Official Sony SB/SA/SC/SD Series Owners' Thread

here is my experience so far with my sony canada vaio sb cto ordered on apr 6 (black, i7, win7 pro, 500gb, 8gb ram, 1gb vram, slice battery, bluray read drive, for a ridiculous price of $1400 after tax [i'm not discounting the fact that a pricing error may be contributing to the lengthy delay])

apr 6 - placed order over the phone. received email confirmation and ship date for apr 14

apr 13 - order status says "processing". called into sony canada to ask for update. rep says it should be ready to ship, but let me touch base with our fulfillment department in china and i'll send you an email. no email was ever sent

apr 15 - order status still says "processing". called into sony canada. another rep says because their order fulfillment department is in asia the time difference makes it a little hard to get timely information about my order but he will send another notice and get back to me that day. he never did

apr 18 - order status still says "processing". called into sony canada. female rep this time. explains a number of people on her team who handles cto vaio are on vacation, but she will send an email and cc everyone so she can get more information for me. she also promised a phone call and even asked if leaving a voicemail is appropriate on the phone number on my account. never received the phone call.

apr 19 - order status still says "processing". called into sony canada. rep says there seems to be a delay with the sony sb vaio product. customers who ordered cto 2 weeks ago should expect shipment by sometime next week. that is the latest information from their fulfillment dept.

i think i will make it a personal mission to call them every single day and post my conversation from now until i get a shipping confirmation. (on a sidenote, phone wait times to talk to someone in the sales dept is zero.)

 

Ordered mine on 1/4 and received it yesterday (18/4), it was already finished on the 13th.. probably lucky with my configuration, no one picks the i3/this colour.

 

Anyone ever got the stamina button and keyboard backlight working after a clean install? :s

 

The more I read in this thread, the more I wish that I had paid the extra $50 for a clean install. I heard getting rid of all the bloatware in Vaios are a nightmare.

 

It is unacceptable your not allowed to do a clean install, is there really no-one that was able to find the right drivers/utilities?

 

couldn't pay me enough to use norton. i'll stick to nod32 for 10 bucks a year

 

yes, just take a look, some pages back lies the answer

 

Couldn't find it.. :s but I have to say: the european suport websites sucks.
VAIO : Sony Europe

 

here it is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...c-sd-series-owners-thread-27.html#post7376333

BTW the SB has been on pre order on Brazil, and the price is just great! The base model cost U$ 2187.5!!! Such a cheap thing! No wonder Sony sales here are as bad as they can be!

 

I found that post but I just mean I couldn't find some of the files.
like the vaio event center, I can only seem to find an update.

 

Thanks for the update. My order is also still in "processing" (also placed on the 6th). I don't even know why they put those estimate dates on, as they are not even close to being correct. I mean, the current estimate on new orders is April 28; I hope they are at least able to send my order by this time.

 

I ordered this one. I saw the SB came with 4GB soldered 1333 speed memory so I just matched that and picked a reliable brand.
Newegg.com - Crucial 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT51264BC1339

 

Did you get one yet? Mine is still "payment processed" with ship date still isted at 4/25. Hoping they send it to me soon, I'm getting anxious.

 

no not yet. money is still in my account and sonystyle site still shows payment processed with a 0 open balance

 

The money in my account is still listed as pending to my debit card. It went to pending shortly after I made the order though.

 

yea i had it pending too, but went back, so....i'm just waiting for it to be taken out, which would mean it would be shipping

 

Can any owners do me a huge favor and upload a couple of drivers please? I've installed a new hard disk in my system and didn't take a copy of the drivers before doing so. Yes, they are available on the Sony website, but it is ridiculously slow and / or constantly dropping downloads.

The drivers / software I've not managed to get are the graphics drivers and Sony Notebook Utilities. The can be found in your Windows directory under a directory called Drivers.

SOAOTH-55800000-0042.exe
A2DVID-00243349-0042.zip

[edit] Scratch that. After an entire afternoon of trying they finally decided to download.

