Latest VPC-Z1/330M Drivers for the BIOS Hack People

I'll second this. I know I used to have brightness control with Nvidia and static drivers before.

Also, is anyone using bitlocker with the bioshack? switching from speed to stamina trips up bitlocker, and I have yet to diagnose exactly which PCR is tripping.
Starter for someone who is not familiar with bitlocker part III - Digging in - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

Update: I switched back to the older patch method, and I have control over brightness settings again

 

ComputerCowboy from you doing the older patch do you have any idea if we could also edit something in the new drivers inf to get the brightness working.
The new editing method gives us latest drivers and fixes the vga screens not being auto recognised at start up.
Seems we win some and lose some. Life!

 

Can one of you guys post the .inf file after you edit it with the _new_ method? I want to make sure it's happening correctly. I never had any issues with brightness control when I did it.

 

Modded file attached, I added .txt to filename as would not attach as an .inf file, original download taken direct from the Nvidia web site.

only modded as follows:


Display.Driver/nvszc.inf

The following line:

%NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section023, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_9067104D

was replaced with:

%NVIDIA_DEV. 0A2B.02% = Section023, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_ 0A2B&SUBSYS_ 905A104D

I only changed the values in BOLD, did that twice and then 0A29 was also replaced with 0A2B one more time at the end of the nvszc.inf-file, under section [Strings]

 

What is this supposed to fix?

I have never gotten a failed to install...everything installs just fine. I have no brightness adjustment, either.

 

well: update to my earlier thankyou post:

Everything has been working perfectly over the past month or two except that Windows or Explorer or something will not fully load on Intel GPU (It crashes after login).

But oh well, I have a custom power cfg that limits the CPU clock speed, refresh rate and a few other bits n bobs so my battery life is still many hours.

Do other people have issues with switching to Intel GPU? (Just curious, as I am too content with current setup to bother spending time bughunting)

...honeybuns Skyrim here I come...mmm

 

Successfully flashed the BIOS using Paul300h's method and installed the nVidia 330M Version 280.26 WHQL drivers linked on the first post. I didn't have to patch it or anything though. I just downloaded and click setup.exe and everything worked. Then I installed the latest Intel HD graphics.

Problem is that now my Boot time have lengthened significantly. I used to be able to boot under 35 seconds. Now it takes over 1 minute and 20 seconds.

Only the portion of the boot sequence where the VAIO Logo is being displayed was lengthened (Before the Blinking Cursor). That portion now takes 52 seconds!

Having new drivers are nice, but with static switching taking over a minute to reboot is going to be a pain for me... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have a problem with my external monitor (Samsung Syncmaster 2333SW), wich is recognized as a "Generic Non-PnP Monitor" by the nVidia card and thus have its native resolution at 1024x768 (should be 1920x1080). I managed to set proper resolution via the nVidia Control Panel with custom resolution but still some fullscreen application (see Videogames ) don't find the correct resolution. Any ideas?

 

Just in case anyone is interested. I fixed the problem. I disabled USB Legacy and I am booting up in the 30 to 40 seconds range again.

So... maybe USB Legacy was disabled on default and was only enabled when I hacked the BIOS?

 

True, now it boots really faster, thanks kvnchg!

 

And that's why I didn't wanna hack my bios. Unless you know what each additional advanced option does, there's no guarantee you'll have an optimally performing system and I'm too much of an OCD perfectionist to allow that.

 

Hi, first of allt I want to thank you for the great work on this drivers and bioshack for the Vaio Z !

Sony doesn't do it's job but you guys make progress possible

I just hacked my bios and installed latest nVidia drivers for their web site (285.62) used the new hack on page 1.

Everything went fine, I was able to install drivers after the patch. Had a warning about unsigned driver but installed anyway.

Only problem is that I lost control over brightness (auto or manual) I have to use nVidia dashboard.

I also tried the older patched drivers provided by computercowboy but the result was the same.

Any idea on how to solve this ?

Thanks.

 

Well I downloaded the latest nvidia driver 285.79 from laptopvideo2go.com and the hacked INF file as well, and now brightness works fine!

 

OK for the driver, what hacked inf file are you talking about ?

 

The hacked INF at laptopvideo2go.com, it's on the same page where you download the driver.

 

Sorry for playing noob here but I don't see where to get that inf

 

Got It, never mind...

And I got controll over brightness !

Thanks a lot.

 

Tried installing v285.38 BETA on my Z1290s running Windows 7 x64 and only the graphics drivers installed. The other components failed (HD Audio, 3D, etc.).

Installed v280.26 without issue.

One consequence of the new drivers: brightness controls no longer work (Fn + F5/F6).

 

What is the difference between these drivers, and installing the latest version of NVIDIA drivers + modified .inf + Intel HD graphics drivers (while the switch is on stamina)?

Everything works just fine

 

hi guys i have a vaio z from canada with the i7. do you guys know if it is american or europe version? thanks

 

Sure, please provide us with the Model number found in the system info tab of vaio control center.

