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

Yeah, I knew about the big adapter dimension before buying, I wasn't very happy about that but I didn't consider it a real issue. However I noticed all those details as well (I do pay attention to details in general). I was quite disappointed in seeing that Sony uses two different quality levels among the same notebook model and that ships awful 5 years old cheap acer like adapters. Where to complain? Nowhere because there is no useful contact. In turn this means that Sony is not really interested in feedbacks from the customers (maybe they think their products are already perfect and don't need improvements...) and customer assistance. After tons of Sony products in the last 20-30 years, even though I'm overall satisfied enough with the notebook, I think that I won't buy any more from this brand, it's no longer the old high quality, good looking and reliable brand it used to be. Still high prices while quality is getting lower. BTW, on an Italian forum there are lots of people complaining about the space bar noise problem, quite shameful.
I'm going to contact by fax the Sony Supply Chain facility in Tilburg hoping that this will move on the shipment process, but once again I'm disappointed, the customer care should do that, not me! Till now almost everything went wrong, don't buy from Sony Style.

1) No way to add the WWAN module after market.
2) IMHO fingerprints are not easily visible, but you will certainly notice every single grain of dust. This is my experience.
3) 5-6 weeks? Very funny... another good reason to avoid Sony Style.

 

My space bar started squeaking just the other day! I managed to fix it a few hours ago - quite easy but it shouldn't be something an end user should be doing on a 2 weeks old notebook

Here's how to fix it - gently remove the space bar (yes - all keys are quite easily removable which is great!). To do so, pull it slowly from one of the sides until it deattaches till about the middle. Then pull from the other end.
Put some (not much!) lubricating oil on each of the plastic clips on the other side of the button. I even brushed the extra oil out! It really shouldn't be much, as it might get where it shouldn't.

And yet - No more sqeaking !

P.s. Just applied the same to my Enter and Backspace key.

 

guess i am glad they just swapped my keyboard at the sony store

 

No you aren't give it some time Or are you going to ask them to replace it every 2 weeks Seems to be an universal small issue just like the loose battery is.

 

It is something that users should never be doing at all. A gave them more than 1000€ and such a problem is not acceptable. it's a lovely keyboard, but it's a shame to have many people staring at you because your notebook keyboard is sqeaking and farting all the time. Again, this means that Sony doesn't do testing at all. It's a well designed product, but really poor production quality, no testing, no assistance. I hope not to see this problem on my notebook, otherwise I will return it and start looking elsewhere.
IMHO, people should ask for a keyboard replacement, until Sony keeps on loosing money and solves the problem. Anyway, to use the first customers for product testing really hurts the company image.

 

Come on - the keyboard "issue" is not an issue at all... The keyboard is so perfect! And it is by far not something anyone apart from the one typing on it can notice. I just pay too much attention to stuff just like you do I am sure most of the users out there wouldn't even notice that from time to time there is a tiny squeaking sound.

I don't believe that especially you would bring back your laptop for a problem that you can solve by yourself for less then 5 minutes and prefer to wait another 2-3-4 weeks to get it back

Let's really not be so picky - there ISN'T anything perfect out there - no matter what you buy - there will be something you gonna say "pity" about

I remind you that I work in the "testing" fuild business and can tell you from experience that in order for one product to be really nearly perfect as we wish our S were, you will have to pay for the testing phase alone a price that none of us would afford!!

I am still really happy with the notebook so far.

 

Guys,

thanks a ton for the super-useful discussion!

Steve78, am hesitating between an S and a Z. As you're the only person I've come across with both, would appreciate your opinion.

Decision comes down to the following issues:

Pros Z:
screen quality - superior colours and sharpness

Cons Z:
fragility?
too-small text
somewhat more cramped keyboard

Pros S:
more robust (or is it perception only?)

Cons S:
inferior screen colours (resolution is fine)

Saw the below quote from you:

Have you played with Windows 7's DPI settings for larger texts and icons? Did that do anything for documents and web browsing?