 

Hey guys I would really appreciate some of your help. I really want to purchase this laptop. Unfortunately, the pre configs here are pretty extreme. There is only one model with the 6630 gpu (the one which I want) and that costs about $ 2200 with i7, 4gb ram & 256 gb ssd (1*128 with raid 0 config). This one comes without a blu ray drive which is something that i dont want as bad as the gpu or the ssd.
1.) The problem is that I am sort of worried about the raid 0 config with 2 ssd's. From what I have heard, raid 0 tends to have reliability issues. I was wondering if this is true and if the problems associated with this are severe.
2.) Also, on sony usa, the price of the 256 gb ssd comes out to $800. Which is way more (almost double) then what I would pay if I got an intel ssd from amazon. So whats up with this? I noticed on the teadown pdf that the ssd looks like its from samsung. Even samsung ssds arnt that pricey (about $450 on amazon).The samsung ssd costs a whole lot less at amazon.com. So am I paying a premium to sony or is there something better about the ssd performance wise.
3.) My third question is that can I pop in a blu ray drive at a later time. I have a blue ray drive (read only for bd) from my dv 4 special ed and was wondering if I can swap that in or perhaps buy another one that can be swapped in. The addition of blu ray would make this perfect for me.
4.) My fourth (and I promise you my last) question is will it be possible for me to purchase the laptop from sony vaio USA using my Indian credit card and have it shipped to a mail forwarding company. This would be a lot more convenient as then I can get the 320 hdd and upgrade to an ssd later on and also can get the blu ray drive.

Thanks again everyone for the valuable info you have provided in this thread. Looking forward to my own sb (oh man I am craved!).

 

raid should be fine on SSD's, on regualr HDD, raid makes those drives work 100% or the time.

 

The exact model isn't available on Sony's driver site
May you please give me the exact URL you're using?

 

ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/VAIO/Original/A2DVID-00243349-0042.zip
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/VAIO/Original/SOAOTH-55800000-0042.exe

As I said, they finally downloaded. I do however seem to have lost the functionality of the Stamina/Speed button. I have more driver hunting ahead of me I think.

 

That sounds unnecessarily frustrating. I suppose I'll just keep the base installation :-/

 

Hope you guys sort out the drivers before my SB + Intel SSD arrive lol. I was going to use my OEM Pro disc to do a clean install on the SSD and use the key from the laptop.

 

I've got everything working perfectly now after doing the same you have planned; a re-install from an OEM disk on my Intel 510. I'd missed one of the Sony driver libraries due to the unreliable downloads I experienced today.

My next step is setting up my development environment which will be an Ubuntu installation through Sun's VirtualBox. Some people have asked about Linux compatibility and while this isn't a raw install, I'll report back how I get on.

 

Congrats!

I don't know enough about computers to really understand what a virtual pc really even is, but hopefully it should provide some good info on general linux compatibility.

Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

 

The problem with raid 0 is exactly that. The data is stripped (in this case half of it goes on drive and half goes on drive 2), so if any of the SSDs make a mistake you lost that data. Corruption is an issue, I dont vouch at all for raid 0, that is raid done wrong (the raid done wrong is my opinion)

Yes you are paying a premium to sony, just like the RAM, for the blu ray drive, I dont know, since I dont follow that

If the size is the same yes you could, take a look at the size of it

No you probably cant. What you can do is to search for some retailers to have the SB, I sincerely wouldnt be bothered to buy from India, since the price there is at least reasonable, in Brazil we pay U$2187,5 for the base version that costs 999. Aside the shipping cost you are going to have to pay import taxes, which if I remember correctly for pcs its 110% of the base price (indian taxes). What you can also do is to ask someone in the US to BRING it to you, so that you wont pay that much taxes (usually people that bring the pc dont pay taxes simply because a pc is usually with everyone that uses international flights, so they dont know if you got in your country or the one that you visited, in Brazil we dont pay if we bring with us, since its considered as I said a travel necessity and an usual thing to carry

 

My pending just disappeared and nothing had been charged lol. Sony seem to think the paid balance is 1190 tho and unpaid 0. Now if only they would ship it and forget to charge...

 

do please post the results

I prefer to use vmware workstation for this

 

Any way of updating the first post? It seems that everything gets lost since search function isn't working.

