Official Sony VAIO F Series i5/i7 owners thread *Part 3*

What real increase in speed would I notice going to the 840 versus the 740 chip for what I will be using it for?

>Maybe 10% improvement (probably less).

I don't 3D game or do any major multi tasking. Is the 840 worth the $350.00 extra or would my needs be quite comfortably be met by the 740 chip? Would I be better off saving the 350 for the inevitable replacement?

>I just ordered the F1290 with the 740 chip. For me, the benefit of the 840 chip is not worth an extra $350, $150 maybe but even that I would have to think about. I am fairly sure the 740 will be fine for my needs (photoediting and some video editing).

The only thing I'm neverous about is the LCD panel but if it truly sucks it'll be going back regardless of the "no returns on CTO orders" policy. If it sucks its defective, period.

FYI: The estimated shipping date slipped from July 6th to 13th to 20th over the last three days so if you want it before August you'd better place your order soon!

 

well for one thing they are moving fast, shipping is delayed until the 20 of july for cto orders now

 

Wow, seriously? Good thing I ordered mine on Monday, and I thought 6/29 estimated ship date was long.....I just hope those idiots don't screw up my order or put faulty screens!

 

And how would you call somebody that orders a notebook made by "those idiots"?

 

Joe, I ordered a Vaio last fall and they sent me a laptop with the completely wrong configurations. They also took months to refund my order after many phone calls and complaints to them because they did not send the message to GE to refund my order. They had the nerve to charge me LATE fees because of their incompetence, which was later reversed of course. I'm giving them a second chance now, as I always believe in second chances, but they are walking on a atom-length thread. I think I have more than the full right to call them idiots, as they clearly demonstrated it.

 

My reply above was an attempt at humour but I see that you have some reasons to be weary. Was that with Sonystyle US & their San Diego facilities where they assemble the CTO, I think?

Maybe an other customer also got "completely wrong configurations" & they boxed order a with shipping label b & vice versa.

 

Yes, it was with Sonystyle US and it was in San Diego.

It is certainly possible that some other customer got the wrong configurations as well, and they messed up the shipping labels, but even so I didn't get the laptop that I ordered. I received the lowest (or near lowest) possible configuration which were a notch or notches lower than what I paid for. If they mixed up the shipping, then someone out there got very lucky and got a higher end laptop that they didn't pay for!

 

See, there is always a silver lining.

 

@Zebra:
This is definetly NOT a really nice looking screen. At least not at Europe standards.
The second image has some lightn coming from the bottom ????? what is that?
And the thrid image has some diagonal lines in the clouds? maybe its a problem with the photo, but in the second image there is no compression or photo problem, we can clearly see a light coming from the bottom of the screen.

My advice, if this is the image quality you all are geting, then there is no point on buying a Vaio, unless the other brands have also that crap monitors.

If people continue to buy laptops like that do you really think they are going to change theyr quality standard?

A laptop like that in Europe simply doesnt sell. period.

O... and one last thing. F11 here didnt had that problem either. So it's not a F11 or F12 related problem. Its a problem with the US Sony materials as i can see it.

Make the revolution

 

Can someone please help me!! This is urgent
There is a problem with my GPU or gpu driver, when I play a game, eg. Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2, my graphic card doesnt recognize them as a 3d application and continues running at 2d clocks, which makes the framerate terrible(15-19 fps), once it ran at 3d clocks and i got about 20 more fps compared to 2d clock, but that was random and i don't know how it happened.

How do I make it always run on 3d clocks when Im playing a game?
If I cant how do i force 3d clocks?
Dont tell me to change the power management mode on NVIDIA control panel for the applications to prefer maximum performance, because IT Doesnt work for me :s

EDIT: and yessir, I have latest drivers from NVIDIA's site, 257.21

 

^ Did you overclock? If you overclocked too much, that's gonna happen.

