Gps On Vaio VGN Z ?

No matter how long I wait for the initialization, I get the same error everytime.
I started thinking that my gobi might be missing the GPS unit
I have the EU model. VPCZ11X9EB.

 

Just tried reinstalling WWAN drivers with GPS=0 - no NMEA virtual COM port and persistent SetPDSState 1003, just as you describe. Downloaded WWAN drivers for VPCZ11X9EB from UK Sony site, they also have GPS=0 as default, so that's your issue. Reinstall WWAN drivers with GPS=1. In Russia GPS functionality is also never mentioned anywhere, but it's there and it works. Hardware is likely the same worldwide.

 

Uninstalled the Qualcomm Gobi 2000 Package, reinstalled with GPS=1, but still nothing. Hmmz.. I'll reboot and try again.

 

Okay, it worked after the reboot. Thanks a lot!

 

Glad it worked for someone, thanks for testing!

 

Thanks, work in my VPCZ11E7E (HDD Model).
There are a downloadable Sdk in the Qualcomm Home page
For unlock the Gps button on WebToGo OneclickInternet aplication, edit the config.ini file, located in the install dir, edit "GPSSupport=1" and "BuildFor=Generic".
Thanks again

 

Thanks, didn't know it was publicly available. A few things more make sense now. I've checked all firmware images provided by Sony, all of them report full GPS capabilities (Stand-alone/Assisted+XTRAS), so the choice of firmware shouldn't matter.

This does show GPS button in main window, but no options in the window it displays enable data on NMEA port for me.

SDK mentions that it is possible to automatically start a tracking session, provided that PDS itself is enabled. I wanted to test what impact enabled PDS not tracking anything has on battery power, but before I even started I found out that, while opening NMEA port does start tracking, closing it doesn't stop it and that's not acceptable. So that means my utility is still the most reliable option.

 

CygnusLPA - many thanks for your util to enable the gps feature. Works a treat!

 

if you're bored, take a look at this zip. I have no idea of C++, but I like to play.
Decompiled with IDA Pro and resources with Resource Hacker. (32 bits Version of VSNClient.exe).

 

kamiteo, I've done this already. I just don't have enough time to look into it throughly. Also, I think VSNClient displays the UI depending on the system capabilities as reported by VSNService, so that's the executable that would have the detection logic.

 

Thanks for your help

 

Hi Cygnus, i tried this but i have a problem...
- downloaded, unzipped and putted the file.exe where yu said
- uninstalled the gobi2000 card (if i do not uninstall the gobi the vaio told me a newer version is installed and i the installation stopped)
- downloaded this file, unzipped, edited the .bat with gps=1 and lounched this .bat file

.bat do something, a dos screen with something written in it show up, after some seconds the dos screen close and the gobi has been installed.
Have i to reply something when the dos screen appare ? The question could be this: "CHOICE /c YN /n /d Y /t 20"
(i have not here my Z now and i can not be sure)

restart the vaio, wwan ON, launch the .exe file and i have persistent SetPDSState 1003

 

Well, that asks a yes/no question, with a default answer of "yes" after a 20 second timeout, but the answer is not used anywhere... haven't seen this in other packages before.

What Ports do you have in device manager when WWAN is ON?

 

Hi and thank you for cooperation.
The com is number 5 when wwan card is on.

The text in the .bat is this:

the file (version.txt) has been copied in the right folder (c:\Programdata\Wwan\Driver\)

Bye bye


ps
one question, i have not jet configured the wwan connection so, the card is on but the connection is not established. This is a problem ?

 

Tat0, so you do have "Qualcomm Gobi 2000 HS-USB NMEA 9225 (COM5)" port, but still get 1003 even after WWAN card has been on for a minute?

If that's the case, I don't know how to help you, sorry.

Edit: No, WWAN connections have nothing to do with GPS, you just need to power on WWAN card.

 

Yes, Qualcomm Gobi 2000 HS-USB Modem 9225 and com5 but no NMEA (don't know why)
may be i need another driver ? I downloaded the one linked in my post here above.
Is possibe to have a link to the driver you have used ?


