Official Sony S11/S12/S13 (2010) Owners Thread

With Intel IGP and SSD. My system has no discrete processor (NVidia).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcsFHNnJNd4

 

Hi there, I'm 24h into my new VPCS11V9E.

With a clean install of 64 bit Windows 7 on an SSD, I only have one problem left, which is the WWAN.

I can't get OneClick Internet to actually connect using my vodafone sim even though it can see the network, and has settings for Vodafone built in. It gives me an error=0.

So I tried installing the Vodafone utility and the same story happened, but with error 651. So I closed down any services that I thought might have been effecting it, but still no joy.

Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks.

 

anyone else install a SSD and can comment on how fast bootup is? i'm getting about 28 seconds for windows 7 to start... when i had a SSD in the CW before i returned it, bootup was like 10 seconds

 

can't wait till it's released as CTO!

 

Anybody get battery drain problem like me (8% / 9 hours?) on hibernate ?

 

just brought a vaio s i5 getting it only in 3weeks time =(

 

Me too. Just bought an S with i5-540M and a 128GB SSD. Supposed to come in two weeks; can't wait .

Cheers! - nojiri

 

Hi, I finally got mine two days ago. I'm in love with it but there is one thing that is pissing me off: the european Gobi module comes with the GPS disabled. This can be due to hwardware (but I'm quite sure it is not the case) or software/firmware. I tried installing "SmartWi" from the USA site but still no NMEA COM port. I had some searching but I haven't found any real solution yet. Any solution to unlock the GPS functionality?

PS: what about your AC adapter model?

EDIT: BTW, my gobi is hw revision C01B2000, could you please report your revision?

 

How can I find that out?

 

When will this be for Canadians?

 

unfortunately that is something I'm dying to know.

I've had no email response from sony canada

I believe someone mentioned March 12 as being the target date for the US which has obviously passed.

Hopefully the US will get it CTO in the next few weeks and then CAN should be close behind.

 

Does anyone know if Sony has any plans to sell the S series Vaio in the US via CTO? Currently, the S series is only available at BestBuy.

 

Through "OneClickInternet" (settings --> informations). It would be interesting to know the hw revision of the WWAN cards sold in the USA: if we all share the same hw it is definitely a software issue.

BTW, in the US Sony is advertising the GPS functionality on the Z series (which should have the same Qualcomm GOBI 2000 WWAN module)
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897&parentCategoryId=16154

 

Had some success! I've found just a temporary solution but now I'm sure the GPS receiver is present (and I'm quite sure it is a real GPS receiver). I'll explain later how I got it working, maybe in another post, but the good news is that it is present. So, it seems that Sony is providing the same Qualcomm module worldwide but advertises the GPS functionality only on certain models to make them more attractive, I suppose.

 

Helo,

just received mine today
A Eurpean CTO
Specs: 128 SSD, i5 520, 6 GB....

A question to the sound. I can only make work a 2 channel sound with the HDMI can anyone confirm this? If there is no solution to pass through the digital sounds i have to buy an extra soundcard (any suggestions)

if you have any other question about the S11 feel free to ask...

cheers

 

Hi Felix,

Congratulations on the purchase !
I've got a similar one (i5-540M, SSD128) coming in the next two weeks.
How much bloatware came with yours? Are you going to do a clean install without the bloatware?

Cheers! - nojiri

 

Sorry for the late reply on this... noticed this on a thread search. Yes, very true, Gracy123. There's a really good article that I'll attach from EE Times-Asia, an electronics industry site that explains why lower resolution webcams may very well give you better video calls than higher resolution cams, and may also be why Sony went with a 0.3MP webcam instead of 1.3 or 2.0 for our S.

Cheers! - nojiri

 

Wasn't much bloatware on mine, I wasn't keen on that Vaio Gate software, so I disabled that, removed 1 or 2 trialware apps, uninstalled McAfee and that was it.

 

My VPCS111FM with a Intel X25-V boots 3x faster than the original harddrive. That's a similar speed increase as you experienced and similar to my other two SSD equiped notebooks.

 

i did a clean reinstall already, btw there wasnt much bloatware and it was realy fast ffrom the beginning.
however, i do always a clean reinstall, and i got everything to work right now...
cheers

 

After reading through this thread, I decided to take the plunge last week and went to my local Sony Center, tried and bought a VPC-S11V9E/B.

Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase. Just one niggle, my DVD drive cover is a little loose - anyone else experience this?

