Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

That looks really nice. lol

Hibernation is not a hardware function guys. Have you ever played a video game through an emulator where you could load a 'freeze state' to go back to where you were in the game?

Hibernation is exactly like that. When you go to hibernate, Windows makes a save state and I believe (although I haven't read into this much), it sets a flag in the OS' boot settings to restore the hibernated state next time you start Windows up.

If you had other operating systems and a boot manager that loads first, then you can actually hibernate Windows and go use another OS in the meantime and restore the hibernated state later. I was going to work on a virtualization project where you could abuse hibernation to swap guest/host OSes, but never did have the time to do it.

If you interrupt hibernation it means nothing. When you sleep the computer and have Windows set to hibernate it after say, an hour of sleep, all Windows is doing is setting a sleep timer to wake the machine up in 60 minutes and hibernate it.

So that would have nothing to do with it. Likewise, a flashing green (or orange) light means the battery is low, but the computer is either running or sleeping within proper operation.

To the dude with the Intel ME ignition issues, here's what Intel calls that:

The Intel® Management Engine provides thermal management for Intel® Desktop Boards. The Intel® ME is the interface between the Intel® Management Engine firmware and the host.

I think your Windows install was screwed up and the ME engine for Windows was goofed up and trying to fix itself.

 

Good idea,could you tried to play any Hulu movies @full screen (where you could see the black part on the top and the bottom of the screen,if you cna play something that have dark scenes) and see if the light bleed improved as well?

 

That is very interesting, can you tell me what brand you of anti glare film you used?

Thanks

 

Not quite sure..maybe it is, you can check with the retailer/sony store. But for 2nd F incarnation, my desired change would be:

1)Better screen (a matte screen would be nice,no LCD bleed, change from CCFL to LED).
2)No morse code/fan issue (moved fan output to the back if possible).
3)changed from USB2 to USB3 and move at least 1 USB port on the back.
4)one 4GB stick instead 2X2GB.
5)No hibernation/sleep issue.
6)ATI graphics instead Nvidia.
7)Move touch pad a bit to the left.
8)Better LED back lit system.

All those changes would make the system PERFECT!

 

niebyl2002 I gotta admit man, that pic looks soooooo nice. Now I want to go get one of those films

Good news is there are pre-cut sheets out there for the F that are around the same price, I think.

 

That reminded of my old post, way back before I got my hands on the F: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5855402&postcount=3178



Cut for_Vaio's 16.4" displays:

Read the FAQ's, there is no free lunch: lost of saturation & contrast. "88% Light Transmission" so lost of brightness also.

 

Bleed actually is less visible. Although on the pictures I took, light bleeds pretty bad; in real life it's barely noticeable.





Originally I wanted to get 3M film but it looks like 3M doesn't make anti glare film. I found my anti glare film on http://www.radtech.us/Products/Notebook/

It is the one for 17'' macbook.

 

I didn't get precuted because I wanted film to be slighty bigger so i could hide it behind bezel. I was a bit lazy and didn't measere the screen. I know I should.

Thanks for reminding me, I think I saw your post, that's what started my search for film. I decided to give a try; $20 isn't really that much.

I don't really see any loss in brightness, as far as S&C can't tell. With max brightness (auto dim off) screen looks much better with film than without.

I think there is more positives than negatives.

 

I just compared the film thickness, the one from RadTech is .005 thick and the light transmissivity is 94%. The one from Photodon is .009 and light transmissivity is 88%.

Since I bought thinner one that's why I don't see any difference in brightness.

 

If you are happy with it then it's the most important.

Photodon also has .006" & 93% transmittance: http://www.photodon.com/c/LCD-Protective-Films.html

From a guy who had glasses, contact lenses & since 10 years a lasik operation and drives motorcycles with helmets & visors: the less layers, the crisper the image.

 

I absolutely agree.

Ideally it would be nice to upgrade the screen to EU premium matte but why waste money when it should be done by SONY in a first place.

My average desktop/laptop life is usually between one to two years and for that time I can live with my F series with US premium screen and anti glare film.

 

Thanks for the post, yea...it does look pretty bad on the pic lol..but most F owner have the same issue.