 

I don't know, but as far as I've read from some other people it looks really noticeable, especially in quiet rooms/environments. So people will look at you thinking how "cool" is your notebook and you will think that you paid "just" 1200€.

No wait at all (I already waited too much). I log myself in, click on the "return" button, write about their crappy quality, go outside to buy something better. The following day the old notebook is on its way back, and some days after I have my money back. It's really simple to choose some other brand It looks like they want you to avoid them
Seriously, I'm already thinking about it since a few days and the more they make me wait the more I think about it. I prefer people that know how to do their job well, sorry, it's not my fault.

I'm not looking for something perfect, but neither barely acceptable. Ok the battery, ok the keyboard, ok the connector, ok the battery drain, ok the adapter, ok here, ok there... sometimes it seems there are too many oks for the price. Testing costs money? Sure, but problems and dissatisfaction might costs even more money to the customer (it means that you feel you spent too much money for what you got). It's far better to spend 100-200€ more and being satisfied than waiting for many weeks, being angry and still having to accept some defects, no doubt.

 

About the keyboard - no, not at all. It is that the keys are very silent in comparison to other notebooks so any "extraordinary" sound is more easily heard. But even then - it is nothing I'd worry about - the keyboard is really great.

I tested the battery a few times already - I could not determine any battery drain when the Battery is out of the notebook.

And yet we are back to the question about "alternatives"! Have any in mind? You think Lenovo, HP, Apple or Dell would care more about the squeaking sound out of your space bar? You might just give them a reason to lough at the office.

This is reality - face it! Unless you are a corporate customer with contract for hundreds or thousands of PCs - no one would care about you or me when it comes to such small issues!

I know you hate statistics, reviews, researches and numbers, but if you would browse a bit, you'll find out that Lenovo T400 has numerous issues such as squeaking speakers, defect batteries and chargers, battery drain.
MacBook seems to have battery problems too as well as hardware compatibility ones and bad cooling system (have you had a macbook pro on your knees?). HP have faulty screens and cheap construction (the multimedia ones at least). And I don't even want to start with Acer, Fujitsu, etc.
And these based on user's experience!

What does research show? See it for yourself: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-and-toshiba-win-hp-fails/

Or if you'd like it a bit more specific - there you go: http://www.comprehensive-it-solutio...files/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

So which one of the above do you want to buy next?

 

what sucks with the S series is the widi display. what a stupid concept, the screens 1366 x768 but the widi is 1280x768. go figure some idiot designed it. let alone the signal is f'd up

 

Does anyone know if theres a way to turn off auto-dimming for the S series?
I tried watching a movie on my laptop with the lights turn off but it automatically dims off and dims back up when I turn the lights on. I want to watch a movie with full brightness but when I try to set it to performance + full brightness mode, it still dims off.

 

The question about the WWAN upgrade. I upgraded my Sony TT with a wwan model. These laptops (S1, Z, TT etc) do not have a spare mini pci slot. Sony use their own daughter board and connection cable. I got my parts from Sony in the EU but it is very hard to get them to sell you anything.

You have a problem here because US models parts are usually sold through Sony parts in the US and for other models some people have gone this route but there has not been a model yet that has built in wwan. If you lived overseas you could import.

In the the future if such a model was released in the US you would also most likely have to mod the board to solder a sim card slot. The EU models already come with these. You can though get a wwan card that come with a sim card holder but everytime you wanted to change your sim you would need to open your laptop. Also, the card hasn't been tested as working in the S1 series.

You would also need to buy your own wwan module and antenna which you would need to put in the bezel if you want anything like a decent signal.

It is just a whole lot easier to buy it with it.

 

if you follow my install guide you have total control over your laptop

 

Of course - Vaio Control Center! You have all the settings there and total control over it! No need to clean install anything as some suggest!

 

Btw, does anyone know where I insert the SIM card in the Vaio S? I do have the European model. Thanks

 

I would have loved 1440x900 on the VAIO S, that would have been perfect, I do agree that that the screen is not that good, but it does help with a matte screen protector and a color calibration.

 

Behind the battery, like most. Remove it and you will see the slot I had a Vodafone card inside already

 

You've calibrated your screen with spyder3, don't you? Can you tell us your final settings please?

