Vaio FZ Owners Official Owners Thread

Why shouldnt?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=280995&page=3

 

Now Im trying to figure out how they are getting 300 Mbps with the 4965? The best I cant get is 144 on 2.4, and 130 on 5ghz

 

The 4965 has 2 tranmit antennas and 3 recieve. The 5100 has only 1 transmit antenna and 2 recieve. (Reports say its range suffers because of this.) The 5300 has 3 trasmit and 3 receive antennas and supports 3 simultaneous data streams IF the router it connects to does.)

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3356

My question would be can the cards be interchanged since the number of antennas is different?

Gary

 

Count me in. I have a FZ140E. looking to upgrade it since it's quite old now( more than 2 years old ).

Already bought 2x 2GB for it, looking to do a clean install and switch HDDs.

 

Switching the HDD's is really easy, and not to expensive depending on what you want. I just installed a Western dig Scorpio black 320 gb. The drive was around $80 and the case to do the swap was $14. I think I need to stop upgrading lol, a while ago I changed out my cpu with a T9300.

 

Really? And...??? How are temps? Was it difficult/expensive?
Since Nvidia warranty got extended, and I need s vhs and FZ is the last model featuring it, CPU upgrade makes sense.

 

it works fine, cooler as well since I cleaned my comp while I was at it and used some arctic silver on everything. I got it off ebay and it wasnt a ES version, just shop around if thats what you want. Its really easy to change, just, all you need is a phillips screwdriver.

 

Wow, so you've changed your CPU? I thought it was very work demanding and not worth it. How much did you pay on it? I'm interested in changing mine if it's not very expensive and not time demanding.

Thanks!

 

Btw, I got the same HDD as you and I'm really looking forward to install it. The original was just 4200rpm, so I guess I'll feel a great difference.

I also need a new battery now. I have always used my notebook pluuged in the A/C adapter without disconnecting the battery, so it lasts less than 1h when running with battery only...

 

whoever told you it was time demanding lied! It took way less than an hour if you take your sweet time, as not to mess anyhting up and clean you heatsink while your at it. Make sure you have arctic silver for the re-installation. There is a write up somewhere, just look around. I think I paid $230 for my T9300 used but it was a private seller, well worth it.

I havent done anything too intense since I upgraded, Imagine that lol. But at the time I needed it, or just really wanted it. As for the battery, if your good with soldering and electrical things, it cost me $45 w/shipping from ebay to order 6 new higher cap. cells. I rebuilt my own battery and its been working great ever since. I hope some of this helps you out.

 

hey all,
i updated my vaio fz 140's toshiba hard drive(200 gb,4200 rpm and sata 1)to western digital 500 GB 5400 rpm sata drive.


difference is noticeable and shutdown and start up is faster and laptop running better.as in battery life improved at idle.i dont know whether it is windows 7 rtm doing trick or what.
my observation is my idle battery back up time has improved.

overall i am happy about my upgrade.

other thing i noticed,its now running at full sata 2 spect.

i did clean install of windows 7 on it and its running better.

 

Thanks, dr. Pratik!

What did you mean by: "my observation is my idle battery back up time has improved"?

Gary

 

I have changed my HDD as well, going from a 200GB 4200rpm to a WD3200BEKT 7200rpm. I also made a clean install, and upgraded the RAM from 2x1GB to 2x2GB, and now it's running much faster and smoother.

I haven't noticed any changes in temperature operation and noise. Btw, the WD HDD is very quiet, at least as quiet as my previous HDD.

Difference is huge. It starts up and shuts down much faster, and searching through folders is much better.

I only have to find a way to make a clean install without all those annoying trial programs from AOL, SONY and etc. It really pisses me off. Does anyone have a tip?

 

First, if you still have the trial stuff, your first sentence above is incorrect. You didn't make a clean install, you did a reinstall. Yes, I am quibbling semantics a bit, but only so you are clear on the difference. In your last paragraph what you are asking for IS the definition of a clean install. If you want to know how to do a clean install, there is a thread about it here. See my signature line below for a link. That process requires access to a Vista install disk. You can borrow the disk from anyone who has it and use YOUR license key that came with your machine.

If you don't have access to a Vista install disk, there is an alternative called a "semi-clean" install. Use the search function and you can find a thread with the specifics of that also on this forum.

Gary

 

hello boss,

what i mean is laptop runs less warm.i cant feel the warmness at hard drive area.laptop battery runs better.i mean it lasts longer.at idle like reading some document.

 

just grab vista install disk or windows 7 Release candidate and install it and follow the boss.gary has clean instruction for this.

i have been following his instructions since 2 yrs with excellent results on vista and lot of happy friends with clean laptops

 

my windows 7 install experience on this fz laptops,

as per gary's instructions only.i just have one modificcation.i let all drivers install through windows update for windows 7.i just installed touchpad driver and chipset driver.

i got hold of intel chipset drivers from intel site.

all others came through windows 7 and regarding sony utils.

first i install sony firmware parser driver

then sony notebook utilities

vaio event service thats all

this gets me all things working like fn key,multimedia keys.

