Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

okay, got to where the laptop entered into critical state due to the battery being low. (not plugged in AC)

green LED next to the power button is blinking every few seconds. Now here's something interesting. In this state of hibernation, even when plugging into AC, the orange AC power LED to the far left of the of the wifi switch turns on recognizing that I plugged in, but somehow the computer seems to be locked on battery only and that it is in a critical state.

NOTE: UNIT WILL STILL NOT POWER ON

Only when the battery is removed and plugged into AC only will the unit power on. Which brings us to the Intel screen and I now see that it is just one Intel screen and not two as I had previously posted.

INTEL ME IGNITION FIRMWARE IS BOOTING FROM THE FACTORY DEFAULT IMAGE.

EDIT: I also noticed that date and time has reverted to January 1 2009 - 12.00am

 

You need to read about the perception of differences in processor speed. You can check specs for processors at notebookjournal or notebookcheck online. Things like 20% faster when you're talking about fractions of seconds are not deal-breakers because most people can't see the difference. And you need to keep RAM in mind as well.

But, I will repeat, the single greatest subjective speed difference (esp. if you get a C2D at a higher speed than the i5 at its usual speed) would come from an SSD. I'll never forget the look on the face of the Sony tech who installed it in my friend's FW190 -- the speed of retrieve was almost instantaneous.

If you shop now at the Outlet you can find a refurb or clearance one with a 7200 drive or an SSD already installed, get more RAM, and a fast C2D for less than a low-end F -- and if you get the FullHD screen well, you'll notice that difference immediately from what you can see when you visit one of the F's at Best Buy.

Good luck!

 

No it's not normal.

Shut down means shut down & no LED's should be blinking if the laptop is not connected & charging.

"Took about 9 hours before it actually ran out of power" - That's not possible when the system is awake unless you have a nuclear battery or something.

Either it ran out of power while sleeping or hibernating. What does this do to the F, I have no idea as it never happened to me. "then it resumed windows like it's hibernated..." - is a further clue that your system did not actually shut down.

I used the free & portable (no install) Battery Eater Pro 2.70 to drain the battery in 1h20 & to get a figure that I could compare to other F users & to the battery life when calibrated. This utility is used by Tom's Hardware & notebookcheck.net. You can see some screen captures in the Vaio_F Battery Overnight Drainage FIX! post.

Maybe the settings I used on my F & suggested in the VAIO_F Battery Calibrator Plan Creation post are too low for people with connected devices or using wifi or having some programs opened and if the system hangs & takes a long time to shut down than it may not have enough power to complete proper shut down.

So instead of this:

7 a. Calibrator plan > Change advanced Power settings > critical battery: 1% > shutdown (instead of hibernate), and > Reserve Battery Level: 0%. To insure full battery drain.

I will changed it to:

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

Will this change the calibrating end result, I dunno & have no way of testing it but I guess not. Maybe somebody with the battery gauge reporting error could test the battery calibration cycle with the default 7% action & reserve level & report if the gauge reported battery capacity problem was fixed any way?

Are you sure you set critical battery action to shutdown (instead of hibernate) on your active power plan?

*****

Registry Tweak: Faster Shut Down & Faster Thumbnail Previews

I applied tips #12 & #11 from this 12 More Windows 7 Tips & Hacks article to my Vaio_VPCF more than a month ago & simply love them:

 

Hehe, sorry 'bout that - its probably my overzealous tagging .

Speaking of games - I got test drive unlimited up-and-running. EDIT: These numbers are with the 197.16 drivers! They are currently not supported by Sony, but if you would like to try them out, or see what they have to offer, visit this link

It runs with everything (except for AA) set to the max at 1920x1080 with a minimum framerate of 25 fps. Normal frames hover around the 27-29 mark, and when you're indoors that number goes up to 35/40fps. If you overclock to 700/900/1540 (core/shader/mem) the min fps gets up to 29fps and usually hovers around the 30-34 mark.



Of course, if you so choose, running it at 1280x720 with 4xAA will get you a solid 40fps (I think the game's internal vsync is set to 40 fps, meaning that the framerate will not go above 40 no matter what).

Personally, I will be running it at 720p with AA (the gameplay is much more smooth).

Videos to follow.

 

That's a good technique to mess up your Vaio_F!

"green LED next to the power button is blinking every few seconds ...In this state of hibernation" - That's not in hibernating state as on my Vaio_F11 it's off when hibernating & orange when sleeping.

That's a warning that the battery is getting low on power or getting low and in the process of going in to hibernation & you are messing up the process by plugging it & activating the battery charging circuit & program while it's creating a system state image & shutting down.

