Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

30-day return policy on Amazon Warehouse purchases... If you think it's defective, I would ditch it now and get another one.

 

since it picks up the movement, just not the taps or gestures, it seems software related. Could be wrong though.
Restarted the comptuer a couple times and it started working again..

 

For those who have S1512 what do you have for webcamera in device manager? Is it USB 2.0 camera or something else?

 

Hello,

For those of you who have a SVS with RAID, could you please tell me the type of connector it has going to the motherboard. Please let me know. I appreciate all your help. Pictures would greatly be appreciated. Thanks


Oozi

 

Found a few threads ago the information that the sony VAIOs are limited to SATA2, is that right?

I´m not sure about that...someone told me that a pre-configured vaio s13 with ssd has more bios options or is better configured for it...what do you think?

 

Yep it is for mine works perfectly with Skype.

 

So i just got my S15. I have looked through the thread but cant find anything definitive on which bluray drives are able to be put in, to replace the dvd combo drive. can anyone shed some light?

also, on windows 8, how do i enable fingerprint biometric protection? the control panel says i need a software provided by the mantfacturer (cant find any) :S

and finaly, my laptop does not have any of the 'Vaio Suite' software, is this to be found elsewhere to? many thanks!

 

On purpose limited by the BIOS if the SSD is not Sony's (but physically supports SATA3).
For earlier models there is a BIOS mod or a sleep_dont_reboot_after workaround. For newest models, there is nothing that works, from what I found

These are pretty much standard laptop BD drives, but do look for VAIO S15 compatible only. (you can see the VAIO disassembly here for a visaul representation of it if you want:
Sony Vaio S15 Disassembly and ODD Replacement Tutorial - YouTube
)

AuthenTec TruSuite. If it is not available for your model, are you sure it has a fingerprint scanner at all? (I thought mine did but nope...)

There is no VAIO suite - there is VAIO Control Center. On some S15 "Application/Drivers" page it is listed as VAIO Hotkeys for some reason LOL.

 

Thanks, i'll have a look for trusuite. doesnt look windows 8 compatable thopugh. the fingerprint scanner is deffinately there though!

in terms of vaio suite, i guess i meant stuff like the video editor etc
cheers

 

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if everyone else's Vaio has a stiffer touchpad on the right side.

On my left side of the trackpad, there is an audibile "click" sound, but when I click on the right side, it's stiffer and does not produce a real audible "click" sound.

Everytime I take apart my laptop, the trackpad works flawlessly. But after some use, the trackpad becomes stiffer on the right side again...I do not know what the problem is coming from...

PS: My other Vaio SVS does not have this problem, but I haven't used the laptop as it is still brand new. But for my current laptop, I just got the whole keyboard and trackpad replaced so I am totally stumped.

 

For me there is one big Problem: i´ve created a recovery usb stick but i can´t boot it! after shutdown booting with assist and select booting from usb...several reboots, thats it. what can i do?
is there anything i must Change in the uefi bios to work the recovery stick?

 

Hi there guys,

I'm currently using ASUS N53SV with i5 and GeForce 540. I found a good offer for Sony SVS15 with i5, FullHD screen and GeForce 640LE. I aim at nice looking laptop with good performance and that Sony model should suit me enough.
I can get SVS15 with the mentioned configuration for 650 € with 2 year warranty period. Seems quite good offer, don't you think?

 

I had the same problem with my s13, the cable going to where the battery hooks up needs to be pushed down tight in the gab between the motherboard and frame. It sits right under the right side of the touchpad, so if it rides up to far it causes this.

 

It is available on W8 models for download, so it needs to be compatible. (it would be listed as FingerPrint something/utility, depending on the VAIO model/region)

Oh, donno.. I never cared for it to search, but never saw it either

 

I'm considering a 15" S Series vs an HP 15t-4000. Configured the way I'd like, the cost comes out comparably. Pros for the Sony... matte screen, nVidia graphics, optical drive. Pros the 15t... touchscreen and the vendor I'd be using is willing to swap the intel 6235 wi-fi card for the 6300 ultimate. I originally dismissed the S15 due to orangegate since I'm going to be using it a lot with Lightroom, but it sounds like that may be fixed. So the remaining question would be whether the 6235 card in the S15 is readily accessible so I can swap in a 6300. Does anybody know?

 

One more follow up. I decided to benchmark my battlefield 3 playing to see what kind of FPS I got. This is all at 1600x900 resolution.

Low: 41 fps
Medium: 31 fps
High: 22 fps
Ultra; 16 fps

Not too bad for a 3.5 lbs laptop, if you ask me. When playing on high and ultra, I actually never dipped below 15 fps (even when on a motorcycle speeding through the map), which means it was actually somewhat playable. It doesn't beat playing with my 5870 on my desktop at 1080 resolution, but it worked great for me last night when I wanted to sit at the table and watch the news (good job last night Boston PD!!), and play BF3.

