Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Moving the pointer is fine for me... it's when I tap the trackpad to confirm/close browser/etc when I find it to be unresponsive at times. Nothing major though.

Then again, I don't have much of a reference to compare to, first laptop ever.

 

Does it happen more often when your hands are cold, or when they're dry? I find that the trackpad gets unresponsive when my hands are really dry (I blow some hot air on them and it gets better). I actually like the trackpad and find it responsive enough. Nothing beats a mouse though (except maybe if you have a wacom cintiq, but seeing as one of those costs almost as much as the F, it's all good )

 

Yep, keep an eye on task manager whenever your fan's boosting up for no apparent reason. Thanks.

 

Ok, thanks a lot, I'll call them on Monday.
Anyone with the same problem?

 

I am considering this laptop. Does this laptop still have that dreaded "whine fan noise" I have been hearing about?

 

Yeah, most likely it's a little more noticeable when my hands are dry. I also agree that the tapping to confirm/click is very unresponsive. I like the feel of this trackpad, but it's just not as responsive as my MSI or my friend's Macbook.

 

Nope, not on mine. Something is wrong in your settings or something is scanning your drive (anti virus or media library, etc) or some cr@ppy software you installed.

Get the get free, small & portable (meaning no install needed) Process Explorer v12.03 (Published: April 15, 2010, only 1.65MB) by Windows Sysinternals. A Task Manager on steroids to spot the culprit with a lot more info: just highlight a process & right click > Properties or Search Online or Kill Process, etc. Includes Process Tree, graphs, etc, etc.

Just run side by side Process Explorer & Task Manager to see what I mean. There is also a neat tool: drag the crosshair from the task bar to any active window & it instantly finds the process related to it.

 

Thanks Joe and Mango. Looks like it was easymule. Should have known, uninstalled with revo uninstaller.

 

Did you try tweaking the settings in Mouse Properties? If you have the > Tapping > Tap Off When Typing enabled, try tweaking the delay.

Mine was over responsive until I toned it down. I agree with mangosango, nothing beats a good mouse. My Bluetooth take about 2-3 seconds to connect & become usable so I have the touchpad disabled all the time except when I want to extend the battery life to the maximum then it's the mouse that goes on vacation.

 

Well, if your screen is getting a 1:700 contrast ratio, then it's better than the F's European Premium screen which is only 1:555 and has a lumination of 238.80 http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/inspection/notebook-review-sony-vaio-vpc-f11z1e-nkst-1103.

The problem is that these sorts of specs depend upon how the test is done, so the fact that the screen you have is likely the same as the FW3 series FullHD tested by notebookjournal as 1:454 with 274 lumination http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/inspection/notebook-review-sony-vaio-fw31zj-860. It's not yours but the other FW4 series screen that goes for the $1300, remember?

The new MacBook Pro with i7 is clocking in with less brightness but more contrast than either yours or the F Premium screen http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests...re-i7-nvidia-geforce-gt330m-mc373da-nkst-1146.

P.S. The link I provided earlier to the cached Sony Backstage page summarizes the X-Brite process as well: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache...HiColor+screen+best&cd=39&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

P.P.S. I guess now at last everyone will realize that I did indeed give accurate information in explaining the Full-HD (or FullHD) for Sony means something far more than "full HD."

 

Have you guys tried setting volume for mic in Control panel > sound > click recording tab then right click > properties.
Go to level tab. Try setting it at 1, confirm, open and go to level tab again: it'll be 0. Try setting it at 21, it'll revert to 20.

Amazing info I know.

 

What do people think about this? Any downside in changing boot advanced options to 4? I've never considered.

 

just thought i'd post this up here for new buyers:
i bought 2 F11's this April. one CTO, one pre-built.
screens are fine. no fan whining, just normal fan noise due to heavy usage.
who knows, maybe I just got a lucky batch.

 

hi,I have a question about F series lcd,I want to know how bad is F series`s lcd?
I heard many nagative things about the lcd.

 

Check the Sony_F_Series Owners Display Poll with 125 votes.

Search this Thread with: display.

Check the Unification Post, page 1, post #1 in this thread.

 

Can you tried to play hulu movies and choose some dark scene,see if you see some bleed on the bottom of the screen. It does look normal and sharp within win 7 desktop. If you can, tried to take the picture on a dark room. How about the viewing angle?If you dont have all the issue all the member have here,SONY might changed the screen with something better.

You wont see any problem running under win7 desktop with the correct angle,however when you see some movies with dark scenes, u will see some sort of light bleed and viewing angle is very limited.