When my F is properly hibernating (power button LED off), if I plug the F then yes the battery charging orange LED indicator in front is on.

Did you enabled the hybrid sleep/hibernate function? I don't like that process & don't use it.

 

All hibernation does is take a computer and dump a save state, and restore it upon boot. If you plug/unplug the computer while it's doing either, it won't have any affect in the meantime as it's ignoring that anyway.

Plugging into/unplugging from AC is a rather low-level task that Windows doesn't really give a damn about.

 

Default settings are set to hibernate the unit when battery is low.
If the green LED is blinking and is stuck in the process of hibernating and not actually going into hibernate then that seems to be where the problem originates and is further complicated by the fact that the only way to power up is to remove the battery and power on through AC resulting in the fan running in full blast.

Not much more I can do about this until 'ursuthebestdriver' explains his/her steps more clearly. Will definitely not do hibernate function again. I left it on because that is the only state in which the situation comes up for trial configurations and troubleshooting.

 

It's all good! and definitely better than doing an F11 search and coming up with nothing!

 

Could you be more exact: set to hibernate when battery is low or in critical battery state?

The more programs & windows you have opened, the longuer it takes to go into hibernation. I just tried with several programs & about 50 windows opened in Chrome.

If you do that hibernation test again, could you run powercfg -energy to make sure that nothing is preventing proper hibernation?

OoTLink, To no End just described an error he can reproduce while connecting during the going into hibernation process in battery critical low state so you are welcome to mess up your own F @ will. Personally, I let my F fully go to sleep, hibernate or shut down before plugging/unplugging it.

If you are willing to do the exact same as he & risk the fan being stuck @ 100% then you are welcome to post back here saying that it's safe to do so. Until then...

"All hibernation does is take a computer and dump a save state" - Well open a few of programs, hibernate & observe the HDD led activity to see all the action going on during the process. The "dumping" is quite demanding, in my test with several programs, LAN & web connected, Bluetooth headphones & mouse, the fan revs up to evacuate the extra heat caused by this intense activity. It's not a trivial process.

 

That's exactly what I meant when I drained the battery to 1%. I let it blink on and on since I thought it might be that 1% batterylife remaining (strange thing is though, I couldn't boot it up NOR shut it down by pressing the power button) so I figured I'd let it go on until the battery was truly 'discharged'... in the end it took 9 hours before it stopped blinking. From what I'm reading above I guess it's a lucky thing I didn't connect it through the ac whilst it was doing this huh?

I checked and the settings are of the active powerplan.
I'll try again by changing it to 3% instead, but that's not a full discharge though is it...

 

As explained in my reply to you above, you ran out of power while hibernating or sleeping. Run the battery eater utility as suggested so you don't have to wait 9 hours & to prevent sleep & hibernation while discharging the battery.

I suggest once the battery is fully discharged & the Vaio_F is fully turned off:

- Remove battery

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

- Re-seat battery

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

- Turn on F & check the battery capacity state

- Turn off overnight, unplug

- 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 to them. See this post: Sleep & Hibernation Wake Up Problems Fix.

*****

LED Indicators

From > Start > Help & Support > Indicator Light:

 

Very sorry that your machine is behaving in this manner. This exact scenario happened to me as well. I was unable to find any workaround or fix that worked, and ended up exchanging the unit at the retailer (Best Buy, in this case).

The problem is absolutely unrelated to Windows, as the fan would spin at boot to 100%, even while idling in the BIOS.

 

Thanks. I'll try that. "...ran out of power while hibernating or sleeping. Have to say it's strange though that it went into sleep/hibernation. I had my powerplan set at no hibernation and no sleep under whatever circumstances, it wasn't even idle as I was browsing... pluis I had it set to shut down when critical battery level reached.

 

Here's a video of the Flex OLED Vaio prototype from CES 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXA9EyKCq_8

That's what I'm waiting for....

P.S. Just how much are the cult FW190 HiColors going for out there?

 

I agree that this is not Windows related since that Intel screen popped up saying that Intel ME Ignition Firmware is booting from the default factory Image. This never comes on in a normal unit.

I guess it makes sense to me that there is a fan instruction to just run at full speed without any temp management in that factory image. Any subsequent reboot will always reboot to this default factory image. Now the question is, how do we tell it to boot normally which has fan/temp instructions (bios defaults - no change)

 

An other user & I replied to this statement several times already & you keep on posting that comment: it's normal to have the fan revving fast fast while in the BIOS window & when the F is hot or would you prefer that it gets toasted?

