Official Sony VAIO AW Series 18.4" Owners thread

How have you overclocked 9600GT? Rivatuner?

 

Nvidia control panel.

 

hi. thanks for the help.

the stripe on my computer is the default size. I believe that is 128KB, but in the menu, it's the default option (first option that pops up).

when I dumped the Fujitsu's for faster HDDs, I kept it at the same default stripe size.

 

any details? max settings?

 

Hi
I bought it from nextronix because I agree with them that I will pay only for cable not for any taxse and handling and these rip off things ...
So I have paid 70 pounds +1 pound charge to transfering money from England to USA ...
And when I tried to see price I clicked on international checkout on spare parts warehouse web, I couldn't belive my eyes ..
take a look on Total price
I selected Visa and Paypal so two options total
rip off

 

Hi to all,

Thanks a lot, ajreynol, for your explanation !

Thank You for this important detail... I will let my friend know. He'll probably buy his parts from NextTronics too.
Did it take a long time to get your cable from the USA ?

I also got some informations about the M780 SSD FPC cable (1-730-231-11) :
The "double connector" is in fact two microSATA (uSATA) connectors so it needs SSD(s) that have this/these connector(s). Samsung calls these models "Slim". A "Slim" SSD is 1.8", sold without case (just the PCB with NAND, Controller, cache...) and it has this microSATA connector. This type of drive must be used with the M780 SSD CHASSIS SUB ASSY (X-2320-155-1) that can receive one or two drives (see the picture about HDD/SSD possibilities previously posted by Evoss-X for details).
But I don't know if a standard SSD (1.8"/2.5" sold with case) that is disassembled can do the job because the connector should stay a "standard" SATA connector... But I haven't more informations about that...

See You soon,
minux

 

Exactly
That's why I didn't bought it because I have seen on pic that sata connector is different ... power slot is smaller ...
It would be total waste for me because
I won't buy 1.8 SSDs ...
About delivery:
After payment I was waiting almost month for delivery
So 3 weeks and 3 days and because it was not in stock ...

 

Hi again,

OK, thank You so much for the informations...

Ciao,
minux

 

If I buy another Samsung SSD Slim 64GB uSATA MLC, I will have Raid 0?

 

Driver - 185.85 (Dox final release)

 

hey whats up guys, im new here, had my sony vaio for about 3 months now. the one thing thats bothering me is that the headphone jack isnt working. i chatted with a couple of reps online and they said i needed to download the drivers and reinstall them. did all that and it still didnt work. they said if i reinstalled vista or upgraded, then reinstalled teh drivers for it, they would start working. did that to no avail. i was reading up on other forums where everyone is having problems with the realtek hd audio drivers and how once the headphones are plugged in the main speakers dont cut off and the headphones dont turn on. i was wondering if anyone heard of something like this happening or had a solution.

i was looking at the other forum, http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=213304 , and they had some source code hacking the registry nonsense. im not good with software on that level so i didnt want to try it.

any push in the right direction would be apprectiated. thanks in advance.

steps taken to solve the issue:
spoke to sony reps
downloaded and updated all drivers
used different pair of headphones
tried toggling settings

system specs:
4gb of ram
2.66ghz duo core processor
320 HDD
windows 7 home premium

 

thank you very much

did you test that settings for example in 3d Mark? no artifacts?

 

I game regularly on those settings.

 

Just to let you guys know. I ordered the above. They didn't work in my AW11S. Tried everything, including the two different bios versions going around. In the end, the memory corrupted my Windows and I had to reinstall with the old memory. I tried to reinstall with the new memory, but obviously it didn't work.

Anyway, they're good people and sent me my money back after I returned the memory. I've just ordered memory specifically for the vaio AW..

 

Hi
So you have one ssd and one hdd ?
Can you see in BIOS advanced menu sata controller mode RAID ?
Try disconnect that ssd and look if you have another sata connector there ..
BUT you know these ssds 1.8 doesn't have good speed ..
best will be if you have two 2.5 samsung or intel ssd on left and on right ..
that would be incredible speed ...
I don't think that you can have RAID with ssd and hdd ...
let me know .. what u know ..
thnx

 

Oh my good whaaat ???
I cant belive really ???
What brand was it ??
I think that was ones of the ''NO NAME'' memory ..!
Sht ... am sorry ... I was looking for cheapest ones -- and you see .. crap , bag of sht.. ohh
Glad you have money back ...
When I bought mine Samsung and everything is OK ..
what speed did you ordered ?