 

Mine in Canadian too and all the drivers are for the American version.
At least if you choose the English language at the beginning, I don't know with the French version.

 

mine is VPCZ1390s is that what you mean model nnumber?

 

guys any updates? is it american or europe?

 

It's a north american model.

 

Patcher is not working anymore on the newest drivers 290.53

 

Hey guys,

I just installed the latest drivers but now I can't change screen brightness anymore! Is there any way to work this around?

Thanks!

 

^yes.

Prior to installing the NVidia driver, open nvam.inf and paste

HKR,,EnableBrightnessControl,%REG_DWORD%,0x1

into the installation part of your hardware id.

 

Where in the file to be exact? I searched & this line is included in files twice but don't think they are where they should be!

 

As I told, you need to find the section your hardware id is linked to (you should have patched the inf file if you could install it on your Z1!). I don't know which section you chose. For more information read this thread from here

 

But which are the latest working drivers?

 

Ok I got the 285.79 NVIDIA off laptopvideo2go.com with modded inf & brightness works fine! Also updated the Intel Media Accelerator HD drivers and now everything's fine!

 

Hey pyr0,
Thanks for helping me out about NVIDIA Drivers for bios hacked Z1! Now I have another problem, after installing Intel HD Graphics driver, I noticed when in stamina mode, video playback is tearing & Aero glass is not available!
Is there any driver you recommend for this?

 

Try run WEI to get Aero enabled again. Otherwise, in the Windows 'Control Panel' there should be an icon called 'Troubleshooting' and inside that under 'Appearance and Personalization' there's a troubleshooter called "Display Aero desktop effects" which you can try.

 

^ Thanks for the tip! It was somehow a driver problem! Latest Intel Driver was buggy so I used the second latest one & now it's working fine!

 

Hi everybody,

Just to say thanks you. I waste my time to read all of your posts in this thread.

I have a VPCZ13 8Gb Win7 Pro X64 8GB - 256Gb SSD - 320Gb 7200rpm instead of DVD and I was unable to use my DIY eGPU with a GeForce 460GTX-SE.
I read the information and installed the hacked BIOS. I Used 'Static' in BIOS, put my Graphic System Button to Speed, modified the 285.79 drivers from laptopvideo2go:
° open nvam.inf and paste HKR,,EnableBrightnessControl,%REG_DWORD%,0x1 in each section because I didn't know which was the good one.
° Open nvszc.inf
and
%NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section010, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_9067104D

was replaced with:

%NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section010, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A2B&SUBSYS_905A104D

° Installed (proper install with removal of old drivers)
° Restarted - all was working find (Brightness too)
° Shutdown the VPCZ13, switch button to Stamina, turn it on,install the latest intel HD drivers.
Restart, all was working fine too.
° Shutdown the VPCZ13.
° Turn it on and when the Sony Bios logo appeared I plugged in my GTX460-SE Diy eGPU.
° Detected as Standard VGA. I then download the inf file from laptop2go for 285.79 and install the driver instead of 'Standard VGA' for my external graphic card.
° Shutdown the VPCZ13 and then remove the Express card.
° Turn it on and when the Sony Bios logo appeared I plugged in the express card.
° All is working fine.

I just post the way I used to be able to enable my external card and share it to everyone.

Regards.

 

I found a way to enable Automatic Brightness on the latest Intel drivers with static switching!

Winkey+R -> Regedit -> search for FeatureTestControl, the value should be f800 by default. Change it to fb60. Done!

Am looking into a way to do the same for nVidia, even though I doubt it'll ever work. My guess is that the nVidia driver tries to read the brightness value through the Intel driver. This is possible with hybrid drivers since the Intel driver stays loaded. With static switching the Intel driver isn't loaded or available, and the nVidia can't read the "automatic" brightness value. It is the Intel driver that communicates with the Ambient Light Sensor and Vaio Control Center. So there is probably no way to get automatic brightness on nVidia.

Still. With static switching I now have Intel with latest drivers with Automatic Brightness (and proper Youtube), so now I only need to switch for games. And I don't mind doing brightness manually in games. Good solution for me.

I could be wrong though. To anyone who has had the Z1 longer: was it EVER possible to use Automatic Brightness (using the ambient sensor) with nVidia on static switching? If yes, with what driver version do you think it changed?

 

I just want to credit Andrew08, paul3000h and ComputerCowboy for great guidance. Been on a mission to get Battlefield 3 installed on my Vaio VPCZ1 since november but not allowed due to old Nvidia drivers.
Flashed BIOS, downloaded Nvidia 285.62, patched it and installed!
Bf3 is probably hardly playable, but its running!

 

Re: '° open nvam.inf and paste HKR,,EnableBrightnessControl,%REG_DWORD%,0x1 in each section because I didn't know which was the good one.'

Please tell me exactly where/what is 'each section' so I can past in correct places.

