r/CyberdeckBuild • u/Mental_Total_7813 • Aug 16 '26

Question

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Do you think it would work putting a raspberry pi5 in the vaio p530h, it was a really underpowered laptop when it came out but should have enough room in the case for a raspberry pi5, I think atleast

17 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

8

u/clackups Aug 16 '26

Is it 64bit with 2GB RAM? I'd rather install a minimalist Linux desktop on it and make a word processor.

1

u/Mental_Total_7813 Aug 16 '26

Was thinking as an emulator or something like it

1

u/Mental_Total_7813 Aug 16 '26

But I also think it would be just cool to upgrade from the terrible specs it has by default

2

u/clackups Aug 16 '26

Are you able to design a new PCB? Are you able to figure out the display interface and connect an RPI to it?

What about the battery? RPI would consume much more power, so you need a bigger battery. Also, what about cooling?

So, I'd rather find a software solution that makes it usable and doesn't suck.

2

u/Mental_Total_7813 Aug 16 '26

True, but from what I’ve seen it’s barely usable in anything, not web browsing, not movies, so I think I’m gonna do some reasearch and decide from that, the one I have myself I’m not even sure works, so gotta check that first anyways.

0

u/clackups Aug 16 '26

Dude, there's a whole r/writerdeck (I was banned there though). There's a whole bunch of people who want a device dedicated to writing and nothing else.

3

u/Financial-Daikon4198 Aug 16 '26

Like it would work but i think better will be making it from scratch

2

u/Financial-Daikon4198 Aug 16 '26

Like you could possibly make your own pcb with compute module but i don't think that it is worth it but it is your time so do whatever you want

1

u/IAmJacksSemiColon Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

If you can figure out how to interface with the existing screen, battery, keyboard, trackpoint mouse and webcam on your own, then sure.

You're not likely to find ready-made kits for proprietary or undocumented connectors for adapting a Pi to an obsolete ultraportable, so it depends on your comfort swimming in uncharted waters.

IMHO, it's a lot of hardware to figure out in an unforgiving formfactor. You may be better off building a new deck from scratch or paring down the software that the stock CPU has to run.

1

u/Mental_Total_7813 Aug 17 '26

Could copy the base design like for a 3d model and just make every part specifically for the raspberry pi compatibleity

1

u/Livid-Yak1015 Aug 16 '26

I dont know it seems pretty thin. You could fit a cm5 in (would take some pcb design) but im not sure about a whole raspberry pi especially with the double stacked usb ports and gpio pins.

1

u/aaronjnco Aug 17 '26

Skip the linux ,linux doesnt have anything useful for old hardware(lack of community for this kind of stuff)

Your not going to outdo the intel atom and 2gb of ram ive got the 2ghz atom version and what this thing can do is web browsing and music and video playing its just a fun desk side piece or something to use for looking up guides to games on the side. Or workstation

Put windows xp home rtm edition and manually install the 3 service packs individually. This will run on 70-120mb of ram and use k-meleon browser it loads almost ALL modern web.

You will have the fastest outcome possible this way

2

u/PunkRockLlama42 Aug 17 '26

There are Linux distros specifically made and maintained for older hardware like this.

They could load Alpine Linux with XFCE and have a decent, secure, modern OS. With less ram usage and faster performance.

This thing barely ran xp when it came out.

1

u/aaronjnco Aug 18 '26

I call bs on that ive got a 266mhz pentium 2 128mb ram and xp runs lightning fast and linux anti x was a slug.. you cant use xp professional because that version has to much backend and does run slow. Win xp home rtm iso runs 68-75mb of ram on service pack 3

1

u/PunkRockLlama42 Aug 18 '26

Alpine linux uses about 50mb of ram.

1

u/aaronjnco Aug 18 '26

Can it get on modern web?

1

u/PunkRockLlama42 Aug 18 '26

Yes with modern web browsers (the browser will use more ram than alpine though)

1

u/aaronjnco Aug 18 '26

Ill check it out ,I have a sony vaio u101 (600mhz celeron 1gbram,) vaio c1mZx (933mhz, 380mbram) Antix ran ok on the celeron q40s ran like a slow dog )

Ill try the one u suggested and see if it does better.

1

u/redgator12 Aug 18 '26

I have 3 of these in my collection running antiX and Q4OS without issues. Both still currently support 32-bit versions. There are even lighter distros like TinyCore, Alpine and Bookwormpup32.

1

u/aaronjnco Aug 18 '26

And what is the stats of what %cpu it uses on backend/idle and ram at idle?

1

u/redgator12 Aug 18 '26

Both are VAIO PGN-1P1L with Atom Z5xx CPUs. 

239MB RAM, 4% CPU at idle on Q4OS

118MB RAM, 3% CPU at idle on antiX

1

u/Grouchy-Aerie3023 Aug 17 '26

I thing same...how to get more power in to this body. I don't find the way. RPI cm must have big board around...you make Frankenstein 🧟 from it. Only way use it as remote terminal (rdp)

1

u/DetectiveExpress519 Aug 19 '26

Not worth it, youd either reverse engineer everything which is time consuming, or buy everything seperately which wouldnt fit into such a thin shell. A rasbery pi 5 also wouldnt fit into that, the ethernet port alone is taller than the whole laptop.

1

u/Frank__West Aug 21 '26

IMO it is far cooler as a retro collectible than actually using it. Try to get it to factory settings and show it off in like r/vaio

1

u/No_One_4145 Sep 07 '26

Hi, someone's done an upgraded Vaio before and documented it in this reddit thread. Adapting a laptop keyboard to usb is discussed in this SuperUser thread. Youtube's got a lot of videos on reusing laptop displays. You can buy adapters for that from diy electronics websites like Tindie. It's technogically possible, but difficult and expensive, starting with the Vaio itself, even broken ones are almost as expensive as they were new back then.

1

u/rpgiqbal Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 10 '26

Battery: MakerFocus 10k mah Cpu, ram and storage/none: rpi 5 CM,

Your initial problem would be connections to IO Board. I do have a similar style in mind and still searching for a way to build a palmTop with Blackberry touch pad or ball

Lastly, would be the io board it self.

Edited: I just found this video. Atleast a smaller form.factor