Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Hehe I was in the same predicament as you were. Actually almost exactly the same - I got a pretty nice student discount on the mbp 15", and I was leaning towards getting one (my friends all caved and got those sexy slabs of aluminum).

In regards to your questions.
On my lap: It's not bad. It's not hot at all, and the rubber feet aren't annoying - they serve the dual purpose of not scratching anything and keeping the laptop elevated to allow for convection. I use it when I'm on my bed and it's fine. The mbp would be better than the vaio f as a laptop laptop in this regard though.

Battery Life:
The battery life sucks. My friends constantly remind me that they can surf the web for 7 hours on their mbp. I counter by showing them 8 cores in my task manager

Trackpad:
I hear that there is some synaptics software that can do this, but the multitouch in the vaio f is only for zooming and rotating. OSX support really trumps Win7 on this one.

Build quality:
Quite excellent. mbp owners get an edge on this b/c apple is lazy and uses a unibody, which basically means that there won't be any big gaps because, well, it's all one piece. The sony, however, is composed of many many pieces. So far, all of them have held up remarkably well. No creaks, very little flex, and no gaps. It's fine, but the mac will probably last longer in a portable setting. The vaio wasnt meant to be carried and thrown around.

So basically if you want something portable, get a mbp. If you really NEED the power of the vaio (you're doing heavy video editing, photo editing), then the F is the one for you. It comes down to power versus portability. The mac does a good job of offering a reasonable amount of performance for a great amount of portability. But the sony does an excellent job of offering performance, at the great cost of portability.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Just a technical note: the "northbridge" Memory management unit is integrated on the I7 CPU chip. The "southbridge" is the PM55 PCH Chip.

 

Because at the end of the day, it's a subjective thing and price does not really matter?

I thought the Spyder 3 Elite profile that is floating around was a little red in the mids and highs and it's a more expensive calibration device?

The best suggestion is to try all of the profiles floating around here and use the one you like best.

 

A good read: Monitor Calibration: Who needs it?.

That's the point of a colorimeter, to remove the "subjective thing" & the hardware variations from the equation. It measures the actual output of the display, without regard to your opinion or video card, monitor type, etc.

When I talk about a photo & color balancing before posting to a website with my colleague in the US, he sees almost the same colors & gradients as me because we have both our monitors balanced in a similar way, for example.

 

Agreed. As a student, I really don't have the money to spare for a calibrator, so major props to those who posted their profiles (especially count_schemula, whose profile I am currently using). I found that slrosenfeld's profile was a bit too red. count_schemula's is great with mine, and games, movies, and the whole experience is so much better. If you look at my oldder BFBC2 and newer 1080p BFBC2 video, you will notice the difference in color. Same goes with my older ME2 videos and newer ones. The color is much warmer and has deeper contrast.

That said, I'm not doing any professional image editing where color accuracy is a must (I do some graphic/interface design, but I work with solid colors or gradients, and the colors are mainly based off of hex code for that, so it makes the image creation process a bit less subjective). For the average user, the profiles posted here should work fine.

 

So why do the different profiles produce different results and why do some people see things that they like and don't like about the different profiles?

I tried 2 profiles and ultimately I picked one due to some weird reason. Oh, I know, I just thought one looked better to me. That's what it was.

Why would there be several different calibration tools if there was one simple solution that works for everybody?

Besides, your point was that x was better than y based solely on price? What was that about?

You are crazy argumentative.

 

Right! (slaps head) one reason the Northbridge runs very warm is because it had to handle the memory, a high clock rate with a lot of activity. AND that's why the i5/17 runs so warm compared with the Core2Duo despite increased efficiency, it has the added burden of memory I/O.

 

The trouble is she has twice tried to get the whistle fixed; what I don't understand is why replacing the fan would be an issue, it's the screens, and video cards, and motherboards in general, which Sony is having trouble re-sourcing, not the fan.

I'd keep the notebook for now Poohkie, and send Jahwal (is that the name?) an Email saying this one specific problem remains, which you are told by many sources is caused by the fan, and that you KNOW it can be cured by replacing the fan. You will then send the unit back in when Gordon Baker HAS the new fan and is ready to do the repair.

