Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

I have managed to remap the multimedia keys to something more useful! I am using the previous/next track buttons for system volume up 'n' down but haven't decided what to do with the play/pause and stop buttons yet.

OK. First you need to download sharpkeys 3.0 from here...

RandyRants: SharpKeys 3.0

This little program writes the changes you make to the regestry and so never needs to be run again unless you wish to alter the keys or return to default. The program appears stable enough but I guess its always safest to back up the regestry or set a restore point before you tinker with any system settings!

Now go ahead and run the program.

Click on the Add button. In the new window, click on Type Key and press the previous track button on the F's keyboard. Go ahead and OK that.

In the right hand window (To key), scroll down and highlight 'Media: Volume Down (E0_2E)' and OK that.

Now we do the same for volume up, so click on the Add button once again.

In the new window, click on Type Key and press the next track button on the F's keyboard. Go ahead and OK that.

In the right hand window (To key), scroll down and highlight 'Media: Volume Up (E0_30)' and OK that.

Now click on the Write to Regesty button and you're done, so go ahead and close Sharpkeys. To see (hear!) the effects, you will need to log off or re-boot the F.

And Thats it. Go and enjoy!

 

One thing that you would want to know is that TRIM will not be supported if you put your SSD's in RAID. TRIM is a command sent by Windows 7 to the SSD. If you put your SSD's in a RAID, the SSD's will be receiving commands from the RAID controller, instead of Windows 7, which does not support TRIM. Now i'm not absolutely sure about this so you may want to do more research. It is possible and quite likely that many RAID controllers now support passing TRIM commands but last I read, they did not.

 

Hi all,

I've been reading through the owners' lounge threads trying to fix my squeaky spacebar, and so far have not had any luck.

I tried taking off the key and blowing canned air around the mechanism. Still squeaky.

I tried taking off the key and sprinkling some pencil graphite around the touch points. Still squeaky.

Can anyone elaborate how to best fix the squeak?

Thanks!

 

Type on it, use your laptop
When the keys "settle" the squeaking will stop.

 

Hah, wow, so that's it? I guess that makes sense. Shame I'm only at home using it a couple hours a day.

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Orange to orange: ATI 4670 vs. NVIDIA GT 330M

What's cool about that Laptop Video Graphics Cards - Benchmark List is that you can select some video cards and benchmarks & apply the "Restrict" filter for a direct side-by-side comparison.

Since it's not possible to post a link to those side-by-side selections because of the way the notebookcheck site works, I made this screen capture a while ago of the same class VAIO_F_GT 330M vs. the ATI 4670 offered on some other laptops in the same class as the F.

Some benchmarks are slightly higher, some lower, note the shader & memory speed in favor of the 330M. The F is not a gaming notebook, it's a powerful & compact DTR with a 16.4" display and some respectable gaming capabilities as mongosango demonstrated repeatedly.



And no, that ATI does not "blow away" that Nvidia across the board. I guess it depends on the games & applications you run.

*****

Vaio_VPCF: No RAID & Multiple SATA HDD's

In Start > Help & Support > search for: RAID > User Guide: RAID > "Some of the features and options discussed in Help and Support (This Guide) are not available for your computer".

"Restart your computer and press the F2 key. Click the Advanced tab, select RAID Configuration" - Sorry but there is no such option in the F's BIOS, no RAID controller.

"...there aren't supposed to be two hard drives in it in the first place" - I have 3 HDD's connected via SATA on my F @ the present: main HDD, HDD in ODD bay & HDD via Power Over eSATA external enclosure. Start > search: Intel Matrix:

Well it may be "easy" to use an online wizard supposed to be better in suggesting updates than Device Manager, Windows Update, Vaio_Update & Intel itself but I'm wary of wizards, especially generic ones.

Going to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) support page > Latest Downloads > Intel Driver Update Utility - Automatically identify and find drivers: Intel did not find any drivers to update on my F. Why should I believe Ma-Config? Did you read the user comments on the page you linked to with BSOD, incompatible drivers in French & other errors reported?

