Vaio Z11 (2010 version) and Windows 10 upgrade

I have a VPCZ11C5E which is a CTO Z11 (from April 2010) with i5, 330M, 128G SSD, no fingerprint sensor, no TPM, Win7u and 1920 screen (so not that unusual, has the Blu-ray writer too, which might be). The fan's a bit loud and annoying, but I'm still planning on keeping it as my only laptop for the foreseeable future.

Okay, so the free Windows 10 update ends soon and I've spent a chunk of the day browsing this forum, and other sites, some in Japanese, to work out if it's a good idea for me to go for it or not. I really can't get a good answer so thought it's time to ask directly, if that's okay? Sorry if I've missed some obvious answer elsewhere, but I did try (maybe there's a couple too many Vaio-Z versions out there). I've upgraded two computers (one virtual) to Win10 and while both had a couple of issues that needed fixing it all went okay in the end, but this one does seem potentially a bit braver.

I should note I'd be okay if I got stuck with Nvidia graphics only, it wouldn't be a show-stopper, but Intel only would be discouraging. I'd also like pretty much all the devices to work.

P.S. if there's any ideas on whether Z11 fan noise can be reduced I'd be interested too! I plan to pull it apart at some point, but not this close to the Win10 deadline, just in case ;-)

 

For your model, AFAIK all the issues have been fixed (resp. fixes are available), apart only from an issue preventing from adjusting screen brightness with the keyboard Fn keys. No big deal as you can perfectly control it with the dedicated windows 10 controls.

To get there is a bit bumpy though. For best results, you have to do a BIOS hack and graphics drivers mod... there are threads here how to do that.

I have an Asian VGN-Z from November 2009, and if I had known before, which effort it would cause - I had just sticked with W7. On the other hand, it does feel a lot fresher and more powerful with the new setup.

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Thanks for that - although one issue I had with the hacks (I'd found several) was working out what was for my model and what for similar-but-different ones. (Also bricking it would be a big problem, as there's a lot of software installed which I'd want to free-up the licences for if I had to change it for something else.)

 

I also tried to run mine with the original Sony nvidia hybrid drivers, but they just do not seem to be fit for the purpose. Only after moving to current Nvidia drivers it is working really stable.
The process can be done quite safe, I can help you, send me pm if you wish.

There may also be other options to secure the free upgrade I could think of, e.g. install Windows 10 within a VHD on that laptop but you will need lots of space.

I would be interested to hear opinions from other users on your questions as well. But it has become a bit quiet on the old VAIOs by now.

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I upgraded my Z13 without the bios mod. The Andrew08 graphics driver, while old, works perfectly fine in Windows 10. No problem switching between speed and stamina. I did a Windows 10 upgrade. The only issue I had was with the video driver, and the steps I used to fix that are outlined in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/vpcz1-upgrade-to-windows-10-10240.779140/page-9

 

Thank you - I think I might be tempted now! Although a Z13 is a little different to a Z11. (Plus I'll image it first, just in case.)

 

Okay, so today is decision day. I did two Win10 updates yesterday and they went pretty much as the previous two had - not bad but needed some sorting out afterwards. What worries me is the RAID SSDs (if I can reliable use Image for Windows to Image and restore the SSD then I can do what I want and just put the original back afterwards if it all went pear-shaped. I think it should be fine although it doesn't like the RAID in my main PC), also what does the BIOS hack (which I wasn't planning on doing) do? Does anyone have any thoughts? I do have 25GB free.

 

Went for it and it went better than I expected, a surprising amount of stuff survived the upgrade. Still got to sort out the display adaptor and probably a bunch of other stuff, but not sucking. No devices without drivers other than the display, although I suspect some need changing from the default driver to another. BTW used Driver Magician Lite to both list all the drivers on there before-hand and save them to USB disk, very handy. I'm still curious what the BIOS hack does though?

 

If those old graphics drivers work well for you there's not much more reasoning to go for the BIOS hack.
With it, you can
- install current drivers for both Intel and Nvidia gfx cards (but without on the fly switching between them)
- switch between RAID and IDE mode (e.g. for maintenance to the SSDs, secure erase for regeneration purpose)
- enable more virtualisation options (I think vt-d but didn't work for me)
- lots of other configuration and tuning option stuff but I never needed (and it's dangerous to experiment too much.. )

Btw
Another thing you may wanna do if not already done is disable windows fast startup feature. If enabled, it may cause startup issues as it doesn't know it needs to activate all graphics drivers not just the one for the last used gpu.


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Thanks, that is most helpful, I've basically got it done now, using the same graphics drivers I was using with Win7 (it did take jumping through a bunch of hoops though). The switchable graphics is working, but I'll take your advice about disabling fast startup...
Oh and one other thing I did was use the Radio Off switch when I wanted to stop Windows updating stuff while I was messing with it, nice and simple.
I think I'll take a break, plus do some research, before I pull it apart to see what I can do about the fan noise...

 

Alas it's hanging up occasionally, so more work required... a little upgrading/reinstalling of software and deleting of Scheduled Tasks hasn't quite got me there yet... :-(

 

Okay, so I have a problem that after an amount of time it will freeze up completely. If I had to guess I'd say some device needs to be set not to be automatically powered down by windows, but that's just a guess. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Right, so disabling the three Ricoh memory card devices fixes the lock-up, I tried reinstalling the Ricoh latest drivers I could get from Sony and that didn't help. Does anyone have Win 10 x64 drivers that work for them?
Doesn't hibernate yet, but making progress...

 

Yes, mine got drivers from Microsoft, version 10.0.10586.0, try finding them from the device manager, update drivers.

maybe that fixes it

 

The latest drivers might not be backward compatible with your model. Install the drivers that are for your model, then let Windows Update find better drivers for them. (Installing the old driver lets Windows know what the device actually is, and what was the driver that worked.)

Your model falls under the class VPCZ1. I have the same, a VPCZ115GG, except mine is a little bit older than yours.

Do monitor the temperatures of your CPU and GPU with a decent utility - I use OpenHardwareMonitor, but there are plenty out there. Windows 10 has the ability to get more performance out of old hardware, and sometimes that pushes the thermal solution over the edge. Cleaning the air passages in and around the fan is highly recommended. If you want to take the fan/heatsink off the motherboard, be sure to read this thread first.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/vpc-z-change-thermal-paste.594314/

 

Okay, I worked out what was confusing me - you can get the two SD-related drivers as generic Microsoft ones but the third Ricoh device (the Memory Stick) continues to say Ricoh, but is an included Windows driver. So that's all sorted and it will Hibernate okay now. Thanks again for all the help. I'll have a break before messing with the fan

(Update) I am getting an Error from one of the Ricoh drivers (risdsnpe) in the System Event Log, as everything else seems okay that's one for another day.

BTW I'm using the latest Synaptics PS/2 touchpad driver from their website, not sure how brave that'll prove... The one that installed with Win-10 had issues, so I needed to go either backwards or forwards and started with forwards.

Oh, I should probably do something about all the spare disk partitions I now have... having 6GB (I assume the original Sony one which I can nuke?) and 450GB (Win10) Recovery partitions plus 100MB reserved (active, so I'll need it) and 112GB system partitions...