 

I'd be very thankful too...

 

or you can let sony run your pc instead of yourself as some sugest

 

I added my review including the color calibration file here:

[thread]475297[/thread]

 

Great stuff! We should all take example from you!! Thank you!

P.s. I just added my updated review under his so that we have a much shorter and useful thread there.

 

Great!! As for the ones like me with nvidia graphics perhaps we can get the powermizer manager working - for now it tells me that the nvidia registry key is missing but perhaps we can get it working with original drivers and lower the clocking of the graphics card... -> more silence

 

I don't want to discourage you... but I already tried that - it is even underclocked right now. I use the Nvidia performance tool addon - you can find it and install it in addition to your driver.

I have underclocked the GPU to the possible minimum (Graphics clock - 156 MHz, Memory Clock - 197 MHz, Processor Clock - 382 MHz).
If this helps at all... then I am not able to determine it! I guess it might prolong the FAN idle state with 2 or 3 seconds... if at all...

 

I strongly discourage you from trying to manually downclock the GPU. By itself, nvidia drivers automatically downclock the G310M chip. You can force the low clocks if you wanted to enforce those when GPU load rises (such as moving many Aero windows around, or running an old game/something lightly 3d accelerated). Otherwise, leaving the Power Management option in the Nvidia Control Panel to Adaptive will allow the chip to freely bounce around a few preset frequencies.

In my experience, clocks don't really affect power usage by that much as long as you aren't constantly loading the GPU (videos).



Gracy, I suggest we reformat the first page to include a list of tips/tools/important drivers/info for new users to quickly comb through.
edit: nevermind, seems like dubbs is the OP.

 

Is there any way to undervoltage the cpu and the graphic card?

 

AFAIK none unfortunately, there is CPU-Tweaker to tweak timings, but other than that, nothing. Last generation tools (Soft FSB, for example and others) do not work.

I am personally waiting for the people using the new Z series to fully crack the Insyde Bios. They have successfully unlocked and decrypted much of the BIOS and are trying to activate it so we can edit options in the BIOS rather than through patching. It looks promising as they found nearly all the options for overclocking/voltage tweaks, but they still need a way to hack it into displaying on the Advanced menu in BIOS. Seeing that the S uses the same type of BIOS, it would be safe to say once they fully crack it, S users can apply similar techniques (similar to how many laptops could hack their bios to enable VT).

If you want to improve battery life, my suggestion is to close any background processes, setup your own power profile (set max CPU usage to 50% or lower, and change everything into power save mode), turn off Aero (use Win Bubbles for a quick-link on right click), and to avoid using the battery as often as possible. If you are working at a desk for pro-longed periods of time, unplug the battery and use the AC directly (remember to save your work constantly though, and when moving, use Hibernate). With said profile above (Aero on), ~20% screen brightness (2 blocks), moderate note taking, music playing (speakers), and Wifi surfing (youtube vids), my laptop could last around 4 hours (and I still had around 10~15% charge). With Aero off and the terminating of all VAIO processes, we could potentially squeeze perhaps 10~30 more minutes (I'm guessing).

 

Looking forward to the same. Let us know if there is an update on that.
I am quite pessimistic though as a lot of guys were trying to accomplish the same with my last notebook but unfortunately didn't go very far...

 

Yep i did manage to turn off the dvd,bluetooth to save power. I set the maximum cpu usage to 35%. Somehow i found an option to turn off i-link (firewire?) , sd card reader in the vaio power management in a clean-installed window, but the option is missing when using window installed by recovery. I still wonders if we could strap 3 18650(2500mah,3.7v) lithium ion battery in series then connect 3 more of them in parallel and connect to the DC plug. It could theoretically provide 10 hrs of battery life, good or bad idea?

 

If you use the DC plug as power input you would need 19.5V (or around that) and sustainable at 4.7A (max rated on AC adaptor). I think it would be much more easier to simply buy another battery (saves the hassle of an external battery brick). Is you use 3.7v batteries (cell phone?) you would need quite a large stack in series (5~6) and another stack in parallel to boost capacity. Would be quite an interesting power system if you manage to connect them properly and encase it in perhaps an aluminum/plastic shell?

