Help for Graphics Card on Sony Z610Y

Hi,

I have a Sony Z610Y with switchable graphics cards between NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS and Intel 4 series express chipset. I mostly use the NVIDIA with the laptop set on "Speed" mode. The laptop came with the Vista system and I later upgraded it to Win7. Drivers were updated from the Sony website, though the last driver release by Sony was early 2010.

Now, my main issue is that whenever I play a video clip or load a page with many graphs, the screen died and, in about three seconds, came back with a error message saying,

"Display driver NVIDIA windows kernel mode driver version 186.84 stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

It seems to be a driver problem but unfortunatley Sony is not intending to update drivers for their older Z series products anymore. The post on this forum, "My discoveries on Vaio Z’s Hybrid Graphics", does not deal with older versions of NVIDIA graphics card.

Can anyone offer some tips as to how I should deal with this issue? Thanks.

 

It does, in fact that thread started as a development info about drivers for your GPU. What you need is to find there a driver for VGN-Z. Not VPC-Z. I upped one here. You need to run your Windows in test mode, not a big deal though...

 

Thanks so much.

I did see the section for VGN-Z model on its first page. But under the "Nvidia Version", I didn't find my version, which is 8.15.11.8684. Or does it not matter? If not, I'll try the driver you uploaded there. Btw, I'm running a Win7 64-bit system. Thanks again.

 

No problem. You can't see your driver there, because those are community made drivers, not official ones, like the one you have.

That also means that these drivers can have some problems...like higher temps, switching problem, HDMi output etc... On the other hand they are much newer and in general work better with newer applications. Also support newest CUDA version.

I'm using those I linked earlier...they have two problems - flickering on Nvidia side (which can be solved with PowerMizer Manager) and when HDMi is connected I can't use both screen...only computer screen or external screen.

As you can see in my signature, I'm also on Win7 x64. Don't forget to install them in test mode and sign them.

 

It's very nice of you! I'll give it a try and let you know the results.

 

Hello metsn,

I finally got time to try the installation. After installing the driver in the test mode, now I only have display on the laptop screen, but not on the external monitor. When I right clicked on the desktop, there is no nVidia Properties. Instead, there is a nView button. But the button does not function. There is no reaction by clicking on it. When I click on Screen Resolution, it shows only one monitor. Clicking on "Detect" does not help to find the external monitor. Neither does restarting the computer. What do you think that went wrong? Thank you!

 

In my case only one monitor works at a time. Did you try switching with Fn+F7 (in Speed mode)?