[punkerbuggie]

I hope that any one can help me because Sony won't. I will be extremely grateful for any help. I purchased this computer 3 weeks ago and have struggled with this issue ever since. I received the computer with Windows Vista. I did the research before hand to be certain that I would be able to install Windows XP without losing any major funcitionality. According to Sony Support I would only lose camera funcitonality and possibly fingerprint scan. I can live with this. I have formatted this harddrive and installed Windows XP 4 times. I have downloaded all of the drivers and updates from the Sony site in the exact order they specified and still no luck. I have been able to get everything to function except for the power management. The fn keys work with all options except the brightness of the screen, which runs on the brightest setting all of the time. (works fine with vista) I am unable to change the screen brightness with the fn key and I am also unable to change it in the windows power management utility. It is bright all the time, while plugged in and on battery power. I love the notebook and I really want to solve this problem but the, sorry for your inconvenience, answers I have received from Sony, have me at my witts end. Their tech support are not tech's, they are $8 an hour people typing answers they find on a card. I am so frustrated and I need windows xp. I hope that someone has a possible solution, or I will be forced to try and sell this great laptop and buy one that comes with XP from factory.

[steveie85]

You have to make sure the drivers are compatible with XP. It should tell you if they are or are not. If you are getting them off the Sony website make sure you are selecting to view drivers for XP only if it is possible. If Sony said you can do it then i would be calling customer service and telling them that tech support said you could but you want a disc of all the drivers for XP. They should ship you one and should give you a copy of XP. If they won't do that, my next suggestion would be to go to each of the hardware manufactures ie. d-link for network card(if it is that) and so on, and download the drivers they have for XP. I hope this is of some assistance. If those options don't work post back and we can help you some more.

[punkerbuggie]

Thanks for the reply. Sony is of no help, I have spent hours with them. On their site they do not list my specific problem as one that will happen when you downgrade from Vista to XP, but it is. I have found others with the same problem when I googled it. The only thing I can think of to try next is to download all of the drivers for a Sony Vaio that comes from factory with XP and try the utility drivers to see if one will work. At this point I have nothing to lose but time. Thanks for the effort.

[jiggle-o]

if you're still having problems with this pm me or whatever you can to get a hold of me. I have an AR390E with 99%of it working and this model was never meant to have XP. I'm just not going to put the info in here because when I first started every one with a cure had their sites killed. hopefully this way will allow me to help everyone that Sony and Microsoft won't.

[punkerbuggie]

Thanks for responding. I have spent hours and hours on the phone with Sony. They finally sent me a recovery set of XP and guess what, still didn't fix the problem. More time and we finally came to the conclusion that it will function if I set the button above the keypad to speed but will not work while in stamina. Wow could I have saved time and aggrivation if I had just tried that. I also have a problem with the battery which they are telling me is normal. While the computer is off (shut down) I lose about 15% in 24 hour period. That means in a week the battery will be dead. I am not certain this is normal. I have never had such a loss wilth any other of my notebooks. I will give it some time I guess but I wonder if you have experienced the same problem.

[steveie85]

Some computer hardware is just not compatible with XP. This is due to the changes made in the operating system. You may have one of those systems. If you have the AC adapter then I would remove the battery and run it off just the AC. The battery should not lose any power esp. when pluged into the AC adapter.

[punkerbuggie]

Yea Sony has been sure to let me know that. I suppose that is the only answer just store the battery separately and use ac except for travel. I have most of the bugs worked out so I guess I can live with that. In a perfect world, eh???