PS:I was looking at the Y series owner lounge, they only have about 29 pages...I guess the less issue the laptop have, the less page it has LOL..I was thinking getting that at first but for that price it wasn't worth it getting SU7300 that will be replaced by ULV i5 pretty soon.

 

Just a quick update on repair for
fan whistle: Sony have spent two weeks with it an when I eventually got bored and emailed them, they said they couldn't find a problem with it, even after sending them recordings and discussing it at length with them beforehand. Furious...

 

Joe or anyone else...

How much power is supplied by the F11's Power Over eSATA port? I can only find "enough to power a 2.5" HDD. Are there any hard numbers on wattage?

Bill

 

The Esata port is rated at 500ma max, compared with 100ma for individual USB ports. (but if just one port is used it can provide 500ma) 2.5" drives typically take between 280 and 650 ma, with 3.5" starting at 900ma up tp 1500ma.

By that I mean the power-over-Esata port on the F11 is rated at 500ma, 5V. Esata does not provide power.

 

Would that be at 5 volts? Then 500ma X 5v = 2.5W, plenty to power my hard drive. If not, do you knw the voltage?

Thanks!

Bill

 

They changed the fan on mine to no real effect, maybe they didn't even know what was wrong with mine or even heard the whine, I never had any real acknowledgement of that.

If they couldn't find a problem with it, then are they sending it back to you ?

They are meant to be picking mine up again in another week but this is beginning to seem like an exercise in futility.

 

In a nutshell:
- eSATA does not provide any power, only data transportation
- USB 2.0 can provide either: power alone (5v 500mA max), data transport alone or power + data simultaneously.
- Power Over eSATA port is in reality 2 ports combined in one and is backward compatible with either: USB 1.1, 2.0 OR eSATA OR Power Over eSATA cable & enabled devices in which case the USB part provides power with the same specs as a normal USB port: (5v 500mA max) and data transportation @ the SATA transfer rates.
- The Expresscard 34 slot max output is also 5v 500mA
- For USB 3.0, the max power is 900mA: http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/



There is a lot of confusion with the F's Power Over eSATA port. I researched the thing when I saw it on the F & for taking advantage of it when shopping for an external HDD enclosure. See the Power Over eSATA Port & ext Enclosures Benchmarks post. The simple fact that it's so difficult to find such an enclosure is a sign of the doomed standard as well as products like this neat OCZ Throttle eSATA Flash Drive review. On the OCZ's site, the Throttle product page says "Page Not Found".



Here is a similar product that includes also a regular USB connector for maximum flexibility: the Kangaroo e-Flash.



That standard is probably going the Betamax way & will be supplanted by the upcoming USB 3.0. That's too bad because I like the flexibility of it.

The first mistake was the name. There is a lot of confusion out there & it's difficult to find compatible products for it because there is so many ways of calling it:
- Power Over eSATA
- Power eSATA
- eSATAp
- eSATA/USB two-in-one
- eSATA/USB combo
- USB-eSATA combo
- eSATA/USB power
- eSATA combo port
- 11 pin USB/eSATA
- Etc!
- eSATA/USB port In the "VAIO_VPCF11 User Guide" pdf found in your F: C:\Windows\Sonysys\DOCS. 169 pages and not one single usable Specifications page!
The single paragraph about that port in said guide on page 15:

From this page found on The Serial ATA International Organization's website:

But reviews, notebook manufacturers and makers of "eSATA/USB two-in-one connector" compatible products are all mixing the names. That's the fault of said SATA Organisation who could not come up with a simple & marketable name.

Google Products: Your search - eSATA/USB two-in-one - did not match any products.

Even_Sony in it's F product page here mistakenly named the port as a regular "eSATA Port":



eSATA's transfer rates are identical to SATA:



Depending on the benchmark settings & who makes it, the USB 3.0 transfer rates are somewhat similar to the eSATA/SATA 3G @ the present. From this page:



See the real world transfer rates & benchmarks made with the F in the enclosure post linked above.

So I'm wrong calling it "Power Over eSATA" according to the organization but it's the best & shortest way to describe it IMO or should we start using the official name: " eSATA/USB two-in-one"?

