Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Hah! Yet another one. My first one died exactly same in first 1.5 days.
I spent the first day setting the computer up...used it just before I went to bed. Shut the lid then fell a sleep. Next morning...exact same thing. Just green light...then 15 seconds later the fan came on. The Sony support asked me to do the same thing. Nothing...I've returned and just got my new one today. I didn't want to have it repair since it was only 1.5 days old...
Good luck to you! I am scared to shut my laptop lid now.

 

How about using a vertical stand & the F as a desktop box? That's my plan for my home setup. Vertical with the exhaust grill facing up is good for cooling:

 

While on this topic...my old FW390 used to do this when you shut the lid.
As soon as you shut the lid...the orange light will blink and the computer will sleep. Then about 10 minutes later...the FW will go in to hibernation mode automagically.

I tried this on my new F1190x tonight...but it seems that it will never go into hibernation mode after it has been sleeping for a while. This feature was nice on FW because I typically just shut the lid before I put the laptop in the bag...knowing that it will go into hibernation mode automatically.

Does anyone know if the F series will do this? If so...How do I set it up?
I've looked at the vaio control program and it only had the simple option to either do nothing...sleep...hibernate...Power Down...

Another note about the battery drain issue. when I was performing above mention experiment...my battery was at 100%. I let the computer sleep for about 30 minutes...after I woke the computer up...it was still 100%.

 

I never thought about documenting the cosmetic state, but that might not be a bad idea. Right now the laptop looks completely new. I did a backup to and external drive the day before it died. It wouldn't be too big a deal anyway as there isn't too much of importance on there.

 

S1 > Vaio_Control Center > Power Management:

- Battery >

- Power Options >

- Settings for the Behavior When Closing the LCD Screen Lid > different options for when plugged or on battery: nothing/sleep/hibernate/shutdown

- Vaio_Power Management >

"it seems that it will never go into hibernation mode" - aha! A perfect case for calling powercfg to the rescue!

Check also "Vaio not sleeping or hibernating correctly" in, you guessed it, the Unification Post #2!

Sorry guys for so many posts, must be addicted. Now back to work.

 

Sorry... but I think there was a typo on my last post...My FW always did this and worked perfectly...I no longer have the FW...
What I meant to say was that "I tried this on my new F1190x...." not the FW.
I know about all those settings in the power management options....

Is there a way to make my new F...first sleep then few minutes later...hibernate automatically?

 

Why? Why not hibernate directly? Is it a bear?

 

I think the persistent complaints in this forum rather refute the marketing studies. Anyway the biggest complaint is not the glossiness or limited gamut, but the uneven backlighting and limited viewing angles, something surely not suggested as a preference in any market study.

 

I got it for use as a room warmer and cat scratching post, but it DOES produce some pretty pictures, shaded from top to bottom...

 

There are youtube videos badly shot of the screen of the FW390 and 590 while running games, and with the camera moving about it's painfully obvious the FW screen had a wide range of viewing angles with no shading or inversion. If the Sharp LCD physically fits then it should be electrically adaptable also.

 

Yes that has happened to several F11s in this thead, obviously a weak part was used in some builds.

 

Define "several"? %?

 

VAIO Update (in UK) downloaded and installed the following software update this morning...

Graphics Driver (NVIDIA) - 8.16.11.8867

The only other updates have been...

VAIO Power Management 5.0.1.01270
VAIO Care 5.1 5.1.0.12110

Reboot was necessary. Nvidia Uninstaller failed.

What is this?

This is an updated graphics driver.

Is this relevant for you?
This is a recommended update, as it fixes some compatibility issues.