 

The good doctor is in the house! Thanks for this post. Would you mind if I add a link to it in my signature line as an addendum to my FZ Vista clean install link?

Gary

 

pls feel free. you have only taught me all this things.link this post to your signature.

regards

pratik

 

can u run hdtune and let us see of any difference?

i shall post my western digital 500 gb blue disk screen shot.

 

Thanks! I will add it soon.

Gary

 

I have an FZ180E/B I got back when they came out. Lately I've been thinking about upgrading. I already swapped over to Windows 7 64 bit (I'm dual booting until Sony releases drivers [which they claim will coincide with the official launch]). I've already ordered 2x2GB of RAM (800 instead of 667) and am browsing faster hard drives (most likely going with a 7200 rpm). Then I saw a guy saying he upgraded his CPU. How hard is that (taking apart the case, etc.) and how big can you go on the stock motherboard? Anything with an 800 MHz FSB? Does it have to be dual core or are quads compatible? I've most of the technical skills to do something along these lines, but I don't know how far I can push it.

 

I believe the T9500 was the largest that can be run/supported with our stock BIOS.

Also I really want to upgrade to win 7 but I want to try 64 bit version. After reading a few threads there seems to be al lot of issues with driver support from sony. I check as well for my FZ-180e/b and there was nothing yet. One of my concerns was, what happens to the WINDVD software after a clean install? Will we lose the ability to play blu-ray movies? Any updates yet?

 

Well I went ahead and pre-ordered win 7 pro 64. Hopefully Ill be able to download it tomorrow. Im going to stick with dual boot, and make sure its working correctly before I ditch the vista. Maybe Sony will have some good news by then as well.

 

homstead_us -- if you run into any issues with the WinDVDBD software please let us know. I imagine someone will be able to direct you to where you can get it. I have an FZ280 e/b. I still don't see any drivers available for my model, which was my fear. We'll see though. Good luck with the install.

 

If anyone has tried the upgrade and has located a Bluetooth and camera drivers, please let me know. As we know Sony has decided not to support the upgrade. I have a guide in the works that was posted here;

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=421884&page=8

I will update it as soon as I locate working drivers.

 

would a 64-bit vista camera driver work for the webcam on windows 7?

i'm trying to find drivers to install windows 7 on my pc also and i came across this on the forums:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3557910&postcount=8

 

Well i finally got win 7 64 installed, but I'm not sure about what drivers I need and such. Does anyone have a write up? Ive seen a few threads but nothing thats really definite.

 

I will be posting one soon for FZ-190 series Win 7 64-bit.

 

Great, Ill be waiting. Ive been looking through everyones threads about drivers and its getting pretty confusing.

 

Has anyone successfully upgraded an FZ260E, or other FZ series from Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 32 bit. The major incompatibility seems to be the driver for the NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT. Will the standard driver from NVIDIA work? Or does Windows 7 have ageneric driver?

 

You can get the driver here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=415774

 

What camera model do you have?

 

Anyone know how to install the SFEP driver? I believe I need it to get the brightness fn keys to work in Windows 7. I tried right click/install but it comes up with 'the inf file you selected does not support this method of installation' error.

 

just install as you would normally install..i have installed it from sony site in my windows 7 rtm install on vaio fz machine.if it says compatibility issue,then let it install with recommended settings.

 

guys,

i need help here.

my vaio is acting up.

i cant read and write any dvd but my cd writing works properly.no issues on CD'swhen i try to put any movies DVD.i get stutter lock up.
VLC media player shows buffering failure.

i tried DVD lens Cleaning with lens cleaner DVD but no help.

what can i do?

help me.

 

So how would you normally install it? I unziped the file and there isnt a exe. file. I think you have in install it manually, but I dont know where the driver goes.

 

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNFZ140EB&upd_id=2670&os_id=28

grab this file,its sony firmware extension parser which i used in windows 7 .

 

homsted us install the driver manually through the device manager udate driver search location of driver and let windows install

 

I may be doing something wrong, but this driver for the NVIDIA 8400 doesn't seem to work. I downloaded and extracted all files fro m the .cab, and ran the setup program. On restart, the system hangs at the Windows "wait" bar prior to user log in. Returning to the prior driver resolves the problem. Do I have to wait until after the upgrade to W7 to install?

 

I have a VGN-FZ140E. Does the bios support Intel's flex memory mode?

Thanks

 

Hey Petda I have the fz260e and what I did for the video is I went to sony support site and typed in the model which is ours, and downloaded and installed the video driver from there. I know it says on the site that they wont support our laptop but this driver at least makes windows 7 look pretty. So to sum it up just download the video driver from sony support site for fz260e and install. As far as all the other drivers go were pretty screwed unless someone else can help us cuz I cant get battery life to last and the fn keys to react. any help is actually greatly appreciated.

