Windows 7 Clean install Guide for Vaio FZ

Hello Coolguy,

Thank you so much for the info provided about the modded files.
Based on your info, I tried an .inf file for the 331.82 64-bit W7 driver.
Could you please check the attached file and tell me if everything looks ok?
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0649&SUBSYS_9040104D
If everything is ok I will try it.
One last question, how do you choose the sections 25,26,27 & 28 inside the file??
Are these constant values??
Thanks in advance.

 

I have the same GPU in my FZ, and the driver has no issues. Try clean installing the driver.

 

The inf looks okay. You can also take my previous inf and just change the driver version and date.

As I said before, the sections include settings for individual GPU's, and I matched the numbers from the Sony released inf. The Sony inf had support for all of older GPU's. For example, section 25 of the Sony inf would match with section 37 of the Nvidia inf. The Sony inf version was for 259.42, a very old driver. You can get this driver from the Sony ftp site.

Sometimes Nvidia changes the section numbers in the inf, you need to check that in the future drivers.

 

Hi Coolguy,

I forgot to mention that my Fn keys, Brightness, Volume etc, all work with the .inf 314.22 and above.
Strange, because many users have reported that it doesn't work.
I have a VGN-AW41ZF and W7 x64.

Regards,

 

Hi Coolguy,

I've noticed that the .inf you modded for all the previous drivers and the latest, has the prefix FAEIDS_78_addreg at the beginning of the section number you apply to the .inf.
Unless it's not important should I look for section numbers in the .inf starting with this prefix in future drivers or am I missing something??
Thank you in advance for providing a bit more info on how the section numbers should be chosen.

Regards,

 

You could retain the FAEIDS section in the inf. Sony included those advanced EDID settings for their displays.
I notice that the display text/ images looks a bit sharper with the Sony included settings, when compared without those settings.

You don't need to update the driver very often for older GPU's, the driver updates tend to add advantages for the newer GPU's only. But, it's still your wish.

 

The fn control doesn't with Windows 8. It's fine with Win 7.

 

I have trouble with WSSU. It is not clear for me. I installed all drivers from the list (first post) but I have not WSSU folder and switcher.exe in my system. How to instal WSSU, links from Vadja post are broken.
Thanks

 

Hi there,

Yesterday I installed Win 7 HP on a Vaio VGN-FZ31J (32-bit). Due to virus contamination I had to completely wipe the HDD and clean installed everything from bootable USB-Sticks (Drivers & utilities were downloaded from Sony’s support page).
Everything works smoothly (incl. all FN-Keys, all extra buttons, WinSAT scoring significantly higher, display brightness, nVidia driver, WSSU,…. For those how are having trouble with the Blu-Ray Drive, consider to carefully clean the lens. It is unfortunately quite sensitive and a little dirt is enough for it to stop working properly.

Hereby special thanks for tutorial in the beginning!

 

can anybody update the .inf for the latest nvidia driver(334.89) , cheers

 

Anyone who can upload the PM965/ GM965 chipset as the link in the OP doesn't seem to work, Thanks a lot

 

I just checked the chipset driver link and it's working fine for me. Try reloading the link.

 

Mmh..doesn't seem to work for me...


edit: nevermind, got it working. Still don't know why it didn't before :thumbsup:

 

I can't download too.

 

@ Coolguy,

Hi Coolguy,

Could you please confirm that with the latest 337.50 beta driver and probably the upcoming WHQL too, the file that we need to mod is nvszci.inf??
nvszcn.inf is not present in the latest beta and I think in the 335.23 too.
Thanks.

Regards,

 

Sorry for replying late, I had stopped using my FZ, since the keyboard had gone bad and I couldn't get a replacement here in India. I haven't updated the Nvidia driver in a long time.

I would let you know if you post the nvszci.inf here.

 

ouch! so bad... but I am nearly ready to move also
can i ask you what your new laptop model is? thanks

 

I got a Thinkpad T530 and was using my FZ along with it. The FZ would run fine with a new keyboard, it's a well built machine, except the faulty Nvidia chip, that didn't give up in my FZ!

What are you planning to buy?

 

Updated/ fixed the Intel chipset driver to version 10.0.13.

This driver update is optional and generally not needed.

 

I think the same, I'm looking for lenovo thinkpad T4xx
but I really love this FZ machine

and yes my NV chip also is still running... let's hope

 

Deleted, solved.

