Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

" I was concerned about scratches the machine may pick up" - Check this maybe: Bad On Site Service Tips (part under the last quote) http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6021025&posted=1#post6021025

" Has anyone... tried to have their whistling fan repaired?" jacksjw but it seems it did not fix his problem. Then tried some DIY stuff: (with big fan photos & tech explanations): http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=6064272#post6064272

 

Sony_support > NVIDIA GeForce 310M/GT 320M/330M Video Driver Update:

 

Furmark for 30 minutes. Temps never went over 70 (with overclock). After using the machine for ~5 hours, the gpu temp is at 48C.

Haven't tested it with 2x monitors yet.

@ MelodyMaster Fixed-aspect scaling didn't work for me on the older drivers, but does work for me now. MidtownHD's suggestion of changing the setting in the nvidia control works for me.

 

So far so good, thanks guys!

 

I notice this is for Windows 7 Home Only. When looking at the comparability chart for the VPCF115FM/B it is only certified for Windows Home. Anybody install this on Pro or Ultimate since I upgraded from Home to Pro as soon as I got mine. Thanks!!

Bill....

 

Oh I did not even notice that at all. I installed that on my Win7 Pro 64 bit. No issues on my end.

 

Thanks for that. If though it is scratched, there's nothing anyone can do. At most I'll get a refurb (and that's unlikely as there is a shortage of the F as it stands AND I don't want a refurb! If no one with the fan whistle/whine has had theirs fixed then is it worth risking it? Sony doesn't want to even give me a choice by refusing to cancel the repair!

 

I don't need thaat ..
am installing drivers (any) completly different way . not automated system)

 

@sheebp

How about postponing it? I had already requested a repair a while back but held off sending it in because I needed the laptop for work. I told them I will send it in next month when things quiet down

 

BTW, did you create a system image to protect your current setup & data before sending for servicing?

 

Thank you so much will then make my order by tomorrow and hope the best for bothe of us

 

My piece of junk VPCF117FX that I just purchased not long ago is completely dead after about a month of using it. Won't turn on or anything. Sony wants me to send it into their engineering depot to look at. They estimate that I will be out of a computer for about a month and will not provide a loaner or anything. Absolutely absurd.

 

Join the club. Just sent mine out today. They didn't say it would be a month though. I don't think its a piece of junk, I really love my Vaio and I can't wait to get it back. I am very dissapointed that it has already broke down. I had saved up for 6 months for this computer knowing I wasn't going to use a crappy Dell ever again and thought I was getting something dependable.

 

Sorry to hear your laptop died. Yeah, I know of no company that sells computers that would provide a loaner when you send it in for repair. Based on my past experiences with computers under warranty, it will take approx two to three weeks- depending on the issue. You are probably in possession of the most advanced and complicated piece of machinery/electronics you have ever owned. Components are massed produced and there is always a percentage of failure. It's how a company deals with these issue is how they should be judged. I have a HP Pavillion with a Nividia 8 series graphic card. It has a known failure in design, Nivida has acknowledged and paid HP for this issue, and HP refuses to make amends to their customers. Now that is what I call a piece of junk and absolutely absurd.

 

Nice to hear you got a month's use! Mine got sent away after a week... although they're being fairly quick about the repair. Sent away last Monday and they reckon it should be back with me near the end of next week.

Still got separation anxiety though.

 

I have a questions for you guys-hoping you might help. I'm looking for a laptop primarily for school but with occasional gaming (and i like high settings). The two sony's below serve my needs but they have slight differences mainly in the ram (one is ddr2 and one is ddr3) and in the cpu (one is dual core one is an i7) and finally one has a backlit keyboard the other doesnt. I suppose the question is if i were to buy cod:mw2 or starcraft 2 when it comes out, can i max out the graphics on both systems? There is a difference in price (300$ more for the first one) and for the first one (and better spec'd lappy) there is a chance it might not ship on time before i leave for school because it is "out of stock" and ships 4/20 and i leave may 2nd-so it would have to be shipped AGAIN overseas. Sony style's fastest shipping is only 6-8 bussiness days which means assuming it arrives within 8 business days it will arrive friday may 1st, a day before i leave which i think is cutting it close. Can anyone maybe comment on whether or not the computer usually arrives as expected? Anyways...