What does it fix?
Improvement of HDMI Compatibility.
PMB VAIO Edition and Media Gallery may stop responding under certain circumstances

Manual installation steps

Download the updated driver.
Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Uninstall a Program
Select "NVIDIA Drivers", and click the Uninstall/Change button
When asked which Components to uninstall, select the 1st option: Remove all NVIDIA drivers, including Display.
Click on Next / OK / Go to finish the uninstallation.
Reboot the VAIO.
Locate the downloaded file in the location you specified, and double-click it.
Select to install both the Display and the HD Audio driver.
Wait while the wizard updates your software, and follow the instructions.
When the installation is complete, restart the VAIO.

matt

 

I have been given a 90W power supply in exchange for the original 120W that was supplied. I do not believe 90W is sufficient to run the CPU/screen/GPU at full speed and I suspect that the i7 will just not run to full power, as it will when on the batterry. But I am finding it hard to find a conclusive statement on what the power requirements are of this laptop. Big ask: does anyone have a usage meter that they can put on the mains socket to see what is drawn under heavy load?

 

Hi
I have a question ab Sony Vaio F series. Do u think the GeForce GT 330 M is better than 9700M GTS? One of the reason I want to buy this notebook is to get a better GPU than 9700 M GTS.

 

Hello,
I'm considering buying this laptop, has anybody had any problems with the fan being noisy on the i7-720QM model? When doing simple tasks (web/email) is fan noise noticeable?

 

Hah Hah...Funny, but I do have a valid reason...
The reason is because I often think I am done using the laptop...but in fact...I got to do something else quick that I forgot. So I will shut the lid, then realize that I need to use it again.
Well...if I hibernate directly...I have to wait longer to take care of the thing that I have forgotten. I have to wait until it finish hibernating...then to wake the computer up from hibernation...which can be quite some time...

Luckly for me...when I got up this morning...the computer was hibernating...
Which means I did not wait long enough first time around. And I think the F series seems to work same way as the FW...regarding sleeping for some time then hibernates after some time. Self heal...

When I went to bed the Battery was at 54%...This morning, it was at 48%.
Please consider how long it was sleeping before it went into hibernation.
So far, I don't see any unusual issues with battery drain at all.

 

I would class mine as very noisy. The fan kicks in to a high speed within a minute of booting, no matter if I run any software or even log in.

 

That by the way is called hybrid sleep. It's a Windows function, you can edit the settings in advanced power options. There was a thread in the Windows section about it a while back, search for it. I would link you but I am on my phone.

EDIT: Back on laptop...so.

From MS Site:

Basically if you put your computer to sleep it will go from sleep (for a predefined period of time) -> wakes briefly -> hibernation. It's a safe guard against the battery running out in the duration of sleep and you losing all your working data.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

here you go

 

haha, I think a troll might have.... It is a hardware issue, because the keyboard doesnt respond in the BIOS even. The weird thing is, if I hold down my "n" key and press any of the other keys that arent working, those keys work. I think there is a bad connection at the n key.

I haven't tried the battery calibration yet, but I will . One other thing - something disturbing. I put my computer on hibernate (no external devices plugged in) and put it in my bag to carry on the plane. Well about 3 hours into the flight I take it out to work, and the zippers on my laptop case were quite literally burning hot and my battery was completely drained. Kind of scary since I had it next to some papers I was working on... Definitely taking this in for repairs.

EDIT: Just read Johnny T's post on advanced power settings. Will try that and see if it still has the same
wake on sleep issues.

 

Just curious, in case it ever happens to me, did you: check if the kb works normally in Safe Mode to rule out a hardware fault?

"I put my computer on hibernate... about 3 hours into the flight... my battery was completely drained" - could you run powercfg -energy to see if it can diagnose the problem?

Sort of testing the utility.

What is the "n key"? Letter n or Fn?

 

If anyone's interested, the CTO Vaio F on the SonyStyle US website is including a free upgrade to blu ray right now.

 

Well it wasn't working in the bios, so I'm very sure it is a hw fault. (It's the actual "n" key - not the Fn key ) I have yet to run the powercfg, but I will. Thanks for the instructions btw. They were very helpful.

 

Today tested battery in my second vaio - no drain if shut down and power supply connected and no drain if shut down and power connector removed. After around 12 hrs - system shows battery fully charged.
Today will try to run on battery to check whether the reading is correct.

