I dropped my TR3AP on the pavement today.  What a nightmare.

Amazingly, it is functioning fine, but I managed to damage pretty much all the large pieces of exterior casing (the screen back, the palmrest, the corner of the magnesium bottom casing) where a corner of the laptop hit the ground.

Is there anyone out there who has tried to replace these pieces, especially the large bottom piece?  Is it a nightmare to reseat everything?  Should I give up and go for a new computer?

I am considering buying the ridiculously expensive replacement parts from Sony because I love my TR, but am worried I won’t be able to manage the fix even if I have the parts, so any advice would be much appreciated.

How much are the replacement parts?

It’s quite doable, but some experience dissassembling laptop would be a plus.

You’re right, it wasn’t that bad, even though I’d never taken apart a computer before.

I bought a set of precision screwdrivers and a used TR3 (cheaper than new parts from Sony), and studied the old posts in the forum until I had some idea of what to expect.  My current computer is a hybrid of my old one and the one I bought for parts (mostly the case).

The two most useful posts were
http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=5486
http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=5905

One thing it would have been good to know before starting is that there are no Torx screws as far as I can tell in the unit, so a normal set of precision screwdrivers (phillips, flat)—much cheaper than a set including torx—would have done just fine.

Also, the screws in the outer case are silver; the black screws all belong to the interior.  (It was a little confusing to me because clearly both computers I was working with had been taken apart before by someone to some extent and the screws had ended up in a somewhat random distribution.) 

I also had a little trouble with one of the screws of the webcam (which were different from the main three other types of screws in the unit, and were overtightened), so just make sure your screwdriver fits snugly so that you don’t wear down the grooves of the screw like I did…

It’s also a good idea to pull out the USB port cover and leave it hanging before putting back the cover screws, because otherwise the rubber tethers may get caught by a screw.

My thanks go to all the people who have been posting detailed info on the insides of their TRs for the past few years.  I still can’t believe it worked out so well. 

Great to know it worked out fine for you. I can understand how it must have felt dropping such an expensive machine. I hate dropping even my cell phone, so dropping my TR would be disastrous for me I guess