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Two guides, same laptop, different authors

Hi iFixit admins,

I have an unusual question.

I found two device pages that seems to be different but are the same :

I don’t know exactly what I should do in this specific case, so here is the details of the problem :

On these two device pages we can see, they seem to refer to two different model numbers, “PCG-7A2L“ and “VGRFS640“.

In fact, the “PCG-7A2L“ is not a model number used to target a specific laptop model, it’s more like a chassis model, the PCG reference number should not be used as an identifying number, since it describes a group of similar products and not a specific model.

And “GVRFS640“ is not a valid model number, in fact, the true model number for this laptop is “VGN-FS640“.

If we observe the two device page images in full size, we can read the real laptop model number that is “VGN-FS640“ link to the images :

Here is the zoom of the model number labeled on these two devices :

For the device page “Sony VAIO PCG-7A2L”, we can read on the device label the model is in fact a VGN-FS640 :

Block Image

For the device page “Vaio FS series VGRFS640”, we can also read on the device label the model is in fact a VGN-FS640 :

Block Image

If we look closely at these pictures, these devices are in fact the same and the given model for both of these device pages are both erroneous and there real model is in fact “VGN-FS640“

Also, the two device pages contains different links to the Sony e-support, one refers to the “VGN-FS640“ and the other one refers to the “VGN-FS645P“ but one of them (the VGN-FS645P) does not correspond to any of these two guides as in the Sony Specification Sheet of these two models we can see at the laptop appearance the two device pages cannot be a Vaio VGN-FS645P :

Here is a potential solution to solve the problem :

As these two device pages doesn’t refer to the correct laptop model but contains correct teardown guides for the device (Vaio VGN-FS640), I suggest merging the two devices page in the same device page with the real laptop model, the Vaio VGN-FS640 . So we can keep all the teardown guides associated with the correct laptop model number.

Is this a good solution ?

Do you have a procedure when two device pages must be merged into one ? (as it seems not to be a common use case)

Thanks for reading :)

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Hi @es_six, this is an interesting case. I'll look into it next week and work out a solution. Thanks for pointing it out!

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Hi Brendan,

Thank you for this astute observation and for thoroughly investigating this issue! Your research was a huge help when determining how to handle this situation.

Unfortunately, there were no 100% perfect solutions, but I landed on one that will hopefully be the most beneficial. I migrated all the content from the Vaio FS series VGRFS640 page to the Sony VAIO PCG-7A2L page. I updated all of the naming conventions on the device page and corresponding guides to Sony Vaio VGN-FS640. The only caveat is that I can’t change the URL on this page without resetting the page stats and author history. Since this page has accumulated over 44,000 views, it’s proven to be useful, so I’d rather not start a new page from scratch. However, there may be a possibility in the future that we can redirect this page to a new one with the correct URL without losing page stats. In the meantime, I hope this solution suffices.

Thanks again for your help!

-Kristen

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Hi, thank you, I undestand well what to do and I undestand the caveat of the solution.

This solution suffices, tanks a lot for answering and for solving this issue :)

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Hi, thank you @amber

I have an additional question.

When I found a Sony laptop with a PCG-xxxxx identifier instead of the real model number:

Should I replace a PCG-xxxxxx identifier by the real model number of a device in the device page title and keep the PCG identifier in the description ? (except for very old laptops produced before the year 2004 where the PCG model was the only identifier number as the PCG can also be considered as an old series of sony laptops like this one : https://www.sony.com/electronics/support...)

The real model number is also called the "Product Name" on the Sony support page and on the Sony laptops labels. This is useful to get the exact reference of the laptop on the Sony support page or to get the exact reference to find the correct spare part.

Example with this device page:

https://fr.ifixit.com/Device/Sony_Vaio_P...

The PCG identifier is PCG-51412L and is used in the page title, but it doesn't identify this laptop because it is used by more than 10 different Sony laptops with different specs. Indeed, if we observe the label of this laptop by zooming on a picture of a guide where the laptop is upside down, we can see that its Product Name is VPCY2190X.

Image where the label was found (in the battery replacement guide):

https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/...

And if we use this Product Name on the Sony support page, it will find this exact correct laptop, example:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support...

Note : this specific device is only visible on the American Sony support page, perhaps it wasn’t sold in europe.

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Brendan will be eternally grateful.