 

This makes 5 that I can recall, I'm afraid I can't go back and find each one and link to them Joe. It's not above the norm for power supply failures for ANY product however. I've personally had power supply failures in other new products, a Yamaha laserdisc player after two days, Yamaha power amp, Panasonic TV after a week, our Sony XBR (after nine months) and a Philips DVD player (two weeks.) Except for the XBR (which just went wonky, but the tech told me it was the power supply) these all just simply died, wouldn't turn on at all one day, like the F11 failures.

(edit) Also we sold a large Samsung LCD display to a corporate client. It failed the first time the client went to use it for a presentation, furthermore it went DURING that presentation with a big "BANG!" and smoke rising from it and a carbon smell. The client was FURIOUS at us, though it was entirely a manufacturing defect. We got a new set of course, free shipping etc., but had to cover the cost of new labour for reinstalling. And the client remained angry at us, probably losing other sales. It happens. That I bring up the fact F11s have had failures doesn't mean that I'm dissing the product..

 

Thanks for the feedback.

It may be a good thing to go through the full discharge/full re-charge cycle to calibrate the battery gauge anyway.

I created a Calibrator Power Management Plan for my Vaio_F11 following the HP_Support battery calibration suggestion for the next time I'll calibrate the gauge. It took about 15 seconds. The only modifications to_HP's how-to were:

- to search for: power options instead or "power" in step 3.

- new Calibrator plan > Change advanced Power settings > critical battery: 3% > shut down (instead of hibernate), and > Reserve Battery Level: 3%. To insure full battery drain I chose myself 1% but it seems some users had problem completing a proper full shut down maybe caused by hanging programs or external devices. So 3% is on the safe side.



For my next F battery calibration:

- S1 > Vaio_control_Center > Power Management > Power Options > select Calibrator. Don't forget to reset to your previous power plan after the calibration process!

- OR: Start > type: Power Options > select Calibrator. Et voilà!

*****************

Revised HP_Support's How-to Calibrate a notebook battery customized for the Vaio_F11_Series:

A calibration cycle requires that the battery be completely charged and then completely discharged. During the calibration cycle, the power management properties must be disabled to allow the battery to completely discharge.

Follow the steps below to calibrate the battery power meter readings.

1. Connect the AC adapter and allow the battery to charge to 99% - 100% of capacity.

2. Disconnect the AC adapter from the notebook PC.

3. Click Start, enter power options in the Search field, and then select Power Options from the list.

4. Select Create a power plan from the left sidebar.

5. Click in the Plan name field and type Calibrator . Then, press Enter .

6. Select Never for all topics in the On battery column.

7. Click Create to accept the values and force the battery to consistently discharge.

- 7 a. Calibrator plan > Change advanced Power settings > critical battery: 3% > shut down (instead of hibernate) and > Reserve Battery Level: 3%. To insure full battery drain.

- 7 b. Power Options > select Calibrator to activate that power plan.

8. Allow the battery to discharge completely until the notebook PC shuts down. If you are using it, make sure you save your work before reaching the critical battery state.

NOTE: The battery power meter is now calibrated, and the battery level readings should be accurate.

9. Connect the AC adapter and restart the notebook PC OR I prefer doing this:

- 9 a. Once the battery is fully discharged & the Vaio_F is fully turned off (no battery indicator or power button LED's on):

- Remove battery

- Press power button at least for 5 seconds to drain residual power

- Re-seat battery, make sure it's locked in place

- Plug the notebook & don't turn on the F. Let the battery be fully recharged: when the battery charging LED indicator turns from orange to green or turns off (can't remember).

- Turn on the plugged F & check the battery capacity state

- Turn off F overnight, unplug including all external devices, web connections, hubs, etc.

- Next day: plug, turn F on & check the battery state to see if there is battery capacity loss. 5% or less is normal, more is to be expected if you have some devices that are enabled to wake up the computer as the F is listening for them. See this post: Sleep & Hibernation Wake Up Problems Fix.

10. After the calibration cycle is completed, return to the Power Options dialog box (Step 3) and select your favorite default power plan setting.

*****

LED Indicators

From > Start > Help & Support > Indicator Light:

 

"I'm afraid I can't go back and find each one and link to them Joe" - come on man, I was just asking for your best guesstimate.

Just wanted to prevent an other "issue" hysteria.

