TV Remote Control not connecting to AR21S

[pencarrick]

I have just bought a VGN-AR21S running on XP/ windows media center and although the TV and recording function works OK with the mouse the remote control has no effect.The batteries are new in the remote and the light flashes every time you make an entry the Vaio does not respond. I have tried the remote with an infra red transmitter which I use to alter my SKY digi box and although it does not understand the commands which I did not expect it to the transmitter recieves the infra red signal.
The red light just to the right of the lid lock is illuminated on the laptop but does not flicker when the remote is operated.
I have been to control panel/system and all HID interfaces seem to be working but I was not sure which one was the TV infra red reciever.
Does this reciever need configuring to get it to work as the TV function is just about usable with a mouse the DVD etc is hard work
Thanks for any help

[Blencogo]

Hi pencarrick and welcome to Club Vaio,

It could be lots of things but just try the simple one first:

Take the batteries out of the Remote & short the battery terminals with a coin or a screwdriver.

Now try it ????

[Sirnig]

Hi pencarrick. Here's what I wrote about a similar experience I had to yours back in Nov 2006:-

MCE 2005 -IR Remote Commander RC6 Not Working in AR21S

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Having somehow managed to "lose" my TV Tuner Card connection [see my post entitled MCE 2005 No Tuner Card etc" here http://www.club-vaio.com/clubvaio/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=36767 and post a fix, I subsequently ran into another problem of somehow losing the connection to the supplied Sony RC6 IR Remote handset for Windows Media Center 2005 control.

Apparently, the MS Update Rollup 2 for MCE 2005 installed a fresh set of IR Drivers and thus needs a Registry tweak to update a registry value to re-enable IR learning in universal remote controls. You can do so by running the following command line to reset the necessary registry value and then rebooting your machine to cause it to take effect:

" reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da /v EnableDebounce /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f "

I tried all 3 steps outlined by Aaron Stebner in his helpful article here http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/11/14/492743.aspx
but none worked for me.

Ultimately, after 10 hours + of getting nowhere, I stumbled across the Hotfix KB905213 (6/12/2005) which "provides support for new device manufacturers of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 infrared receivers. This driver only needs to be installed if instructed by your device manufacturer." I downloaded and applied it and instantly I had a working Remote Control once again.

...it certainly doesn't help when Microsoft issue new Hotfixes which openly trash existing setups, so I will apply them in future with great trepidation and suspicion.


I hope this might be useful to you. Good luck!

[pencarrick]

Hi Thanks for your comments I have tried the Hotfix mentioed and shorting the terminals but have had no luck yet. I am not too confident on tweaking the registry . The techguys at PC world have also installed the latest drivers . I fear it will have to be returned to Sony.

[jumbles1971]

I have an AR21S too and never had any trouble with my remote under XP, but at the weekend I installed the Vista Express Upgrade and my remote stopped working.

I've spent the last few days trying to install Epson Status Monitor and it kept closing (the oh so wonderful DEP striking once again!). I looked up on the web how to disable DEP and ran the command (which I won't repeat here for fear of being sued if anything goes wrong) but now my remote works. I don't know if it's because I disabled DEP or just one of those random things (it'll probably stop working again tomorrow).

I don't know if this will help but it might be worth looking into.

Jumbles

ps Epson Status Monitor installed first time after I disabled DEP