 

BETTER THAN THE IPAD which to me is not new technology. This however will make me feel like i'm in Star Trek (though not the William Shatner era)

 

Always looking for the good in the bad.

I am now aware that I am being conditioned to be used to this fan running full blast albeit involuntarily. I can very well imagine now being completed unphased by the F11's fan running normally. (though is pretty quiet to begin with anyway)

By the way..LOL my girlfriend wants to be nowhere near this computer which means that it's temporary home is in the kitchen.

 

It's not "strange", how can you explain that it took 9 hours to run out of power?

If you had no task running like Battery Eater than these settings put your F to sleep or hibernation, even if critical battery shut down was selected as those events occur before the battery critical state is reached:



*****

@ To No End: did you see the green LED flashing thing in the LED Indicators post above?

Could reply to my SIW sensors question here with your fan stuck @ 100%?

 

I let my battery drain, suddenly it went to hibernation instead of shutting down as I instructed it to... had the same thing as you, led on the power button was blinking green. Took ages to stop blinking, then I connected it through ac. While booting up I saw a quick message (didn't expect it so didn't catch it), something involving intel and driver. It's definitely I different message than yours though... and it doesn't seem to have the fan blasting that hard, although it might be working more than it used to. Or maybe I just got paranoid from reading your post

 

That's normal. The F is telling you that the battery is running low. The time it took for the LED to turn off is the time the F took to reach the battery critical action level in your settings and once reached: to shut down or to go into hibernation.

Again, see: LED Indicators post above.

 

That's what I'm trying to explain to you: I have those settings set at ''never'' since forever. AND I was working on my computer. I drained it by enjoying myself and do some browsing, so it never was idle anyway.

So the mystery is as follows: why did it not shut down and instead chose to enter a state, which we shall assume is hibernating since it ''resumed windows'' after I plugged in the ac cord and booted it up?

I also caught a message at the start of resuming windows: only glimpsed the words ''intel'' and ''driver'', although I'm certain it's not the same message as To No End's... fingers crossed I'm not the next one screwed.

EDIT: So it's normal for it to blink when low on power... but it's not normal that it went into hibernation when all the settings tell it to shut down.

 

Again & this is crucial: how can you explain that it took you 9 hours to run out of power?

Could you sell me your special 9 hours battery? How much?

How can you set to "never" the settings on battery shown in the screen capture above? I can't on my F OEM OS. Could you post a screen capture showing "never" for these settings?

 

I don't know why the led continued blinking all afternoon+evening long. You tell me. Last thing I saw it was at around 3% and a min or so later it went into this state. 'Shut down' but not really. Can't power on or off, just had to let it keep on flashing.

9 hours battery? If you're satisfied it's in a non-responsive state with just a led light blinking.

Set it at 9999999 or 0.

 

I'm having the exact same problem as To No End has described. My wife ran the laptop on battery for quite awhile. It eventually went into hibernation. When my wife tried to turn it back on it wasn't responding. So she plugged it in, took the battery out, put it back in, and then she was able to turn it on. Except now the fan runs at full speed 100% of the time. It is very loud and extremely annoying. I sit on the left side of her on the couch and the fan is pointed right at me. I couldn't stand the noise any longer and had to find some solutions on how to fix it.

I've read hundreds of posts and looked at the unification post and I don't see any fix that is specific to this problem. The only thing that I can see people are doing is draining the battery, charging it, taking the battery out, holding the power button in, letting the laptop sit unused for X hours, and eventually turning it back on. Is this the only way to fix this problem or should the laptop be sent in for service?

Thank you!

 

9 hours proves that @ some point your F slept or hibernated even if you say you have "never" settings.

Just run Battery Eater, it will take you only about 1h20 to find out if your F goes into hibernation or shut down normally.

 

Err what are we debating about here? Are you actually helping me or distrusting me and trying to prove something? And if the latter, why? Do I have so much time on my hands to make up lies about a laptop?

I have the settings at never. Try yourself by using the method I provided above. If you're not helping but instead have the attitude that I, for some reason, am lying about my problem, don't reply.

For the last time: I do not know why it went into hibernating, if that's what it was, with a few percent of battery power left. I do not know why I could not power it down or on when in that state. I HAVE the settings set for it to NEVER hibernate, so why did it? End of.

 

If the laptop goes into hibernation because the battery reached a critical low state then one may expect that it will not turn on while still on battery power.

Please go back about 7 pages to read plenty on the fan stuck @ 100% thing. Probably needs to be sent for servicing.

"draining the battery, charging it.." - This is to calibrate the battery & gauge, nothing to do with the fan stuck @ 100%.

