Official Sony VAIO AW Series 18.4" Owners thread

Had the same problem with my CS110E. Contacted Sony support and they had me reinstall a few thing but it did not help. I uninstalled IE8 and went back to IE7. Vaio Care works fine. When I told Sony support what I did their reply was they do not support IE8.

Good luck

 

Is this what you have? (before i order it )

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Targus-Metro-Messenger-Laptop-Sliver/dp/B000687SLU

 

hi
i have one question after ur upgrade to 2 SSD drive can u enable RAIED0 in bios or u need to call sony for bios update, thanks

 

how much did u paid for new sata ribbon cable ?
and where did u get it from ?
thnx
and that place where u have CF-mark is SD but that's ok small mistake ..

 

klnu2000
hows your flickering? solved ?

 

Once it sees a second drive the Sony BIOS automatically detects it and gives the option to enter the RAID manager during POST. But I don't plan to use RAID on this machine.

 

The parts were as described by FilmScoreMusic earlier in this thread, post 1551. I ordered only the cheap screws, not the ridiculously expensive ones. For those, I cannibalized some screws out of an old dead Dell notebook I had laying around and cut/filed them down to the right length. But you do need the bracket (shell) and flat cable, which add up to about $125. Nothing from Sony is ever economical, as we all know.

You're right, thanks. I'll fix it...

 

What SSDs? Be careful, 'cause the cheaper ones of those are a lot worse than a decent mechanical disk.

 

ooh i see this is that gold cable

 

thanks for the info

 

Hi Guys I just reading review about processors and there are new core 2 duo
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/index.php?option=com_content&task=newscategory&id=1&Itemid=67

 

Well its 90% Beteer Than Before
Thank YOU and if you Have Another advices So Please WRITE
Thanks Again

 

You're right about that.

 

how to make my motion eye camera works with yahoo messenger ?
its work wit windows live but its not with yahoo

 

Hi to everyone, lel4866 it´s nice to know about your surgery and how is the system reponding with the new hardware? Have you noticed the improvement?
Evoss-X was right about the upgrading of the processor and memory, but I have one question, what about upgrading to a quad cpu? Would this be possible on this chipset? I don´t think so!

 

I assume this voids the warranty?

 

only * X9100: GL960, PM45 works on aw series 2 cores
* X9000: GL960, GM965, PM965
* X7900, X7800: PM965

 

badboy are my eyes off or is that TWO 160gb SSD drives.

money just dripping from the trees in your backyard or what

 

I don´t think it would be worth it though from a T9800 2.93 to a X9100 at 3.06 you probably wouldn´t notice the difference except maybe on tough jobs like video editing and rendering. Intel is to blame making so many cpu´s , you don´t know which is which or for what!!!
If lel4866 upgrade goes well he wont have to worry about the warranty! Besides the vaio manual states that needing tech help sometime will be very improbable, lol!
Sony sure knows how to make good machines!

 

It´s very easy to have the 160Gb SSD´s! Simply dont go out, dont eat or drink, don´t give presents to your girlfriend and save up for a couple of months, LOL!!
I got a good raise at work so, that´s how it worked for me!

 

Sorry I didn't take any pictures - I'm really busy with my real job right now.

Everything's fine so far. After upgrading the cpu/memory (I also installed my Intel X-25M SSD), I messed with Vista for awhile. The SSD had a prior install of Vista 32 for a different desktop computer, and I was able to get it working fine after installing the various sony drivers (well mostly - some of the drivers on the AW page are for 64 bit vista, so I had to go searching for the proper 32 bit ones).

Then, I tried Windows 7 build 7057 with a little less success. I didn't spend too long at it though. Although Windows 7 installed OK, I couldn't get the nvidia Windows 7 driver to load.

Right now I'm typing using Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit. I had no problem installing the nvidia linux driver for this machine. Everything I use seems fine: wireless, network, usb mouse, touchpad, DVD. I have a BlueRay reader, but no BlueRay disks to try. I haven't tried the web cam yet.

As far as invalidating the warranty, probably. If something happens, I'll just put back the original cpu and send it in. I saw nothing inside that would allow anyone to find out.

Overall, I'm very happy with this machine, so far.

 

No, but it was there too and it is the one I almost got. The AW fits in there also. The one you are looking at is a straight messenger style and is great also. I chose the one withmore zippers for my business travel but you will love either one. I'm sorry that I don't have a photo for you. Mine seemed to have a little more room and I can easiliy pput the AW290 in with the neopreme travel case also. It worked on both but just a little more room on mine.

 

Not to get into a big debate about it, but generally speaking, I think they would notice the screws on the bottom of the case had a screw driver used on them.

 

I just purchased a aw 290jah from newegg, finally got my fn keys to work after a semi-clean install.
Now im stuck on getting the instanton to work.
There is no trace of it in the vaio recovery.
Is it even compatible with the aw.
Read somewhere that it only works with non blue-ray models?? Done a lot of searching with no real solid info. Is there a way to get the buttons to work atleast. Any Help would be much appreciated

 

Just trying to work out which one you have mate, bit worried about the internal dimensions, not sure of many shops that sell them for me to go and have a look at,

Is this more the one you have? http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Targus-XL-Metro-Notebook-Case-TCG417/version.asp

Thanks

 

I still can't figure out exactly how Sony gets one HD and two SSD's into one of these, I didn't see another cable connector or bracket location. I'm guessing it must be some kind of dual cable.

If anyone has ordered that config, please do post some pictures of the innards.

 

Nice nice nice nice nice! :smile:

I'd so love one of those, but I just don't think I can fit back into 160GB. I've got a 320GB drive on my laptop now, and it's only got 90 some GB free (and seemingly without much extra on it!)

