Sony VAIO VGN-FE855E/H
purchase: Bestbuy? 2008ish? 2009? Riverside, CA. Open Box item.
2GB (max) RAM upgrade
HDD -> SSD
SATA1 -> SATA2        : AHCI
original Vista -> XP -> Vista -> now Windows 7
installing XP drivers were fun ^^
touchpad never worked for years on XP with whatever tricks I did on the laptop,
then suddenly noticed it came back to life after installing Vista.

<USB booting >
possible
but it only worked when all drives are removed from the BIOS list of booting orders.
Leave only the USB drive as booting device
-> boot and install win7
-> at first reboot, go straight to BIOS and remove USB from booting list
and put main SSD as the only booting device.
->add 2nd SSD afterwards

< USB port >
5? 4 USB1.0 and 1 USB2.0?
27C8: Bottom port
27C9: Top port
27CA: ?
27CB: ?
27CC(USB2.0): Middle port + Camera

< AHCI >
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/485782-i-got-registry-value-ahci-vaio-vgn-fe-series.html
Bios version R0200J3
AHCI value 00F6
Create DOS Boot USB drive with Symcmos
insert DOS text editor
Boot into the USB and use Syncmos to change the following BIOS setting:
(00F6) [0000] to: (00F6) [0001]
reboot loop occurs when windows setting is not corrected first.
(or was it BIOS edit first, then registry change?)
(registry change, then BIOS edit?)
(this step might have been necessary for me because Windows was already installed as non-AHCI. If clean windows installs, registry edit might not have been needed.)
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html
regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services
msahci
Start 0
iaStorV 0

Was Vista with Samsung SSD
so able to check SATA and AHCI status and SSD performances using Samsung Magician SSD tool.



< windows7 >
changed from Samsung 128GB to Crucial 256GB SSD
all hardware installed with win7 install, only 2 devices appears with !.
Seems to be the texas instruments flash card reader driver
and sony app firmware extension parser driver?
extract *.exe format Vista drivers into folders and files, and install needed ones in win7.
I think almost every Vista driver was successful in installation on a win7 with this method.
Tool called UniExtract used for the extraction.

<SATA controller>
VAIO original driver: Silicon Image SiI 3132 SATALink Controller 1.0.19.0 20070411
Windows 7 driver: Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller 6.1.7601.18231 2006-06-21
Downloaded: Intel Matrix Storage Manager V8.9.0.1023 20090625
shows up as Intel ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller 8.9.0.1023 20090604

<video>
VAIO original driver: MobileInt945GMExprChipsetFamily 7.14.10.1114 20061106
MobileIntExprChipsetFamilyGraphDriver 7.14.10.1295 20080304
Windows 7 driver: ?
Downloaded: IntGraphMediaAccelDriverWin7 15.12.75.4.1930 20091002
shows up as Mobile Intel 945 Express Chipset Family 8.15.10.1930 20090923

<FlashMemoryreader>
VAIO original driver: TexInstrPCI7411IntegratedFlashMediaController 2.0.0.15 20080423

<chipset inf update utility>
VAIO original driver: IntChipsetSWInstallUtil 8.1.1.1010 20061108
Windows 7 driver: ?
Downloaded: IntChipsetDeviceSW(INFUpdateUtil)10.0.1 20140225
shows up (where?) as ?

installed the following using UniExtract
app firmware extension parser driver
app shared library
app startup control
app uninstall
Camera Capture Utility update
Camera driver
9 programs in notebook util

<2nd SSD>
took out DVD ROM
bought a bay
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6010522823.html
$20.00
cheap aluminum thingy
does the job. no complaints.
It will be hooked up to the IDE part. NOT SATA.
so speed is slow, but nice place to store extra files as the D drive.
Maybe change some wirings in the future to hook it up to the SATA part?

< CPU upgrade >
is it worth it?
T5500 @ 1.66GHz

Probably Merom (Conroe) 65 nm Socket M
Those are
Intel Core 2 Duo
T5200, T5300, T5500, T5600, T7200, T7400, T7600
PassMark (if this means anything....)
E5200: 1484 (reference)
i3 4000M: 3421 (reference)
T5500: 907
T7600: 1323
-> not worth it.



< limits >
slow CPU
SATA2 at best with current SSD attached.

should move on to i3 4000M Haswell DDR3L