 

Forgetting About Northbridge? by ltcommanderdata, 161 days ago:

 

I contacted Sony UK today and let them listen to my whine/whistling f11 noise over the phone. The guy said it was definitely faulty and gave me a fault - warranty reference number. He said I could contact them at my convenience to have it picked up. Just got to decide when to part with it ... Boo hoo hooo .

 

OK, so its 3:15 AM and I am still trying to get the clean install correct.

I created recovery disks, but I am not quite familiar in how to use them. I also have the original hard drive intact in pristine, new shape.

I installed the SSD and installed a new copy of 7 Pro. The first install was corrupted somehow. I kept getting .net errors along with errors for the wireless transfer software. About 1/2 of thedrivers loaded with an error message.

My guess was that W7 was corrupted during install, so I started over with another clean install. Everything is now loaded and working. The Intel Storage Matrix Manager was corrupted on the Sony site, so I downloaded from Intel.

There are two definite displeasures at this point. First, I can not seem to recover the Corel software needed for Blu-ray playback. I just can't seem to make it come back! Second, and perhaps good news for the noise problem...I had no noise problem for the first 10 or so hours. As soon as I was able to finally track down a good version of the Intel Storage Matrix Manager (and install it), the sound became apparent. Also, my hard drive light on the front edge of the computer is now constantly blinking every second or so, which it was not doing earlier. Perhaps this newly installed application is causing this fan noise. It is not the hard drive (obviously) as I am now running an SSD. Actually, the sound has now faded...go figure!

I have the base screen, so my graphics experience is not great (6.1 aero and 4.9 gaming) but processor is 7.1, memory is 7.4 and hard drive is 7.3. This seems pretty good for a laptop.

I am wondering if SSD trim is automatic now. I have downloaded all updates from MS. Are there places to control the SSD settings? I had heard that when 7 detects an SSD, it shuts off defrag, etc. Does it also shut down indexing? Indexing seems like a waste to me on SSDs.

On a final note, how in the hell am I going to get WinDVD back?

Thanks,

Bill

Oh, by the way, I love the lighted keyboard. Also, the stock 5400 RPM drive made me wonder why this machine was so special. Installing the SSD showed me! Normal tasks are a bit quicker, but startup, shutdown, opening apps and installing programs is incredibly fast!

 

Two Quickies:

(1)I ran the Spyder 3 on the strange-looking 24" BenQ MVA, which I got very cheap because the colours were odd, it now looks almost normal with correct colours, no green inversion or pink highlights - an improvement way beyond any I could have expected. Also I ran it on the Asus N10E, and now photos and videos look just great - on a screen that's better than the F11's to begin with (though the colour isn't very deep..) I do wish I had sprung for a more expensive calibrator though because there seems to be no option to actually set the reference temperature, and of course it doesn't measure and chart the colorimetery.

(2) I can say nothing negative about Joe Bleau because he HAS given much original, valuable advice, the only issue is that he is trigger-happy with the reply button, answering the slightest perceived, erm, slight, with a massive overkill of verbal self-defense. He likes cats though, and since I am owned by six cats myself I just can't consider JB all-bad.

P.S. I like dogs too Poohkie, and once had a gorgeously handsome American Bull Terrier (Pit Bull) named George, as intelligent as a Human, but the cats have made it clear they would not accept a dog in their midst.

P.P.S, I hope my next post will be the unpacking of my very late-arriving Canadian CTO with GT330 and 1920 X 1080 display.

 

Check ilfuca's extract trick quoted in this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5888748#post5888748

And by fernandes here (SSD clean install): "For anyone doing a clean install, after a long search on the recovery discs, I found:
Roxio - MODJ-158700.mod (147.092KB)
Corel WinDVD - MODJ-158737.mod (118.110KB)

Both were on the second [recovery] disk (which made me go through all of the mods in the first one ). I hope that saves some of you some time... ilfuca's... The Sonyextractor tip was priceless."

 

Hey,

Sorry for a "silly" question but what is a difference between VAIO Display vs VAIO Display premium???

I am thinking of purchasing Sony F11M1E/H with Specifications:

Intel® Core™2 i5-520M 2.4 GHz
Intel® Turbo Boost tehnoloogia 2.93 GHz
RAM: 4 GB DDR3 1066 MHz
500 GB SATA (5400 rpm)
Blu-ray Disc™ Player: BD ROM/ DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM
16,4’’ 1920 x 1080 resolution
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU 1GB
2x USB; Bluetooth; WiFi;i.LINK; HDMI
MS Pro, Duo, SD
6 Cell battery
Motion Eye web-camera
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

F11M1E/H is an European model and has LCD vaio display.
any hints about F11M1E/H screen quality?
and what's up with the buzzing noise? I heard that Sony solved that problem, but is that true?

