Complete set of Sony Vaio (AW series) drivers AND instructions for clean install of Vista

THIS IS FOR WINDOWS VISTA 64-BIT ONLY

My system is VGN-AW190.

There are already a couple of "guides" floating around that describe how to install a clean copy of Windows on Sony laptops.

The process is fairly simple and involves installing certain Sony software and drivers in particular order (according to Sony).

For FW series, the guide is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=292475

When I first installed Windows Vista Ultimate, I had no problems getting everything to work EXCEPT for the following:

1) CompactFlash (JMicron JMB368 ExpressCard CF) driver is not available on Sony's web site. When inserting the card, it does not show up as a drive in Windows Explorer. After some time playing around, I figured the following 2 ways to make it work:

a. Insert your card, go to device manager and click on "scan for hardware changes"
b. Boot Windows while the card is inserted

2) SD card slot works but is not mapped to any drive. While Ricoh MS driver automatically creates a drive, there is no driver on Sony's web site that would do the same for SD slot.

Sony's support is useless to a point where they told me that the reason why my CF cards do not show up and there is no drive mapped to the slot is because the laptop does not support cards larger than 4GB (and I have only 8GB Sandisk cards) What a joke. I finally managed to get a 2nd tier technical guy on the phone who said that Sony does not provide CF drivers and that there is nothing they can do about it.

So, I reverted back to Sony's original setup, installed Driver Genius ( http://www.driver-soft.com/) + a couple of other driver backup programs and did a backup of every single driver.

Then I installed a clean copy of Windows and used Driver Genius to restore SD + CF drivers. Worked beautifully and I now have 3 drives mapped to MS, SD and CF, just like Sony intended.

Now...... the best part of this post. I am making the backup available for your use. There are 5 archived parts, 15MB each for a total of 72MB. Here is the link: http://rapidshare.com/users/K7IK4H

You will need Driver Genius to simplify the installation process or you can do it yourself manually.

After installing your own copy of Windows, do the following:

1) Install "Original - Sony® Notebook Utilities" (http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAW190&upd_id=3926&os_id=36)
2) Install "Original - Sony® Firmware Extension Parser" (http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAW190&upd_id=3838&os_id=36)
3) Install other drivers in ANY order from here: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNAW190&SelectOS=36

That's pretty much it Essentially, for #3 you can use Driver Genius and just restore all drivers from my backup (that's if you have the same model). I believe brightness keys will start working only after you install Intel chipset driver, but I am not 100% positive. Forgot at which point they became operational.

Since Sony usually uses same components in their laptops, these drivers should fit other series, not just VGN-AW.

If you guys have questions, feel free to ask. It would also be great if someone could backup all their drivers on the 32-bit Vista installation.

I wish someone did that before, thus sparing me hours of searching for drivers that Sony should have had on their web site to begin with.

Other than Sony's notebook utilities and drivers, my system is 100% Sony-free

 

Here is the list of drivers:

[most of them are Windows' default drivers that will be installed anyway]