Here are the specs:

Sony F series Model Number: VPCF1190X CTO


# Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor (1.60GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.80GHz
# 16.4" VAIO Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
# 4GB (4GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
# CD/DVD burner
# Keyboard Backlight
# Standard Capacity Battery
# Black
# Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
# 320GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)


The other sony (not sure if its still considered an f series or not) Model Number: VGNFW590 CTO


* Standard Capacity Battery (VGP-BPS13)
* CD/DVD playback/burning
* 4GB (2GBx2) DDR2-SDRAM-800 (Reg. price $20.00)
* ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4650 graphics with 1GB dedicated video RAM
* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53GHz) (Reg. price $100.00)
* 16.4" VAIO extra-wide HD display (1920x1080)
* Black
* Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium
* 320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm) (Reg. price $30.00

 

I ordered my F11 from SonyStyle...

Order Date: March 24
Est. Ship Date: April 13
Actual Ship Date: April 1

Since it's coming from San Diego, and I live in California, it's expected to arrive tomorrow (assuming FedEx will deliver on Saturday) or no later than Monday (April 5).

 

If you can afford it, the $300 additional cost gives you a better processor, better RAM along with a lighted keyboard. That would be my choice. I cannot tell if number two has the side numeric keys which is a convenience as well. They seem to arrive sooner than expected, but if they are out of stock...?

 

I know about the nvidia infs, as I always modd myself. There is no special brightness control for Vaio latops. Any newer driver will work fine. Also there is no special thermal control strategy in a Vaio Nvidia driver. Note that Nvidia drivers follow Unified Driver architecture, so any driver will install with any GPU, provided the hardware string is included.

 

But some have claimed uneven brightness and flickering at low brightness. How would you account for this?

 

Someone can send me the *.inf file please ? I can't PM for now...
Thanks

 

Me too, please.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
US-VPCF1190X-LBOM | i7-720QM | 4GB DDR3 Ram | Nvidia GT330m
320Gb HDD 7200rpm | BD-ROM | Win7 Pro x64 (Fresh Start)

 

I replaced mine with the 6200. The Intel card works beautifully on both channels. If you decide to do it be extremely careful. Make note of which screws came out of which holes because some are different lengths and sizes. Also when you pop the back on you need to take care that everyting is lined up.

Replacing the card is easy once you get the back off. It is held in with two small screws and has two push-on antenna wires which are relalatively easy to pop off and plug into the new card.

I bought my card off eBay for $26 from a seller in Hong Kong. If you are willing to look around and/or work an eBay auction you can find it for a reasonable price.

 

Added GPU driver to the unification post under tweaks section with a link to midtownHD's GPU driver thread.

I have refrained from adding certain posts, which were requested, because the unification is getting bulky, and it can't solve all of the problems that exist on the world wide webernets! If I post everything on the unification, then we'll never come to the forums to post snarky and elitest responses to bewildered users that don't use the search option. If you people (I love saying that phrase) feel that something significant is missing, please let me know, and I'll tack it in.

I will also be trying the GPU driver this weekend - specifically to test the HDMI output and encoding performance, which is the primary way I use the VAIO when at home now.

I asked midtown for his modded inf file, but if someone else has it, please send to me. I'll take it however I can find it.

 

Yes I got the same model and I did a fresh install with windows Ultimate.

Some of the sony drivers fail to install i.e. the Intel PCHM SATA AHCI Controller driver.
Make sure you do a back up on DVD because you will not be able to get your BD software to watch movies.
I did not and lost it but don't tell Joe B. - you get introuble with him for doing this

It's a shame that Sony was not able to include a driver / software installation DVD because you will not get the software from the sony support site.