 

Is anyone familiar with the screen of notebooks bought at Thailand ?

They got 2 models
F116
F117

On sony website, it is mentioned that F117 is 100% Adobe RGB, but on the specs of F116, it is not mentioned.

Do these screens have any resemblance to US or UK screens?

Any ideas please .

 

Hello everyone! A month ago I bought a toshiba laptop and had this exact same problem with this exact same graphics card. I returned the laptop and got a refund. Now I' m in the search for a new laptop and Vaio F is one of the "candidates"! I was wondering if the problem was solved with the driver's update or not.

Thank you very much in advance!

 

I tried installing the drivers from Nvidia but the installation panel prevented it because of incompatible hardware.

So far I have not received that display driver error today.

on another note, I tried a recording as well in response to Tausif's (UK right?) own recording of the whistling issue to mine (US). The whistling is there although not all the time so it doesn't bother me. What does is that the whistling temporarily imprints itself in my mind and even right after walking far away from the laptop I hear it

During recording - I was browsing Sony esupport to see if they had updated anything. Background noise includes a mix of air venting out, refrigerator hum, and mouse clicking.
***iPhone held about 4 inches above the tab key on the left

I will just open up a case with Sony Tech about the whistling noise and driver issue. If the display driver error comes up, I will send it in for repair on a day of my choice. Too much downtime already and i'm working towards getting this expense paid up soon.

edit: sorry zip file of recording too large will have to record again later to cut it down

 

MelodyMaster replied to that post & he does not think it's software: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5966338#post5966338

 

Actually, rotating is disabled as default setting.
Control Panel>Mouse>Multitouch Gestures and tick the box 'Enable Pivot Rotation'

You mention the Macbook Pro 15" and I see in this review they also have the high-pitched whine problem...
http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/mbp15led/

Quote..." ...an intermittent high-pitched noise. We've heard four distinct pitches, but never more than one at a time; it varies from a high tone to a faint whine. It goes away within five or six seconds of pausing iTunes; we believe this is when the audio circuitry turns off to save power. We cannot consistently cause the high pitched noise to happen, nor affect the pitch. We cannot trigger it with hard drive activity, spin-up or spin-down, display or keyboard brightness, or display activity. We assume it is caused by interference from other components within the machine."

So, it seems we are not alone in this phenomenon!

matt

 

This should be the correct way to go. If possible, make them send a tech to home (to prevent another possible loss of time.) I'm a little paranoid about sending a newly purchased machine to someone I don't know, but maybe I'm too narrow-minded?! Ultimately, you should avoid another laptop replacement and pursuit only fan replacement as I see you want to keep and benefit from the gorgeous F series.

I will also try to get an on-site repair/fan replacement or at a nearby repair shop, as I don't want to wait for weeks and to ensure to keep the laptop in my sight.

Btw, I played with various power management options with no avail. I tried different minimum cpu state values etc. Jacksjw explained why beautifully. System is always dynamic and since there are several rpm-ranges that results with the whistling, we don't have a choice.

To top that, and maybe more importanty, there is no option to control this laptop's fan(s) at the moment. I tried various programs to find a fan sensor, again nothing. I guess it's connected with the simplified bios that doesn't allow OS to see/control several components of the "custom" mainboard. Someone mentioned, a few days ago, about a key-sequence to reveal hidden options in bios. I'm very curious about that!

Anyway, it's too much work. I like to play and learn computers' inner workings but you shouldn't mess with things if you are not absolutely sure what you are doing!

 

Lots of cats here...gotta mix it up with a dog. (though she sleeps like a cat all day and snores like a trucker! ) Thank goodness she doesn't even want to go near the laptop.

EDIT: I appreciate Joe Bleau's insights on the F and he is making the most out of this unit as should we all. I actually also appreciate the more personal comments by everyone. It gives good insight into how someone chooses to stand by a product. Joe Bleau's comments are not necessarily defensive and it has no real consequence to anyone because we choose to use it however we want . Besides i've got day to day issues which take precedent. Imagine stopping a building construction and to have the contractor defend why he didn't follow my drawings, cut corners by using non-spec'd materials etc. There you'll see blood, sweat, and a lot of tears at the cost of the contractor.