I just tried an other updater wizard reviewed by the site you linked to but downloaded the portable version because no installation needed: Device Doctor Portable (5.1 MB). Well it recommended a SATA controller, keyboard & 2 Bluetooth drivers update but checking with Device Manager > right click > search for update > it reported no update needed. Same results with Windows Update and Vaio_Update 5.

Should I believe Device Doctor & mess up with my F that is working absolutely fine @ the present including my keyboard, SATA HDD's & Bluetooth headphones & mouse?

"...I just wanted all Intel Drivers as up to date as possible because a want to buy a SSD in the near future" - Why not cross that bridge when you get there? The SSD you will get will come with some controller & software that you can update anyway.

*****

Anti Glare Film?

Is $20 reasonable enough? Note that there is no free lunch. You loose brightness, saturation, sharpness & contrast with anti-glare films. See niebyl2002's report about a film (w/ photos) that he cut himself and recommends & my replies on the following page for a link to a precut for the_Vaio's 16.4" size display.

I may get one to protect my display when I work with young kids & the Rosetta Stone learning language program as they have a hard time not touching the screen. Lots of fun especially when we try Italian for laughs. I plan on removing the film for daily use & optimal image viewing.

*****

US Premium Display & Monitor Profiles

I have the same laptop and BestBuy never mentions "Premium" display on their VPCF115FM product page:

Using a colorimeter, I created that Native white point monitor profile along with several others available here but using the native white & native LCD resolution gives me the most accurate colors so far: Vaio_F_Series Monitor Profiles Roundup & US glossy vs. EU Premium Displays.

If you look @ the monitor profile creation report graph below, you can see that the colorimeter read excessive Blue cast output from the US F's 1080p LCD and lowered significantly the curve for that color. The other Red & Green are practically unchanged (RGB settings ). Some people may find that default extra blue shading prettier but for photo editing I need accurate. I don't want over saturated & skewed color representation. I don't want a photo to look great on my monitor but cr@ppy on other people's monitors when viewed on the web or once printed to look completely different from what I was seeing in Photoshop or other image editors...



That display is really sharp & the color representation is fine for my needs if applying a custom monitor profile. The stock OEM monitor color profile & settings are skewed. For scaling up the OS representation & to get sharper text, check this post.

This said, if we do get the brand & model number info for the Premium matte 1080p LCD which is not offered by_Sony for the F in the North American market @ the present, I may swap the display after the 1 year warranty is over & ebay the US glossy to recoup some of the upgrade cost or simply keep it as a spare part.

******

F Blowing Up a Fuse?

I was messing around my F & connecting a ton of stuff & got that sound just before getting a BSOD. I think it was a fuse to protect the motherboard. I could be your TV that sent some strong static burst to the F. Check into your > Start > search: Event Viewer. There may be some info in there about the event.

 

Stt!.....Joe don't want to dream in this forum (especially for any speculation for the next F refresh..Shush!)

Sony teases VAIO Ultra Mobile, Clippy chuffed (Update: new VAIO P)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/28/sony-teases-vaio-ultra-mobile-clippy-chuffed/

SONY seems to be preparing the summer updates...this one specifically for the P

PS lease report if you see anything different with your newly ordered F since you seems to be the only guy here that have multiple F's on hand...but do it silently or else...you guess it, Joe will hunt you down!

 

I'm not the moderator & don't mind speculative posts as long as they don't overwhelm the thread. Heck, there was tens of thousands of speculative posts on the web before the most recent Macbook_Pro update.

I already have my F since 3 months & waiting an other 2 or more for an hypothetical better one was not an option for me. I prefer to focus on making the current F more enjoyable & help troubleshooting currently own F's if I can.

What I don't understand is not getting comments on a benchmark post showing the F running 30c cooler than the new Macbook's for example: VAIO_F_Series Fan Whistling a Cool Tune vs New Macbook Pro 17" and seeing hundreds of whistling or speculative refresh posts...

 

Let it wear out. It will become quiet.

 

ATI is faster in OpenGL, which means better CAD and StudioMax rendering; and Nvidia doesn't even HAVE mirroring, which means no overlay monitoring. With ATI cards you can have VirtualDub on one screen with the second monitor showing only the video that's IN the Vdub window. That capababilityis SO sadly missed since I moved from the Q9450 to the F11 for editing work. Also ATI offered HDMI audio LONG before Nvidia added that.

