Installing Windows XP on the Vaio SZ6xx

Update 8/22/07

The 650 is running pretty good, dual booting XP/Vista32

Install was pretty straightforward getting OS's to go.

I installed XP twice (so I had a clean one to do when I get everything right.) Then Vista on a 20GB partition.
From there you'll get Vista/XP boot loader and XP/XP bootloader. A little editing of boot.ini and using EasyBCD to edit Vista's and you'll have it booting easily Vista/XP and XP with a clean XP for later with prompts that make sense.

Now choose to work on one OS or the other as both will need to be fully setup.

XP32:
Make a CD with a handfull of essential drivers, chipset, network, video.
First I like to install the chipset and reboot.
Next patch to SP2 if need be and install network drivers.
Reboot
Install video, audio, touchpad, any additional network, and all the hardware.
Optional: Install Camera driver. It doesn't work, but it does make the unknown in device manager identify it'self as the camera.
Reboot
Install sony shared DLL library
Install sony event service( this should get you sound Fn buttons) though not brightness
Install power management
I have not found any of the 'utility' programs to work on the SZ6 so don't install them.
Leave off the image filter too.
REBOOT
Install fingerprint reader
Reboot

That should get it done.

Vista32:
Install the drivers in the same order as above
Chipset - reboot
hardware - reboot
libraries - reboot
utilities - reboot

You are done.

When Installing apps like office/quicken/photshop you can pick the bigger drive and install both OS's in the same file structure. Just make sure you patch in both to get the keys right.

What's not working
XP
Fn Keys for brightness, the magnifier and S1&2
Camera
There's an error on the secondary IDE (which as far as I can tell doesn't do anything.)
There's an error on the TPM driver - don't really know what this device does, trusted platform something


Vista
battery management missing
Some utilities I think are missing

Hang on and I'll create a Zip file and upload it somewhere of all the drivers I have to date that work

Umm, that's not going to work.

Anyone got anyplace I can put a 440MB (XP) and a 415MB (Vista) file?

















8/7/07-------------------------------------------------------------------

I figure there'll be a bunch of you out there trying to do the same thing as I am. Perhaps we can put it all in one thread and get to the other end. At this point I doubt we'll ever get it fully functional, but perhaps we can get close enough.

I realize some of you will say that Vista is good enough and why go back. The reason is two fold. First off Vista is bloated (900 mb of ram to boot, & 20some GB) and slow, Second and more important is that Vista will not run everything yet. Solidworks for example, a CAD package without which a lappy is just a doorstop for me. I'm sure there are lots of other apps too.
XP clearly runs a LOT faster than Vista does.

Expect ZERO assistance from Sony. They have flat refused to assist in any way, including a clean install of Vista. The only thing they'll help you with is a system restore from disks you burn yourself. Unfortunatly these will not work with a clean or new disk so even Vista users are in for an adventure.

Installing XP.
First I started with an XP install disk. I couldn't find my full SP2 disk so I started with SP1a. Install went fine. Very quickly I was fully booted into XP.
Rebooted and applied SP2, rebooted.
I downloaded the drivers from Intel for the 965 chipset and installed them.
I downloaded the drivers from Intel for the 4965AGN and installed them - this got me wifi and I was able to get to the net.
I downloaded the drivers from Intel for the X3100 Graphics chips and installed them. (Note: you need to flip the switch to it and reboot first)
Rebooted.
Went to Windows Update and allowed it to update the installer, rebooted. Updated the installer again, rebooted.
Finally able to get to updates. Selected all 93 updates and found something else to do for a while. Rebooted.
Tried the SZ4/5 drivers and util from ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/vaio/original
None worked, don't waste your time, you'll just have more crap to get rid of.

Tried both the nVidia driver for the GeForce 8400M GS. Unfortunatly Sony has tweaked it and it's proprietary now and will not accept the nVidia driver. Also tried several drivers from laptopvideo2go.com and none of those would install either.

At this point I don't have
Video (nVidia)
Networking (gigabit)
Touchpad
Fingerprint reader
Audio
Bluetooth switches and I believe Bluetooth isn't working either - the light is on.
No sony utilities or Fn keys are working.
There are several other devices which I'm unsure what they are just yet.
The secondary IDE channel shows an error in device manager
Something referred to only as 'PCI Device'
Also something called 'UGX'
That's as far as I've gotten tonight.