 

Same here!! In fact, the worse (in my case) is that I find myself listening to the fan all the time, if it's whistling or not! It's a concentration destroyer and I have to start disregarding that noise!!

They never mention about fan while troubleshooting of the "high-pitched noise". It's either they don't know what they're doing or they absolutely know it's not related to fans. "High-pitched" is a subjective term anyway.

 

hahaha sometimes I wish I didn't know about some of these issues. I would have considered everything good to go.

 

No it's because they aren't technically inclined and don't know another way to do it. There are other ways of getting the driver installed manually.

 

Have you tried running a video card stability test utility or a demanding graphic benchmark utility while monitoring GPU temperature?

You could also check in your Windows 7 Event Viewer to see if an error # & description was reported:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Open-Event-Viewer

http://www.windows7update.com/Windows7-Event-Viewer.html

 

I would recommend people trying to install the drivers manually. By going into the device manager, right click the display driver, go to properties, then update driver and point it to the path where the files were downloaded from on the NVIDIA site. There should be a folder that that one file uncompressed itself too on your HD.

 

Spent some time fiddling around in my Nvidia Control Panel. In the

Display>'Adjust desktop colour settings' tab

I found that by reducing the 'Digital Vibrance' down to 9% from 12% this reduced the pinkish, purpley effect of the Spyder calibration. Reducing it further washes out skin tones on the Sample 2 photos.

Perhaps worth playing with if you applied one of the colour calibration profiles.

matt

 

The European models and Asian models are similar.
The F117 screen is the same as the UK model VPCF11Z1E ( http://www.sony.co.uk/product/vn-f-series/vpcf11z1e-bi) except it has 6gb ram ( uk model has 8gb).

The F116 is not a 100% adobe rgb screen and is a normal full HD screen.

 

So, do most people on here use the F for video/photo editing and the like?

 

That's what I, myself, bought it for.
And field presentations, powerpoint, video etc.

 

I've been using this download to monitor cpu temps along with a i7 thread monitor as well. From Real Temp:

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

Quite good.

 

I don't plan on that. Perhaps I should tell my story here....
A couple years ago I watched "Casino Royale." Being a fan of James Bond and of all things nice, I instantly wanted it all, the suits, the cars, the phone, the computer. Well, the phone and the computer, I could almost afford. (I work retail, ughh....any Best Buy questions for me?) So after doing some research, I realized there was a lot more to the Vaio Series than I previously thought. They are minimalistic, sleekly designed computers, that are higher end than anything I've owned, and the F has a screen the size I need. I figured that I can dig into my savings and get one soon, but I have always had a desktop, so it was an on and off again decision, and right now it's on again. I figure I'll get one before Summer, or if I hear anything about a superior "refresh" in June or whatever maybe wait until then, but past that, I need something. I mostly just surf the web, watch videos, and play the occasional game on the computer. I need to back up my movie and TV collection and have something that I can call my own and this is what I came up with. A bit pricey, but the specs I set out, plus the occasional SOnyStyle sale, will hopefully get it under $1300. (I originally wanted under $1200.) I would hopefully go with 1080p, 330M GPU, the lower/standard i7, 4GB of RAM, Bluray read only (Oh how I'd like to burn, but oh well.)
I think it's a decent plan, and with a 330M or eventual "Fermi" or whatever it is, and an i7, it will pay for itself in longevity. After all the most quickly dated thing on a PC is the graphics card, and I can live with playing games that aren't brand new in a couple years, as long as I can do whatever I desire now with it.
Feel free to critique or say I am fiendishly cool.

 

*puts hand up* Yup, me too! It is slowly driving me insane. I was watching TV last night and could still hear the whistling over it. I also think I "hear it" when I'm not even in the same room as the F, or the F is off.

You guys have all given me some hope, thank you all so much. Hopefully I can get a new fan and keep my F!!!