 

I'm going to assemble links to important or useful tools/drivers/software for the S Series. Everyone should contribute, PM or just reply and give suggestions.
-------

I, nor any member contributing do not take responsibility if you damage your laptop in anyway through the usage of these tools/tweaks/drivers/etc. They are listed for your convenience. The tools are property of their rightful authors.

Benchmark/Stress Tools
Make sure your system is running up to task, stable, and working as advertised.

3dMark06 [1.2.0]
Free Version
Futuremark Site
Good for comparing your system to others. Offers ORB (large online comparison database) for free users as well. One of the most recognized benchmarks.

Heaven Benchmark (Unigine) [2.0]
Freeware
Official Site
A new and now very popular (and beautiful) benchmark. (Pretty intensive on the G310m)

Furmark
Freeware
Official Site
A popular stress tool that is notorious for overheating graphics card to the point that some graphic card companies have limited this program in their drivers. That said, this is commonly used to determine maximum temperatures and stability of graphic card overclocking. When running this for long periods of time, please monitor your temperatures (it shouldn't overheat, but you never know).

Traditional HDDs

HDTune [2.55]
Free Version
Official HDTune Site
Good for testing your hard drive's performance and viewing SMART status as well as error checking.

Smart Defrag [1.4.5]
Freeware
Official Site
Just a free, yet decent defragmenter I reccomend. There are plenty out there, this one just happens to have a clean interface, some smart features (scheduling, load-based defrag, multi-taskable), and is free and adware/spyware free.

SSDs (I personally don't have a SSD, I don't know the many tools that are out there, other people, please contribute.)

Notice : If you didn't know, do NOT defrag these drives, they don't need it.

SSD Tweak Tool
Freeware
Techspot post giving a general description of the tool, links to OCZ forums (creator). Can be used on any brand as it modifies Windows values.
Should allow users of SSDs to optimize/tweak Windows for their new flash drives (and to prolong life). Turns off many redundant services (indexing for example).

Crystaldiskmark [3.0]
Freeware
Official Site
Commonly used SSD benchmark tool.

---
CPU

CPU-Tweaker [1.5 beta 3+ required, constantly updated]
Freeware
Official Site, does not have version that supports Arrandales (i3/i5 mobile)
1.5 beta 3
A great tool for modifying memory timings. However for laptops, tweaking anything probably won't be too good of an idea. Still a good tool to keep and play with if you feel you want to take the risk of crashing (just reboot, changes not permanent unless you save them).

CPU-Z
Freeware
Official Site
Great tool for checking information regarding your CPU.

---
Graphics

Both Intel HD Graphics and G310M
Rivatuner [2.24c]
Freeware
Guru of 3D, Rivatuner
An excellent tool for overclocking (currently does not support new cards), but also has a good tool for modifying colors, and has a profile system that allows you to assign hotkeys, or based on events to trigger them. (need to wait for an update to unlock other features)

GPU-Z
Freeware
Official Site
Great tool for information regarding your graphics chip, temperatures, loading, and clocks. Support logging (great for testing while gaming!)

G310M

Nvidia Performance (System) Tool [6.06, 4/08/10]
Freeware
Nvidia's Site
Tool for overclocking G310M, includes managing clock profile support. Has to be launched through "Performance" shortcut, standard Nvidia Control Panel will not automatically show up with "Performance" section.

Important : Overclocking decreases stability, if you have no overclocked before, I suggest you read guides online that will help you make smarter adjustments. Start slow and slowly work your way up with clocks. Shader clocks, unless unlocked, will be tied to Core clock. Do not immediately jump to a high clock unless you want to crash/kill your chip. Monitor your temperatures while overclocking (use a stress tool such as Furmark to determine worst possible load temp).
[need a guide for starters]

nHancer
Freeware
nHancer's Official Site
Great tool to customize your game profile (much more powerful than Nvidia's Control Panel). Allows you to force AA on some games that don't support it (most Unreal Engine 3 games). Must read documentation and forums (for AA compatibility modes) to properly setup and use.