"...compared with 100ma for individual USB ports. (but if just one port is used it can provide 500ma" - MelodyMaster, where did you find that info? Is it generic or specific to the F? I will test mine with three 2.5" HDD enclosures + my HDD in the ODD bay simultaneously & report if I don't toast my F.

 

That's ridiculous. You know what? They should've shoe horned a full 6 pin firewire port by the power button -_- That woudl've been AWESOME.

Sure, fw800 isn't as fast as esata, but it provides TONS of power. I believe 1.5a and 30v max (45w!!)

 

That does not make sense. It's a laptop, remember? The power brick max output is 120W, Sony_says power requierements for the F: 100W + 10%, notebookcheck measured 116w max consumption. Where would your "45w" come from? Are you willing to carry yet an even bigger brick & bigger laptop to power a Firewire 800 that's not useful anyway for most of the people?

 

I did say max. However, any firewire port is enough to power a 3.5" external without a power brick, and it BEING a laptop makes this a big selling point to me. The less crap I have to plug into the wall, the better. I hear ya though, a lot of people on here very likely bought the F to use as a desktop. They could've better been served by a real desktop with a proper i7, muuuuch better GPU, and choice of much better screens.

Then again, nobody ever buys a decent desktop screen anyway, they always go for those 27" 1600x900 TN dealies that are actually much worse than our Vaio F screens lol

Yes though, for a nerd laptop like the F, a powered firewire port would've been a very nice feature. As said, some notebook hard drives require more than 500ma, and that's not even counting the external enclosure if it's not esata.

Not a missed selling point, remember I'm a Mac guy, I'm used to amenities like that. There's a lot of small things I miss (like target disk mode and those powered firewire ports).. still!

Ironically, your point isn't far off though - I recall that MacBook pros only come with a 85w power adaptor - back in the day when you could remove the battery they'd throttle down because they couldn't get all the power they needed from it. XD

That may also explain why my Vaio takes like 4 hours to charge the battery -_-

 

oh ffs I've been emailing them about this issue for the past week and they are no help at all. They keep assuring me that the problem will be fixed if I send it in for repair and that it will only take 5 days. Yeh right I explained to them that they've already tried to fix f11s with the same issue and failed miserably.

At the moment I don't see the point in sending mine away if they still can't fix the problem I have absolutely no confidence in them

 

Joe and Melody,

Thank you for the explanations. Joe you are very thorough and I understand everything you wrote except one point.

The USB 2.0 standard allows for up to 500ma max between all ports. Does the eSATA/USB combo port get included in this total, or is this only for the other USB 2.0 ports? This may sound like a stupid question after you very detailed explanation, but to me, it would be worthless to have "power over eSATA" (or whatever you wish to call it) if the power diminishes when a wireless mouse dongle, a laptop cooling pad or a USB thumb drive are also plugged in. I would hope that this port would have its own dedicated power.

If so, it should show up on its own in "device Manager". Am I correct?

Thanks again!

Bill

 

Has any one else had this issue? I booted in windows 7 for the first time in a month only to not be able to use my keyboard or my trackpad. Device manager shows no problems, tried updating eveything with Vaio care, didn't fix it. Then I started going through different restore points with no luck and eventually did a factory re-install and still no keyboard of trackpad.

I was pretty sure this was a driver issue until the factory reset didn't fix it. I should mention that the keyboard works fine in the bios, the boot loader and in Linux, no problems whatsoever. But for once I need windows and I'm having to use an external mouse and keyboard... If anyone could give me a link to the keyboard and trackpad drivers for their system it would be sooooooooooooo appreciated. Not sure it matters but mine is a VPC-F1190S.

 

Here is a screen capture of the free SIW 2010 > Hardware > Devices running on my Vaio_VPCF11:



What I have running on my plugged F @ this very moment:

- 5 HDD's powered entirely by the F
- 16GB memory card in the SD slot
- 1 Bluetooth mouse + 1 Bluetooth headphone playing Ennio Morricone
- Wired LAN + internet
- 8 programs running including 50 windows in Chrome, Photoshop 64-bit, Microsoft Expression Web, etc.
- And the fan is maybe running @ 20-30% of it's max rpm.

So Melody's USB power limited if all in use does not seem to be valid.

"...500ma max between all ports" - Is false in case of the F.

"...Does the eSATA/USB combo port get included in this total" - No, as shown above.

