problem with ethernet and SFPE drivers on VAIO VPCEH2J1E/L

[asdasdasd]

Hi,

I'm having trouble installing drivers on my new VAIO VPCEH2J1E/L.

I wanted to get rid of all unwanted (for me) utilities so I formatted using a freshly downloaded/burned Windows 7 Home premium x64 ISO. (Home premium x64 was the version installed on the VAIO when I bought it and I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft's official servers)

I formatted/installed Windows and then installed my drivers for my VAIO (downloaded directly from the official Sony website on another computer and copied onto the VAIO's HDD using a usb flash drive)

After installing the drivers, I noticed that there were problems with "Ethernet controller" and "Unknown device" in the device manager, although installation processes ran successfully. (the "Unknown device" stood for the "SFPE" driver)

I tried applying the .INF files manually for these devices but couldn't find them on my HDD neither on the web (drivers were .EXE files and didn't seem to extract stuff on my HDD)

I then decided to ring Sony and after a long talk with a technician, I was advised to install Windows using another DVD, which I did: I formatted again and installed windows using an Ultimate version DVD, then installed my drivers: the device manager wasnt showing yellow exclamation marks anymore for ethernet and sfpe...

So, my question is! How do I install all my VAIO drivers in order to make it work?

Do I need to install Home premium, then install my wireless drivers so I can download windows updates and then retry installing my other drivers?

Thanks!

BTW: Sorry for my english

Message was edited by: asdasdasd

Message was edited by: asdasdasd

[warriorfullight]

Windows 7 has a feature where you can download and install the drivers automatically by checking on updates right after you did a fresh install of the Windows 7 OS. Check that out.

[asdasdasd]

Hi and thanks for your reply.

I've tried letting windows update try and find the correct drivers for my VAIO but it didn't fix everything.

After a fresh install of Home premium (the version that I was experiencing trouble with), before installing any driver nor windows updates, my device manager shows a bunch of peripherals with an exclamation mark:

* SM bus controller -> fixed by installing the chipset driver

* Network controller -> fixed by installing the wireless driver

* Ethernet controller -> installed the driver successfully to no avail, exclamation mark remains

* PCI Simple Communications Controller -> fixed by installing the "ME" ("Management Engine") driver

* Unknown device -> installed the driver successfully ("SFEP", stands for "Sony Firmware Environment Parser") to no avail

* PCI device -> fixed by installing the cardreader driver

I then tried to install all of the windows updates that were available:

* Unknown device -> fixed by installing a windows update (I checked the updates history and there was one corresponding to this device)

Still, I can't seem to get the Ethernet controller working

Again, the drivers installed flawlessly on both windows versions that I've tried but the ethernet and sfep problems were cured on the other windows version (Ultimate) after installing the drivers although they aren't on Home premium

The ISO I have downloaded and used doesn't include the SP1, I'm downloading another ISO including it at the moment and will try burning it and reinstalling windows with it but I doubt there will be any difference since I already downloaded all the updates I could download for my current Home premium version and still have the same problem

Discouraging...

Thanks anyways!

EDIT: I found out that my ethernet controller was a Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller, so I went to Realtek's website and downloaded a zip file containing the adequate .inf .ini .sys or whatever files.

I got into the device manager and specified the folder's location manually -> installation successful without any warnings (like "unsigned driver" etc), finally got it working :smileygrin:

Still I find it pretty weird that the ethernet and sfep drivers cure the problem on the Ultimate version and not on the Home premium version...