There seem to be 90 sections, do I paste 90 times?

Or

'Prior to installing the NVidia driver, open nvam.inf and paste

HKR,,EnableBrightnessControl,%REG_DWORD%,0x1

into the installation part of your hardware id.

Where exactly is 'the installation part of your hardware id.' ?

 

As far as I know, the Automatic Brightness has never worked with the static switching.

 

Bleh. Well I'm glad I got it to work on the Intel part, but that probably confirms my thoughts about nVidia reading the ALS through the (unloaded in the static case) Intel driver, which means it's impossible to get automatic brightness to work on nVidia...

 

Hello paul3000h,

just to give a little bit back, here´s the way the installation worked for me on my Z13 after lot of attemts to get the newest Nvidia drivers working with brightness control:

1.) Did the bios mod

2.) Downloaded latest Nvidia drivers 295.51 and run setup (the files are copied to the installation folder, but drivers are not being installed because of wrong Hardware ID)

3.) In the installation folder I opened the nvszc.inf and looked for the two lines with the Hardware ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_9067104D and noted the corresponding Sections stated in these lines (in my case it was Section023 under [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0] and Section024 under [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1])

4.) After that I closed the file and patched the nvszc.inf with ComputerCowboys patch to get the Vaio Hardware ID in these two lines (you could probably edit it manually too, as stated before in this thread)

5.) Then I opened the nvam.inf and looked for [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0] and [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]. In these two sections the Hardware ID lines are listed again and point to the different sections in the nvam.inf where the additional installation and registry values are listed. In my case Section023 was already used for another HardwareID, Section024 was not used at all.

6.) So I added the Vaio Hardware ID from nvszc.inf (after patching it was %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.9067.104D% = Section024, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A2B&SUBSYS_905A104D) under the last line of the [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1] section in nvam.inf. Now the Vaio Hardware ID is pointing to Section024 in nvam.inf file.

7.) Then I went down the nvam.inf file where the different sections are listed and went to [Section024]. Here the different Addreg and Copy actions are listed that take place during installation for the specific Hardware ID. One of them was AddReg = nv_miscBase_addreg__12. This key points to another section in the nvam.inf file further down. (See also Nautis helpful explanation of the inf files in http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/342947-my-discoveries-vaio-z-s-hybrid-graphics.html)

8.) Now I searched for [nv_miscBase_addreg__12] in nvam.inf and added the line HKR,,EnableBrightnessControl,%REG_DWORD%,0x1 under the last line of this section to get brightness control working.

9.) Finally I saved all changes in the inf files, uninstalled any old Nvidia drivers, switched to static mode in BIOS and after reboot I ran setup.exe from the Nvidia installation folder and installed the drivers.

10.) After reboot I got full control over brightness (only with Fn-keys, not with sensor) with the newest Nvidia drivers, 3DVision and 3DTVPlay support.



Hope this helps a bit and thanks again to everybody who contributed to this solution...
Jpcony

edit: with the new 295.73 drivers I`ve added the vaio hardware ID in both sections: in [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0] with Section023 and in [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1] with Section024 as the last line, just to be sure.

 

Thank you ComputerCowboy for starting it all, and shurcool for opening the doors of manual editing of the inf for me. And thank you Jpcony for clearing up a lot of details and getting the brightness working. I just followed your directions, and got 295.73 fully functional.

The only problem is that the bug where games cannot be fullscreen AND non-native resolution is back, which means I have to revert to running games at 1950x1080, which doesn't fly too well on a 330m.

On the last few previous modded versions, I could set to a non-native resolution, but the image did not stretch to fit the screen. For example, if I decide to play something at 800x600 and fullscreen, it would be a 800x600 game playing in the middle of the 1950x1080 screen with huge black borders. Which was not ideal, but acceptable.

Anyone know how to remedy this?

 

I haven't seen anything like that... but I don't play games.

I use the drivers to watch 3D Blu-Ray.

 

It somehow works! Intermittently at least, might even be the restart that did it.

Though there is one thing that bugs me in this version. Did the 330M in the VPCZ1390X get completely outdated? Because, starting with this driver, the name of the card in the device manager appears thus:



EDIT: I tried altering the Strings section by changing NVIDIA_DEV.0A2B.905A.104D = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " and using this convention further up the nvszc.inf, and consistently in nvam.inf as well. That installation was as stable, but didn't fix the card name. Brightness etc was still working, so I assume things pointed to things correctly, it seems this device string is completely out.

 

It probably displays like that because you have mashed up drivers...

The 330 is outdated sure, but it is not obsolete

 

So the 295.73 drivers work just by doing the same as with the 285.79?

 

Yep. Follow Jpcony's additional steps (a few posts up) for the brightness function.

 

Hi ComputerCowboy,

how did you manage to play 3D-Blue Rays with the Vaio´s internal drive, mine isn`t 3D capable as it seems?
Or do you have the newer Z with the external docking station?

Thanks,
Jpcony