Hello again!
I finally purchased a TR3A for $1,300. This is the first laptop I’ve ever invested on (for use on college).

I plan on saving more money for parts to upgrade the TR3A, and I was wondering what are the necessary parts/ part numbers to make the TR3A a TR5AP?

I appreciate it guys, you people are great help.

Thanks.

wellcome to the TR world.

where did you get a TR3A at such a price?

Good luck with all the upgrades… :wink:

[quote author=“georgi0”]wellcome to the TR world.

where did you get a TR3A at such a price?

Good luck with all the upgrades… :wink:

Thanks, I got the TR3A from eBay on the last minute.

Regarding my post on top, I would also like to know how much the total cost of the upgrades will be if I were to put upgrade parts on the TR3A to make it a TR5AP. Anyone?

Thanks everyone for all the help.

You could try to contact SONY DAPC and see if you could get a service manual.  To get a response could take up to 2 weeks.  That is how long it took them to respond to my request.  By then i had already found another place to get the service manual for my TR3.

Here is the link:   

I am sure you will be able to get the service manual from SONY it will just take some time.

If not you could try e-mailing these guys:   

They might be able to get it also.

If you do get the service manual for the TR5, post the part number.  I would be interested to get one for reference.

Alright thanks, I just contacted Sony DAPC for the service manual. When I receive the part number I’ll let you know ASAP.

You’ll need at least:

1 - CPU upgrade from 1ghz to 1.1ghz;
2 - Another 512 MB RAM module;
3 - Buetooth upgrade;
4 - Windows XP Pro;
5 - DVR-RW upgrade;

Well, that’s all I can remember so far…

I am very skeptical about the 1300-1400$ TR auctions on ebay. I was curious as well, since I was thinking between the T and another TR… The sellers were unavaiable and they never sold laptops in this class, so I assume it could be a highjacked ebay account. I hope you got lucky, alhtough I doubt it ...
Best,
S

[quote author=“kageon1”]Hello again!
I finally purchased a TR3A for $1,300. This is the first laptop I’ve ever invested on (for use on college).

I plan on saving more money for parts to upgrade the TR3A, and I was wondering what are the necessary parts/ part numbers to make the TR3A a TR5AP?

I appreciate it guys, you people are great help.

Thanks.

Other than installing XP Pro, adding memory and changing out the optical drive there’s nothing else you can do.

The DVD R/W drive is so expensive it’s really not worth the money. If you want DVD R/W go with a much cheaper firewire external. If it’s for school, will you ever really need to burn a DVD while mobile?

Save your money for a bluetooth upgrade or nifty accessories.

A service manual, while nice, is pretty much unnecessary unless you plan on doing all your own repairs and are competent to do so.

The CPU upgrade would be extremely hard to do…I think you should not try that.

I can do the CPU upgrade, 120$/hour for the labor, will take me ~ 2h30m. I’ve done such jobs before. It is fun, but also a bitch, especially if you have to recover the equipment if you fry it

I guess you’re right about the CPU upgrade being extremely hard to do (I thought the processor was soldered though since it is a Centrino). Or is it slot/ socket based?

I wanted the DVD-Burner in the future because I am an avid photographer/ videographer and wanted to burn all of the work on recordable DVD’s.

I guess I was lucky about the eBay Auction, there’s a lot of scammers out there but the seller I’ve worked with seemed like a nice person. I asked him to take pictures from different angles on high-res photos, he also accepted PayPal and had a feedback of 98.6% (based on 186 feedbacks - power seller).

If anyone out there is looking to buy a TR3A laptop (or any other laptop/ item), I strongly recommend doing your research before putting that final bid.

Thanks for all of your humble comments, I appreciate it.  :D

[quote author=“DayWalker”]I am very skeptical about the 1300-1400$ TR auctions on ebay. I was curious as well, since I was thinking between the T and another TR… The sellers were unavaiable and they never sold laptops in this class, so I assume it could be a highjacked ebay account. I hope you got lucky, alhtough I doubt it ...
Best,
S

I don’t see the TR holding it’s value very well right now…around $1,500 for a TR3 doesn’t seem all that bad.

Erik

If you are looking on ebay you are right.. In real world you are not. Ebay is very “maket oriented”. Whatever is hot everywhere else it is hot on ebay and people search for it. Eversince TR’s dissapeared from sonystyle.com people stopped looking for them on ebay ) I had an offer for my TR for 3Gs last week locally, although I am not gonna sell it , just yet….

Well, yeah, ebay happens to control the used market in some respect. Sure, you could sell it locally, but you won’t reach 1/100th of the people you can on ebay.

The prices on ebay tanked right after the release of the T…they will rise a bit, but I don’t think too much more. You can pickup a refurb TR3 for under $1,500 from non-ebay sites…unless the TR is mint or unique…I don’t see too many people recouping their investment.

Your situation was like mine, a rare TR able to command a bit more value.

Erik

my tr has extra 512, ext. battery, bt upgrade, dvdrw upgrade….

Thats what I had, sans the battery…but I had other things I sold with it.

Erik