trying to find a SERVICE Manual for the Sony VGN-NW series. Sony are not providing them to the general public officially because of:
"In many of our products, dangerously high voltage remains in the system circuitry long after the unit has been disconnected from all power sources. For other products, our internal design and engineering data is both proprietary and confidential. Maintaining the security of this type of information is instrumental to our success as a business entity."
Could it compromise their success, or rather their income from hardware support ?
Danger form high voltage? No such a thing is possible in a laptop if one disconnects the power cable.
The above seems to me unacceptable when Dell, HP etc. provide free Service Manuals to anyone, on their Web sites.
I bought a used 5315 off ebay. It turned out to have a bad hard drive but I was able to save the pqservice partition and clone it to another drive. I successfully performed a restore and it is up and running. Just for future reference, I would like the service manual for this model but can't find it here.
I rescued an old laptop (Compaq Presario 1200XL500) from the recycling bin and would like to make it usable for a sixth grader. It boots with the base RAm but I would have to add one module. I need to find a user and/or service manual first so that I understand what this old laptop needs. No manuals seem to be available on the HP site. Are there other sites where I might find one?
Has anyone installed the newest VAIO Event Service from the following link [url]
I tried it and I got an error message that said "Previous Vaio Event Service is not intalled. Upgrade will be cancelled." I already have previous Vaio Event Service from previous installation.
The software should work with any VAIO Notebooks, not just FW. If anyone could try it I really appreciate it and please mention which VAIO Model you have.
I want to remove some of the outer casing on my AR series Vaio to replace it with a new part, is their anywhere that i can download a service manual for an AR series vaio that shows me how to take one apart so that i can replace the plastic fascia ?
I'm reformating a VAIO that originally came with XP Home RTM. The recovery discs have vanilla XP on it, so no service pack, not even SP1. Yes, its an older VAIO, but I am hoping to breath new life into it by starting fresh. Now, I am just wondering, after reformatting from the recovery discs, about the install sequence. Should I first install the Sony updates from the esupport site, or should I first upgrade to the latest service pack (SP3) and then install the Sony updates?
The other crappy thing is I can't go straight to SP3, SP3 requires a minimum of SP1. That means I have to do to service pack installs, which in my opinion may have ill effects on performance on the finished product. So I have two options to get to SP3, which is better and cleaner:
For those of you who own VAIO notebooks and purchased a Provantage Extended Service Plan did you ever have to send your notebook in for repair/service? If so how did it go? Did you send it to Provantage first or directly to a Sony service center? Are these plans the same ones that Sony Style sells only cheaper?
I bought sony laptop in december '08 and when i called sony they said i can only purchase their extended service plan only within 30days of purchase date.
I got a VGN-NR260E to fix and the HDD is reporting problems, now most laptops I've worked on have a HDD panel on the bottom, not this one, and Im thinking I have to take it apart fully.
I have an AR-VGN370. After many months of waiting Vista Service Pack 1 finally is offered via Windows Update. I have assumed it was the Sigmatel driver that had prevented me from receivng SP 1. Is there anyone else for whom SP1 has recently become available and installed successfully? I am very hestitant to allow the install.
I just got my new system, and wanted to remove the crapware before creating my recovery disks. I did that, then ran the Sony utility to create the recovery disks. I did not install anything.
One thing I uninstalled was SQL Server. I have no need of it.
Building the recovery froze at various stages of completion... 44%, 27%, 21%. I got an alert with the error, "Failed to start database service". I finally caught that error right away and dismissed -- then the system finished building the recovery disks.
Great -- now I have to wonder, are the recovery disks even valid?
Also, what database service does the system want, and what process wants it? I now get this error at arbitrary times. Sometimes on startup. Usually whenever I do anything with install/remove programs. So is this some new Windows 7 enhancement to the registry? Have I created a time bomb in my system by deleting SQL Server? If Windows 7 needs this, why did it let me delete it?
So far I wish I had a DOS machine. It's unfortunate that my work requires me to use Windows -- the OS treats me badly, and I can't use my new machine until I can predict whether the initial setup is valid.
Trying to get rid of these questionably useful programs -- but I don't see entries for them in add/remove programs in the control panel (or for any of the other useless VAIO software packages that come on OEM machines sans "fresh start")
I have just been given a VAIO PCG8A2M (GRX316MP) , i was told "it's broken but if you can fix it yo can have it" so having a quick look at it there's no sign of life on the display but the lights come on and i can here the HDD heads moving about.
Looking a little more i found that all the ram is missing , so now im not sure if its worth buying some ram to see if it works or not ? The lack of ram would prob explain the lack of display but i wonder if i should be getting POST beeps at least, which im not.
So my question is if a VAIO had no ram should (if all else was working) it be getting POST beeps ?
Just performed a successful XP downgrade on my Vaio Z520, but have noticed that on this copy of the Vaio Silver Desktop Theme/Appearance doesn't exist.
I had it on my SZ and loved it over the XP Blue. Is there a way to get it back? I still have the restore discs from the SZ.