-----------------
Drivers

Important : You must install the audio driver update if you haven't already. This will fix the artifacts/high pitch sound from the speakers.

Official Drivers [G310M]
Sony UK Support Site for S Series

Nvidia Drivers
LaptopVideo2Go is an excellent site for Nvidia drivers. So far the 197.25/28 seem to work well with a majority of games. 2D downclocking also works fine.
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/26509-nvidia-quadro-driver-19728-whql-released/


Totally not done yet.
Will be continued (when I have more free time) ....
I also know the layout is messy right now, will fix up later!

 

Is someone able to use CUDA in the S? I have TMPGEnc which can use CUDA for encoding videos, but it requires the 190 driver or later. Sony only provides the 189, so I tried to install the 197.16 from laptopvideo2go. Finally, I can enable the CUDA in the TMPGEnc. But when encoding the video, it shows 100%CPU + 0% CUDA, the time for encoding the video is also the same, it means CUDA doesn't work. Do you have any idea?
Second, do you sometimes have little freezes?

 

I use cuda for converting video as well , using badaboom or cyberlink media espresso. I think the program convert video with cuda depeding on the codec you use, i think.

 

Got fed up with my S series very average display and just purchased a Z series.
The specs:
Your configuration:

* Intel® Core(TM) i7 Processor
* Genuine Windows® 7 Professional
* Silver (metal shield)
* 256 GB Ultra SATA Flash SSD
* 8 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM
* DVD disc drive
* 33.3 cm LCD, 1920x1080, webcam
* Wireless WAN
* Fingerprint and TPM
* Battery life up to 6.5 hours
* No headphones
* 3 USB Ports
* McAfee® - 60 days protection

 

I might sell my S. I burnt the restore discs, so if I do a restore will I need to download any more drivers?

I have heard that people have done restores before and then things like keyboard shortcuts etc haven't worked.

 

What reason for selling yours ?
Am interested as it seems you're a big Sony err..fan

 

I just bought a new Z so my new S is surplus to requirements. Its a custom config (VPCS11V5E, Intel i5-540M 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB 7200RPM, NVIDIA 310M, Win 7 Pro 64-bit).

 

No problems with restoration at all! Done it twice already - it is being restored to the initial state with nothing more or less.

 

Great! Thank you!

 

Boo Boo - a question to you as a person who likes to run everything manually (and of course others who for some reason don't use Vaio Control Center)... - How do you turn the backlight of your keyboard on without Vaio Control Center...?

Hint - as far as I know, it is impossible, unless you let Vaio Control Center use the light-sensor and switch it on when dark.

 

whenever I hit a key it stays lit for 5-6 seconds from the last time I hit a key. and stays off until i hit another key.

thats how it acts naturally.

you don't need any of sonys bloatware

 

u can adjust the time the backlight will be offed and so...u would just need to cover the light sensor and it will stay lit for the time u wanted

 

or you don't install any of the sony software and you get a fast machine

 

You are telling me it goes on even if it is daylight and sunny??

Great control over the machine....

 

I don't really think the Sony apps slow down the computer that much. I personally kept the original factory state but just disabled most of the ones I don't use. That should be good enough to free up memory/kill background processes and leave you with the basic tools to control your VAIO.

 

yeah it is. if its sunny outside maybe you need to get out more and stop using your computer. poor gracy

 

They don't indeed I did the same - removed all the crapware only and it is perfectly fine
And I do in fact like Vaio Control Center. It is really handy and as it looks - gives much more control then if uninstalled...

 

Another question - WWAN seems to be only usable when the Battery is inserted!? Whenever I try to activate WWAN without the battery I get a msg "please insert the battery and try again" !?

Why is that? I often remove the battery whenever I am not going to use it for days and it seems I can't use the WWAN then!??

 

Bizarre! Maybe the battery powers the WWAN module?

 

Does anyone knows when there we will be a new S?