"...if the power diminishes when a wireless mouse dongle" - My mouse with dongle is sleeping in a drawer, I got for peanuts a brand new full size Bluetooth Microsoft Laser Mouse 8000 on Fleabay. For peanuts because it's a 2006 model. Who cares?

"...a laptop cooling pad" - Well that's a useless gadget IMO & I would never sacrifice a USB port for that.

I have been using my ruler for years, it's cheap, light in my notebook case, dead quiet, reduces significantly fan work, gives me a comfortable typing angle like on full keyboards, can be used as a back scratcher or even as a handy ruler! It barely fits under the F's two back rubber feet, which is recommended to minimize vibrations to/from the desk.



Any object works, @ home I use a 4.5cm x 2cm x 30cm piece of wood. count_schemula loves his fetish pickle jar lid: "I prop my rear up in a pickle jar lid to allow more air underneath. I've done that for years with all my laptops."

"...wireless mouse dongle... a USB thumb drive" - Those barely need any power compared to the HDD's above, but they do take away USB ports for other usage.

A solution could be a A/C powered USB hub to plug up even more stuff.



Edit: Keeping all of the above connected, I ran a search in Computer so it would search all 5 HDD's & unplugged the F, just for fun. While normally the battery discharge rate is around 3000 mW with only the C drive running, I manged to get a wooping 53075 mW:

 

Again, thanks.

Actually, I hardly ever plug anything into my computers. I have a laptop cooler which I usually do not plug in. I use it in the same way you use your ruler. However, when I happen to be in a warm room, it is good to have the additional cooling. I am actually speaking from experience with my wife's Dell, which gets VERY hot.

Really, the only item that will be plugged in is my Logitech Performance Mouse MX. The cooler may be plugged in 5% of the time and a USB thumb drive may be plugged in for a minute or two once in a great while. I would, however, look to plug the Power Over eSATA drive nearly all of the time as I will be using this primarily as a desktop replacement for my ancient Dell.

I have to admit, so far we have had NO problems with these F11s. I am getting very anxious for my personal F11 to arrive. It is delayed because of the new 1080x1920 screen shipment. They are expected tomorrow and my ship date is supposed to be the 27th. The latest pair of 900p versions for our church arrive tomorrow. I plan on spending my time getting them up and running this weekend so they are ready to go Monday morning.

 

By the way Joe, I would think that my cooler did not cost more than about double what your scale cost you. A good triangle scale or rule generally costs me about $12 (I tend to wear them out in about 18 months) and my coolers used to cost about $16 delivered. The newest coolers that I purchased were these:

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Notepal-Notebook-R9-NBC-8PBK-GP/dp/B002NU5V4A

They have been very quiet when actually running and work very well passively also.

 

Did you see the edit in the post above with the F unplugged?

If they would make a Logitech Performance Mouse MX Bluetooth, I would get one on the spot.

One of the few things I kept when I sold my websites office was a Logitech Mx500 which was used heavy duty for 7 years 7/7 & it still works great after replacing the gliding pads a couple of times.

My triangular ruler is made of plastic, was cheap and is about 25 years old.

The two things that bugs me about these coolers like you linked to is that actually their very own surface impede air circulation compared to a stick or ruler. I got it BTW for my civil engineering studies which included ventilation, air conditioning, etc.

The price is right for the product you linked to & it looks nice but they don't ship to Costa Rica & how do you fit that in your laptop case?

 

Hey, my wife and kids have laptops. I am outfitting our church office with laptops for the pastors and administrators and desktops for the secretaries and volunteer desks.

This will be my first laptop. It will be used 99% of the time at my desk. Perhaps I will carry one of my worn out triangle rules with me for travelling

MY current mouse is an MX610 that I love. I have been purchasing the Performance MX for all of the new laptops because of its built-in rechargeable LiIon battery. This makes it worth the price as I otherwise have to buy good rechargeable AA or AAA batteries and a charger, then hope nobody loses their batteries or replaces them with regular batteries when they run out of charge.

No, I had not seen your edit.

