Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

hmm didn't think so. just seemed odd that they only removed the 1080p black chassis option. they have the 1080p gray option and 900p black option so they have all the parts in stock... couldn't think of any other reason just 1080p black was removed.

 

They've run out, there will be no more until the Refresh with new video cards, and possibly screens. And as I say, the US miodels may no longer have particular options, but they are still being offered; unlike the Rest Of The World which no longer has F-series CTOs at all, in any shape or form. Nothing odd here.

The body, chassis, and Motherboard (with GPU installed) are built and assembled then shipped from China or Singapore or Malaysia as ready-to-complete "Barebones." There's no reason they should DISassemble them again and mix and match parts, with the extra labour costs incurred, and loss of serial number tracking. Those units are called "Frankensteins" and are only produced at times of unusual and unexpected shortages.

(edit) and don't confuse "Chassis" with "Case." The CASE is black or grey, the top and bottom case fit on to the chassis, upon which is mounted the motherboard. I've heard (and this IS speculation, not to be accepted as fact) that there is a different layout of ports and controls on the refresh, thus requiring new cases and/or trim parts.

 

ahh. didn't know that part about the "Frankensteins". pretty interesting. guess the case is already attached to chassis at the "Frankenstein" stage which would be why they don't have 1080p black.

i think the US still has some F11's in stock otherwise it wouldn't be on the site. otherwise, people would be ordering it now and getting a, probably more expensive, refreshed F11 later. probably got a few left in stock and just trying to get rid of them thus leaving the F11 on the site.

 

Yah, the remaining CTOs are a decent deal if it is exactly what you want. The refresh will give more options at higher prices. I would argue for a significant discount though on a current F11.

 

My Bluray-reader seems to be broken. Lets say I buy 10 identical CD-Rs, only 4 out of those 10 work in my F11. They work perfectly in another computer.

Event viewer gives me alot of errors when trying to access the discs. I've even tried resetting the computer to factory default but with the same errors.

 

Hello,

Yesterday I made a dual boot on my vaio, to check what I would have to install/change when I do a clean install. I have one problem however: Intels Turbo Boost technology isn't displayed in my application list, and my windows score is also lower than normal.

Searching the internet for "turbo boost drivers", or "Turbo boost is missing" gives no solution. I installed all the drivers from my origional boot, but that still doesn't solve the problem.

Could you please help me?
Joe

 

You must go Vaio Support and install the following drivers:
Vaio : Sony Europa
Chipset Driver
SFEP Driver

I believe the last one concerns the turbo boost.

Or you follow a guide by ilfuca made for clean installs:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/460685-win-7-fresh-install-guide-vaio-f-series.html

 

Some writers don't like some media, it doesn't mean either is defective. Maybe the (UJ240?) doesn't have the correct write strategy in its firmware and requires an update. Maybe you're using a bunch of bad discs from the hub. Also the writer might be writing faster than the other DVDrom, producing more errors. There are countless ways quality problems can be introduced in writing optical media.

I hate the noisy UJ240 BDrom in my F11, it being noisy and slow to load and boot, but it writes to Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden DVD-r media equally as well as the BenQ DVD writer I use for the Gold Standard, with up to 98% quality in Nero CDspeed. I haven't tried it on CDs yet.

(edit) so exactly what model of writer is IN your F11?

 

I installed the chipsety driver as one of the first. The SFEP driver however, is a so called "INF" driver. This means it contains no setup file and can only be installed using the device manager in windows. The device manager however, states that all drivers have been correctly installed. So on which device should I install this driver?

 

Anyway he should check Device Manager to make sure there are no exclamation marks and unknown devices before running any sort of assessment of the computer's performance.

 

See the fresh install guide
"- Finally also in Device Manager
- select "unknown device" (Intel PM55 Express Chipset LPC Interface Controller - 3b03)
- click update driver
- search for the driver.....
- browse to the folder "SFEP Driver Sony 8.0 10Q1 O 7 8.0.1.1" again previously unzipped.

You can also install Vaio Update and Vaio Care (use one click care) on your clean install and see if it gives you driver updates. Vaio Care you can find on the page were you downloaded the drivers from Sony and Vaio Update on this forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/443051-vaio-update-5-0-0-12080-a.html

 

That is the "Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device" used for the VAIO-specific function keys. Check under Human Interface Devices to see if in fact you already have it installed.

