updated: 2003-08-30 Contents ========= 0) General info (Bios) 1) Experience with Windows XP on the Sony Vaio FX401 (bought in germany) 2) Experience with Windows 2000 on the Sony Vaio FX401 (bought in germany) 3) Battery times with different laptops 4) Fan times with different laptops Intro ===== similar notebooks are for the video card: FX201, FX210, FX215, FX301, FX405 CPU : FXA32, FXA33 (but 900MHz) DVD : FX201, FX215, FX301, FXA32 All the tips come from Brad's great Vaio FX210 compatible homepage: http://www.myplc.com/sony/ XP drivers I used from the Sony homepage: http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/ http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/pc/pcgfx210fx215/windowsxp/ http://www.vaio-link.com W2K drivers for the FX210/215 are from: http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/pc/pcgfx210fx215/windows2000/ -> after an arrow I'll list what I've found to work best for me ************************************************************************** 0) General info ************************************************************************** -> original Bios set to default values, except Plug/nPlay OS turned off (otherwise I got a system freeze when I tried to install SP2)!!!! Later I installed SP3 with the same bios settings and finally XP Home. -> Bios updated with the file from Brad's homepage to improve battery/fan and enable SSE support to version R0121K5 This bios version (from R0114K5 and newer) supports the SSE instructions. I found this bios update to really cure Photoshop related problems. I'm not absolutly sure if it also improves the overal stability and still had a lockup about once or twice a week while runnging Windows 2000 (I use the laptop daily for several hours...) I never found a way to finally solve this problems. That was one reason I jumped back to the XP installation. If you have no troubles and you're in doubt I'd suggest to stay with the default bios, because updating the bios is always a serious issue and could result in "a heavy paperweight" (That's the phrase from the mailinglist For me the update luckily worked :-) The german Vaio support strongly advises _not_ to update the bios with a bios meant for another Vaio. But hey, only with the new bios the Photoshop problems got cured... :-o Later the german vaio support told me that version R0121K5 should become available for our FX401 notebooks to, but till today (1st of December 2002) this is not true :-( The warranty for my notebook is over, so I can't contact the vaio support. If you still have a chance to contact the support I encourage you to ask their _when_ finally the updated bios will be made available for all FX users! -> german Vaio support suggests to install the Via 4in1 driver from: http://www.viaarena.com This should fix the problems with Photoshop. I had installed version 4.37 which doesn't help with the Photoshop crashes. Although I'm not sure which bios version was installed at this time. Maybe the newest 4in1 driver version 4.49 with the stock bios R0107K5 would really solve the crashes. As I already have flashed to bios R121K5 I can't try it myself. When someone could give me feedback on this matter I'd appreciate that. I don't want to flash the bios back to the old version, just to try that out, because flashing the bios is always a serious issue. In addition someone on the mailing list pointed out that the drivers solve some problems with DVD playback (which I don't use). So at least they _might_ help and are worth to be installed. 'Wonder why such an information is not widely published on the Vaio support pages...? -> Random freezes (about every three weeks) seem to stop after I installed the USB 1.10 Filter patch from VIA ************************************************************************** 1) Experience with Windows XP on the Sony Vaio FX401 (bought in germany) ************************************************************************** Clean installation of XP ======================== _without_ all the unwanted Sony applications I don't need/want: First install XP from the recovery CD (leaving the partitions as you like them). I used Partition Magic to manage them. The default partition has a minor problem (more info's found in the mailing list). I recommend to partition drive C: as FAT32 (first). Then copy the directory i386 (this is found in the windows directory on drive C:) to another partition on the HD. Boot from a floppy (DOS) and call smartdrv (you can get it from an old 9x installation) to speed up the hard disk. Usage of smartdrv is optional but recommended! Then change to the i386 directory and call winnt.exe. This will start the installation of XP Home. _Then_ during the installation you can choose if you want NTFS (I prefer that) or leave FAT32. After that install the ServicePack 1 for Windows XP. Next you need to install the XP drivers by hand. You can use all the drivers from the third CD from the recovery set. Drivers for Windows XP Home ================================ Then I installed the following drivers: -> CPUDriver (using patch from SP1) Updated Amdk7.sys file is included in SP1. This is needed for the PowerNow support. (I never got PowerNow to work properly without causing other problems (see below)). I had to update the CPU driver (device manager) "by hand" and point it to the amdk7 cpu driver instead of using the "default cpu driver". Then check or add the following in the registry: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AmdK7\Parameters] "HackFlags"=dword:00000001 In the energy settings you have to choose "Laptop" and not desktop, for PowerNow to take effect. (Reboot). You can check if PowerNow is active with a tiny program called WCPUCLK. This PowerNow fix is adjustable (in the speed settings) by using different energy schemes. Automatic mode (like in the laptop setting used) means that when the CPU is idle or not stressed it will run at 500MHz, when CPU usage increases the speed will jump up to 800MHz, causing a higher CPU voltage. With PowerNow the fan turns on less often and the battery time should increase somewhat too. -> Video driver VCS_ati_613105779.exe installed. This allows to use dual screen mode. So far I haven't tested the TV output. With Java 1.4.1_01 this driver crashes Java apps. Workaround: don't use the ATI driver but choose the generic Windows-driver instead or downgrade to Java 1.4 or upgrade to version 1.4.1_02. -> Modem driver MDD_con_30546A020513.exe Choose the unknown PCI device in the device manager -- that's the modem :-) -> Audio driver ACS_ati_51003621.exe -> Touchpad Note that you _must_ install the touchpad driver _after_ installing the mouse driver for another (in my case IntelliMouse optical) mouse. Only then the tabs all appear. If you have installed the touchpad driver first you have to reinstall the driver. Alps Pointing Device (Touchpad) Driver Update Version 5.3.509.2a ( for Microsoft Windows XP) -> Sony_I65.icm (from LCD_inf) to C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color and choose as monitor profile -> Ethernet using default XP drivers (tad newer then on the CD) -> OpticalDriver from recovery CD DriverVer=07/02/2001,1.11.16 not installed because I don't know "how" ;-) (inf-file doesn't work to install) -> USBMouse ???? USBMouse und OpticalDriver lassen sich nicht per inf-Datei installieren (von der Platte zumindest!) -> Apps nicht nötig (Shared lib, UILib, SystemInformation nur für Sony-Quatsch erforderlich), evtl. WinDVD installieren Notes about XP ============== With XP the laptop runs stable (better than with Windows 2000). I changed the appearance to "maximum speed" and installed TweakUI for XP to speed up the slow menu behavior too. Then the usage of XP seems as fast or faster then with Windows 2000. This is running 384MB memory. With the stock 128MB chip XP is somewhat slower then Windows 2000. ************************************************************************** 2) Experience with Windows 2000 on the Sony Vaio FX401 (bought in germany) ************************************************************************** List of default drivers from the recovery CD for the FX401/405 (Win XP) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Driver Versions and Signature looked up in the inf files (except Video)] Audio: XP and W2K both are DriverVer =08/30/2001,5.10.0.3621 Signature="$CHICAGO$" Updated XP Audio driver for the FX401 ACS_ati_ 51003621 offers only an XP dir and has some files changed, but the same version number with a different date: 09/01/2001 On the recovery CD the content of the W2K and the XP dir are the same! for the FX210 there's a huge (10MB) W2K driver: 5.12.01.3111 -> the