Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

The graphs clearly show that eSATA is king of the road while USB 2.0 stumbles along in the gutter. FireWire meanwhile is jogging along between the two.

 

I can see usb is better than esata in pic 2
so why u saing oposite?

 

On the 2nd picture the smaller is better and esata is smaller.

 

eSata basically stands for external serial ata. Serial ata is the interface which the internal drives on this laptop (and indeed most modular hard drives, optical drives, etc) run on. eSata is basically an external version of this which allows for external hard drives to have similar (albeit slower) performance as internal drives.

Basically, esata is pretty fast (3 Gbits/s), even faster than the usb 3.0 interfaces that are coming out now. Of course, usb 3.0 will probably be faster as the technology improves and devices utilize its theoretical maximum bandwidth (which, IIRC is 4.8 Gbits/s), but for now esata is the best out of the 3 in terms of sheer data transfer.

There are some drawbacks though. IIRC, esata does not supply power to the device it's connected to (unlike usb or firewire) and the maximum cable length is shorter than usb or firewire cables.

Finally, the esata port on the F11 DOES double as a usb port, so the F ends up having 3 useable usb ports (two on the right and one on the left).

 

oooh
yeagh u right i missed that
right now i know esata is best
will buy enclosure with this port
thnx

 

It's new to you because you did not follow & read the links contained in the posts I linked to in my replies to your problem nor looked in the Unification Post #2: " Vaio_not sleeping or hibernating correctly" nor ran before the simple, fast & powerful powercfg diagnostic tool as I recommended several times.

Most of the sleep/hibernate problems people have is due to their external devices or power management settings but most people always suspect a Vaio_F11 hardware fault first or the Win 7 OS. Owners of other brands of notebooks do the same too.

That's why Microsoft created powercfg & included it for free in Windows 7: mainly to give infos to the techs trying to troubleshoot the user's sleep/hibernate problems with a simple & fast diagnostic tool. They ask the user to run it & send them the report but we can use it as a simple & fast DIY Power Efficiency Diagnostics tool, right?

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VAIO_F Series Battery Charge Error Gauge Fix

After calibrating your battery > charge your battery to 100% > fix the errors reported by powercfg for your Vaio_F11 except the ones seen in my F energy-report which can't be fixed so far & seems to have no impact on my F > unplug everything from your F & turn off the Wireless switch > shutdown the F (not sleep/hibernate/hybrid!) > remove the battery then press the power-on button for @ least 5 seconds to drain phantom power then re-seat battery > keep the laptop off for @ least 8 hours > turn laptop on battery w/o anything plugged into it > check the battery charge level > report here!

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Yes! 87 votes & counting in the Poll: Sony_F_Series Owners Display (LCD) Opinions.

 

Depend on what you need to do, If I'm migrating to SSD, I would say ESATA would be my no 1 port of choice.

For transferring file from digital camera,etc..my no 1 will be firewire 400 then USB2.0 would be my no 2 option, either way will be okay through..almost comparable speed.

 

Yes & I "thanked you" ( Gump) for the battery calibration tip and added to your Rep power by clicking the weird looking little icon on the left of the post , remember?

It's different from linking to different tweaking tools that do not work on the F as reported by other users. You could send hundreds of people to these links as this thread is very popular.

Sorry if it maybe came out sounding harsh but it reminded me of that non-F owner who was posting links to non-certified by_Sony video drivers in this thread that was messing up the F.

Anyway, replying to your post was an opportunity to report on what I tried in my Vaio_F11 home "lab". Just be cautious when suggesting untested stuff that may mess up the F like Rivatuner for example. You could say for example: Have somebody tried X... if you did not try it yourself on a Vaio_F11.

I always appreciate your contributions.

 

I think all F series owner in US have LCD bleeding issue on the bottom of the screen mostly,since SONY wont replace the screen, is it possible if the CCFL output controlled in the BIOS?say if SONY release a BIOS that would either have us to control the light or automatically decrease the light?

This bleeding issue doesn't really concern me since I rarely watch movies on my F screen, but when I do, its annoying to see that bleed on scene where dark background exist.

 

Nope. That why I started this: Poll: Sony_F_Series Owners Display (LCD) Opinions to get the opinion of the less vocal happy F owners. 87 Vaio_F11 owners votes @ the present!

I've never seen a notebook review so far where the brightness distribution was perfectly even. Here are for example some screen captures from reviews by notebookcheck made with pro grade luminance measurement tools: Vaio_F EU vs. Dell Studio 1747 and the pricey MacBook Pro 17":







Some unevenness is to be expected, within a reasonable range naturally. And it should be brighter in the bottom, that's where the CCFL backlight is located on the Vaio_F_Series. It's the nature of the beast.

