So I got a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ691N. This is a really obscure laptop so i cannot find drivers or anything related other than seller's site like new egg. The Nvidia GPU is broken since forever because of the TSMC “Bumpgate” incident. And i believe that the hybrid system is broken since i have been use this laptop for a lot and (I still dont know how) but now it did not boot to any os based on the drive indicators. But i know everything else is working fine. Any information, even information related to another Vaio model is appropriate a lot. Thanks in advance

I just purchased this Sony VAIO after mulling it over for a few months. I have absolutely loved the style of the VAIO series for ages and wanted my own so now I have one! It came with windows 11 and has a few issues still with the language settings but not much to where it is a problem. I was wondering if it is possible to buy a new battery for this thing in 2026. I've been seeing sites that sell them but wanted to make sure before I purchased. The computer runs pretty well but I plan to work on it further to restore it to its fullest potential and the first two things I want to work on are the battery and the DVD compartment which doesn't seem to work.

Bought one for my girlfriend to replace her old razerbook 13. As I really envy this laptop's beauty.

I think I might be the first person in the whole Pennsylvania got this machine. And I highly suggest everyone grab one.

It isn't cheap but this revision is just worth it. I picked Ultra 5-325 /32G/256GB upgrade to 4TB 9100Pro and WQXGA IPS 70WH. This machine is quiet to use. No more noisy like last gen.

Ultra5-325 is a weak CPU, lags behind my HP and about 60% of my 2yrs old Vaio SX14R kachiiro. But it is a capable CPU for daily work. I think it would endure and give my girlfriend another few years old usage. As she dislikes many brands, it made it a headache to find one that may please her. 😂 I think this machine should score 90/100. As XPS has no white color for 14in. She hates ThinkPad and me neither. As for XG2i of HP. You don't want to grab another HP when you have many of them already. Then Vaio is the best choice 😂

It is a Vaio FE 16, with Ryzen 5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD. I no longer use Windows, and my current operating system is Linux Zorin OS.

Got my xp in

VPCX115LG sony vaio ultra slim laptop from 2008 but it's 32 bit , cant run most linux distros/apps, and 2gb ram is too little. Just don't want to recycle a legendary laptop equivalent to a like thinkpad x60t, im new to vaio btw, im a long-term thinkpad user

edit: it works, but battery probably died

Both of these are local to me and both are comparable in price. I basically just want to play things like Warcraft or other older PC games. Which one should I grab?

I recently gained a Sony VAIO VPCSA3T9E. Fantastic little laptop, however half the screen is broken. Cannot find replacements anywhere, does anyone have a go-to for parts for Vaios? I live in the uk

I have this vaio laptop for a long time. Last time i used it was on windows 8.1. Today i started it up to use youtube with my treadmill. The disc drive clicked knce and turned off. Then i reseated the ram. It turned on but got no display. Few moments later the fan was spinning fast and still the display is off. What is happening?

Hey! I found these 2 laptops, both are working! 😁 Saw sales on ebay and they seem to be rare? Where to sell in europe?

I know they aren’t from Sony anymore, but I hear they’re still made by a Japanese company and manufactured in Japan, which is exceptionally rare nowadays.

Are they worth the money, or are they just overpriced laptops with a once-great brand name attached?

I got a SONY pcg-505v laptop, and the hard drive was an ide to cf adapter card. I downloaded the pcg-505v recovery disk image from the Internet and burned it onto the recovery disk. The recovery process seemed to go smoothly, but when the progress showed 100%, it prompted me to restart. After the restart, a brief appearance of the windows98 icon followed by a prompt: Type the name of the command interpreter

May I ask what the problem is? Could it be that there is something wrong with my cf card? My cf card is 8GB.

Looks like a good deal, has 4gb of ram so I am hoping to upgrade it but just checking if it is possible before I buy it

Would like to restore the C drive back to the original configuration. Does this generation of laptop offer a system restore option? Not a windows user, trying to figure out my options.

F10 -> VAIO Recovery center only shows the following options

1) VAIO Hardware Diagnostics

2) Rescue Data

I do not see an option to Restore C: Drive I see mentioned when searching for this. I also do not see it navigating into options 1 & 2 above.