I will check with some friends how to solve this problem and hope i will write here the solution.

 

After restart many time i have not solved the problem but i seen i have some problem with com5, i see the modem is on com5 but in the port list i can not see this. Only com4 is active.

Could this scrren help you helping me ?

 

Tried also with wwan connection activated and i have the same problem so i am sure the gobi2000 is working.
May be i have used a wrong driver, i have no NMEA/GPS function.

 

Modem has nothing to do with it. You have only a diagnostic port, but don't have NMEA, which means you didn't install with GPS=1 successfully. Try once again, uninstall "Qualcomm Gobi 2000 Package for Sony" from Control Panel - Programs and Features, reboot, reinstall drivers from a batch file edited to have GPS=1. Until you get a second port with NMEA in its name, GPS will not work.

 

Thank you again for cooperation. Now i will retry.
One question, you say "uninstall Qualcomm Gobi 2000 Package for Sony", program and future.
I have uninstalled gobi2000 driver from the hardware control page, have i to uninstall something other ?

Have i to uninstall also the one click internet program ?


Right click on the modem gobi 2000 / uninstall also sw driver, then reboot.

 

OneClick Internet is a WWAN utility, it is irrelevant.
You don't need to manually remove drivers from device manager. Remove this:

Then reboot and reinstall.

 

This is the solution !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hank you very very much sir!

 

Sorry, i have to ask again.
I want to use GPS and WWA with SmartNetwork.
If i understood correctly i have to
1. Uninstall the Driver
2. Install the Driver with GPS=1 (Which driver should i tage, How can i set the driver to install with GPS=1?)
3. Use CygnusLPA's Tool to eneable GPS

Can s.o. help me?

Thanks

 

CygnusLPA,

The mediafire server seems to be down, has been for hours.

I can't find the gobi2000gps.exe file anywhere else, can someone host it elsewhere and post a link here please? Or pm me?

Many thanks!

x

 

dehein:
Use driver package from the Sony site, after unpacking the archive change GPS=0 to GPS=1 in WWAN_Setup.bat.

tomtomtomato:
Attached to this post.

 

Works a treat, thank you very much!

x

 

Hello everyone, I followed the instructions in this thread and I believe I activated the GPS on my VAIO Z12. My problem is that I start the OneClick app, the GPS button is there, I connect to WWAN and then click on GPS button, which opens a window with the Lat, Lon coordinates. There, you have to press the Get GPS button, I wait for a little while and - I suppose - I should get my current coordinates, but I don't. Instead I get a No Data value for both of them. Has anyone tried this? What do I do wrong? BTW is there any other way/software to use in order to try my GPS? I would really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

EDIT: I later uninstalled SONY Smart Network and installed SmartWi instead. Now things seem to work. Some of you have managed to make it work with Smart Network too. Any suggestions? Is there any reason not to use SmartWi instead?
One more question: What does VZAccess Manager do?

 

Hey guys i have the new Z with i5

mine did not come with any kind of card, is it possible to buy a card that would easily work with gps anywhere i go? either express or internal?

 

Hey folks,

First of all thank you for your efforts, which helped me making GPS run on my Vaio Z12 using a tool called VisualGPS.

Allthough I followed all your instructions "OneClick Internet" (I'm using V 3.1 20100315173134) won't show me any GPS-option. Which versions do you use? Should I see any GPS-related features in my version, too?

Regarding the gobi2000gps.exe patch isn't there a way to enable GPS persistently so we wouldn't need to start that application everytime?

Thanks,

Inquisitor

 

Yes, there is a way to enable tracking automatically when NMEA port is opened, but it requires the PDS itself to be kept enabled all the time WWAN is on. I'm currently measuring what impact does that have on battery life to determine if any manual controls would be needed.

 

Thanks for your reply.

