Dissappointed with the AR61ZU with Vista

[Xyleon]

The unit itself is fantastic, but with Vista, the ZR61ZU is a complete dog to use. Crashes often, hardware items don't work properly due to drivers (which Sony deny), it's sluggish (slower than my old 3GHz Sempron) and eats battery like they were going out of style.

I *DESPERATLY* want to go back to XP. Found some of the drivers and managed to get a dual-boot setup going with some bodged nVidia & Sound drivers but it's not good enough. Spending this amount of money on a unit which is not fully usable is a disgrace.

Sony support replied to my case with a very nasty reply stating if I put anything other then Vista on it will damage it beyond repair! They really should grow up. I've witness Sony support before (or lack of it) so I knew I would be pretty much on my own when I bought this unit.

So, has anyone any luck getting Vista useable or a decent XP on the AR61ZU? I'm putting a collection of working drivers together so maybe we could all combine forces! I believe the AR51ZU is the same machine?

Other current Vista problems include the hardware tv encoder showing OK in Media Centre but nowhere else. A reinstall of the driver helped, but the input has corruption in ANY application (Sony's reply was to reinstall my applications! - Don't know why I bother emailing them!). So, I can't import video for editing. The unit, when on standby, wakes itself up between 3 and 7am for no reason (checked and disabled lots in Task Scheduler). When it does, Vista locks and will no longer boot up (until you do a known-good boot).


On the flip-side, I've tried Linux Mint and Ubuntu and they are quite simply awesome on this machine so I know it's down to Vista (XP is pretty damn quick as well!). GRUB unfortunately won't boot off a RAID 0. Has anyone done a setup so it will boot GRUB off a USB pen drive, then transfer to the RAID0 to continue booting?

[Xyleon]

Just to add more wores, in just a week, with very little additional software, Vista has decided it won't sleep properly, or hibinate (won't start up from either) and sometimes it won't boot from cold either.

Vista is the worst operating system I've used (worse than Windoze ME!). Looks like I might have to reimage (groan) but it won't fix the underlying problem of Vista being unstable and the AR61ZU only having Vista drivers / software (which is also unstable).

[AntonisCy]

im sad to say that i have regreted buying this specific model. I expected much more..

If the day comes that there is a 100% working solution for an XP convertion i wont think twice.

[Xyleon]

I have to agree and I've read other posts saying the same. For the price, you *should* expect much more. I guess that's the Sony way!

I've been putting some serious effort in to this and if I get chance, I'll put a guide up somewhere to get it upgraded from Vista to XP. I've been using Google heavily along with this forum (for the AR41 and AR51 models).

So far I have, volume, eject, mute and brightness buttons working.
Wireless driver installed, bluetooth, graphics (it still plays Blu-Ray discs - only problem is it reports it has no overlay available for apps that require it. It hibernates OK, but remains black when brought out of standby). Ethernet driver in, audio in, PCMCIA & card readers in.

For me, XP is approaching very useful and I'm almost fully moved over to XP now. Still have problems with the TV in/out not working properly in either XP or Vista but that's just bad drivers. It's been reported on this forum for a year but Sony have failed to fix it.


XP (and Linux Mint & Ubuntu) really fly on this notebook and is the way it *SHOULD* of been. Why Sony don't offer an XP upgrade from Vista like they do on their business machines is beyond me. If Vista doesn't improve a VERY long way, I will either remain on XP or move completely to Linux.

[AntonisCy]

Please let me know when you have XP working perfect on the 61ZU

Does device manager say that you are missing any drivers? or have you got everything but still things dont function good?

[Xyleon]

Two items left - "ehome Infrared Transceiver" and "SM Bus Controller" (whatever that is).

Obviously XP doesn't have Media Centre installed so that won't work, but I'm hoping to use other apps to drive the TV tuner. It can't be worse than Vista which doesn't drive it properly anyway. Even on a brand-new Vista image install, it's still got corruption etc. Sony just say "reinstall" which is their standard reply it seems.

[AntonisCy]

keep us posted

[Xyleon]

Upgrade to XP!

I'm pleased to say, I'm now using XP exclusively on this machine and extremely happy. I've not had chance to test every single item, but I can say that the only device which I've been unable to fudge a driver for is the ehome IR sensor (as the drivers are part of Windows Media Center) but it may be possible to rip them from an XP-MCE2005 installation.

The S1/S2 buttons don't control the display, but they work and can be assigned.
FN & F6/F7 control the brightness so no huge problem.
Volume buttons and eject button works along with the media buttons.
It sleeps, hibernates and wakes up with no problems.
I can use the AverMedia TV Tuner which didn't work under Vista (DVBT untested)
You now get decent battery life!

The only thing I can't control is the Sony Vaio Logo Lamp yet so it's on when you first power up and remains off of you sleep/hibernate. I can't control it properly in Vista either so not a massive problem (it only dims for 3 set programs - can't find location to add more such as VLC player yet).

I can't confess to having done the bulk of the work - others had already done the donkey-work, but I've had to make some registry changes & other items.

When I get a chance, I will put a complete guide up somewhere so everything is in one place and include any files for convenience.

This laptop is now the machine it should of been before Vista came along an screwed it up.
Linux Mint (the latest V4) works brilliantly on this unit as well. Far better than Vista. Just a little more awkward to install due to the RAID0 arrangement (GRUB won't boot off RAID-0) so you have to use an external USB drive for GRUB, then transfer control back to the RAID-0.

[AntonisCy]

is the tutorial ready? i want to convert to xp

i also sent you a pm

[Xyleon]

Sorry, not had a chance to sort it out as yet. Getting it working took quite a while, so I'm having to catch up on other things. I'll try to get on that and put it up somewhere as soon as I'm able.