Sony Vaio AR31e problem

GIBURROWS · 5 Oct 2013 at 13:02

I regret ever buying anything from Sony but hey ho, I installed an SSD into my laptop without realising the silly thing never came with re-install discs the old harddrive is storage space and formatted so I cannot clone it but I thought just update it to windows 7 and everything will be fine only the Nvidia drivers only work with Vista!?!?! is there a way round this other than getting Vista again?

I phoned Sony and they want £80 to look at it and then they will charge for a service to put it back to its old state!

I also phoned microsoft to try and get a copy of Vista and they have told me my license code cannot be used on a new harddrive so want to charge £160 for a new one!

I only wanted to update this heap for CM & browsing.

Any help or if you just want to laugh thanks either way.

melvis · 5 Oct 2013 at 14:31

its very unclear which version you are after, but if you have a valid license key for vista then you can get a disc image to burn from
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/msshus/vista64/boot.wim
if you have a valid key for windows 7
http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso for windows 7

they are legal and provided by Microsoft but they will not work without getting the key from your laptop.

GIBURROWS · 21 Oct 2013 at 22:20

I have a key for both but I obviously cannot use win 7 due to Sony basically locking my laptop to Vista.

Thanks for ze help.

d_brennen · 21 Oct 2013 at 22:30

There is some W7 drivers on Sony's site for that model, I reckon with a bit of digging you can get the rest from each manufacturer etc

Here's the Nvidia Windows 7 64bit driver for the Go7400 GPU

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

GIBURROWS · 21 Oct 2013 at 22:48

No those drivers from Nvidia tell me they don't work, I have tried them before I am just going to have to go back to vista I think.

Super Tigers · 21 Oct 2013 at 23:14

The Sony driver for NVidia cards is a right pain in the ****, I have a Sony VPCCW1S1E and that uses the gt230M Nvidia card but standard NVidia drivers don't recognise it so I have to hack the latest driver and add an extra .inf file into the expanded driver, then run the setup again and it is then recognised.

I can supply you with the hacked nvszcn.inf file that allows you to use the latest Nvidia drivers. I have managed to get Windows 8.1 on my 4 year old Sony laptop and it is working superbly. This also works for Windows 7 as well.

GIBURROWS · 21 Oct 2013 at 23:16

I will give that a go, thanks

Super Tigers · 21 Oct 2013 at 23:22

GIBURROWS said:
I will give that a go, thanks

email me to my trust email address and I will forward you the file.

Just copy the file into the Nvidia folder, I use the latest 314.22 driver, just go into your C drive - Nvidia -display driver - 314.22 - Win8_WinVista_Win8 - International - display.driver folder. Then paste the nvszcn.inf into that folder, it should overwrite the file already in there. Then just run the installer again and it should then recognise the graphics card and eventually install the driver.

Rob

Super Tigers · 22 Oct 2013 at 22:08

Did the file help you install the Nvidia driver?

GIBURROWS · 22 Oct 2013 at 23:05

No my email says it is a suspicious file so isn't letting me sort it out.

Super Tigers · 23 Oct 2013 at 13:50

GIBURROWS said:
No my email says it is a suspicious file so isn't letting me sort it out.

I will resend it as a Zipped file instead .

GIBURROWS · 23 Oct 2013 at 23:07

Thank you kindly

GIBURROWS · 25 Oct 2013 at 06:55

Still no joy as their is no file to replace in the nvidia folders, nvidia and sony are awful companies.

wildman_33 · 27 Oct 2013 at 19:12

Go to laptopvideo2go.com it has drivers as zip files with custom inf files with the sony cars included (inf files basically say the supported laptops) you simply download the zip file extract it then download the inf file and out it in the correct folder and install. I have used this for my last two sony laptops and it works pretty well only problem I've ever had was recently one of the new drivers gave me blue screens but I tried another driver and it was fine.

GIBURROWS · 19 Dec 2013 at 15:36

Well I never tried that as I took it to PCworld(I know I know) as I thought they might just be able to sort it and give me less hassle, 6 weeks later they couldn't fix it so just installed windows 8 (without my knowledge or permission)which didn't work well with the 6-7 yr old laptop and then tried to charge me!!!

I am now going to try Wildman 33's suggestion and see if that solves it.

Thanks for all your help chaps
Merry Xmas

GIBURROWS · 27 Dec 2013 at 14:43

Got so hacked off with my laptop that I have bought Windows 7 Professional and now still have to sort the ini. file out somehow.

Couldn't get to grips with laptopvideo2go.com but will not give up on this machine.....