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

hmm - if they've implemented anything on top of the normal DisplayLink driver model then the Win7 driver probably wont work so be careful, maybe read some more reviews and see if you want to risk it. This one works with 2008 R2 btw, I was running it on this laptop for a fair while with hyper v believe it or not - worked fine

edit - just looked at the link you posted - it looks exactly the same as my one....lob them a mail and ask them if its the winstar one.

 

Hi,

Does anybody know what the model number is for an official or compatible Bluray drive for my laptop? I've seen a few on ebay but don't know if they'll work.

Thanks.

 

Hi everyone,

n00b, so be gentle


I got a wee VPCs13L9E a few months ago, fits me needs perfectly as a more "grown-up" laptop, and the keyboard is exquisite....helsp alot as i have arthritis.

Well, said keyboard had a disaster......spilt coffee on it

Now i know water and laptops dont mix so I acted quick, power off, laptop on its front and dried what i could....upside down.

Laptop is fine but the left side of the keyboard is sticky.....just the key movement that is.



Now, i can find an oem replacement for this keyboard on ebay ok.....but i was wondering that if i bought a backlit variant....would there be connectors for the illumination on my laptop? It does have the sensor to dim the screen etc


Also, can anyone point me to a guide to replace the keyboard in these machines?


Finally, has anyone every notice a somewhat sluggish performance sometimes?

I run a clean install of Win 7 x64 professional, didnt care much for the crap the sony comes installed with.....so its not that?

I am only comparing this to my old Philips X67 Core solo machine which really isnt off teh pace of this supposedly better i3 370 unit

Look forward to your reponses

Regards
Andy

 

Hi Andy and welcome to the group
Why don't you try cleaning the sticky keys, before buying a whole new keyboard? Each key can be removed giving you access to its mechanical construction underneath, which is most likely the one that is sticky in your case. All you have to do is pull each key from the TOP (the side closest to the screen) upwards until it unclicks! Don't be afraid, sometime you need to pull a bit harder - if you pull from the right side (as I said - the one closest to the screen) it will be fine. Do it slowly though as the the clips on the backside of the keys do break if you are not gentle (I had a broken one). Anyway this attempt is definitely worth it before buying a new keyboard. All "prolonged" keys such as the space-bar, enter, backspace are a bit more tricky to remove and mainly to put back as they have a metal wire underneath, so I avoid removing those, but if they are sticky too - you'll have to figure them out too same rule - pull from the top side.
My advice is to start with the left Shift - key - it has the same construction as each letter key, but a bit bigger so that you can see how it works a bit magnified

Other than that - replacing the keyboard is easy - you need to unscrew a few screws, I can get to that a bit later, I need to check which ones exactly.

About putting a backlid keyboard - this was discussed in this thread, don't remember the actual output, as far as I remember it IS possible, but I'm not 100% sure, just browse back the thread or use the "search in this thread" option on the top.

This question is impossible to answer without more details about your configuration and definition of "sluggish" together with when this behavior appears! If I had to answer your question the way it is, although I have a different configuration, I would have to say "definitely NO"!

 

HI Gracy, thanks for the reply.

Ooo.....i didnt know that these chicklet style keyboards could be disassembled just as easy as older styles.

The keyboard is doing my head in as even touching on of the affected keys makes a creak whereas the rest are silent.

I have attached my spec below

Operating System - Genuine Windows® 7 Professional (64-bit)
Chipset - Intel® HM55 Express ChipsetColour
Cover colour - Black
CPU Processor Name - Intel® Core™ i3-370M Processor
Processor Speed (GHz) - 2.40
L3 Cache (MB) - 3
Number of Cores - 2
Memory Size (GB) - 4
Memory Specification - PC3-8500
Memory Speed (MHz) - 1066
Memory Type - DDR3 SDRAM
Max. Supported Memory (GB) - 8
Hard Drive Type - Serial ATA
Hard Drive Capacity (GB) - 500
Hard Drive Speed (rpm) - 5400

Regards
Andy

 

Yes, no space-technology just like the old keyboards - only different layout go ahead and remove each affected key. I just removed 4-5 of mine the other day just to lubricate them a bit As I said - just be gentle with the clips on the bottom side of the keys - don't know if it was a manufacturing defect, but my "G" key popped out while I was typing a few months ago - turned out one of the 2 clips was broken :-/

I can't give you an advise about your performance, as you give no exact description of the problem. I see no reason for low performance in general, unless you are a multitasker like me

 

hey

does anyone know which bluray burner i can purchase to fit into my sony vaio VPCS12C5E?

i have noticed a few on ebay.com (search BD-RE laptop)

wondered if anyone had a model number / drive number that i could use to obtain one

 

Just this weekend I finally got around to replacing the keyboard (QWERTY to AZERTY) on my Best Buy S11. A post on this thread said it was simple; just remove two screws in the battery compartment and one in the HDD compartment. After doing so, I expected the keyboard to just drop out. Nope. Looked like I would have to remove the entire case. I just stopped at that realization. Maybe there's a difference in models but it sure looked difficult to me. Let us know how it goes.

