>> Vaio Z Windows 7 Bios and driver

"3. Install Nvidia driver and Realtek (located at Point 3)"

Dear Sir,

I have use the driver your link provide but there is a problem. The graphic on the G45 side is good. But when I switch to the Speed Mode of the GF9300 GS, It will only use half of the screen and fill the other half with line. Is this mean that my nVidia chip is those defective or else?

Regards,

Puss

 

Or else you didn't update your bios to the latest version (?) That's the usual problem.

 

I recently switched from Vista 32 to W7-64. I updated the BIOS and as few of the Sony applications as I thought I could get away with -- primarily that would allow be to use the F-keys and S1/S2.

Everything was smooth at first, but now I've noticed a few problems:

1. Lag when typing on the keyboard, primarily on some websites (like typing this post right now). The keyboard seems unable to keep up and just drops maybe one in 8 keystrokes. Very annoying.

2. Unable to wake up from sleep. No problems with hibernation (other than taking a long time -- almost the same amount of time as a soft boot.) When I put it into sleep however, I can never wake it up. It has no response, though lights are on and I end up having to just turn it off.

3. Battery life seems to have gotten worse. Normally, I would get around 3 hrs on stamina, no wireless, medium brightness. When I switched and used W7's power scheme, it got better -- about 20-30min. Now, however (not sure if this is related to #2 above), the battery life has been reduced to around 2.5 hrs under the same usage. Does anyone definitively know if W7 or Sony's power scheme is better?

4. Fingerprint reader only occasionally works. It does at startup, and occasionally on wakeup from hibernation, but doesn't from wakeup from sleep (when I'm able to do that) or half the time from hibernation. No indication of failure to recognize my fingerprint -- it's as if it isn't even enabled. This is the native W7 fingerprint app, not Sony's.

4. This is actually a bonus that I never realized before: my Z is battery hot-swappable when hibernating! I probably had a 2-3 sec delay before my new battery was in, but there was no cold reboot. I was very impressed -- this likely has nothing to do with W7, but thought I'd share that capability.



I think that #1-3 might be improved if I reinstall some of the Sony components, but I'm not sure which ones. I want to avoid loading any that are not needed because I don't like the impact on my machine's boot time or resident memory.

Anyone else having these problems?

 

1. I've always had the lag (ever since Vista x86)
2. My Z26 wakes up no problems. Have yet to try Hibernating, but assuming that will work too. I've set the Z to wake up when I flip open the lid (in Vaio Control Centre)
3. Battery life does seem a bit worse off. I used to get approx 6 hours on the Stamina mode with full power saver. I get approx 5 hours 20 minutes now.
4. Fingerprint works better than in Vista in my case.
5. Never realised it, but not something I wish to try...

The bad I found is the nVidia powermizer is rather rough in 7. It slows down the nVidia whenever I don't really use it (despite being on AC power). Kinda annoying that it treats AC power as battery power (I wouldn't mind the lags while on battery, but on AC it is unacceptable)

The good:
1. VAIO control centre bugs have been ironed out. In my case, I had customised VAIO Control Centre settings (eg BatteryCare) resetting to factory default randomly. I don't have that issue now.
2. The shortcut buttons are faster to react than with Vista.
3. I am NOT suffering from battery drain anymore. But it seems some still are... I'm sure we have a driver issue on our hands with the battery drain (which then seems to relate to the hardware)
4. Startup and shut down times are alot faster than with Vista

By the way, I've installed 24 (or was it 26) drivers on my clean install - my Control Centre is fully populated, and I see 60 processes running when I start from a cold-boot (using 700MB RAM, alot better than 1.4GB with Vista x86)

Apart from that, I dislike the (personally) large learning curve from Vista. I've only used Vista for about 10 months and getting used to that was a pain in itself.
- WMP12 is, rather bluntly, crap. I know, I should go get another music player, but that just adds additional software on my clean installed 7, so no. I've been sticking codec packs on WMP ever since XP, and I so far Windows 7 is not having problems with them (yet).

For me, I have more downs than ups with 7, most notably with the graphics lags. Quite close to reverting back to the factory Vista soon, but I'm still trying to get used to 7. It is a clean install after all, and I finally have it working 'properly' after 5 or so installs. So far, it just 'doesn't feel like home' with 7 yet...

I would love to see VAIO Gate and SonicStage Audio Filters come as seperate downloads in the x64 flavour.

 

Hi everyone!