@ Kayron: please explain me with a bread crumb trail (> >) or step-by-step how you set this "never" thing.

To all: Just curious if somebody knows the answer: what happens if a Vaio_F laptop is in hibernating mode & not plugged and one removes the battery?

 

This is the second time that happened to me, First time was successful and I posted the steps. This time around, no luck. It seems that Ursuthebestdriver managed to get it to work normally again in a condition somewhat similar to how I managed to fix earlier on but I think there are certain conditions for it to work which I am unaware of. It would be great if he posted his steps and configuration. (Help Please Ursu..)

So it is likely possible to get an end-user fix to this problem. The best way is to send it in which I will be doing but in the meantime, if there are now two users who have successfuly restored their units then it's a matter of finding out the exact conditions to apply.

 

start > type "power options" > change plan settings > change advanced power settings > sleep > hibernate after > enter zero and click away to highlight something else for the computer to automatically correct "0" to "never".

 

I also really do hope that Sony provide a fix for this - it sounds like it's something that affects all units when a certain set of conditions is met - the battery is nearly completely drained, the computer powers off, and if the computer is not plugged in the next time it powers on, then the fan gets stuck on at 100%.

@ To No End - iirc, your first "fix" was holding down the power button with the battery out, thus draining most of the charge out of the (CMOS battery?) and in essence "resetting" the computer's bios. This leads me to believe that the issue has something to do with the BIOS or atleast very low-level software that communicates directly with the hardware itself (possibly firmware?).

Ok, so that's all speculation. Extrapolating from that, have you per chance tried to go into the BIOS and tried to reset the values to their "fail-safe defaults" or something to that effect? Also, (I think I remember you saying that you tried this) but have you tried holding down the power button for longer periods of time to try to discharge more of the current from the (CMOS battery?)?

 

Test Drive.. gee it's been years since I've played that game, it was always one of the smoothest-driving arcade games.

Speaking of 197.16, I've found that almost every game or application that uses Direct 3D in DirectX 9C crashes to desktop after only a minute or two, no setting to Win XP compatability or such helps at all. I've tried reinstalls of DirectX, NET2, and the Nvidia drivers, nada. Reading the forums on these, the blame was being put on Win 7 64-bit, HOWEVER, Reinstalling 188 completely eliminates the crashing. So everyone's blaming Win7-64 for what appears to be an Nvidia driver issue. With the Sony Nvidia 188 drivers the F11 is running these things under Win 7-64 flawlessly.

 

Good find, thanks!

I was going nuts trying to find it in the drop down menu.

It works also in the: S1 > Vaio_Control Center > Power Management > Vaio_Power Management Viewer > Advanced path.

BTW, check the Power Policy tab in the free SIW 2010 for a view of all your power management plans including the active one. A ton of info in one panel instead of all the clicks needed in Vaio_Care or Win 7 > Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options.

 

Ok, so just to clarify (it's not that I distrust you, it's just that I'm a bit confused), you've told the computer never to hibernate under any circumstance dealing with the battery (i.e. the "Critical battery action" for "On Battery" is set to shutdown?) Btw the reason I ask this, is because often, under critical battery states, computers will hibernate in order to save data (imagine windows shutting down while you were in the middle of typing an important and unsaved document. This is why there are often separate settings for critical battery states, as opposed to general idle states).

Example screenshot (note the difference in content from Joe's screenshot):

 

So any idea then, why it went into hibernation anyway, or was it even hibernating instead of something else...

Thx for the reply. Yeah I've set that action to ''shut down''. I was following the battery discharge instructions in the unification post, so I had that covered as well. It's a mystery why it still went into hibernation anyway when it arrived to the critical battery level.

 

Ahh sorry I just read your post a few pages back and saw that you mentioned that you had it to shutdown. That is quite strange. I can't think of any concrete reasons for it. Form the sound of things, it sounds like the computer really did hibernate 9or it mistakingly thought it did - I'm guessing hibernation data loaded ok? nothing like "hibernation data corrupt, load last known good configuration" or something to that effect.

If you don't want the computer to hibernate under any circumstances, you may want to try this method:

(from: http://forums.techarena.in/operating-systems/1283807.htm)

 

Note that you have to run cmd as administrator.

Are you saying that all instance of hibernate action will default to shut down?

More Powercfg Command-Line Options by Microsoft support and this doc is interesting too: http://download.microsoft.com/downl...412A-A8B6-5E0A75D5B237/ProcPowerMgmtWin7.docx

 

one way to check would be to delete any hibernation data you currently have on the laptop. I think you can do this through the disk cleanup. Then run it to the ground again with your no hibernate/shutdown settings. Upon the next startup, if a new hibernation file was created, then it was hibernating.