 

my f11 is in the process of (attempted) repair for the whine. This could conceivably be misinformation but they told me there are 2 thermal modulesin the f11 and 2.5 weeks was spent waiting for one of these on backorder which finally came in yesterday. They were also going to replace the top case key shield I think they said. I will keep things posted here.

 

I tried installing an older, but still great game called RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and at first it wouldn't install from disc. So I ended installing it in WinXP SP2 compatibility mode and it worked. The game didn't offer 1920x1080 resolution, but I found I could set it manually to that resolution by going into C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Atari\RCT3 and open the options file and put in the resolution there. Anyway it plays and looks good on my Vaio F at 1920x1080 res and high game settings. Here are a few screen shots taken.

 

I just updated to the new Nvidia driver version 197.16...

I checked the driver version in Nvidia's Control Panel which gave me the 197.16 version in the System Information-display-details.

However, I checked the display adapter's driver version in Device Manager and i'm getting 8.17.11.9716. Is this the same with you guys or did I install it incorrectly?

I did the installation as per Midtown's instructions and it went through.

Thanks

EDIT: Works great so far..FN keys work. Digital vibrance is now replaced as MelodyMaster noticed and no screen flickering.

 

That sounds right. As the 197.16 is in the end of the 8.17.1 1.9716.

 

OH! I see it now..thanks

 

Thanks for the help, but i haven't experienced any hibernate or sleep issue yet, my problem is that my battey have that drainig issue even when shutdown, i tried your calibration but without any results,is always the same.. I power on my computer and my battery have 15% less battery... I went to the cmd begroe the calibration, I get 15 erros, before the calibration i get 11 errors... I don't really know what to do i will try that calibration process again...
And with the pointer animation issue i tried everything too, anyone knows how to solve it? , i'm sure its a problem of the touchpad driver....

 

Thanks for that. Would you mind posting when you get it back? I doubt you'll have it for when I send mine off on the 7th though :S

 

I placed my order on 3/23
Estimated ship date was 4/13
Actual Ship date was 4/1 from San Diego CA
ETA is 4/7 I'm in Atlanta GA

 

Yeah I was expecting no end of problems when I moved the games from my old XP (SP3) desktop to my Win 7 F11. But NO! Most of em just worked and as you did, used compatability mode for the odd one or two!

I was most impressed and can recommend Win 7 to any old time gamers, even my C64, Amiga etc emu's worked right out of the box. Ise be one happy chappy.

 

All,

Thanks to so many for so much advice. I ordered my F series on the 8th March and took delivery last week.

To give some sort of frame of reference, my thoughts are based upon and judged against the following.

My personal laptop before the F was an FE31H. I've had a great few years with it and it's the reason I went for another Viao. I had the FE for around 4 years I guess. I was (and am) impressed with it's build quality, design and general feel. That said, it's currently in a sad state with the DVD drive not working, the touchpad and mouse buttons becoming unreliable and Windows 7 not playing nicely with the graphics card.

My work laptop is a Dell M90 Precision, about 3 years old. It's a beast of a machine and to be honest, still impressive with it's screen and general ability. It is however very ugly and a very big machine.

My wife's laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1525. I was very impressed with this when she bought it and it still impresses me for what it is. It has a much nicer feel to it than the M90 although obviously not the same sort of machine / audience.

So then, on to the F. I've been reading this forum for weeks which generated both excitement and fear! I eventually decided to go ahead with the purchase with all fingers and toes crossed! I needed a new laptop because the FE is becoming unusable and I've recently bought an HD camcorder and need something to edit the footage.

The laptop arrived a few weeks later and as the date got closer I have to say I was wondering if I'd done the right thing. I was also looking at a Z series but it was £2k+ for what I wanted. The F was a custom build with the following spec (£1300 ish):

i7 720, 6GB RAM, 128 SSD, BluRay Writer, Premium matte screen...

