Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Cool. Have you been able to try out any applications with the new drivers (games, etc?) to see if there is a performance boost?

 

Not until tomorrow. I'll post some results, I generally use FRAPS to do some quick benchmarking.

 

Yep, and also run some video card stability tests before posting the links?

In case somebody missed it, from a previous post:

This reply by ManuelG (NVIDIA Technical Support):

 

WOW! I have yet to run geekbench myself, but my Sony is a mess right now (I'm reinstalling OSes on it and stuff).

I had OS X up and running too, but haven't yet installed the correct drivers for the 330m, stuff like that..

Anyway, GeekBench is multiplatform. I was cross shopping the F series with a 15" MacBook Pro and the Envy 15.

 

6700?? Wow, that's quite impressive. The MBP 15" with the high-end 3.06ghz processor gets about 4000-4500 points in comparison.

 

Let me revise that it hit 6700 in 8 tries. For the most part it was averaging in the high 6400 range. I believe Roweraay also hit past the 6500 mark.

What I don't know is if increases in the hundreds are slight or unnoticeable?
EDIT: I'm only asking this because the results do range in the hundreds. The lowest I got from 64bit testing was around 6300+. Same thing with Cinebench R10. The differences were +/- hundreds

 

I'm the one who had this same problem, back when you first posted it, and I finally got it fixed. However, I'm not sure if you'll be able to use the same fix or not. I had upgraded to WinDVD 10 pro, in order to get better (louder) sound when playing BluRay disks and upscaling of DVD to high res. It was after I upgraded that I had the unselectable region problem.

I fixed it (with help from Corel tech support) by uninstalling the software, disabling firewall and antivirus software using selective start-up (control panel/administrative tools/system configuration--once there, disable firewall and anti-virus entries in both the services and start-up tabs), then reinstalling WinDVD. Once I did this, I could select the region. (make sure you go back to system configuration and re-enable the stuff you disabled)

The reason I say I'm not sure if you can use the same fix or not is that I'm assuming you're using the original version of WinDVD that came installed from the factory. So doing an uninstall and clean install aren't so straightforward. I did notice posts about restoring WinDVD after a clean install on the F, so that might worth a try. Hope this helps.

 

That's about the only value of that geekbench thing, to compare with Macs.

Their trial version is 32-bit & our F's are 64-bit so the results are skewed. Same F, geekbench 32 vs 64-bit results: VAIO_F Geekbench Result Benchmarks vs. Macbook_Pro 17"

 

I have the 720QM and 4gb of ram.

Geekbench:
64-bit gave me 5662 points
32-bit gave me 4992 points

I have avast/skype running in the background.

 

I'm having a very annoying problem with my keyboard. Intermittently as I'm typing, the cursor will jump randomly to a different location on the screen so what I'm currently typing will be inserted into an earlier portion of the text. I have to stop, go back to the spot that I just messed up, fix it, go back to my current location and start again. While I was typing this post it happened three times.

I think it's happening because I'm brushing the touch pad with my palm at the base of my thumb, but I can't seem to stop it from happening.

Wait, I might have just figured out how to stop it. If I lean both hands slightly outward so the part of my palms that tend to brush the keypad don't come close to it when I type, it stops happening. Anyone else have any suggestions--ie any settings for the keypad to make the outside areas less sensitive? I think I can live with the problem now that I've just figured out a way to avoid it--but I'll have to see if long term it strains my hands keeping them in that position. I'm curious if anyone else has had this problem.

 

What are you using to get OSX working? Thanks.

 

I haven't had a problem with it, but if it's really bugging you, you can go to control panel > mouse > tapping, and check "invalidates tapping in corder" and/or tap off while typing. You can also go into the Vaio control center and turn off the pad entirely under keyboard and mouse > pointing device > uncheck "enable" and hit apply (you probably don't want to do this unless you have another mouse plugged in )

 

@mangosango

I'm sure you've played Battlefield Bad Company. Is it worth getting?
I played the demo on PS3 and thought that the snide dialogue was great! and i'd buy it just for that.
I just don't know if it goes downhill from there after the demo.

 

Not tried yet but sounds promising:

Read the rest here: Automatically disable your touchpad while you type with TouchFreeze

Care to try & report?

 

I've only played Bad Company 2 for the PC (although I assume they're similar?). I went and bought a Wii instead of getting a 360 or the PS3 . I think bad company 2 is worth it just for the multiplayer. IMHO it's the best multiplayer fps out there by far, although the single player gameplay is mediocre compared to say, modern warfare 2. I feel that the Battlefield series was always geared towards multiplayer though, and that the single player was only there for you to get used to the game so that you could play it with others. It's an entertaining game either way though.

