Sony SE Owners' Thread

The ATI video card crapped out on me yesterday. I had been getting "driver stopped working" errors for a couple of months but thought it was the driver. Now the SE does not even see the ATI card, only the intel video card. I have never pushed it that hard and never overclocked it. Unfortunately, my warranty coverage ran out last month so I can't get it fixed. Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers had no effect. Has anyone had their ATI card fail in an SE? This is not the first Vaio I have had problems with. Sony quality has really gone downhill. Doubt I'll ever buy another.

 

To all Sony SE owners,

I have created a new guide on how to install OSX Mavericks on Our Sony-SE Laptops
This is the most complete and comprehensive guide in existence.

I have spent a lot of time creating the ultimate build for our laptops and have got all the ports and interfaces working with the exception of the AMD Graphics and the SD card reader.

Please see my guide on TonymacX86.com for more information :-

Jays Ultimate Sony VPCSE OSX Build

Cheers
Jay

PS: Is there any further news on getting SATA-III Speeds working ?

 

Hi all,

The other day I splashed a sugary drink (Kopparberg Pear Cider) on my SE 15" (black) keyboard and as a result a few keys were sticking and not springing up very promptly.

So I disassembled the laptop (as I have done in the past) to clean the keyboard. when I came to removing the keyboard from the top palm rest panel I found there was no obvious screws or clips. I pressed firmly and it slowly clicked away, there must have been abot 25 click points, it took a while.

After removing the keyboard I washed it in meths, then de-ionised water and then filtered water and dried thourghly. All seemed well untill this point. I tried to reattach the keyboard to the palm rest panel and it wouldn't click back. On close inspection it seems it was fused to it with tiny plastic posts that have all now been broken. How is the keyboard supposed to be reattached? I see replacement keyboards for sale online so there must be a way...

I tried using super glue by putting a tiny bits on the back side of the palm rest between where the keys go.As you can imagine It made a total mess, the glue was pressed out onto the keys and on to the top sie of the palm rest, bleaching the plastic, destorying one key and sticking a few others down

so I'v ordered a replacement white keyboard (white is cheaper and I thought it might look cool on the black palmrest). I'm waiting for it to arrive but don't know how I'll attach it. It has to be held firm as otherwise when pressed it will drop and block the cpu fan and make typing really awefull. The keyboard is very bendy on its own. Also, sony took the laptop away to be repaired under warrenty last month (warrenty now expired) and I found out last night they'd taken the top metal plate from the dvd drive so now the keyboard will press against the lens/cd if it drops. I'v contacted them and so one plan is to rest the keyboard on some matchsticks ontop of the cd drive when it's got its top cover back...

TLDR;

Anyone know where I can buy a replacement black palm rest with keyboard attached? I can find keyboards but don't know how to attach them, if you know how please say. (15" VPC SE 1C5E)

*Typed on a HTC Desire Z

 

Well mine has been saying about "driver stopped working" several times a day for as long as I can remember. Although it was actually "Driver crashed and has now been restarted". I have since used Leshcat driver to get the latest ATI drivers to work and have the brightness control and stamina/speed switch still work etc. Maybe try that. It could solve your problem if it isn't a hardware fault. Sometimes windows permanently disables devices at a system level if it crashes too may times (especially with the webcam on the SE). It could however be a hardware fault, in which case, that really sucks. My 2yr warranty just expired this week as well. I have to admit the faults I'v found with this laptop have been never ending. Screen failure, touchpad glitches, graphics card crashing, webcam crashing. Thankfully they fixed all but the trackpad on my last warranty return earlier this month.

 

Pretty sure it is hardware as I removed the hard drive I had upgraded and replaced it with the original drive which is just like it came from the factory. Still blue screens at boot with original ATI drivers. Tried other drivers...all BSOD. I suppose I'll retire it and never buy another Sony. It was really a piece of crap anyway from day one. Big waste of cash.

 

I'm afraid I have to agree, it looks pretty but there are far too many design flaws. (Dodgy gpu, webcam cable too thin and brittle, touchpad sensitive to cold temperature, keyboard not replaceable, bendy screen resulting in damage panel).

