How to enable Virtualization VT-X on VAIO Z laptops Finally

Finally, VT for Z users~~

Only a matter of time before Sony reacts to this (kinda hoping for an official mobo firmware release that will officially enable VT on the Z). Though that don't matter now - already have VT enabled~~!

 

Thanks for your info! I'll try Fedora. Which version is best so far?

 

I bet SONY will never enable VT for existing models.

 

This is great, got my Z to work.

BTW, Sony and other laptop manufacturers will have to revisit this decision of crippling the virtualization options if they hope to support Win7's XP Mode, which requires this!

 

If I were sony i will NOT enable VT even for further products preinstalling Win 7. The reason is simple: reduce support cost; avoid the risk of stability issue, security issue, etc.

 

There are only two supported versions at present: Fedora 10 and Fedora 11. Fedora 11 has some nice new features and updates, but if you're new to Linux and use VMware, Fedora 10 will be far less hassle to set up. (You don't have to modify the sources for vmware tools to work with kernel 2.6.29, for example). And, you can always upgrade later.

I use my vmware Fedora installation as a development platform, writing and compiling (and even cross-compiling) software. It works great for that.

 

Has anyone enabled VT on a VGN-Z750D?

 

I've been saying/thinking that for a while too. Once Win 7 launches ALL Sony notebooks will support VT out of the box. I guarantee it.

 

I am not sure how this could work. The Professonal/Enterprise/Ultimate version of Windows 7 do use VM as we all agree per this Wikipedia article. This would mean that Sony would no longer sell the Professional Version? Even though I am not sure why they call this VGN-Z750 "Professional" I have a hard time beleiving they could stop the Professional line due to marketing and people purchasing upgrades.

It will be interesting to see what happens but honestly I hate the fact his machine does not support VT out of the box. Had I know this I would may not have bought it a week ago as its essential to my work.

 

Finally I decided to setup a 64-bit guest linux on my 32-bit host WS2008 SP2 Ent.

Strange enough, the compiling time on 64-bit guest is even longer:

real 4m30.155s
user 3m37.278s
sys 0m43.135s

real 4m31.069s
user 3m41.214s
sys 0m42.975s

Recall that the compiling time on 32-bit guest (force vt-x) was:

real 2m51.950s
user 2m11.012s
sys 0m29.426s

real 2m49.712s
user 2m11.464s
sys 0m27.054s

Any idea about what's going on with it? @_@

 

Machine Name: VGN-Z590U
Bios Version: R2165M3
EC Version: K1240M3

I just did both the
setup_var 0x1af 0x1
setup_var 0x25a 0x1

and my laptop didn't explode or crash, I got all the "advanced" bios options as well as VT enabled

 

Several things:

1: 64-bit OSes and executables require more memory -- each integer or pointer takes up twice the space, for one thing. So if you assigned the same amount of memory, there will be less left, and thus less disk caching. This can have a significant impact. A rule of thumb is to bump the memory up 50% when going 64-bit to get the same performance.

2: Related to the above, VMware by default maps all the memory the guest uses to a temporary file or swap space. With high memory use, you might actually wait for disk IO at times, which hurts performance. (There are tweaks to fix this, at the expense of even higher memory usage.)

3: You're almost certainly compiling FOR 64-bit too. I.e. generating bigger code, linking against bigger libraries, optimizing for more registers, and various other differences.
The resulting binaries may run quicker, though (but see #1 and #2).

4: There's a "magic" limit of 896 MB in Linux -- if your 32-bit OS had less than this, it could map all the memory to kernel space, which is faster. (Which is why I always recommend not assigning more memory than this to a 32-bit linux VM no matter how much you have -- the extra memory can be better used by the host to do disk caching.)

In sum, you'll always have slower compiles in a 64-bit OS, and even more so in a VM. But it may still be a Good Thing, both because it makes it a lot easier to develop FOR 64-bit, which is the future, and because some apps really run much faster when compiled for 64-bit.

 

Do you all think that Sony will, by default, enable VT on all laptops in the future? I don't see why they would block it.

 

so once u get the advanced options enabled in the bios... what are some good settings to tweak ??? all I saw worth changing was setting IGP to use 128 MB rather than 64 MB. Any other good ones to tweak ?

 

I'm wondering whether one of the memory settings will allow using faster rated RAM -- right now, it limits ram to the Jedec spec (1066 MHz 7-7-7-20).

 

I would really love for some daring individual to go through and figure out of any options are worth running....

for instance...whats IGP and why 128?

 

IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor aka the intel x4500 aka the stamina processer.

128 refers to the amount of borrowed memory it's taking from your ram.

no point in setting it higher then 64mb just because if you need gpu processing power, just use the nvidia side instead.

 

I wonder why VT is disabled by Sony on some laptops that are capable of it, like Z, and is enabled by some models, like BZ.

Maybe there are some issues with VT that we are not avare of...

 

It's all a matter of support I think.

The BZ series, was until recently, a business channel only model, and was meant for being integrated into a business environment. All of their other models were sold both in the consumer channel and the business channel. So I think Sony just doesn't want to support it.

I think and hope it will change as Win7 approaches. Especially in their models that are sold with Win7 Professional for the XP compatibility mode.