 

hey guys,
I ordered my Vaio S CTO on February 25th in the german online store and am still waiting for it to ship....
There are just two things that I couldn't figure out on the Sony website:
1. can I replace the hard drive without voiding the warranty?
2. does it have a built in infrared receiver (for using a remote)?

I would love to hear an answer

btw, I am going to to make a clean Windows 7 install and install Ubuntu as well and will report back on any driver problems etc. on Ubuntu...

thanks,
das Mus

 

I saw the S series for the first time today at BestBuy. I liked it A LOT. It looked like a mini-FW laptop.

I wish it had a battery in it so I could get a better feel for weight (and weight distribution) but oh well...

 

Same here, went to bestbuy today to have a look

It looks really nice in silver, thought I'd get it in black but I guess not

Screen's a bit washed out but it's not that bad as some people make it seem (in my opinion at least).
The colour was better than some other hp's and acers next to it (compared some of the sample pics) Video was also nice. Sound was good on the video but didn't really have a chance to play sample music. Also checked the webcam, not the best picture but alright for video chat I find.

Also I didn't find the vert. viewing angles to be that bad...

Can't wait to CTO mine

 

1. i dont know, normaly it should be a problem replacing the HDD.
at least in the User Manual they describe how to replace the Memory, and only say that if you damage anything you will loose your warranty

2. no, there is no infrared

 

I went for black because it was the only colour that has backlit keys (at least in the UK)

 

Yeah I would have done the same in your position.

Apparently Bestbuy US/Can only get the silver model. However it does include the bcklt-kbrd.

 

You are quite lucky. On SonyStyle.fr, only the black version has a backlit keyboard.

 

Support Email Response (excerpt):

"The S Series is exclusive to Best Buy and will not be made available to Sony direct channels this season.

Unfortunately, this series cannot be customized and will not be offered in our SonyStyle.ca custom line-up moving forward. "


Lucky Europe!

Dunno if I want the 430m and intel graphics...

 

Surely the SIM could be mounted onto the card before being installed? I know that for my needs, one SIM would be far better than none.

I like the machine (aside from the squeeky space bar key and dodgyish screen) but I am missing WWAN.

 

Did I miss something? What's wrong with the WWAN?!

 

Apologies, I did not quote properly.

Sheldoncoopers response was to a question asking if we could add the WWAN after the fact.

 

Is there a S without WWAN at all? Thought they all have one.

 

Hi there, I just thought I would give my impressions of my new S-series (VPCS11V9E That's a i5-M520), having returned to Sony after a 9-year gap, and now got everything I need working.

I was one of the very first to jump on the Vaio bandwagon, with a PCG-505 in 1998 and then a Z600. But my experiences with Sony service put me off when the Z600 went wrong twice in a row and was away with Sony for over 2 months. Trying to run a small business with flaky equipment and worse service is pointless, so I got a HP, and never looked back. I’ve had a couple of HPs, a Dell and a Samsung netbook. I make sure that if there is a non-hard disk stoppage, I either switch straight to the last working model or go out any buy a new laptop the same day.

Anyway, my Samsung N140 with SSD was tiny and pretty good for what it was and for what I was doing, but as one of the early ones off the line (ominous thoughts start creeping in here), it has a trackpad that flakes out 2-3 times per hour and requires a shutdown or hibernate to get it back, a similar problem with some external screens that happens every couple of hours, and of course it is slow, despite the SSD (the Windows Experience was about 6.0 for the disk, and is now 7.2 on the Vaio with the same disk). Plus I now need more grunt in my work for media. It was time to get something faster and befitting a media executive. It had to be Sony or Apple, and Apple hadn’t got very close to implementing the i-series processors. The Vaio Z series would have been best, but the S is close enough for much less money.

After a lot of research (I’m like that), playing with it in John Lewis, and finding they could not even take orders because the next shipment of 35 units was already spoken for, I went to [email protected] where they said they had it in stock. I ordered a VPCS11V9E, which was not exactly what I would have customised but it was close enough. Later on they said it was not in stock and I could wait or cancel it. So I cancelled it and ordered a customised one on Sony’s web site. My credit card was refused and 10 minutes later, I got an automated call from Barclaycard saying there was suspected fraudulent behaviour on my card and... then it cut off and I had to run for a train. After hours of trying and a number of calls while being cut off after long periods on hold (thanks Barclaycard!), I finally persuaded them to unblock my card. This was all because [email protected] lied about their stock and pre-authorised my purchase.