While I would think that it would perhaps impede airflow because it is probably 70% aluminum and 30% open holes for air circulation, the only way that the air would actually be impeded is if airflow was greater than the 30% open area could supply. This is impossible with natural convection and is also not likely with the two fans running as the surface area of the open holes easily exceeds the fan output in CFM. In other words, I can easily force more CFM through the panel holes than the fans are capable of delivering at full speed.

I understand that it seems counterintuitive. If I held a panel such as this in front of my face, outside on a windy day, it would block most of the wind. However, it still allows more air through than the natural heating convection needs in passive mode and also allows more air when the fans are running.

Reviews say that this device lowers average laptop temps by 5 degrees celsius when the fans are running. I believe the reviews also stated that there was about the same passive cooling effect as open air, which would be what your ruler and 2X4 produce.

If the fans are removed, the laptop fits inside the cooler. You could travel passively if you wanted. Also, Cooler Master has the U1 model, which is the same model except no fans are included. This might work for you, although it would be more expensive than your already purchased 25 year old plastic triangle ruler!

Thanks again for the info Joe. I'd give you rep, but I have to spread some around first.

 

In my case the lid closing action, and battery critical action is: sleep (not hibernate).

I think that the CMOS data corruption may happen when trying to power ON the F on battery, in the situation where there is not enough power left in the battery to complete the BIOS POST stage.

 

But you said that the power button LED blinked green?

*****

Again: Vaio_VPCF LED Indicators

From > Start > Help & Support > Indicator Light:

Since To No End managed to get an orange flashing power button LED when trying to force the F to resume from hibernation while still on critical low battery state, he may have found and other LED code not described in the Help doc quoted above.

 

Any chance for this laptop to receive an ati gpu?

 

Yea,people in this forum has tried numerous time tried to fix their fan issue with SONY and came back the same. I think tausif is in the process for 2nd attempt with SONY, you can try to contact him.

Could you check if the screen get better?Maybe SONY switch with different type of SHARP LCD or something.A photo would greatly appreciated.

Is this cooler for 17" laptop?not too small/big for F's body?

We all know there will be a refresh in june/july, I was wondering the same...SONY have ATI and NVIDIA on their laptop, so chances is still 50-50, we wont know until july. Maybe you could tried to email AMD and see if they'll speak.

 

The dual Inverter goes into the spot of the single Inverter (which obviously comes off). The dual Inverter was a big longer, since the slots were longitudinally arranged than side-by-side.

Pictures below:

Old Inverter and New dual-slot inverter:

 

Now the Inverter in the laptop, right before it was put back together:

 

is it at all possible to change the gpu on this or for that matter any sony laptop?

 

I bought my dual-CCFL screen from www.smartmicrousa.com (Part#: LQ164M1LA4A) and was a bit pricier than from other sources. The problem with the "other sources" was that they did not have the part# in stock and I did not have the liberty of waiting till it got back into stock. So I went ahead with the purchase ($258 for the screen).

After realizing that the dual-lamp screen needed a dual-lamp Inverter, I searched around for a compatible Inverter and even though an inverter would only cost less than $20, I decided to pay the price and get the stupendously over-priced Sony part#. I got this from www.sparepartswarehouse.com (Part# 1-445-379-11) for $99.61.

Of course since I put it in myself, I did not incur any installation charges.

Here is a 4-page interview with the people within the Sony organization who designed this screen (Called in the US as "X-BRITE Full-HD" and in Japan as "Clear Bright LCD") and their thoughts/challenges when they designed it.


http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/pcg-grt40zp/interview/index_01.html
http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/pcg-grt40zp/interview/index_02.html
http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/pcg-grt40zp/interview/index_03.html
http://vaio-online.sony.com/prod_info/pcg-grt40zp/interview/index_04.html

 

I have had this laptop on (with the new screen) for well over 24 hours continuously. Absolutely no difference whatsoever between this dual-CCFL screen and my previous single-CCFL F-series Full-HD screen from the perspective of being hotter etc

I will post back my findings when the laptop runs on battery and on the battery life etc. At max brightness, if it goes beyond 2 hours, I would say the power consumption is roughly the same as the previous screen. Will update back shortly (it has been on battery for a while now).

 

Not a chance, you will stick on what you pay and get.

Thanks!as far as those 4 pages,they seems to know what they are talking about regarding LCD,however how come they can came out with poor LCD like what F have?it goes different way,its like the book say this and they say/do the opposite way.

