Can't find former Vista thread

learninmypc

learninmypc

Posts: 9,684   +724
I don't remember if it was in the Mobile forum or Windows OS but it had to do with this situation that has happened again.
This afternoon I pushed the button to boot my VAIO Vista Home Premium laptop & although I didn't get a screenshot, it said something like "your computer won't start, push repair to fix (recommended) I did..
About 15-20 minutes later I was back online, even my wireless works better, so far.
I'm wondering if taking it back to factory settings would help. I've done it to this laptop once before.TIA :)
 
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I’m currently rather worked up about Sony Vaio laptops. If you are ever in the situation of a useless hard disk you are going to have big problems getting things back to normal. I put in a new hard drive and did a fresh installation of Vista. All went well but getting the use of the special function buttons back is impossible unless you find the right drivers. Sony websites give driver downloads but don’t make it clear what they do and some of the most important ones are not there. Customer support is awful. They don’t know the answers and want you to go to a Sony service centre.


What I’m suggesting is that you ensure that you have a separate backup for your Vaio. Also the Sony Vaios had a big problem with nVidia video chips which overheat and may require a replacement motherboard. Basically, that means your Vaio which probably cost a small fortune becomes worthless because the laptop is not worth repairing. If you intall a little freeware program called GPU Monitor it will give a reading of the GPU temperature in the taskbar and this can be set to run from start up. Massively useful because if you spot an overheating graphics chip early you can have the heat paste and thermal pads changed. I’m finding 55-60c about normal for most tasks.


Backup disks which you were advised to make when you bought the laptop are essential. I’d make sure that you know where they are. Sony should most certainly have provided a set of restore disks with the Vaios. They have recently decided to withdraw from the computer market and are currently marketing their last range of Vaios. Unless they start putting customers first that company has little future.


Rant over. I hope that is of some help. Make sure the inside of the laptop is cleaned out too. Believe me, the onboard nVidia graphics chip, typically the M8400 GT, is a major concern with most laptops of that era.
 
Wow that's a long thread. Certainly one program not wanted is Sony Battery Checker. I couldn't believe what it does. It's spyware to check that your battery is a Sony brand and if it isn't it puts the laptop into hibernate mode. Unbelievable! Apparently Sony tried to justify this saying there was a quality issue with other brands of batteries and then had the embarrassment of a quality crisis of its own. Battery Checker in some cases has failed to recognise genuine Sony batteries.
 
bazz2004 said:
Wow that's a long thread. Certainly one program not wanted is Sony Battery Checker. I couldn't believe what it does. It's spyware to check that your battery is a Sony brand and if it isn't it puts the laptop into hibernate mode. Unbelievable! Apparently Sony tried to justify this saying there was a quality issue with other brands of batteries and then had the embarrassment of a quality crisis of its own. Battery Checker in some cases has failed to recognise genuine Sony batteries.
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Yes,it is a looong thread & I'm beginning to think its the problems I'm having with it as the reason the original owner got rid of it.
But I'm not complaining, I'm enjoying learning.
Still trying to find my other thread so I can figure out what to do. :)
 
I'm finding researching these Vaios entertaining. Really, you couldn't make it up Sony are so awful on Support. There are umpteen threads on the net with frustrated customers trying to find elusive solutions. I'd repeat that the Utility to monitor the GPU temperature is essential. If glitches are down to overheating of the graphics chip you can still sort this out without big problems. When the stage of distorted graphics or a black screen is reached you might as well bin your laptop.

I'm gong to install Windows 7 on mine. Windows 7 is said to be a better version of Vista and I'm hoping that the drivers I've struggled to find will work with the new OS. I'd have like to try Sony Click to Disc but this software is impossible to get hold of. I've spent hours checking out downloads but every one of them has turned out to be an update which refuses to install without the basic program. Why on earth don't Sony make this clear?
 
bazz2004 said:
I'm finding researching these Vaios entertaining. Really, you couldn't make it up Sony are so awful on Support. There are umpteen threads on the net with frustrated customers trying to find elusive solutions. I'd repeat that the Utility to monitor the GPU temperature is essential. If glitches are down to overheating of the graphics chip you can still sort this out without big problems. When the stage of distorted graphics or a black screen is reached you might as well bin your laptop.

