Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Thank for your reply .But when i'm click on hardware test it said "missing" and need the recovery disc. i don't know how to create and i already erase all data in OEM hdd . Please help!

 

I used Sharpkeys to set volume up/dn onto the multimedia next/previous buttons ( see my post) and also put Windows calculator onto the stop button. Still don't know what to do with the play/pause button tho!

 

So it looks like a refresh may really be coming, I was just on the Sonystyle website and you can only get the Premium Display (1920x1080) with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M GPU (1GB VRAM) with the Grey color option. If you switch to Black it says not available. Also they are giving the free Blu Ray drive again.

It appears they may be getting rid of all current inventory!

 

The help you troubleshoot, we need accurate information.

First of all, what are we talking about exactly: sleep, hibernation or hybrid sleep?

From your quote: "...The device or driver has made a request to prevent the system from automatically entering sleep." - So we are talking about sleep, not hibernate. Also it seems that it was not in sleep mode. It was prevented from going to sleep. Just a comment: why not simply shut down the laptop overnight or choose hibernate instead? The F boots really fast & also resumes from hibernate really fast with the added advantage of saving your work in case of power failure & battery completely drained which the sleep mode does not do.

You can contribute to power savings & reduce your carbon footprint by shutting down or hibernating your laptop & unplug the power adapter overnight.

As you already know but for the benefit of other users: Microsoft created powercfg & included it for free in Windows 7: mainly to give info to the techs trying to troubleshoot the user's sleep/hibernate problems with a simple & fast diagnostic tool. They ask the user to run it & send them the report but we can use it as a simple & fast DIY Power Efficiency Diagnostics tool, right?

So, run the simple, fast & powerful powercfg diagnostic tool.

How to do it on the F: Start > search: cmd > right click > run as administrator. fatpandas's posted good suggestions but there is a typo for the lastwake command: type exactly & only: powercfg -lastwake & hit enter to see the last thing that woke up your F.



powercfg /requests will tell you what may prevent the F from going automatically to sleep or hibernation.

powercfg -energy will produce in 60 seconds a full Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report like the one I posted here for my F.



As you can see above (Realtek Audio), I am using the Morse code fix as described in this video but while Listen to this device prevents the F from going automatically to sleep or hibernate, it does not wake up my F. It does not prevent me from putting manually my F to sleep or hibernation. I already replied previously to new_vaio_F here and posted a video about it here to show how fast it goes to sleep.

As fatpandas wrote: powercfg -devicequery wake_armed (should show you a list of things that are capable of waking the laptop. realtek driver should be in there)
powercfg -devicedisablewake "exact name found from previous command report" should stop Realtek from waking up your F. NOTE: If the name contains a space, you must enclose the name in quotes.

Run again powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to make sure that you did prevent the device from waking up again your notebook.

To illustrate this simple process, I went in Device Manager > Mouse & enabled it to wake up the notebook then ran the command described above. I could see the mouse, prevent it from waking up the F & check if it was done properly with 3 simple steps:



Normally, there is no point in having anything being able to wake up your F as you can hit the keyboard or simply press the Power button to wake it up. That includes mouse, wifi, LAN, etc. More about that in this post.

Now here are my settings for the mic fix which does not wake up my F. Note the mic mute & #5. If any software wants to use the mic like Skype for example, it turns on automatically the mic so why not leave it on mute? Check the Advanced tab & make sure "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" is enabled.

 

"...i already erase all data in OEM hdd" - Oops! There is about 100 posts in this thread about creating recovery discs (2 DVD's or more) and a system repair disc (one CD) before messing up anything on your F. It should be the first step out of the box. It's also mentioned in the Unification Post (page 1, post #1) in the clean install link.

One should align his ducks before embarking in the clean install adventure.

You could call Sony_& order recovery discs which are useful to go back to the OEM OS in the factory state like if you want to sell your laptop for example or try to solve a major problem you may have created with your clean install. You can also just go to the esupport.sony for your country & your exact F model to download all the proper drivers & software to use in conjunction with your clean install but that cannot bring back the F's factory state & the included "value added" software like Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 LJ, WinDVD (to play Blu-ray discs) & Arcsoft Webcam Companion 3 are not available for download so you lost them by formatting w/o making recovery discs.

The answer to your problem is contained in the links in the post you quoted above. Either you did not install something when doing your clean install or did not do it in the proper order.

Anyway, Hardware/Software Diagnostics & Vaio_Care while quite useful when in a snag or for doing system maintenance in one step by using One Click Care for a full report or System TuneUp (HDD & registry cleaning & defrag, etc) are not essential. You can live w/o it if you don't want to uninstall all the Vaio_software & reinstall it in the proper order.

BTW if you would have used One Click Care, it would have told you to create recovery discs & do a backup and even give you clickable links to do them.

