Issues with my month old Vaio FW

My husband and I bought a Sony Vaio FW351J a month ago at Best Buy. It appealed to me mainly for aesthetic reasons (meaning all the other PC laptops were ugly). But the specs were sufficient as well, so we bought it.

I haven't had many issues with it up until a few days ago when I realized that Skype wouldn't let me make a video call. When I looked further, I realized that the built in webcam was no longer being recognized by Vista (which is apparently a common problem with no surefire solution). So I went to Sony's support site to troubleshoot. After screwing around with it for a few hours to no avail, I chatted with a support analyst who suggested I try to reinstall the webcam driver via VAIO Recover Center. Even though the driver wasn't listed, I reinstalled all drivers anyway, which did nothing. Next, I did a system restore through Vista, with no result. Finally I did a full restore of Vista to reset everything back to the "factory settings" and still have no webcam. So I went back to Sony's support chat where the analyst then told me that I would have to mail it to a service center for repair. I'm a freelance web designer who works from home. This laptop is my livelyhood and I cannot be without it for weeks. Finally I called up customer support who said they are going to send a technician out to my house to fix the problem. If he indeed fixes it, then that's great. We'll see.

However, while I've had this problem, I've been doing a bit of research online about similar issues with Vaio laptops, and I have NOT liked what I've read. So again, I talked with a Sony analyst about a concern I have about some things I've read (mainly changing the OS). Basically what I was told is that the OS that is factory installed on the laptop is the ONLY OS that is compatible. Period. I'm not even talking about trying to install Linux or something as tedious as OS X. I mean that they say you cannot even upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate. And God forbid trying to upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released. WHAT?!?

I've owned LOTS of computers, and this is the first time I've ever heard of anything like this. It just seems very limiting and ridiculous. Add that to the issue with the disappearing webcam, and I'm wishing I could box it up and return it to Best Buy in exchange for an ugly HP or Toshiba. But I can't since I'm out of my 14 day return window with them.

Anyone have any suggestions or feedback? I'm starting to lose my cool with Sony.

 

feel sorry for your problem and eh, welcome to nbr forum
i cant give the solution regarding the skype camera missing since im not using it. and for camera utility, its using ArcSoft (im not sure if FW using the same as mine, Z) and works well on mine.

about the software upgrade, yes its incompatible if you are trying to use the drivers that come with your VAIO since sony has some restriction and the system will check the model number too. thats why we have this forum, people share information with each other.

you can still upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows Vista 64bit whatever, but you have to do some homework for it. you cant expect to get it from Sony. though they might still provide the driver if they want to, but usually its late and only for certain product/model.

ive using VAIO for like 4 years, and until now no a single problem occured. you just need sometime to read on tricks to install for other OS other than your current.

sorry, cant help ya. just some hint.

 

I don't know what i should be more shocked about

A. a sony tech is driving to your house to fix the problem?
B you can't actually change OS?? what... can't be real.

 

Well what the guy told you is false. I have a Sony FW as well and its only a month old, i have already installed ubuntu, and windows 7 on it by triple booting. Also the reason your webcam is not working has nothing to do with the laptop its the OS, vista sucks. Windows 7 is a little bit better but i like ubuntu. I have also seen people who installed OSX even though that is illegal and i cannot describe how. Anyways the person you talked to is wrong, i have also upgraded vista to professional for my business by easily going to the properties of my computer and clicking on upgrade windows vista. Also i mite add go to start and right click on my computer then click properties. See what service pack your running, it should be right underneath where it tells your version of vista. If it says service pack 1 make sure you download and install service pack 2 online, for some reason it never asked me to update to it and that solved a lot of problems when i did it so it may solve yours.

Hope this helped
~eXoBrute

 

The webcam camera could just be an isolated incident due to bad wiring. The right click button my FW just died a few days ago and it's in for repairs right now and I barely use my touchpad. I didn't even noticed that it was broken since I use a USB mouse for the most part.

Either way, I hope I don't have anymore problems with the FW because my warranty is about to expire in August.

Lucky you that a technician is coming to your house, I had to leave it at a service center.

 

Miyabi: Thanks for the personal experience. That's really helpful. I just basically wanted feedback as to what others have done and if they've had issues. So thanks.

