Discoveries on Vaio SA/SB/SC Switchable Graphics

Wow... how`s that even possible?
I get 99 degress and BF3 force closes in 10 seconds...
I already tried many different drivers.... are you using diferent thermal system?

 

^ in VAIO Control Center, i've selected Balanced for the Thermal Strategy, and in Control Panel, i've chosen Balanced for the Power Plan. there, i've disabled TurboBoost (set the maximum CPU usage to 99%). i'm also using a CoolerMaster NotePal U2 notebook cooler under my SA2.

 

So is there any way to get switchable graphics on windows 8 yet?

Does the drivers on the first post work for windows 8.

Also do the new universal drivers released here work - Catalyst 12.8 WHQL UnifL for ATi+Intel Graphics
I don't think the switch will work, but can you switch using the menus in the driver ?

 

Hey guys, all the file links in this thread are down. Would someone be able to post the original modified Intel HD Graphics 2059 driver?

 

AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta drivers are released:
[ download]
[ release notes]
[ bug report for mobility drivers]

hopefully, the video playback is fixed with these.

 

Sony has just released Windows 8 AMD graphics drivers in its Asia site. Graphics Driver (AMD) version 9.1.0.0 for Windows 8 Upgrade

I'm not too sure if they work though..

 

SONY US has also released a full set of drivers for VAIO SA to be used with Windows 8. [ link]
there is a very new Intel graphics driver 9.17.10.2843 as well. interestingly, there is no trace of AMD Radeon HD graphics driver in the SONY US website.

 

There's a video for AMD on Sony Asia website tho.

 

yes, it's weird. why do they have AMD drivers up on SONY Asia and not on SONY US?

anyway, i'm wondering if the posted Intel drivers are modified to keep the switchable graphics working. if so, then we can use that as a base and install/upgrade to any AMD driver (i mean the official ones from AMD) on top of that. this way, we get a much newer Intel GPU driver, with the freedom to update the AMD drivers anytime we want, while keeping the switch working.

i'm going to try that tonight when i get home. (i have Windows 7, so it might not work)

 

Asia AMD drivers sent me to dark ages The froze my SA pretty bad. Maybe someone else will have better luck.

 

Um that's weird cuz im using it right now and haven't had any issues with it.

Actually don't try to update the Intel Driver from SONY US after installing the AMD driver. It will break the stability of the AMD one.

 

^ niebyl2002 and nehway0912, are you guys running those drivers on Windows 7 or Windows 8?

 

On windows 8

 

^ does the graphics switching work in win8?

 

Yes. Works flawlessly with the driver from Sony Asia.

 

Yes, using win8. Reinstall Win 8 again and install Asia drivers. Same thing happened: black screen with mouse only. Nothings else works. Had to boot to safe mode and uninstall the HD6630 driver. BTW switch doesn't work for me.

nehway0912, what other drivers did install prior to graphics driver? What model do you have?

Thanks

UPDATE
Found the problem. Asia drivers works perfectly on my lappy screen however my DELL u2412m doesn't support 1920x1200 res anymore. It's just black screen with mouse pointer. Weird. If I lower res to 1920x1080 it works fine.

I updated BIOS from R2084H4 to R2087H4 (BIOS update done under Win8). Didn't help.

 

anybody has experience in INF modding?

i have modded SONY Asia's Windows 8 drivers (basically just the INF and the corresponding MSI files) to work with Windows 7. as for installing the drivers, i went with the Have Disk method, and it recognizes the hardware just fine (and copies the driver files to \Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository), then tells me that they're not digitally signed and shouldn't be trusted (which is okay), and i tell it to ignore that fact and install them, but somewhere along the line, it fails, stops, and tells me that it couldn't find a file. i have no idea which file!

i basically compared SONY's Win8 drivers line by line with AMD's 12.9 Win8 drivers and line by line with Intel's 2817 drivers and made the necessary changes so that the AMD part looks similar to AMD Win7 drivers (without removing the switchable graphics parts, of course).

if anybody has some experience in this and could help tweak these files to work with Windows 7, that would be great.

 

^ no. the driver is actually 9.001.0.000 which is AMD Catalyst 12.9 beta. the INF file which is responsible for telling the operating system what/how to intall is only for Windows 8, and that's why you see your current driver version when you try installing this new package, because it is not designed to work in Windows 7. however. i have added Windows 7-specific tweaks to the INF file, and it detects my card just fine, but at some point during installation, it fails and only tells me "file not found".

 

Oops sorry I figured out the issue.

 

Did you happen to find a solution?

 

Did you happen to find a solution?

 

How did you guys manage to get the switchable graphics working? I have a VPCSA26GG and the switch does nothing after doing a clean install of win8 :/
I've tried just about every driver I could get my hands on, including the ones from here: Support for VPCSB18GG : S Series (VPCS) : VAIO™ Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific that were linked to before, and here (for my model- there is an AMD driver but nothing else): Support for VPCSA26GG : S Series (VPCS) : VAIO™ Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific

I can't think why it wouldn't be working, I have the sony firmware extension parser thingy installed, official sony drivers for intel/amd graphics, the vaio control center, and the power management service (although I had to disable the "ISB utility" from starting up because it would claim that my computer's battery isn't genuine and shut it down (I've got the factory battery in there!))

 

+1. It is not entirely clear for someone who has not been for this thread for a while. I have a VPCSB and I have a few questions. I would be extremely grateful if someone could help me out.

1. Since my laptop did not get the official GPU drivers just yet, I wanted to use the SA ones. Is this possible without something I have heard is called modded .inf files?
2. If not, is there a way to get graphics switching working on this specific model? I tried all sorts of drivers, but thez just leave my hardware switch not functional
3. Unrelated to the OP, but hope you are able to anser it: Alps and Elan drivers do not work, the best one is the sony official one, but I still do not get two finger scrolling like on other PCs

 

yes, you can use drivers for SA with your SB.