 

I got a XMG P304 (clevo W230SS)... WOW amazing and portable
just my first full day today with clean installation and hardware checking

 

Hi everyone!,

Many thanks to the author/s of this fantastic post! Now I'm running win 8.1 on my FZ11Z purchased on 2007 with no problems!

:thumbsup:

 

Hi everybody,

First of all thank you for this fantastic and useful guide.

I have a question... can anyone tell me if after a clean installation of Windows 7 it's still possible to use the recovery partition, in any mode ?
For example, pressing the F10 key from the boot ?
I know in the recovery partition there is Windows Vista but I would keep that partition totally working to have more solutions in case of issues.


Thanks in advance

 

You should be able to use the recovery partition provided if you haven't deleted it.
I think that keeping a backup of the Clean Windows 7 install would be a better option for recovery.

 

You are welcome.

 

Hi there

After nearly three years of flawless usage of this excellent guide with win7x64 on my vaio fz31m I decided to install win 8.1 Pro following the same procedure. Everything is ok but if I install the Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN 13.4.0.139 driver, my wireless connection doesn't work and I need to revert to the driver that came with win 8.1. I could live with this but I'm having issues with it since most of the times I do a reboot my wireless connection gets lost and there's no way I can fix that without doing a new reboot. Any ideas ??

Many thanks

EDIT: sorted. Just unchecked "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power" in device manager. It's fine now.

 

I have a Problem with the Sony Vaio VGN-FS415M with Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit on it. All is fine except for the Sound. Realtek Driver is/was installed without issues but still I got no Sound! :-(
Is this issue known and is there a solution for it? I've done some Research and got the info that Drivers for the VGN-Series has to be installed in a strict sequence, which I didn't do:

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...sony-vaio-vgnfe4-laptop?forum=w7itprohardware

Is there a possibility to fix this issue without a complete reinstall of Windows and all the Drivers???

 

Just check whether the sound is being sent to the right place. Sometimes the HDMI driver takes over and the sound gets directed there. Dig around in the properties dialogs and see if you can figure it out.

 

Interesting Point! But this rig doesn't have a HDMI. Maybe the Sound still is routed somewhere else. If I check the soundbar then I can see that sounds are created, but not hearable.

Still I'm not technician enough to Isolate possible error sources. There is only one device activated/visible in the playback device, so I have not much possibilities to make changes there.

 

Try headphones.

 

I already tried that too, but still no Sound!

Maybe an external soundcard would do but that would be too much for that (old) machine. I'd hoped to get this solved somehow, but it seems I have to try a reinstall with the Drivers in the proper order mentioned above....

 

I'm guessing if we can update IDT sound driver with this one:
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/to...idtsigmatel-modded-driver/page-25#entry148762

@coolguy: do you think you can prepare a modded INF?

ciao

 

hi all,
anyone knows what is our BIOS file here:
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/PUB/VAIO/BIOS/

if not present do you have a valid link for downloading?
thanks

 

How do I get the Vaio Control Center like the thread starter did (in the attached picture), I installed all drivers but it only shows "System Information" and Wireless Switch Utility"?
Also a lot of driver's link died, can you fix it?

 

Dear coolguy,

thanks to you I have been able to use my 6 year old Vaio VGN-AW31M with an up to date driver for my Nvidia Geforce 9600m GT. Unfortunately Nvidia decided to drop support of the Geforce 9 Series, making 341.44 from February the last driver.
Since Windows 10 is coming soon and this Windows 10 Upgrade / Reservation tool tells me that it won't run on my computer because of my GPU I wanted to ask you if you think that it will not run because Windows thinks that the last official driver was 257 or somewhat or because it just really is too old.

I would be very happy if you could supply an update for the modded nvszcn.inf so I can install this last driver.
Thanks again for the updates so far.

Best Regards

 

Hi Coolguy,

I hope that you will also release a Windows 10 clean install guide once W 10 will be available and Sony will release drivers for W 10.
Thank you.

Regards,

 

@ JayTii,

You might want to see this: your GPU is compatible with W 10 TP:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/win...600m+gt&TempOsid=Windows+10+Technical+Preview

See if you can reserve the free upgrade or if it's not allowed and post back...

Regards,

 

I actually run my VAIO with 341.44 nvidia driver
Of course you need to modify .inf file
In this case nv_dispwi.inf

Ciao

 

Thanks for the link. I had already tested Win 10 virtually and didn't experience any problems using 331.82. I guess there will be a way to install Windows 10 IF Microsoft lets me download it despite the report denying compatibilty with the GPU.

