SonyVaioVGN-SZ650N

  • Contact: MichaelDoube

  • Make: Sony
  • Brand: Vaio
  • Model: VGN-SZ650N
  • Website:

Current Issues

  • Testing Hardy Heron 8.04
  • Screen brightness control not working on nVidia card; Intel card requires xbacklight 173652.

  • Webcam works after installing this driver

  • LiveCD doesn't detect nVidia display adapter (GeForce 8400M GS) so you have to choose screen res and driver

  • WLAN LED not working bug 176090

  • Suspend to RAM is improving (but has been good lately... better on Gutsy at the moment)
  • Battery life very short (2-3h instead of 4-6h)
  • Fingerprint sensor not working
  • Double-tap-to-middle-button-click not working
  • Tap-and-drag annoyingly difficult to initiate (but sometimes possible)
  • Vertical and horizontal scroll not working from side and bottom of touchpad
  • Mic not working, nor is headphone jack 175652

  • Hibernate is improving 179101

  • No support for hybrid hard drive NVCache feature 178654

  • No support for hard disk head parking based on internal accelerometer (G-sensor shock protection) 116045

  • No kernel support for MagicGate MemoryStick card reader. (Card is detected by tifm_core, but not mounted.) Looks like preliminary kernel support is slated for 2.6.25 linux.kernel mailing list

  • Sierra Wireless 595 (EVDO modem) PCMCIA card fails to load with "ohci_hcd 0000:0a:00.1: USB HC takeover failed! (BIOS/SMM bug)" in dmesg. 201158

  • Kismet freezes the laptop requiring a removal of the battery (combination of iwl4965 driver and a 64 bit environment?) 216544

System Info

Sony Corporation VGN-SZ650N J002UR2M

Hardware details

Screen & Monitors

Device

Works?

Bug #

in Ubuntu 7.10

in Hardy Heron (current development)

Intel GM965 / GMA3100

Screen

Yes

Yes

Correct resolution?

Yes

Yes

Correct refresh rate?

Yes

Yes

3D Acceleration

No

Yes

External monitor works?

Untested

Untested

External monitor - mirrors

Untested

Untested

External monitor - extend desktop

Untested

Untested

nVidia GeForce 8400M GS

Screen

Yes

Yes

175436

Correct resolution?

Yes

No

Correct refresh rate?

No ( and strange random black flicker)

Yes (53 Hz!)

3D Acceleration

Yes

Yes

External monitor works?

Yes

Untested

External monitor - mirrors

Untested

Untested

External monitor - extend desktop

Yes

Untested

Notes on dual display adapters

SZ series notebooks have 2 display adapters - an integrated Intel adapter for low power consumption and an nVidia adapater for higher 3D performance. The adapters cannot be used concurrently. The special switch, labelled STAMINA SPEED, selects between the adapters, and must be changed while the notebook is powered down or just before a reboot. So far the intel adapter works fine, except that it is blacklisted by Compiz so 3D desktop eyecandy does not work. This is a known and high-priority issue that should be fixed in Hardy. Eyecandy works with the nVidia card. A script that switches between 2 xorg.conf files depending on the output of lspci must be in rc2.d, as described here, though X is getting better at autoconfiguring.

Power Management

Battery detected?

Yes

Yes but GPM is giving weird information

146803

Hibernates?

I think so

Sometimes

179101

Suspend

Improving

Unreliable

178286

Dim monitor on battery

No

No

Blank monitor on inactivity

Yes

Yes

Lid Close

Yes

Yes

Cpu frequency scaling

Yes

Yes

Sound

Sound works?

Yes

Yes

Correct volume?

Yes

Yes

Hardware volume switch

Yes

Yes

Internal mic

No

No

175674

Headphone jack

Yes with alsa 1.0.15 installation instructions

No

175652

Mic jack

Untested

Untested

Networking

Wired NIC

Yes

Yes

Wireless NIC

Yes (LED doesn't go)

Yes (LED doesn't go)

176090

PCMCIA NIC

Untested

Untested

Firewire

Untested

Untested

Bluetooth

Yes but connecting to devices fails with error: "obex://[00:05:c9:ea:68:ee]" is not a valid location.

Modem

Untested

Untested

Infrared

Not present

Not Present

Touchpad & Mice

Touchpad

Yes with annoyances

Yes with annoyances

Touchpad - Doubletap = double click

No

No

Touchpad - Scroll down side

Had to customise my xorg.conf

No

External mouse - USB

Yes

Untested

External mouse - Serial

Untested

Untested

Docking Station/Port Replicator

AC through replicator

Untested

Untested

USB

Untested

Untested

Serial

Untested

Untested

Parallel

Untested

Untested

External Monitor - VGA

Untested

Untested

External Monitor - DVI

Untested

Untested

Modem

Untested

Untested

NIC

Untested

Untested

PS/2

Untested

Untested

Additional Hardware

Fingerprint reader

No (partial under virtualbox WinXP guest)

No

CD/DVD drive

Yes

Yes

PCMCIA cards

Untested

Untested

Express card

Detected

Detected

Parallel Ports

Untested

Untested

Card reader(s)

Untested

Untested

Webcam

Yes with hack

Yes with this driver

Function and other keys

Fn key

Operation

Keycode

Works?

Bug #

in Ubuntu 7.10?

in Heron (current development)?

+ F2

Mute

0xa0

Yes

Yes

+ F3

Volume down

0xae

Yes

Yes

+ F4

Volume up

0xb0

Yes

Yes

+ F5

Brightness down

0xd6 acpi event sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000010

No

No

173652

+ F6

Brightness up

0xd7 acpi event sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000011

No

No

173652

+ F7

External monitor

acpi event sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000012

Untested

Untested

+ F10

Zoom in

acpi event sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000015

Untested

No

+ F12

Hibernate (to HD)

Yes but hibernate unreliable

Untested

+ E

eject optical disk

0xcc

Yes

Untested

Other Keys / Switches

Wireless switch

Enable / disable all radio communication

event "sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000026" = enable, event "sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 00000027" = disable

Yes

Yes

Notes

  • Sony have crippled the BIOS so that hardware virtualisation (IVT, VT-x) and AHCI are disabled and there is nowhere in the BIOS setup to enable it. You can enable these features by manually hacking the BIOS registers provided that you have installed the latest BIOS from Sony.

  • Suspend-to-RAM sometimes works. Applying all updates and linux-backports-modules seems to help.
  • I have only tried 64-bit desktop Ubuntu so far.

Attachments

Other Resources

* The Blog of Thomas


CategoryLaptop

LaptopTestingTeam/Old/SonyVaioVGN-SZ650N (last edited 2010-03-02 11:38:34 by host226-241-dynamic)