Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

i hate HATE when people do that... dont go to online support they are worse than the phone support. and then REALLY dont post it here... it seems like every 5 pages we get another one of these. he is not lying. he is ignorant... there is an orange gate issue.. that is what is explained in the thread you posted... that alone should answer your question. THERE IS ORANGE RED PROBLEMS WITH THE SVS151190X

 

internet sales reps are notoriously ill informed =p

 

Sorry, for this. I need to buy a notebook as soon as possible. But cannot choose anything else but it. I almost decided for it. But as said by others and as shown in the pictures are true, then I am very disappointed as I am not finding any other choice.

Thanks.

 

the asus U500 if you can wait. it is the ultimate performer. it is a MBP retina of the pc world. no disk drive (who needs it) thin (even thinner than this laptop) as light better graphics (im assuming ddr5 which will outperform even ours overclocked, and if you overclock the asus you could get into the GTX line) it has a better screen (asus ips screens are probably the best you can find. same res and size no color issues very bright) and their keyboard and trackpad issues seem to be cleared up for the most part and the next go around they can only get better.

but you have to wait.

for me buying the question was not which one was best because i was choosing between the s15 and the asus ux32vd... they both are the best. the question was which one would suit my need better. and i wanted the better graphics and bigger screen at the expense of ultimate thinness sharper colors and battery life... i think i made the right choice for my purposes. having said that i would take the asus u500 any day


btw there was some question as to why the 5ghz band for wifi was disabled on a dual band card. there is a note in some settings dialog that says that it is illegal in some countries to use it outdoors... im pointing the finger at europe... anyways you can enable it.

 

how do you know it has no color issues? bet you its using the same 15" IPS display sony and HP are xD

 

If anybody is interested in purchasing a new extended sheet battery for their S15, I recently put one up for sale in the NBR Marketplace for $75 shipped.

 

thats fair.. their 13 inch screens are better then the svs15 115 inch screen. but i would think that if you can get a good 13 a 15 should be easier to get... plus there are many asus pcs with 15 ips that dont have reported color issues.

the samsung gamer has an ips without color issues right?

 

I've seen it posted in this thread a few times, but no one has an answer yet.

I have a SVS15. Does anyone hear a high-pitched whine noise when the computer is in stamina mode? Shouldn't it be more or less silent? I hear the fan going and a high-pitched noise. Does anyone else have this?

Unfortunately I'm past my 30 days so I think I'm screwed for making a return...

 

I have received my Sony Vaio S15 today and it has C: with 576 GB HDD Space. I wish to partition this. Can anyone tell how do i go about this ?
I tried the computer management -> disk management but on right clicking the C:, i do not have anything like new simple volume or anything.

Please suggest me as to how should i partition the HDD ?

 

Shrink it first?

 

I know this is a bit random but I was wondering if anyone was interested in buying a pretty much new Sony Vaio S 15.5 for a good price, the specs are as follows, bought for just over £1000 but I know I wont get that, I live in the UK, west midlands area, if you're interested let me know via PM

Quantity : 1
Product ID : SVS1511C5E
Description : Laptop SV-S1511C - Configurable
McAfee Online Backup : McAfee Online Backup trial
Memory : 12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3-SDRAM
Sony Creative software : Imagination Studio Suite 2
Hard drive : 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Battery : No Long-Life Battery
Keyboard Style : Backlight keyboard
Optical Drive : DVD disc drive
Wireless LAN : Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11abgn)
Processor : Intel®Core(TM)i5-3210M, 2.5GHz
Display : 39.5cm LCD, 1920x1080+webcam
Finishes : Black
Bluetooth® : Bluetooth® 4.0
Connectivity : No Wireless WAN
USB Port(s) : 1x USB 2.0 + 2x USB 3.0
McAfee Security Software : No protection
AC Adapter : 1 AC Adapter
Adobe® Creation : No Adobe Creation
HDMI(TM) output : HDMI(TM) output
Adobe® Lightroom® : No Adobe® Lightroom 3
Microsoft® Office 2010 : Office 2010 Starter + Acrobat
Security features : Security features
Operating system : Windows® 7 Home Premium
Graphics : NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M LE 2GB
Language and keyboard : English (QWERTY)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...0-fs-sony-vaio-s-2012-custom.html#post8826836

 

Managed to create an additional partition somehow. Thanks for the help.

