Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

Hello guys, just a quick question, it seems there is only one jack on the S13, that means you can't use your headphone with mic? I used to play all the time with headphones while speaking with friends on teamspeak... It would be a shame if I can't do that anymore

 

Can't wait any longer, so I have purchased and upgraded my Vaio S13P.
As of now, it works great!
All my Fn keys shortcut works as per normal, and my Speed/Stamina switch also work wonders. :thumbsup:
Some of the applications(WiDi, etc) may need a re-installation.
Btw, still 15 minutes of hands-on.
Will update on anything else that I might discover.

Oh, btw, the GPU BIOS MOD is working as it supposed to.

 

I dunno what's on Page 46, I haven't been in this thread for months, haven't been travelling so my VAIO has been sitting in a corner since July. Nice as it is, it's still a laptop and far inferior to my desktop so it doesn't get used when I'm not on the road. And two tablets mean there's not much of a use case for my VAIO at home either.

Anyway, I ran the Windows Upgrade Assistant, paid for the upgrade, removed the programs it suggested during the compatibility check, let it download and do its thing, then ran into my lockup problems. Once I decided on a clean install, I did the same thing from a USB stick, THEN went to the Sony site and started downloading and installing Windows 8 drivers and apps, in a top to bottom order as they're listed on the website.

 

So did you flash the new BIOS from the Sony site?

 

What? Of course not, it's a combo mic/headphones jack like on the smartphones, so if you have separate mic and headphones jacks, you need to get an adapter.

 

Yes, exactly, except that the screen is Samsung's PLS, not IPS AFAIK. I'm also interested if the screens have been upgraded. I already bought the S13P, so I'd be pissed at myself for buying it too soon if they are upgraded, but at least I'd have a sure option for upgrade.

Edit: actually, it's PLS (not PVA) and thus more similar technologically to IPS than PVA.

 

Ok it's a big relief, thanks for the info!

 

No I haven't, will probably do later after I get my sleep(it's 7 am in my country).
Also will MOD it for testing.

 

That's funny, I was up until 7AM this morning my time doing the install and playing with it.

 

Lol. That's weird.

Mostly spent on Backing up my almost used up 512GB SSD to an external Drive.
Windows Backup took damn too long to finish.

 

Just tried all the drivers from Sony Asia Pacific - hotkey utilities seems to be for Windows 8 but when installing it says "driver not intended for your device"...

Damn it... anyone else got a link to Windows 8 compatible hotkey utilities?

Funny thing is it's version 1.0 ...same as Windows 7 version. EDIT: But 58mb smaller.

 

Yeah you are correct, it uses a PVA matrix and not an IPS one, my error there as I forgot about that.

I doubt they'd change the screen that much on a OS refresh model, but IMO it's a big mistake to put a bad screen on a supposed premium laptop. Most people aren't complaining though, as it's about average to them.

By the way, has anyone tried the "new" Realtek drivers Sony put up? I'm currently using the latest Realtek ones, but might give those a spin.

 

Hello all, I am an owner of an S13p and just upgraded to windows 8 yesterday. Is anyone else having issues with the brightness? Everytime I change my brightness to full it will revert to about 30% reguardless if it is plugged in or not. Ive turned adaptive brightness off and it is still changing by itself. Any ideas?

 

I am curious is their any difference in the build quality of the new Sony S Series with windows 8 or are they the same exact ones for the Windows 7? Just the different windows. Also when adding ram to the laptop does it have to be Sony ram or any certain particular brand? Or can it be any type?

 

No rush, it's not a new BIOS, just a new BIOS update utility for Win8.

 

It definitely did not appear to be fixed on the Windows 8 S15 I saw at Microcenter today. I loaded up Paint and filled the screen with 255 red. It was pretty much the same orange color I saw on the Windows 7 version. It was very disappointing to say the least. Guess I will be looking for a different brand and/or model.

 

It is a new BIOS actually.

Already MODed mine :


Now on R0143C5 BIOS (Old BIOS is R0142C5).

 

I just bought a SVS15125CXB with Windows 8. I installed 8GB and samsung 256GB SSD with windows 7. Everything went well until I hit an error trying to install Hot Key application. It says that the software is not made for my specific model. As far as I can tell the machine is physically the same except for the OS.

 

Posted this on page 474 but no response

Vaio S13A Ram!