Here's a semi-relevant discussion Sony Vaio NS11J Drivers and FN Key Win7 64bit - Windows 7 Forums

 

Check the software version here:

 

Will the Western Digital WD10TPVT 1To fit the Sony F ? It's a 12.5mm.
Someone has already seen a review of this hard disk ?

Thanks

 

I'm not sure if it's not available anymore. I still have the link that lets you customize the F, and you can still build a Gray one and add it to cart. However, I'm not sure if the checkout process will be smooth or if they will say it is not available.

 

Here in Belgium I got the message from a whole-saler the the current F-series are officially EOL (=End Of Life).
They didn't got any information of Sony about a new shipment (or they don't want or may say it...).

I suppose that if you still can order it trough Sonystyle you're getting the last pieces of Sony's stock.

According to a local Sony Center shipments arrive every 3 months, so they're quite sure a new shipment with refreshed Sony F-laptops will arrive in June.
That's for Belgium, Europe off course. Don't know for the rest of the world.

 

I noticed that I don't have an Intel Turbo Boost driver either. I've done a clean install of Ultimate and loaded all sony's drivers. There's no exclamation points in device manager and turbo boost is working according to Intel's monitor. So what is this Intel Turbo Boost Driver and is it necessary? A search reveals very little. My sony update says I'm good to go.

 

I would think so. I am guessing that a good portion of people who buy CTO F11's buy the one in Black leaving more of the Gray colour left and Sony has to clear that out.

 

I gather it won't even be an "F11" anymore. This is a major refresh.

What link? I can find no way to access F-series customization. For sure it won't be available.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I gather from earlier posts that the new F-series may be shipping by end of June or so - any ideas on when it will actually be announced?

I hope it's soon as my current machine is failing and I'd like to make a decision on whether to go with the current F11 (CTO still available here in the UK, it appears) or wait for the new one.

 

It will be the same for the rest of the world, just it's more quieter here. SONY should announce "Remote Play" this May too, that would be the perfect event for new F21 (speculation name for the next F series) announcement. USB3 might be included in this refresh.

+1, seems to be the black one is more popular then the Grey one.

 

F2XXx or F12Xx maybe. "Early June" announce, shipping "late June" (26th for some options) USB3 maybe, Remote play maybe (I'm betting it can be retrofitted) control layout change maybe, Screens - who knows???? i9 definite, new GPUs definite.

Trouble is it's not a pretty grey or silver, just a matte blah. White would have been nicer, or at least good contrast twotone grey.

 

After spending 2 months trailing around everywhere I gave in and went the CTO route. My F arrived today and is currently sat making its recovery discs.

Spec:
i7 720
8gb DDR3 (1333MHz)
330M
500Gb 5400rpm drive
Premium Black w/ EU 1080p screen ( no horrid fan whir, no screen light bleeding, al seems perfect so far )

I shall update once I've had a chance to play around with setting this beauty up! ^^

 

I can't believe no clean install fan will reply to my 2 simple questions here: Q for Clean Install Owners.

Except for OoTLink who tried but did not formatted his drive.

That's why I'm out of here next week, see below.

 

Joe, I'd try for you if there was a way to back the recovery partition itself up on a disc. If there is I'd like to know as I don't particularly want an extra drive that I can't use being shown in My Computer (I know, I'm sorta OCD about these things)

 

Thanks for replying.

"...if there was a way to back the recovery partition itself up on a disc" - Actually it's already backed up on the recovery discs one needs to create after opening the box.

You can also backup everything after customizing your F and that includes the hidden recovery & small System Reserved partitions by simply using the Windows Backup included in Win 7 & selecting the "Let Windows decide" option and making sure the partitions are selected. It's a complete & full image of your current system and a refresh image should be done at least every week IMO.

If your drive fails, and it does happen just check the web and you will see many frantic Dead Hard Disc: Help Me!!!!!!, you can simply use the System Repair CD or the recovery discs that need to create or any Win 7 DVD + your system image & your F will be exactly like it was when your created said image.

If you did it 6 months ago well that's where you are going to be after recovery. If you never took the short time it takes to create one using an external drive then it's back to factory state & hours of "fun" redoing every thing to your taste & reinstalling all your software.

Finally, since I can now see the hidden recovery partition, I can backup only that if I wish. See below.

*****

My questions are about what recovery tools can be found on the formatted drive w/o using any DVD, CD or external media. It does not make any change to your computer if you just check the options while booting in F8 & F10. In fact you can boot to F8 & check, hit Escape & then hit F10 @ the VAIO_logo w/o going in Win 7 & rebooting a second time.

