Last BIOS update for old Sony Vaio

[Mr Creosote]

Edit: Wrong forum, sorry. Please move to laptop technical support

I'm fixing up an old Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF/S. The current BIOS is R1120Y4, and I'd like to know if another BIOS revision was ever released after this one.
Basically, Sony released a bunch of laptops which would detect if you tried to replace the battery with a third party replacement. They later released BIOS updates for some of them that removed this limitation, allowing third party batteries to be installed. So I'd like to find out if this model ever received another BIOS update, as it's a decent enough machine, handles Windows 10 fine, but the battery life sucks, and it's refused to work with every replacement battery I've tried, aside from a used original official battery, which isn't much of an improvement on the the one that's in it.
Alternatively, if anyone knows of a way to patch or mod the BIOS to make it accept a third party battery, I'm willing to try that. It's not a Windows problem, it can't be fixed from within the operating system.
Thanks!

 

[velocityg4]

It appears Sony dumped every driver and BIOS from their servers for older computers recently. Unlike virtually every other computer manufacturer. They are too cheap or poor to continue hosting old drivers and BIOS on their servers. A few TB of rarely accessed data must be too much for them. Way to keep past customers and enthusiasts loyal Sony.

Unfortunately the waybackmachine doesn't keep that level of site detail to see if the BIOS updates existed.

While it looks like there may be some BIOS updates. They are only on those sketchy driver download sites. So, who knows what you're really getting with the download.

Someone backed up the Sony vaio support FTP server before they took it down. I don't think I'd be allowed to link to it here. I'm not certain what the forum rules would be as I don't think it's software piracy but it is discontinued drivers and whatever else was on the server. But the mods may think differently. So, I'll play it safe and not say where to get it.

Also you'd have to download the entire thing and look for your BIOS. Among every BIOS and driver for every Sony product from 2019 and earlier. Which existed on that server. To say it's big is an understatement. Assuming it is even legit. Another reason I didn't link.

But hey. If a mod gives the go ahead. I'll post the link. Then you can pick through it and hopefully find your BIOS update.

 

[Mr Creosote]

It appears Sony dumped every driver and BIOS from their servers for older computers recently. Unlike virtually every other computer manufacturer. They are too cheap or poor to continue hosting old drivers and BIOS on their servers. A few TB of rarely accessed data must be too much for them. Way to keep past customers and enthusiasts loyal Sony.

Unfortunately the waybackmachine doesn't keep that level of site detail to see if the BIOS updates existed.

While it looks like there may be some BIOS updates. They are only on those sketchy driver download sites. So, who knows what you're really getting with the download.

Someone backed up the Sony vaio support FTP server before they took it down. I don't think I'd be allowed to link to it here. I'm not certain what the forum rules would be as I don't think it's software piracy but it is discontinued drivers and whatever else was on the server. But the mods may think differently. So, I'll play it safe and not say where to get it.

Also you'd have to download the entire thing and look for your BIOS. Among every BIOS and driver for every Sony product from 2019 and earlier. Which existed on that server. To say it's big is an understatement. Assuming it is even legit. Another reason I didn't link.

But hey. If a mod gives the go ahead. I'll post the link. Then you can pick through it and hopefully find your BIOS update.

Ha, I know, I held back from ranting about Sony in my initial post, but I've been arguing with their awful customer services people about this for weeks!
So initially I contacted them, asking nicely. I said, look, I understand about pulling support for Windows 7, it's obsolete, it's not receiving security updates, people should stop using it, fine, but there's millions of machines out there that received a free update to Windows 10 from Microsoft. Would you please send me the last version of the BIOS update utility that supported this machine?
They sent me a useless response, we're sorry for the inconvenience, but we can't guarantee compatibility with Windows 10. I said I don't need you to guarantee compatibility with Windows 10, I'm not asking for help running Windows 10, I've got Windows 10 running just fine. I just need the last BIOS update so I can see if it will make the battery work.
So for a while they sent me variations of the same useless reply, I sent them increasingly vexed variations of my reply, and demanded to be put on to someone who was capable of answering my questions.
So I changed tack, and asked could they just confirm whether or not a BIOS update was ever released. They said yes, we can confirm there was a BIOS update released, but they're no longer providing it.
I asked if they could tell me what the last BIOS revision was, so at least I figure out whether or not I was already on the last BIOS revision.
They then told that they no longer have any information whatsoever about this model, due to it's age. I pointed out that support for this range was only removed from their website at the start of this year, were they really telling me that all information about this machine has been totally and irreversibly erased without trace, and if so, how were they able to confirm that there had ever been a BIOS update for it?
They are refusing to answer this question. They won't even acknowledge that I'm asking it. They're now just sending me the same generic reply over and over again, about how they're sorry for the inconvenience, but they no longer provide a BIOS update for this model.
I am sending them increasingly vexed variations of the same reply, with more and more block capitals and underlining, pointing out that I am not asking them to provide the BIOS update, I just want them to explain to me how they were able to confirm that there had been one if they no longer have access to any information about this model.
This may well be the most frustrating and absurd interaction I have ever had with any company's customer services department. It's awful, futile, circular, and I hate it so very, very much.

 

[joshhunter]

Edit: Wrong forum, sorry. Please move to laptop technical support

I'm fixing up an old Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF/S. The current BIOS is R1120Y4, and I'd like to know if another BIOS revision was ever released after this one.
Basically, Sony released a bunch of laptops which would detect if you tried to replace the battery with a third party replacement. They later released BIOS updates for some of them that removed this limitation, allowing third party batteries to be installed. So I'd like to find out if this model ever received another BIOS update, as it's a decent enough machine, handles Windows 10 fine, but the battery life sucks, and it's refused to work with every replacement battery I've tried, aside from a used original official battery, which isn't much of an improvement on the the one that's in it.
Alternatively, if anyone knows of a way to patch or mod the BIOS to make it accept a third party battery, I'm willing to try that. It's not a Windows problem, it can't be fixed from within the operating system.
Thanks!

Do you have latest bios for vgn-nw20ef laptop. I already on R1120Y4