 

Nvm.........

 

Received my S15, completed installantion and, before any update, I saw that free space on C drive was just 216 GB. I've bought this S15 with 256gb directly from Sony online. Could the hidden partition eat up 40gb?? That seems excessive. Or could it be a deffective SSD?

 

part of your issue is with how windows 7 reads memory and how HDD/SSD manufacturers advertise/read memory. the other part is your backup partition is probably taking around 16 gb of memory.

 

A correction here: It's not because of how W7 reads memory but the NTFS file system itself that needs space for file information storage (like the MFT).

Around 8% of the disk space will be used for NTFS file format if I recall correctly.

 

Hi all,

I want to first thank you for this thread wich helped me to buy and configure this laptop.

I'v got a BIG problem :
my SVS1311C5E do not boot anymore. In fact it's always off. when you push the power button nothing happen.

I tried this :
1.Unplug AC and remove battery.
2. Hold power button for 1 minute (some claim holding it upside down helps..dont ask me why)
3. Leave laptop for 1 minute
4. Insert battery back into laptop and plug in AC.
5. Turn on

but it wasn't work.

If anyone has a solution it will save the modern wold ...

(or i will try the waranty but i removed dvd player from the laptop and changed the bios for overlocking the card....so it will be quite risky...)

 

Thank you bolt.pt.

 

where can i find latest nvidia driver for 640LE?

 

My brother just got the S15 (I have the S13) does anyone have a picture that shows of the orange issue? I personally cannot see it, but I've only briefly looked in paint at the orange/ red.

 

Try compare it with an external LCD or your smartphone.

Open the same website or picture.

 

Go to page 1 of the thread and read the first (#1) post...

 

Anyone use the Sony Vegas software, is it as good as imovie and garage band?

 

Ran into some serious problems with being unable to boot into Win7 after installing Fedora ("Operating System Not Found") when booting in UEFI and a grub menu with Fedora and a Windows Repair option that didn't work when booting in legacy. Luckily Fedora worked fine so I used it to back up a few things I needed on the Win7 partition, after that I tried fixing the mbr which borked everything up, causing neither boot mode to start any OS. Obviously this was all due to my lack of understanding of the whole new UEFI thing. My full system restore option didn't work either, I made it through Windows on an external harddrive and the Windows restore from the cd boot menu said it couldn't use it. My guess is that had to do with the silly partitions Sony makes on the harddrive, but I'm really not sure.

So I said **** it, went out and bought an Adata 256gb SSD (on sale for $179). Installed easily and went with a Win7 Pro I got through MSDN (the S13P I bought came with Home edition). Burned it to a cd, booted in legacy, installed quickly and my machine was back in action. Took no time at all to do all the driver installs (using the recommended order linked in first post) due to 10 second restarts from the SSD.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has contributed information to this thread, it's been extremely useful in getting my laptop back up and running in time for class

 

Please try not to panic!

Define "do not boot"

-do you see the Insyde H2O BIOS screen?
-can you enter BIOS setup using F2?
-do you get an "operating system not found" message?

You get the idea.

Need input.

Remember this probably can be repaired....but we need to know what's going on in detail to help...

 

8% of the disk space is certainly not used for NTFS. The partition and format data should be <1%.

The discrepency is from the way hard drives are labeled to the way Windows uses disk space.

The 640 GB drive in the sony has 640,000,000,000 bytes of storage, technically 640 gigabytes.

When windows looks at those 640,000,000,000 bytes it does everything in multiples of 2, which means it sees 1024 bytes in a kilobyte.

divide 640,000,000,000 by 1024 and we get 625,000,000 kb...

divide that again by 1024 and we get 610,351 mb...

and one last time by 1024 to get 596 GB...

Take away another 20 gb for the sony recovery partition and that leaves you 576gb of free space.

*mac os x reads disks the same way that hdd manufacturers label them, so if you were to put your hard drive in a mac it would show up as 640gb, but its the exact same amount of space.

