Sony Vaio UX380n Modding

[T3KN1K4L]

So, I recently bought a Vaio UX380n, not the highest end model, but good enough for what I'll be using it for, and to be honest it is very nice, very well built, and solid feeling, but it's just too damned boring, not me at all.  So I've decided to crack open this new, expensive toy of mine and do some modding (This may sound odd to some but if you remember correctly I cracked open the PSP2000 just minutes after getting it home from the store to write the dis-assembly tutorial, so...).  I plan on changing out the 40Gb HHD for a 500Gb HHD (Thought about putting a SSD in but prices are still too high right now.), a paint job is also in order, although i still haven't decided on the color, other than that I haven't thought much about what to do..  Any suggestions for mods would be greatly appreciated.

[Slim Hacker]

Midnight Blue for color!

[ProperBritish]

power, HDD activity, WLAN, battery, bluetooth light swaps?
backlit keyboard? somehow, probably easier than it sounds
speaker lighting (sound reactive?)

[Slim Hacker]

all sounds great :yes:

[FreeK]

backlit keyboard

i was gonna say that.
i think a gloss/flake black would look awesome

edit. DUDE! i just google imaged this thing. i thought it was a laptop but i was wrong. its even better



so since it already has a baclkit keyboard i say. LED swap. that would look awesome in red.

making it all black would be sweet too

[H-Sauce]

Yeah, sounds and looks AWESOME! Maybe you could hook the LED's behind the keyboard to thee speaker, so it works like the easier way of sound reactive mod, but you still have the backlit keyboard 24/7 (apart from when it's turneed off lol).

And all black = Your first priority

[T3KN1K4L]

Hmmm, black... I was actually thinking of something more like a candy blood red over a silver base.  I'm going to have to do some photoshops to see the results of different colors.

[H-Sauce]

That sounds pretty damn nice too, Photoshops are a good idea.

[Slim Hacker]

yeah

[T3KN1K4L]

Couldn't get too in depth before, since I was just leaving for work, but...  Did some research (Didn't crack it open yet though) first the keyboard is much like a cellphones, the keys are back-lit from the Laminated PCB, this means the LEDs are laminated behind a white defusing plastic sheet, with dome contacts...  If anyone doesn't know what that means, well, it means that although not completely impossible, changing the LEDs is quite difficult...  I'm not quite sure how I would like a blood red with blue back-lit keys...  May go with a dark dark blue w/silver flake, or silver, or to match my Import PSP: white...

Next (Still trying to find a shop to get the parts for this one...)  The US version of the UX Models has WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network) (That semi-circular topped thing sticking out from behind the screen is the top of the antenna...) through cell provider, I think it's cingular...  I for one don't use cingular, and on top of that I don't really want to go through the trouble to unlock it, just to use some other provider...  The Japanese models, on the other hand, where the WWAN hardware would be, is instead a PCMCIA extension slot...  Now this sounds much more usefull for me that WWAN, so I plan on finding the parts and installing them in the place of the WWAN parts (They both plug into the Motherboard via an internal USB connection)...

Next, the standard LED swaps will be possible for the most part, but Sony used a lot of PCBs to cut down on space for this thing, so I guess I'll see when I finally crack it open...

Next (yes there are alot of nextsssss...  LOL), is the speakers, first they are mono, both speakers are run off the same channel, second, I'm not too sure I want the sound reactive mod...  To tell you the truth after I finnaly got my one IC/stereo sound reactive mod figured out (Oh yeah....  I completely forgot to post that ages ago..  LOL, oh well...) and installed into one of my test bed PSPs, I had it in there a couple of weeks and tore it out, just really not my style...

Lastly, I have been thinking of (having done since I don't have the equipment) a Cor2Solo (what's in there now) CPU to Core2Dou CPU swap...  Like I said I don't have the equipment to do this type of thing, it would take an infrared solder station, which I definently don't have...  But fear not, I always have my ways and have found someone to do the service...  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

What do you all think?

[Slim Hacker]

Sweet Now I have to sleep from reading that post LOL XD

[PspKicks316]

yeah

And

Sweet Now I have to sleep from reading that post LOL XD

Stop spamming.

[T3KN1K4L]

Update...  Well, cracked 'er open, installed a AGN MIMO WiFi card, and replaced the Cingular Edge WWAN module with a CF card reader, pretty easy to do both, now all that I'm waiting for is the new Toshiba 120 GB HDD.  But, while I wait, I decided to wipe Pista off and load up XP and Kubuntu (Currently my preferred Linux distro)...  Unfortunately Sony has kept their mouths shut about their firmware for a couple of the devices, like Camera Switching (The hardware is set up like there is one CMOS that switches between the two cameras, front and back...), biometric scanner (Fingerprint scanner), and a few of the control buttons, so they aren't fully working under Kubuntu, but I can deal with that for now...  And XP works like a charm, not to mention much much faster with smaller footprint than Pista (No, I didn't misspell it, I just really really don't like Vista...  LOL).  Haven't had a chance to work on any Photoshops yet, but I have a good idea of what I'm going to do...  I plan on dusting off an old PSP paint scheme I never finished, and basing it on that...  Will have mock-up images soon (once all this hectic holiday season is over...)...