If I would have been at that presentation, I would have really LOL when that monitor crashed & burned. That was a stupid client if he stayed mad @ you as you did not make that monitor by hand. As the presenter, I would have turned that into a funny & memorable moment. With lemon, make...

Everything is relative:

 

I agree, but losing the ability to show the figures you meticulously entered into Powerpoint (sigh) would have been annoying.

Also, different scenario, a presentor's laptop hard drive crashed during a presentation to 2000 people, in front of company presidents etc. Another laptop available, sure, right here, just give me the backup you made on Memory stick. uh, backup?? (nope)

Anyway this is off-topic, but in the real world no notebook is a living miracle, not even the F11. It's up to the users to make the best of it..

 

Yah, I've seen that, that's why I'd settled on Asus, Sony, or Toshiba. Again people should read the threads concerning other brands of notebook, we are really lucky.
And I suspect my Asus netbook will NEVER fail, it's a brick, as is my IBM T23. I honestly have more concern for the durability of the F11, but we'll see. I have to decide whether to get the extended warranty or mod it to my heart's desire - can't do both..

 

Joe you don't need to drain the battery as fast as possible to calibrate it, one simply needs to run it down to 0% and back up to 100% a couple of times. You'll know when your full capacity (if you have a program to read battery levels, which you do), maxes out (it should be around 5000mAh, the rating of the battery itself).

It's probably going to be more around 4400-4600, though.

Anyway, that survey is bull. And I'm tired of you calling the F a "premium" laptop. If you've ever handled a premium laptop, you'd know the F series is not. It has far too much body flex, and while Sony did do one thing right (the ventilation system, IMHO), they did a lot of stupid cheap moves on the industrial design of the machine.

Like is with the VGA port that sticks out? And the firewire port being mounted on the curve the way it is. It's hideous!

man, on my F series the lid doesn't even align with the top edge (that faces you when closed). It makes the edge look like the lip of a fish or something.

And then there's that "matte" finish on the lid. And the really noisy trackpad buttons, and the battery .. squeaks if you push on it (easy, if you have it on your lap).

I think it's more like a $1300 emachine laptop.

 

Not as bad as Emachines! No way, but early in the previous thread I called this a Budget laptop, and was flamed for doing so. I still think it's a budget laptop, the reason it can cost a fair bit is due to the line-item options you can have with it. I'm not complaining at all, I keep finding new things for it to do, which it always proceeds TO do with Elan and Class.

 

Hi
thanks for the link,
btw
My Windows index base score for graphic is 5.9 (GeForce 9700 M GTS), but Sony Vaio F's Windows index base score for graphic is 6.4 (I forget the exact number, I saw on the review), the one with GT 330 M

Why the index base score of sony F 11 for graphic is higher than my notebook??

 

Confusing question, but sony didn't skimp on the GT330, the F11 is actually using BETTER, faster memory than the stock GT330M parts.

 

"Joe you don't need to drain the battery as fast as possible to calibrate it, one simply needs to run it down to 0% and back up to 100% a couple of times" - No kidding? See this posted a couple of pages back with Power Management setting tips for making sure the battery is fully drained.

In fact, you only need to do it once. Some recommend to recalibrate the battery again after something like using most of your battery for 30 times in normal usage situations.

The point of the Battery Eater test I ran was to test the real capacity of the battery before/after calibration & after overnight shutdown to prove that there is no battery drainage "issues" on the Vaio_F as you posted several times. Remember this from your previous post?

"it should be around 5000mAh, the rating of the battery itself). It's probably going to be more around 4400-4600, though" - Nope, it should be 57240mWh as the screen captures by To no End, mangosango & I show here & here after calibration & tests.

You must have the Battery Care Function enabled & set to 80% battery charge max or you misquoted the data.

S1 > Vaio_Control Center > Power Management:

1- Battery > Default (Battery Care Function disabled to be able to charge the battery @ 100% & 57240mWh)

Again, you post some F bashing comments as always. Why not simply return the machine, buy an other brand & move on? Really.