 

From here I got the audio driver to load.
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/OS/XPDOWNGRADE/SZ4-SZ5/

Although...it did bring up an 'other device' in device manager called 'audio devise on high definition audio bus' that is now in error. Also switched one of the other errors to 'Modem Device on high definition audio bus'

Appears I also got the bluetooth driver from the same set. Though I don't have a good way to test it.

 

Fingerprint reader form the same set.

Synaptics touch pad driver from Synaptics.com does not appear to be fully functional.

 

Whoot, got the Video driver to work.
Download here
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14217
Read the FAQ
Download the driver, then download and replace the INF.

It is now able to drive the 24" External LCD at native resoluton of 1920x1200@60hz.
Unfortunatly just like the X1300 the screen is twitching like mad and is unusable.

 

Interesting bug, when I unplug the machine from power and then plug it back in, the screen goes blank.

 

When you say twitching, do you mean it flickers?

 

I mean the whole screen is moving back and forth horizontally.

 

I got volume & Mute Fn buttons. Not sure how I did that...do not have brightness, not sure about HD sleep

 

I fully agree man. XP is so much faster. Plus I hate all the extra security in Vista. I don't care for the eye candy. I'll propably install XP when my TZ arrives.

 

Keep fighting the good fight, MonsterMaxx.

A lot of us are pulling for you to succeed. Hell, if you ever get it fully operational with XP, there may even be a market for you to sell your final DVD image to other SZ6xx owners!

 

Gotta say, I really like this fingerprint reader. Just a swipe of the finger gets it logged in. Whoot.
May have to get some more of these things.

Sweet part is, you can use different fingers for different accounts (Admin for example.) And it KNOWS which account to log into.

I LIKE

 

Solidworks for Vista has been in beta since late 2006. Here's a positive review of a Solidworks Vista beta from February.

http://meblog.philipstears.net/solidworks/index.html

Wouldn't it be easier to run a beta app than an entire unsupported OS? I just don't see how you are going to be able to get XP running successfully on unsupported hardware without a lot of compromises.

 

I'm stalled at the moment. Cannot determine the mfgr of some hardware so I can go chasing the drivers.
If one of you with a SZ6 could go into your device manager and let me know which hardware Sony has put in this machine

Touchpad - working like a mouse, missing all the features that make a touchpad great.
Modem - error on a Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus
IDE Chipset - getting an error on a secondary IDE Channel
Network Card (NOT the WIFI)

After we fix those, I think all I'm missing is the Fn Brightness hotkeys, the S1 & S2 buttons and the ability to turn bluetooth off and on (though bluetooth itself is working.) Everything else seems to work.

 

Solidworks is the most buggy piece of software I have ever encounterd. Full release (SPO) is little more than a Beta and won't be solid for at least a year.
Even the VARs recommend that their clients NOT install it until at least SP4. Once you go up, your database is converted and you can not go back. So if there's a show stopping bug your company comes to a screeching halt until SW fixes it. This may sound like a rare thing, but it's NOT. It's happened to me at least 6 times and I know for a fact that it's happened to many others too. These fixes can take months, if they ever do fix it. No freeking way I'm going to convert my database.
That and I'm in the group that's protesting this behavior by not renewing our maintenance. It would cost me $2.5k to update and I'm not willing to pay good money for buggy software when what I have works just fine and IS stable.
With SW, you pretty much have to wait for the last service pack to come out before updating, even then it's a crap shoot. 2004 was OK, 2005 was a horrible release, 2006 was pretty good, 2007 is horrible. Who knows what 2008 for Vista will be like and they have already stated that they will not have a 64bit version. So what's the point of running Vista which itself has it's own teething problems? It'll just run slow (two pigs at the trough), crash a lot and cause grief and waste my time.

Maybe in 2009 or 2010 after Vista is thru it's teething and SW releases a 64bit version that's SOLID. I do not want my company to be a beta group.

 

Scratch the modem, got that

 

Maybe you should use a driver from ALPS, which actally manufactured the touchpad

 

Can you find it? I can't. (yet)

I have sent them an email requesting it.

 

Search here:
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/PUB/VAIO/TOUCHPAD

 

Major setback.

I was doing as one user asked and trying for battery life and was running unplugged. Then forgot about it.

