Sony Vaio AR730E Win7 camera fubar & more

Fixing up a Sony Vaio AR730E 17" laptop for a friend. Loaded W7 x64.

Everything basic works. Can't get camera or optical drive to work. Looked at OVERLY complicated guides online. No joy.

Sony site is a joke. No 7 drivers. Tried Vista drivers, no soap.

I need help. Thanks Wilders.

 

Nothing here helps?: http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/model...te_id=1&region_id=1&tab=download#/downloadTab

 

Try going to Devices and Printers, then right clicking on the icon for your computer and selecting Troubleshoot, to make Windows search for missing drivers.

If this fails, then Free Driver Scout should be able to download and automatically install any missing drivers. Just be sure to untick the option to install the Visual Bee on the first install screen, and untick "Try browser extensions for free" on the next screen, so that no unwanted software gets installed as well.

Edit: It does put an eBay icon on your desktop but you can just delete it.

 

Jeez these hardware companies. Just drop support for older hardware. Just like Linux in the old days. Tried all above suggestions & more. No joy.

For giggles I'm trying Driver Scout. Boy that 2nd screen uncheck option is hard to see. DS found no updates for webcam or optical drive. Found 23 other driver updates. Have a clean image so I'm going for it.

Couple more days & I'm handing this lappy back to my bud & suggesting if needed buy external opt drive & cam.

 

Is the computer running Windows 7 64 bit?

You will have trouble finding a 64 bit driver for the webcam. However, the DriverMax website does show a 64 bit driver.
http://www.drivermax.com/driver/upd...coh/Sony-Visual-Communication-Camera-VGP-VCC6

If you install DriverMax then it may be able to get the webcam working.

Failing that, probably the easiest option would be to install Windows 7 32 bit, then quite possibly Windows would be able to find and install the driver itself, and if not you should be able to install the Vista 32 bit driver from Sony's support website.

Even though its a Vista driver, it should work in Windows 7 - I've using a Vista audio driver under Windows 8.

It does seem that the webcam will work find under Windows 7. This guy here got the same model webcam working.

 

I'm stubborn. I loaded W7 X64. Now I'm too lazy to start over with 32bit.

Mostly all works. More than the camera I am flummoxed the BlueRay? optical drive won't read anything. It thinks everything is a blank disc.

 

Give DriveMax a try. You can download and install two drivers a day without paying.

 

sorry i missed this let me check to see if i have more info on that model and possible drivers and we can go from there. i do warranty work on the vaio's and should be able to find you a proper driver. give me a couple days ill be back in my office on tuesday and will check it out.

 

Thank you zfactor.