Sony Vaio VGN-SZ2 Graphics Howto

The SZ series of sony Vaio came with two modes: stamina and speed. Each one uses a different video card. Thus, you need to configure two xorg.conf files and write the script which will change between those.

NVIDIA Card

I recommend to use the official nvidia driver which you can install easily with apt-get command. You can write your own xorg.conf file or use the nvidia-xconfig utility to do so.

Create a xorg.conf-speed file and add the following lines:

$ sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf-speed

Section "Module"
     Load           "glx"
     ...
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
     Identifier     "Monitor0"
     VendorName     "Unknown"
     ModelName      "Unknown"
     HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
     VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
     Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
     Identifier     "Device0"
     Driver         "nvidia"
     VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
     Identifier     "Screen0"
     Device         "Device0"
     Monitor        "Monitor0"
     DefaultDepth    24
     SubSection     "Display"
          Depth       24
     EndSubSection
EndSection

Intel (945 GM) Graphics

If you are using Ubuntu Jaunty jackalope you will notice that the official Intel driver (i810) doesn't work properly. Instead it is recommended to use the PPA UXA driver.

Installing the driver

First of all, edit the sources file and add the ppa repository:

$ sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

Add these lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #xorg-edgers PPA
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #xorg-edgers PPA

Add the repository public keys by typing:

$ sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 165d673674a995b3e64bf0cf4f191a5a8844c542
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel

Editing xorg.conf file

Create a new file called xorg.conf-stamina.

$ sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf-stamina

Section "Module"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "intel"
    VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName   "Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Notice that the driver name is now "intel", not "i810".

Switcher script

To choose between both created files write these lines into the rc.local file.

$ sudo vim /etc/init.d/rc.local

VIDEO=`lspci | grep -c nVidia`
if [ "$VIDEO" = 1 ]; then
    cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf-speed /etc/X11/xorg.conf
else
    cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf-stamina /etc/X11/xorg.conf
fi

Thats it! Now, when the laptop boots the appropriate configuration file will be used.

References

Last modified date: Wed May 5 21:44:58 CEST 2010