Vaio SZ Laptop - Slow with Vista and 7 - faster HDD??

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  1. Posts : 8
    Vista Business for now
       #1

    Vaio SZ Laptop - Slow with Vista and 7 - faster HDD??


    My 2 year old Vaio SZ laptop became fairly sluggish with Vista so I have recently tried Windows 7 - and I'm just not finding it much faster! Also due to no Sony driver support it also freezes at times.

    I think though I have identified the bottleneck, the HDD. The 5200Rpm Toshiba drive hits about 44 MB/s in HD Tune and for not much more money one can pick up a drive the hits 80 Mb/s now!

    I was considering installing XP but on realising this I'm willing to bet a clean Vista install on a new HDD will be a major improvement, with the OS differences being minimal.

    What do you think?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,519
    El Capitan / Windows 10
       #2

    amdowney said:
    My 2 year old Vaio SZ laptop became fairly sluggish with Vista so I have recently tried Windows 7 - and I'm just not finding it much faster! Also due to no Sony driver support it also freezes at times.

    I think though I have identified the bottleneck, the HDD. The 5200Rpm Toshiba drive hits about 44 MB/s in HD Tune and for not much more money one can pick up a drive the hits 80 Mb/s now!

    I was considering installing XP but on realising this I'm willing to bet a clean Vista install on a new HDD will be a major improvement, with the OS differences being minimal.

    What do you think?
    Definitely do a clean install of Windows 7. As for missing drivers, which ones? We have a fine track record of finding drivers here! Also, consider getting an external enclosure for your old HDD. They can be had for about $20 and you can still get some use out of the old drive as a data/backup device.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 8
    Vista Business for now
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Sure but do you not think that upgrading the HDD will make the biggest improvement? I may be OK with Vista on the laptop and not need to shell out - tests show Windows 7 is marginally faster than Vista no?
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  4. Posts : 1,519
    El Capitan / Windows 10
       #4

    amdowney said:
    Sure but do you not think that upgrading the HDD will make the biggest improvement? I may be OK with Vista on the laptop and not need to shell out - tests show Windows 7 is marginally faster than Vista no?
    On older hardware 7 is markedly faster than Vista. Test it for yourself on the new HDD.
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  5. Posts : 1,705
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64 ®™
       #5

    A new 7200rpm HD will make a significant difference, so get one bought and stick Windows 7 on it. And yes Sony support is quite poor, but due to the excellent user support found online, the majority of issues are quickly resolved.

    Windows 7 Build 7000 on my Vaio SZ680
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 4
    Windows 7 32bit
       #6

    I also get the freeze with W7 32 bit with all the Sony Vista drivers installed. I still find it faster than Vista and XP though. I have tried all 3 OS's with identically installed programs and 7 wins hands down. Just once a day or less it freezes and needs a hard reset.
    Sony should be ashamed really.
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  7. Posts : 2,685
    Windows 7 Ultimate x86-64
       #7

    solarboy said:
    I also get the freeze with W7 32 bit with all the Sony Vista drivers installed. I still find it faster than Vista and XP though. I have tried all 3 OS's with identically installed programs and 7 wins hands down. Just once a day or less it freezes and needs a hard reset.
    Sony should be ashamed really.
    Hard freezes?
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 4
    Windows 7 32bit
       #8

    Yes Hard Freezes


    They are very random, sometimes various times per day, sometimes not for weeks, but always when scrolling in Firefox. The mouse pointer will freeze but everything will stay on screen, there will be no hard disc activity at all, Ctrl Alt Del does nothing, pressing the power button does nothing. I am forced to hold down the power button. Sometimes on reboot the OS runs Checkdisk, and/or asks if I want to start in safe mode. No errors are recorded in any system logs, it's as if someone pulled the battery out. Strangley I didn't get them with the Beta or the RC or build 7048, just the RTM.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 2,685
    Windows 7 Ultimate x86-64
       #9

    solarboy said:
    They are very random, sometimes various times per day, sometimes not for weeks, but always when scrolling in Firefox. The mouse pointer will freeze but everything will stay on screen, there will be no hard disc activity at all, Ctrl Alt Del does nothing, pressing the power button does nothing. I am forced to hold down the power button. Sometimes on reboot the OS runs Checkdisk, and/or asks if I want to start in safe mode. No errors are recorded in any system logs, it's as if someone pulled the battery out. Strangley I didn't get them with the Beta or the RC or build 7048, just the RTM.
    Did you upgrade to 7 or clean install? If its an upgrade, clean format 7 and then install the latest 7 drivers from Sony's website.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 4
    Windows 7 32bit
       #10

    Sadly, Sony didn't provide drivers for this model, even though it is less than 2 years old. They recommend using the Vista drivers but say they provide no support for this. MS provided some drivers through Windows update but some of them break functionality.
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