Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

Was it a mistake or a lie? I searched for 15 minutes on Atheros' site & Sony_support & on the web @ large to no avail.

Why not reply or should we all waste our time because you won't help out and post a link?

 

I'm very busy in the middle of a move and I can't check this site frequently. I made a mistake, it's only the bluetooth that had a firmware update. For the Atheros it was a driver update, but also the DD-WRT firnware was updated on my router to clean up connectivity problems.

 

Could you give more details about what you want to do exactly?

If it is to shrink C: w/o loosing anything & then create an other partition with the unallocated space you just created, check:

How to Shrink a Partition or Volume in Windows 7

Resize a Partition for Free in Windows 7 or Vista

There is Partition Magic style function included in Windows 7. To be on the safe side: create a System Image which contains a copy of your Windows OS and copies of your added programs, customized system settings, and files with Windows Backup or an other backup utility before attempting anything! It's a good backup practice anyway.

Or do you want to install two Win 7 OS on different partitions? If so, that's not recommended.

 

Hi -

I just bought a VPCF115FM, and love it.

But I didn't realize that Sony doesn't offer a travel adapter for use in the car or airplanes.

Has anyone found a reliable 3rd party solution that I can trust to not damage my new jewel?

Thanks,
Russ

 

Thanks for the clarification. Could you check in Device Manager & tell us the new driver number? The OEM is 8.0.0.238.

The are some supposedly Atheros driver updates out there but they are on shady sites a la driver shack, etc. I would prefer a reference from you who tested it on your F.

About your move, good luck! I remember you said you were moving after 30 years or something & you like to collect old stuff...

 

It's the OEM, but I had rolled it back during troubleshooting.

Yah, the collectible stuff is endless. I didn't even know I HAD Hinode dishes from occupied Japan..

 

Any input on this? I'd very much appreciate it.

 

I've been trying to find out exactly what this driver is used for if anything. When I did my clean install from a fresh win7 ultimate 64 bit, I ended up with no turbo boost technology driver. I search Intel's site and they don't have it yet there is a pdf on it that doesn't really say much. I've installed the Turbo boost gadget from Intel and it shows that turbo is working. I've looked for the driver on the recovery disk and couldn't find it. Two questions: 1. Does anyone know exactly this driver does? 2. If you have a copy can you send it to me? I know I'm being a pest about this but this thing has got be stumped.

 

If the laptop has all the specs you are looking for and you need a laptop to use right now then buy it. At that price, you can't go wrong.

If you are looking for diff specs or do not need a laptop right now, don't buy it. Wait for the refresh, but you will obviously have to pay more $$$ for it because there won't be such a large discount on a newer machine.

 

hey does anyone have a battery calibration tool for the us vaio f series?? thnks

 

Read previous pages, you already got a reply. It's not a tool, it's a process. Look for "Battery draining/miscalibrated" in the Unification Post.

 

Don't worry about it if your Turbo Boost Monitor gadget shows that it's working!



It installed on my F when using the OEM recovery discs for a clean install but using the free & portable SIW 2010 & Autoruns utilities I can see that the driver is STOPPED & the description says: "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver" which I think is used on other Vaios that have an onboard discrete Intel video chip + a GT 330M GPU like the Vaio_Z for example.

You can find that Intel Turbo Boost Technology Driver installer in the recovery discs but it's not labeled as such so you must fish in the 70 something xxxx.MOD files & extract them one by one to find it, a royal pain in the...

Here are all the clues that I can give you if you want to pursue the thing further:

 

When is the refresh supposed to take place?

 

Search this Thread with: refresh.

 

Thank you for the response. When you said yours was not enabled, that started making some sense. Everything that I've been reading seems to point toward an Intel on board graphics card. Since we don't have that ergo it would be disabled. I don't think I'll be digging into the recovery disk Thanks for being patient with me, I know I've had multiple post on this subject.
Regards
JJ

 

No worries, I was also curious about that thing.