Hello I have at home DDR3 1333 CL9 PC3 10666 1,50V Standard SODIMM ram. The S13A is stated by Sony with DDR3 1333L Ram. Is my Ram poosible to fit in the S or have I to buy new Ram? And when yes, which Ram kit?

 

I bought mine on Ebay, but it's in a different country at a friend's place so it'll be a while till I get it. I wonder how complicated it is to disassemble the screen bezel and cover and maybe change the screen to this Samsung one (the Series 9 is also very slim so there shouldn't be any problems with that, just the connectors and attachment points or smth.

 

It'll work fine. Why don't you just try it?

It shouldn't be too hard to get pictures from the Samsung connector, try asking in their forums.

 

Because 1. I do not have the S13A at the moment and I will get it these days and 2. I thought that putting in a 1,5V RAM together with low voltage ram maybe can break the machine
So I thought, maybe have done the Ram upgrade...

 

We are here to help BUT your cool reception is due to the fact that this question has been asked and answered SO MANY TIMES in this thread including the OP. In short YES your 1.5V RAM will work fine!

 

I installed a few drivers from the Sony Asia link given a few posts above. To be more specific, the Sony Control Library, the firmware extension parser, and the fingerprint suite. Immediately after that, fingerprint login started working. After a reboot (and some update, I think?), all my hotkeys work, including brigthness and Fn-F7. The speed/stamina switch also works. Vaio Control Centre now has all the extended settings: battery care function, rapid wake etc.

Note that I was not able to install the Sony hotkey driver from the Asia drivers list, but now I don't require it.

 

I already had all of that working in Windows 8 without the new drivers, just using the old ones. I think I got the fingerprint drivers from somewhere else though, station-drivers.com if I'm not mistaken.

Good to know more people are getting stuff to work.

 

Hey guys, I need some help:

I bought my SVS13A1C5E a couple of months ago. I replaced the HDD with a Samsung 830 SSD (did a clean install) an added 8 gigs of RAM. I`m quiet satisfied with the VAIO. The only thing that kept annoying me is the constant fan noise. Today I read, that a lot of users don`t have this fan issue - their VAIO is apparently almost inaudible.

I tried a lot of things I found in this thread (using Vaio Care, switching the nvdia settings to adaptive, using priority on silent, setting the maximum cpu usage to 99%, using the stamina mode, clocking down the gpu with msi afterburner). And still, its clearly audible (I´m sitting about 1 meter away from my Notebook).

Has anybody any more ideas what I can do?

 

Hi guys, I just upgraded my sony vaio S series laptop to windows 8 from windows 7:

I just need help on upgrading the drivers. I just don't know what I need and Don't.

 

I think my s13p is messed up because it keeps shutting down after anything uses the nvidia card. I ran 3dmark06 and got 2800 which is way too low. In borderlands 2 with everything on low it was getting like 5fps and then it would shut down after about 30 seconds. GPU-Z says it is idling at 62c and in games it is getting to 80s I'm guessingbefore shutting down. I'm going to try a fresh install and see if it was some software issue.

 

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to let you guys know that I've successfully upgraded to Windows 8 from Windows 7 doing a clean install. I downloaded drivers from Original Drivers and Applications for SVS13A/SVS13/SVS15 Series (Windows 8 64-Bit) : Download : Sony Asia Pacific and installed in the same order. Everything seems to be working fine so far.

 

anyone having problem with the batteries after installing windows 8 and the drivers?

Mine says:

The installed battery may not be properly connected to the computer or may not be compatible with the computer.
click "OK" to enter Hibernate mode, and remove and reinsert the battery.
See the electronic VAIO(R) user guide for more infiormation about using the battery.

NEED HELP

 

I had the same problem. Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc, go to "Startup", right click on "ISB Utility", and disable it. Reboot.

 

Thank you so much, It fixed it

 

Anyone having problem with the hot keys and stamina/speed not working? Just upgraded from windows 7 to 8 and installed all the drivers on the Sony Support Site

Sorry for bugging you guys, I'm new at this

 

hi all, i can't find new win 8 drivers for wwan 3g (gobi) and fingerprint, anyone can give me a model whit 3g + fingerprint or link for driver download?

 

Does anyone know if it is possible to run 2 9.5mm HDD's in RAID 0 on the S15?