 

What? It is absolutely easy! You need to remove the few screws holding it and then just pull it out! I've removed it to clean the FAN - it was absolutely easy and there are no differences between submodels - S is S.

 

Hello guys, I'm a proud owner of a VPCS12M9E/B and I wanted to upgrade the CPU. I decided to buy a core i5-540M and I'm now looking for a guide on how to replace the CPU. Anyone here did that already?

 

I don't think anyone here has done that already, but we would all appreciate some photos and a service-guide if you do it!!

Just be advised that you are most likely voiding your warranty this way. Besides that the CPU is most likely the thing bottlenecking your system the LEAST. I would start with RAM and HDD upgrade on your place if you haven't done so already.

 

Thank you for your reply, Gracy123.

I have already upgraded my HDD (replaced the stock Samsung 500GB 5400 rpm for a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 7200rpm). Don't you think it's worth to upgrade my actual i3-350M to an i5-540M (a cost of 60GBP)?

 

Not until you have at least 6, better 8 GB RAM.

Upgrading i3 to i5 would make a difference I am sure, but only if you use CPU-intensive applications. Not sure whether it is worth the risk of damaging the computer and mainly voiding the Warranty...

 

@ Gracy123 - Just following on from what you've put here.

I have an S12C5E. I have an OCZ Vertex 2E and Core i7 620M and it runs really well. It has 4Gb RAM, and whilst this works pretty well, I can't help but feel upgrading to 6/8Gb will help when multitasking.

What do you think? I see you have 6Gb; do you feel the upgrade is worth it?
I had a Vaio FZ series notebook a few years back, and remember doubling the RAM caused serious heat issues.

I love my S because it barely gets warm, and so stays dead silent (the only thing I can hear is the i7 squeaking when in a silent room!). Do you think upgrading the RAM would cause a temperature rise?

Thanks for any advice

 

I never heard of such an issue. I would even expect rather the opposite - more ram = less HDD activity = lower HDD temp. The ram dissipates minimum heat itself!

About performance... wow... I don't know how to put this in a sentence... just read my threads about that and you will learn a lot! )

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...47198-ram-better-choice-makes-more-sense.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...age-under-win-7-pagefile-utilization-etc.html

the second one is actually the second part of the same subject treated in the first. I can only strongly advise you to read them both!
Other than that you are literally slowly killing your SSD with such a small amount of RAM.

 

hey gracy you seem to know your stuff about the S series

was wondering if a 4gb > 8gb ram would make a difference at all to my lappy when all i do is surf the net / burn alot of disks

plus what i generlly do is leave my s12 on hibernate alot as its quicker than shutting down

i also use utorrent alot and at the same time generally stream video through hdmi output to my tv

the laptop stays on 12+ hours per day

would 8gb ram make a difference?

also...is it possible to get a blurray drive for the vaio seeing as the eject button is on the casing and not on the drive?

edit: i have a legit win 7 ult / 4gb ram / wd 500gb 7200

i
sony vaio s12c5e

 

You are more than welcome to read the 2 above mentioned threads... if you want a short answer based on the rather limited information about usage you have given, I would say:

8 GB - no, not worthy
6 GB - maybe worth upgrading to, depending on your multitasking usage. If you are not a multitasker you might be just fine with 4GB but I would say it is like having a car that can go up to 70 km/h only. Fine for the city (your typical usage). but if you decide or happen to go out of it - you will have a problem very quickly.

Nevertheless if you are willing to upgrade something on your PC, first thing in your list should be RAM.

You can replace the DVD drive to any standard (with the same dimensions of course) DVD or Bluray drive. The one you have built in does also have an eject button on the tray, it is just masked and not in use (You will see it if you remove the bezel).

 

No , but if you want to access the cpu , you need to open the whole backcover which i did.

 

Well, thank you for your reply Pepero. My hope was to have access to CPU by removing keyboard. Do you know what screws are needed to be loosen to release the keyboard?