 

First off, I am very grateful for the available help here on this forum. I bought a SVS151190X a little over a month ago and have been having a few issues. One of those was the screen brightness adjusting based on the image displayed, someone suggested making a change to the power settings of the Intel Graphics and Media settings and that fixed it. So thanks!

The reason I am posting is because I have a very touchy/glitchy touchpad and I have not seen many people posting this problem. I'm hoping there is a fix! Often the touchpad makes my computer almost impossible to use.

Using the touchpad animated tray icon, as well as the pressure graph, both indicate there is a light input to the device at all times when it begins glitching. Once this happens the response varies widely. It may move normally but be unable to click. Sometimes it moves on it's own unless you put in an input to override its movement. Sometimes it jumps and clicks erratically and other times it does not move at all. Strangest of all, if you disable the mouse using the Fn + F1 key the mouse continues to work. The Sony prompt is displayed saying the trackpad has been disabled. Nevertheless it continues to work and the animated tray icon continues to show green inputs (where a red X should be displayed).

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers several times. I also tried the drivers on Synaptics website instead of those listed on Sony's website. Any suggestions here would be greatly appreciated. I am a few days away from figuring out a way to return this PC. It is almost unusable. I am outside of a 30 day return policy but inside of a 90 day warranty (refurb).

Thank you!

 

Hi! I have a little question. Does the Sony Vaio S15 have a mSATA port? Thanks!

 

Nope.

Edit:
Disregard that, I thought you were talking about an eSATA port.

 

No, I mean mSATA, for a SSD xD. I am a bit confused because I have read that the S15 hasn't got mSATA, but in Sony.com you can configure it with a RAID of SSDs, and I have also read that it has a m-PCIe slot. Has anyone here tried adding a mSATA SSD to the S15? Thanks!

 

I´m a bit confused about the integrated wwan option; after installing all my drivers and tools the wwan option is completly gone in windows 8 - no chance to deactivate the modem again! what can i do? the switch for mobile broadband is completely gone...

I did a restore right now, the mc7710 part is shown in devices manager but is not active. help please!

is the card deactivated, but how can this happen?

 

Has anyone tried the recently released "VAIO® Improvement Update" aka "VAIO Stability Improvement Patch"?

If it fixes Vaio Update, great. If it's a sneaky update to kill the GPU overclock or SATA 6GB/s, then not so good.


(I don't actually believe the 6GB/s issue is intentional - seems far more likely to be an underspecced cable, but can't be too careful)

 

I have the S13A290x, and I put this SSD in it, and it worked fine.

Newegg.com - Refurbished: Corsair Force Series GS CSSD-F240GBGS/RF2 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Is there a kind of energy safe mode when no sim card is inserted in the MC7710? I´m not sure...after recovery the lte part wasn´t active, now, with a sim card insert, it´s working fine...any idea what happend?

 

I´m not sure what this update will fix, i can´t download it from the website, my vaio update also shows no updates since i recieved my machine last week...

 

Thanks for the advice! That's what I thought when I opened up my laptop several times, but can't find a solution. What did you do to prevent the stiffer right side of the trackpad?

Also, you mean the ribbon cable? There are 2 ribbon cables that needs to be detached when opening up the laptop, are those the ones?

 

For S152 owners: What do you have for webcamera in your Device Manager?

 

For S13, it just says USB2.0 Camera. What does yours say?

 

Anyone on the problem above? I called Sony and they had me do a System Restore. I went all the way back to before they shipped the laptop. So far, so good (about 6 hours of use...) but I know the problem is coming back. I'm not afraid to go to work taking this thing apart if necessary. It is under warranty but I would rather not be without the thing for a few weeks.

I'm super happy with the computer... other than this darn touchpad...

 

if a system restore fixed the issue, its most likely nothing hardware related.
one thing to try is to go into your synaptics mouse settings, and expand pointing and then cut the sensitivity down some.

 

Sony VAIO VPCS12M9R/S Blu-ray Drive BD-R/RE Writer - SATA would this, or similar fit in the 2012/3 vaio s 15?

 

Does anyone know where to buy replacement screws for the S13? I chipped a few of the longer ones near the back of the laptop..

Also, what size are they?

 

Furthermore, I am wondering if there are any pictures of the keyboard and palm rest plate when you take apart the laptop. The part of the motherboard that has the SD card read and Memory Card reader keeps sliding out of place, causing a tiny sound when I place my hand on the palm rest area..Really annoying.

I just want to know how to prevent that part of the motherboard from sliding out of place and thus, making that annoying sound.

 

I've actually had the same problem ever since I bought the laptop. It is definitely NOT a software issue. It happens under:
1. Ubuntu Linux 12.10 (64bit)
2. Ubuntu Linux 13.04 (64bit)
3. Windows 7 (64bit)
4. Windows 8 (64 bit)

All of these were clean installed with fresh drivers (and a hard drive reformat in Windows 7/8)

Usually putting the computer to sleep and waking it up again will solve the problem...but that's still an extremely annoying (and frankly unacceptable) hardware issue.