On a side note - the sounds are just amazing (I agree, the snide remarks are great, and I love how the soldiers shout expletives in multiplayer too. The sound engineering in this game is just stellar).

 

Eh, that's not fair, I also have 720QM but w/ 6gb memory, not Skype nor anti-virus running & got only 6 points more w/ the 64-bit version: 5668.

 

Forgive me for asking, and I DO know how to do a search - and have done so both in this thread and on the Net in general... HOW does one overclock the GT330M in the F11? neither RivaTuner nor ATITool work, nor can overclocking be enabled in the Nvidia control panel.

Thanks ..

 

Here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5749575#post5749575
and here (settings/clocks I am using): http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=454640&page=3

Hope this helps

 

How about looking for Overclocking the GPU in the Unification Post #2?

 

Yah, you see that post didn't have "GPU Overclock" nor "overclocking" nor "Coolbits" nor "RivaTuner" nor "ATItool" which are the five search terms I used. "Overclock" is too general.

Thanks again...

 

Because I didn't think to narrow down to the first page of the second part of a thread about a particular machine when I had used a bunch of search terms that didn't find what I wanted on the whole worldwide Net. Again the correct Key words for searches are important. I had looked for over half an hour before asking here.

Mangosango gave an answer, not an attitude.

Try yourself googling "Overclocking the GT330"

 

If anyone's sitting around, could you tell me 3 things. I don't have a Windows install to know this for sure (lol). Will need someone with a US Vaio F to tell me:

1. What Atheros wifi chip we have (Someone said AR287, but that brings NOTHING UP).

2. What marvel ethernet chip we have.

Thanks ^_^

 

I have it as Atheros A9287 and Marvel Yukon 88E8057 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet

 

Yup no doubt. Hopefully they will call me Monday and give me some good news.

Thanks for the rep! That's my Webster, a purebred 7 year old Miniature Schnauzer, he's my little brother

 

THANKS a LOT!!!

 

It's called "hazard" (see leohazard.com)

On the bootloader you have to enter in cpus=8 busratio=12
(busratio=20 works too, haven't really toyed with that)

More details here:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=211114

The good:
It loads, fast. Needs the bootloader though
Everything runs, if you install the nvidia crap then some GPU stuff works

Bad:
No wifi, no ethernet, but bluetooth works (huh?)
The screen res is locked at 1280x1024. I can't quite figure that out yet
Unless you chose the right one in the installer, the keyboard/trackpad won't work (PS2 driver required).

In short, don't do it unless you really know what you're doing. I think the best way to attack this is to shrink your Win7 partition, add a new partition for OS X, and then convert your table to GUID.

If you create a GUID table inside OS X and format a partition for Windows (FAT, you can convert it to NTFS in the windows installer), that's fine but requires a retail or OEM windows 7 disk. It so won't work with the vaio restore disks

Anyway, the easy part should be the basics (getting it to boot, getting the video card to work right once I find the right drivers, and maaybe the wifi). The hard part is finding drivers for ethernet and maybe wifi. Maybe.

Yea though. I'm working on it! 0.12% CPU usage at idle is pretty sweet IMHO.

 

BTW, random thought here. It deserved another post:

When did sony get rid of the startup chime? Keep in mind, the last time I owned a Vaio it was the first model to come out (PCV-70 lol)

BTW: Bad news. The Atheros chipset you mentioned, has no OS X drivers. Period. And that's nothing new, the solution is to take the machine apart and stick a different wifi card in.

Oook. I'm so not doing that lol

 

I love this full hd screen, but i think that work a lot with it (keeping the full hd resolution and 100% characters dimension) could be tiring for the eyes and the mind.
for example, yesterday i tried to work a little bit with Illustrator, but i think everythihg is a little bit too small...i tried to set the characters on 125% and it's a little bit better.
not a big deal...but i think that surfing the web with full hd is not the best...everything is really small. i tried to set a bigger character on chrome, but it works just on google
do you have any suggestion? i don't mean to set a lower resolution, because everything doesn't look sharp and on focus

 

If you hold down the CTRL key while scrolling up with the mouse pad, your webpages and word documents will increase in size, that may help...