Did you try SIW 2010 & Autoruns? Process Explorer also by Windows Sysinternals works great in tandem with Autoruns to explore the process tree. Right click an entree in Autoruns & it's automatically highlighted in Process Explorer. A task manager on steroid.

All are free, small & portable meaning no install needed.

 

No, I haven't tried them yet but will give them a try. What's funny is I emailed Sony and Intel and ask them what the driver was for and they couldn't or wouldn't give me an answer. Again, thanks for your help.

 

i7Turbo.exe within the Realtemp 3.40 package will tell you exactly how Turbo is behaving. The i7 can be loaded with LoadTester.exe.

Real Temp - CPU temperature monitoring

 

I have this running, but I have no idea how to read it! Any help would be appreciated.

Bill

 

Real Temp forum or Real Temp documentation maybe?

 

You could of course, just use CPU-Z, which will tell you what speed your processor is currently running at (live).

 

I sent a email to the Swedish sonystyle support and asked about the refresh of the F-series. They could only say that the new series F12 will be released this summer.

At least now we know it will be called F12.

If anyone has more info about the F12 please do share!

 

Shouldn't that be F21?

 

F12Xxx is what I'd been hearing too and have previously said in this thread. Calling it "F2XXxx" would be like changing "FW" to "FY", a different model altogether. There was an F-series 1998 to 2001, (I just found the brochure during cleanup) then it was reintroduced with a wide screen, thus the FW, then the "budget" F-series line again, as F1.

I've also been saying since Februrary that the refresh would be coming June 26th, I've seen nothing new that would change that original information.

As I've mentioned the i9 will be offered as well as a lower TDP 32nm i7, and a DX11 card, Fermi, with 1 Gig options back to ready availability. Also there's supposed to be a change in top panel layout, and maybe USB3 and that remote control thingy. There have been indications from units made late in the North American F11 run (May 2010) that there will be a better display, with no more defective polarizers with shading and inversion. This will be a major refresh, bigger than the first FW revisions, they had to learn a lot from the problems with the F11s.

P.S. My fan, which has always been quiet, has just STARTED to whine or whistle occasionally. So it goes...

 

^^^
Sounds like it might be worth the wait! I hope they get everything right now...

Thanks MelodyMaster!

 

Hello, I recently bought Sony VAIO VPC-F11S1E/B [model F of the vaio family]. I am REALLY GLAD with build quality and everything else as usual in VAIO laptops but ONE thing is just driving me mad- the noise the CPU fan is making. It's hard to expain but as a former VAIO FE user (I bought that laptop 3 years ago)I am used to silence and this F11 is ....like a jet plane, the noise the fan makes is unacceptable for me. In previous VAIO POWER MANAGEMENT versions there was an option to control how fast the fan goes(the vaio managements were for windows xp) In the power management installed in F11 no such option is enabled and I couldn't find any version for Windows 7 with the option to control the cpu fan. If you happen to know how to control the noise the fan makes or any other solution to make this beatiful laptop make less noisy and more friendly for your ears I will be grateful forever.

 

No there's nothing whatsoever you can do about the fan noise. The i7 is just hotter than other CPUs, and the F's fan tends to whistle. It is still one of the quietest of all i7 laptops however. Try a laptop cooler.

 

just dropping back in

Still loving my F. It's done me well in Korea so far!

 

I remember someone with advice of using Lenovo ThinkPads power managment app. What about standard win7 cooling policy in power options control panel ? Cant you change it to the low rpm for idle ?

 

The trouble is fan control and RPM is not accesible to any of the software that can usually see these things. It's a hidden port. You can modify CPU power management to reduce the maximum CPU state, which results in a little less heat to be dissipated via the fan.

 

Sorry guys, I keep raising this - but my wake up issue is still there. I have no understanding why...

Last night it was on battery, no problem, this morning I leave it on hibernation with the power in & on. it is awake when i get home. Have sony not got a "proper" - aka non work around for this Mic problem? According to powercfg the only thing capable of waking up my machine is that. What if I want to use the optical out? AGHHH! lol

Thanks for help in advance!