Anybody had any luck talking to Sony about this?

 

Hi
Just got a demo unit ;SVS15112C5E.Everything was working fine.But after a few reboots it wanted a user password??I did not touch the password settings.
Decided to reinstall windows,But when i get to where i want to install windows i get this :No device drivers were found.It does not detect my to 128 ssd drives.
Windows does detect the drives in legasy but not in uefi mode.
(But it will not install in legasy,something to do whit"GPT")
How can i install in uefi?
Help please.
Thanks

 

While it's undeniably a hardware or environment issue for you, I've only experienced something similar once or twice, and cleaning the pad then rebooting fixed it

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Just received my S1511C5E from Sony.

I'm impressed. I was using ASUS N53SV previously, but now I'm sure. Sony makes the best hardware (I had Sony F11 2 years ago). The screen is awesome. I've just added more RAM and 250 GB Samsung 840. I bought it with Windows 7 Professional, I even got the code for Office 2010 Home and Business.

Now's the time for GeForce 640M LE o'c

 

Anyone using vaio update also recieves the "Rescue Data(x64) Update Program"? I can´t install this update, don´t know why. Tried it several times, it gives me an error and reboot...

 

Does any one else notice that their the lid of the S15 is curved slightly?

I just got my S15 last night and noticed when the screen is folded down, and viewed from the front, the middle of the screen does not sit flat against the bottom half of the laptop. Just want to check if this is 'normal' before calling Sony.

 

Same here on S15. I did a PC refresh and my camera started acting weird, it wont work on Skype for Win8 app but it works on Skype desktop app except that I cannot see myself on my screen. Photo app works fine, etc.

I just didn't pay attention if it said USB2.0 Camera before or that showed up after refresh. I know on old CRs it would also show up as USB2.0 Camera without yellow triangle but it would be useless unless you install Sony driver and then it would say Sony Visual Communication Device or something like that.

 

Please can someone tell me if my brand new SVS1513C5E is SATA III compatible?

Cheers

 

Please help!

I can't for the life of me figure out why the right side of my palm rest makes a slight clicking sound when I place my arm on it.

I think it has to do with the ribbon cable, but I am not sure. I thought it had to do with the computer chip that houses the USB ports, but I can't see any faults from the installation. I am so stumped. I have opened my laptop several times and still can't solve the issue..

Any suggestions or solutions?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hello guys!

I have ordered a Sony Vaio S with 1600x900 640m LE, 4 gb ram. Ordered a 240 gb ssd and an extra 4 gigs of ram.

So I guess my questions are, can anyone send me a link to a compatible IPS display? and if the BIOS mod for the 640 has been updated for the 2013 models?

Thank you for answers!

 

I've installed it on a s13 windows 8 model (clean install) and I get sataIII with optical drive disabled... Don't know about GPU overclock, because I have the windows 8 model.

 

i found this win7 downgrade page.
Windows 7 32-Bit Downgrade Drivers and Utilities for SVS13/15 Series : Download : Sony Middle East & Africa
after installing the important stuff, i dont have a keyboard backlight setting in vaio control center,
any idea what its dependend on?
is there maybe a reg key or somehow i can change the bahaviour manually?

 

W8 model with SATA3? Which model do you have exactly? I was under the impression that W8 models would not allow SATA3 after sleep regardless of optical.

 

I have the same problem on my SVS13... and I also noticed if you uninstall everything from synaptics you won't have this problem. However you'll miss a lot of features, but it's a signal that the pressure software system is triggered by something....
If you install the latest updates this probably will get worse. So it's realted with the pressure.

Like crazyviolindudee and Runordie , I think this is a hardware issue too.
Do you have some instructions to fix this issue?

 

i have this model and still SATA II,

but i've a Samsung 840 SSD and i try in sata 2 and sata 3 mode and i don't see any difference in NORMAL/DAILY use.

 

I got my S15 today (it's model number SVS1513CE). I checked to see if it has the orange gate and it does not. It shows perfect reds. Here's a photo:



The keyboard flexes a lot and it's especially bad on the left side - up until and including the F key, however it doesn't seem to bother me much. The machine gets a bit warm (with no heavy load) on the left side where the numpad is (and below it). I also checked the headphone jack and it works OK without having to force it in. The USB hubs on the other hand are TERRIBLY tight and I haven't managed to fit my usb receiver in the usb 2.0 port.
I also want to add that this notebook is awkwardly long - longer than my two other 15" machines (2cm longer) which is kind of a silly to put it mildly considering how light and thin this machine is. I'm posting this in a hurry but anyway if anyone has any questions ask away

 

Looks like they fixed the orange gate.

Just to be safe, can you do a monitor comparison?