Don't forget the excellent price point of the F and all the goodies like CPU, GPU & fast memory, etc.

 

Joe I just realized you're always posting a pic of the european F11 when you show that comparison lol

I wonder how the US screens would do in that test.

 

In theory, esata > firewire 400 > USB2 for big hard drive transfers. Sadly, our laptops have crappy little firewire 400 ports (4 pin for crying out loud!)

They should've stuck a firewire 800 port up by the power button ><

 

About LCD bleeding issue on the bottom of the screen mostly..

To everybody explain !

This bleeding IS NOT ANY ISSUE !!!
its just LCD inverter which is inportant for LCD's to light it up it converts power voltage to higher to make Light .. (from DC to AC)
makes high voltage BUT low current it will electrocute but not any harm
without inverter yu wont be able to control brightness low/high OR SEE on DISLPAY just like when Light is turned of and yu can see dark on LCD
so inverter its like adapter so It's become HOT almost same like ac adaptor
so THAT'S WHY YOU SEE WHITE ON YOUR LAPTOP ! (bottom LCD)
IF INVERTER WILL BE FITTED ON TOP THE BLEEDING WILL BE ON TOP
There is not what they can do unles inverter will be located or placed somewhere else ...
THE NEW LCDS HAVE BACKLIGHT LED WHERE INVERTER IS NOO NEEDED SO THESE LCDs WONT HAVE ANY WHITE UNDER LCD

 

Do you guys have experience with Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade?

My F came with Win 7 Home Premium, now I want Win 7 Pro. When I upgrade to Win 7 Pro through Anytime Upgrade I will get an upgrade key. Then I want to download Win 7 Pro iso image for a fresh install and use the upgrade key to activate it, will this work??

 

Is the Firewire port on the F11 powered? I haven't got a cable yet with the small connector both ends so I haven't tested it, but my firewire drives require power from the conventional large firewire socket.

Let's not miss the obvious, the data storage itself is Sata, that is the limit on transfer speeds regardless of the interface used to connect to the computer. Esata is fastest and always will be because it is the native protocol of the devices, ANY other interface, even it it is natively faster than Sata, will actually be slower than Esata because of overhead used in translating protocols.

For now, USB power-over-Esata is the fastest and easiest way of connecting an external self-powered drive. Esata is fastest also for externally-powered drives, though the port can be a conventional non-powered socket.

 

Fan control in a desktop computer is in Bios, Sony simply chose to not make this accessible.
People have been trying to dig into the innards of the F11 since the day it hit the streets. Everything possible has already been tried regarding the fan. If a solution HAD been found it would be all over the hardware forums. So believe me, rehashing familiar stuff like this IS a waste of time!

What's needed is a hacked Bios, both to access fan control and to be able to do CPU overclocking and change memory timings etc. So far we can't do ANY of the stuff to the F11 that can be accomplished with just about any other computer on the planet, - which I suppose is wise on Sony's part.

 

Have you tried a different power plan like Power Saver to see if it makes a difference?

You could also try adding or removing some background running programs to change the fan's rpm. If you press your hand against the exhaust grid or on the underside where the fan is located, does it make difference?

When exactly is it whistling or is it all the time?

Check my reply & question to the interesting fan whistling observation by jacksjw buried in his post here.

Note that he had a Sony_tech replaced the fan to no avail. Mine is doing it once in a blue moon @ idle or at some short points when running the gamut of rpm changes depending on the heavy tasks my Vaio_F11 runs smoothly like a hot knife going through butter.

The idea is to add some small patch of thin self-adhesive sound absorbing material just to nudge & change the resonance, just like they do for cars. A 1" x 1" piece could be enough, either inside or outside on the underside body cover.



Resonance is a complicated thing. What makes the Stradivarius violins sound like a Stradivarius & nothing else? The finish, the glue, the shape, the wood, etc. or all of it combined in a specific manner?

 

The problem appears to be polarization caused by aliasing, a physical displacement of the fresnel light distribution sheet against the crystal matrix so that the best viewing angle varies across the screen. (It's not "bleed" strictly speaking) It's a manufacturing flaw in an obviously huge number of units produced. The same Sharp LQ part number (I think) was also used in the FW590 with NO complaints of uneven lighting or inversion. In fact that was considered a good screen.

