SZ650N/C with Windows 7

Hi everyone,

So I went to the sony support page and i saw that the Sony SZ650 series is not eligible for upgrade. Bummer. But I noticed that regardless, people are finding ways around this and still installing WIn7, while getting the FN buttons to work.

Does anyone have a guide on how to install Win7 32-bit onto the SZ650N/C? I know the Win7 64-bit is made, but im more interested in the 32-bit.

Also, I noticed on the sony ftp site, there are more updated sony drivers. Is it possible to install the newer sony drivers (i.e. on the SZ650 support page, a sony driver is v2.0.0, while on the ftp site i find a sony driver v5.6.0), is it a good idea to update to the v5.6.0?

Thanks.

 

I have Win7 Professional running on my SZ3. Look up Vista Clean Install guide here on notebookreview.com forums, it works like a charm. You can skip several steps since Win7 has a broader range of drivers supported out of the box, but stick with the guide in the utilities section, the order is crucial. AFAIR the guide was written for SZ6, so the drivers bundled with the thread are the ones you need.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336895
This thread should help.

The one in my sig might help too.

 

Awesome, I was looking at this earlier this morning. But I noticed that the sony FTP has newer drivers than the one on my vaio driver/support site. Should I stick to the ones on the driver/support, or can i install the newer ones from the FTP site? I assume that the Sony I/O controller is for all vaio notebooks, compatible with SZ to Z series? :S

atm I'm replying on my SZ with win7 (but FN buttons don't work) so I will be reinstalling later tonite (when I get home). I'll try to follow the post leslieann, thanks.

 

Sometimes you need older drivers, sometimes you will need drivers from an entirely different model. It's a hodgepodge to get everything working.

Communication and lots and lots of trial and error is required.

 

Darn it, I tried to follow the thread word for word wrt to Win7, but I can't get the S1 and S2 buttons to work.. Hopefully sooner or later someone will have tried installing Win7 on SZ650 and live to tel the tale? Or can anyone help?

EDIT: I finally got it working following the links above (and link from leslieann).

But one thing that didn't work was the VAIO power management (specifically the vaio maximum battery option). It would say SHell UI is not responding and closes.

/End EDIT

 

I upgraded my SZ680 from Vista Business to Windows 7 Ultimate (did in-place upgrade). I ran into a problem the first try (installation was hung after a few hours), forced shutdown, Googled the solution and restarted. The installation rolled back without issue, I made the fix, reinstalled and it went smoothly. Took quite a few hours though, seems like it was scanning my whole harddisk (500GB) checking all the files.

Everything's running smoothly, seems more stable and responsive than Vista. Only issue is that the screen brightness adjustment doesn't work after standby, but I occasionally had this problem in Vista as well.

All-in-all it was a worthwhile upgrade.

 

I also have an Vaio VGN SZ650N, and I have installed Win7 Professional 32-bit (I didn't do a clean install). I am having problems with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator. I know from my devices that I have Mobile Intel 965 Chipset Family as the display adapter.

GMA was giving me problems. It would flicker whenever I plugged in the powercord. At first, it'd flicker a few times, then I'd get a warning say that GMA crashed but recovered, but now it freezes my computer completely instead. So a few days ago, I went to the Intel website, downloaded and installed the GMA for Win7 32bit. However the flicker continued. So today, I re-downloaded the GMA Win7 32bit. I uninstalled GMA first, and it restarted my computer. When I tried to reinstall GMA, it wouldn't let me.

I'm wonder if I really need GMA. What are the benefits? My monitor seems to be working fine right now, but that may just be temporary.

 

From my guide...

In battery saver modes, the screen will flicker as the Intel Power management crashes the driver.

Go into Control Panel and open the Intel® GMA Driver for Mobile applet
Go to Display Setting on the left side/
On the lower right corner, click”Power Settings”
At the bottom select “Modify Settings”
Near the bottom, uncheck EVERYTHING.
Press Ok
Press Ok
Press Ok

 

Ahh just one small problem. I already uninstalled the GMA driver from my laptop. Now it's not letting me reinstall it...

It says "The driver being installed is not validated for this computer. Please obtain the appropriate driver from the computer's manufacturer. Setup will exit." (This is the Win7 32-bit version on the Intel website.) I can't find the GMA driver on the Vaio website. Boo.

 

Are you using the automatic driver update?

 

Um, I don't know. Sorry I'm not too tech savvy. Is that just going to the Devices Manager and trying to update the Software for (my graphics adapter) Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family? I can't find Intel GMA on my devices list.

 

I just restored my computer so I have Intel GMA back. I hope it works this time. Thanks for your instructions!

 

You're welcome, I hope it works.

 

I installed a fresh copy of vista from restore cds then upgraded to win 7 with inplace upgrade. I go to thinking that a clean install would be so much nicer so I grabbed all the drivers with a program called double driver. I wiped the hard drive last night 5 hours it ran with sony's wipe & erase software. I will be reinstalling win7 tonight Ill let you know if the drivers reinstall with out an issue.

 

ok here is my results. It worked!! Well it made the job incredibly easier. when you are in the vista to win 7 upgrade capture all the drivers. (I had mine seperate as win and non win drivers but ended up reinstalling everything.) So on my clean install I first installed the basic sony drivers that require specific install order:

1. Sony Shared Library (3.0.00.10180)
2. Sony Utilities DLL (7.1.00.16050)
3. Sony Utility Series (2.1.00.16040)
4. Vaio Event Services (3.1.00.16230)

This got me limited FN+key ability. at this point I installed all the drivers that I saved from Double driver. This enabled nvidia and gave me the rest of the FN+Key features including the S1 an 2 buttons. I did have to go to sonys website to grab a couple things.

Original camera drivers
Toshiba Blue tooth stack original
Texas instruments driver
you want to grab these before you accept windows suggestions.

After i got those I clicked on the little flag at the bottom of the screen and went to action center. At this point Win7 helped me find all the drivers and components I needed to install. if it asks you if the driver installed correctly or you need to reinstall using the recommended install instructions (something like that) click reinstall. Windows also took me directly to the new toshiba driver for bluetooth and I grabbed that and everything installed no problem.

I went to intels site and grabbed the new 4965agn driver version 13.0.0.107 I believe. besides that I have a way more stable install. when I did the upgrade from vista I crashed my desktop in the first 10 min so far under clean install we are all good.

 

Where is the guide for the SZ650N/C for Win7 64-bit? I've been looking all over this site for the past few hours trying to find it. I have an SZ650N/C and just upgraded to Win7 Pro 64-bit, but I've having a horrible time trying to find the 64-bit drivers.

Please help! Thank you!

 

I think the closest is my 750 thread which seems to have helped quite a few other models. See my sig.