Initial thoughts are that the laptop is great. I have to say it's quieter than my M90, as well built as the FE (a good thing as far as I'm concerned) and the screen is fantastic. I have no problems with regards to the common faults documented here (so far at least). There is a very slight whine on the fan at a particular rpm but it's really not bad on my machine (especially considering what it is) and only something I even noticed after reading many pages of this forum! Not an issue at all for me - and it is the sort of thing that would drive me mad; hence I was worried about the purchase.
It's not all good though, the DVD / BR drive is very loud and seems to vibrate a lot. I can't say I'd be happy to watch a DVD /BR with it. I won't use it for that though so not the end of the world. Probably on a par with the xBox 360 - too noisy to use as a DVD player (for me).

The SSD is fantastic although I need to sort some storage for music etc. as I've already used most of the space available.

How does it compare with my other laptops?

M90 - I'm even more impressed with it now that ever to be honest. It has an amazing screen and performs SO well for what I use it for; even though it's 3 years old. The only thing is that it can be loud and it's one ugly duckling.

FE31H - I never really noticed the glossy screen until I got the F, I struggle to go back to it. It's done well but now an old, tired machine that needs to be retired. The fact that I bought another Viao is probably the best compliment I could pay it. I loved the FE while I had it, it was perfect for my in so many ways but like anything, it needed to be replaced.

F - overall I'm very impressed. The forum has been great for research and I'll continue to use it for support. I've never been more worried about a laptop purchase which is a result of this thread but, for me, this laptop is perfect. I haven't started to stretch it with the HD editing so it's perhaps not even broken in to it's stride. I'm impressed with what I've seen do far though. The biggest complaint I have is probably the fact that the up and down cursor keys are too close together compared to all other keys - that's the biggest problem I have so I'm happy!

The only other thing is the screen; it's great but when moved around it seems a bit flaky / brittle - nothing long term but it just looks like it's less happy than any other screen when being moved around.

I tried a Spider colour calibration but all the colours went red / pink. I'll try again as I suspect user error.

Am I pleased I bought it? Yes. I'm very happy with it.

Ben

 

frankieB, are sure your Intel PCHM SATA AHCI Controller driver did not install? That's a pretty important thing if you plug an external eSATA drive for example.

Check in > Start > search: Device Manager



Also run: > Start > search: Intel Matrix



Just for the sake of clarity:

- Clean install is when you wipe clean the HDD & install from scratch the OS & the necessary Vaio_F specific drivers & utilities.

- Fresh Start is a CTO option w/o the "value added" software from Sony_ and the trialwares. See screen grabs here:
F11_Installed Vaio_Software Comparison & Bloatware? With the CTO route, you pay only $50 for Win 7 Professional + the Fresh Start option which is as clean as a Pro Full Version clean install but also includes the Arcsoft WebCam Companion 3, WinDVD, Roxio & Vaio Care softwares & all the necessary specific F drivers.

- Anytime Upgrade is what one can do to smoothly upgrade in 10 minutes from Win 7 Home to Pro or Ultimate as I did on my VPC115FM factory state OS w/o doing a clean install. It's just a question of unlocking layers of features already included in the OEM OS with a product key & that's why you can buy it online & do it instantly w/o the empty box. There are some good deals on Fleabay.

- Fresh install sounds nice but...

" Make sure you do a back up on DVD..." - What? Are you saying that you did not do the following before your clean install? From Sony_Support Clean Install Instructions for Windows 7:

What's great about the recovery discs is that you can run Vaio_Care on the F, insert disc #1 & reinstall any of the drivers & software that was included in the OEM factory state including WinDVD, Roxio, WebCam Companion 3. etc. You can also use these discs to format & return to factory state when selling the F for example.

Since they are not included with the F as there are different customized factory state versions like BB's which includes it's marketing cr@pware or people that added software during the CTO process for example, I think that Sony_should simply put a flashy reminder note between the keyboard & LCD or "run once" the recovery discs creation program on first boot & run periodic nagging popups if a new owner is too excited and wants to play with his F NOW & skips the easy process.