Anyway, it's a good idea to explore recovery options & fixing tools in the comfort of your home. It could come handy when a serious problem comes up & your are far away from home or in a remote photo shoot in some jungle here in Costa Rica w/o electricity or internet.

******

Clean install using OEM recovery discs

When I installed the factory state using the discs on a new drive, I notice there was a thin line between the installation of the OS + the specific & necessary drivers for the Vaio_VPCF11 and what people deem dismissively & w/o nuance as "bloatware". I took some photos of each screens popping up to spot that point.

The idea is simply to abort the recovery process after phase one is completed and stop it before it installs both the useful software + the cr@pware & to do this w/o breaking anything. It's a short 5 seconds window. Then you just add the useful software & nothing else.

IMO it's much cleaner to install directly the F drivers: Realtek audio, Bluetooth, Intel chipset stuff, Intel Turbo Boost software, etc right off the bat than using a generic Win 7 OS and to fix all that manually one by one & not always in the proper order as several "Help! my clean install is broken posts" show in this thread.

I've done it 3 times so far and it worked fine every time. Adding the basic useful Vaio_software for full F functionality & diagnostics tools, the total size on C: is 21.4GB + the hidden partition (H) which can be: 0 ( easily deleted after install & space merged to C after unlocking it), 1.46GB with the useful Windows System Recovery Options menu or 8.6GB with full OEM factory state content (it could be bigger if you added some software in your CTO model). As for all Win 7 installs, there is also a small hidden 100MB System Reserved Partition for MBR & Boot Manager.

BTW I used the easy partitioning option during the install so I now have C: 256GB & D: the rest. It takes about 50 minutes from the HDD's OEM recovery partition or 90 minutes for a full HDD format (or new blank drive) using the discs. The latter gives you the recovery partition size options.

I found a way to unhide the hidden Recovery partition BTW and the content now shows in Explorer!

I can see the software trial folders (Norton, Works, Office 2007, etc & the Vaio software I don't want (Media Plus, etc) but need some testing to see if I can delete those, shrink the recovery partition, re-flag as hidden & still recover successfully to clean state from booting in F10 after doing a system image for safety, naturally.

I'm trying to find a way to replace some of the factory state content in that recovery partition with my customized system with added software but keeping the automatic recovery process w/o any external media. That can be done easily w/ a system image + a repair disc but it's a challenge to try to customize the OEM recovery partition and I have a ton of stuff to install on my F: video editing, Adobe Suite, Office, etc so excuse the delay.

@ the present, Vaio_Care > One Click Care > reports with my 7200rpm HDD: First Boot Time 46 seconds, average 46 sec compared to 71 sec. with the OEM OS state.

After upgrading to Ultimate in 5 minutes, offline, just by entering my Ultimate key in Anytime Upgrade found in the start menu: First Boot Time 48 seconds, average 48 sec. Total Startup Applications: 7.

It takes for ever to try to explain how & why this & that was done and why this utility & not that one.

That article will be my last contribution to this thread. It should be ready by Sunday or Monday and I will post a link to it.

 

Thanks Joe Bleau!

I would love to have helped out with your question but my F came with a special recovery DVD set which was made by the eBay seller from whom I purchased my machine. It uses Acronis True Image to restore just one partition with no Sony backup options enabled so if I hit F8 all I see is the regular windows boot options and F10 brings up nothing. Definitely would have loved to help if I could!

Thank you for all your contributions -- I haven't been around long but from what I've read, you've helped a lot of people with their F's -- sad to see you go!

 

Thank you for your kind words.

Your F8 & F10 answer does help.

Does your Fn+ , ASSIST, S1 and_VAIO buttons work?

After customizing your F, did you do a fresh System image with Acronis True Image or Windows Backup?

 

Mine got stuck after a complete power drain caused by my roommate accidentally unplugging the charger, this fixed worked for me as well.

 

SONY clearing up the current F CTO model, get it right now if you wanted to get this F model. Its $949.99 with free upgrade to BluRay.

"Free Shipping after Coupon Code: F1190SAVE50 (Exp 5/22). Tax in most.
~7lbs; 16.4" 1600x900; Intel Core i7-720QM Quad-Core @ 1.6GHz; 2GB RAM; 320GB HDD; Blu-Ray reader; 802.11n; Windows 7; NVIDIA Geforce 310M 512MB; webcam; 6-cell battery; 1yr warranty"

 

The history of the FW's last three refreshes (FW3, FW4 and FW5) were that the refreshes brought faster processors and better GPUs at about the same price.

So, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. The general rule in technology across the board is that as time progresses one gets more for the same price one paid in the past.

 

Hi, I read about disconnecting the CMOS battery ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/6175375-post3529.html)

I am a newb, so I want to make sure I am doing this correctly. I was a little bit confused about the step where I have to disconnect the CMOS battery.
Do I just disconnect the small piece connected to the red and black wires?

Or do I have to unplug the whole CMOS battery?

Please help me out. Thanks in advance!

 

Joe,

I had some free time today, so I did another clean install. I did not have the Assist, S1 and Vaio buttons available, as you well know.

I performed a clean install of W7 Pro 64 bit. My F originally came with Home Premium, so when I did the original clean install, I wiped out all partitions, including the recovery partition (I did not want it).

I again loaded all drivers in order, then the needed Sony software (Shared Library, Notebook Utilities and Parser Service Extension). I then loaded the Webcam and DVD burning programs. Again, I had none of the 3 buttons working, nor did I have the delay setting for the keyboard, or the dimming display function. (This was the same as it was before this install)

Then, I began reading about the bloatware that I had not installed. OK, all of the rest IS bloatware to me, EXCEPT the one I was missing! The Vaio Event Service (and the online update) is what is needed for all of these buttons and settings to be available. NOW my computer works perfectly.

I currently have 39 running services. I use a Crucial 256GB M225 Indillinx controlled SSD and my shut down time is 8 seconds. Startup from a cold start is 21 seconds. Of the 8,192MB of memory installed, 7,128 is currently available as I type this. I do not use a paging file with the SSD, so part of this memory usage is being used as fast paging. I also shut down prefetch and superfetch.

I hope this helps. Have a great week, wherever you are going!

Bill

 

The same i7-720 and 820 will be offered, however there is an upcoming die shrink (to 32nm?) and update that will reduce the TDP of the i7, thus bringing the i9 with the same die to a TDP somewhat less than the current i7. So I don't think an F with the same specs will be cheaper or faster than the current run, but there will be some improvements under the hood. And there's GT440/430, which other than Dx11 is not, I think, an improvement at all.

And there's always the damn screen, maybe Sony will decide to spend $6 more for a better display.

 

The price might be the same or a little bit pricier if SONY decide to change the screen into something better.Better CPU and GPU is definitely. Reading from the past, does the FW issues got fixed from one version to the newer one?

What die process that the current i7 use?40nm?So you are saying intel will release something like i7 730 or something with lower TDP because smaller manufacturing process?As far the GPU...what is the difference between 440 and 430 and compared to the current 330M?Beside DX11 support off course.

 

Yepp, the Event Service is part of my essential & useful Vaio_software list in this post & is necessary for the special buttons functionality:



Your $600 SSD 256GB boots in 21 seconds & my 500GB @ $100 boots in 48 sec., not bad eh?

BTW, how do you measure the startup time? I use Vaio_Care > One Click Care > Report. If we don't use the same measuring stick, how can we compare?

The startup time data is also in Event Viewer, did not have time to dig that question yet. See Microsoft's hidden diagnostic tool unlocks Vista startup secrets | ZDNet

It's not the number of services per say that's important, it's the resources they use & their usefulness.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not going very far but spent way too much time in this thread & need to focus on my personal projects.

 

"Do I just disconnect the small piece connected to the red and black wires?" - Yes, the smaller white male plug. Just pull it straight out in the direction of the green battery.

But you are right, the instructions on the photo & arrow could be more explicit. I will update it after my F is fully functional again with Photoshop, etc.

 

"Were you so impressed by the reviews of Intel's latest Lynfield Core i7 chips that you ran out and paid the early-adopter premium to buy one? Your period of superiority hasn't lasted long, dear reader, with the company announcing initial production of 32nm processors has begun. It's taken many years (and a $7 billion manufacturing investment) to get these Westmere chips onto silicon, with the Clarkdale (desktop) and Arrandale (notebook) lines expected to start showing up in over-sized cardboard boxes before the end of the year. What's next for 45nm chips, like those new Lynnfields? A slow fade to obsolescence........."
Intel launches mobile Core i7 ? and previews 32nm shrink | News | PC Pro

Intel Announces 32nm Production Set to Begin | Hardware Canucks

Intel begins production of 32nm Westmere processors -- Engadget

 

I checked my Vaio Care (I had no idea I could check these performance reports here!) and it says that my "first Boot" was 23 seconds and my startup time is 20 seconds. Cool!

I also cleaned and defragged the registry.