I spent 4 months looking for my dream laptop, number pad, 15", 1080p, light weight, backlit keyboard, matte display, high performance, under £1,000. People told me I was crazy to think I would find one. This came alone and I was over the moon. Turns out I was crazy.

 

I must be lucky.

Mine is still working no problems.

But it's all original equipment... and still Win7, no Win8x.

 

Fortunately, I had bought an HP DV6T Quad several months before which was much cheaper than the sony. It has always worked perfectly, 1080 screen with more accurate color than the orange-gate SE, more powerful and with an SSD, very fast. Quad core, fingerprint scanner that works perfectly, bluray reader/burner. Just lacks a lighted keyboard, but at least it is dependable. It's a little heavier, but better build quality. I can live with that, as long as the laptop actually works correctly.

 

Finally had it tested. Defective video memory on ATI card. New motherboard required. No wonder I had so many "video card stopped working" errors and bluescreens since purchase. Failed totally one month after warranty ran out. If you are getting these errors, send it to Sony before your warranty runs out like mine did. Not worth fixing due to multiple other problems since purchase. Guess I got a lemon, of course my previous 2 Sony's were lemons as well. Sony quality...not.

 

Does the VPCSE SSD use the same SSD used in the VPCZE? Mine failed and I need a new micro SSD apparently they are difficult to come by. Another idea is to use an adaptor micro to SATA but will it fit?

 

One of the 64gb raided partitions failed on my Vaio SE. Very surprised to find out it's a custom Samsung unit and not a normal SATA connection

I got the Sony cable A1854739A which is rare to find. It has the proprietary connecter on one end and micro sata on the other. There isn't room to fit a 2.5" SSD and the adapter from msata to sata.

Only solution is to get a 1.8" SSD like this one. I have fitted it and confirm it works well.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DCUKKK0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Keith

 

Hello,

I'm the owner of a late 2011 Vaio SE (Core i5 Sandy Bridge) which is still alive and kickin'!

I have a question about the CD/DVD drive which died recently, that I would like to replace.
The drive model is : Matshi-ta UJ8A2ABSX2-S

Can someone help me finding a compatible model?

I noticed that I would need a model without the loading tray front cover, like the UJ8A2ABSX2-S:
http://i.pchub.com/i/Panasonic-UJ8A2ABSX2-DVD-RW-Writer-Bare-UJ8A2ABSX2-b-117781.jpg

If possible, I would like to get a more recent Blu-Ray compatible drive.
I think that 2012 Vaio SE had optionally a BD Drive, can someone point me the exact reference?
Else, is there other alternative that would be compatible (ie. without front plate)?

Thanks a lot!

 

I'd like to encrypt my system drive with BitLocker, and even though I've owned my SE for more than three years, I've never done it before. The manual says I must install the Infineon TPM Professional Package, but I've upgraded my machine to Windows 8.1 and when I try to install it I'm told that there are known compatibility issues when installing the version that shipped with my SE (i.e. for WIN7).

I installed anyway, thinking there might be a way to automatically update it, but I didn't see one. I also don't see an updated version on the Sony support site, and when I contacted support they appeared to be clueless.

So, I was wondering if anyone here is using BitLocker and their TPM on their SE while running Windows 8 or 8.1, and what you did? I don't have the OEM update utility installed, so I'm unsure whether that would update Infineon, even though it doesn't appear on the support site as a download?

Any help would be great - thanks!

 

I have a VPCSE190X. My 2x128 SSD, with lif/zif (whichever) connectors using FPC-266 Y-Ribbon cable failed recently. I appreciate everyone who has commented and provided their input on how they went about replacing their HDD in this notebook. Your information was hugely valuable to me.

I have been able to replace the HDD, and I wanted to let you know with what component parts b/c figuring this out was a pain. I was able to buy a FPC-263 sony ribbon cable, which has a FPC to SATA connector. I then was able to purchase a 2.5" Crucial SATA SSDrive and the necessary HDD brackets. Everything is back up and working great. Sourcing these parts was a pain, so I am listing below where I was able to get them.

- FPC-263 Sony FPC to SATA ribbon connector from pchub.com ( link) Comes from a warehouse in China. I paid $90 for parts and shipping. ouch, but better than buying a new laptop.
- Crucial HDD from crucial.com, this part was obviously easy. ( link)
- 2.5" HDD brackets from laptopking.com. I could not find brackets listed for the VPCSE, but I was able to find these for the VPCSC and they fit just fine in the VPCSE. ( link) I paid $20 for brackets and shipping.