Inukami: Yes, I was surprised that they're sending someone out to fix it, too. Maybe it's because I've been a real PITA about it. Who knows?

Exobrute: I don't think they tech meant that you can't actually change the OS; but that if you do and it doesn't work, then you're screwed because they're not going to help you. I think it might even void your warranty, too. As far as my webcam being a Vista problem, I guess you could be right. But it did work for a few weeks, then stopped all of a sudden. I'm also dual booting Windows 7, and it doesn't show in it either. Also, installed SP2 for Vista and it didn't help. But thanks for the recommendations.

Wolf04: I'm wondering if it is a wiring thing, too. We'll see when the technician comes out.

This all makes me incredibly nervous about how well this computer will hold up over a few years time.

 

What the Sony techs were saying appears to be the policy that Sony only warranties the computer with what it has in and installed on it out of the box.

This is why, on another thread, I have counseled caution to those who have stated categorically that one may, on one's own initiative, install new memory modules purchased independently of Sony's tech support.

It is clear that Sony has the right to run its warranties the way it wishes and one accepts their terms when trying to exercise its guarantees.

So, as I said on the other thread: One changes the original configuraton without "permission" at the risk of voiding the warranty.

Period.

 

Derrida: Understood. But in a couple of years, Vista will be old news (hopefully). Isn't it a bit unfair for Sony to require that the initial OS always remain on the computer? Sounds like an easy way to escape accountability if you ask me.

As far as upgrading memory, I can understand that. If you have to physically open up the laptop, then there's a number of things you could screw up unintentionally.

 

Do not listen to such comments, vista is fine and I've had no issues with the OS since I got the FW last november, and I was porting over from a XP pc and vowed to never use vista. Reinstalling the drivers would solve any issue that would have occcured with the webcam if it was an OS issue, since you said it did not then its a hardware issue. Unless you didn't install everything.

 

I'm actually worried about how long my FW will hold up to. If I had to take it twice this summer for repairs when my warranty is almost done, it means it's slowly coming apart (hopefully not!)

But your issue is not so bad, at least the laptop's barrels or hinges are not coming off like many people reported.

 

I totally agree with you. I was NOT defending Sony, simply reporting what I've been reading and hearing from a friend's experiences. Tech Support at Level II, even, was giving her a hard time when she indicated she might want to just downgrade from Vista Ultimate 64-bit to 32-bit for software reasons. She was pretty surprised at the reaction of one tech; another tech at the same level simply told her to purchase the disks from Sony.

So, it is likely that a change of OS after talking to tech support is the way to go so there are no misunderstandings on warranty issues. Get a case number, tech name/ID and all that just to be sure.

As for hardware, I'm not sure that Sony will ever accept a change without a purchase from Sony and help installing from their tech support. Dell is the same way about this, BTW. My room-mate has one of those desktops that Dell sold lifetime tech support for the original owner on, so when his video card went he was told that if he bought the new one from Dell and had Dell techs walk him through it on the phone, the warranty would stay in force.

Just so you realize that it may not be totally unreasonable for a manufacturer to try to have some control over who opens that chassis when how and what for if they're going to warranty the darned thing!

 

False, dont act like vista is so good, the drivers dont work 100% in vista. And the drivers wouldnt solve everything, i have reinstalled my sound driver 10 times and the sound continues to not work but on windows 7 and ubuntu the sound works fine with the same driver that i installed on vista. Most problems like these are software issues and not hardware. It would be very very rare to have a faulty webcam unless you broke it yourself. And even the os said she said vista is not recognizing the webcam.

 

I read from the previous page that you have an FW so is this sound problem on your FW and what exactly doesn't work? I have an FW and I've never had any problems with any of the drivers in Vista.

 

Yes the built in speakers do not work for some reason, i have called sony tech support and they walked me through some troubleshooting, none of it worked, they asked me to bring it into the sony store because i have one near me, i did that and they tested to see if it was a hardware problem and it wasnt, they ran some diagnostics on it and could not discover what was wrong, i told them i was dual booting windows 7 so they tried it on windows 7 and the speakers worked fine. They tried using external speakers on vista and it worked but the built in speakers still would not. They wanted me to send it in but i said no since i do most of my work on windows 7 anyways and i did not feel like going computerless for 3 weeks.