I finally updated my Z11 from W-XP to W7 (complete fresh installation). Everything is working as far as I see but two things:
- The Globetrotter HSDPA Modem has a ? in the Device Manager, anyone knows where to get a driver
- The Fn-F5 and Fn-F6 for adjusting the brightness do not work. I am running Stamina mode Intel graphics.

The installed versions are:
VAIO Event 5.0.0.08180
VAIO Control Center 4.0.0.06120
VAIO Power Management 4.0.0.08240
Setting Utility 5.0.0.07300
Intel Graphics Driver 8.16.11.8735

Can anyone help me with getting these working?

Thanks a lot and all the best

Norbert

 

hey guys, I am using Z520 and I just checked out the sony support website of the Z520, Sony said that my model wont be eligible to grade to Win7.
I wonder if there is a way around this to make win 7 working?
Thanks.

 

Just download drivers for some later model and unpack them to bypass the model check.

 

hello, do you have audio problems using your vaio z through HDMI ? please answer only tried .Thanx

 

Metsn,

How do you bypass the model check?

 

Use universal extractor to unpack the driver. After that, you won't by checked.

 

Where can I find Universal Extractor? Is that the name of the program?

 

yes, it's the name of the program. before asking, try Google-ing it

 

I have gotten everything working on my Z540 with win 7 ulitmate x64. But seems like my battery life has decreased from around 5 hr and 30 min to 4 hr and 30 min. does anybody here have the same issue or it's just me?

 

well thanks to everything on this site I have win7 x64 ultimate working on my VGN-Z570N and it is much, much faster than Vista. Only problems:

1. No sound at all through a TV using HDMI. The sound applet shows HDMI on the Realtek driver but says it is not connected even though the HDMI picture sparkles on a big TV.

2. Fingerprint reader crashes after initially working, from time to time.

 

1. I haven't tried HDMI sound through the TV, so can't comment
2. Same here -- no discernable pattern to when the fingerprint reader works. I use the W7, not the Sony driver because I don't want to load an unneeded app and the W7 works a lot faster and has a higher recognition rate. I notice that the reader almost always works coming out of powersave (not sleep), and about 30% of the time when I come out of hibernate.

Biggest issue right now is that I can't use the sleep function -- it sleeps but won't wake up. I do notice that when the system goes to sleep itself due to extended unattended time on AC or batt power, it has a good chance of waking up, but when I press the power button to put it into sleep, I can never wake it up (sounds like it is waking up -- HDD hums but no video on the screen).

 

Well, everything wif me until now is workin' just fine except 1 very annoying thing: my external mouse does not function correctly. actually, it can be used for click and scroll but CANNOT move at all !
Ive tried many ways to solve this (uninstall drivers and let the windows reinstall it). I also googled for this problem but no any is helpful .
Otherwise, although most of function of my laptop now is workin' well but still there are 4 devices r not recognized yet ( Ive seen it in Devices Manager).
I followed the guide of Sigma957
Anyone know how to solve these problems? I would appreciate any words regarding to my questions

 

Appears to be a known problem with no workaround...

 

Hi,

I’ve just joined and wanted to say thanks to Firestone for the fantastic guide! It’s a million times more helpful than Sony tech “support” and has been a great help in upgrading my Vaio Z11 to Windows 7 64 bit.

However, I’ve got a small problem which I can’t figure out and was wondering if anyone else has come across it. It seems that whenever I play a DVD or video file (any format) I’m getting a jerky image like it’s moving up and down a tiny amount very quickly. It’s quite hard to describe but makes watching DVD’s slightly annoying. I’ve installed all the drivers from the guide and the latest BIOS from Sony’s website but am still having problems. I’m pretty sure it’s not a hardware error with the drive as I never had the problem with Vista and when I switch to “stamina” mode and use the integrated graphics it plays fine. There is also some slowdown when maximizing and minimizing windows and the WEI has dropped to 4.3 for graphics (it was 4.4 under Vista) so I’m guessing it’s something to do with the graphics driver. I’ve done a clean Windows installation and everything else is working fine. The graphics driver is version 8.16.11.8735.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

hey i installed windows 7 on my z but no sound using an HDMI has anyone found a soulution??????????

 

is it due to nvidia powermizer?

if you disable powermizer, does the problem goes away?

 

Hi Firestone,

Yes, I’ve just tried disabling it and it works much better thanks!!

