fxtn.net

Sony VAIO VGN-Z720D Graphics Card – Part 2

This is a follow-up to a previous post. Sony has finally posted drivers for the integrated nVidia graphics card for all Windows 7 versions. You can find them at this link: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNZ720D&SelectOS=47.

The install was somewhat goofy. Here are the steps I took:

1. Used the uninstaller to get rid of the existing driver. You should have an exclamation point showing in the Device Manager after this.

2. Ran the new installer and was asked to reboot. Upon reboot, there was no progress. The light on the switch was off and the card didn’t show up in the device manager.

3. Ran the installer a second time. There was a lot of screen flicker during this step and I was prompted to reboot. I then got a message that my Windows was not genuine! I have no idea what this was all about but simply clicked cancel and haven’t seen this message since then.

After this step, the card showed up in the Device Manager and and the light on the switch came on. I still wasn’t able to use the switch with the computer turned on.

I then tinkered with some other drivers to get my function keys working. Lo and behold, after this, the switch for Stamina/Speed also works with the computer turned on.

I now have my computer working exactly the way I want it to! It’s been a long process and I still think it’s absurd that there’s not an easier way to do this. Sony’s website gives no indication which drivers have to be installed in Vista mode to work, so you have do some searching on the internet.