 

I might start downloading the drivers today then and try to find them all before mine arrives. BTW, how do you like the 510? I ended up buying the 320 version 160GB since it was same price as a 510 120GB basically. Figure the 320 is plenty fast and can't hurt to use Intel's controller.

 

oh i was wondering why this search function blew so much.

 

It's looking pretty good. Small file transfer isn't amazing but that's not really new information.



Regarding the drivers, I would assume the issues I experienced were a temporary problem with their FTP but it can't hurt to download early.

I'll probably give this a try since they offer a 30day trial. While VirtualBox is free, I've experienced several issues in the past.

 

I saw that the 320 in some reviews trumped the 510 in small file sizes, not sure if they were worthy reviews or not though. An SSD really benefits due to the general tech I think more so than the various small perks to each one. That's why I went with the cheaper 320 lol.

 

its good, specially since you got a more powerful laptop than I currently do (P7350, core 2 duo)

I have usually 2 VMs concurrently, the ubuntu, and the fedora distros, I only have those and not a BeOS one since Im limited by the storage (Corsair F120)

 

Instead of going the 'Clean Install' route, I think I will be doing a regular install then going back and deleting the recovery partition to get back that lost space.

I know there is a how-to somewhere on the board that shows exactly how to do it, I'll try and find it and post up a link.

Basically you just install regularly, then make your recovery media. Now that all the recovery stuff is on the disc (or thumb drive) you go ahead and delete the recovery partition, which is a pretty huge chunk. You then go and remove that partition and merge it into the other.

This way, you now have all the benefits of having all the drivers properly installed, as well as the Adobe Suite which I find is a very nice bonus. And you also don't loose a ton of hard drive space as you would with having that recovery partition there.

 

^ i was going to work on that when i got my unit

 

When you do, please post the results/how-to's.

 

how about pics of me modeling next to the laptop bros? its a free bonus!

 

please make a guide/how-to or link to it on this..
even if you don't i will be doing this but rather have some guidance just to rest assured.. ^^

you think the external ODD will boot up the recovery function with no problem?

 

Will do. Yea it should work just fine as all the drivers are there, it's just the recovery partition that isn't, and that is what is in the disc's.

Once I get my SSD back from Corsair I will be doing this, hopefully it won't be any more than a week from now.

 

in one week or so i hope i have my SB or that it is on-route! will buy th SSD when i get it so a lot of work to be done when that happens xD

 

Looks like Sony updated their SonyStyle USA website, pretty nice update, navigation seems easier.

 

Meh, Norton is supposed to be a lot better now days... but if it isn't I'll just uninstall it.

 

I'm currently using Norton 2011 Internet Security. I am not a person that uses any security suites usually, but I had an issue with a keylogger not long ago and Norton took it off. So far I haven't noticed any slow downs from installing it and I plan to use it on my SB when it comes.

 

did sony send you an email notifying you of the new order status? or did the status just change on its own?

 

I know it has been a while, but I just got in my new TV today so I was finally able to check it out. I connected it and everything worked great, no grey lines and everything looked crisp and well defined. This was on a 1080p LCD screen BTW.

Hope that helps, it might be an issue with the interaction between your monitor and the laptop?

 

Pending gone being as in the charge isn't shown on my card anymore. Still says payment processed at sony and my balance as paid. I assume it will ship soon and then show on my card. I never received any emails this whole time regarding my order, not even confirmation. All I got was spam offers of sonys current deals.

 

You may consider the Acer TimelineX, as I do, since it priced less-than-half of the VAIO SB, $999 in my country. VAIO VPC-SB19GG is about $2200 too in my country.
Check my post about that:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony-owners-lounge-forum/563759-official-sony-sb-sa-sc-sd-series-owners-thread-85.html#post7378593

 

Anyone found a good sleeve for the SB? I had to return the Incase nylon sleeve which fits perfect but couldn't justify the price. I am eyeing the be.ez 13.3 macbook black/wasabi and am wondering if it's a snug or loose fit.

Amazon.com: be.ez 100572 LA robe Sleeve for 13.3-Inch Macbooks (Black/Wasabi): Electronics

If anyone has it and can do an actual test fit, that'll be great.

 

which incase one did you get?