2D is just screen draw, not for project rendering in any way, and Windows now uses 3D graphics anyway.

So ATI is the same speed in 3D, much faster in OpenGL, and has an important feature for editing that is missing from ALL Nvidia cards since the 6600/6800 (which HAD mirroring..)

 

Adrenaline-fired complainers are much more noisy than happy melatonin-relaxed users.

 

Sounds good. Thanks.

 

Just like my ex girlfriend.

@ abw1987: That's it? No other comments about your F? Like or not, pluses & minuses?

 

In terms of gaming, the 4670 is the better card, hands down - there is no question (unless you overclock the 330m, then the lines get a bit fuzzy. Especially with the memory overclocks. IIRC, the memory on the 330m in the F is higher quality than the reference card so you can really go nuts with the clocks on it).

The 330m @ stock clocks is more on-par with the underclocked 4650 in the FW.

 

OK, if for the same price one could choose between 2 F's with NVIDIA GT 330M vs. ATI HD 4670, I would choose the later.

But @ the present if choosing between the F w/ 330M vs. brand X w/ 4670, I would & did choose the VPCF.

"...In terms of gaming, the 4670 is the better card, hands down - there is no question" - Not so fast mango. I used again the Laptop Video Graphics Cards - Benchmark List and made some screen captures.









Don't miss the red underlined note in image #2: a notebook w/ 4670 but slower CPU, memory etc may give slower FPS than the F w/ the 330M. And this is not taking in account the new Nvidia video drivers downloadable here.

And again: no, that ATI does not "blow away" that Nvidia across the board.

 

Right, but it DOES perform better (most of the games you pointed out were CPU-heavy games. RTS games, simulation games, etc. Crysis is optimized for nvidia GPUs so it doesn't really provide an arbitrary baseline comparison). Whatever. The point is, is that the 4670 is the better card. But with the F at $1000 and the Asus G73JH at ~$1500 (with a 5870!!!), there's really no reason to get a 4670.

The only thing I regret about buying the F is the lack of dx11 support . Oh well.... Time to save up for a 5970

 

Yep, the F is not a gamer's laptop & neither does it have a flashy & shiny look but all is good as coincidentally, I'm not a gamer myself.

The Asus_G73JH was not on the market yet when I got the F but the specs were & I ruled it out because:
- Bigger: 16.33"x12.59"x1.8" vs. 15.3" x 10.4" x 1.22-1.62".
- Heavier: +1.6 lbs
- Shorter battery life
- Glossier screen
- Missing some ports & Expresscard 34
- More expensive
- Limited folding back LCD angle
- Not as slick & pretty for my taste. Did not like the stealth bomber look.

 

The July refresh will have DX11.

ATI cards just have a prettier picture, sharper, more coherent somehow. And hardware decoding is better quality, smoother, particularly with deinterlacing. And so far ATI is winning the heat war, their cards are cooler for given performance. (Desktop Fermis are apparently ridiculously hot!) Oh and Crossfire scales better than SLI. Do crossfired cards support two or more monitors yet? SLI always could do so, one of the scarce Nvidia advantages.

And ATI has a slightly better production yield.


Ironic, I bought the F11 despite it having fundamental shortcomings regarding the utility of the video card, which can't be "got around." Yet a fellow in this forum considers not buying this (mostly) superb multimedia system because the "speakers are tinny."

 

I wouldn't count on it though. Nvidia haven't even gotten their midrange desktop gpus out (it's almost May!) and the gtx480/470 are having issues with low yield. Unless the 4xx notebook chips are going to be 3xx rebrands, I'm not too sure that we'll be seeing a gpu refresh this summer for the F11.

I'm really disappointed that sony didn't choose to go the ati route on this one, especially with the low power draw and high performance of the 57xx/58xx models.

But whatever. We'll know what ends up being in the refresh later this year. I'm just happy that I've been able to get a nice performance boost out of overclocking in games (Bring it on, Crysis 2!)

