- Joined
- Sep 10, 2026
- Messages
- 4
- Likes
- 2
I have one of these old Sony Vaio P laptops, and I just put together a little board for putting a Raspberry Pi CM5 into it. The goal is to keep the original shell, screen and keyboard but give it a modern brain so it's actually usable again.
What the board does
It boots Raspberry Pi OS on the internal screen (photo above). The screen and the keyboard and mouse are working. Still to do battery charging, sleep, case fit tweaks.
Hardware notes
It's a 6 ayer, designed in KiCad, made at JLCPCB. The trickiest part was getting it to fit inside the tiny Vaio Case.
I'm planning to open-source the KiCad files once it's cleaned up. Happy to answer questions, and I'd love suggestions on getting the SMBUS and battery charging working.
What the board does
- Holds the CM5 and fits into the original mainboard space
- Drives the original display through via an RGB bridge on the GPIO Ports
- Wires up the stock keyboard and trackpoint over I2C to usb converter
- Handles power from the original battery, but I don't have charging yet, I have to still hack the sambas
- Breaks out USB and HDMI
It boots Raspberry Pi OS on the internal screen (photo above). The screen and the keyboard and mouse are working. Still to do battery charging, sleep, case fit tweaks.
Hardware notes
It's a 6 ayer, designed in KiCad, made at JLCPCB. The trickiest part was getting it to fit inside the tiny Vaio Case.
I'm planning to open-source the KiCad files once it's cleaned up. Happy to answer questions, and I'd love suggestions on getting the SMBUS and battery charging working.
Last edited: