Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

I'm not sure bro. I haven't tried.
By right should be possible. I think.

Btw, thank you very much for pointing out the wireless state device! silly me, for not searching around the thread.

Hey, thanks for the link!
Yeah, that's the problem. :thumbsup:

 

Try open up Intel Rapid Storage application, and check from there on the SATA speed, for confirmation.

 

Intel app shows sata transfer rate at 3Gb/s

 

Yep, mine is also 3Gb/S

 

Question to all S13/S15 users using windows 8.

I noticed that when I right-click the desktop, it seems to respond slowly than usual, it is instantaneous smooth in Windows 7, but in Windows 8, it is about 2-3 sec..

Is any of the bloatware or vaio program causing this?

Thanks

 

Newer intel drivers 'bug'
Graphics — Removing the custom desktop right-click context menu

 

The slow desktop Intel thing is in the first post

Sent from my SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hello boys,

can any body drop af couple of pics for the White Sony Vaio S 15"? Thank you.

Can someone confirm if the keyboard is white, black or silver pad on the white ones?

 

Saw the white in store. It's like a pearl white. Thought it was gorgeous myself. I think the kb was white or silver, can't remember.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hi,

I did a clean install of Windows 8 on my Sony Vaio SVS15115FNB. I know I should've gone for an update, but read somewhere clean install is always better. Coming to the point, all my Fn keys (except volume) seems not to work. Neither I am able to turn off the track pad or use Sony utilities. I called my Sony Customer Support to ask about supporting drivers for Windows 8 - all they say is, I should install windows 7 again and try upgrading to windows 8 (not a clean install). But the thing is I failed to take backup of windows 7 - and I am almost stuck up.

My requirement is simple, I somehow need to install the Vaio Control Center (I need to use that Battery Care option), turn off track pad, make Fn keys work - can someone guide me (I tried some steps given but none seems to work) - can someone give the link to download Vaio Control Center for my model (Indian website dont have it, windows 8 version of control center doesn't have battery care) ?

It seems I will have to wait for Sony to release the updates (which I don't know when). I don't see Vaio Control Center under Windows 7 drivers list too - Is there any solution? How should I solve these issues?

Please help !

Thanks!

 

Thanks for replying u two. Btw i didn't have this problem on windows 7 with the slow right click on desktop, it is only slow on windows 8. Could this be a conflict or a glitch with intel gpu and windows 8?

 

The answer is on page 493- and also in previous posts. Plz read or search the forum before you ask questions which have been answered many times.

 

Any one having issues playing games after installing windows 8?

I'm trying to play League of Legends and it just lags all the time, I didn't have this issue when I had windows 7

Model # SVS13A190X

 

i had to re-install the bios mod i used after the first time. seemed to be stuck on 500mhz but after i re-flashed on windows 8 i didn't have to do it the next 3 times i re-installed windows 8. shouldnt have had to do it in the first place... anyways make sure you have the .exe in nvidia control panel and set to maximum performance. also make sure you have priority set to ventilation.

 

Ok so reinstall the bios mod? and I can't find where the priority set to ventilation is on windows 8. I knew where it was on windows 7 but I can't find it

 

Search for a post by me with the word details in the last 10 pages I describe where it is. If you can't find it I'll post a picture later

Sent from my SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah I can't find it,

My cpu is running at 1.17 ghz, why is that?

 

my apologies i posted it in the bios mod thread... anyways




here is the setting screen:



why is that? intel's proccessors can dynamically clock themselves. mine can run anywhere from 57% to 133% according to resource monitor. it depends on the processor but that seems normal. also check to make sure your speed switch is working not just flipped to speed but that it actually does stuff and that you are in high performance battery mode

i find that none of my games get added to nvidia control panel either so you can try that. i would also recommend getting after burner or open HW monitor it will tell you what your clocks and temps are.


I also want to mention that with windows 8 im getting about 10-15 min better battery life.... maybe more. this is after windows updated and such so good news!

 

Yeah mine doesn't even show that, and still my speed switch still doesn't work and I tried the other advices on how to fix it.

In Vaio control center it just says

power and battery
image quality
network
other

that's it, it used to show all of that on windows 7,

 

Guys, I can't stand the S13 display quality, I wanna switch to S15 but I bought the notebook on August so the RMA is a no-go. What are my solutions?

 

As I know have received my laptop I am in need of bag. A messenger bag. Here are some of the Sony ones im looking at.
Heather Grey Laptop Bag | VAIO® Messenger Case | VGP-AMB13 | Sony USA
Black VAIO Professional Laptop Bag | VGP-AMT1B15/B | Sony USA

Do any of you have any of these bags? How do you like? If not these bags what other ones would you recommend? $60 or less. Or is something like this one good?
Amazon.com: Case Logic VNC-216 16-Inch Laptop Briefcase (Black): Computers & Accessories

information on these bags from some people who know or own them or some others that are good would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

 

Do you use it for photo/video editing or something? I think other than that it's quite good for a TN panel.

 

I'm having the same problem, the computer does not start when I press power button. I was not able to enter BIOS, every time I pressed F2 only a boot menu came up. So I restarted and tried to press DEL during bootup instead. The computer then went black and since then nothing happens when I press the power button. Nor the charging light is on even though the power adapter is connected. The battery was about 70% full so there is power in there, it just doesn't turn on.

Any advice what I can do?

****Edited to add****
By opening the bottom, disconnecting the battery, pushing the power button for 2 minutes (Don't know if this step was necessary) and inserting the battery again the computer started working.

 

My S13A arrived today! Just started to create recovery media´s
When this is done I will upgrade the Ram to 8Gb and the HDD with an Samsung 830 256GB!

One question:
Does an alternative much smaller charger exists for the S? I can remember that I owned with my Z11 a smaller coolermaster charger for travelling...

 

Nice Grats!! Is that the new Vaio S with the new windows 8? Good choice in SSD, do you already have an ISO burned copy of windows 8 to clean install the ssd? Do you have all the necessary drivers ready>?

 

Try and sell it if it bothers you that much. Should still be able to get 75-85% of its total value retail value if you are patient. Personally the display in my opinion is not too bad and it is actually better than my Alienware M14x R2 display in vividness and color and has a nice matte screen that is better for the eyes compared to super duper glossy reflection of the m14x. However the M14x has the advantage on brightness and contrast ratio.

 

It is the new S with Win 8 pre installed. I will make a recovery and deinstall all unneded software after that. Not the best option, but better than getting a clean Win 8

 

Why is that? Because you don't have to install all the drivers again?

Also, how much time did you wait to receive it? I'm ordering mine today and it says 10-17 days.

 

A clean install is always better than the recovery. But you have to download all Drivers an install them manually.
Mine was ordered on October 29th and arrive November 09. So about 11 days. I think this is the normal interval

 

I'm really enjoying my S 15. I moved the 1TB drive to the optical bay and am booting off a 256gb M4 SSD. I tried doing a fresh install of Win7, but couldn't get some of the Sony stuff I do want to work, so I ended up just cloning the factory install to the SSD and uninstalling some things.

One thing though, I got the 12gb of ram from the factory, and it's supposed to be 1600mhz, but Geekbench (and I know I saw it somewhere else also) say it's running at 666mhz... is that normal? The ram does score a 7.6 in the Windows Experience, so that seems pretty good...

 

I heard there are complications on using the recovery factory media that you burned on an SSD but not on a HDD.


Can I use my recovery media to recover the factory state on the default hard drive or new hard drive?
Answer: Absolutely. It does not matter if the original hard drive was a 320GB drive and the replacement is a 500GB drive. It will format and restore the factory out of box state to the new drive. The new drive will still have the correct free space remaining. No need to worry about lost space... Move on to installing your applications, games, documents. Update Java and Flash. Updated Windows via Windows Update. Enjoy your new replacement drive!

Can I use my recovery media to recover the factory state on a new SSD?
Answer: Possibly. Many have reported moving from a larger factory drive to a smaller aftermarket drive is throwing a 'not enough free space' message. So, the short answer here - be prepared for it not to work. Perhaps just go with a clean install after creating the recovery drive. Creating the recovery drive is still important - if you ever want to drop the original drive back in and recover to the out of box state then this is the best way to go.

 

any with a few pics?

 

they updated to 1600mhz?!? im jelly. and yes that is fine there are a few posts in this thread that describes why i dont remember off hand.

you should install shared library from windows 7 and try some more stuff from win 8 page. i tried to pin down what added the stuff to mine last install but i was unable to. your missing something from sony's driver page though.... then the other stuff will appear in VCC

 

correction, the sony specs list it as 1333mhz ram, still double what my system says it's running at. I'll do some more searching.

 

No need to worry: the actual RAM frequency is always half the specified RAM speed.
So your RAM is running at the expected speed.

 

I recovered with the Samsung 256 and everything works like a charm. So there is in my Opinion no Problem.
But can someone tell me how I can disable the Bluetooth or wifi with a Software? Vaio smart Network is not installed and from what i read it will not work on Windows 8

 

The difference between 1666 and 1333 RAM is 2-3% unless big OC is involved.

 

ODD is noisy but if I disable it via bios menu (as advised in this forum) will it still be possible to use recovery disks?? It seems it won't.

 

Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked before.
Do you guys manage to get the Assist and Web button to work after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8?
Now when I press the button, it'll just boot up to windows 8.
I did however cloned my factory default Windows 7 HDD to SSD directly when I first got my SSD.
I never actually tried both of the button since I bought the laptop though.
Also, do you guys manage to install Vaio Care for Windows 8?

Thanks.

 

i dont think that that question has been asked. the assist button should launch vaio care. so that needs to be installed. then the web button never really functioned as a "start web before the pc starts" button. i think that was only on one of sony's laptops. never the less with chrome on windows 8 it only brings up the web button (maybe there is something i need for this? idk or really care) then finally in windows 8 without doing anything special vaio launches vaio care (settings in vcc) I tried to set up the custom s button switcher that i used successfully in windows 8 but it seems not to be working well in win 8...

yes go to the drivers page and install Vaio control center... shouldnt have any problems. when you do this, if you have shared libraries not installed yet, can you plese take a picture of it then install shared libraries, restart and take a new picture. some say they are missing features of vaio control center and i have a belief it is in shared libraries but i was unable to confirm

 

The Vaio S13 has keyboard ghosting horror issue. Combination of Q+W and another third key does not work. Basically it affects people that plays games that requires some 3 key simultaneous combination such as strafing/moving eiter left or right or backwards or forward etc...

 

Does it really matter if you do a clean install vs an upgrade for Windows 8?

 

Don't know if this has been brought up before but..
I just formatted with a fresh install of Windows 8 x64. Is there an updated version of the recommended order of drivers installation? That would be most helpful since the Windows 7 order of installation seems a bit different from the Windows 8.

 

Sorry for asking this again but the search function gives me always errors today
The Windows Update offers me a new GPU Driver. Can I just download this one or is the Graphics driver a special one like on the Z series?

Next question: Does a much smaller Charger for travelling exists?

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/520597/geforce-mobile-gpus/switching-graphics-card-issue/

Edit: is it safe to use the 640bios mod? I have the new bios r00080 something, running win8 64bit laptop is 2-3weeks old purchased from sony website.
I never game on my laptop i just watch lots of full-hd / blu ray movies =)

 

bios works now

VAIO User Guide | Setting/Changing the Power-on Password

 

My custom S13 model (SVS-131A12M) isn't listed in both EU/Asia or USA drivers page. I need to install all Windows 8 drivers, what should I do?

 

Graphics driver: There are two GPUs in these lappys. The HD4000 and the NVIDIA 640M. You didn't say which one Windows is offering a new driver for....and in fairness MS may not have told you. If you're not a gamer...then I would recommend just using the latest driver from the Sony support site for your machine. That's a nice safe option and easy to load up. I would prefer that to something over Windows update....which SHOULD be usable but ya' just never know. I NEVER use Windows Update without completely backing up my system drive just in case their foolproof system isn't! Now if you're a gamer then the driver for the 640M is going to be critical for maximum performance especially on new games. Download it from the NVIDIA website directly! There are some tricks. You will have to make some minor changes to INF file in the driver package to get it to install....as NVIDIA doesn't want to tread n Sony's toes since they offer their own driver package. Problem is that SONY very seldom updates it's video drivers and NVIDIA constantly updates their own...which is why you want it in the first place. You'll have to do some research if that it is the way you want to go..it's all in the first few pages of the thread...including the OP which is a MUST READ!

As for smaller charger....Sony does not offer one. You MAY find one that will work on the secondary market. Make sure of it's compatibility! Feeding the lappy the wrong voltage can brick it! I don't think you will find a smaller charger for this machine since the one provided produces just enough power to run the CPU/GPU combo as it is. If you choose one with a lower amperage rating you may get poor results.

 

No one on this thread has reported an issue using the BIOS mod to overclock the 640M. I've been using it for several months now without problems and the improvement in gaming performance is DRAMATIC! Sony emasculated the 640M to save power which is nice...but that's what the Stamina switch and the HD4000 is for!!

I believe that Amal (who is our goto guy on the BIOS mod) has or will soon have a modded version of the new BIOS for Win8 available.

KEEP your cooling system cleaned out! Overclocking the 640M will produce lots of extra heat....if your cooling system is blocked up with dust you are liable to roast your GPU!

Last thought...if you're not a gamer you just don't need it! Sony's factory clocks are fine for everything EXCEPT 3D games.

 

Problem with 6235-n wireless card:

It does not work in n mode. I have the option "802.11n Mode" activated within adapter settings but if I forced my router to accept only n clients the connection drops off and it's impossible to reconnect unless disabling only n clients in router. Anyone can confirm this? I've 15.5.0.42 drivers but upgrading to latest one 15.5 doesn't solve the problem and speed is even worse.

In terms of speed is really rubbish. I get 30 Mb while another laptop gets 48 MB, same conditions. Uploading is fine, 10 Mb (maximum). My connection is 100/10 Mb.