Came back and tried to start it. NO dice. Looking at a blank screen.

Safe mode stalls at Mup.sys and does nothing more.

It's dead.

 

memtest86 gave it a clean bill of health

Trying recovery console

I'm in, did this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545

 

Sorry to hear that. I hope you have a drink and relax. It's through pioneering work like yours that we can all enjoy a decent performing computer.

 

System is blown. The part of the step which backs up the registry didn't work because the disk was protected.

I'm back to square 1. ARRRRRRR!

Actually, I'm very lucky to get in at all. On the first try it wanted to activate, unfortunately there were no network drivers. Tried again and it let me in (surprise.)

 

Crap, it's hosed. Nothing will run, nothing will install. FUBAR.

Formatting the disk....again

 

Up and running again, working my way thru config.


Notes:
Install Intel 965 Chipset
Install
Unknown audio is Sigmatel
Unknown USB is the camera
Unknown Mass Storage is FlashMedia Ti Pcixx12
Unknown Ethernet is Marvel Yukon 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Unknown UGX is Bluetooth
Unknown device is the Infineon TPM

 

Unknown device is the Infineon TPM. Installed V2.5 from the SZ4-5 utils, identified what it is, but the device is errored in device manager. Need Infineon TPM compatible with SZ6

Still have error on Secondary IDE channel (odd, because only one of them (two of the same listed device) is errored.)

 

Good job monstermaxx! Just a quick question, does your laptop run hot?

 

MM: It'd probably be helpful for the rest of us if you can post some screenshots (of the Device Manager status including a brief summary of what you put in so far) ... Also, whenever you have time, test the battery life as well under XP (vs. Vista) ...

I'm picking up my ordered SZ650 either tonight or tomorrow at the local Sony Store (Canada) ... Your progress brings me optimism of what I'll also be doing with the new lappy. Keep up the good work !

 

The palm rests get warm. Not noticeablly hot. Then again, it's still sitting on my glass desk, good ventalation and I haven't been pushing it.

No idea yet how it will do sitting on the couch with it in my lap playing some game.

dumpper, let me work on that, screen shots w/ native XP is a pain, need to load PS.

Battery test will begin shortly, still waiting for the charge to complete (going on 6 hours now.) Going to run stamina mode first and run it all the way to dead. Testing software is BatteryEaterPro.


If I were you, I'd wait a bit before buying for me to get a little further. I'm beginning to think I made a mistake with the Sony. It does not 'feel' like a high grade machine, the software support is terrible and I have a feeling I'm going to regret buying it, not to mention the bad light leakage at top and bottom of the screen (no dead pixels though.) I have a feeling that XP will never be fully functional and Sony has stated that they will not support a clean install of Vista (ie, will not make drivers and utilities available.) I really think it stinks that Sony is trying to force us to use this infant OS which still has so many compatibility issues, they should continue to support XP even if they aren't selling it, just good customer relations. So you are stuck with a crapped up Vista or trying to hunt down drivers and utils like I am for XP.

 

Recharge time was aprox 5:30.

Running battery test now, est life is 55 minutes running at full load, no power management, graphics on stamina (X3100)

edit, got thinking about it, fully depleting LiPo batteries is very hard on them. You can permanantly damage them with even one of these.
I killed the test and set it to hibernate at 3% remaining (instead of just letting it dump when the juice ran out.) Now just need to recharge.

 

Well, you're right ... I do have my doubting about Sony too ... The other day, I returned the SZ420 as a deposit for the SZ650 (which costs nearly $450 more over here! ) ...

As far as I can see, except for the Santa Rosa crap, LED-lit screen, smaller PS brick & a slightly faster processor, the practical performance of these 2 machines are pretty much similar. Battery life (by specs) is about the same. Windows Experience Index is about the same. No one will die if it only takes 2 seconds more to rip a DVD in the old SZ420 vs. the SZ650. The chassis is the same (& now there's a report of light leaking under the LCD ?).

Everything similar, except when it comes to XP downgrade, and at this point in time the SZ6xx's are not supported.

On a related topic, from some news in April, M$ is cutting off XP production to OEM by the end of this year, forcing everybody to go Vista ... That probably created a revolt in the industry, starting with Dell, who then started to offer Ubuntu OS as an option. Acer just followed the same path last week. HP, still unofficial with their stance, but expect them to follow suit soon. Lenovo/IBM has been offering SUSE Linux in their laptops for sometime already ...