 

DJ - I successfully upgraded my FZ260E (Vista 32bit to Windows 7 32bit). I chose upgrade over a clean install because of the number of programs I would have to reload (and update).

W7 Upgrade Advisor identified 2 Sony compatibility issues:

1. NVIDIA driver (version 7.15.11.6760)
2. Display Link Core software

Tried to resolve the NVIDIA issue by downloading the version suggested by CoolGuy (You can get the driver here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=415774 ), but install did not work and had to reinstall the previous driver.

The Display Link software was related to the Sony VGP-R1 port replicator. In order to get the Display Link software to go away, I had to uninstall the VGP-R1 software and utilities. The only clue that these are related is that the icon in the Control Panel/Programs was the same as the Display Link software!

Spent most of my time prior to upgrade making sure that I had a bootable recovery disk and full system image (used Acronis True Image Home 2010).

As noted in the install instructions, I updated my security software (Zone Alarm Security Suite), stopped it, changed the option to not load on start up and rebooted.

Started W7 32 bit disk, selected Get Online Updates and Upgrade (not custom for clean install) and kicked it off. Took almost exactly 3 hours with no intervention required, which allowed me to have dinner and several glasses of wine to ease the nervousness caused by all the problems noted on this thread.

When the upgrade was finished I logged in and waited for problems. Checked device manager and no errors, or exclamation points. Nvidia driver had automatically upgraded to version 8.16.11.8691 - the version I previously had tried unsuccessfully to load under Vista. Not sure if this was because I had loaded it previously, or if W7 did it automatically. Also, all function keys operated normally including screen brightness, mute, sleep and volume. Sigmatel audio button was in the System Tray and mixer works as it did before.

Being suspicious that this was too easy, I rebooted waiting for the BSOD or other issues. Nada. In fact, when I ran Windows update one of the downloads was SFEP, the Sony parser.

Net/net, the only issue I have discovered so far is that the camera does not work which I don't use anyway. All my programs are working normally so far including an old copy of Quickbooks 2006, which isn't even Vista compatible.

This was, by far, the cleanest OS upgrade I have done in more years than I like to remember. It appears that many of the problems on this thread are more related to a clean upgrade, or the migration to 64 bit.

This makes Sony's policy decision not to support this upgrade even more inexplicable. I will be sending a letter to that effect to the executive that I believe has the ultimate responsibility for this decision. If anyone else wants to pitch in, he is:

Mike Abary
Sr. VP - Information Technology Products
16530 Via Esprillo
San Diego, CA 92127.

Those of you in the San diego area may want to drop by and give old Mike a shout out.

 

petda01,

I also did an upgrade instead of a clean install on an FZ190, for exactly the same reason you did. I too got a warning from the upgrade adviser about the Nvidia driver, but ignored it assuming that Win7 would find a driver it liked. It did. My camera works fine after the upgrade as does everything else. I also got the SFEP update last night. My notes on the upgrade and subsequent musing about Win7 are in a link in my signature line below.

Gary

 

Nice. Well I chose the clean install since I actually upgraded from home premium to professional. Its funny though it transferred all my files over anyways taking up half my hard drive. But anyways I got everything to work with all the drivers from sony. It messed up for them to state that the laptop is not compatible when it is. I have two issues that still come up. One the camera of course, and unfortunately I do require it for webcams =D, Kev has some sort of fix but its for 64 bit. Second I cant get sony vaio control center to work. Its installed but its cancels because c+++ runtime error, So im stuck.

 

What exactly is Display Link and what is the Sony VGP-R1 Port Replicator? I have an update for it on my drivers page, but im not sure what it is.

 

Display Link is a USB video driver. The port replicator is actually a VGP-UPR1 and contains USB ports as well as VGA and DVI-D video. Link for specs here http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...66439&storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10551. Note that it is shown as not available from Sony, but it is available on Amazon!

 

Upgrade to Windows 7 FZ260E

I noted in my previous posts that the camera function didn't work after the upgrade. Took a shot and just reloaded the original Web Cam driver from the Sony Support site and, voila, the camera now works with both the original Sony Web Cam Utility and the new Arcsoft Web Cam Companion 2 (downloaded from the FW390 site).

 

so the volume, play/pause keys work the way they should? i had a peek at cooldude's guide, it seems it can only be mapped to launch applications. Are you using the same driver set suggested?

is your wireless switch working?

anyway I'll have a go at clean install my fz-15g to win-7-64-pro, and will report back.

I found this in asia support page, it lists win7 upgrade drivers for FZ, but it seems it's meant for other models.

http://www.sony.com.sg/support/download/354843/productcategory/it+pc+vaio+fz



cheers,

 

I didn't say anywhere in my guide that the multimedia keys can be used for launching apps. Wireless switching utility doesn't work in 64-bit, but the physical switch works.