I picked up this Sony VAIO PCV-LX800 just over 7 years ago from a thrift store. It was in really rough shape and was missing ram and a hard drive. Also, the CD drive wouldn’t read any CD. The system would post, but the fans were super loud but clunky. I finally got around to restoring this system and am happy with the results.

The CD drive had to be replaced with the same model because of the proprietary bezel and extra mounting holes on the bottom that are used for mounting screws used to raise the drive up above the motherboard and lock in place via special plastic brackets.

The hard drive also requires special screws to mount the drive in a proprietary ABS plastic frame that clips on the top of the CD drive. Luckily the frame came with the unit.

I kept the original 60mm CPU fan but oiled and cleaned it up. The only other fan (and the loudest) in this system is in the PSU and is used to blow air through the PSU and out through the back of the case. I replaced it with a Noctua 60mm x 25mm 3pin fan.

I found the restore CDs on archive.org and was able to return the system to its original state with working OS and full set of drivers.

Here are the specs for this PCV-LX800:

Pentium III 800EB
512MB PC133 ram (256MB x 2)
Seagate 40GB hard drive
Sony CX140E CD drive
SiS 300 integrated graphics (AGP 4x)
SiS integrated audio
3 USB ports, SD card reader, PCMCIA, AV port, standard sound ports
Windows ME with all the apps and bloatware installed from the official restore CDs

This system only has two full height PCI slots (no AGP), so I’m figuring out my options for a PCI graphics card. Something has to be better than the SiS graphics that is limited to DirectX 7 and has poor performance in most games. Maybe I will throw in a SB Live, too.

It’s a compact desktop system that strangely has no PS2 ports. I had no issue, however, using a Logitech mouse and a modern USB keyboard with it. It surely is one of the stranger systems in my collection, but at least she’s working great now!