I'd love the fast boot times especially, and not having to defragment! Last week it basically took a day to defrag my drive

Still not 100% sure what Windows is doing all the time. I know Vista pre-loads stuff which is cool, but still it seems like I'll see it with random activity at various points.

Ya know, it would be handy if Vista saved it's cache of programs as a single file or something, so it could read it all back in faster, since it has to go through all that every single time you boot (and I do twice a day).

 

badboy2k5
it could be made on board ssd ? + 2 hdd's ?
i think they selling one normal hdd and one ssd... only

Wolfpup
why bothering defrag .. .
when vista doing it auto...
when u not doing nothing with computer windows will switch display and when it has nothing to do will start defrag itself ..
once u tap or move with mouse it will stop ...
it needs has turned off sleep mode ..

 

http://targus.com/us/popup.asp?sku=TXL417&name=TXL417
This is the bag frpm Targus. Don'y know if it is available to you but I love it.Good luck

 

that their warranty i cant call it warranty when i red many people complaining how sony dodging WITH their typical notice

''THIS PROBLEM WITH YOUR NOTEBOOK IS NOT COVERED IN OUR WARRANTY''
F*** BBLODY ** BU**ERS CHEEKY .. THESE excuses DRIVING ME MAD !!

 

Is that separate from just the full defrag that Vista has scheduled? Either way, it's not enough to get the job done-at least not if I don't leave the system on 24/7 (It's off while I'm sleeping at night).

 

when u defrag its not bad when u interrupt its like pause and then it carry on
here windows says :
Disk Defragmenter might take from several minutes to a few hours to finish, depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of your hard disk. You can still use your computer during the defragmentation process...

if u want proper defrag type in command prompt :defrag.exe threre are some options for defrag ..

 

Yeah, I mean I run it, but this past weekend it was basically an all day thing. I left it on while I was sleeping since it was still running.

 

I was wondering - how defragmentation works with RAID0 drives? Isn't the data fragmented "by design"? Does defrag software recognize drive setup somehow and varies the procedure?

 

They do seem to offer it, but their customization page has some inconsistencies. I can't figure out how they would support the last option:

I bought the first one so I could buy my own SSD's, but had to pay $125+ in parts before I could install the second drive, the sob's don't include the cable for the empty bay.

Solid State Drive / Hard Drive

• 320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm]
• 400GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm] [add $20.00]
• 640GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm] [add $170.00]
• 1TB [4200 rpm] [add $320.00]
• 756GB (128 GB x 2 SATA Solid State Drives + 500 GB x 1 SATA Hard Disk Drive [4200 rpm]) [add $1,420.00]

 

badboy2k5

yeah bios says : hdd1 hdd2 hdd3 i have allocated hdd2
and i think that third hdd slot is between keyboard and main board
did u look on side b on mainboard ?

 

That's an interesting question. I don't think the defragmentation software would "know" that it's a RAID...I think nothing would really change, other than some data's on one drive and some on the other (with RAID 0)...like...I can't describe it right, but I don't think it would make any different for defragmentation programs, or for fragmentation in general.

It would just be so great to finally be able to ditch hours and hours of defraging!

 

New AW owner as of a few days ago. No flaws and very happy!

Here is a case option. Be warned, I had to modify the case by removing the single hinge on the inside. Not sure if it will impact the longevity of the case, but it seems good to go. Also, you can't fit the power brick in the case, but there is room for cables or hard drives. Pretty much anything less then 0.7 inches or so.

http://matias.ca/laptoparmor/la1417b/index.php

or cheaper at http://www.amazon.com/Matias-Laptop...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1238202069&sr=8-16

 

wow. very nice fit. well done.

 

Indeed! It fits like a glove. It has a velcro strap to hold it secure, which I use, but it took away from the glory of the pic. Matias makes a leatherish model, which is a bit lighter and cheaper, but I'm not sure if it would fit the same. The combo I have isn't too heavy for me and the protection is solid.

As an aside, I have never used a notebook where I had to actually dim the screen until now. This thing is amazing.

 

Evoss, I have the info now... There is another option for the B flat cable that has two SATA connectors on it. I don't know the part number but I've seen a picture of it. If the SSD is removed from its frame it's really only 1/2 high, and two of them must fit one on top of the other in the second drive bay. I assume another special shell is also needed to fit the two SSD's in this manner.

Interesting.

 

Hi All

I Decided To Install Windows 7 64bit On My Aw290

Any Advice From You Can Help Me Before I Install It ?
Do All Drivers Work Great ? Do I Use 64bit Vista Drivers ?
Any Problems

The Answers Will Help Me And All Aw Owners

 

yes that could be real because i was wondering why that sata cable connector is bigger than first connector
on your picture i can see that connector where u attached new cable is bigger!

 

Hi

I hope this can help you to understand how it is looks like

 

Interesting mm !!
and where did u get that double sata port ?

 

It came with it by default, looks like someone in Sony loves me LOL

 

yeah but depend how much did u paid for laptop ?

 

mmm, normal price didn’t pay much I only ordered with one SSD and one HDD the reset is the same as everyone. ahhh and Vista 32Bit home premium Sp1 that is it .

 

Another AW mystery to me -- there's a small ~2 inch square removable cover on the bottom, underneath the SD slot. It's marked with "Magic Gate" which refers to the SD slot. This cover can be removed to reveal... nothing!

So I wonder if anyone know what this cover is for?

 

For new AW-290 CTO owners, could you check if there is a label (at the bottom of your laptop) saying the LCD contains a lamp which may contain mercury?

Mine has a label.

I thought AW-290 CTOs should use LEDs for their LCD technology as their specifications say ...