Just checked supported speeds of aw11s : Supported Memory Types DDR2-667 SDRAM, DDR2-800 SDRAM, DDR3-667 SDRAM, DDR3-800 SDRAM, DDR3-1066 SDRAM

 

do you really feel that you overclocked graphic ?

 

That's ok man. I know you were only trying to help.

I tried these: 8GB 2 X 4GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SODIMM 667Mhz PC2 5300 8 GB

This is how they describe it:

Not sure though.. I should've known better. I never buy non-brand memory..

The ones I ordered now are PC2-6400 DDR2-800 (SONY-4GB-800-S).

 

I thought samsung selling mem chips to all ..

 

Hi there,

About belek's computer :
It seems to have the M780 SSD FPC "double connector" (1-730-231-11) because on the picture we can see the M780 SSD CHASSIS... (X-2320-155-1) and a Samsung Slim SSD (MMCRE64GFMPP-MVA) so You probably have a second uSATA connector (just under the first one) to add a second Slim SSD (third disk)...
Unfortunately this SSD model from Samsung (MMCRE64GFMPP-MVA) is not very good because of a bad controller BUT some VAI0 (Z series and maybe some others) users got their laptops with another Samsung Slim SSD, the MMCRE64GFMXP-MVB model, that has better performances. There are also the 128GB (MMCRE28GFMXP-MVB) and 256GB (MMDPE56GFDXP-MVB) versions of the last one (but I don't know if the 256GB version is already available or not)
Go here to view some pictures of two 128GB (2x64GB) RAID benchmarks, one with two MMCRE64GFMPP-MVA disk (belek's one) and the other with two MMCRE64GFMXP-MVB disk... no need to read japanese to understand that this other 64GB model is not so bad !
But if You can't enable RAID, I think that's pretty useless (it will be expensive for a 64GB storage disk).
Also, to use another disk than a Slim one (e.g. an Intel 2.5" SSD), You need to change the cable from the right to a "regular" one (M780 SATA HDD 2 FPC / 1-730-230-11) and also use another chassis (M780 HDD BRACKET SUB ASSY / X-2320-154-1).
If You still want to add a Slim SSD and keep both of your installed ones, You should check, as Evoss-X told You before, if a second connector is well present by unmounting the SSD.

About the RAID possibility :
AW11S/B, AW11SR/B, AW11Z/B and AW11ZR/B are using the same motherboard (A-1563-297-A).
AW11XU/Q's motherboard (A-1563-296-A) is different from the previous models...
That's probably why RAID on AW11S/B and others isn't possible as the option doesn't appear in the Advanced BIOS settings.
Is a ROM present on the AW11XU/Q's motherboard ?

Bye,
minux

 

What do you mean ROM ?
AW11XU/Q exactly this one I want replace with mine aw11s ...
need to sell this non-RAID sht ...

 

Hi Evoss-X,

The south bridge of the AW11XU/Q is an ICH9M-E (E stands for Enhanced) that can manage AHCI and RAID.

The south bridge of the AW11S/B is an ICH9M that manages only ( ?) AHCI.

The RAID controller should be in the south bridge chipset but, I don't know, maybe there is on the AW11XU/Q's motherboard an extra RAID controller chip (a ROM) that only comes with the "E" version of the ICH9M chipset, but not with the standard one ?
That would be why there isn't any option in the AW11S/B's BIOS (as we can't enable something that isn't in the chipset nor on the motherboard)

But, as it's just a supposition, I could be wrong...

See You...
minux

 

yes. I'd say it's between a 15%-20% improvement.

 

has anybody tried windows 7 on vaio aw..?
hw does it perform???
i gt 2.40 c2d 3 gb ram and 320 gb hdd

 

better than vista

 

Hey guys, I don`t seem to be able to update my AW290`s graphics driver.
I have a digitally not signed and manually installed driver for my 9600M GT, but I wanted to update it with some of the new nvidia drivers in order to get better performance in Dragon Age: Origins.

Here is what I have in device manager:



I tried 186.81_notebook_win7_winvista_64bit_international_whql and 195.39_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_international_beta, the first wants to just install audio driver and the second won`t find matching hardware at all...

Here`s what the beta drivers say when I try to install:


I have Windows 7 Ultimate RTM Build 7600 or something like that. It`s basically identical to the final version as far as I know.

 

Dragon Age is not yet released is it?