As mentioned above my VPCF115FM/B is now running Ultimate (for the OS language packs feature) but since the OEM OS is Home, all the drivers on the VPCF115FM/B page will say that. Don't worry, they work fine on any OS versions.

If one is planning to go from Home to Professional or Ultimate: you can either choose Anytime upgrade or go the clean install "fun" way. If the latter, Search this Thread with: clean install so you may line up your ducks before doing it & not repeat some of the other F owners mistakes.

 

@mangosango

So how does the GT330M now stack against Ati's HD 4650 with the new 197.16 driver? Earlier on in the beginning of this thread we lamented on how the 4650 had a slight edge on this card. A 10-15fps increase at stock speeds is quite a good leap forward! Now it's feeling much more the role of an FW successor across the board.

 

I'm having the same issue and I've tried both "fixes".

I love this laptop, but wish I could figure it out.

 

There you go, you have 15 errors in your energy-report.html when you should have only 9 for the Vaio_F11. Check my Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report and please post the additional errors you have.

Something is wrong in your settings or your external devices or the battery calibration (revised How-to) was not done right: full battery discharge, remove battery, press power button for at least 5 seconds to drain residual power, reinstall battery & charge @ 100%. Unplug F, unplug all external devices, shutdown overnight & check the next morning if the battery shows 95~100% charge.

Read carefully the post I linked to: VAIO_F Sleep & Hibernation Wake Up Problems Fix!: "Something is telling to your Vaio_F11 to wake up". For example:



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

What is your pointer animation "issue" exactly? You don't see the rotating blue circle thing? You could try:

Changing the Pointers scheme & other settings to see if it makes any difference:





ASSIST > Vaio_Care > Troubleshooting:



OR:

1- Plug external mouse, pointer animation working?

2- If yes then: > Start > search: Device Manager > Mice > right click Alps Pointing Device > uninstall the Alps Pointing Device, Delete driver software & reboot:



3- Still not working? Reinstall Alps driver from Vaio_Care + recover disc #1 or download here: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VPCF115FMB&upd_id=5368&os_id=45

Please report back if you fixed your problems or not, it can help the next user with a similar problem.

Edited to add: Still not working? sheepb posted an other solution to the pointers animation problem here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6105818&postcount=2519

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

101 F owners votes so far in the Poll: Sony_F_Series Owners Display (LCD) Opinions

 

It's actually quite nice (for some games atleast ). But it seems like generally, there is at least a 5fps gain. For newer games (MW2, BFBC2, ME2), probably about 10-15 fps. So far, ME2 is pretty much fully playable (30+ fps, with rare dips in the 20s) with 4xAA at 1280x720 or no AA at 1920x1080. Same goes for Modern Warfare 2 and Racedriver GRID. I didn't have an FW previously, so I'm not sure, but I was at a LAN where there were people with the FW, and I have to say that the 330m played crysis better than the 4650 (even w/o the new drivers). That said, the new drivers don't give a noticeable increase in performance for Crysis.

I would say that most modern games are now playable with medium/high/max settings at native res without antialiasing, and that all games (save Crysis) are fluidly playable at 1280x720 (again without AA). I'm seeing fps from 40-60+ in ME2 and GRID (max/ultra settings) and 30-60 for BFBC2 (mix of med/high).

Start overclocking a bit and you'll see those same framerates with AA enabled (I find that 4xAA is the best mix of performance/visual quality. imo 2xAA reduces performance by a bit, but for most of these multiplatform games, the difference between 2xAA and no AA is slim - mostly because consoles usually don't support AA If you're going to go 2xAA, you might as well leave it off and enjoy the higher frames).

Finally, I just want to re-iterate that the new drivers basically give the same performance boost as you would get from overclocking the gt330m with the official sony drivers. It's not the same, but the effect is comparable.