Anyway, back to your progress ...

 

umm, you can still by XP from Dell and Lenovo (likely others too, but I haven't checked.)

It's really bad that Sony will not even make Vista drivers for the SZ6 avail so a clean uncrapped install is not easy either.
It's like they want to make things hard on their customers. It would take so little effort on their part to make things easier....but it's just not their way. Do we really want to get into a long term relationship? I'm beginning to regret it. Maybe I'll feel better after I solve a few more issues and get it running right.

 

Well, I'd go with the other guys if I had the choice (stuck with Sony because of credits that they refuse to refund in cash to me!) - however, other brands DO have similar problem too with some models: NO SUPPORT FOR XP !

The bigger cuprit with our XP downgrade problem, I think, is M$. Maybe you've been so busy with with new laptop thing, but on the news today, M$ is talking about "DirectX 10.1", which will be incompatible with "DirectX 10.0 hardware" !!?!! Meaning, your current SZ650 hardware may not be supporting DirectX 10.1 when it's released in the coming months ...

Maybe I should stay with similar SZ420, for maximum compatibility, and save some money ...

We know that Sony laptops are made by either Asus or Quanta ... But it looks like nobody makes XP drivers for the Santa Rosa platform just yet ...

The move from "SZ4 to SZ6" is now so much analogous to the move from "XP to Vista", isn't it ?

 

Drivers for Santa Rosa platform are Intel's baby, and yes, there are drivers for the chipset - no problem there.

Problems are in Sony's propritary hardware like buttons, Fn keys, power management, camera, TPM, etc etc. Even the touchpad (Alps makes it and they don't do end user support. I'm using a Dell driver, which seems to work OK.)


If I were you, I'd be talking to my CC co about getting a credit. Ovbiously Sony took the machine back and gave you credit, I believe it's illegal for them to not give you credit on your CC. You should have no problem getting your cc co to give you full credit since you returned the machine.

Then you can do whatever you want. Not saying the SZ6 isn't the answer, only that I'd hate to not have options.

 

(sorry, my bad!)

The TPM & hard drive shock protection are the features that make the SZ really different from the lower series. Of the later, did you test it out if it works with XP ?

 

TPM is a no go, yet.

The HDD protection did install, but I've no way to know if it's working.

 

A little off-topic, if I just want a clean installation of vista, are the drivers availiable at sony driver site good to go?

look like it has everything, I just don't know the sequence of installation.

 

NO. NO Vista drivers either. Sony Support says they will NOT support a clean install and that you will NOT be able to get drivers and utilities to do a clean install yourself.

This is what tech support told me. I hope a lot of people gripe about this and they change the policy, but as it stands today, NO you cannot.
You may be able to figure it out from the recovery CD, but I wouldn't bet on it. I spent a lot of time digging thru them and it is not something that will be an easy task. I couldn't find any drivers & utils and the only install apps appear to be the bloatware.


If I were you, on first boot I'd be hitting ctrl+alt+del as fast as I could and try to kill the sony app that installs all the crap. You might get lucky.

 

A clean Vista installation is supported by Sony, contrary to what that tech support had said (it's supported for previous models, why would they treat the SZ6 any different?), and you will be able to install the drivers available on that link you provided in any sequence. It's the utilities that need to be installed in a certain order. The only useful utilities that aren't available to download yet are the battery care and the version of smartwi or "network utility" that's pre-installed.

 

oops, I didn't follow your link. I had been there yesterday and there were like 3 drivers. Now all I have to do is wait for my Vista clean install disk (anytime upgrade) to show up.

Seems either Sony has changed their tune or tech support is clueless.

I wonder if this means there's hope of XP downgrade support....(one can dream anyway)

 

LOL. Ah, MonsterMaxx...the eternal optimist.

 

Just installed the Vista Infineon TPM driver. That fixed one device error.

I have to wonder just how different 32bit XP is from 32bit Vista in terms of drivers. 2000 & XP weren't different. I'm going to try some more of these...

 

Vista anytime arrived. Installed a fresh copy of xp in a directory called C:\XP. Had planned to do the same with Vista C:\Vista.

Seems Vista will NOT allow installation in any other directory than C:\Windows.

