineered to operate with up to a 100GB 5200 drive, not sure of the exact specs. I ordered my A270 with an 80GB, 7200 HD. Sony doesn't make any recommendations for upgrades, and could be considered to suggest against them with good reason.

I put in a 250GB 5200 and it worked, however I have had significant overheating issues. If it isn't too late, I suggest that you stay in the 80 - 100GB range.

Best of luck.

 

[shdowflare]

Word of warning: The VGN-A270/A290 series machines were engineered to operate with up to a 100GB 5200 drive, not sure of the exact specs. I ordered my A270 with an 80GB, 7200 HD. Sony doesn't make any recommendations for upgrades, and could be considered to suggest against them with good reason.

I put in a 250GB 5200 and it worked, however I have had significant overheating issues. If it isn't too late, I suggest that you stay in the 80 - 100GB range.

Best of luck.

Interesting, I put a 160GB 5200RPM drive into my VGN-A290 about 1.5 years ago, and never had any issues with overheating. Over time it did seem like the system was at times laggy... but i was never sure why.

Anyway, I just upgraded to Windows 7 last night, and I've used the PC for hours and hours straight (probably about 8 hours of the past 24 have been on the new W7 OS). About 30 minutes ago, I installed the latest audio and video drivers from Windows Update (the drivers on the Sony site were severely outdated and designed for XP.

About 10 minutes after the updates, my PC shut off for the first time ever. I rebooted, thinking it was a lil glitch. It came back up and 5 minute later, same thing. Restarted it and went into the EVT Viewer and noticed there were a lot of errors complaining about the kernel shutting down due to overheating.

Now, when I installed the video drivers, I did bump up the resolution from 1024x768 to 1920x1200. It looks amazing, but now the darn thing won't stay on for more than 5-10 minutes. Is this normal and expected behavior, given I'm running in a non-standard HDD, and an OS that demands more power?

It's funny, I was considering bumping up the RAM to 2GB (from 1GB today), and maxing out the CPU to 2.1Ghz to give Win7 the most resources I could..

At this point though, I'm not even sure it would help address any of the issues, if the issues are related to Windows 7 in general...

Any pointers out there?

TIA!
B