Sony Vaio
 

Recently purchased this used Sony Vaio off ebay to replace the netbook for garage duties. The small screen of the netbook would often obscure many of the graphs I use for tuning of fuel injection tables and the 17" screen of the Vaio will be a welcome addition.

The new (to me) laptop is probably overkill for it's intended purpose, but for $200 I could see no wrong. It sports a C2D T7200 @ 2.00 GHz and 3 GB of memory. Came with Vista installed and seemed to work well without a hitch, but I really wanted XP for my uses. I made two recovery disc's of the original before beginning the XP install.

Several attempts of an install of Tiny XP were successful until it came time to boot from the hdd...it would then go to black screen. I had a legit copy of Vista 64 bit on hand and tried it with the same results. Even the recovery disks refused to cooperate. Finally I tried Tiny 7 which installed normally and booted right up and is currently running. Any idea's on what the problem might be? I still would rather be using XP.

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio001.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio002.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio003.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio004.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio005.jpg

was it on IDE or AHCI

I have to think it would be on IDE though?

Controller drivers loaded ?

That's the problem with lappy's hard to tear down and trouble shoot properly

Could be the drive is in and out on it's last leg ???

So the install process of xp went normal but on reboot nothing?

I'd have to suspect you need the chipset drivers and such for the lappy components. Seven pretty much has all that stuff pre-loaded in the os.

Limited options in bios WD...was working fine before with Vista and now with Tiny 7. Kind of hate to mess with it again until I have another idea.

:blush:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio006.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio007.jpg

Yeah, that's just about it. You would think a OEM Vista disc would have everything needed...maybe not. Laptops suck. :thumbdown:

They can be difficult, especially when the oem deems their drivers to be proprietary and don't list them for download on their website. DELL used to give me grief but at least they had their chipset/video drivers available for download.

Not sure bout sony but maybe they have theirs available for download somewhere, other than that u'd need the install cd's that came with the lappy. :thumbdown:

I may be wrong but for some of the Vista based computers you can't get some of the drivers for XP. I have a Gateway and a HP that's like that... end up installing 7/64 instead

Still doesnt explain why the Vista would not work. :Dizzy:

LoL I think theres an xp slip stream thread around here somewhere. Slips the drivers onto the xp install disk before hand somethin like that. Google slipstreaming xp.

Uncle...seems as long as the OS has a number 7 in it the Sony will cooperate. Messed with it all day and finally ended up loading Win 7x64...I'll most likely go back to Tiny 7 later as it is a bit snappier. :good:

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio001-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio002-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio005-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio006-1.jpg

Wonder wut it does if you throw the number 8 at it?

Uh...Homie don't think so. I installed 8 on a bench rig and can't even figure out how to shut down the pc short of pulling the plug lol. :laughing:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio007-1.jpg

lolololololol

Ok - I figured out how to shut it down...installed "ClassicShell" and it becomes slightly more user friendly. I predict this OS will go down in flames faster than Vista for the general public. :thumbdown:

hey man, why do you need XP?

I just like XP because I'm most familiar with it and it runs my tuning software well. I havent tried Win 7 yet, but suspect it will work just fine. Just pisses me off I can't get XP on this laptop. :argh:

Hey! Figured out how to get a proper screen on this monstosity. :laughing:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio001-2.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio002-2.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio003-2.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio004-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio005-2.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio006-2.jpg

I put 8 on my grinder, bullet proof so far......

Though drivers would be an issue but no problems thus far

grabbed a start meue though, looking for one with out the advertisments :scared:

One thing I can say about this install is it boots to desktop from a dead start in less than 12 seconds...shutdown in half that time. :thumbsup:

LOL!

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...yVaio007-2.jpg

I think overall it is pretty snappy

Got my girlfriend a slate for Xmas, I have to say a touch screen is the way to go with this OS

I live in a no touch zone...fingers don't belong on screens. :taunt:

:laughing:

Ugh laptops./

It couldn't have been an IDE/AHCI/RAID issue directly because it would not have seen the drive to do the install (It still could be a slightly incompatible driver.. but that would be really pushing it).

Blank screen I would go with it was either processing something (how long did you wait?) or the VGA drivers may have been removed?

I would stick with 7 also, it runs SOOO much better than XP even on the Core2 era. If you really need XP though go for OEM full install and clean it up yourself and preinstall drivers with nlite.

$200 for the 17" screen is pretty good deal too. Prices didn't really skyrocket on eBay before Christmas I was surprised. I did see a couple of units go for $200 ish but mainly they stayed in the low $100 range for core2 setups like the lenovo think pads. (Cant wait to get my aunt off XP and get 7 on there for her).

One last thing Rick, is your windows 7 setup have the video drivers installed yet? I noticed no Aero and the icons look stretched wide, thinking you are still in VGA mode.

Also...

139 updates???

After install (and installing IE9 separately) I think I show 85. thats after hiding the language packs and the WAT update.


EDIT: looks like your laptop is set to RAID by defualt.

Which model PCG-8X1L do you have> Sony website shows 6 different versions.?

What I show right now with Win 7x64...

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio010.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...onyVaio011.jpg

That looks a lot better :) Now you need to stretch your desktop wallpaper (or find a higher res)




It looks like you have the Sony VAIO VGN-AR350E 1440x900 17" screen and 7600 Go.

Neat you can run RAID two HDDS in that beast :) that would make a HUGE difference in performance I bet.

Only one driver available for this lappy and it doesnt work...as good as it gets I guess.


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...69/desktop.jpg

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/8972

May be worth a shot

Looks like the same one on Nvidia's site WD. There is only one out there and it won't install...neither will Sony's offerings. :scared:

Well at least the icons are the right shape now :)

Looks like Aero is working as well.