I don't know whats the diference (besides the price), between VAIO TZ295N & VAIO TZ395N. Specs in all the websites I've checked say they have exactly the same components: Intel coreduo 1.33Ghz 2GB RAM DVD-RW and 64GB SSD Hardrive. I was wonder if the diference might be in the hard drive interface, with the TZ295N being PATA and TZ395N being SATA.
I'm wondering if the Blu-ray optical drive (Panasonic UJ-232A) of the (old) VAIO Z series will be able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series? I would really appreciate it if anyone is able to answer my question.
The reason I'm asking is because I'm seriously thinking of selling my VAIO Z690 & just buying the base Sony VAIO Z (VPCZ112GX/S). I may just be able to afford that base model & the icing on the cake will definitely be the UJ-232A drive being able to fit into the (new) VAIO Z series & work.
Am planning to get a sony laptop for me. The design simply rocks I am getting mixed reviews about cw and E series. But i made up my mind to get one.
My budget is aroung 40000rupees. Thats around 800$. So suggest me a better one between these two for occasional moderate and less(mosltly) demanding games. I dont care whether its 14 or 15 inch.
Am looking at lower end versions of both the models.
Only difference is CW uses Nvidia Geforce 310 and the E series uses some Radeon 5000 series one. CW has 14 inch screen whereas E series has a 15.5 inch screen. In the models which i am looking at both have matte finish and both has WXGA:1366 x 768 VAIO Display.
which one should i go for. whether the screen quality will be on par to Inspiron one atleast? ( I dont need HD).
im planning on using the laptop for videos, photoshop and a bit of gaming, maybe even a bit more gaming :-)
The Vaio F Series only has 330M Nvidia Graphics Card with i7QM and up to 8GB of Ram and up to 256GB SSD.
The E Series has ATI 5650 (a less powerful version, reduced clock speed) combined with a i5 520M with up to 6Gb of Ram and up to 500GB of HDD ? Why can i not choose SSD ?
if I can use the AC Adapter of a Vaio TT on the Vaio Z. The standard AC Adapter that comes with the Vaio Z is of 19.5V and the one for the Vaio TT is of 16V, which I don't know if it's enough for the Vaio Z to function properly or if there could be any problem or damage. Both machines have batteries of 10,8V.
I have an undervolted Vaio Z by the way (last multiplier at 0.9875) so I don't know if this could help in any way for my Z to work ok with the TT AC Adapter.
I have this "problem" since I got my Z. When I start vaio update 3 utility I get this error "messageID=0008" there are no updates for your model bla bla...
However when I go to vaio support page, there are some new updates for my Z590N model (new Bios, USB patch...)
I have downloaded new version of Viao Update utility 3.2.something but I had to uninstall my current version (3.1.something), which I did. However when I started this new setup message poped up "there is no previous version installed" - abort.
I have checked esupport page where is said if you have problems with Vaio Update 3, to download Sony Shared Library which suppose to contain vaio update utility), I run installation but it doesn't install Vaio Update 3
Now, I can live with this esupport page regular visit updates,
Whats the major difference between 16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900) and 16.4" VAIO extra-wide HD display (1920x1080). Upto what angle I could see my display in VAIO Display (1600x900)? Can I watch HD movies perfectly in VAIO Display (1600x900) ?
My new Studio XPS 1640 appears to have a bad WiFi card. It is very difficult to get it to connect to the network, and it has fits where it drops contact.
So, I contacted XPS tech support. After doing the usual opening questions, they have proceeded as follows:
1) I was assigned an XPS tech and given their specific telephone information so that they could serve as single point of contact.
2) I was told "we will own this issue and get it resolved".
3) They then set an appointment to speak to me when I had sufficient time to do things like driver changes and trying to reseat the minicard. We performed those steps Monday night.
4) After the reset they wanted me to use it heavily on network for at least 24 hours with them checking in to determine if the issues were still present. Unfortunately they were.
5) At this point, the initial diagnosis was Dell was going to send a tech to replace the minicard, antenna and the motherboard (going a bit overboard?). I agreed and the tech was scheduled.
6) 45 minutes later my tech called. She had discussed the situation with her supervisor and they wanted instead to replace THE ENITRE LAPTOP. So, they are now doing a new XPS 1640 built to the same specs as the original. It will be shipped to me and I am simply to put the original in the box and have Fedex come get it .......
I purchased a DV9500 laptop 2yrs ago for my personal business.One year into it's life the Nvidia GPU dies and I send it in for a motherboard replacement.After some searching it appears there is a major problem with the 8600 series of Nvidia GPUs. While there they also replace the keyboard (which had absolutely nothing wrong with it), but while replacing the keyboard they cracked the left corner of the top of the case.
I called HP when I received the laptop back and the only solution was to send it back (again) and be without my laptop and applications for at least another week. Kind of hard to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop when they are 2000 miles away!
Guess what? Exactly one year later... Nvidia GPU dies again. . Call HP on 6/26 to get the box shipped and again mention the case issue. I figure since I HAVE to send it in again that now would be a good time to get the case fixed. They received the laptop on 7/1 with an expected return date of 7/8, which I didn't worry about because they usually return well before the date promised........
