Sony UX UMPC Modded With Core 2 Duo U7600: Extreme Soldering Skills

Sony's VAIO UX is a slick little UMPC, but it's overdue a processor upgrade.  Micro PC Talk forum member Anh Nguyen couldn't be bothered waiting for Sony to do the honours, so he cracked open his UX280P, desoldered the 1.2GHz Core Solo U1400 chip from the mainboard and replaced it with an Intel Core 2 Duo U7600.

That might not sound like much, but remember we're not talking about snapping out a CPU from a standard slot: to save space, like in many ultraportable devices, Sony actually solder the processor pins to the mainboard itself.  A slip of the wrist and you've broken your very expensive UMPC.  Anh used an infrared solder station to remove and replace the chips.

Of course, he's been justly rewarded for his skills: the benchmarks above, performed in Vista, show a significant improvement over the stock UX.  He reports no extra heat output despite the new dual-core processor.  Needless to say, don't try this at home.

[via Pocketables]