 

Well yes I did, is there a limit on how much I can OC before it doesn't function properly? because I really get a BIG FPS boost with OC and I really don't want to reverting stock clocks just to solve this issue

I use EVGA Precision

 

Yes there is a limit and you've exceeded it. Try going to default clock speeds, and then go up slowly until it doesn't work anymore. If it reverts to 2D clock speeds, you're gonna have to reboot to be able to get the 3D clock speeds again. Also, you should be using Nvidia's overclocking utility...why are you using EVGA's? It's not even an EVGA card.

Try 700, 948, 1540

 

@Danielh97

Also create an OC profile that you will use ONLY when you need it. Having your GPU overclocked all the time is just asking for trouble and the last thing you want is to do permanent damage to a GPU that can't be replaced easily and will be costly to repair since overclocking damage is not covered by the Sony warranty.

EDIT: You did not ramp up all the overclocking settings to the max by any chance did you?

 

No ahha im not that stupid :s

I set it lower then Nuggenstien told me and it's fine now.

Games run in 3D clocks, 100% load doesnt go above 75% C

 

On the F11 there is 4 memory chips, 2 on the top of the board and two on the bottom, the two on the top are attached are cooled by the main heatsink, the two on the bottom are just bare no heatsink at all.

Also you can check the gpu temperature but cannot check the temperature of the memory chips, so you dont know how hot they are getting and your only indication is when have artefacts with your graphics.

Atitool can test for this if you can get it working.

 

No returns of CTO models? I think that's only in engraved cases. Or maybe outside USA.

I actually did not look at those images, I just noticed that image bleed was FAR less than some of the photos posted by VEGAS and others with problems. Is it perfect? No, far from. But better. Though now that I took a second look I can see all the stuff you spoke of. Mango, it's your Vaio, what's your opinion?

 

Before purchasing my F11, I also thought the speed gain MIGHT approach 10%. After all, the clock speed is less than 10% faster. I have worked quite a bit with the F11 with 720QM processors. I own an F11 with the 820QM processor. It is VERY noticably faster. Perhaps not in games...I am not a gamer so I don't know.

Performance test 7.0 shows about a 20% gain in speed. I guess that the processor speed is not all that matters. The L3 cache is 2MB bigger on the 8XXQM than it is on the 7XXQM, so perhaps the larger cache attributes to the faster speeds?

Bill

 

I think GandalfPT is pulling our legs. A laptop display as good a a desktop TN panel as regards light bleed, in a system that has the the lowest cost versus performance ratio on the market....?! Mango's F11 has a superb display, many of us are jealous.

Europeans pay 50% more for their laptops than we lucky North Americans. You two are sounding like spoiled kids who didn't get the toys they wanted at Christmas. Ever see the Youtube video of a teenager who was given a new Lexus for her Birthday, and threw a fit because it was the wrong colour or presented at the wrong time of day or something?

 

A tip for if you want your order earlier. Order just the 310M GPU (512MB VRAM) and the estimated shipping day is July 5th.

Haha, I guess they have too many 512's and need to get rid of them.

Gee just $15.60 for the 330M and 1 GB VRAM? No brainer...it's worth the wait.

Hey, if somebody is gonna spend so much money anyway...might as well get the colour you want! R8 in all black please. Thanks!

 

The light coming from the bottom is actually accentuated a great deal by the photo - it's not that noticeable in real life. Sorry I did not state this initially. The diagonal lines in the clouds are part of the wallpaper. I should have mentioned this, but I never thought that someone would assume that it was a fault of the screen

Like I said, the screen isn't the best but its certainly good enough considering the price. As MelodyMaster mentioned, the European version of this laptop is much more expensive so I'm pretty happy with what I've got .

 

Hum... i apologize if you think i am "pulling your legs", that was not my intention, and regarding your last coment it's an unfortunate one. I have worked very hard to try to save money to buy a laptop. Yes in Europe, unfortunately they are much more expensive, and in that part you are lucky... or not.
What i was trying to say with my previous post was that you guys shouldnt be satisfied with a good product if you are paying for a premium product.

There must be some diference in the construction somewhere, because if you check some European foruns, no one is having problems with the screen.