Unfortunately I don't have a clue how to do that. I've watched some YouTube Tutorials, but they were too old and I couldn't reproduce the steps since Nvidia changed a lot over the years. I would be glad though if you could show me how to mod it myself or provide a modded inf for 9600m GT and 341.44.

 

try this one

 

Unfortunately the file causes a bluescreen. Your fileheader says it''s for 331.65 anyway. I guess I just have to stay at 331.65. But thanks for your effort.

Edit: I am using a 64-Bit Version of Windows. Is your inf for the 32bit driver version or 64-bit?

UPDATE: I was able to mod the inf by myself after finding a newer tutorial. Actually it was quite simple. Now I'm running my 9600M GT and 341.44 smoothly together.

The installation of Windows 10 was working slowly, but it installed succesfully. Unfortunately there was no way to install the driver modding the inf or trying the latest Nvidia driver so I had to switch back to Windows 7. I guess we won't have Windows 10 for old GPUs until there is a proper workaround.

 

Someone can help me with geForce 8600M GS and Windows10?

 

sorry wrong file

this one should work!

 

Nvidia drivers in W 10 should be installed in Safe Mode where driver signature enforcement is disabled. (Same for W 8.1, see the first page of this thread).
Try the latest 341.74 from Nvidia with modded inf. it should work...

 

Greetings ppl.

Can someone help me with modded nv_dispwi of the GeForce Windows 10 Driver 341.74 for my Vaio CW (VPCCW15FL) (Nvidia 230M GT)

It will be amazing

thanks so much

PS: thanks coolguy

 

@coolguy Would be including a guide to Windows 10 update? Are you up to the challenge? I have updated my Vaio VGN-FZ21E but I am having random dead-end freezes and some issues with unresponsive task-bar, all ending up in having to restart the OS.

EDIT: Due to the annoying automatic updates in Windows 10, I had latest Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT driver v 341.74 downloaded from Microsoft and installed! This is something Microsoft shouldn't be doing and will bring a lot of trouble for many people. I had to mod, uninstall Microsoft version and quickly install the modded version of the same driver downloaded from Nvidia website to prevent Windows 10 to download and install it again. I chose to leave out the 3D Graphics and GeForce Experience (8400M GT doesn't support Shield Games, etc). It is working like a char, stable and the problems with the taskbar and system freezes have gone.

 

@JayTii could you please share with me the tutorial? I'm not practical anymore with this..
By the way the nv_dispwi.inf file must go into the Display.Driver folder of the extracted Nvidia update? I'm asking it because there isn't a similar one, just the nvdisp.inf file. Thanks!

 

@ Iperzampem0 It is indeed the nvdisp.inf file that must be edited. I simply followed this tutorial: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=377158

It worked well for me, If you have any questions feel free to ask, even though I'm not an expert.



EDIT:

I finally managed to install Windows 10 and everything is working fine. Below I list the steps for people who might not know how to install Windows 10 on their "unsupported" device.

1. Upgrade to Windows 10 using the Media Creation Tool: 32-bit / 64-bit
2. Download the latest driver to fit your Graphics Card from Nvidia. It will probably be 341.74
3. Try to install it - the installer extracts the files to C:\Nvidia . Either it will work, then you are fine, or you will get an error message. Then follow step 4.
4. Mod the driver according to this tutorial. If there is no Win 10 section, put the device string in Win 8.1 section.
5. As stated in the tutorial, reboot the computer with disabled Driver Signature Enforcement.
6. Restart the driver installation by executing setup.exe in the Nvidia Folder.
____________________________________

7. If everything looks sharp after the installation succeeded but way too big, make sure that under settings -> system -> display the text, app size etc. is set to 100%.


I hope I could help some people here, even though most of you probably knew it already. These are just the steps I went through to upgrade.

 

The correct file to mod is nvszci.inf, try to modify others if you wish, but at your own risk... again, nvszci.inf is the file to be modified, I have a VGN-AW41ZF and the correct section to apply is 25 for NT 6.0 Vista, 26 for NT 6.1 Win7, 27 for 6.2 Win 8 & section 28 for NT 6.3 Win 8.1. (section corresponding to FAEIDS_78 addreg which is the best for AW series monitors).
In fact, 341.74 is not a real Win 10 driver cause Win 10 is NT 10.0 and there is nothing inside this driver for Win 10.
You can go to Nvidia setup.exe right click & select "Troubleshoot compatibility" and Win 10 will automatically report "incompatible driver".
Let me know if you need more info/help.