 

I checked the sata controller and it seems to have all the drivers installed ... well, I will see if it works when I use an external sata drive possibly when I upgrade to a SSD in 6 month..

 

Make certain that under desktop colour settings Digital Vibrance is set to 0% Otherwise it WILL be all orangey and green. I had that too.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback & comparison w/ your other laptops.

I'm jealous of your EU Premium display & SSD which is a tad too small for my taste. If you don't use the ODD much, you may consider adding a fast second HHD in that optical bay like I did. Check: VAIO_F 2nd Hard Drive Caddy in Optical Bay and simply put the ODD in an external enclosure. The transfer rates are as fast as the C: drive & it' runs about 5c cooler. I'm preparing a How-to post about it but I'm quite busy until Sunday.



The new WD HDD 750GB WD7500BPVT 2.5" 9.5mm 5400 rpm is just out & the price is really affordable. Naturally is was launched just after I ordered an other 500 GB HDD but at least it's a tad faster @ 7200 rpm.

About your monitor profile, did you try the 4 EU profiles found here? Vaio_F_Series Monitor Profiles Roundup.

And don't forget to add your vote to the Sony_F_Series Owners Display Poll.

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

But if you applied this then the Digital Vibrance setting should not matter, no? "6- Control Panel > Color Management > uncheck the box that says Use my settings for this device" from this page. That's the point of using a monitor profile to take the user out of the equation if one wants true color representation.

> Right click desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel > Display:

 

Link to the inf file and instructions for 197.16 drivers update posted in my thread:
Please report back with results.


I'd disagree. It's interesting that your sig says you don't own a F but a FZ. You can't really compare the GPU settings of the two, because they are two different laptops.

 

Nope, Digital Vibrance (and Hue) remains active regardless of being internal or plugin settings. Monitor utilities such as Spider adjust greyscale and the white temperature, "Digital Vibrance" adjusts how colour is ADDED to that black and white reference. It's just as well DV remains active, otherwise under the 197.16 bug where it has incorrectly become a saturation control, it would be set to Zero meaning NO colour at all.

Check it yourself, the vibrance slider remains active, Spider would be trying to compensate for false colour, thus in fact it ends up being all green and red.

Remember that Spider works by producing red screens, green screens etc through the video driver. If in fact the colorimetry of the color driver is wrong, then Spider is using the wrong reference levels to set black and white tracking. N'est ce pas? Spider is assuming the display is using "flat" colorimety, that RGB is not being modified in any way - that being the main flaw of this type of device (as opposed to direct access to the RGB channels of the monitor using hardware attachment to the monitor leads, or a reference HDMI generator.)

Spider adjusts greyscale, not colour tracking and hue errors.

 

You are right about "vibrance slider remains active", it's slide to zero then where mine was by default anyway. Maybe guys who installed the new NVIDIA driver should check their profile & these override selections. Note that if one likes saturated game colors & does not do much photo editing then move those sliders to taste.

I don't see the Hue thing. Where is it?

Maybe here where it is disabled?

 

No no, you want DESKTOP colour settings. You should adjust desktop first, then move onto video colour.

 

I don't want any NVIDIA settings skewing my colors, that's why I have a X-Rite i1display 2 colorimeter & monitor profiles.

Could you post a bread crumb path like I did? There is no Hue in my: Right click desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Adjust Desktop Color Settings.



Edit: I see you finally posted a screen grab. Do you have an external monitor connected to your F, maybe that's why you got Hue & not I or is it the new driver?

 

You want to set the colorimetry of the desktop, so THAT is correct, that's where the ICM profile is loaded. FIRST set the desktop setting since desktop affects BOTH Windows display colorimetry and game and video playback colours within that desktop. THEN game and video have their own adjustments, either within each application or by settings within the Nvidiia control panel. ICM profiles affect the DESKTOP, that's your reference point.

 

Hue was always there, but yes an external monitor is sometimes connected. By the way this card does NOT support mirroring, as I feared, only ATI cards support that.

It's Midtown's 197.16 package.