 

Hi all,

I've just gotten myself an I5 version from PCWorld (I'm in Ireland). I've dual-installed Linux Mint on it, but in both Mint and Windows the battery level will only go up to 79% and then it stops charging. Have I a bad battery ? Estimated life in both is only 1.5 hours with brightness turned down and wireless off :-( With full brightness on I can literally watch it drop 1% about every minute if not faster.

Also, I see that the European edition is meant to have a matte screen as opposed to the glossy, but, er, how can I tell which I have for sure ?

Mine seems quite reflective and when the laptop is turned off there's about 60% black in the centre and the remaining 20% top and 20% bottom is basically white reflection. I've tried applying the matte calibration file but things turn pink, while the US one looks better, but still not as good as default.

Oh, and the fan hardly ever seems to turn off, very annoying.

Thanks,
Hoppity.

 

HoppityBob : Only the i7 version (the X5E) has the Matte (premium) screen. The i3/i5 version has the lower quality Gloss (reflective) screen on it.

Quite annoying really as I would have preferred the i5 with the premium screen.

 

When in Windows, check VAIO Control Center>Power Management>Battery. I believe Sony ships the F11 with the "Enable Battery Care Function" checked as default. You can uncheck the box and the battery will charge to 100%. I personally have left this option checked with the 50% option selected as I mostly have the laptop plugged into the Power Supply. See Advanced Settings button. Sony has included in the Aptio BIOS their own power management subroutines (which we do not have access to). It is possible that when you set this feature it changes values in the BIOS. That would explain why you see 80% in Linux as well. I run VMWare with a Linux guest machine so I cannot test to confirm.

As far as the fan - you are going to have to live with it. The i7 CPU does much more than just have 4 CPU cores. It is also the memory controller and 2 PCI Express bus controllers which may be used as the data path to the GT330M/GT310M graphics chip. It does alot and has to be cooled. Folks have complained about the variable pitched noise - not the air rushing sound - that the fan produces. Sony has admitted the problem - I have a tech scheduled to come to the house to have the fan replaced. Call Sony tech support to get it replaced if you are hearing the variable pitched sound. Good luck!

 

For those interested, the 196.86 drivers allow the option to use NVidia fixed-aspect ratio scaling.

Also, I'm able to overclock with the 196.86 drivers and the NVidia System Tools. Overclocking is available from directly in the NVidia Control Panel.

Nvidia System Tools: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.05.html

 

To no end, why have u put me of the f11 mate, i dont know if there are i3 or i5 versions of the f11, but i thought the i7 was the best as its fast, and will last me alot of time. I would use the i7 machines for editing, downloading, playing games and many other things. But wat u have sed is kinda of putting me off the machine with all the complaints towards it.

Melody which version have u got. Also how much is the battery life on your machines

 

@omaroo

I am not trying to discourage you. Just merely recommending that you be mindful in all aspects it will bring as you say that you are out in the country and not near a store to see the F11 in person to help you decide on your purchase.

Look at it this way. I was thrilled that I was getting a quad core notebook for the price Sony USA was offering. It had outstanding specs on paper but concerns cropped up during use and a lot of them have been scattered throughout this thread by many people. Some are very real issues while others are perceived. Don't you want to know about it?

People come to this thread to find out user opinions so they can make an empowered purchasing decision. There are others who can't afford to make a wrong decision because certain stores where the F11 is available do not offer a return policy. I confess that I come here as well to shoot the breeze because I enjoy talking to the people in this thread.

The decision is yours ultimately and it would be great that once you get it that you will be satisfied with your notebook.

There are i3, i5, and i7 versions of the F11. For some reason, the UK Sonystyle site does not offer (temporarily?) the i7-820QM which is the fastest CPU currently for the F11.

At the very least, if you do get the UK premium model, you will have the matte screen which is better than the premium screen we get in America and Canada.

 

i looked at the i3 and i5 versions and i dont think they are as gd as i7. If i do go ahead and purchase the f11 is the i7 720 still super fast like than 820. Mate ive seen the problems people have mentioned with the fan noise but isnt that normal with the quad core, also with some whistling sound. Thing is im not sure what major problems there are with this laptop which can put me off. Maybe the speakers or it overheating or anything else.

I have spoken to the place where i might get it from, they sed if it is a major problem they will repair it or give me a new one. Im not buying mine from a shop or from sony its from a trade company who supply laptops to retailers.

 

@omaroo

Yes the i7-720Qm is still very fast.

There have not been any major problems. The screen and that morse code noise have been the real culprits since then. But the morse code issue has a fix and the newer units as far as I know don't have it. Mind you, there are January units that did not have this morse code noise.

