Sony VAIO VGN-FW190: My Beloved Laptop!!

This page is about my laptop- what I have been doing with it, what it's features are, and what not!

Back to my Web Home! CONTACT ME!  Windows 7 64 bit drivers for ATI Radeon HD 3470; Beta issue. Use at your own risk! I am not responsible for any damages! I got it from ATI website

Here's detailed specifications. I customized mine; here are the details.

PICTURES & VIDEOS OF MY LAPTOP!

My laptop's story
During the summer of 2008, I worked at the Downtown Tacoma Taco Del Mar, & as a Math Tutor at Tacoma Community College. I came across the Sony ads about the FW series and the 16:9 unique aspect ratio of the FW series really appealed to me. So I was really determined to buy it, and buy it with my OWN money! So I started saving all my salary, from BOTH places. I even rode my bike every day back and forth to the workplace in the scorching summer heat so that I can save bus fare money. I worked the shifts of my co-workers when they can't work, but our boss did not want me to work more than 40 hours a week because then he would have to pay me overtime. I was working for minimum wage, and I estimated that I am gonna need at least $2000 to buy the FW series laptop that I want! I worked even on September 19th, which was the day before I moved into my dorm on the 20th for College! I was able to earn the $2000 and when an offer showed on the Sony Website on September 27, 2008, I ordered. It cost me $1750.58 including the darn WA sales tax.

                                             Courtesy of Sonystyle.com

The specifications can be found above. I found the laptop to be extremely fast and smooth, as I have only used a Pentium 4 PC and an Athlon XP 1.8 GHz processor PC before the laptop. The Blu-Ray player was awesome, although the video quality did not meet the quality of our Panasonic 50" Plasma at home. The HDMI output made it easy to connect it to our TV to watch online movies and stuff.

The first time I had trouble with the laptop was when it started having problems burning Dual-Layer DVDs. So I called Sony, and as it was still under warranty, they sent me a new Blu-Ray ROM drive. It fixed it, and I was once again I was happy. Then Windows 7 came out, and I was feeling down again! To my extreme disappointment, Sony said it will not officially support VGN-FW190 with Windows 7. So I custom installed Windows 7 Professional 64 bit version OS, and after much research and hard work, was able to get it up and running, with all the original software and settings. However, the SD card reader began to act weird ever since then. It won't work sometimes. But sometimes it does. I don't know what's going on, but I am not too worried.

Then, around February 2010, the computer started to get really hot. I figured it must be due to dust blocking the exhaust vents. So I opened it up on March 23rd, cleaned it up, and it fixed the problem. More details can be found in the Gallery page. CONTACT ME if you have any driver issues!

*UPDATE*: The Windows 7 32bit/64bit drivers for the Ricoh R5C833 SD/MMC Card Reader can be found here: Ricoh R5C833 Driver by HP
I downloaded it and my card reader has been working fine since then (I have not tried a memory stick yet)

Here is a link to the Sony Support website for the VAIO FW-190 series: Sony Support for VGN-FW190

Here is a link to the Sony Support website for the VAIO FW-190 series: Sony Support for VGN-FW190
Although Sony DOES NOT OFFICIALLY support Windows 7 on the FW190 series, Windows 7 CAN be installed, and ALL the necessary drivers can be found here: VGN-FW390 series drivers for Windows 7. (Although the Sony support web page for FW190 has most of the drivers for Windows 7, I think FW390 has a wider selection). These drivers are compatible with the 190 series, with the exception of the Video Card drivers. I downloaded the beta version of the drivers from AMD website but they are not offered anymore. The available catalyst suit is NOT comaptible with Sony VAIO notebooks. So if you would like the drivers for ATI Radeon HD 3470, contact me. I cannot host the file as it is 95 MB and my file server size limit, as allocatted by the University of Washington, is only 300 MB.

If you are worried that you will lose the software that came with your PC, like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Elements, Sony Vegas Pro, you can do what I did. I downloaded this light software called mod2wim and followed the instructions. You will need to make th two VAIO recovery discs though. The applications are saved in the discs as .mod files, and each application is chunked into 6-10 .mod files. The mod2wim sofware combines them all together and provides you with a .exe file (after following some rigorous steps) and voila! You are back in the game! I restored my PS, Premiere Elements, and my WinDVD BD for VAIO Blu-Ray Reading software!

Here's a PDF of the Toshiba Hard Drive Specifications

Hard Disk Drive Replacement Instructions

Optical Disk Drive Replacement Instructions

VGN-FW190 User's Manual (Sony Website)