I've expressed my dissatisfaction with the screen to my Sony Agent, but this one is better than my first F11 and there are NO other issues with my laptop..no buzzing, whining, morse code, power management issues..... The fact is that the number of defective screens is so large that there is no way Sony can offer replacements for them all, nor for any at this point. It just has to become one of the characteristics of the early F11s. Yes I wish I had a good screen, as many do, (that is wish for a good display or HAVE a good display) but there's not much I can do about it. When I can I'll replace the screen with a wide-gamut model, so what's in here now is of no consequence.

 

Power Over eSATA!

Power Over eSATA HDD ext. enclosure vs. slower USB w/ photos & benchmarks

Yes but.. my F's Power Over eSATA port does with this special enclosure seen in the photo above..

My only complaint is the 30" (76cm) cable that came with that enclosure and maybe I'll buy this 20" (45cm) Power Over eSATA cable for less bulk when on the road.

 

@Joe Bleau
that is very nice enclosure !
du yu have any link where to purchase ? exactly this one (no usa shops)
thnx

 

I explained it above about whiteness lcd

 

You're talking about light bleed, where there's some light breakthrough at the bottom of a TN or TFT display. That's not the issue with the bad F11 displays at ALL. If you had one of these screens you'd see that.

 

Ah whoops forgot your post about the usb-power over eSata post a while back . Thanks for the correction though.

 

@melody master
oh ok sorry i was explaining this what new_vaio_F member was saying
he wrote:
I think all F series owner in US have LCD bleeding issue on the bottom of the screen mostly,since SONY wont replace the screen, is it possible if the CCFL output controlled in the BIOS?say if SONY release a BIOS that would either have us to control the light or automatically decrease the light?

This bleeding issue doesn't really concern me since I rarely watch movies on my F screen, but when I do, its annoying to see that bleed on scene where dark background exist.

 

It whistles at about 20% fan speed and then again at about 75% - so as the fan varies, I hear it as it passes through those points - at times it settles at around 20% and I hear it almost constantly.

The whistle I've got, and the one I've heard on recordings previously on this forum is c.350Hz (i.e. an F4 for any musical people...).

I don't think it's a material resonating but a simple whistle - i.e. something is causing the rushing air to resonate and producing a standing wave...

Some people did say they would investigate their laptops and post back but it's all gone quiet...

 

@Joe Bleau
this is very nice enclosure : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZlKs7VEhzc
and this but usb 3.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkJcdh3BZGo

 

As I say, the best viewing angle varies across the screen, when the bottom looks right the top is into inversion, negative images, when the top looks right the bottom is completely washed out. I've had two displays with this problem and what's most significant is that the first was worse than the second, there is a range of variability in the depth of the problem. Setting light levels has nothing to do with polarization. I WISH it were just simple light bleed!

 

Err.. in the post I linked to?

Please, when replying hit the QUOTE button in the post to keep the subject line instead of the meaningless and seen a million times: " Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*"

You can edit that quote to make it shorter & relevant to your reply or delete it completely but the title will still be there.

If the title of the post you are replying to is the meaningless and seen a million times: " Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*", don't hesitate to change it with significant keywords like I always do.

It helps to spot interesting post subjects when skimming the thread and also to get more relevant search results when using the Search this Thread tool on top right of this page.

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Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

 

Yeah yeah mate I know am here longer than yu i know how its goin here ..

 

Because notebookcheck did not do one yet for the semi-glossy display.

I like to compare orange to orange using the same measuring stick, but he, maybe it's just me.

Nope, that's old tech. Power Over eSATA or USB 3 are much better.

BTW, I love you post titles . What the heck, I won't change it for this reply.

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

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Yes.

BTW, I love your post title . What the heck, I won't change it for this reply.

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

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Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

 

sssssss!
calm down tell him that fire wire is the worst port there is no power cos its only 4 pin he will need 6 pin big port or connector ..
that he will need aditional power (for enclosures)
mini 1394 is usually used for camcorders or cameras or other peripherals with or which
they have power in body or they have battery normally

 

Nope. Then there would be hundreds of people bashing_Sony & the F for their toasted CPU & GPU and BSOD and what not.

The Vaio_F11 notebook is not a gaming desktop nor does it have an old style CPU: it's a quad core with 8 threads with Turbo Boost Technology with ever changing cooling needs in a compact body considering it's screaming specs. Sony_is right in preventing the end user from messing up the cooling system IMHO.

From roweraay's post ( more CPU's in his post):
i7-720QM:
Max Turbo Boost Frequency
4 Core: 1.73 GHz
3 Core: 1.73 GHz
2 Core: 2.40 GHz
1 Core: 2.80 GHz
Core Frequency: 1.60 GHz with DDR3-1333
LFM Frequency: 0.933 GHz <<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

Oops, you right. I did connect an external HDD but it was A/C adapter powered indeed.