My Windows Index, in order, are 7.3, 7.4, 6.5, 6.5, 7.4 . I am a minimalist. I also am not worried about the windows index scores for graphics. I am not a gamer and I set all graphics to windows classic and "best performance" so this system is actually incredibly "snappy"!

 

Did you check the other tabs in the report? It may be useful for your church's F's as a tool to have everything in one place including links to the utilities to fix the problems or get more info. It does not seem any good for SSD maintenance & optimization OTOH.

What's cool about the System TuneUp is that it's reversible like System Restore.

The Troubleshooting > Diagnostics > Hardware & Software is interesting too.

 

WHOA WAIT.

No silver? ! Sony always offers silver. Where's that coming from?

 

Hey, thanks so much for your detailed explanation!

Just one last thing, are the two little locking tabs located in the two positions that i circled in the the picture? Thanks!

 

Here you go. I visited it quite often so all I had to do was type Sony in the url link and just track my way down to it. The Gray colour is still available, but not the Black.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...Id=20153&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921666067651

 

I'm glad it helped

My Fn+, Assist, S1 and VAIO buttons all work. I did uninstall the Media Gallery though so my VAIO button toggles mute on/off.

When I received my F11 I mistakenly assumed that if I wiped the install and used the recovery DVDs that the bloatware would not be installed so before even customizing anything I simply used the recovery dvds on the new machine. The recovery DVD set up the same stuff as was installed before. I went ahead and manually uninstalled everything that I didn't need but kept most of the Sony stuff.

Now my hard drive only has two partitions, one 85 MB one which I think is the Windows 7 MBR partition and then one other partition that is ~ 465 GB.

Questions I have now are -- 1) how can I make my own recovery DVD since I do not have the F10 option and 2) is there a way I can use the recovery DVDs that I received from my eBay seller (which use Acronis True Image) to do the clean install that you've been experimenting with? 3) and is there a way I can also have the completely default sony image with partitions and all? (as in not the acronis facilitated one that i received from my ebay seller)?

Thank you!

 

I'll get back to you in a few mins, tried F10 and nothing with a nuked hard drive

BTW, OS X looks really nice on the F's screen. I'm impressed, lol. I was using it to look up some stuff (with my bluetooth modem *sigh*), and it looked a bit nicer than it does in Windows. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it does seem to prefer that color management. How odd XD

 

No! I was wrong about having tabs on that plug & will edit the post above.

While I did fix some computers by removing the CMOS battery & replaced some on laptops, I never had to unplug the F's which I just did for your pleasure.

The male plug is really small & there is not much space for the fingers. Below is a macro photo I just took. I needed to use fine tweezers to grab it & pull it straight back out of that loving female part. There is no lock tabs to depress but it's a tight fit.

You can't loosen it a little bit & use a small flat screwdriver to pry it out from the top as it may short the two contacts you can see on the photo. Just make sure you don't touch the motherboard circuits with the twezers nor unsettle the memory sticks. I'm glad I'm not a jeweler or a brain surgeon.



Now just do it & please report back.

 

Actually I runned the windows benchmark program after installing all the drivers. There were no unknown devices left in my computer manager. I'm now preparing for a real clean install, using the guide made my ilfuca.

 

Thanks so much for this, really appreciate.

Initially, I used my finger nail, trying to pull the male part out, but I couldn't. The fitment was very tight and the space was small. I was afraid that I might break something...lol!

I followed your advice and used a tweezer, and it worked flawlessly!

Thanks again

 

Hello all!

Its my first post and Im planning to buy a Vaio F11 in the future, though Ive got some questions for vaio maniacs:

I live in Poland so avaiable versions in my country are:

VPCF11M1E/H, VPCF11S1E/B, VPCF11Z1E/BI

M version with i5 and standard lcd panel, S and Z versions are i9 and both have Vaio Premium Display. They are preconfigured, no custom building avaiable (except UK sony style store). Same models are avaiable in Germany, Sweden etc.

So, can anyone tell me exactly what type of panel Vaio Premium Display in Europe is ? Are they LED backlighted, or maybe RGB LED ? I cant find this information anywhere. German Notebookcheck reviewed Z model, but they said "its led backlighted" only. Dunno its normal led or rgb.

Also another question: what are the diffrences of standard black finish in S model, and "premium" black finish in Z ? Is it only the "rubber/leather" panel under wrists or something else also ? In M and S its pure plastic or what ?

Best regards to all Vaio users here from Poland. Sorry if my english is bad