 

has anyone had any luck finding the drivers that control kdb backlight? theres a config file that works through the vaio control center but it doesn't seem to hold the actual controlling driver. if anyone knows, could you please let me know which driver it is?

i'll stick with the tape over the sensor for now but i generally don't like to use such "crude" alternatives.

 

The mic problem "non-workaround" is an actual factory motherboard modification, adding a shield and a bit of wiring for which it goes back to China then is shipped as a revised motherboard for install in a new F11. You should have returned your system long before now, particularly since F11 motheboards may no longer be useful for reuse with the F12 coming soon.

 

mmm... shouldn't be too much of a worry. that's why i have a warranty... will find out in due course...

 

Could you run powercfg -lastwake as described in this post: VAIO_F Series Waking Up Problem & powercfg Diagnostic Tool?

It should report what woke up your computer like this for example:

Just post a screen capture of the cmd window if you don't want to type it.

If there is no information about what woke up your F then check this: Windows 7 wakes automatically from sleep mode: chipset driver & sfc -scannow.

Is this an other "clean install" or OEM OS?

If you use "listen to this device" is the mic muted as it should? Do you close the lid @ night? Do you have pets that can touch the keyboard? Is your house haunted? Do you have a roommate that likes pranks?

*****

Again: 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.

 

It's a powerful CPU & GPU in a compact form factor: it needs cooling & the fan is a mechanical thing with mechanical noises. Turbo Boost & thermal management is complex and contrary to a desktop there is only 1 fan for everything that's why the user is prevented from messing up the fan speed & toasting his machine. Check this post: VAIO_F Series Variable Fan Speed & User Control. Even @ idle the fan works on the F. Put your hand next to the air exhaust, feel the heat?



What is noisy for you may be quiet for me as everything is relative. The soundscape of my F is perfectly normal considering the CPU & GPU power under the hood. Vaio_F11 noise emission compared to other Core i7 laptops made by 3 different manufacturers (comparing orange to orange, not to a model like the_FE with a lesser CPU & GPU):





If quiet & long battery life is more important to you than the crunching power of your i7-720QM quad core CPU then maybe you got the wrong model for your needs & could exchange it for a lesser model?

 

Hey folks, I'm about to purchase a new laptop and I'm looking at the F series right now. I see that Sony Style USA offers 1920x1080 upgrade on the display. How does the full HD screen look in terms of brightness & color? I heard that the display on F is a little dim?

Anything else I should look out for? Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

There is a time where the 1080P screen is not available to purchase on F11, with this free upgrade there might be an indication that F12 will use different kind of screen then the F11.

 

My display is not dim.

 

Thanks for the replies!

The upgrade is not free though... it's $150, but the GPU is upgraded as well. However, Blu-ray player upgrade is free. Maybe I should wait for the upcoming refresh?

Actually, my desire screen size would be 15 inch with an i5 CPU. Unfortunately, the screen resolution on the E series is only 1366x768, so I have to look at the F series if I want to buy a Sony...

 

OK,

After a few days of feeling bad because I can not get the nvidia drivers to work, I went back to the Sony versions. I have been given advice that I may have memory leakage problems or other problems due to a "clean Install" with no original recovery partition, etc.

Someone had a link to a benchmark program, so I downloaded and used the trial version of Passmark Performance Test 7.0. I was surprised by the results.

First of all, I looked for results by processor. The Core i7 820QM laptop processor is ranked 84th overall on the site, with a CPU score of 3521. It is the second highest rated mobile processor (that I could find) behind the Core i7 920XM.

That being stated, the benchmark program classified my processor NOT as the 820QM, but rather as a Core i7 Q 820. There are actually 2 different catagories, and mine was listed in this way for some reason.

Now, on to the good stuff!

My computer ranked #12 out of 209 machines with the same Q820 processor. All of the higher ranked machines had better video cards than my GT 330M. I then looked for machines with the same CPU and GPU combination. There were 6 machines...5 were Sony F11s. Mine rated CONSIDERABLY higher than any of the others. Perhaps the clean install with fewer running background services does make a difference.