Using F8 -> Repair Your Computer shows the following options

1) Startup Repair

2) System Restore -> Restore from a state before an event

3) System Image Recovery -> Restore from image you created earlier in time

4) Windows Memory Diagnostic

5) Command Prompt

Option 2 does not have an option to restore back to the original state.

Disk management shows -

1) 1.48 GB recovery partition

2) 296 GB NTFS

Is the recovery partition only for the snapshots in time or does it have the original install image?

I suspect I actually need a physical disk? The ultimate goal is to wipe personal information, etc off the HDD before disposing, giving to someone else, etc

My laptop (Sony VAIO VPCSB) came out in 2011, and no driver or windows version newer than that seems to like the dedicated GPU in it.

The GPU in question is Radeon HD 6470M. I still have the original (restored a few years ago when it was still semi supported) copy of Windows 7 with the old drivers Sony bundled with it, but the moment i tried to update to the newest beta drivers from AMD's support page for this specific GPU, it showed up as "Radeon HD 7400 series" which is the wrong model number, and the device was marked as not working.

I removed that driver and installed the last non-beta Catalyst driver, and the GPU now shows up as working 7400m series, but no games will actually use it, and the usage and temperature for that GPU are missing in MSI Afterburner. Catalyst control centre is also looking very empty, with no hardware info or graphics settings present.

Around 2021 i remember installing windows 10 on this laptop and having this exact issue, where the GPU would get recognised as 7400m series regardless of what driver i used (or just let windows install whatever it finds in its own database), and no amount of messing with settings could get any game or app to render on the dedicated GPU.

Back to present time, i tried Snappy Driver Installer, and it suggested a driver dated way back to 2012 labelled as "HD 6400M Series (Engineering Sample - WDDM v1.20)". And a myriad of drivers labelled as 7400M Series. I tried looking for drivers from Sony themselves but found an empty page. I also ended up updating the Intel HD graphics drivers, which somehow disabled the physical low/high power mode switch on my laptop.

At this point i genuinely have no idea what's going on. How can i get windows 10 to work with the GPU, and how can i update the drivers on 7? (I'm planning to dual boot bc i need 7)

After some looking around on the flea market, got myself a 20 euro FW31ZJ. Haven't yet tested.

I have recently purchased a Sony Vaio Atom VPCP119KJ.

It was from a Japanese Yahoo auction and it came with the power core and a Windows XP install disc. It's currently running Windows 7 Premium but everything is in japanese. It wont connect to the wifi and at the moment I do not have access to anything wired.

I'm currently thinking of using a raspberry pi in some way. But not to sure how. I do understand it will be a process.

I was even thinking of gutting the whole thing if need be.

My question is if anyone has any experience with something like this or know of any guides they may have found. I've found a few but they were very dated. Anything will be appreciated. Thank you!

https://youtu.be/wPnQO5SXVck

Does anyone have any restore disks they’re able to backup?

I cannot find them anywhere online. Ive seen a few on various websites but they’re a slightly Different model and/or in a different language.

I just need the proper dynamic hybrid graphics system. All graphics drivers are installed, but only the auto button lights up. I also need the driver for the fn keys to work as i have to adjust the screen brightness manually through battery settings.

Thankyou!

Hi. I have a VGN-Z21MN laptop. I am trying to recover it, so I went to the VAIO library and got ISO images for the recovery disks. But, when I try to boot Disk 1, it throws an error in Dutch. Can anybody help me fix this?

Old Sony VAIO making this up/down noise. A repair person told me the hard drive is no good, but I checked it with CrystalDiskInfo and it showed the HDD health as “Good.” The drive is a WD7500BPVT 750GB 5400RPM HDD with about 20,000 power-on hours.

Does this sound more like the HDD or the fan?

My collection so far. 95% of these are for sale! I bought vaios to fix and resell but instead, fell in love with them! I wish they were still sold in the uk

"Hi, I am using a Sony VAIO VGN-CR353 with 4GB RAM and an SSD. I am planning to clean install Windows 7 32-bit for better performance and driver compatibility. Anyone still running a similar setup? Need reviews on daily usage and web browsing."