 

Something went wrong with my power management.
When it's on battery, no matter what plan I choose, the CPU never passes 900 mhz. I've tried to create a custom plan with everything at 100%, but it's still the same.

Any ideas?

 

Yes.

It's normal & by design:

Intel Core i7-720QM Processor product page:"Max Turbo Frequency 2.8 GHz ...refers to the maximum single-core frequency that can be achieved with Intel Turbo Boost Technology..."

i7-720QM:
Max Turbo Boost Frequency
4 Core: 1.73 GHz
3 Core: 1.73 GHz
2 Core: 2.40 GHz
1 Core: 2.80 GHz
Core Frequency: 1.60 GHz with DDR3-1333
LFM* Frequency: 0.933 GHz (same as 933 mHz)
Shared L3 Cache: 6MB

*LFM: Lowest Frequency Mode: the power saving CPU clocking mode used by the Vaio_VPCF11 when running on battery which has a power output too low (54W) to be able to feed an F working @ full speed which needs up to 100W + 10% according to_Sony's power requirement specs. That's why the VAIO_VPCF11 comes with a 120W A/C power adapter.

Note that since it has 4 cores: 0.933 GHz x 4.



A graphical example of how Core i7 Mobile Turbo Boost works from hothardware.com's Intel Core i7 Mobile CPU (Clarksfield) Review.

Read more about it here: VAIO_F CPU Throttling "Issue"?

*****

Check: post by FredFrenzy, HP_Gaming Staff replying to this question on the official HP_ENVY forums: "... the processor gets locked at low frequency mode (x7) and all we get is 930MHz (on battery). This is unnaceptable. Has this been discussed?"

HP_staff reply: "This is correct and as designed - turbo mode is disabled. We do this on many of our notebooks. Not only turbo, but the maximum speed are disabled while on battery. The maximum speed is not possible on battery power, the battery is 52 watts only (and the system needs ~110 watts for full performance)".

 

Isn't it quite feasible that the F can use ATI? Isn't it possible to just take the motherboard from the E series but still offer quad cores? Both designs are extraordinarily similar with very minor discrepancies in port locations and features.

Also, if they do ship the refreshed F11's with better screens (not necessarily the matte version) what are the chances first version F11 owners can catch a break and get it replaced with a new one? Not for free of course but at a discounted rate.

 

I bought my' F' from Best Buy in the USA in late March, have been on vacation
and haven't yet opened it. Is there a way to tell from serial numbers on the outside of the box what the build date is (is it an early or late build)?
Or, should I 'no worries' it and open it now and enjoy!
Thanks!

Mitch
ps. I've read through multiple pages on this thread

 

Is there any way to turn down (or off) the annoying power LED on VAIO F11?

 

That's all you have to say about your F?

 

Blowing up a fuse? That doesn't sound reassuring

You seem awfully calm about it though.

Anyway, after some time on this forum, when anything weird happens I immediately check event viewer. Nothing there though, nothing at all. I didn't get a BSOD though.

Anyway, everything is running smoothly... for now.

 

I had the F completely apart, (everything was clogged by cat hair,) and have a couple of observations.

It has a typical, good, Foxconn motherboard with the same construction design as the Foxconn motherboard used in current Macbooks. Everything is Foxconn except the right-side USB/Audio card (Rev B in my unit) which is Sony-made, with its own construction methods., The MB is so small I could imagine it being the same as in another line, CW for instance. The GPU is very tightly interwoven with other electronics, so THIS board couldn't carry an ATI GPU. But a run modification of the motherboard for another model MB could fit in the F1 case....

No Sony won't offer any deals on the screen, short of a class-action lawsuit, and those are only approved if there is a high breakdown rate outside warranty, or danger to the customer, or there is a known problem being hidden by Sony corp. The issue with the poor screens on Macbooks a couple of years ago falls under a couple of these. The F11 screen is not being misrepresented as something it's not..

 

Actualy i do so far...i just turned it on for the 1st time and its annoying as hell.

 

Well, if the user connects a malfunctioning or out of specs external device to the F, would you rather have a breaker cut the problem off or fry the motherboard?