I'm gong to install Windows 7 on mine. Windows 7 is said to be a better version of Vista and I'm hoping that the drivers I've struggled to find will work with the new OS. I'd have like to try Sony Click to Disc but this software is impossible to get hold of. I've spent hours checking out downloads but every one of them has turned out to be an update which refuses to install without the basic program. Why on earth don't Sony make this clear?
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Thanks for your input but I'm simply trying to figure out if taking it back to factory settings would/might correct it? Thank you. :)
 
Sorry. I've got too much info in my head about Vaios at present. Still, some of what I've posted is of importance to you. If you return to factory settings there are two problems. Firstly, you lose all your personal data so that needs to be backed up. Secondly, there is a mass of bloatware that will be restored to your Vaio and will slow it down considerably. Vista is already a sluggish OS.

I don't think that there's any way for certain of knowing if it will improve everything short of trying it. If your sure that you haven't any hardware problems it's probably worth a go. A fresh install of Vista, as I've found out, would give you problems in that firstly restoring the function keys isn't straightforward and you would also lose some of the more useful bundled software.

Best of luck.
 
bazz2004 said:
Sorry. I've got too much info in my head about Vaios at present. Still, some of what I've posted is of importance to you. If you return to factory settings there are two problems. Firstly, you lose all your personal data so that needs to be backed up. Secondly, there is a mass of bloatware that will be restored to your Vaio and will slow it down considerably. Vista is already a sluggish OS.

I don't think that there's any way for certain of knowing if it will improve everything short of trying it. If your sure that you haven't any hardware problems it's probably worth a go. A fresh install of Vista, as I've found out, would give you problems in that firstly restoring the function keys isn't straightforward and you would also lose some of the more useful bundled software.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...
Ok, first of all, everything necessary is backed up. Secondly, the first time I took it back to factory settngs, I had no problem with function keys not working,not saying it might happen.
As for the bloatware, I believe that other thread I linked to told me what to remove.
I thank you for your input :) I'll probably wait for a rainy weekend to do such, thank you. :)
 
There won't be any difficulty with the function keys with a return to factory settings. Just don't expect your Vaio to fly after you've done it.
 
bazz2004 said:
There won't be any difficulty with the function keys with a return to factory settings. Just don't expect your Vaio to fly after you've done it.
Click to expand...
IF you would of read thru that link I posted, I belive you'll find out another helper helped me remove the bloat. IF I do take it back, I'd either leave the crap on or go back thru that thread.. I'm very familiar with slow pc's, I had a laptop on dial-up & 128 MB's of RAM. :) Slooooooooooooooooooooow :)
 
Just leave it alone then. If it aint broke don't fix it. :) However, I suggest that you monitor the gpu temps. Take a look on eBay and see how many lovely Vaios have bitten the dust with the terminal nVidia problem. Most other manufacturers fixed them for free but Sony held out to the last.
 
bazz2004 said:
Just leave it alone then. If it aint broke don't fix it. :) However, I suggest that you monitor the gpu temps. Take a look on eBay and see how many lovely Vaios have bitten the dust with the terminal nVidia problem. Most other manufacturers fixed them for free but Sony held out to the last.
Click to expand...
Ok, my bad. This is another very related thread
 
My Vaio FZ series is now running Windows 7. I've installed and uninstalled many Sony drivers and utilities without knowing for sure what would happen. Not an ideal situation. There was something I installed and then abandoned which may be related to the problem with your wireless connection. It's called Wireless Switch Setting Utility. It has three settings: 5ghz, 2.4ghz and Bluetooth. Maybe that's what's going wrong on yours. I'm using a wireless connection but no longer have that utility installed. If you have it maybe you'd be better off without or finding out how to use it. Good luck with that.
 
