Few Problems with my VAIO AR11B

[MikeRebel]

Hello

I Have some problems with my Sony Vaio AR11B after reinstaling my system from XP Media Center to XP Pro. I had to do it becouse I bought my Vaio in Germany and I'am from poland. I could't work on German Windows XP becouse I didin't understand anything. Here are the problems and questions:

1. My Windows doesen't shut down. When I klick to shut it down it freezes on the last screen when it's trying to shut it down. I have read some topics on this forum but I don't know what to do. Please HELP !

2. What Drivers I should dawnload for my GeForce Go 7400 ??

3. When I bought my Vaio I had installed all programs on it, like SonicStage, Sony MasteringStudio etc. From Where can I get them ?? I haven't been given any CD when I bought my Vaio. Only 1 with Films

4. I Dawnloaded some drivers from the Support page but most of them I Can't instal becouse they doesen't recognize my Notebook as a SONY VAIO. What should I do ??

5. After Reinstaling the system to XP Pro all of my hotkeys stoped working. The only one's that's working are the +/- Volume & Mute Sound. The Rest as AV MODE (STOP), (NEXT) , (REVIOUS) and important The Open CD Button wich is situated near the Mute Button Doesen't Work. Can somebody Help ?

IF anybody knows how to solve my problems please answer

[MikeRebel]

.... and I have a problem with one of my games installed on my VAIO.
The game's speed is very fast on my Vaio but when I installed this game on my PC everything was working good and the speed was norlmal. The game is "Reservoir Dogs"...
Did anyone had this kind of problem on other game ?? If so please tell me what to do

[CrazyCow]

I have to manually press the power button to shut it down. In about 1 out of 10 it shuts down automatically. It must be a hardware issue since I tried lot's of possible software solutions, including the official shutdown patch from Microsoft (UPHCLEAN). All of my drivers are now the latest possible so I'm out of ideas, thinking of re-installing MCE or turning my laptop back since I can't live with a notebook that won't shut down automatically.
I'm so tired of Sony, if I would have known that it would be impossible to change to a working version of XP Pro I would never ever have bought a Vaio.

By the way, after my clean installation of XP Pro my system is about 5 times faster then with MCE, just so all of you
I-love-everything-installed-from-the-beginning fans knows that. And yes, I'm comparing with a tuned up version of MCE.

Sony, why can't you give us a fair chance of changing our system into the ones we want?!

[CrazyCow]

I Have some problems with my Sony Vaio AR11B after reinstaling my system from XP Media Center to XP Pro. I had to do it becouse I bought my Vaio in Germany and I'am from poland. I could't work on German Windows XP becouse I didin't understand anything. 

Noted your reason of installing XP Pro was because of the language. This is not a problem though, you can always download the language patch from Microsoft, also available on vaio-link.com and change the language in MCE to the one you prefer.
What could be a problem is if you didn't burn the system recovery disc, you need this to re-install MCE.

// CrazyCow

[MikeRebel]

CrazyCow

I think that the problem lies in one of the drivers. When I installed XP Pro and no drivers, only pure system then the xp shutteddown normally. I have shuteddown 3 times and there was no problem. When I installed all my programs and drivers then the problem with the freezing was on....

[CrazyCow]

Well I installed XP Pro two times and both times it froze before getting into windows. Had to restart by pressing power button. When I restarted it was working just fine except it couldn't shut down automatically. So this was before installing any of the Sony drivers, just the clean XP installation. So I think the problem is hardware related, this version of Vaio is just not compatible with a clean XP Pro installation.

I will probably reinstall MCE but if you find a solution, please tell me!

// CrazyCow

[decoy]

The following steps worked for me:

1. Downloaded and installed following software:
a. Nlite from www.nliteos.com
b. Isobuster from www.isobuster.com
c. Nero from www.nero.com

2. Copied content WinXp cd to Hard Drive, eg D:\ VX2POEM_EN

3. Slipstreamed drivers with Nlite into D:\ VX2POEM_EN (Text Mode)
a. SATA
b. RAID (Intel(R) 82801GBM Sata AHCI Controller)

4. Start IsoBuster, select bootable cd or dvd and right mouse button: extract ‘Microsoft Corporation.img’ to D:\VX2POEM_EN

5. Start Nero - Boot DVD - ISO & Julliet - Select Microsoft Corporation.img as boot file and change Emulation to No Emulation and loaded sectors in ‘4’.

6. ISO = ISO9660 & Joliet - don’t click lose Joliet naming restrictions (otherwise setup can’t files like cyclad-z.inf or cycon-y.inf)

7. Select slipstreamed contents of D:\VX2POEM_EN and burn cd or dvd

8. Boot from created cd or dvd and install Windows

9. Install GeForce Go 7400 from device manager – update drivers

10. Installed other drivers:
a. Intel Chipset
b. Intel Matrix Storage Manager
c. UAA High Definition Audio Class driver (KB835221WXP)
d. Removed unknown pci device - scan for hardware changes
e. Sigmatel Soundcard & Modem
f. Mass Storage Controller = Texas Instruments (Flashmedia) - drivers, etc
g. USB Device = VGP-VCC2 Camera

11. System shuts down without problems, one day and counting….:smileyhappy:

[CrazyCow]

Did almost the same but system keeps freezing. Couldn't update the Geforce Go drivers though, XP said I had the latest one. Probably thats where the problem is. Strange you could but I couldn't. Any suggestions?
Did you use SP 2, many of the drivers like camera and modem seems to be included.
The drivers I had to install was the Matrix Storage and the ones for the soundcard. The PCI device was displayed as "working" when I installed the soundcard, so no need to remove it.

Hmm, this is weird...How about you Mike, did you manage to get rid of the freezing problem?

// CrazyCow

[decoy]

After enabling Hibernation the system refuses to restart, standby or shutdown.... disabling hibernation or installing the Sony Power Management makes no difference....

Installed Windows XP Pro SP2 now a couple of times and the only way to install the Geforce Go seems to be to update the drivers from device manager - choose install from specific location and point to the 'video' folder within the original AR11_Drivers folder.

Pointing to the extracted Nvidia drivers resulted in freezing. Installing the Nvidia drivers (84.63) through the normal installer also results in a freeze

[CrazyCow]

The support finally answered me today and told me it's probably a hotfix for the digital camera that are the cause of the freezing, and not the graphic card! They told me to use the KB909667 hotfix and said this would solve it. Think this could be true?
I would be very happy if you could try this, since you already got XP Pro installed. Just got my MCE in good condition so are quite unwilling to change if it doesn't work.

[decoy]

Yes, it really did the trick for me!

Sony made the hotfix available at the following location:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNUX180P&upd_id=2228&os_id=7

Otherwise you have to contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the Hotfix.

Thanks CrazyCow