Because I could not get all results as apples to apples, I compared in a couple of different ways. First off, I compared my Passmark benchmark, 2D graphics and memory benchmark against the other 5 matching Vaio F11s. I could have added the single non-F11 entry, but it was lower than the F11s, so I left it out.

My Passmark = 1467.6
Ave. F11 Passmark = 1089.9

My 2D graphics score = 370.5
Ave. F11 2D graphics score = 221.8

My Memory Score = 1007
Ave. F11 Memory score = 979.5**

** Two of the 4 had memory scores higher than mine...I will check this out!

I was highest in all catagories except memory in their database for the 5 F11s. However, I wanted to check my GT 330M against others. According to their data, the average GT 330M 3D Graphics score is 469, while mine clocked a 529.4. Also, my hard drive is a Crucial 256GB 225M SSD. It has an average Hard Disk score of 1037, but my machine scored 1314.8.

The CPU score for the CPU listed as Q 820 is 3547.
The CPU score for the CPU listed as 820QM is 3521.
My CPU is listed in the database as a Q 820, but is really an 820QM. My score was 3696.9.

From what I can see, my machine does not have problems. It actually tests our much higher than similar systems. Further note that one of the tests on my machine was skipped as I did not have a CD in the drive to test CD drive performance and also note that my computer was running with all normal services running, including my security suite.

I am excited about these results so I had to brag!!

I hope thie helps some of you who think that this machine is slow. Sony MUST have done something right to get these kinds of results with a stock machine with only an aftermarket SSD and a clean Windows 7 Professional installation as modifications.

Also, I have no driver for Turbo Boost installed, yet the turbo boost is definitely occurring.

Bill

 

Think twice then. 16.4" i7-720QM is a DTR for needs different than i5 15". F is heavier, bigger power brick, noisier, shorter battery life but more powerful for video editing, image batch processing, etc.

Make sure to define your needs and criteria before selecting a model.

 

Thank you for the advice, Joe. I think you are completely right. Maybe Sony isn't for me this time. I don't like E's screen resolution, and F's too bulky for me. Do you have any recommendation?

 

Joe,

I got another of those power over esata hdd enclosures.

I got a 640gb samsung hdd 5,400rpm for it. I am having a problem initialising it. Anyway, is the usb power enough to power it ? or is 500gb the max it will power ?

 

I dont think the F is a slow performer, might be slower on the graphic department but as far as the CPU, the core i7 is top of the line now. The complaints its more into the screen, whistle, morse code sound, etc.

 

I have read those complaints also, but none of them affect my unit, including display problems.

Bill

 

The power consumption is not always proportional to the capacity size. I don't have the box handy but geeks.com says here: "Supports up to 500GB".

But it should work anyway, did you try first connecting via USB & format then disconnect & connect again via Power Over eSATA?

If it does not work, you could create a full system image, use the 640GB as your main drive installing it using said image & use your main HDD which I presume is a 500GB in the enclosure.

 

NEVER ever format via USB! The additional translation layer introduces all sorts of problems. It only gives a format compatible with everything else about half time. Plus there's AHCI versus IDE standard etc. Format via Esata, or actual Sata if necessary on a desktop system, THEN use it through a USB port.

The USB power from the USB powered-Esata port is plenty. I use a WD Sorpio 7200 RPM 640 Gig on it. Erm, we ARE talking about mobile drives? No 3.5" HD will work on USB power.

 

Does everyones HD light blink approx 1/sec when computer is idle? Just curious. Mine does with my SSD. I installed the original HD and it did the same thing. I hope this hasn't already been addressed.

 

Great question!

Mine blinks every second sometimes. Other times it does not blink at all at idle. I have Prefetch, Superfetch and all indexing shut off. I had concerns, but then I noticed that it does not happen all of the time.

I have no idea why it blinks, but I am hoping that perhaps it has to do with TRIM clearing deleted data locations.

If anyone else knows, I would love a definitive answer also!

Bill