 

If you google this "tweak" you see that most sites consider it a hoax. You can always try it and measure your boot times with Vaio Care and then you know if it works or not

 

Just got mine, trying to "figure out" the machine.
What is the Vaio Analysis Manager? Is it necessary and how can I disable it? When it runs it sucks the power of the computer, cannot even run a web browser.
Also the Vaio Content Sharing: is it related to media plus sharing my contents to ps3 for example?
General speaking which of these sony software do you recommend of getting rid of for better performance?
Also: Vaio content folder watcher?

 

I wanna ask about the GT330 MXM type ? ,is that possible to replace this with ATI 5870 card that use MXM 3 type B....thank you for answer.

 

I bet the GT330 graphics card is soldered to the motherboard. So you can't swap if for another graphics card.

I've rarely seen a notebook where you can change the graphics card. Most major players on the notebook market solder almost everything to the motherboard. I assume Sony is the same.

 

The GPU is soldered in, and apparently the chipset on the mobo won't work with ATI cards (according to Sony, although this may be BS, who knows?).

Anyhow, the GPU can't be replaced (although vaio F + 5870m == OMG <3)

 

Thank you for your reply 55+ .....i like the way u said Vaio F + 5870 => OMG!

 

So I redid my calibration as I was still getting 86% charge in the am after fully charging the night before. I had realized my laptop had hibernated verus shutdown last time. So I fixed my Calibrator plan and retried last night. Still 86% this morning

Any other suggestions or variations to the above?
Thanks

 

my f seri make a noise at the fan continuously, noise like pyffoouuvvv, like wind. it makes me insane.

 

Hi this has been discussed in the post before.. If you search for Bloatware..
However I searched for you and here is a link to a post by Joe and MelodyMax.

This should help you

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6084008&postcount=2250

 

Hi fatpandas, I got my CTO in April too, however I have light bleed in a dark room when watching a movie. I have a squeaky keyboard currently and when I shutdown my laptop overnight charged 100% and bootup in the morning it shows 86%. Can you advise how your battery is behaving on both?

Thanks

 

Pretty much my laptop exactly. I've done the battery drain to recalibrate and I still have this problem as well. Anyone called Sony on this?

 

Thanks a lot "unknown id". By the way I have the same issue with the battery, EU version.

 

As I suggested many times: run the free Battery Eater Pro when showing 100% charge then run again the next morning with the same settings when your battery meter is showing 86% to find out if it's the battery that really lost it's charge or simply a battery state reporting error.

Otherwise stab in the dark as you can't tell what is the problem exactly so how can you find a solution?

I wrote to Sony_support about that problem before I calibrated the battery & the answer I quoted in a previous post was: it's normal.

*****

You bought the wrong laptop. Exchange it for an other brand or an i3 or i5. The powerful i7 quad core 720 or 820 needs cooling.

 

Helpful as usual, Joe. The i7 is quite powerful, but it has a relatively low TDP. I think the issue with fan noise is less about mitigating actual heat output and more about a poorly spec'd fan. I expect charts and graphs to prove me wrong, though, because yours is the only opinion that can be valid.

On another note: I wiped my recovery partition after making restore DVDs, and of course one of the DVDs is unreadable (likely my fault for not verifying the media). I know that Sony will provide discs, but their parts site doesn't seem to list the F115 discs yet. Anyone know how much these will set me back direct from Sony?

Thanks.

 

It's nothing to do with the chipset; pinout is different between the ATI and Nvidia GPUs, the Nvidia GPU is bigger, and the wiring between the GPU and its memory and support electronics bears no similarity between the two GPUs. The motherboard has to have completely different layouts and the physical location of various hardware would be changed. It would no longer be an F11. The chipset remains the PM55 regardless of the GPU used.

In olden days the video support would actually be on a subassembly that could be changed, but that takes up much more room, which would compromise the design of these slim-style laptops.

 

Joe is teasing you delihocagazi, follow-on..

And Aaronjb, in his usual knee-jerk response to anything Joe says, is wrong. As has been demonstrated in actual comparative charts, the F11 is one of the QUIETEST i7 laptops, as well as THE coolest-running and THE fastest mobile i7 system, bar none.

My F11 ONLY makes the wind noise if it's being stressed, otherwise it's quieter than even my T23. It DOES make quite a sound of rushing wind however when the system is running hard. Maybe, delihocagazi, you just happen to be keeping your laptop busy?

There are a lot of compaints of whistling or whining, is THAT what your laptop is doing, delihocagazi?