A couple of days later I tried again, and Sony said they had it in stock so I ordered it with a fancy travel adapter, and it arrived at 10am the following morning.

Setting it up
In retrospect, I should have done my first instinct and popped the HD out of the handy hatch before even powering it on. That would have saved a couple of hours of stripping and burning recovery disks. I backed up my SSD using Acronis, plugged it in to the Vaio and had my existing build rejected because it was 32bit. After a clean 64bit install, my TrueCrypt partition mounted immediately, and I downloaded all the drivers and utilities. Some of them were a bit hit and miss, but now it works really well, with very little of the annoying bloat that there was in the original build.

Even though my old Z600 is 10 years old and rated for lower power, the connector still fits, and it works well with the new S-series. I needn’t have bought the spare adapter. I considered sending it back, but what the hell, it looks cool.

The most stressful problem was the WWAN. Orange is a notwork, not a network. But I have a very good value PAYG Vodafone sim, and tried to install “One click internet”. It could see the Vodafone signal, but always failed to connect with an error=0. I’ll spare you the details of how I worked it out, but if you connect using Windows’ own software in the network icon, you can delete Internet anywhere and one click internet, and get online in seconds.

Now my setup is good to go. It is light, very quick in all respects for a laptop, and the battery lasts very well. The screen and sound are good for me, perhaps as I have come from worse laptops.

 

Yes, mine is a Hong Kong model, VPCS117GG, no WWAN.

 

In the german store it's a CTO option for 100€.

 

I have it, and it works flawless in Switzerland with a Swisscom SIM-Card

 

I don't know which is "the german store" you are referring to, but the most popular conf. model in Germany VPC-S11V9E/B has it by default.

 

You can configure about anything on this site, just click "konfigurieren" on the dvd or blu-ray model.
https://www.sonystyle.de/SonyStyle/VAIO-Notebook-PC/S-Serie-13-3/?csint=14003190

 

So you are speaking about the sonystyle site. That is what you had to start with. Of course you can configure anything through Sony's online shop.
But I wasn't aware that any of the preconfigured models lacks WWAN.
At least in Germany this isn't the case.

 

nvm solved

 

Hello first post here.

Just got the Best Buy S. My ques is, of course, about the display.

Upon boot and up until the password screen, there's apparently the default display settings and where I find the color to be best. During and once Windows loads, the display changes to whatever settings and dims.

How do I keep, or change, the settings so it stays the way it is at the password screen?

Pls. advise. Sorry if the issue's already been brought up.

 

Disable the auto brightness in Vaio Control Center

 

Just a quick note for those of us who have the VAIO S with HD Graphics, the docking station DVI port is NOT supported, which means it doesn't work, it's a really nice docking station though (the build quality is fantastic) and I will connect using HDMI on the PC instead. I will post some pics of it later.....

 

Got my Vaio S yesterday, just wanted to share some points:

- battery is really a little loose, but not that big of a problem
- I've never seen a laptop with so much crapware pre-installed, the software list in Windows showed 44 entries and there were 90 processes running (a clean Windows 7 install has about 45)
- did a clean Windows 7 install without problems, had to install the drivers for wireless, graphics (Nvidia 310m) and multi-touch trackpad by myself, the only thing that doesn't work now are the brightness keys (anyone an idea for those?)
- multi-touch works pretty good on the trackpad. The Synaptics driver supports 2-finger-scroll, Pinch-Zoom and you can also go back and forward in firefox etc. by swiping with 3 fingers.
- the display is really just "ok", at first I thought it isn't that bad, but when I compared it to my external monitor (Samsung Syncmaster P2250), I thought "holy crap, what a difference" The colors really suck compared to the Samsung display, but I don't do any photograph stuff and work on the external monitor most of the time anyway, so it's not a big problem for me.
- installed Ubuntu 10.4 Beta 1, but couldn't boot it, I just get a blank screen. I'm gonna try 9.10 and report back...

 

Did you use the default Synaptics driver, or installed the one that's been floating around lately by HP?

 

Does anyone know the best nvidia calibration setting for this lcd screen?

 

Does it come with a crappy german Windows preinstalled? I wouldn't stand it a day if so - windows translated in german is worse then one in chinese, although I speak no chinese . Is there a cd with drivers or does one have to download them from internet (sony site?)?

How about the windows itself? Does it come on a separate CD?

 

No window 7 cd or driver cd , only window xp 64 bit cd came with it