 

hdmi suddenly works fine and unlike with vista, automatically switches the sound through to the cable. all in all, i can't imagine what the point of a z is without windows 7!

 

hi,

I got everything working fine but for the Video driver on my Vaio VGN-Z11WN...

The Windows 7 VGA drivers works... but if I update to the one from the first page of this thread it's squashes to half my screen to the left and gives me lines of colours on the right... any one help me out?

cheers in advance!!!

 

Did you update your BIOS to the latest version?

 

I updated using this one from the Sony Vaio website:

BIOS M3a - R2169M3c

 

Too old, I believe your problem will be the BIOS version. I'm on R2171M3, it means same line, newer version.

 

sorry to be a pain but do you know the correct version for my Z11?

Iedit: I see R2170M3 on thread page 1; is that the right one?

 

No pain

Nearly. Z11 is the first generation European Z, it means the same version as mine. The newest BIOS version for you is R2171M3 than. I believe Sony doesn't offer that one for your type, because they don't officially support W7 upgrade for 1st Z generation.

You can download the BIOS here. Maybe you'll have to bypass the version check with UniExtract.

But from experience of other NBR users, any newest version would do. Some ppl prefer to use the R5 line from the newest (old) Z, which comes with W7 preinstalled.

 

I tried the version 70 and it's worked fine... no screen issues... thanks for your help pal

 

The version 70 works as well. Just it's not the newest version. You're welcome

 

How do the 2170/71 BIOS emulator work with Vista?
Anyone tried?

The reason why I ask is that I would like to upgrade my graphics driver, but really would like to stay at Vista, and if I understand correctly, the newer nVidia drivers require a newer BIOS. So, have anyone tried and can say from own experience whether it works 100% or not?

 

strange issue, vaio z11 win7 x64, bios 5031 all drivers from 899 model - works fine, but! every morning when i start it after long sleep ~ 6-7 hours, after 10-15 mins of normal work it falls down in BSOD:

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41

Version 2

Level 1

Task 63

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8000000000000002

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-01-29T07:25:07.223611800Z

EventRecordID 18334

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer ******

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- EventData

BugcheckCode 159
BugcheckParameter1 0x3
BugcheckParameter2 0xfffffa80088a5500
BugcheckParameter3 0xfffff80004233518
BugcheckParameter4 0xfffffa8008d3b570
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0

Then it reboots automatically and till next morning works very good, fast w/o any freezes and anything like that... Also i replaced wifi module to intel 5300, but no doubt about it as a reason. Any suggestions?
p.s. memory test (deep) passed ok, hdd also replaced to seagate 7200.4 works w/o problems (flashed latest fw 0005sdm1- fixed clicking noise).

 

EventID 41 means system thinks it did not go to sleep correctly last time. Could be because one of applications or drivers responded incorrectly to sleep event. Check event log for other errors.

 

I have the same issue, but my model is VGN-Z750D/B. I believe I have updated the bios too...

Could someone help with this?
Thanks in advance...

 

You believe or are you sure?
Which version of BIOS do you have now?

 

Looks like the Nvidia driver is still not fully working for Windows 7 64-bit. Trying to run Matlab 2009b/2010a (java rendered) is visibly slow compared to Vista 32-bit. Anybody have any issues with this and know of a fix?

 

Did you try to install some new driver from Nautis? I got quite some improvement with that.

 

In what way? The official driver works well with all applications, but the way Matlab operates, the GUI itself is slower. If I switch to Windows Classic mode, performance visibly improves. I've increased java heap memory to no avail. Matlab has been out for Windows 7 64-bit for a while now, and since I am not seeing anybody complain about it being slower in their forums, I can only assume its an issue with the graphics driver for Z series.

 

Well, first of all, Cuda 2.0 SDK now works, while it doesn't with the official driver, which is great eg to run the latest CoreAVC codec. Secondary, I'm playing games sometimes, and I could feel better stability, higher FPS and more resolution options available. I'm running 8.16.11.9166 (ForceWare 191.66) version of the Nvidia drivers from Nautis. If you want to try it, you need to activate the test mode.

 

I am not too crazy about activating the test mode every time I restart my computer. Also, I think the issue I am having is related to Java based applications, where rendering is very slow. Unfortunately I know nothing about how Java is being used/processed by the graphics driver and Windows 7, so can't seem to figure out how to fix it either.

 

There's no need to activate test mode after every restart...it stays in test mode all the time once you activated it. I would give it a try