In the meantime I found a simple solution by my own:

First of all I uninstalled the original Qualcomm driver package and instead installed the Gobi2000_WWAN_Driver_2.0.7.0 after modifying it's WWAN_setup.bat (GPS=1, as described earlier in this thread).
Then I uninstalled the Sony Smart Network tool and replaced it by installing Sony SmartWi Connection Utility (availaible through Sony USA's support section).
Now I can enable "Location Services" (which in fact is GPS) through SmartWi (from the task bar) and retrieve GPS-data through any GPS-capable app (such as VisualGPS).
But I still wonder which version of "OneClick Internet" some of you use, that comes with GPS support.

 

That's not true, there is a timeout (60 secs about), for both SetServiceAutomaticTracking (when setting 0) and SetPortAutomaticTracking (when closing the port or setting 0). Moreover Start/StopPDSTrackingSession is declared deprecated. So, to me there are two reasonable ways to enable the GPS through the Qualcomm dll:
- a program to enable/disable the receiver and start/stop with Start/StopPDSTrackingSession to be executed when needed, which is a bit annoying but still acceptable for occasional GPS users.
- a program, to be launched at the system startup, that turns on the GPS receiver and calls the SetPortAutomaticTracking function. This method is well suited for frequent GPS use, the downside is that the GPS is always on; but I don't think it's relevant from the power consumption standpoint (and I use to power down the WWAN module when not needed).

I do believe the same, many clues seem to prove it (probably Sony wants to use a single client for different systems with different HW and change solely the server). About the client, the GPS code is there, and even the SN I have installed right now responds to the command line /GPS parameter, but nothing changes, no GPS switch. How to solve this? Again two different possible solution:
- find whether the GPS has been disabled during the installation process or a parameter is needed at the VSNService startup (not much likely)
- find whether the GPS lock is hard coded in VSNService (IMHO very likely) and write a patch (probably difficult).
In both cases we need to decompile the VSNService, has someone done it already? If so please attach the code.

 

You can take a lesson from the old EEE hackers. They would just install their own. There's more than enough room if you only have a 2x RAID. You'll have to sacrifice a USB port unless you install an internal hub or go BT.

 

Thanks, I already figured it out already and here's the result:

Code:

gobi2000gps - Control utility for Qualcomm Gobi 2000 GPS unit

This utility was written to control GPS unit on notebooks, where
vendor-provided software doesn't allow it and you don't want
to install software for a different region (it might not support
other things).
It depends on vendor-provided software to power WWAN unit itself.

Installation:
1. Remove WWAN drivers from Control Panel Programs and Features
   module. They are labeled "Qualcomm Gobi 2000 Package..."
2. Reboot
3. Obtain and unpack WWAN driver package, you can get it from
   support site.
4. There's a batch file (.bat) in WWAN drivers package, edit
   it and replace "GPS=0" with "GPS=1". Run it to install drivers.
5. Copy gobi2000gps.exe from subfolder corresponding to your
   installed Windows version to a folder with QCWWAN2K.DLL.
   For Vaio Smart Network, this is usually
   C:\Program Files\Sony\VAIO Smart Network
6. Place a shortcut into StartUp, if you need it.

Usage:
A notification area icon will display GPS status:
- Gray: GPS unavailable (No NMEA port detected).
        Either WWAN is off, or you didn't install
        WWAN drivers with GPS support.
- Red: GPS off
- Green: GPS on

You can toggle between off/on by left-clicking the icon or choosing
(un)checking GPS from its context menu.

Be patient, most changes, especially when turning WWAN on/off take
several seconds to be reflected by the icon.

This program enables GPS in port-automatic mode, which turns actual
tracking on when a program opens NMEA COM port, and stops it a short
time after the port is closed. The port name is displayed in icon
tooltip when WWAN is off.

Source is provided in "source" directory, it doesn't have a lot of
error handling, but appears to work.

Notes:

PDS enabled/disabled and automatic port tracking enabled/disabled states appear to be preserved across sleep, hibernate, reboot, poweroff, etc. Therefore I didn't implement any state saving in this program, but maybe it is required for some cases.