My guess is that there is some secondary software involved in this semi-hibernate state. Possibly even emergency power management in the bios? Does it go instantly to that state upon reaching critical battery or does it do the normal LED blinks a couple times to indicate it is preparing to sleep/hibernate.

Not exactly that you'd want to bring it to that state again, but information like that would help determine what was happening.

 

I think that the "powercfg /hibernate off" command just disables hibernate, in that it it no longer displays as an option in the power settings. I don't think that the hibernate instances will all default to shutdown (some may default to sleep), but hibernate certainly wouldn't be a choice any longer.

 

Here are my current Power Plan settings when running on battery, may be helpful to some.

The idea is to be notified when the battery is low so I can save my work & if I continue until the critical battery state is reached, I keep an eye on the green power button LED. When it starts flashing, I save my work before the F shuts down automatically. I always plug my F for 15-30 seconds or so before starting it again.



Now check the Windows default Low Battery Alarm by hitting Test. Either by: Desktop > right click: Personalize > in the bottom: Sounds OR right click Speakers icon on the taskbar > Sounds. That alarm wav is pretty bland & easy to miss.

I took Hard Disk Sentinel's HDD overheating alarm wav, doubled it & you can download it here & save to My Documents: http://www.monteverde.org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/Low_Battery_Alarm_Annoying.wav It's annoying & hard to miss.

Now navigate to the saved wav's location in Sound panel > Browse while Low Battery Alarm is highlighted, save your modified sound scheme (I called mine simply: Windows Modified) & Test to check. The caveat is that if you change your Win 7 desktop theme, make sure that it's your custom sound scheme that is active & is not being replaced by the new theme. You can also make sure that Low battery notification is enabled in all your Power Plans.



If I want the F to hibernate, I do it manually through the Start menu or power button, not automatically. It's a personal preference.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKc5y5KO-dk - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmOfSgRIl7I - Part 2

 

Sorry, I assume that new users cannot have immediate access to PM, but I enabled the accept e-mail from users if that helps.

The FW490 on sonystyle.ca's clearance doesn't offer any changes and I haven't visited a local Sony store yet to see what they have so I'm guessing I just might be stuck with the specs on the clearance model, which I'll be fine with if it is as good as it sounds.

 

Hey guys,

Just got my F series in today and I'm currently getting it all set up. I'm loving it; the 1080p looks great especially with HDMI to my HDTV. Anyway, is there anything major I should know or need to update? I turned off auto brightness. I guess I should get the new Nvidia drivers that everyone is talking about, but anything other than that?

Also, I can't seem to get my backlight keyboard to come on when I type; it only comes on randomly. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

I used the "search this thread"-option and nothing showed up, so here I go. My vaio gate isn't working properly and I want to reinstall but there isn't a file on the sony supportsite that clearly says witch installs the vaio gate. Has anybody a idea how to reinstall?

Thx in advance

 

I'm 30 pages behind...slow down please!!!

matt

 

Congrats for your new F & welcome to the club.

"...can't seem to get my backlight keyboard to come on when I type; it only comes on randomly" - Maybe your ambient light is not dark enough. Cover the tiny round light sensor window above the F9 key with a piece of tape or a happy face sticker. Check also your setting in S1 > Vaio_Control Center > Keyboard & Mouse > Backlit KB.

"...I turned off auto brightness" - Good, now check "Screen Color Calibration" in the Unification Post.

Vote in the Sony_F_Series Owners Display (LCD) Opinions Poll. 119 votes so far.

"I guess I should get the new Nvidia drivers that everyone is talking about..." - You don't have to if you are not a gamer.

"is there anything major I ...need to update?" - Nope, use your Vaio_Update or go to your Sony_support page for your specific model.

*****

What is that "gate"? Could you describe more & try using other words?

 

The bar at the upperside of the screen, something like a mac has at the bottom. Where you can place shortcuts to programs.
picture: http://www.electricpig.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/P1050527-580x362.jpg
It isn't showing any icons so I want to reinstall it.

 

Just googled vaio gate. first result i found was
http:/
/forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=433624

have you tried it?

yea, can't post URL's, just stick those together

 

This I didn't try but the links to the files are expired so it doesn't help, but thanks for trying.
Also, is it true that posting links is forbidden?

 

Check the free ObjectDock by Stardock or Windows 7 support: Add a toolbar to the taskbar.

"is it true that posting links is forbidden?" - Nope, otherwise I would be in jail since a long time.