XL-201 + Vista + KDL-40W200 = Blue Screen of Death

[RobMiles]

Hi all. Last week I picked up one of the XL-201s for 550 quid, which seemed like a bargain. The hardware is lovely, and it worked fine. I fixed that by adding Vista Ultimate. I did an in-place upgrade so that I could retain all the free software and it seemed to go OK. I had to get the latest versions of Video and Sound drivers, but apart from that everything kept going.

Until I turned the TV off and on again, which causes Vista to Blue Screen on me. It seems that if you do something stupid (such as turn on the TV) the resulting HDMI message takes the video driver unawares and crashes the computer. I'm presently running the latest NVidia beta Vista drivers, which don't crash when you turn the TV off or deselect the HDMI input, and as long as I make sure that the TV is turned on before I wake the PC up from sleep things are sort of bearable. But this is not really the answer.

Does anyone have experience of using the XL-201 with a KDL-40W200 and Vista? I'd love to know how to make it work properly(if indeed it is possible).

[@7908848805001668]

Hi Rob

Nearly 800 views and no replies - hasn't anyone got Vista going correctly? I'm still hunting for the 'Vista works great' thread.

AndyR

[Blencogo]

Sony ONLY recommend a clean install for Vista and this seems to be justified by the number of problems we see here with upgrades. There seems to be too much of the incompatible old system left behind. The Sony Express Upgrade is in fact a clean install and in general, users making a clean install do not seem to have as many problems.

Andy - now that the XL300 series is released with Vista preinstalled, I would expect Vista Home Premium to work fine now on new XL Vaios. Sony do not support Vista Ultimate and so they have not tested ANYTHING on Ultimate - a good reason to avoid it unless you must join a work Domain.

Plenty of people have Vista running fine - it is just that you are unlikely to meet them in a problem solving forum.

[RobMiles]

Hmmm. If you use component video cables rather than HDMI it works a treat. The only snags are that I can't get it to go above 720p resolution using this connection (which is not a problem as I've not got a Blu Ray drive and most HDTV is 720p anyway) and not all the desktop is visible (which is not a problem as Media Center knows about overscan). I'm keeping my eye out for a new NVidia driver or BIOS upgrade to try and fix this, but I'm not actually that bothered. At least this way I have a free HDMI socket for Sky HD, should I ever decide to get one.

In the last week it has gone from yecchh to wonderful. I've replaced the Sony remote (which has incomprehensible symbols on the keys) for a Microsoft one which has proper words and can be trained to control the Tuner Amp volume control.

Vista is rock solid and just works. I whacked in a Black Gold tuner to get two TV signals (I was using an external one but it wasn't as sensitive as the Black Gold one) and for the last week it has been loverly. Not tipped over once. That is on the back of a clean install onto a brand new disk (I bought a new 250GB drive and slotted it in - while I did that I had a look at the hardware, which is super duper). Vista seems to drag a very nice picture off ordinary DVDs, my copy of Fifth Element looks really good. And the telly is great too.

So, I guess if you are looking for a Vista success story of sorts, I've got one.

[Blencogo]

Thanks for the update Rob. I think there must be a number of Vista success stories now!

Yes it seems that Vista is settling down as long as you do a clean install.

Can you get 720p with Component cables AND Protected Media? I thought the biggest drawback with the Component connection was that HDCP, when active, restricted the output to 576p - which is noticeable on todays larger displays.