I tried to also display tracking status, but that requires registering a callback, which in turn requires not calling QCWWANDisconnect and that appears to prevent the device from being removed when WWAN is disabled in VAIO Smart Network until my program is closed. So this version doesn't use callbacks at all and therefore not aware of changes to GPS status made by other programs, including multiple instances of itself (for example, autostarted in multiple sessions). This may cause it to become out of sync.

I did a quick test and didn't observe any difference in battery life with GPS being off or on, when it is'a actually not used. It might be possible to just keep GPS always on, and use WWAN switch to turn it on or off.

Once again, this received very little testing, but I hope it would be useful.

 

CygnusLPA
Works perfectly for me
Thanks for your support.

 

Neither I. I kept monitoring the module temperature too and, while there is a very small increase during tracking sessions, no variations occurs just leaving the receiver on. So I'll keep enabling the GPS at startup time through a command line program (unfortunately the WWAN connection utility option in Smart Network doesn't seem to work here).

 

Works great! Thanks a lot! Great job!!

Haven't tested the GPS during mobility yet, but the activation was successful.

 

Thanks CygnusLPA: followed your instructions and now it works like a charm on my VPCZ12X9E/X. Many thanks!

 

SheldonCooper, if you don't mind me asking, how exactly do you test the module temperature? Thanks.

 

With this AT command: AT$QCTEMP.

 

Thanks SheldonCooper, I will try it out later and let you guys know...

 

Folks,
I was wondering if anyone of you has had issues with the GPS (based on UNDP-1 Gobi 1000 - US model).
The gps receives data (can see that when using VisualGPS) but it never gets a location fix/lock. Looking at the gps sentences, it seems that either the signals are not strong enough or the data gets corrupted or the antenna has a problem or ??? Since it happens anywhere, something seems wrong.
I added a SIM-slot to the WWAN board to be able to use the Verizon CDMA network in the US as well as GSM/UMTS/HSDPA networks in Europe. Could that cause any interferences?
If anyone has an idea, please let me know. Thanks.

 

hi, I have windows 7 pro x64, but the 64 bits version of gobi2000gps.exe didn't work*. the 32 bits worked perfectly, and now I can activate Location Services on SmartWi.

but so far I could not find a GPS signal (it stays 'searching for gps signal')...

* (i got an application error. the app could not be correcty initialized (0xc000007b). Click ok to close.

 

Hi, I was wondering if you'd any idea what the problem might be if everything is turned on and some data is received from the software (like in your image on the right but I am using VisualGPS) but the software can not get a location lock - not inside, not outside not anywhere. Might I have an antenna issue or can you think of any other reason why this might not work?
Thanks. RS.

 

Thanks very very much for that nice tool!
I have looking for tool which don't need uninstall VAIO smart network for a weeks, i still stay on VAIO smart network cause it work better then VAIO SmartWi.
Right now start using x64 version of you program, so far everything nice , and one more time thanks!!!!!

 

Hi,
I have a Vaio Z31MN/b (european model), Win7 x64.

After downloading the WWAN driver there is the .bat you mentioned.
But there is no "GPS=0" which I can replace.

the content of the .bat is:

Any other idea?

Thanks

 

Try adding GPS=1 to the second line:

Code:

Setup.exe ss=0 DEFAULTIMAGE=6 GPS=1 /q

 

I have the same issue, it seems like GPS is not getting a lock. I can see some data with GPS Direct tool, but never got signal lock.
Maybe we need to connect internal antenna for GPS to work?

 

hi, can you advise what Tools can we use to test if GPS is working?

I have found one so far: GPS Direct Welcome to GPSDirect GPS NMEA Windows 7 Sensor Driver

But I'm looking for something else, a Tool where I could simply choose COM port and observe if GPS is working, obtaining a fix.

EDIT: uTray looks promising: http://www.u-blox.com/en/evaluation-tools-a-software/u-center/u-tray-gps-for-windows-7.html

 

Hi first of all thanks for the guide and everything I have a vaio Z13, european with smart network. The gps was working but suddenly it stoped. I cant get any satellite connection at all, I have tried reinstalling

To find the reason I installed a freeware called simple gps tester but this states that my gps device is not open??

Please help me regain signal !!!