Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

Could you post some screenshots showing the motherboard info, wireless card, etc from a program such as hwmonitor

 

Blamo.


Oops. Now you guys know my first name.
EDIT: Here's my WEI as well, not sure why desktop performance is so low, probably due to intel gpu though.

 

Do you know the exact model number of the motherboard?

 

poof. Ill edit out my serial number in a bit.

 

Does sony have proprietary motherboards? I figured it would be a standard intel.

 

For me, CPU-Z wasn't able to show any motherboard or soldered RAM info. It is most likely obfuscated.

Thank you sir, that's about what I notice too. The suspend time on closing the lid is pretty much annoying.

 

One last question before i go to bed, which particular model has the fingerprint reader?

 

I ordered a pre-configured S15 yesterday. The laptop has already shipped and will be here next week. A few questions for any S15 owners:

(1) The HP Envy 15 owners have figured out how to calibrate the screen to reduce the orange-red problem. Does anyone know any good settings for fixing the orange-red, and how it's done with this Nvidia/Intel laptop's drivers?

(2) Is there a service manual for this laptop yet? I'm probably going to open it up when it arrives and swap an SSD into the drive bay. Is this easy to do? Do I have to start the laptop with the default 640 GB HDD in it first to burn off the Recovery Discs so I can re-image the SSD with the default installation?

(3) Has anyone tested Diablo III on this laptop yet? How does it run in native 1080p resolution and with what settings?

(4) Will it be easy to BIOS hack this laptop to expose advanced settings, such as SATA3 mode? (Since it's default set only to SATA2.)

(5) I didn't get the Fresh Start since I ordered one of the in-stock configurations instead of waiting 2 weeks for them to custom build it. Is it easy to uninstall the bloatware from this laptop? What is actually necessary to operate it and what is just useless bloat?

 

AuthenTec AES1660

 

My bad, i wasnt clear, I meant is it the 13 inch, the 15 inch, or all of them.

 

you probably want to black out your serial number in this picture, just to be cautious.

 

1. For the red problem, I just increased the intensity of blue in the intel control panel by 10 units, it's not that much of a problem
2. I swapped out the HDD for an SSD today. It's very easy to access and change the hard drive.
3. I am currently installing a number of games, D3 is not one of them though. I am not blown away by it's gaming performance, but it has a pretty solid gpu.
4. no idea
5. When you put the SSD in, do a reinstall. There is so much sony bloat it's amazing. Before reinstalling though make sure to download the wifi/ethernet drivers and stick them on a flash drive if you have no other computers in the house, as windows 7 didn't have prepackaged drivers that worked with the wireless card or ethernet controller.

 

Ugh ive seen pictures of the s 15 with and without the fingerprint reader, does anyone know if the CTO from sony store comes with a fingerprint reader.

 

my svs15113fxs does NOT have one, so they aren't on all models

 

Can someone post some shots of your carbon fibre black S13As please? There aren't any one display yet from where I live...Thanks!

 

I'm thinking that the fingerprint sensor did not make it in any model other than the 13.1 inch premium edition.

 

So as far as games go, everything can be pretty much maxed (including AA) at full res and you still get playable (>40) fps. I've tested skyrim, Tf2, and Bad Company 2 so far. BC2 is the only one you cant max out, and you need to use x2 AA or less otherwise it gets unplayable. I will be testing BF3, dota 2, and hopefully d3 in the next couple days.

the 640m LE is amazingly good. It's way outperforming my expectations and what notebookcheck is listing.

 

http://sdrv.ms/KJzhgp
At least the finnish S15 has a fingerprint reader built-in. It might be that it's just not available for all markets? I remember reading somewhere that the US SE15 didn't have one, so it could be the same for the new S15?

Good to hear about the LE's performance. I'm also interested to see the BF3 benchmark results, as it'll most likely be one of the few high-graphics games I'm going to be installing on my vaio.

 

Can you give us some more detailed benchmarks? Maybe record some in game play and upload it on Youtube? I'm very curious about the 640M LE performance .

 

Sure, but you will have to wait a couple days, as I will be out of town until monday...

but seriously, I had skyrim MAXED and I was still getting 50-60 fps

 

I have ordered a S15 with a free PS Vita (I already owned a PS3). It will be shipping on 06/19 and I am really excited.

I have got the quad-core with 4G ram, 2G Nvidia card and lowest hard drive and am going to put an extra 8G ram/256G SSD in it once I receive it.

For those who are thinking of swapping the hard drive with SSD, what are the options you have? Right now, I am choosing from Samsung 830, the Plextor M3 and Corsair Performance Pro (all three have 256G capacity). I am more leaning towards Samsung 830 as I could get it at as low as $250 on amazon. Does anyone have any recommendation? Also, I heard SE15 is only SATA II so is there a way to modify the bios to enable SATA III? Thank you!!

 

^ Crucial M4 is a highly regarded SSD as well.

 

Thanks for the reply. For Crucial M4, it is definitely one of the best buck per gigabyte disk out there. But I have heard stories of its reliability problem. Personally, I would not mind paying 30 dollars more for something more reliable. Do you think the three I have listed are worth the extra money as compared to crucial M4?