ACPI Lid
ACPI Power Button
ACPI Thermal Zone
ACPI Thermal Zone#1
ACPI x64-based PC
ALPS-UGPZ9-BCM2046
Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Bluetooth Device (RFCOMM Protocol TDI)
Bluetooth Hands-free Audio
Bluetooth L2CAP Interface
Bluetooth Remote Control
CD-ROM Drive
Consumer IR Devices
Direct memory access controller
Disk drive
Disk drive#1
Disk drive#2
Disk drive#3
Realtek High Definition Audio
Generic PnP Monitor
Generic volume
Generic volume shadow copy
Generic volume#1
Generic volume#2
Generic volume#3
Generic volume#4
HDAUDIO SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant consumer control device#1
HID-compliant mouse
High Definition Audio Controller
High precision event timer
Intel Processor
Intel Processor#1
Intel(R) 82801 PCI Bridge - 2448
Intel(R) 82802 Firmware Hub Device
Intel(R) ICH8M-E ICH9M-E SATA RAID Controller
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 2940
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 2 - 2942
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 3 - 2944
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 4 - 2946
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 5 - 2948
Intel(R) ICH9 Family PCI Express Root Port 6 - 294A
Intel(R) ICH9 Family SMBus Controller - 2930
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2935
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2937
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2938
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2939
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293A
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C
Intel(R) ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller - 2917
Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 5100
JMicron JMB368 ExpressCard CF Adapter
Marvell Yukon 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Microsoft 6to4 Adapter
Microsoft AC Adapter
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Embedded Controller
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator
Microsoft Composite Battery
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter#1
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter#2
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
Microsoft Kernel DRM Audio Descrambler
Microsoft Streaming Clock Proxy
Microsoft Streaming Quality Manager Proxy
Microsoft Streaming Service Proxy
Microsoft Streaming Tee Sink-to-Sink Converter
Microsoft Streaming Tee Sink-to-Sink Converter#1
Microsoft System Management BIOS Driver
Mobile Intel(R) 45 Express Chipset Series PCI Express Root Port - 2A41
Mobile Intel(R) 45 Express Chipset Series Processor to DRAM Controller - 2A40
Motherboard resources
Motherboard resources#1
Numeric data processor
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
NVIDIA HDMI Audio
PCI bus
Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator
Programmable interrupt controller
Ricoh Memory Stick Host Controller
RICOH OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Ricoh SD Host Controller
Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device
Standard PS 2 Keyboard
Synaptics PS 2 Port Pointing Device
System CMOS real time clock
System timer
Terminal Server Keyboard Driver
Terminal Server Mouse Driver
TouchStrip Fingerprint Sensor
UMBus Enumerator
UMBus Enumerator#1
UMBus Root Bus Enumerator
USB Composite Device
USB Human Interface Device
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub#1
USB Root Hub#2
USB Root Hub#3
USB Root Hub#4
USB Root Hub#5
USB Root Hub#6
USB Root Hub#7
USB Video Device
Volume Manager
WAN Miniport (IP)
WAN Miniport (IPv6)
WAN Miniport (L2TP)
WAN Miniport (Network Monitor)
WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
WAN Miniport (PPTP)
WAN Miniport (SSTP)

 

Hi Crimsontwo

I've just posted a guide on how to perform a clean install of both XP and Vista (32-bit) on an AR Series. No need for a backup archive because all the drivers are freely available on the net, and I've included all the links in the guide. It also provides details on how to get all of the Sony Functions (Fn keys, Eject, S1, S2 buttons working).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=344027

Should do the trick.

Cheers
RFE

 

Unfortunately not all are available. CF and SD drivers aren't. Mind you, 64 bit Vista is a different beast. I do appreciate your reply though and it is useful for AR series owners and not only.

Others are welcome to post their guides here. FW, AR and AW are already covered.

 

Hi
SD what ? mine SD working perfectly automatic

 

Evoss-X, you're saying that when you re-install Windows (clean install of your OWN 64-bit copy, not Sony's) and then install Sony's drivers, your SD reader is mapped to a drive? That is, you have "X:" under "My Computer" that's always there? _OR_ you only get the drive visible when you insert an SD card?

Based on my experience re-installing Windows numerous times on this AW machine + trying every single driver from Sony's web site (Canada and US), the SD reader is NEVER automatically mapped to a drive unlike the MS reader after installing Ricoh's driver from Sony's web site.

 

Download driver here
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNAW190&SelectOS=36

 

Please be specific: what driver?

 

Any idea of how you would manually install the CF driver? I'm trying to upgrade an AW17GU to 64 bit. Sony don't make 64 bit drivers availabl for this model, so driver genius isn't gong to find a CF driver for 64 bit on this model.

Also I tried the utilities link you provided, but, on my model it causes an issue with the battery check. It sees the battery as incompatible and forces you to hibernate. I actually had to do a system restore to remove it. I need this to get the eject button to work I think.

If I can get the CF card working normally I'll live without the av buttons and eject button.

Gordon

 

Use Drive Genius to restore the CF driver inside the archive.

Use utilities supplied for your model since those for 190 might not work. However, I was also having issues with the battery check before I installed all drivers/utilities. You can always disable/kill "ISB utility" which is responsible for checking your battery and hibernating the system. Once you install drivers/utilities, eject button and everything else should work.

 

Sorry to hijack your thread crimsontwo. You can download ALL the 64-bit drivers for the AW from my thread, first link in sig.

 

this thread is ages here before you

 

I know, I'm telling crimsontwo he doesn't need to advise people to run Driver Genius to get the CF drivers. Instead they are available directly from Sony or from my thread.

 

Yeah
I was bothering with that CF since december 2008
and I was using in that time rescan hardware ..
then crimsontwo came with this ..
because i didn't know about uniExtract software at all ...
I asked connexion if if does exist soft like this , he says yes .. and that was big boom for me ...
automatically I ran to usa driver downl. and pick up all drivers from latest AW290 series laptops ...
cheers