 

Why wipe the recovery partition? The size of the hidden partition is similar to the storage on a cheap memory stick. The recovery partition on my 256 Gig SSD is 13.1 Gigs. For archiving and downloads I keep a 16 gig SD card in the front slot; the card can be swapped between the F11 and netbook and desktop for quick data transfer.

When I'm out in the field, and the system glitches just before a presentation, I like to be able to do a quick repair without having to depend on the DVDs - which I probably haven't brought with me anyway. So far, VAIO Care has used the recovery partition three times to fix a system error. Thank God for the Recovery Partition!

And yes, I made Recovery DVDs, which were tested, because of course the SSD itself might fail, and I'll make a full system backup shortly.

 

My Vaio F wouldn't boot up this morning . The power light comes on, but nothing else happens. I'm hoping this could be something simple but I don't think it will be.

It's typical... I run cheap Dells for years with no problems at all. I spend twice as much on a Sony and it goes pop after a couple of months!

 

Friendly & accurate as usual aaronjb. Check this page by Intel: quad core i7-720QM + PM55 chip has a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 48.5 Watts vs. 2 cores i7-620M like in the new Macbooks Pros (which they hide on their product page BTW) or the i5-540M: 38.5 Watts.

Just in case you don't have a calculator handy, that means that the 720 produces 25.97% more heat.

Hence more fan work & shorter battery life but OTOH up to 8 threads to get the job done.

Edit: Thanks Melody.

 

Take out your battery and try and boot up. My Dell did this a couple of times. Good luck

 

Yeah I know what you mean. I used to buy cheap suits before with no problems. Bought an expensive one and the button fell off!

 

Happened to a lot of users in this forum, including me..

Take out the battery and try booting on just AC.

If not, try turning on with "Insert" key pressed (worked for me.)

If not, then with all power disconnected remove the CMOS battery for a moment to do a cold reset. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6175375&postcount=3529

 

Hey All ,

Just got my Sony Vaio VPCF1 and honestly I LOVE IT !!!!!! Amazing laptop truly awsome !!!!


Glad to be on the Sony Vaio F owners Lounge

 

What country, which model, what features..?

 

Can you tried to see if your screen have same issue?tried to play any movies with dark background on a dark room. Any morse code issue?

 

Hehe the folowing Info Below


United States SonyStyle Customized

Customization Details

Intel® Core™ i7-820QM processor (1.73GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz
16.4" VAIO Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Blu-ray Disc™ player/burner
Keyboard Backlight
Standard Capacity Battery
Black
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate 64-bit
256GB (256GBx1) Solid State Drive


I LOVE IT !!!!!!

 

Finally, going to receive my UK CTO tomorrow, much delayed thanks to the volcanic ash and general sony logistics lethargy (they only dispatched it from their logistics centre on Friday after it'd been sitting there for a few days,but then I spoke to a nice lady on the phone who sped things up).
I'm only feeling a tad impatient

Overall pretty excited but just a bit worried if the "premium display HD" screen is going to be something other than the promised 100% Adobe RGB matte screen. Is there any quick way of finding out? I've seen something in this thread about profile options.

Second, when(if) I open it up, are there any warranty seals etc on the body that I need to be careful of? I'm just trying to think of a way to get the screen info/part no without any complex electrical diy and voiding the warranty.

cheers.

 

No Issue

 

Yes, just check if it's matte before turning it on.

You could also use a sharp blade & cut a hole, if it bleeds fuchsia, it was a premium screen. Or use a colorimeter.

 

Thanks Joe..all the stuff about screens has thrown common sense out the window!

I'm sure there will be more silly questions in the coming days, please bear with me

 

Look @ the results for the EU Premium in the Sony_F_Series Owners Display Poll, you don't have any reason to worry.

Just create recovery discs out of the box & play with it instead of trying to find bugs.

 

No there are no seals, however don't lose the screws or damage their heads. If you find a bit of yellow cotton tape bridging any plug and socket you need to disconnect, just remove it altogether and clean off any gunk left behind.

 

I 100% agree with what Joe just said. If there is a problem it will hit you in the head Yarraman, it will be obvious; don't go looking for bruises.

(1)Create the discs,
(2)load your software,
(3)play,
(4)and enjoy..

 

can you tried to take a picture of the screen so we can compare it to other users here. Since yours is made in San Diego (US Version), its probably use the same screen. When I received mine at the first, I thought I didnt have any issue...but after I tested it (playing dark scene movie on a dark room) and play with the morse code fix, i clearly see that I have the issue. Some people wont get bothered by morse code sound, but try the morse code fix and see if your F11 sounds quieter. if it does, you do have morse code.