SonyZ video drivers instability

is anyone else having gpu driver problems, if you are please email sony so they can update it. the drivers are still the original yet nvidia and intel have updated. and dont work with the switchable graphics on the z.

Update: talked to sony and they have no update in the works. talk to head of North american texh support and he said if enough people complained they would update the drivers.

it would be nice to have the nvidia cuda drivers. from what i understood sony edited the code to permit for the switch without reboot. that is why there has been no update.

 

I don't know how you can you give pressure to Sony about the driver.
I used to render HD videos. The time takes to render the same video using Stamina and Speed are the same. Now what we can do is waiting...... for Cuda in the driver.

 

im on a first name basis with the head of north america because my SSD failed and no data was recovered. its not pressure as he stated the more people complain it becomes an issue. when one person complains it is a abnormalitity when many an issue. i posted this to see if anyone has problems. my nvidia drivers constantly fail and recover. when i contacted sony they said reinstall and that this is an abnormality. when i talked to the director personallly he said to become an issue to forward to japan more people need to complain so they would have documentation. hence this is how you can pressure sony though i think that pressure is a mischaracterization. what company doesnt want to know if there are issues that are wrong with there product. Waiting doesnt tell them something is wrong.

 

I have been looking for drivers for the Vaio Z since I purchased mine. Here is what I have discovered.

The following notebooks have hybrid graphics:
- Sony VAIO Z (Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS & Intel GMA 4500MHD)
- Fujitsu Siemens Amilo XI 3650 (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT & Intel GMA 4500MHD)
- BenQ Joybook S42 (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT & Intel GMA 4500MHD)

The drivers for these notebooks are all hybrid drivers. Which means with a properly modified inf the drivers from these notebooks are all interchangeable.

The following are the drivers I have found for Vista 32-Bit, they are listed by Nvidia version Intel version and then notebook manufacturer.

174.47 & 1473 (Fujitsu-Siemens)
174.49 & 1502 (Sony)
175.37 & 1502 (Fujitsu-Siemens)
175.84 & 1518 (BenQ)

I have had success in Vista (32-Bit) with taking the 175.84 Nvidia drivers from BenQ, combining them with the latest Intel 1591 drivers and modifying the inf as appropriate for my Vaio Z.

Also interesting to note is that with Nvidias release of notebook drivers (which currently do not work with our Vaio Zs) they note both the BenQ Joybook S42 & Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 3650 as being supported in an upcoming release. Meaning the upcoming release should also in theory work with our Vaio Zs.

 

Thanks for the info Nautis.
Good news. There is a chance we can rely on Nvidia for the driver instead of Sony.

 

That said if SONY needs more evidence to fix the issue and we have it we should give it to them.

I have the Z 590 bought in December and haven't reinstalled anything so far, and my Intel drivers are stable but my Nvidia ones keep crashing and recovering pretty much as described above.

What is the best way (which contact; which evidence) to deliver the feedback that would make it work?

Thanks

Alex

 

Alex.
Im glad someone finally has the same problem as me.However, i am sorry you too are having the problem. It has been hard to idenify if this is an issue or an abnormality. If you send an email to both technical support and customer relations stating the video drivers in speed mode fail than recover and when will an update be given.Also ask for a id number for your records. Ill talk to the head of sony NA to see if i can hand out his email privately to people having the same problem. Im sure he would not want his email posted of a forum. Hopefully we can get this fixed. Adios Z. Ps. People keep listing if you have issues.

 

Um, no. That doesn't follow. The Z allows for switching between the cards without rebooting, for one thing.

And there's no saying that what works on a 9600M GT will work on a 9300M GS either.

 

Zcar Zcomp I havent really had the problem you and Alex.K.NY have discussed but I have in the past a few times had what seem to be pauses or quick freezes (including the cursor not moving) but a few seconds later my computer is fine (no error messages or blue screens.) I plan on heading your advice and contacting Sony about this and updated video drivers.

arth1 as far as I can tell all of the notebooks I have listed can switch on the fly without rebooting (I can not confirm this however as I only have the Vaio Z.) Nvidias press release about this can be found here.

The big difference between Nvidias drivers has almost always been in the inf. That is why you can go to places like laptopvideo2go and download drivers and then download a modified inf to work on your Nvidia card. The inf contains not only identifying information about each video chipset but also settings used for each. These new hybrid notebooks can not use these traditional drivers with an inf change. The notebooks I have listed all use this "hybrid driver" and the inf change between these notebooks should work the same way it does with those other drivers. I can at the very least confirm this with my Vaio Z as I am using the BenQ drivers with the latest Intel drivers and it works fine.

 

Hi Nautis,

Are you using a Nvidia CUDA driver? Do you see any difference in graphics perfromance? Any chance you could write up a little 'how-to' guide for this upgrade please?

Cheers,
Gibbo

 

No they are not CUDA they are 175.84 from the BenQ drivers. I believe the CUDA drivers start at 179. As for performance, I have not done any benchmarks. I will start a new thread on this if you want more info as I did not intending to hijack Zcars thread with my original post.

 

Nautis - please let me know if you've been able to benchmark and a work around to modding the inf for the the BenQ driver

Thanks