Proceeded to install vista.(took a looooonnnnnggggg time.) Bloated pig that it is.

Got Vista running and proceeded to try to get XP running again - did not work by default.

well, crud, seems that XP & Vista on the same partition are impossible.

I got vista installed and running. Using BCD I was able to get XP to boot, but it was not happy with the user files. Seems that Vista mangled them. Then XP mangled Vista's.

I can still boot to a crippled XP (the clean one in a directory called XP) but can no longer boot to the original XP install or to Vista.

I think I'm back to reformatting the disk. I think I'm quitting for the night before it pisses me off severely.

 

I think at most one system for one partition is a rule since the very beginning.

So glad that you are able to fresh install vista. Are all functions working?

 

I just don't see that there's enough space to be wasted on that....oh well.

I didn't get very far into vista drivers. Wanted to get it dual booting before spending a bunch of time on drivers. Seems this was a good choice as I'm back to formatting again. #3

 

Dual boot running XP/Vista

Damn is Vista slow. Takes forever just to shut down. And feels like ten times longer to boot than XP.
Vista Boot 125 sec
XP Boot 28 sec

Vista is horribly slow interrogating the network. Every click takes 30 sec. Ridiculous. With everything else being the same under XP it's instantaneous.

My opinion so far is that Vista is a novelty and is no replacement for XP. Performance, stability, and compatability with existing apps.


Sony Gripes
Sony Vista Drivers that won't install because it says the driver is not meant for this machine.
(downloaded from the Sony SZ650 page for my SZ650 - WTF?)
Alps driver (I ended up using the Dell XP driver, Vista complained about it, but it runs.)
MS Update KV935333 (n/a)
UPEK TouchChip Finger Print Driver (Used the SZ4 XP driver/util)
Vaio Video & Photo suite will not install (both of the exe's that are on Sony's site)

 

Seems I have another problem: no output power to external speakers.


I was trying to watch a movie last night.
Vista couldn't play it (missing Codecs that couldn't be found)
XP played the movie fine, until the GF came over and wanted to watch too. So I hooked it to the stereo. No dice.

There was sound, it was working, but no matter what I did to the volume it was barely audible.


Tested with an audio file in Vista. Still very weak, but much better than in XP.
Compared to plugged into my XM Inno, the lappy is about half the volume.

 

@MonsterMaxx
thnx for working on xp..
my sz650nc is on the way.I'll try same thing you did..(Xp is faster than vista)

did u finish your to do list..

what is the final score about xp..is everything working?

 

There's quite a few things that don't work in XP and I find more as I explore more functions.

the Fn keys don't work for brightness, nor can I find any other way to control the brightness in XP.
Power management is fubar. I can get it installed, but it kills the Nic. Again, no brightness control.
Bluetooth seems to work, but turning it on and off doesn't work.
Audio output does not work (headphone jack)
TPM doesn't work.


What does work?
Audio to notebook speakers seems fine
nVidia display is 25% faster than Vista for the same test/driver
Fn keys for volume and mute
Wifi
Nic (w/ powermanagement uninstalled)
touchpad
fingerprint reader (which fyi, Vista's driver from Sony's website will NOT work - using XP driver in Vista which does work.)
Seems the memory card readers are working.
PCMCIA
Modem
Camera driver is loaded, but I've been unable to get it to do anything.
CD/DVD can read - have not tested burner yet
HDD protection drivers load, but I don't yet know how to test and see if it's actually doing anything


I got to a level two tech at Sony and he said that they are planning to release XP downgrade drivers sometime around the end of October.

 

Jeez, Sony really needs to pull their heads out of their butts.

Early yesterday I reported to them that several of the drivers on their page for this model will not install with the error message: not for this model of computer

The Alps touchpad is one of them. I can load the XP driver I got from Dell, but it spits an error on boot.

So, fed up with waiting for Sony to fix it I went a' huntin again today.

What did I find? Another Dell driver that works perfectly.

Come on Sony, remove these restrictions from the drivers, it's only causing your customers grief. Why are you making it hard on us?
Wake up, smell the caffeine and learn from your mistakes.

 

I hope it will be correct
(I got to a level two tech at Sony and he said that they are planning to release XP downgrade drivers sometime around the end of October.)

I wanna clean install and I dont have correct driver what a ridiculous position.
sony must be hear our voicessss