updated XP and the recovery CD driver run fine (when it installs), I use the recovery CD driver, because there's a W2K dir! CPUDriver: DriverVer=08/08/2001,1.0 Signature= "$Windows NT$" I assume this is a/the PowerNow driver, but am not sure. Ethernet: DriverVer = 05/07/2001,5.395.0507.2001 Signature="$CHICAGO$" -> This driver is somewhat faster than the default MS W2K driver! LCD_inf: DriverVer=07/18/2001,1.0 Signature="$CHICAGO$" modem: DriverVer=08/09/2001, 3.05.22.00 Signature="$CHICAGO$" Same on Sony Homepage W2K-driver from Brad's homepage: DriverVer=02/14/2001, 2.14.19.00 -> recovery CD driver 3.05.22.00 runs fine (Conexant-Ambit Soft56K Daa, Fax Modem) OpticalDriver32Bit: DriverVer=07/02/2001,1.11.16 Signature= "$Windows NT$" not installed, neither I nor Brad knows what this is for. At least it doesn't seem to be missing. But maybe that's the reason that grabbing audio CD's won't work for me right? Touchpad: DriverVer= 08/22/2001, 5.3.504.7 Signature= "$Windows NT$" Recovery CD Version lists W2K in the english install readme.txt On the Sony page the touchpad driver is (in one file!): 5.3.504.7 for XP and 5.0.503K.2 for Windows 2000 Both versions seem to work firstly I had 5.0.503K.2 from recovery CD installed -> no probs -> update to touchpad 5.3.505.6 (for FX401/FX32) USBMouse: DriverVer=08/17/2001,%ProductVersion% Signature= "$Windows NT$" Video: Application=ATI Windows 2000 Driver Version=1.00.000 ATI Windows XP Driver; updated driver VCS_ati_613105779 is different from the Recovery CD, nearly all files are changed, but both don't work with W2K. The XP driver installed on XP allows dual monitor used (not mirrored!) Dell's W2K video driver from Brad works mostly (little problems with the tabs to choose options in the driver) o.k. (as the default MS driver too). Win2000 Video-driver for other Sony FX notebook works better for me: http://www.vaio-link.com/downloads/SDrivers/video/VCS_ATI_5021955036.exe Version on ital.sony.... for FX210: 5.0.2195 -> Sony's W2K driver 5021955036 has more options and I assume is best! additional installations ------------------------ -> I had installed PowerNow support (originally for HP Notebooks), file from Brad's site (PowerNow for XP won't run according a note from Brad), but experienced serious keyboard problems: many keystrokes get lost when PowerNow 2.0 is installed and when running on battery (regardless of the setting). Version 2.1 of PowerNow found at: ftp://ftp.pcg.fic.com.tw/nbtech/A320/Driver/PowerNow/PowerNow_v2.1.zip does give the same problems. So I deleted the PowerNow driver and am free of keyboard problems now! It would be nice though to have working PowerNow, because the CPU runs in lower voltage then and the fan turns on less often. The runtime on battery might also improve a bit (don't expect a dramatic improvement). When someone finds a working PowerNow driver send me a message please :-) VCOOL and CPUIdle are not needed for the notebook as power stuff is already implemented in the BIOS and so on (this says the author of VCOOL). The use of VCOOL on notebooks is not recommended! -> http://www.emmgee.com/vaio.shtml has a driver to enable the hotkeys. The system libs (see below) must be installed too. I haven't tried them myself, as I'm happy with the bare keyboard ;-) Vaio System information for XP does only function in W2K, when the Sony system libs from the recovery CD are installed ------ 3) battery times FX505 BP71A about 120 minutes FX101 BP1N 90 minutes (Mobile Celeron 600) BP71 180 minutes (wohl aber nur so genannt) BP71A 210 minutes (und der wohl auch zu hoch gegriffen und nur Prospektwert!?) FX405 BP71+BP1N 180-210 minutes (mittel - heavy usage) FX401 BP71 135 - 140 minutes (meiner neu) 28 Minuten relativ heftig AR lesen mit voller BP1N 4) Fan-Times This is a test to make an educated guess how often (and long) the fan will run. Let the CPU run hot at 100% (you see this in the task manager CTRL-Shift-ESC). For example calculating the factorial of a very big numer such as 999999999999999! and let it run for 5 minutes. Then stop the calculation (and check to see that the CPU usage drops from 100% to a few percent). Determine how long it takes till the fan stops spinning. The faster the fan will stop, the better the chance that the laptop won't have to use the fan often :-) FX401 (Duron 800): 2 minutes 30 seconds