 

What's cool about that Laptop Video Graphics Cards - Benchmark List is that you can select some video cards and benchmarks & apply the "Restrict" filter for a direct side-by-side comparison.

Since it's not possible to post a link to those side-by-side selections because of the way the notebookcheck site works, I made this screen capture a while ago of the VAIO_F_GT 330M vs. the ATI 4670 offered on some other laptops in the same class as the F.

Some benchmark are slightly higher, some lower, n0te the shader & memory speed in favor of the 330M. The F is not a gaming notebook, it's a powerful & compact DTR with a 16.4" display and some respectable gaming capabilities.

 

I consider this machine an affordable true desktop replacement. I just like to comment on the noise, I find that it can be unpredictable, one minute it can be a bit noisy when doing simple things like reading e-mail and the next noisy the next reading this forum. I would say that for the most part I find this laptop noise to be quite acceptable for the power it carries under the hood. I may decide to get my FW hooked up to compare (I have it set-up for the new owner who purchases it to register Windows and such so not at a full usable state for me to test). Overall with the noise I am very happy with the fan and find little to no concern with it when it's going at full speed.

 

I think it is not that great for Li-Ion Battery to drain it to 0%. Li-Ion batteries might die if you drain them completely. Li-Pol are not that susceptible to full drain.

 

Good point but it will not go to 0 because of this setting in the Battery Calibrator Plan: critical battery: 1% > shutdown.

I just wanted to modify the 7% "battery reserve power" I had by default. I wanted the critical battery action to shutdown the laptop, not the reserve thing.

 

Melody Master, let me try this again (since you missed it around p. 124 or so):

Do you mean you have to reboot the entire computer or just reset the network adapters and try again to connect?

 

It should actually have an internal cutoff before it goes down all the way, it just LOOKS 0%.

 

My WinDVD has just stopped working. It worked before I had to reset the system because sony support told me to but curiously now doesn't. I have removed some Sony apps such as PMB but that shouldn't affect it surely? I reinstalled windvd using recovery partition and the other apps I'd taken off but with no luck. When I try to open windvd nothing happens. Event log shows an application error "AppCrash". Any ideas?

 

Did you run the Corel update via VAIO Update yet? That solves a crashing and program failure issue, plus Bluray region problems.

 

I'm not being offered any WinDVD updates from Sony here in the UK, either through Vaio Update or direct from the Sony Support website...

Edit: I found the US update, downloaded and installed, still getting the same error. Application error 1000, whatever that is...

 

Oh, you SHOULD, it came online here a couple of days ago. Well use VAIO care to reinstall Corel from the safety partition.

 

After losing the network card I have to reboot from scratch, the BIOS boot, the bios needs to initially find all the hardware and pass it on to Windows.

I just lost the Bluetooth mouse again, and had to press and hold the power button to shut down because the keyboard wasn't working either.

 

But this is what's so strange, I've done this, more than once... I don't think it's a corrupt installation, but it's conflicting with something or a lack of something... Argh. I can't play Blu-rays without it!

 

In case anyone thinks you have issues with your laptop, try THESE on for size.

Note the many issues with batteries... At least no F11s have blown up YET...

And note all the squeaky keyboards...

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=14C99E959C0E6A97

 

Thanks for the heads up, the Sony_Certified Video Driver Update not available yet for the US F's but seems to confirm that there is no need to download & hack video drivers from non-Sony sites @ the present.

Edited to add: did you create a new monitor profile with your colorimeter to see if it was any different? Did you observe any difference in functionality or fps when playing games? Did the "HD Audio driver" part updated Realtek (my driver is: 6.0.1.5992) or only the Nvidia High Definition Audio found in Device Manager?

 

I quoted notebookcheck here & they measured the F with a multi-meter: 116 Watts @ max CPU + GPU + full LCD brightness power when plugged in.

My F's brick says: model VGP-AC19V15, OUTPUT: 19.5v, 6.2A. So: 19.5v x 6.2A = 120.9 Watts (W = V x A).

Your 90w brick: 90w divided by 19.5v = 4.6A.

I would return it & ask for a replacement identical to your original A/C Power adapter.

Good luck!