 

That's absurd! Don't know any laptop that allows "easy" access to the CPU! It is kind of a given that you need to open the whole laptop, remove the heat-sink, apply new thermal compound, etc. etc. - definitely not as easy as replacing RAM or HDD as it is not considered a "User-relevant upgrade".

Under the keyboard you only have access (partial) to the FAN. That's all. Which even surprises me - my last 2 notebooks: one had 1 module of RAM under the keyboard, the other - absolutely nothing.

 

Well iif you want to access the cpu , you need to unscrew basically every screw you see on the bottom of the laptop including the hdd bay and(under the hard drive), expresscard slot,battery bay. You also need to remove the dvd-rom and also unplug the docking cable.Dont worry about the ram slot cover. Once you removed every screw that you can find, there is a clip located inside the dvd-rom bay near to the microphone jack that hold the whole backcover. Use a bamboo stick and try to unclip it, the whole backcover should easily pop up, if not there must be some screw still left. This method is not from the service manual, only from my experience. I managed to open the laptop many times and it is still working.

Be sure to ground yourself and draw a simple diagram of the laptop and the screw hole on a piece of paper to locate the screws.

I will not hold any responsible if anything happens,im not forcing anyone just showing.

 

Grace, you were so right about easy removal of the keyboard. I went back with a fresh mind and worked at it a bit harder. Sure enough, removing a pair of screws in the battery compartment and one in the harddrive compartment and, voilla, I was able fairly easily pry out the keyboard. It was surprisingly easy to swap in an AZERTY replacement.

Thanks, and the French Princess thanks you too.

 

No problem It is still more complicated than on my previous laptop - there it was ONE screw only and clips around the keyboard. But still quite easy here, once you know what to unscrew That was my main problem, but I was told by a nice fellow here in the forum

That's why we are here - to help each other

 

hi bgcngm, where did you buy the processor? are you sure it is compatible with the socket? do you know which socket do you have? Because I have been looking for but I didn't find it at internet. thank you!

 

I bought my Intel Core i5-540M on eBay. The socket of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Mobile CPU's is denominated G1 (BGA-1288).

Sources:

- List of Intel Core i3 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- List of Intel Core i5 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Anyone running Windows XP successful including drivers on VPC-S13X9E ?

 

I just have unmounted the laptop and I take a photo. Does anyone know where should allocated an intel graphic card? My laptop only has the HD graphic card included in the processor but I would like to expand my laptop by adding a graphic card, but i don't know if that is possible.


http://img717.imageshack.us/i/dsc01268y.jpg/

 

First of all - thanks very much for the Photo!! If you can, please upload a higher resolution pic, as this one is VERY small (320x240) and thus quite useless... I would be really interested to see a high resolution pic of the inside. Also please keep taking photos when you disassemble/assemble - they are very valuable to all of us who haven't yet opened it.

To your questions: Your GPU is included in the CPU - you won't find a separate card.

1. You also most likely don't have a separate slot for a dedicated Graphics card (different Motherboard architecture) - your pic is way too small so I can't really distinguish any components.
2. Even if you do - installing a video card wouldn't be just Plug&Play, as options in Bios, which you don't have access to, need to be changed so that the Laptop can use a dedicated GPU instead of the internal...
3. You would also need a different cooling system that has a heat-sink to cover the GPU - yours is only designed to cool-down a CPU.

 

Do a diy vidock, you can add a desktop graphic card to it by using the expresscard slot

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...7667-lets-figure-out-how-make-diy-vidock.html

This work really well since you can do optimus since you have intel hd graphic only.

Also can you list the sequence of your dip switch that is located near the expresscard slot (metal shield) and on the one below the keyboard, im gonna check whether this switch could somehow activate the intel hd graphic card for the laptop model with 310m graphic card.

 

8gb of ram rocks especially with utorrents. and you dont tax the cpu as much. it runs great so i'd go 8gb especialy when it is so cheap.

look at a faster hd also

 

I trimmed the edge of an HDMI cable today to try this (I was interested myself):

Imageshack - imag0133s.jpg

Windows sees it has 4 displays, but doesn't output to the 4th. Clicking "Apply" in the screen resolution settings triggers "Unable to save display settings" dialog.

Launching NVidia control panel and trying to enable the 4th tells you that "This Graphics card supports two monitors."

Shame - would have been nice to have 4

 

@ Blinder

Did you ever manage to swap out the optical drive for a secondary HDD?