 

I would advice against restoring the original installation onto your SSD. You'd be stuck with all the Sony sponsor-ware, and you will have to figure out how to enable TRIM and other SSD options.

Windows 7 will install all but those two drivers by itself? Because that's amazing! I hope it'll be as easy as that, with the S13. I would love to have a SSD installed from the get go, without having to wait for Sony to release some of the drivers.

Gaming performance of the GT 640M LE sounds amazing. Now it's become even harder to wait, haha.

 

Skyrim at 1920x1080?

 

Is the hard drive bay in the 13 and 15 inch editions the same. If so, are they 9.5mm height or 7mm height? Is there a bracket installed?

Any guidance appreciated.

Petrov.

 

Can one of you guys try to overclock the 640M LE using the Nvidia System Tools, eVGA Precision, or MSI Afterburner? The base clock speed of 640M LE is 500 mhz, if you can overclock it to 625 mhz and it works and doesn't overheat or crash, guess what, you just turned it into a normal 640M!

For even more extreme overclocking attempts, if you hit 735 mhz and it works and doesn't crash or overheat, you now have the lowest clocked 650M!

The 640M LE, 640M, and 650M all use the same Kepler core and differ only by core clock speed and memory type. We can't do anything about the memory type, the DDR3 is soldered on to the motherboard, but we can do something about the clock speed! We can also overclock the memory as well, and as the Kepler core is badly bottlenecked by the DDR3 memory used in these laptops, increasing the memory clock speed should also have a very dramatic boost in performance, possibly even more than further increases in clock speed!

 

i have heard that Crucial M4 is one of the most reliable SSDs out there. definitely more reliable than SandForce-based ones (like Vertex). if i were you, i'd go to the SSD forum here and ask the experts there; i'm definitely far from being one.

if you know which programs to uninstall, it's much easier and less troublesome to clone the HDD to the SSD compared to reinstalling Windows and going through driver installation. enabling TRIM is also extremely easy and can be done by a one-liner at the command prompt. i have posted a guide here and, at the end, provided the command for TRIM and also a link to a forum post where all SSD options are described in detail.

 

I could imagine noticeable faster texture load in Unreal Engine 3 and id Tech 5, but how else would it be able to boost gaming performance?

While I'm personally satisfied with the LE's general performance, and haven't got the nerve to OC the GPU itself in a machine that isn't build for the heat increase, I'd be all ears if there's actual fps to be gained by increasing memory clock speed (without significant heat increase).

 

Memory bandwidth is raw fillrate. This is why manufacturers have the choice of using DDR3 or GDDR5 to pair with the GT 650M/640M/640M LE. The memory clock is always the same on 650M/640M/640M LE, 900 mhz, and the memory bus width is the same too, 128-bits. If they choose the faster, more expensive GDDR5, at the same clock speed there is anywhere from 10-40% higher performance. The GPU is heavily bottlenecked by DDR3 memory, because it can easily exceed the bandwidth provided. It has a higher potential fillrate than the memory allows, otherwise simply using GDDR5 instead of DDR3 wouldn't suddenly cause such a large performance increase. So by raising the clock speed of the DDR3 memory, you can help alleviate this bottleneck.

If the stories about this laptop running cool while gaming at default clocks is true, then there is likely to be plenty of headroom for increased heat output from OCing. You can easily monitor your CPU and GPU temperature while gaming using eVGA Precision or MSI Afterburner and Core Temp so it's not hard to test OC and corresponding heat increases and check to see if you are making things too hot. I'm hoping that Sony over-engineered the cooling in this iteration of S15 after the first SE series were so heavily criticized for running hot and having a really loud, constantly running fan.

 

does anybody have some serious comparative shot of the carbon black and gun metal colours? I can't find any, and on the SonyStyle they look exactly the same...

moreover, has any european user noticed that on our store there is no option for RAID 0 SSDs? It just offers "SATA Gen3 128/256/512 GB" SSDs.... is the RAID 0 there but omitted or what? (i.e. the 128 actually is 2x64, and so on...??)

 

Yeah, I know that a lot of people would love that small percentage extra gain of OC'ing. It's in the blood. I'm not opposed to it as much as I'm just plainly satisfied with the LE's GPU with my current needs.
But if there's much fill rate to be gained by a small amount clock increase in the DDR3, I might consider doing that at some point. I'll be following topics on this. Thanks!

 

Hi.
Anyone know SVS13A190X Premium model's ( www.sonystyle.com) hdd version also support SATA3 (6g/s)?

S.korea's this same model's hdd version block SATA3, only support SATA2, whileas ssd (256G) version support SATA3!

I don't know why Sony block SATA3 in hdd version of S13P model!