 

So then...dropping it from 64mb to say 32mb would save battery? or would the performance take a huge hit?

 

It's not going to help with battery at all - it's part of the main RAM (which is always powered) that is used by integrated graphics. Lowering it to 32MB will free 32MB of physical RAM for use by OS. That's it.

32MB is quite enough for 2D graphics: you can calculate required buffer size using screen resolution values and color depth (32-bit color = 4 bytes). 6MB is a ballpark for Z.

 

it wouldn't even matter at that, because the OS will borrow any additional MB if needed automatically.

 

Anyone? Anyone? I'm scared.

 

You know you just do it and see. A lot of people did it on various Z and TT models, everyone is happy, don't worry

 

I simply cannot afford failure. This is my personal work machine (consulting)

 

If you follow the instructions, and each step it tells you what values are matching (and if they don't match, stop!), you can go ahead and do so.

It was really easy, and just takes less than 5 minutes of your time. Just follow the instructions and make sure things like the GPUID and certain values like 0x25a match, then you're good to go.

 

1. If you are paranoid and dont need VT then dont bother enabling it. It's not going to give you anything if you are not using VMs.

2. Just be extra cautious about the address and the value that you are changing. Make sure that you check the original value first before you change, then check it again after you changed it. So even if you screwed up, you can just revert value back to the original one. It's not like you're overwriting the whole bios firmware, you are only changing one of the address value. So it's not a really serious problem if you screwed up.

 

Hi,
I followed the instructions on the link for my VGN-Z21XN/B notebook. I set the offset to 0x1af. However, I don't see a new option at the BIOS...

 

Nor should you. The change does not offer up an option in the BIOS settings. It directly turns on the VT functionality.

Gary

 

the command you are looking for is

setup_var 0x25a 0x1

this will enable new options in the BIOS.

 

Then I would recommend you not to try this, unless you have a backup laptop to use, and you have created backup of your data.

 

I just followed the instruction and it works like a charm.
Menu Advanced in my Z590NGB has a lot of options now (pictured).
The procedure is very easy. If you are still really scared, here is what I've done.
1. Format my USB flash drive with FAT32
2. Create folder EFI and subfolder BOOT
3. Download file BOOTX64.EFI and save to BOOT folder
4. Restart my Z590, you may have to enable external boot device
5. grub command prompt will appear and I entered
setup_var 0x1af 0x1
setup_vat 0x25a 0x1
6. Restart by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del
You now have a lot extra options and features enabled.
I changed both 0x1af and 0x25a to 0x1.

 

Thanks... will try later then

 

No, you don't; that will have no effect, except adding a security risk.
The UEFI run of the "magic name" recovery PE executable takes place before the bios emulation and settings are loaded, precisely to allow unbricking. So "BIOS" settings will have no effect on it.

Redundant. Flipping 0x1af only serves a purpose if you do not set 0x25a. Cause once you set 0x25a, you can enable/disable VT-x through the menu.

 

EFI is something too powerful to me. I guess it will be easy to write SLIC v2.1 into BIOS and activate Windows 7 / Server 08 R2 as soon as the OEM key and Sony certificate are leaked.

 

Thank you for the information. The options are now visible..

 

I do need VT for running Windows Server 2008 VMs

 

Then do it. Do you see a single person having an issue yet? Everyone is fine.

 

Forgive me for my stupidity & I've also not tried this yet.

I hope someone can tell me how to revert back to the original factory BIOS menu option if I wanted to after enabling the extra BIOS menu options. (Touch wood but) this is for any future need to reset the BIOS menu back to original factory state if it is ever needed to be sent to Sony for service/repair.

Thanks in advance. Once again, I sincerely apologize if what I ask is a stupid question.

 

to enable advance options:
setup_var 0x25a 0x1

to disable advance options:
setup_var 0x25a 0x0

 

The "BIOS" emulator setup has a restore defaults option. After that, simply set 0x25a to 0, and the menu disappears.

 

arth1, thanks a lot. Once again, you're the man (with the answers). I really appreciate the super fast response.

 

MegaMan X, thanks to you too. You & arth1 are the men. I really appreciate your super fast response too.

 

Do I still have time to answer and get a thanks too?

 

Sure. I'll thank you if you post an answer.

 

43

Gary

 

+1 advanced menu enabled for VGN-Z21XN/R2168M3. Thanks all!

Minor problem I've encountered: my 256MB usb key would not boot, despite formatting it both with FAT32 and FAT16. An 8GB one worked fine when formatted with FAT32 and 4KB cluster size. I've noticed that the former is seen in windows as a "Flash Disk" whereas the latter as "USB Disk" (despite both being ordinary usb keys) so, apparently, not every type of usb key is recognized.

I was hoping for some better thermal control, but all that can be changed is throttling and fan on threshold. Furthermore, I think this only applies when there is no Vaio power management installed. The fan on temperature in BIOS is set to 70C which is rather high. I've bumped it to 75C to see if it changes anything, but at least in silent mode, the fan behaviour didn't change (turns on at 55C). So unfortunately, the fan is most likely controlled by software anyway.

 

+1 advanced menu & Virtualization enabled for VGN-Z750D/B. Thanks all!

 

Finally committed to give a try

 

and you wont regret it...it's a whole new different world there, son.