 

I have talked with Sony directly regarding this option. They told me that the F11 was designed for NVIDIA only. So no other GPU brand is possible.


@Sheebp - Your F11 is a CTO correct?

@waitwaitwait - Is your F11 CTO also?

@andyguk - When did you order your F11, January? Just trying to see if you bought as soon as they came out or not. Are you from UK?

@To No End & jacksjw - You are both from US, can you confirm if you were early adopters as well, and also if both have CTO?

Thanks!

 

I'm impressed you guys are so worried about cooling! lol I think the stock fans work fine.

 

I think so too. I owned a Macbook before F series. Macbook was getting so hot that I couldn't keep it on my legs and it was only Core 2 Duo. I think Sony did a great job keeping i7 pretty cool. On F11 when I run couple VM's the fans works constantly but case stays warm to touch.

Unless you have some sort of issues with fan I wouldn't worry about additional cooling. The only thing that comes to my mind is when you studying or working in a quiet room and fan bothers you then yes, I would get something add. cooling.

 

My F11 display setting has gone weird as if it has gone into safe mode, text and graphics look rudimentary and I didn't even do anything.

How do you revert to the last good settings please, it it in Vaio care ?

I tried restarting and it didn't help.

 

Can you guys tell me how loud the fan is under normal usage? If I'm just browsing the net and listening to music. Thanks.

 

How loud is relative.

Keep in mind that it's a powerful Core i7 & it needs a fan for cooling & it's a mechanical thing with mechanical noises.

What is noisy for you may be quiet for me. The soundscape of my F is perfectly normal considering the CPU & GPU power under the hood.



Note that, for example, this Dell_1747 i7 is also audible @ idle:







Now some users in this thread have defective fans that apparently are "whistling" a tune that they don't like.

Fan noise is the only thing that notebookcheck says prevented them from deeming the F perfect as a DTR: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Sony-Vaio-VPC-F11Z1-E-Notebook.25724.0.html

They gave only a 86% score because of that.

 

Clearly, the design intent of the prior Dual-CCFL "X-BRITE Full-HD" screen (in the article referenced) and the current F-series screens were different, IMHO.

The US F-series Full-HD screen was designed and built with the intent to squeeze out as much cost as possible from the product, probably thinking that the US customers are not very demanding......especially when it was clear that they did spend the time/effort in creating a top-notch screen for the EU market.

 

Okay, an update on battery life....

The laptop with the new Dual-CCFL screen (with MAX brightness setting) has crossed 2 hours on the battery (indicates 18% charge remaining) with web surfing, picture editing and other such tasks.

So there seems to be absolutely no impact on the battery life either, from the new screen. Maybe 5 minutes difference at the most, I would think, based on the type of battery life I got with my prior F-series Full-HD screen.

Hope this helps.

 

I decided to give Chrome a spin about a month ago when Firefox was not behaving, coincidentally after a Java auto update as others have also noted in this thread.

I use bookmarks a lot & today after booting & starting Chrome: one month worth of bookmarks are gone. The history is still there & that's it, all the add-ons, customizations, passwords, etc are gone.

So went to Goggle Chrome Help & searched for: lost bookmarks. Well, I'm not alone. I tried every trick suggested including the Bookmarks.bak file thing, no dice.

I used for years Netscape mail & Firefox in an office environment, never had any problems.

If you use Chrome, I strongly suggest that you do some profile backups or export Bookmarks using Bookmark Manager.

Back to Firefox today after a couple of weeks & this pops up:



Aha!

I also noticed Java auto update in the startup applications listed in Autoruns, yet an other pesky thing calling the mother-ship. Might kill that soon.

*****

Dual CCFL Power Consumption?

What do you expect? That the dual CCFL produces twice as much light? My F already maxes @ 248 cd/m2 which is way to bright for all day work. @ 500 you would need sunglasses & suntan lotion.

 

No, it would require a different motherboard layout thus essentially creating a new VAIO model.

 

The Vaio F is noisy compared to most laptops, since the fan is always on! However, it's not that noisy: At idle, it's quieter than most laptops are at load. At load, it's about the same as pretty much any laptop I've used.