BTW, I love you post title . What the heck, I won't change it for this reply.

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Re: Official Sony_VAIO_F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

 

Hmmm, can someone check what the cpu temperature on their vaio is on average? Mine is 45 idle and under full stress it can go up to 68 degrees celcius... is this abnormally high?

 

Did you follow the link to jacksjw's observation when re-assembling the F vs. impact on whistling?

Is your definition of "20% fan speed" the fan's idle state?

I don't mind Sony_preventing fan speed tweaking as explained above but I do miss fan speed reporting when discussing things like this & need for quenching my curiosity.

 

Nope. It's quite low, run some more heavy CPU & intensive GPU tasks.

 

So the problem doesnt seems to be the LCD, more into the back light, If only SONY use LED instead CCFL....><, i would pay extra 25 bucks for LED. plus it will be more energy efficient. On bright background (like when we browse,etc) this doesnt seems to be an issue at all, screen looks just fine.

SONY should took the responsibility for the screen but like any big corporation does, if no one hurts, no need to replace anything, like TOYOTA, if people not crashing their cars, I doubt they will do any investigation regarding the brake pedal.

Did you get your F from SONY direct?I still have about a week to return my F for refund (hate to pay the shipping+processing) to the retailer.

 

No, mine is about the same. I've seen mine go up to 74C after gaming. These are a bit hot, but nothing out of the ordinary. These temps (40s during idle and 60s during load) are about normal for core i7 mobile cpus.

 

That's why they don't do it. People look at the bottom line price. $25 ain't covering the extra LED cost.

 

Some people are happy with their US 1080p F display: Poll: Sony_F_Series Owners Display (LCD) Opinions

 

Sorry - 20% = just above idle. I assumed that on this thing, the fan never stops so assigned idle to 0%!

And yep, have read jacksjw's post, put I'm loathed to start taking the bottom off just to prove it's the same thing... I have however sent Sony an email cancelling my scheduled off-site repair and asking them to forward my email to someone who'd find it useful; I included a recording of the whine (@tausif's) and my thoughts on it being not a fault with the "thermal module" but a larger design issue...

 

Mangosango,
Could you post the idle memory used on your F? I'm away from home and plan on doing some changes tomorrow, but was wondering just how low the ram usage goes with your settings.

 

I'd pay $200 more. Everything else about the one I have is perfect.

 

... when I was just hours into my new Vaio I had this black screen crash when playing three youtube 1080p vids at the same time. Could be anything, but to make sure, I've so far ran prime95 for 8 hours (must admit I had my doubts so I left it at 8 hours instead of the recommended 24. Stressing your system like that, is it really safe??) and everything's fine... going on memtest now.

Fingers crossed it was a software/driver problem.

 

Now we are talking. But there is not enough of us in the North American market otherwise Sony_would offer the option if there was money to be made by doing so.

My plan is to use the F until the 1 year warranty ends then buy a F EU Premium matte 1080p replacement display ( see EU owners display votes in Poll) and ebay my US 1080P display to recoup some of the cost. Should cost me about $200 or less.

Meanwhile I just enjoy the screaming speed when photo editing & other stuff & the multitasking. No more worries about overloading the system with too many heavy apps opened plus the Win 7 upgrade for me + the 64-bit.

What the heck I splurged & doubled my internet speed to 2 MB for an extra $5 a month ($35 total in CR State Telecom monopoly, I love it).

 

That's not really true, my Shuttle desktop has a common cooling sytem for VGA and CPU, yet the BIOS allows a selection of cooling profiles, speed versus temperature. Remember that when the "Power Profile" is changed in the VAIO utility that IS somehow accessing fan speed versus temperature settings. Anyway the CPU has its own internal thermal control, forcing underclocking or multiplier step-down. It's pretty hard to damage.

Anyway we CAN "mess up" the GPU.

It would be nice to optimize memory latency among other little tweaks.

 

That 74C is from the GPU..

 

No, Sony would rather lose money on unit returns, tech time on checking out returned units, and getting stuck with "open box" inventory. They could GIVE us LEDS without charging the customer and come out ahead in this case.

As I said, the screens are defective, Sony didn't intend to use defective screens If the screens worked as they should then there would be a fraction of the complaints.

 

Hey guys, where can I see a full review of Sony Vaio F11Z (best model) on the internet, specially on notebookreview.com , of course my reviews choice website... Have anybody already posted that? Because i cant find on the website...

Cheers