 

June 26th shipping.

 

I would like to be thorough about the newmodeUS HDD caddy in the how-to install a HDD in the F's ODD bay article so could you please check your box to see if the white plastic bezel adapter is included as shown in njss first photo in his post here?

If missing, could you call or write to newmodeUS to see if it is supposed to be included in the HDD caddy kit?



@ njsss: could you post a link to the product you bought?

@ njsss + MelodyMaster: Do you find the caddy flimsy? Is there 4 holes in the bottom of the caddy for securing the HDD with screws? Is there an HDD activity LED?

 

They might already start producing that refresh as we speak. 1 month to clear the inventory, I'm not sure what kind of things that they refresh on F beside the processors and graphics.

How did you found out about the date? It is the date for i9 launch?

 

No I didn't get that adaptor, probably that being the reason I didn't consider it possible to mount the DVDrom bezel. Yes the assembly is very flimsy, barely more than tinfoil. It DOES have all the screws and screwholes for mounting the hard drive and rails.

 

Yes. They may ship other refresh models before June 26th.

 

@colinmann: Just thought about something else. Start > search: Task Scheduler > check if a task woke up your F > Last 24 Hours & Last 7 Days.

The idea is a task wakes up the F & the mic fix prevents it from automatically going back to sleep.

Could you post what powercfg -lastwake reported?

 

It changed from 33 to 36 deg.
Yes, there are 4 holes in the bottom.

Great! Why I didn't thought about that! Thank you so much to solve my puzzle. Btw, any suggestions for a good external enclosure?

It's attached to the side of the box. It's likely they just added this recently.

 

So, I have a question guys. I was about to buy a new Sony Vaio F Series, but i heard of this noise problem. Does still exists or the new models that they are sending are already fixed and there's anymore problems? and does it have stereo mixer option on recording device?? Thank you.

 

You heard about the noise?

Go back 10 pages & read a little bit.

Or search this thread with: noise.

Check also Unification post, page 1, post #1.

 

so


How many services are you guys running in the background

i am currently sitting at 59,, anyone have a way to get crap lower?

 

Curious to know where this date of June 26th sprang from? Is there a credible source behind it?



I highly doubt the refresh will have an i9 processor given Sony's delay to market with the i7. It may have to do with their recent announcement of third parties manufacturing process. So the refresh could may actually present a lower level quality of notebook.



Further Reading Sony announces 'division two' series of VAIO laptops built by other manufacturers -- Engadget

 

What delay to market? Could you provide a list of other brands of notebook with i7 CPU that were launch to market before the F?

 

yes



Alienware, HP Envy 15, MSI GT640 , Dell Studio 15, Sager NP8760

 

I doubt SONY will test the 2nd version of F to be manufactured by "2nd division", that's like their highest end multimedia laptop..they might try with something cheaper if they smart enough. Especially with all the issue the F have, they cant afford another failure.

As far as the date, Im not sure...the June 26 its still considered speculation by melody because intel is supposed to launch their i9 that day.

 

I'll return your comment above: where did this sprang from?

Do you have any dates or sources or links?

It's not important, just curious. I'm asking this because when I was shopping for a laptop & wanted to compare the F with other laptops in a similar price range & display size, there was no Asus, HP, Toshiba, Acer, etc with i7-720QM on the market yet.

*****

"...Especially with all the issue the F have, they cant afford another failure" - Baloney! Go and visit the other Notebook Manufacturers threads & come back to comment.

Again: Everything is relative:





From an interesting study by warranty company SquareTrade (Nov. 2009) .pdf downloadable here with short analysis articles here and here.

Everything is relative including that study. Failure rates seems quite high to me, which could be skewed by owners taking advantage of the extended service plans & maybe being less careful with their machine. High failure rates are also a very good sale argument for SquareTrade's plans. OTOH the comparison between brands is interesting.

 

Regarding the June 26th release date, this is speculation base on the fact intel is releasing the i9 processor that day and we think that sony will respond by immediately refreshing the f series? I am curious about this because while I can certainly postpone purchasing this until june/july for a processor upgrade at this point it seems unlikely. Given that i9 desktop has not been released and historicaly it has taken months for any mobile processor to follow.


Regarding time t market I am pretty sure the f series did not have i7 when the first gen hp envy was released. I researched this segment pretty throughly before choosing then envy at the time. I am certain dates and other info can be found on google.


I think the current crop of vaios are high quality, but the announced change in manufacturing process is concerning.

 

*******

 

You think sony will put the refresh the f series with i9? How about a friendly bet I think $25 will make it interesting, what do you say? Can a mod help us out here?

I will give even more time than June 26th, lets say even to July 10th.

At this point there is so little information regarding i9, the only which I can find is relevant to desktop users.