I have 2 HDD's that I had running on an old laptop that used a raid controller on an Intel chipset. I know it's possible to recover the data from these drives since, according to Intel, the newer Intel RAID controller on the HM77 chipset is backwards compatible with the one that was used in my old laptop. However, since I used the drives in a bootable configuration I would need to boot from a different source (like a USB drive) an then use the intel RST driver/app to access my old HDD's. So I think I would need to set the S15 to RAID in the BIOS and install the HDD's one in the normal bay, and the other in the ODD bay, and perhaps boot from a USB image or Windows DVD. Has anyone tried this or know if it's possible?

 

Looks like my vaio 13.3" is bad. The GPU starts at 500Mhz then throttles down to 124mhz and then back to 500. After a few seconds it reaches 80 degrees and the system shuts down. It runs fine on the intel graphics so either the nvidia GPU is bad or the heatsink isn't making proper contact. I guess I'll just return it to newegg but they will try to charge me a restocking fee.

Also do all Vaio S have wobbly keys? The space bar wouldn't register for me a lot because i press it on the right side.

 

Use first VAIO Utility for Windows 8 Upgrade, install W8 upgrade, run again VAIO Utility for Windows 8 Upgrade
After almost 3 days of work, I discovered this utility. Shame on Sony europe they don't provide this utility!

 

The S15 is now for sale (configurable) on European Sony-pages.

 

I purchased a new SVS15125CXB with Windows 8. I tried to clean install Windows 8 Pro, but no matter what I did it won't let me install saying that it's the wrong Edition. I was reading that these BIOS' come with the product key pre-installed. Is there any way to install a Professional version of Windows 8? or am I stuck with Windows 8 Vanilla?
Since I couldn't install the Pro version of Windows 8, I had to go back to Windows 7 Ultimate because I require Remote Desktop.
Any ideas on how to install Windows 8 Pro?

 

from the sounds of it you are missing the SFEP driver.

 

My question now, does anyone know if its possible to install the latest NVIDIA drivers for this machine?

Sony's drivers were released back in july

I want to keep the hybrid switch though.

scratch that, found info on the first post!! doh.

 

So when I upgraded to windows 8 and downloaded the drivers from Sony Canada I'm getting some weird Vaio Control Center that only has Power and Battery, Image Quality, Network and Other. Its basically useless. Anyone got a similar problem or solution?

 

Yes I have the same issue. Most Vaio Software does not work. (Hot Keys, Speed/Stamina, Control Center, Networks)
Sony Europe is just a piece of crap. I did a clean install coming from win7 ult 64-bit, now have 64bit win 8 pro. After installing the old win 7 drivers from Sony Europe and after that some newer win 8 drivers from the US page nothing seems to work. I just got my hopes up 30secs ago with the Asia Pacific stuff and the "Vaio Utility". That does not work (for me). Says it can not install it on my device (SVS13A1C5E).

Does it make a difference that I already installed all the old Win 7 drivers? If so, how can I go to an older version of my 6 hour old Windows 8 version? Never done that before. Would like to avoid completely reinstalling windows 8 since it would involve moving several hundred GB around again. Also I noticed my HDD being noticeably warmer than before and startuptimes have not improved at all.

Sorry for asking so many questions.

 

Use software raid, far better than bios fake raid anyway

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Where would I find this driver? I can't find it on the Sony US site

Model: SVS13A190X

 

I did not find this answer either :-( Can anybody tell us if Sony also finally fixed the orange issue with the S1512? Thank you very much!

 

anyone can help me? i have european model SVS1511W9E ( here specs) anyone can tell me where i can find win 8 drivers in the US site? (european site support only upgrade and not clean install).

 

Hey guys, I have some news on Win8 and drivers. I use to work for Sony support at retail. Went in to the store and spoke to my buddy who's still there. Sony offers now help for users upgrading to win8. It's basically a thumb drive app that runs un-installs software that wont work and preps the machine for win8. You do your upgrade then re-run the tools for all drivers. Check with your local Sony store. I tried this on a clean install and I'm running an update to see what changes. Sony has win8 version of our laptops so if you'd like an idea of who it's suppose to be after the update with drivers and apps I suggest you stop by a store and have a look. Most things are different. Less bloat if you will.

 

I did a clean install of Windows 8 yesterday and all of my hotkeys, vaio control centre etc are working.

The key things to install from the sony website are the SFEP driver (both) and the Sony Shared Libraries and the Hotkeys Utility.

if you check device manager, can you see an unidentified device that isn't the fingerprint sensor? I had to right click on this and then hit update driver, and point it to the SFEP driver I had downloaded from the website before anything else would work.

 

Sony eSupport - SVS13A190X - Drivers & Software

Its under win 7 64bit but it does work for me