Sony lags with NVidia Updates

I have a Sony F11 Notebook, and overall I'm quite happy with it but I think I will avoid VAIO's in the future for one reason. They do not support the NVidia driver updates from the Nvidia website. That is bad enough, but they are SLOW in providing updates for the video card on their own website. So you are stuck with problematic video driver bugs that were fixed 6 months ago for everyone else in the world.

I find the situation very frustrating, Sony should just support the installation of Nvidia drivers on their notebooks, period. Failing that they should at LEAST make an attempt to update the drivers on their website with something more recent than a release from 6-9 months ago. I realize they posted an update in March, but that update was an OLD Nvidia driver even at that time.

 

Sony isn't unique in that matter, but that doesn't JUST apply to the Nvidia drivers. It applies to pretty much all their drivers, and they just update them when they have to.

 

The newest Nvidia 257.15 beta driver supports certain Vaio GPU's like the GT 330M and 310M out of the box.

 

Sony works on a release cycle. When a laptop is released for sale, development stops for that particular model.
I.e. Sony do not have development teams assigned to packaging newer versions of drivers, and there will normally be no updates after release, unless it's to fix very critical bugs that might have legal implications for Sony, and even then only for models still being sold or under warranty.

In Sony's view, the way to upgrade drivers is to toss your laptop and buy a newer "refreshed" model. If you didn't know that when you bought the laptop, you didn't do your homework.

 

I am fairly sure all manufacturers apart from Sony, and perhaps Fijutsu, now support the Nvidia driver program. It is terrible post sale support and I see it something that counts greatly against buying Sony notebook.

 

For a private person, yes, I can see that buying notebooks from a company that works with release cycles could be a bad thing.

For a business, though, it can be nice to know that if they buy more of the same notebook they already bought, they know what drivers it comes with, and won't have to regression test all their software against the new machines. And they know that employees won't screw up by downloading new drivers that's incompatible with business software, because there won't be any new drivers.

 

That is THE reason. Sony thinks that all their notebooks are bought by business users, and they don't differentiate like Dell does with a "Consumer" line and a specific "Business" line (Inspiron, Latitude, respectively).

 

What business software are you talking about that gets screwed up with newer hardware drivers? Does Sony even care about that?

 

Wouldn't businesses prefer to have the latest most stable drivers? They probably would not want new ones coming out every week or month but they would expect to have something better come out once in a while.

I have always considered Sony laptops to be more high-end consumer than business.

 

I used to work as a Small Business IT Admin, before going into Law. Regression testing and just testing of drivers before deployment is a HUGE deal for companies that can't afford the latest and greatest $50,000 software upgrades on a regular basis. IBM Lotus is one big example for us. I don't remember the specifics but it required us to use a really out-of-date video driver that caused video problems, but allowed Lotus to run without erroring out. But that was on Dell Latitudes, not Sony hardware. Dell is generally pretty good with their business drivers, about being compatable with business software. Just like the Nvidia Quadro Drivers, they're guaranteed to do a job, and to do it right, unlike the regular Nvidia drivers. And No. I really don't think Sony cares, because they just want you to can your Vaio, and get another if something doesn't work.

 

The newest NVidia Beta drivers, v257.15 do install and seem to work fine on my F11, so I guess at least some Vaio's are able to be updated from the newest NVidia drivers. I don't like using a beta driver but it's better than the old one Sony has on its website from my point of view.

 

It depends on the model. Some models, like the Z, can only run with special drivers, or you'll lose the ability to switch between nVidia and Intel graphics.
Other models may have special function key support for HDMI, which might break.

 

But most other manufacturers have gone to the effort to tell Nvidia how the majority of that sort of stuff works. I don't understaning for example why the F, FW and FZ can't get the nvidia drivers when there is nothing all that special about them.

 

Really? How do you know the other mfr's are providing engineering data back to Nvidia?

I think it was covered earlier F can use regular nvidia updates now. Aren't FW and FZ able to get working with a little tweaking?

As for Z, having looked at the DSDT there's a lot of custom engineering by Sony in there...not to mention the nvidia drivers are bake in with the Intel drivers.

I don't think it's any excuse, however.

 

You can them to work easily enough your right, but it still isn't official. With tweaking I can install nvidia drivers and everything appears to be working.

Most of that engineering isn't exactly proprietary. What manufacturer after all does not have various shortcut keys and external displaying capabilities? The graphics switching on Sony models may be that bit more difficult to do but your right it’s still no excuse.

 

Actually the latest 257.15 beta driver has the official Sony driver inf, which includes support for some Vaio GPU's (even older GPU's). But, not all the GPU's hardware ID's are not included in the list of cards that the driver supports.
So, I plugged in the 8400M GT into the new driver inf, which would be the official Sony driver and it is working as it should work. This inf also has the FZ's LCD EDID data.

 

So there is still some modification needed? I tried to install it earlier and the installer refused to work.