Kristof Wuyts

Hi everyone, I recently had a computer crash with my Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31Z, due to a software failure. I had it repaired by a technician (not under warranty anymore), and I lost all partitions containing the Sony recovery software. After a lot of work downloading the original drivers and reinstalling them (in the correct order ) I am now running Windows 7 (originally Vista was installed) but of course without all the original Sony software (like Sony Update etc...). But now I've noticed that my BIOS is acting weird. I just found out that I can't install the original NVidia driver anymore, neither on Windows 7 or Vista. Once I try to do that, and I reboot, it gives me a bluescreen and I get all kinds of weird colored dots and striped on my screen. It says "Page fault in non-paged area", so I run Windows startuprepair and it fixes it (by uninstalling the Nvidia driver). Also, on startup, I get the Vaio logo, but it's a bit deformed (pixelated, warped, etc...) similar to this: http://www.google.be/imgres?q=sony+vaio+startup+logo+pixelated&start=197&um=1&hl=nl&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=709&tbm=isch&tbnid=twcI_MWsqlrRDM:&imgrefurl=http://article.wn.com/view/2012/05/24/Chips_Not_Just_for_Gamers_Anymore/&docid=hpJEbWV4BkagwM&imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JDl-ZxA2G_Y/0.jpg&w=480&h=360&ei=x3ySUNK-EeG_0QWRh4CYDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=417&vpy=30&dur=398&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=82&ty=87&sig=112231823195252370857&page=9&tbnh=151&tbnw=240&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,i:298 Also, I can't get my battery to work properly anymore. My technician says he doesn't know how to fix it, because the BIOS is probably corrupt or something. I have never changed anything to it, it's still the original BIOS. Do you guys know a (safe) way to reinstall the BIOS or to repair it? Thank you very much.

I recently bought a new battery for my Sony Vaio FZ31Z laptop. But I've got some problems with it. Normally when I put it in, it works, but doesn't charge ('plugged in not charging'). Now I've got it so far that it says 'plugged in and charging' but I can't see the battery level anywhere. I've also installed some third-party widgets, and they also can't see the battery level. If I take the battery out and reinsert it, it says 'plugged in and not charging'. So that's not an option. Also, when I startup, the icon says 'plugged in and charging', but shows the icon like when there's no battery installed. If I then go to device manager and uninstall and reinstall ACPI-compliant method battery, it changes to an empty battery with a power chord next to it, but no animation as if it were charging. I think it's something to do with software that needs to communicate from the battery to the OS, and that I haven't installed. I don't know, it's just a guess really. BTW: I'm having exactly the same problems on Windows Vista. This is what BatMon tells me: http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7607/batmon.png So the battery, the laptop and the charger are doing what they need to be doing, the battery does charge and discharge and works with my computer. It's just that I can't see how much the battery has been charged or how much time I have left to use the battery. Does anyone have an idea?