 

Yeah, the huge discrepancy is because of them using GB (decimal format, 10^9) instead of GiB (binary (true) format, 2^30).

My sources were a bit outdated (on such huge partitions the overhead should be around 1%, yea), I was using an old estimate for smaller partitions so I was unfortunately misled.

20GiB for a recovery partition seems a bit too much though, I'll check mine next Monday when it finally arrives so I can finally leave some impressions here.

I also had no idea OSX used the "false" manufacturers data instead of true GiB to represent space. It seems weird to me, but each to its own I guess

 

What is the Battery Care function in the VAIO Control center.
Currently, I do not have it enabled, is it worthwhile to enable it?

If I understand correctly, enabling it will reduce my backup time per charge to anywhere b/w 80 to 50% , but increase the no. of charge cycles of the battery. Is this correct?

 

The fact that this even got up is evidence as to why Apple switched the numeric readout in HFS+. It may be an idiotic convention, but it is the convention nonetheless, and it saves having to answer such questions.

 

My laptop is in for repair... but my recovery flash drive has 15.7gb used.

So a 20gb recovery partition would make sense

 

Thanks for your help Orion !

The problem is quite simple indeed.

Nothing happens...nothing. Computer is off whatever I'm doing. If you push the power button nothings happen. Nothing.

(i will edit original message in order to be more understood)

 

Hey all,

Anyone know the difference between Sony's US models with similar specs but different models ?

The 13a premium has the model SVS13A190X on the Sony site but other third party sites sell what appears to be almost identical models such as the SVS13A12FXB (for the black one) ?

Situation is that I wanted to buy the SVS13A190X but Sony cancel my order each time because I am not in the USA and they won't even send to freight forwarders. Therefore, I have to buy from elsewhere and can only get the SVS13A12FXB.

I want to install new RAM and SSD drive and have already purchased Crucial RAM (CT3292207) and SSD (CT3292190) which is 100% compatible with the SVS13A190X but the particular stock numbers are different to what Crucial say are 100% compatible with the SVS13A12FXB (ie not in the same compatibility list) but I can't find any difference in specs of these computers .... same chipset... same RAM speeds.... anyone any clues ???

THANKS HEAPS in advance!

 

Hey all, can anyone help me out that has a Sony Vaio S

You know the Black sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the model number, can you tell me what it says?

I'm trying to work out if these are to do with the different GPU + CPU combinations as mine sas SVS151A12M and I chosse the i5 + 2GB 640M LE and it matches with somones who chose that combination aswell

The more people who help the more I can find out, appreciate any help you can give

 

OK...that's bad. A few things. Are you sure your machine has power? Battery charged? Or on known good AC power adapter?

How long has it been since you replaced the optical drive? Could you have disconnected one of the internal power leads when doing that?

Does the battery charging LED on the front left corner come on when you're plugged into ac power?

The only other thing would be a motherboard or power button malfunction either of which would be a warranty replacement.

If you DO end up sending the machine back to Sony:

Be sure to reinstall the original ODD. I doubt they will notice the hacked BIOS...especially if the machine won't even turn on. They WILL notice a missing ODD for sure!

 

Just wanted to say, I have had my S13A for 2 months now and I still love it. However, if I could order it again, the only thing I would change is the color. I no longer like the Gunmetal. It scratches too easily and the texture is not good. Also the color gets boring after a while. I would recommend the black over the gunmetal. If they had the S13A in white I would have went for that though.

Still an amazing laptop. Haven't gotten a single BSOD or hardware issue. Even with a VBIOS mod the GPU and CPU do not exceed 80C in BF3

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747

 

So I made a thread about this but I thought that if I wanted someone to do a test real quick it would be better to post here. Basically can someone check if headphones come up in the "Playback Devices" section of Windows Sound Manager when they are plugged in?
(you can get to playback devices by right clicking the volume icon in the bottom right notification area and choosing "Playback Devices")

I have a vaio s 15 in but someone with a 13 inch could also give their experience because I believe the drivers are similar.