 

Fiendishly cool? I don't think Bond is into Starkey and Hutch or Mork for that matter but who knows? It is very hard to quantify a computer purchase for some of the reason you state above. It is an emotional purchase not unlike the vehicles we drive. I could say based on your current computing needs (and you state you work retail), a laptop in the $700 to $800 would suite you just fine. Furthermore, you could get a desktop in this price range with what you get with the F11. I paid dearly for my SSD knowing it's always better on the pocket book not to get the latest. Hard to quantify the fun factor. Have the discipline to give up some other expenses in your life and enjoy!

 

Do you find it makes a difference whether on AC or battery power ?

 

I can hear it on battery and on AC power.

I think that it might get louder when on AC power, but then again, it could just be because I use it mostly on AC power because I'm lucky to get 2 hours of use just on battery. (Or is it because of that throttling thing that people are talking about, how it is capped on battery, I have no clue on this issue, that is just a wild stab in the dark assumption.)

So the longer I use the laptop, have it on, leave it running etc. the louder it seems to get.

Of course, it could all just be in my head...as I am going crazy and my tolerance for it just gets worse and worse after 3+ hours of it.

You? Do you find a difference - battery vs. AC power?

 

It shouldn't depend on battery/AC.. The matter is a defective fan.. Maybe on battery power, it could seem quieter because system is programmed to run at lower speeds on battery. Cpu basically generates less heat in this mode, less work for fans. I don't know yours but the fan on my laptop whistles even on some low-mid rpms, so it doesn't matter for me. In fact, it whistles at 3 separate distinctive rpms and they're evenly distributed across the min-max fan-speed range!!!!!! :wub:

Btw, it doesn't get louder but happens more frequently due to the generated heat, depending on the power need of the cpu (if you're working on the laptop that is.) Until the repair, try to forget it or better, listen to some music while working maybe? Good luck!

 

here's a question:

Should I go for the F series, or the new E series which Sony (Canada) just added to their website.

I like the fact that the E series is slightly more portable, will use less power, quieter fan, cooler (i5 vs i7) and has a slightly better graphics card (Sony Canada does not offer the 330m only the 310m)

That being said, the F series is more powerful for its cost while the the E series will be roughly the same price but noticably less powerful. This is what I would go for (my price range is ~$1300):

E Series:

i5-540M
4GB RAM
500GB 7200rmp
ATI HD 5470 512mb

F Series:

i7-720QM
6GB RAM
500GB 7200rpm
Nvidia geforce 310m

both of the laptops will cost $1280.

I am torn.

 

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Supreme Commander 2 looks awesome! You arent as bad as you think btw! Dont let that youtube commenter,
tlsdbcjf, get you down! +rep for you when I get some more to give!

 

IMO go for the f. I got the i5 e for my wife, as nice as it is, the f is better value for money, IMO.

I noticed the fan noise most readily on battery but that's probably just me at that moment in time. I will assess further on AC, once the 1yr old is in bed.

I am going to have to send my computer for repair and need to backup some video files beforehand. I thought I could use a bd-re disc for this. Can anyone please offer some advice. As rendering and image burn will take a long time I thought maybe I could save them as a blu ray data disc. Can I use Sony Vegas movie studio 9 platinum to do this ?

Also would another hdd linked via esata speed up future rendering projects and if so, by how much ? Thanks

t.

 

Vegas is an editing program, used to make movies. It's for AUTHORING. To burn a disc you use a burning pogram such as Nero. In terms of what's on the F11 Roxio Easy Media creator will burn BD, look for the tab "Data and Backup."

 

Thanks - I'm glad it helped! Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing in that mission, but I wanted to see if the game performed as well as it did in in the tutorial (which it did ).

 

thanks mangosango,

I'll look for Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2.

 

Ahh so nice in here now. No clutter and useless posts! Glad to have the F topic back!

 

I have been playing the game 1701 AD on my Vaio F and it runs great. I set the game graphic settings to 1920x1080 on High.

 

FINALLY I got my CTO! It was manufactured on Feb 10th in China, and is revision 2. It has NO noise, the fan is whisper-quiet and one just hears the air rushing as it ramps up, no morse code of course, and the screen, is well, what it is. At least it HAS a best viewing angle.

There's a yellow dot on the box by the way.






No shading on THIS screen....

 

lol 72 fps. So ridiculous

 

Hooray! Glad to know that you received your computer. I hope it doesn't have any issues

 

Congrats MelodyMaster.

 

The optical drive is noisy.. Oh well..