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LinuxBIOS:
   Adventures with a VAIO

After months of frustration with a Sony VAIO SuperSlimPro Notebook (PCG-Z505JS) all rooted in a faulty external DVD-ROM drive and the fact that I thought it was ridiculous to do a network install when I already had everything on CD (see *** below for more details), we decided to open up the VAIO to see if we could reset the BIOS.

It turned out to be a L440gx-like mainboard minus all the braindamaged parts (no SCSI, for example). This means that LinuxBIOS on the VAIO is possible. The only problem is the Neomagic Magicmedia chip. If anyone has any information or knowledge, drop us a line.

After removing all the exposed screws in the back, all we could do was crack the base open about an inch (left) and lift the keyboard off (right). The plastic pieces covering the hinges and the speakers were holding the 2 pieces of the base together. To remove these plastic pieces we had to take apart the screen.
		We then removed all the little rubber thingies covering the screws and removed the screws around the screen. We also had to pop off the little plastic cover at the base of the screen to remove 3 more screws (picture).
The front plastic piece to the screen (left) popped off easily and we opened it up (right) to expose hinge arms.
We then removed the screws that held the hinges in place, which allowed us to pop off the little plastic pieces which were covering the hinges and the speakers. If you look closely, you'll see the only real casualty of the whole incident: the loss of the Insert key while popping off the right speaker cover.
		Then we finally got the whole thing opened up by disconnecting the speakers, mouse, and some LEDs. The ribbon cable going off to the left is connected to the keyboard which is laying face down in the picture. The fan is just above the hard drive on the right. You can see a little heat pipe running from the processor (just to the left of the fan) to the fan.
Ron then identified the flash as a removable 512KB part with a strange socket -- a small PC board carrier with a PLCC part.
		We put the screen back together and placed the keyboard on a piece of paper out of the recycle bin so as not to short anything. It successfully booted off of floppy.. which is to say that it is as good as new.. which is to say that it is still broken.

*** A failed Linux install off of CD, led me to attempt a Windows recovery, which pointed a finger at a faulty external DVD-ROM drive which went back to the vendor with my Windows system recovery CD still in it, which I tried to replace after spending 1 hour on the phone with Sony Customer Service only to never receive the fax she supposedly sent on how to order another copy of the CD, which led me to install a fresh copy of Windows 2000, which screwed up the BIOS so that it could no longer boot off of CD, which led me to boot off of floppy, which didn't include the drivers I needed to install off of CD, which I downloaded from Red Hat, which couldn't be read by the installation program because it didn't know how to configure a USB floppy drive. -- Sung

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