I previously used this site (or Sony TR World) to replace my HDD for my TR3a. The instructions and pictures were really great as they made changing the hard drive really easy.

Are there any instructions here for replacing the motherboard and is it just as easy? I searched the web site but can’t find any instructions for motherboard replacement.
Are there any things to be careful of or I need to watch out for? (Like making sure the motherboard is compatible with my current hard drive connector) I was thinking of purchasing a replacement motherboard from ebay unless anyone advises against it.

My laptop has been great but recently it had a hard time booting up from being cold. Once it was running, it ran fine and I could restart it over and over with no problems.  However, when I would start from it being off for the night, it would freeze during the boot, over and over until it warmed up. I realized I could just hit F8 during boot up and wait and until it could sit on that boot option screen for about 5 minutes without freezing and once it could last 5 minutes without freezing I new I could then start it up. If it did freeze, I would just hold down the power button and try again with F8.  Now it’s completely dead and won’t even come one, or show the battery charging. Someone told me that replacing the motherboard would fix it. Has anyone encountered anything like this and does anyone have any tips or things I should know before buying a replacement motherboard?
Thanks for any help here.

Hi Wstt,

I’m no expert in motherboards and so on, but I can’t see why a motherboard would behave differently when hot or cold - it is just silicon circuits that are the same no matter what temperature. The thing I would expect to be affected by temperature would be the hard drive as it spins up and down… BUT… the problem with battery charging wouldn’t be affected by a hard drive and does hint at motherboard problems! Sorry to not be of any use here, but maybe one of the other guys can help out…

As to changing the board itself, I recently had to do the same thing but unfortunately didn’t take any good photos and I found these guides useful up to a point:
http://www.siliconpopculture.com/articles/review/netegriti_em_500ag/
http://www.siliconpopculture.com/forum/viewthread/5486/

Basically, follow them until they get specific to the changes those web pages are on about, so you have opened up your machine and taken off the keyboard, top panel (remember the screw under the left side of the keyboard!). Things you will need are a range of small screwdrivers, some tweezers are usually useful, a sheet of paper with a sketch of the machine so you can mark the screw locations, and some electrical tape is normally good too.

1. Remove the HDD brackets by unscrewing the one remaining screw (the rest are held by screws from the bottom of the machine that are removed during the primary stages). I have the Toshiba drive so this is what I do, but the Hitachi may well be different…

2. Remove the HDD by gently and evening easing the connector from the IDE. Also disconnect the optical drive as well just below the HDD connection.

3. Unscrew the two screws remaining on the optical drive frame - one at its top left corner onto the motherboard, the other is under the grey cable that runs along the top edge of the drive tray and battery compartment. You have to lift the cable gently and look at the top right corner to find it.

4. Remove the optical drive by lifting it up and forwards.

5. At the top left corner, unscrew the power connector, which is the one with the small metal loop from a cable connected to the main screen cable. If you lift up the bundle of cables, you can also unscrew the VGA connector as well to the right of the power plug. At this point I normally find the plastic pieces that make up the sides of the machine come apart…

6. Unplug the screen connector - that’s the big one to the left of the keyboard plug. You have to ease it out and be careful to not dislodge any of the wires. I used two flat headed screwdrivers on either end of the plastic plug and levered both ends at the same time. if you lift this up the bunches of cables at both top corners; I usually use a little bit of electrical tape to secure the cable to the top of the battery case.

7. To the right side, remove the daughter boards - there is one screw on each of the two smaller boards. If you aren’t changing these then just disconnect them by lifting the small flaps from the ribbon connectors and gently pull the flex out.

8. On the main board there are only 3 screws left (I think!) down the right side of the board itself. Once those are gone, ease the board up and you’ll see some wires which are taped down to the plastic case - unstick these and the entire board should pull away. Needless to say, be very careful how you handle it!

9. Carefully put the new board into place and run the steps in reverse to rebuild the machine. If you removed any of the flex ribbons, lift the plastic flap up, slide in the ribbon and click the flap back down. This should result in a refurbished and working new machine…