 

Crucial are very reliable, though not the fastest. In everyday performance, few would notice the difference. Intel is also very reliable. Having said that I have the Agility3 and it's been fine(cross fingers).
I'm not sure it's any easier to clone and it just doesn't feel as good as having a fresh installation. I never trust uninstall programs, but I'm paranoid. Of course, driver installation can be a chore. Do not forget to turn off defrag if you do the clone!

here is a better resource if you want to do the clone (you can use windows backup instead of ghost):

http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/

 

Well last night before calling it a night I did play Civ V (GOTY edition) only had 40 minutes to mess around, and as I had not played it on any oher system I really ahev no comparison. In short I set all setting to High, and AA to 8x. Game played fine without any hesitation, not sure when I should expect the CPU/GPU to be really tested though. As I have never been much of a benchmarker, is there anything particular someone was looking for me to do?

Additionaly , the fan did appear to be running on a low setting for most of the gameplay. I would not call it loud at any point, but I could clearly hear it. My wife a few feet away did not seem to be bothered by it. Also note I had the colume level set to mute.

The entire base did feel warm, but never "hot" as my ancient dell laptop always felt.

 

This sounds excellent to me. As for CIV V, the game really starts to tax the system in the later stages. If you keep playing, let us know how the laptop sounds and performs after playing 2+ hours into a CIV V game.

Also, my laptop just shipped! I have express shipping and it is scheduled for delivery on Tues, June 19th before 10:30am.

 

I have the same model, and it's SATA2 I guess [Intel RST shows 3Gb/s]

 

It appears that all models S13 / S13A / S15 don't support SATA3.. but, all recent ssd are SATA III. What happens if I install a SATA 3 Samsung 830 or Crucial M4?
It will work but it'll run slightly slower as it's supposed to be, right?

In any case, anyone who succeded in modding the bios for supporting SATA 3 is called to share his/her knowledge here

Another question to S series owner, with your model (every one of them) is possible to open the lid without holding the base?

 

On my SVS13A, I was afraid to try -- worried about snapping the lid, which is extremely thin. Others have reported that they can.

 

I may be wrong, but I believe SATA III is backwards compatible with SATA II, so you can still install a SATA III SSD in a S13 or S15 but it might be a little slower.

Also I believe someone in this thread said earlier that he can open his S13 laptop lid without holding down the base, as long as he opens from the middle of the lid. There is some slight flexing if he tries to open from the corners of the lid.

 

I've a question for the 15's owners. Is the red/orange issue a problem as big as it seems? I see some picture of red color on the IPS screen and it's REALLY orange and definitely not red... is this a general issue (all laptops are hit) or just some models are concerned?

 

Putting the OS to sleep shouldn't take that long. You probably have "hybrid sleep" enabled which is the default unless Sony did some customization on it. I always disable hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is sleep+hibernation combined. In sleep the CPU is put into, well, sleep mode. In hibernation, the content of the RAM is written to the disk and the thing is powered off. It is the writing of the RAM to the disk that is taking time.

The last time I used hibernation is in XP. Since Vista I've always disabled hibernate. Open an elevated command prompt and type "powercfg -h off". It has the side benefit of giving you a few extra gigs of disk space back

 

The S series laptops DO support SATAIII by default. It's a default feature of the chipset that these Ivy Bridge notebooks are built upon. Sony has opted to disable SATAIII in their laptops (apparently, I will confirm tonight when I receive my S15).

If you choose to use a SATAIII SSD, it will still work. SATAIII is backwards compatible with SATAII. It'll just run at SATAII speeds.

Also, BIOS modding takes a VERY long time. I seriously doubt anyone has been able to do it in the short few weeks or so since this notebook was released.

 

The screen itself is just shoddy quality. A decent-quality TN (like the Envy 14's radiance) would beat it hands down, except for the marketing punch.

 

I remember reading here on this very thread someone who mentioned modding his bios to enable it.. show up! With some documentation! (Please.)

 

I don't know about USA's 2012 s13 premium's case, because it can be customized either HDD or SSD.

But in S.Korea, user can't owner made (choosing), just only can buy from already made models.

So those model, S13P (1600 * 900 screen), S15's HDD model both block SATA3.

This means, if user choose S13P and change HDD to samsung 830 like SSD (many user chosen this way because this way is more cheaper than sony's SSD model), user can't enjoy full 830 SSD's speed.

This is very upset and sony must be blamed, claimed!!

So I don't know about USA sony style model's case, so questioning here.

 

@ humanstory : The 15's screen doesn't seem so bad except the red issue, when you see the high contrast and good brightness, viewing angles seems good too.
My question is : is the red/orange issue a real problem (red are orange as we see on internet) or it's just a little wrong calibration which can be reduce?
Can the 15's owners post a picture of a red color on the screen?

 

Interested in this as well.

 

Thanks a lot for the images, the screen looks good

If the S15's screen is the same as the 2011 S15's screen (I believe it is), it's really great. Viewing angles, contrast, everything is just so easy to read and looks great...apart from the reds (I'm nuts about image quality, however as I know what to expect from the S15 it's not too distracting for me, it's not like I Photoshop on it). It's not something that can be calibrated, you can't make a display more red than it can show. It's something you'll have to see for yourself and decide whether you can live with it.

 

Apparently the HP envy's, which use to use the same screen that had the orange-red problem, are now shipping with a new revision of that panel which doesn't have the problem...