 

As always, instead of joining the forum with a compliant, tell us what you LIKE about the F11 and tell us the specs.

You can take off the cover above the keyboard and put a resistor in series with the LED, that's all. But the LED being "too bright" is a frankly dumb thing to be the dominant issue for you when trying a brand new powerful system - that's worse than "tinny speakers.

 

I've been lurking in this thread for awhile now and made a few post. On Wednesday I took the plunge and bought the VPC-F11LFX/B. So far, all is good. My first step was to replace the 500 gig (5400 rpm) drive with an Intel SSD G2 160 gig. Then I did a fresh install with Ultimate. Man this machine smokes! It's quieter than my old Pavilion DV6000T Laptop. The screen is ok to once I figured out how to turn the auto bright adjust off. Next step is to move up from 4 to 8 gig ram. I did some rendering with Adobe Premiere and man what a difference. I thought my old T9300 cpu was quick. One negative is there's only 3 usb ports, but that's really no show stopper. The third usb (eSata) is a bit difficult to plug a usb device into. To sum it up, NO REGRETS. This for all who are on the brink of buying.

 

You find it annoying when typing or when looking at it from the side?

If when working, cheap, low tech & fast fix: sticker or piece of black electrical tape.

On the side? Happy face sticker.

There is an other way but I'll wait for some feedback contribution.

******

Additional eSATA/USB two-in-one Port

@jjthenovice: "One negative is there's only 3 usb ports... The third usb (eSata) is a bit difficult to plug a usb device into" - No if you plug the USB connector with the USB symbol facing up. BTW you can get a cheap Expresscard 34 to add an extra USB port. I got one on Fleabay that duplicates the VPCF's eSATA/USB two-in-one port for $13 including shipping worldwide by searching for: expresscard 34 esata usb & it works with my Power Over eSATA external HDD enclosure. It can also work as eSATA only or as a regular USB 2.0 port (max power output: 5v @ 500mA). It was necessary to install the included driver as w/o the F recognize the drive @ the slow IDE speed only.

Now it does not show in the Intel Matrix but in: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Devices and Printers as a SCSI Disk Drive:



The only caveat: be careful not to disconnect it by accident as the card does not lock securely in the F, it's just a pressure eject thing like the SD card reader but may freeze the computer or corrupt data if the external HDD is reading or writing & not properly stopped & ejected. I found that out by first installing the card & then when plugging in the eSATA/USB two-in-one cable, the card ejected & froze the F.

Now I plug first the cable in the card > then card in the F > let the F recognize the card > then connect the cable in the external HDD.



If you want to plug additional USB devices that consumes only low power that together won't require more than 500mA then you can get Expresscards 34 with 2 or 3 USB ports or simply use a USB hub, powered or not.

Thanks for the feedback about your F!

*****

Edit: Expresscard Benchmark

Now what's interesting is that the average read speed is twice as fast for the exact same HDD enclosure connected to the Vaio_VPCF when comparing connecting via eSATA/USB two-in-one Expresscard 34 vs. USB 2.0 port & cable:

 

I find USB connectors are a tight fit in the power-over-Sata socket also. In fact a couple of devices won't go in at all. (yes, they're oriented correctly..)

 

Yeah definitely the first option!

 

Great tip about adding a fourth usb port, thanks. As for the symbol facing up, I'm aware of that (this isn't my first rodeo ) and it's still a difficult fit. The other two are fine. Again, great tip about adding fourth usb....
Regards

jj

 

Uh...calling a single-lamp CCFL screen "Premium" wasn't at all misleading given the manifold Sony F ads out in English across the globe about "Premium'' screens being RGB LED, right? Including at the major tech fair which launched the F, held right in the U.S., if memory serves correctly.

What Sony will rely on is its site disclaimers all over the world -- the ones that say they don't guarantee a word they say.

Relax, MelodyMaster and Joe Bleau. No problem. No need to get all worked up. I'm not doing any more posting for y'all on the real deal on screens. It's all there under my name in the search function, anyway.

Au revoir, Tscheuss, etc.