MelodyMaster and I had defective screens for our first units. There was severe light-bleed. These are the North America version of the premium screens. The non defective ones are really good screens but have a narrow vertical viewing angle. To live with it is a personal choice.
The EU matte screens seem to be much more forgiving in that regard.

My fan will be replaced by an onsite Sony technician because of a high pitched intermittent noise it is creating.

EDIT: I have put the F11 at capacity already maxing out cpu and ram. It does not overheat.

 

I'm not sure about others, but this laptop hasn't overheated yet on me. I'm using an overclocked gpu with the i7 720QM and recording/encoding FRAPS videos for 5+ hours at a time and it never gets uncomfortable hot (the only place that builds up heat is on the mid/upper-left side of the computer, where the exhaust fan is located). The only time I recall thinking the computer was getting hot was when I first got the BFBC2 beta and I literally played it for 10 hours straight . If anything, the F11 runs quite cool for a quad-core laptop.

As for the speakers, they are pretty bad, but the distortion can be fixed by turning off the "sound effects" in the speaker properties. Since it's a desktop replacement, it wouldn't be a big hassle to connect it to some external speakers, or to use headphones (which is what I do).

 

isnt the EU screen supposed to be really gd, thats the thing i herd form one person the speakers when on max watching movies is really gd but music seems distorted, is that correct "mango". I really expected sony to improve the speakers for the price but oh well

 

Yeah, I kind of wish the speakers were better as well. A friend has the c2d HP dv7 and the speakers on that are great. But the distortion is caused by the sound driver's EQ settings. If you turn that off, there is much less distortion.

 

oh ok, if only sony could fix this problem, one question how much of the difference is the battery life on the 6gb and 8gb versions

 

@mangosango,

+1 but gotta spread it around to others.
Thanks for the tip. I suppose I should make the jump to online multiplayer..I've always wanted to try that but just never had enough time for it. Besides I already get enough flak from my girlfriend for even owning a PS3.

I think it's great that you get to play all these games...sigh

 

Didn't you already ask this question before? The answer was nominal or no difference.

 

You know what? Where in the the world is Eagle17????
He was the one who started this thread in the first place (I think...)

 

but melody was saying that the battery life would be different if there was more memory

 

PLEASE take some time to spell right. I know it's the web but please man
good not gd
heard not herd
Please not plz
and then there are apostrophe's

search the previous thread

 

Thanks for the tip, when my F11 gets back from repair i will give it a go...

 

It's a CTO but unlike most CTO systems mine was not ordered through SonyStyle since it had to bypass the limitations on obtaining a GT330 and HD screen in Canada, so I never got a printout of the system, anywhere, even on the invoice. (Which surprises me in retrospect, but I DID get what I wanted and paid for)

VPCF119GS, built in China Feb 19, 2010. Rev 2 (first refresh)

Gunmetal black.
i7-720
4 Gigs DDR3-1333
256 Gig Toshiba SSD
GT330M
1920 X 1080 US Glossy HD display
lighted keyboard
Bluray writer
Windows 7 Pro
Fresh Start
Adobe Premiere CS4 (and all its utilities)
VGPCCP4/L Backpack (on backorder)

The total was $2114 after tax

I have to say I see NO need to remove any software, everything in there is useful or needed. And since I bought this as a Premiere editor and out-of-town gamer I'm not about to install Linux..

I continue to be overwhelmingly pleased with this system, it's a diversion actually from some rather tough life-altering events I'm going through at home. (I'll say no more about that.)

That fan is utterly silent, you can hear the wind rushing once the fan ramps up, but no buzzing, clicking, morse code, nor whining.

The battery lasted 3 hours 15 minutes yesterday before the system went into forced hibernation, while I was using it on my lap or carrying it from room to room surfing the web, importing Email via OsaSync, watching YouTube, installing a couple of apps (including Mass Effect 1) and reading Kindle. It was in "balanced" power mode. Battery managaemnt was OFF, so that's from a non-recommended 100% charge on a brand new Sanyo battery (the regular version)

The one issue is that awfully noisy and poorly-functioning BDrom. Also Bluetooth is buggy, but it was on my first unit also. Problems with Bluetooth seem to develop only after running Windows Update. (nothing new there!)

Whatever build of F11 you get Omaroo, you'll love it. Buy according to what YOU want it to be!

I'm guessing "Omaroo" means "I'm a Kangaroo" in the strict outback dialect.

 

How are you finding the fan? I've heard reports of it being loud or having an annoying tone. Looking for reassurance on that point....

 

Not an issue at all.