 

Still waiting for delivery on the drive bay.....It's coming from the US but I haven't seen sight nor sign of it yet. =/

 

That's a shame, keep us posted!

Best of luck.

 

Thanks for the advice. Spent a while going through those threads - very informative! So given everything discussed on those threads, why did you only opt to go for 6Gb in lieu of 8? Was it purely costs?

Can you please explain why this is the case? Thanks.

Also, does it matter what brand of RAM I would go for? I was thinking about the crucial stuff @ £73 for 2x 4Gb. Good enough?

Thanks again.

 

I went for 6GB as I wanted to check if and how much difference it makes. It did make a huge difference to me. The reason I am not (yet) going to 8GB is that monitoring my RAM usage shows I have plenty of unused (free) RAM now, although I have the pagefile disabled and consider myself a heavy multitasker. So for now I invested the money elsewhere... Just don't think it will make any/much difference to me to have 8 instead of 6, but 6 instead of 4 was definitely worth every cent.

Brand is the least important - I would advise you to buy the cheapest from a well known brand! I first purchased Kingston but ended up with Corsair.

About your SSD - the more the system turns to the SSD for each small bite of information - the faster the SSD wears out. Having 4GB RAM forces more intensive usage of Pagefile - hence SSD. 6GB would reduce this to minimum and would most likely allow you to even turn off the pagefile.

 

Next Thursday Sony will pick up my notebook for the third time. The first time it went to Sony by Mediamarkt (Netherlands) because of a cracking hinge. Got it back, but it wasn't fixed. The second time it went to Sony, got it back and the problem about the hinge was fixed. But unfortunately, 3 weeks later, the problem came back, not as before, but less worst but still annoying. So now Sony will pick it up for the third time to fix the problem. Also the foots on the bottom get lost each time. Am I right if I say that if the problem can't be fixed, I can go to my seller (Mediamarkt) and ask for a new one? The only question is if they still have the S12X9e or that I will get a S13.

 

Sorry to hear that. What is the problem exactly? Are you able to make a shor movie with sound?

To answer your question: According to the regulations in Germany (I assume they are the same) - no, unless Mediamarkt instructed you to go directly to Sony! For you to have the right to ask for a new laptop or your money back, you need to give your contract-partner (Meadiamarkt) the opportunity to solve a certain problem 3 times! In your case - you only gave them one chance! If they instructed you to call Sony directly and you can prove it - than yes. Otherwise - no.

 

http://img717.imageshack.us/i/dsc01268y.jpg/

So you think there isn't a slot for the graphic card, what a petty!

 

Now that's a better pic! Thank you!

I don't really know, but it is very possible that you do not have one. It would make sense for it to be on this side of the MB because of the cooling architecture... But as I said - even if you do have, I don't see how you would activate it.

P.s. is that the original RAM? It is a different brand from mine...

 

i don't know, I bought the laptop at ebay! maybe the seller changed the ram!
does the ram has the same features?

 

Yes, the specs are perfectly fine. I would even say your brand (Hynix) is a better known one than mine

I wonder what's under that yellow cover in the top left corner...

 

Thanks for the nice photo, aglamela. That will be helpful for me as I will receive my new i5-540M this week and I have to open the laptop. Does the back cover pops out easily?

P.S.: My laptop has an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 310M and I will share with you the picture of my motherboard, so that you can compare.

EDIT: From what I can see from your photo, there's free space on the right of the CPU. It should be the place of the integrated GPU, because the holes for a heatsink can be spotted there. It doesn't seems to be a place for a socket, so... the GPU is probably soldered to the motherboard.

 

The back cover pops easily. But you have to take care you unscrew all the screws. dont forget the one allocated inside the expresscard!

 

I don't know what you mean with the yellow cover in the top left corner?

 

Do you think the Intel Core i7 720QM is compatible with the vaio s?

 

Yes, given that the socket needed for the i7-720QM is also G1.

In addition to that: CPU-Upgrade: Intel HM55 Express chipset processor support

 

which one do you think is better the Intel Core i7 720QM or the i5 540m? because the i5 has more frequency

 

Well, i7-720QM frequency is lower, but has 4 cores and 6MB of cache...

Look for opinions here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...rket-upgrades/449365-i5-540m-vs-i7-720qm.html.

 

More frequency doesn't necessarily mean more power! i7 is a more powerful CPU but as such, it comes with its disadvantages - power consumption, heat dissipation, etc.

That's exactly what I think... See no other place for a GPU anyway and it has to be on this side.