 

Well, hey everyone. Remember when I said I got a good deal on a Sony gift card about a month ago? Well I was just able to order using it. It took Sony a month to convert the gift card code to an online coupon code. Hellish process, I do not recommend it, as now I have no laptop and classes have started. On the bright side I got a crazy deal for all the hassle, so that is good news.

I am looking forward to making my first post, while sobbing, asking what to do now that my computer is open and I don't know what to do (Yes, I promise I will read the first page again first).

 

Mine appears as Speaker/HP. Means that it works for both(Speaker and Headphone), EVEN when there's no headphones plugged in.

 

Oh ok thats what the HP meant! Thanks for that info! My problem with this is that computers that recognize the headphones separately allow you to play back audio through both. And also, when you plug in headphones, then set a volume, you get the same volume next time you plug headphones in again. And when you unplug the headphones your volume goes back to what it was last time you used the internal speakers.

Does anyone have any solutions for at least the first one? This is more of an issue for when I am using some cheap external speakers and want to use both the laptop and the external speakers to boost the volume!

Thanks again for the info!

 

Is this RAM compatible with the S13A?

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model F3-1333C9S-8GSA

 

I was wondering... Can I purchase a SONY VAIO S with HDD and replace it with a Vertex 4 SSD without problems? I know there are different dimensions to various kinds om drives, but I don't know the dimensions for the drive in the VAIO S... The dimensions on the Vertex SSD is (L x W x H) 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3 mm, but is that too thick to fit, and can I just replace it with the other one?

 

This question and the one before it regarding "will the <fillintheblank> RAM module work in my S?" have been asked over&over&over&over. There is a search function for questions like this please use it.

 

same with the hdd swap question. our bays fit all sizes without spacers. end of story.

also for the person having trouble with starting the pc, how long did you press the power button? when i first got my pc i thought it wouldnt turn on because i just pressed the button and it didnt start. so i put my charged sheet battery on and it still didnt start. finally i plugged it in and it didnt start. so i presses a little longer and it boots up fine. the sleep to wake press is short. fully off to wake is a little longer press.

 

Hey all, can anyone help me out that has a Sony Vaio S

You know the Black sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the model number, can you tell me what it says?

I'm trying to work out if these are to do with the different GPU + CPU combinations as mine sas SVS151A12M and I chosse the i5 + 2GB 640M LE and it matches with somones who chose that combination aswell

The more people who help the more I can find out, appreciate any help you can give

 

svs151190x

 

Are you american and what CPU + GPU + WWAN combination did you get?

 

Yes American.


Customization Details

6GB (4GB fixed onboard + 2GB removable) DDR3-1333Mhz
CD/DVD player / burner
Internal lithium polymer battery (4400mAh)
Kaspersky® Internet Security (30-day trial)
White
500GB (7200rpm) hard drive
3rd gen Intel® Core™ i5-3210M processor (2.50GHz / 3.10GHz with Turbo Boost)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M LE (2GB) hybrid graphics with Intel® Wireless Display technology
No engraving
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Microsoft® Office 2010 Starter
No Fresh Start
15.5" LED backlit Full HD display (1920 x 1080)

 

as a tip once you have a svs151190X you dont need another unless you want every config possible. that number is the custom one. the same one that i have. i took 6gb ram. i7-3612 2gb 640M america... no wwan options here.

 

I've been searching through this thread to find which memory stick you should buy. But I haven't really found a recommendation.

I have a few questions though. I want a total of 8GB memory. My laptop will be used for my study of building engineering and a bit of games on the side like CS:GO or starcraft2.

So should i get new memory sticks like 2x 4GB? Or is 1x 4GB plus the onboard 4GB good enough too?

Also since i havent found someone recommend a memory stick, does this mean that any memory stick will be compatible with this laptop?

Which memory stick would u recommend?

What do you guys think about this memory?

Vengeance®

 

According to this review Sony Vaio S Series 13P review | Laptops and netbooks Reviews | TechRadar and another thread the Vaio S has a thunderbolt connection.
Cant seem to find any other info that suggests this...? Anyone know why, I want to connect my laptop to a 2560 x 1440 monitor.

Scratch that just find out for sure on another thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/682187-vaio-s-13p-does-have-thunderbolt.html