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Modded UX490 UMPC Shows Off Years of Community Development

Posted by timothy on from the soldered-on-a-new-warranty-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The community at www.MicroPCTalk.com have spent the last few years devising all sorts of mods and tweaks for the Sony VAIO UX-series UMPC. Now they've thrown nearly all of their major breakthroughs into one machine. Using the latest UX model (UX490) as the base, the original SSD has been swapped for a speedy 128GB SSD, the CPU has been unsoldered from the mobo and replaced with a Core 2 Duo U7700 (making this probably the smallest computer to use said CPU). The original EDGE module has been removed, and carefully put in its place is an E169 Huawei terminal which provides up to 7.2mbps 3G (HSDPA), voice and texting. On top of this, the unit quad-boots Mac OS X, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP (and the Huawei terminal works under Mac OS X as well)."

9 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. A: Because it breaks the flow of a message by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Funny

    Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?

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    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  2. Yes, but.... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...does it run 3 versions of windows for no reason?

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    THL phish sticks
    1. Re:Yes, but.... by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I only see two version of Windows installed.

      Incidently, there are only three Star Wars movies, two Terminator movies, and what the hell does "Back to the Future" mean?

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      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
  3. Re:Hooray for standardized hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually the U series cpus are BGA. IE they would've needed to hot-air solder them down. Ever since atom and the whole 'lowest wattage possible' the day of the socket is swiftly approaching an end :(

  4. Re:Hooray for standardized hardware by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I put a Type-R sticker and spoiler on it. I get a 5hp and 38hp boosts respectively from those little additions.

  5. Re:link dead? by greensoap · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apparently they were using a Modded UX49 for the web server...

  6. Re:I'm not familiar with it... by mister_playboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Easier to see it than try to explain:

    http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/vgn-ux17gp/

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  7. Modding Old Hardware by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Funny

    In a parallel universe, there's a bunch of space aliens laughing about the mods they made to an old satellite they found drifting in deep space.

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    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  8. Re:Hooray for standardized hardware by darthflo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    (This is just a somewhat educated guess, any EEs reading this: Please correct me)

    A soldered BGA contact point will probably have a greater contact area with better signal quality. Since all of that signalling is done digitally, they can lower the voltage potential between their ones and zeros to the lowest point where they can still reliably be distinguished, and that point ought to be lower with a neatly soldered BGA chip than a socket with it's tiny contact points. Also, including the socket generates cost for the socket, additional CPU packaging and wastes very precious space. Lastly, keeping the cooling system yet upgrading the CPU isn't a smart move if you're not *really* sure your cooling equipment is up to the job. Thus an enthusiast thing.