XL201 - replacing the cd drive

[pasquir79]

Hi all

My XL201 has another problem...

There is a CD stuck in the drive. The XL201 has a front-loading CD (ie where the CD slips in, rather than opening a tray). It appears to be a mechanical fault in the drive unit.

I spoke to Vaio customer services and they are happy to investigate and fix the problem - at a minimum charge of £140 (!!!!!)

I asked them whether buying just the drive is possible, and they said no.

I can't really afford this and clearly it might cost much more than £140. Does anyone have any ideas - can I buy this drive elsewhere?

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[rsebre]

Hello,
I understand your problem here,
My best advice is have sony done any previous repairs?
If so you may be entitled to the repairs being service for free.
If SONY has done a repair, then the item they repaired is entitled to a 6 or 12 month warrenty.
Unfortunately you can not take a VGX-201 in to your local computer shop as they couldnt get parts for it anyway.
SONY have the only supply of parts, from the custom motherbaord to the matshita drives, which is an annoance. I woudnt pay £140 for it to be repaired, buy an external USB2.1 cd/dvd drive from amazon you will save a packet and I know it will work.

I have had sony repair my VGX-201 5 times now and its up for collection this wednesday again too.
Since its purchase sony have repaired it 5 times - 4 new cd/dvd drives and 1 new motherbaord. Each repaired part is entitled to 6 or 12 moths warrenty. Mine is out of warrenty, and now refuses to burn DL DVD's again, but luckly sony only under a month ago gave me a new drive, which is now faulty, so entiltled to a free repair.

I have wrote it several times on these forums, in future dont buy a sony branded pc, as the parts are impossible to get and thus your stuck with that £140 bill every time something goes wrong.

Another idea is that you can get a VGX-201 (the same model youve got) from ebay now for under £100 delivered, buy 1 and salvae it, youd get another 2x 512 (1gb) of memory, your replacement cd/dvd drive and another graphics card all from it which will intergrate seemlessly into your media center pc, and it cost a hell of a lot less than sony doing it for you, its easy to do and there are even guides on how to do it on here.

Well I hope any of these ideas has helped and some sort of result is had in your case.

[andysp5]

You can get after market drives, but they are scarce. There is the Panasonic UJ-210 and 220 which you occasionally find on eBay. I am also looking at the Sony Optiarc 5500 which you can get at dabs.com.

[pasquir79]

Hi Andy,

Many thanks for your response - much appreciated. The Sony Optiarc 5500 looks good - particularly as it's cheap! One further question on that front - do you know which size drive fits in the unit? I've had a look and it's available in quite a few sizes so I just want to ensure that it fits into the Vaio.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[andysp5]

Hi Paul,
I accidently misled you before, it's the 5600 you want, not the 5500. The 5500 is a tray loader, the 5600 a slot loader. I think they are both 12.7mm height which is the height you want. Please check on that though. PS, I can't find anybody selling the 5600 yet!

[ChalkyWhite71]

Hello Andy/Paul,

I am also looking to replace the DVD combo drive in my XL201 with a blu-ray slot loader. Sony OptiArc in Europe have told me;

The Sony NEC Optiarc BC5600S is available from the following distributors -

CCi Distribution
Bell Micro
Ingram Micro
VIP
Ezyinfotech

I have left a message with CCi, and will report back how i get on.

Cheers, Tony

[pasquir79]

Hi Tony,

Many thanks for your post and the info - did you get any joy from the suppliers which Sony recommended?

Cheers, Paul

[ChalkyWhite71]

After a local Reading retailer said that they don't infact stock the OptiArc product range, i went back to the distributors VIP Computers to ask again who else may be available within the UK. Waiting for a response.
Toyed with getting a PS3 instead, but reminded myself that i'd like all my media exploits within the one box solution, and the Vaio is pretty good at games anyway, e.g. GTR2 with a Logitech wheel! 😉

Will update this post when i get more news.

[ITTroll]

Just a little warning about the BC-5600s drive - it has SATA data and power connectors. The standard drive in the XL201 (and others in the VGX series) has a 50-pin laptop ATAPI connector. However, the data connection is actually converted to SATA using a small converter module attached to the rear of the drive (power is obtained from the motherboard via a custom floppy power connector).

Therefore the BC-5600s should in theory work using a direct SATA data connection. Power would have to be obtained from one of the SATA power connectors. The XL201 has three of these so as long as you don't have three hard drives you will have one spare.

[pasquir79]

Hi guys, loads of great info, many thanks for your continued endeavours and Tony, good luck with VIP Computers.

Cheers, Paul