 

I recently upgraded my VPCF115FM with Intel X-25m ver.G2 80GB. So while reading this huge thread I saw that some F users swap BD for HDD caddy. Then I thought I'm not using my BD drive at all, I got 500GB original drive, so why not use it. I found SATA 12.7mm caddy on the ebay sent from HK.

The whole caddy is made out of aluminium. Every single necessary hole is pre-drilled and the most important part front panel is swappable. Everything is perfect fit. No wiggling no forcing. Once you're done laptop looks still OEM.

See pics below







and caddy cost me less than $30 shipped.

 

Later this year?More likely later this few months for the refresh lol.

Agreed, some of the reason why I like ATI card better. Its not all about raw performance for me and having a DX11 capable card is a huge plus. DX10 has been there for a long time, with DX11 capable cards, I know I can keep this computers for several years, maybe around 5 years and its still can run programs that is created at that time just fine.

+1

 

That's great! Why not provide a link to your HDD caddy so I may add it to the How-to HDD in ODD bay post?

So I saved $15 by drilling the holes but still did not install the OEM bezel which I'm not sure I will do as it's great for cooling as it is. OTOH yours looks better.

Did you try a HD Tune transfer speed benchmark with it? Is there a HDD activity LED? What is the HDD's temperature since the OEM ODD bezel does not have breathing holes?

 

Hello Friends,

All is well in Vaio Land.

I have a small request and I hope it is not too cheesy to ask. I just formatted my Vaio and did a clean install of Windows 7 x64 Ultimate to get rid of excess and trim down for speed. Well, I forgot to save my Vaio themes. The ones where you right click your desktop and select personalize. Well, if somebody wouldn't mind, could you please zip theme up and post them so I could I could download them, please? Or, private message me where they are? I really liked them as I thought they looked real tasty.

Thanks.

E

 

Its on the recovery partition, if you install SONY system maintenance, you can choose to install SONY theme from there.

SONY japan sell the F with 100% adobe RGB with a bunch of option that is un-avaliable for US, such as a TV turner, they have option for Blu-Ray writer too. You can choose Core i3 330m to Core i7-820QM. The CTO start at around US$1126, so with our spec it probably came at around $1500 and you have the Adobe RGB screen. The price different in screen cost is about $150-$200 between adobe screen and US lousy screen if my calculation is not wrong.

 

This is the one I got:

New Laptop 12.7mm SATA TO SATA 2ND HDD HARD DRIVE caddy - eBay (item 260584688602 end time Apr-14-10 20:00:43 PDT)

As far as second drive it is original Samsung 500GB 5400rpm, after HD Tune test temp was showing 31C, avg read at 74MB/s access time at 10ms. SSD read was at 152MB/s and access time at 0.2ms.

For some reason couldn't perform write test, it said that I got partition and bla, bla, bla.

No there is no HDD LED. HDD is pretty cold, after copying over 210GB of data.

 

Premium = 1920 X 1080, and includes the attributes of the GT330 GPU.

 

Good that you report & link to your HDD caddy after winning the item.

Searching Fleabay with this returns identical caddy's (note the "fenvi" brand): 12.7mm SATA TO SATA caddy as I mentioned in the How-to HDD in ODD bay post. Is that how you found it?

It's not necessary but could you post a photo of the face of the caddy where the bezel mounts? Are the slots identical to the OEM ODD? Looking @ the photos of your caddy in the Fleabay page and @ your photo here, I cannot see holes in the bottom to secure with screws the HDD in the caddy. Is the photo in error?



Did you manage to erase the hidden recovery partition on the OEM HDD? The HDD needs to be blank to be able to benchmark Write speed with HD Tune but Read gives a good idea anyway.

*****

Added some HDD via eSATA/USB two-in-one Expresscard 34 benchmarks here. Fast!

 

You can get Windows 7 themes, including the installed defaults, direct from Microsoft Personalization Gallery - Windows 7 themes, wallpapers, and gadgets - Microsoft Windows

Also enter "themes" in the program search bar and be amazed. (Just click on the picture of the desired theme and it will install automatically to the "personalize" dialogue.)

Themes can also be found via the "gadgets" dialogue.