bazz2004 said:
My Vaio FZ series is now running Windows 7. I've installed and uninstalled many Sony drivers and utilities without knowing for sure what would happen. Not an ideal situation. There was something I installed and then abandoned which may be related to the problem with your wireless connection. It's called Wireless Switch Setting Utility. It has three settings: 5ghz, 2.4ghz and Bluetooth. Maybe that's what's going wrong on yours. I'm using a wireless connection but no longer have that utility installed. If you have it maybe you'd be better off without or finding out how to use it. Good luck with that.
Click to expand...
When I first got this laptop, I had a few problems with the wi fi so I used DSL. Then I started using my Belkin wireless adapter. This laptop says it has Bluetooth but when I open the folder, it shows nothing.
I know little if anything about bluetooth so I might just return it to factory settings,remove the bloat & be happy with my 2nd hand laptop.
I've not heard much good about Vista. If I knew the XP MS updates were still going to be online at MS, I'd probably go that route even thou MS took it XP Off support.
 
Things are rarely easy with computers. Vista has been around a long time. If you successfully return to factory condition Windows will be way out of date. Much of the bloat in Windows is the result of numerous updates and service packs. You need all these to keep your system secure and it will take an awful long time before your computer is fully updated again. The service packs are large and Vista went to SP2 plus updates to the present day. Maybe you will have SP1 if you do a factory reset but maybe not. Some of those Sony Utilities are a real pain and you'll get them all back. I refer you to Battery Checker and the one I've just mentioned - Wireless Switch Setting Utility. As you know little about computers I'd think carefully before proceeding.
 
bazz2004 said:
Things are rarely easy with computers. Vista has been around a long time. If you successfully return to factory condition Windows will be way out of date. Much of the bloat in Windows is the result of numerous updates and service packs. You need all these to keep your system secure and it will take an awful long time before your computer is fully updated again. The service packs are large and Vista went to SP2 plus updates to the present day. Maybe you will have SP1 if you do a factory reset but maybe not. Some of those Sony Utilities are a real pain and you'll get them all back. I refer you to Battery Checker and the one I've just mentioned - Wireless Switch Setting Utility. As you know little about computers I'd think carefully before proceeding.
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Ok, although I appreciate your feedback, you might go back thru this https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/using-decrapifier-on-a-vaio-vista-home-premium.196619/
thread post by post , I linked to earlier. NOT saying you aren't correct, I'm saying I'm sure I can do it the same way. Thank you. :)
 
You are raising too many issues for me to cover and it doesn't look like I'm helping. I suspect that you are getting completely out of your depth.

Have a look in Control Panel , Programs and find the list of programs installed. Select any thing you don't want and click uninstall. A few minutes after the program uninstalls it will be removed from the list. See if the Sony Wireless Switch Setting Utility I mentioned is there and if it is remove it. Hopefully, this will make it easier to connect to your wireless router.

You are not going to make a dramatic difference to the speed of your laptop but you said that didn't matter - remember. I advise you not to do a factory reset. One big thing we sometimes learn the hard way is to never get impatient with Windows Updates. Shut down in the middle of them and you are screwed. Sorry, but I don't think I can help you as I'm not sure how much you know or are taking onboard.
 
bazz2004 said:
You are raising too many issues for me to cover and it doesn't look like I'm helping. I suspect that you are getting completely out of your depth.

Have a look in Control Panel , Programs and find the list of programs installed. Select any thing you don't want and click uninstall. A few minutes after the program uninstalls it will be removed from the list. See if the Sony Wireless Switch Setting Utility I mentioned is there and if it is remove it. Hopefully, this will make it easier to connect to your wireless router.

You are not going to make a dramatic difference to the speed of your laptop but you said that didn't matter - remember. I advise you not to do a factory reset. One big thing we sometimes learn the hard way is to never get impatient with Windows Updates. Shut down in the middle of them and you are screwed. Sorry, but I don't think I can help you as I'm not sure how much you know or are taking onboard.
Click to expand...
Thank you but did you fail to see this link https://us.en.kb.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/35585/c/65,66/kw/Factory
 
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