 

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately, drivers for SA take no effect, just as any other. I see the SONY Driver for HD3000, I see the AMD Driver only after downloading 12.9 beta from their site (Before I see the WDDM discrete GPU driver). Could someone for who this works shortly tell me how this is done and possibly add links that worked for them? I have the Vaio Control Center and Vaio Care etc. installed.

 

Bump. Anybody willing to help out? Even a link will help.

 

Can anybody please make an updated version of the drivers?

 

is there any improvements which would benefit vaio sa in the recent drivers?

 

The newest drivers from Intel are 9.xx (on phone, sorry can't check specifics right now)

The build no is in the 3000s now.

DX11 is fully supported.

Lots of graphics optimisations have been made.

I'll try getting a full change log once I get to the PC.

Sent from CM10.1 on the Sensation

 

^ have you tried Leshcat's drivers?

(i was trying to mod SONY's Windows 8 GPU drivers to work on Windows 7; i think i'm close enough to a functional driver, but it's been put on hold till i find a job, graduate, and have more free time to tinker with the drivers -- if i ever get to finish that project, i'll post the results here.)

 

Just checked out Leshcat's site...
He seems to have made it work, so I'm downloading the drivers as we speak...

According to the stats on his site, it should probably work on my system (Win7).

And he seems to have figured out that to eliminate errors on Win8 he'll have to sign his exe himself...
So that might prove helpful for the guys on Win8 too...

Sent from my HTC Sensaton on CM10.1

 

do leshcat's latest drivers work well with windows 7?

I am using windows 7 on the SC series (2011).

 

did anyone also have issues with leshcats drivers?
with the new versions (13.4 and 13.5) i got BSODs by switching between Intel and AMD GPU..
and with v13.1 dwm.exe crashes at boot so i dont have aero with this drivers...
are there any alternative drivers avaliable for the Vaio SA?

thx

 

Hi guys, I thought I'd share with you fellow owners a way to update the AMD drivers to the latest versions without losing flash video, courtesy of the guys on Guru3D. Please follow the instructions (under fixing video problems, and or refer to instructions on the last page) in this link to modify AMD Catalyst 13.4 or 13.5 beta 3.
[GUIDE] Fixing video playback & overclocking problems. - Guru3D.com Forums
Then just install on top of the existing drivers using the CCC installer. Hope this helps if anyone is looking for a more recent driver without breaking their video.

I am currently running it on 13.5 beta 3 with no problems :thumbsup:

 

if you're using 13.5b3 drivers, make sure to uninstall the KB2670838 update. it'll constantly cause BSoD.

 

for future reference, here is the registry key:

ACE item is for the AMD entry in the contex menu, and igfxcui is for Intel entry in the context menu.

 

How to install latest intel drivers in vaio SA? just download and install?

 

^ no, you shouldn't do that. it'll kill the GPU switching capability. have you tried leshcat's drivers?

 

it is said in the last posts that leshcat are giving error

 

@ darxide_sorcerer


Which Drivers/Version did you use with your Vaio SA?

 

i currently use Catalyst 13.5 beta 2 installed on top of SONY drivers (8.862.4.1000, released on 09-23-2011). before that, i was using Catalyst 11.9 installed on top of the above SONY drivers.

^ fyi, Catalyst 13.5b2 driver is not stable for me. i get random BSoD's from time to time when switching graphics or when booting into Windows (not frequent at all, but isolated BSoD incidents). Catalyst 11.9 was rock-solid stable for me, and i'm going to go that route again.

 

Just to let you know I've installed Leshcat's 13.6 beta 2 in my Win7 64 and it worked ok, only problem being green/black screen in videos, which is fixed following these instructions:

[GUIDE] Fixing video playback & overclocking problems. - Guru3D.com Forums

confirmed to be working

 

I've been dealing with this issue for a few weeks now, and haven't yet found a solution. I have a monitor that rotates to portrait view, but my Sony SA390 has rotation disabled by default, and there's no way to change the setting that I've found. (Installing the iRotate software hasn't worked either.) This has been asked before, but I haven't found anyone with this problem on Windows 8 yet - which is what I'm using.

Any suggestions on enabling rotation on an external monitor?

Many thanks,

Jedi

 

what GPU drivers are you using? you might have a better chance of enabling rotation with unofficial drivers (like Leshcat's).

 

I've tried a few drivers, but am currently using the Sony drivers (plus updates) from their US support website.

I've seen a lot of talk about Leshcat's drivers, but I'm a bit confused because of all the back-and-forth here. Where can I find these drivers? And thanks much,

Jedi

 

here: leshcatlabs.net. make sure you read the manual completely before installing.

 

Thanks much for the link, Darxide. I installed the Leshcat drivers, and rotation was enabled. The problem was that neither the VGA nor HDMI outputs were recognized anymore.

Needless to say, it's frustrating that Sony's crippled this basic functionality of video output...

 

you can actually contact Leshcat on his website (leave a comment or send an email) and let him know about your problem. he's actively working on his drivers, so the chances of the issues being fixed in the near future is high if you give him input.

 

I'll do just that. Thanks for the advice.

 

Hi Nautis,

I have problem with Intel WiDi Hotkey Workaround and was not solved by your instruction. My system model is VPCSC31FM.

The path for launching WiDi after updating is "C:\Program Files\Intel Corporation\Intel WiDi" [not in Program Files (x86) as you mentioned]. I don't know the original location before updating but most of Intel chipset softwares located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel". So how to use Synlinker in this case?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sareth