Also read this Windows 7 Hidden Themes Unlock Unhide/Reveal Regional Countries Themes

Anyway, a Win7 install INCLUDES the themes...

(Edit) Ooh, two new Cats themes!

 

For sure -just unzip to windows\resources

I would highly recommend APPOWS or GAIA09 by neiio. Great theme. There are more non-stock themes here: http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/windows7/visualstyle/#order=9.

I'll be making my own theme as well, with a public release ( shameless plug)

 

Your post gave me idea, yes, the credit is yours but I think your caddy is plastic. I searched ebay for over a week with a lot of questions asked to sellers. Anyway once you open my item that I won, click on the right side on VIEW MORE ITEMS FROM THE SELLER and you find many more like this. He got them for $18 plus shipping like $6.

The front panel has exactly the same holes like OEM BD drive, so the front bezel fit new caddy perfectly. No modification needed at all. The railings from bd drive also have a perfect fit on the new caddy. When you assemble everything, new drive will slide in without using any force. No problems with the screws that hold the drive in place. The hdd itself is secured with tiny flat piece of snap in plastic.

To answer your question HDD caddy is identical to ODD drive. All you need is one tiny screwdriver to swap it. I'll try to take couple more pics without bezel this weekend.



No I did not deleted the recovery partition. If I ever sell my laptop I will sell it with original hdd and bd drive.

 

That's great. I updated the How to install a secondary hard drive in the optical drive bay of a VAIO_VPCF Series with a quote & cropped photo with credit to you & link to your report if that's OK with you.

As you can see in the article, the one I got is not all plastic & no force was needed to install it. I don't think that the plastic flap is enough to secure the HDD as my F gets bumped around when in the back of a 4x4 on bumpy dirt roads here in Costa Rica. It takes just a few minutes to drill @ least one hole to secure it firmly with at least 1 screw.

Maybe you could edit your original caddy report here about "Every single necessary hole is pre-drilled..." as actually the 2 holes for the rear bracket & the 2 holes for the side rail are pre-drilled but the ones to secure the HDD are still missing. Not a big deal but just to be more accurate about the DIY project.

Anyway, the ability to use the OEM ODD bezel w/o modification is a big plus for the "fenvi" branded 12.7mm caddy.

"...I did not deleted the recovery partition. If I ever sell my laptop I will sell it with original hdd and bd drive" - No need to waste space w/ that partition, when selling the F or sending it for repair under warranty, just put back the OEM drive & run the recovery discs and they will re-create the partition & everything else exactly like the factory state. I tested them with a new blank HDD as described here.



I could not do delete the protected hidden recovery partition with the limited Windows 7 Disk Management utility when said OEM HDD was in my external HDD enclosure.

I used the Diskpart CMD (included in Windows 7) & the "delete volume override" command. See "Method Two" in this How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7 tutorial. With the "list volume" operator you can see exactly what is on the drive.

Edit: I just noticed that your rear bracket is upside-down in this photo!



It should be in this position:



This is a photo of the ODD in the OEM state before I removed the rear bracket:



This is important for securing the caddy to the F body but more importantly it may short some circuits on the motherboard or do other damage if mounted in the wrong position!

No wonder you did not need to do any wiggling when inserting the caddy in the F as this is the part that was mildly difficult to align. One of the underside F body screw goes through that bracket hole to secure the caddy.

 

Just a quick update. I received the memory today (took 3 days for shipping to Colorado). It is the exact same, except for week of manufacture (week 12 versus week 5). Works great!

Gary

 

How about this, I will take the caddy out this weekend and take more detailed pictures. I'm 110% sure that I put everything in correct order however I've been wrong before. I'll take pics from step one and feel free to use them in your manual (use those pics as yours I totally don't mind).

On the pic below you'll see a small/tiny piece of paper placed between drive and plastic that holds the drive that's why my drive doesn't wobble.



BTW great manual and thanks for spending time developing it.

Lame question: How to insert full size picture in this thread not just a thumbnail??

EDIT: Actually you might be right, I'll double check rear bracket this weekend. Funny 'cause caddy went inside pretty smoothly.