Hope that saves someone time. I had to waste a lot of time trying to figure this out. No thanks Sony.

 

Getting ready to dispose of a Model VPCSE190X unit if anyone is looking for a parts laptop. It does boot but has some unidentified hardware issues (goes to sleep when power plug is stressed the wrong way and had blue screen issues). Has an upgraded memory module and a 3rd party optical drive hard drive carrier replacement unit. I pulled both SSDs and put the factory magnetic 500GB drive back in. Also have two VGP-PRS25 docking stations with power supplies and bottom sheet battery that was never used. Make an offer for the whole lot and pay for shipping (can ship USPS flat rate so shouldn't cost too much). Email me at magendim (at) gmail.com.

 

In case anyone is interested in upgrading their SE to Windows 10, there was a survey from Sony on the support page for my SE model apparently to gauge interest, presumably to help them decide whether they will make drivers available for it. For me it was listed under the "Drivers & Software" tab, and was a downloadable file that then spawned a web-based survey. I'm guessing the more people respond with interest, the greater the chances we'll see drivers and software updates for Windows 10.

 

Thanks dwhecht....this was indeed helpful. I've been looking for the part number for the ribbon connector for some time now. I've got one on order and hope that I can get rid of that goofy 2x128 SSD setup once and for all.

 

I have a Vaio SE 2011 (i5 2520M + switchable gfx Intel HD3000 + AMD Radeon 6470M) and despite Sony's advice not to upgrade to Windows 10, I decided to install it anyway a few hours ago.

So far so good... Upgrade was smooth and everything seems to be OK (note that I kept my system applications/data, ie. no fresh install).
The only thing is that the Speed-Stamina switch does not work anymore, I have still to try when rebooting the computer. I was aware of this problem anyway and I don't care much (I try to be always on Speed setting). I noticed that the AMD graphics is now named AMD Radeon 7400M, but I understood that AMD 6470M = 7400M so I'm not too worried.

Did anyone else upgrade to Windows 10? Did you have any issue?
On Sony's website, there is mention of BSOD issue, which is why they discourage to upgrade to Windows 10. But I've seen nothing for now...

Thanks.

 

Hello!

I have vpcse1z9r 15 i7.
I have a problem, my lvds cable having glitches. (When opening and closing display video artefacts)

Bought new one and used one. Successfully changed cable, but screen is black.

Looking for workaround why ne cable have black screen.

Please help.

 

I can also confirm that removing the old SSD and replacing it with a 2.5" in an optical drive caddy works perfectly. I just used clone software to copy the partitions to the new drive and it booted as before.

Doing this removes the need for a connector cable.

You can boot from optical drive and the SSD works just the same as the previous one.

 

Hi everybody. I have VPC-SE2 model, and recently I tried to disassemble it quite unsuccessfully using this youtube manual The problem occured when I tried to remove the keyboard - there were several short cable sleeves preventing keyboard from removal. Eventually, on of them was disconnected by itself, and now the notebook does not even power up.

If somebody disassambled this model successfully - could you please guide me or send me a link to a good manual? I would be extremely grateful!

 

You can get to the connectors under the hard drive enclosure and reattach them easily.

 

Bit of a necro-bump but does anyone have a guide to getting this laptop running with drivers on a fresh/clean install of Windows 10? Had to replace my hard drive and I don't have a recovery disk. Windows 10 installs okay but I can't change keyboard light settings and some other stuff.

Cheers

 

Hi. Someone on Sony VPCSE in Control Center has such settings of the touchpad?

I just installed Windows 8.1 and when using the touchpad (with Synaptics 16.2.16), right charm bar constantly opens.
Unfortunately it is possible to disable it only in newer versions Synaptics, which on VPCSE aren't installed.

On the Internet I have read ( https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...y/430fde8a-a361-429a-8e07-c8bf8d184dad?page=1) that Sony provide the possibility to turn off "charm bars" in the menu which on the picture higher, but for some reason I have no multi-touch functions in control panel.

Please advise.