 

Hello,

I would be very appreciative if you could help me answering my two questions below.

I am looking to buy a high performance multimedia laptop and narrowed my search down to the F11 which seems to offer everything i need (photoshop, HD video editing, demanding spreadsheets). What other current alternatives is there to the F11?

Secondly, I would be use my laptop with two external monitors (3 working monitors) but unsure if the F11 can power two external monitors through the VGA and HDMI port? Alternatively, what would you recommend?

I would appreciate your help,
Mthams

 

Originally Posted by MelodyMaster
"This laptop is eminently hackable and easy to disassemble. I'm sure we're going to see Faqs on changing the paste, and cooling mods (which is done by third-party providers of the F11) overclocking, upgrading the GPU and CPU, (a GT240 can be installed, somewhat faster than the 330, and there's Fermi) and changing the display, at the very least."

Mind you, the F11 only sells a fraction of the numbers of any Asus model, so it hasn't really caught the eye of hardware hackers yet as have Asuses and Dells. We now know the GPU can NOT be changed, by the way. But the F IS easy to completely take apart - I've done it twice.

 

There's only support for two monitors, as is typical for desktop GPUs. It's HDMI OR VGA plus the laptop LCD. You could use a Matrox MultiMon adaptor, the GT330 is fast enough to render oversized desktops at decent speed. Unfortunately, like all Nvidia cards, there's no mirroring on the GT330, so you can't have a player on the main window, such as Media Player or virtualDub, with the DirectX layer image on the second monitor. And you can't run a game on one window, with tools and system stats running on the second. You still need an ATI card for all that. I THINK mirroring can be done with application-level software support, such as in Premiere.

And Bundle Premiere or Vegas WITH the purchase of the F, it's a fraction of retail. I included Premiere Pro 4 with mine, and it is indeed the full retail version with all the plugins and utilities. (Premiere 5 is now out, maybe it will be bundled with the July refresh, which would be a bummer for early adopters like myself... Unless it's way more expensive...)

And it is a SUPERB laptop for editing! Creating a DVD from rendering AVI to mpeg to authoring in DVDlab, and making the DVD, has gone from approx 3hours 20 minutes on the Q9450 desktop to about 100 minutes on the F. And actually rendering a DVD project has gone from ten minutes down to 45 seconds with an SSD and the i7. AVCHD rendering is about 40% slower on the F than on the Q9450, but I think that's partly software and codec compatability with Win7. The desktop is running XP SP 2 for HD projects, (SP3 broke a couple of things.) It also dualboots into Win7 but it doesn't have programs for H264 to match those on the F11, so I can't compare times.

Oh and don't even THINK about not using an SSD and installing a second hard drive in the DVDrom slot...

 

Thanks MelodyMaster - much appreciated

 

Hi Melody, just curious how you came up with the June 26th date for a refresh?

I would usually disregard a comment I considered speculation but two unique factors here. You mentioned an exact date and I was attempting to purchase the f last night but sony had run out of the "premium" screen, usually an indication that they are clearing existing inventory.

 

Heheh, well let's just see. I might indeed be wrong, but I'll bet my fortune (six cats, some 19th Century Jasper Wedgewood, the F11, a mint Thorens TD124, an original 1910's 22 inch display Nipper, and a complete collection of mostly uncirculated Orbison, Lewis, and Cash Sun records in both 45 and 78 ) that that date (for all-options shipping) won't be more than a few days off. I've been giving that date for the major refresh since the end of February. And the fact that Sony runs out of or reduces everything a month to six weeks before a refresh is announced, and that that announcement is at the start of a two to three week preorder period, exactly matches current events. Semi-speculative vine-waving is that the announcement is "early" June.

On the other hand I was buying an FW 590 at full price (from .ca) with all options the DAY the F11 was announced - for immediate shipment. But the F is not considered by Corporate to be a refresh of the FW, and new models don't usually have a significant preorder period.

 

I was under the impression the GPU was soldered onto the board, and why would you trade the 330M for a 240M? They're almost the same thing!

 

I didn't know that if you uninstalled the media gallery that the Vaio button would do mute. I just uninstalled media gallery and it works. Thanks I haven't used the media gallery and have no idea why I would need that.

 

He was quoting something I said several months ago, I can't even find that post. We didn't know at the time how the GPU was utilized on the motherboard. Also in that post (not quoted, therefore losing the context) I was referring to the fact that the GT240 is installed on F11s in South America. There was no suggestion anyone WANTED to replace a 330 with a 240.

 

I just did a clean install by simply using the recovery discs on a blank drive. Nothing to download, no standalone OS DVD needed, all the proper drivers automatically installed, no Vaio_software, only 30GB total including a recovery partition, no drivers to install, no product key to enter, no activation needed, 48 processes, 0% CPU usage @ idle and using only 16% of the 6GB memory.