 

It is since Nov. 3.
Anyway, any ideas on installing proper graphics drivers?

 

Does it refuse to run on your notebook or is very slow?

 

get the Dox 185.85 drivers from laptopvideo2go. then overclock. it'll more than likely give you the best possible performance numbers.

don't forget to remove your current drivers by using Driver Sweeper. (in safe mode)

 

If I'm remembering correctly that will exit, but will have extracted the drivers to C:\Nvidia, and you can install them through the device manager from there. Though officially of course they're not supported. For some reason Sony doesn't let Nvidia support Sony's hardware

 

How much did your temperature rise when you o/c?

 

hi to everyone from spain¡¡

which one of these do you think are better??

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-Vaio-Lapto...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item5636af1197

http://cgi.ebay.com/SONY-VAIO-VGN-A...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item56369b6378 (better RAM and graphic card, worse micro)

http://cgi.ebay.com/SONY-VAIO-VGN-A...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item5636d543eb(hotter micro, slower hard disk)

thank you very much¡¡

 

hi guy, sorry for my english,
I have got a vayo model AW31M/H, the question is: can i put into a second hard disk?
thanks

 

not enough to be concerned about it.

if you find it going above 90c or if you see artifacting, dial it down. that simple.

 

does anyone knows how to open sony vaio vgn-aw120j?

i tried to remove over 20 screws but no result...i don't know what next to do?
is there any tutorial or step by step how to do this...?

 

Hi
I was thinking about those motherboards but mine IS :
Intel(R) ICH9M- E/M SATA AHCI Controller
the RAID is there but is turned off .. and there is even ahci and that is turned off as well there is just IDE turned on ...
why on oldest pc computer from 2006 there is raid ...

 

You mean IDE is off and AHCI is on.

IDE mode needs to be enabled to allow RAID.

 

Evoss-X has a service manual. He won't share it though

 

Depends what you want to use it for.

If you're thinking long term then go for whichever part is the cheapest/easiet to upgrade. i.e. I'd get the better CPU and upgrade the HDD and RAM.

 

hello all,

does anyone know if the Sony AW is being updated? I wanted to buy it at the end of the month, but it is no longer customizable on SonyStyle.

Anyone know of any updates? Or when it will be back?

 

no .. ahci is present on aw11sb but is not used ..
they just made ide available only ?
I must say I have a little bit mess /confusion in these interfaces ..
people used to call OLD connection type ''IDE'' but in reality it's called PATA
then SATA arrived ..
BUT when was PATA used everybody says its connected to IDE cable ..
OK
now there is SATA but thee is still going through IDE coding ,
if I understand right:
PATA is : IDE , AHCI and RAID and one more SCSI ? (ahci is probably new)
SATA is : IDE , AHCI and RAID and one more SCSI ?
OR SCSI is actually RAID ?
I have seen original SCSI port and connector in servers PCs ... it's totally different .
Mujja can u explain ?
Thnx

 

It MUST be upgraded shortly, the only option available today is way too basic, in screen, HDDs, finish, etc. Isn't it a High End model anymore??

 

as far as we're aware, no AW refresh is planned for the immediate future. they could bring some new options out...but I'd suggest that it's pretty unlikely.

 

yeah looks like the number jumped up to AW450 and the "new" label is applied to the image.

i guess they will release a customizable version in the near future ... man, i really wish they would update it though, and make it like some of their newer releases that at aluminum and so thin.

 

Well... enough waiting for me, the series seems to be backwards, every time the number adds 100, some things are crippled, and on and on. Just talked with my dealer here to buy one refurbished AW290Premium with the RGB display and two drives, etc. remember those beast?

 

I agree Sony is backwards these days with their notebooks, what happened to core i7 with these machines huh. RGB LED rocks i have it my precision m6400, i forgot it had that, only 18.4 machine i know that had it.

 

this is really dissapointing. i hope their customizable version will be better b/c for the top of the line Sony model, it is weak compared to the mac book pro (which annoys me to no end).

i too wonder what happened to the core i7 and Adobe RGB

maybe the economy has them rethinking their offerings?

 

I love my beast. Bought it in Apr, one of the HD went bad they sent me a new one DOA, waiting for another one now. Using my Toshiba Satellite 16". Just not the same. Was using Win7RC, if the final release is as good, it's a much better OS then Vista

 

Couldn't find where you ever said how you solved this problem. Having same issue, would like to know how you came out.