 

no Vaio_software?

 

It seems to me the "delay to market" has all been to the good. The F11's i7 and GPU runs cooler than just about any other laptop's. Sony had time and other manufacturers' experience to get the engineering right. The i9 runs cooler than the i7 and is physically identical, so nothing has to be changed on what already works well.

 

Nope. Did not know that it was possible using the recovery discs. More details (maybe) tonight.

 

Don't you miss Vaio Care and Vaio Update or will you install them later?

And please more details, because this is great news for all who want to avoid bloatware

 

... sorry to go off topic, but need a quick fix.

Windows seems to be deleting 2-3 restore points every 10 days or so without me having added newer points (so there was space for the restore points, windows 7 deletes one, two or sometimes all of them and leaves me one that it created itself named "automatic restore point")... I know for sure that there is enough space alloca\ted, so is there something I do not know or is a re-install needed?

 

There are more people affected by this.
Maybe you can find the solution here:
Windows 7 deletes all system restore points on reboot

 

Hmmm, for them it seems like they consistently dissapear after a reboot... I can reboot without them disappearing after I get into windows again. They just... vanish after a number of days. For no reason I can think of.

 

I have a problem of loosing battery overnight. The notebook was fully charged before shutting down. However, the next morning it would only show 85% left always. Anyone know what's going on with my F11?

 

You started the computer on battery power correct? You should drain the battery from this 85% point then again at 100% so see if in fact there is a 15% reduction, or if this is just a battery calibration issue. I have not done so and if anyone has already done this, please advise.

 

A guide on how to do this would be VERY helpful! Hope you can find the time! Thanks

 

Difficult... I remember that back in the days I used Advanced Systemcare from Iobit and that program deleted all but the most recent restore point. Are you using some kind of utility like that? Anything except the build in Windows Utilities or Vaio Care?

 

I have never done any video editing but a part of the reason I purchased the F is to do so. I have obtained CS3 master suite and my question to anyone is this all the software I need to accomplish this? Unfortunately, I never considered Vegas but will CS3 meet my needs? Thanks.

 

Generally you will need other programs to improve workflow, such as Virtualdub to work with AVI - cutting, capturing, IVTC etc. HCencode is a WAY better Mpeg2 encoder than that offered by Premiere, and that needs AVIsynth, the best tool on the planet for applying filters and frameserving. You'll want AVI codecs such as Lagarith and BlackMagic A dedicated audio program like Soundforge is a must (you can clean up and adjust Master audio without losing sync) There's Soundbooth in CS3 for audio, though I find Sound Forge more friendly. HDVsplit and other H264 tools and transcoders will come in useful..... You can use Premiere's DVD authoring module, but DVDlab is more powerful. Premiere does the important editing stuff.

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Shoot me now! I really do appreciate your professional comments and info, however, this seems quite overwhelming. Will this take a lifetime to learn and other $2k in software? I haven't even bought the camera and lenses. It sounds like it would be difficult to learn on my own, while I am not going to make a living from this, it seems like classes would be the best. Might you recommend a website for some online learning? A book? So daunting. Thank you Melody.

 

Every program I mentioned except Sound Forge (optional) and DVDlab (essential for me) is freeware.

The idea is to lay out a project then best decide how to tackle it, thus the URLs for different aspects of working with video. As for learning, DON'T "learn Premiere" as a philosophical goal, but rather learn what you want to accomplish, making the USE of Premiere and tools a transparent means to the end.

For CS3 I do recommend working in AVI, saving as the master file, opening in Vdub to check, then rendering with HCencode or external HD encoder. CS4 is a LITTLE more friendly for HD, but there's a seeking bug introduced wth the first update, which I've never resolved on either the F11 or Q9450 desktop editor. In Adobe's advertising blurb CS5 appears to directly address that bug, and CS5 so far is the best editor for HD. I'm considering doing the $299 upgrade for CS4 to CS5 on the F11. (Still making the overall package, as bundled, cheaper than having bought CS5 on its own.)

 

Nah, haven´t had time to install anything like that yet... I have some video playback apps installed, that´s about it. Still have not come arround uninstalling the pre-installed mcafee though... but if that is the problem, then more sony vaio users would be experiencing this.

 

But doesn't it still come with lots of bloatware?the restore CD = Recovery partition?

How come the i9 is more cooler then i7?Doesnt the i9 have more cores which mean more power = hotter? The reason i5 is cooler because vice versa. They all using the same architecture.

When you get your FW, did you notice the same trends happening right now?Like, did you ever heard anything about F when you make the FW purchase?What month did you purchase it?Are the F announcement is the same day as intel announcement of the mobile i7 processors?etc2.