Anyway, im real happy with my F12, even if it was pink, so im sory if i was trying to help and was misunderstanded, maybe it was my fault, and my english isnt good to the point i cant explain myself

I will not mention the screens anymore, but i make one last post with some pictures of it tonight. so you all can decide if you should keep pressure on Sony to get better screens or if you are all happy with them.

 

Just out of curiosity, what are your clocks?

 

Hi guys,

So the F12 is plugged into a wall next to me undergoing system restore to factory spec. I obtained a return authorization from TDirect and it's going back today for a refund.

Call me crazy but I hit the bing cash back circuit again, this time at 25%, and for $1500 out the door ordered an Envy 17.

Aluminum casing
i5-540 (onboard graphics, possibly switchable with 5850)
6GB RAM
USB 3.0
500 gb 7200, will probably drop that back-ordered Momentus in there.
free HDD bay for second drive, so 1TB onboard possible
1gb 5850 ATI
Slot load blue ray, DVDRW
and drumroll....
17.3 inch diagonal Full HD Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display
5 in 1 media reader for cable free SLR transfers
claimed 3 hour battery life
and also not that I'll every use it but the 5850 has some sort of mini port out thats capable of driving 3 screens as if one....

I have 21 days to return no questions asked to any HP store in the area, after that I can return to hp.com.

When I get it I'll post some screen shots and then quietly migrate to the HP board. I'm still curious to see how others are rating their 1080p glossy.

Good luck to all!

 

Mangosango, thank you for your explanation. I have suspected that those lines where a image compression problem or something, was just worried with the light, but if you say that it is magnified by the photo and that in real life isnt noticable, i beleave you.

And by all means dont think i was saying your screen or US screens in general are bad or good or anything. I was just comparing, maybe when i take pictures of mine tonight i will get that light too.

best regards.

 

Hello everyone,

I've had a look through this and previous owners threads...
It's pretty exhausting.

Can any one tell me how to dissable the auto brightness on a VPC-F11JOE/H?

The sony control panel/display sections doesn't seem to have an option?

Thanks

 

No problem - I really should've mentioned it when I posted the images. I'm looking forward to seeing more European screens. Apart from some images early in this thread I don't recall having seen any pictures of the European 1080p screen. I wish they gave US customers the option of a better screen, but that's life I guess .

 

Look at the bright side

- you have more affordable laptops;
- you can decide your system configuration;
- and you can have backlit keyboards

All in all you have more choices that we do

 

For me, it's under Vaio Control Center > Display > Automatic Brightness Settings > (uncheck) Adjust Brightness Automatically

 

Thanks Mango,

For me the Sony Control Center looks like this:

+ Display (no options just)
- Display settings ( Monitor - Resolution - Colours )
- HDMI Resolution Settings
- Long Battery Life Wallpaper ( :/ wat )

No mention of auto brightness. Which version of the control center do you have? The very latest one?

 

Gandolf,

My screen (US 1080p) is great! There is very little light bleed and it is better than my Dell premium desktop screen was. Is it PERFECT? No, I am not so sure there are many electronics that are absolutely perfect.

That said...you say your screen is PINK? My screen had a pinkish hue until I used my Huey Pro to calibrate it. Now it has great color. As Joe has stated many times...I also learned many years ago to calibrate all displays. Al lof my TVs, along with all of my family and friends' TVs have been calibrated by me. All of my family's computer moitors have been calibrated, again, by me. This is a very important step.

I wish that displays did not need calibration, but for some reason, they all do. I do not understand why all of the manufacturer's do not run a 2 minute calibration program on each display (TV or computer) and save the profile in an EPROM. It is strange that we spend a lot of money on a display and the colors are never correct...no matter how expensive or how good the display is.

Most displays can be calibrated to where they look stunning. I have never seen one that is PERFECT after calibration, but they do come very close.

As Joe has repeatedly said in his posts...if you want a decent display, CALIBRATE! If it is still aweful, then return it.

Bill

 

R8 in black!!! hahahahaha....Good choice!! I test drove one of those late last year. They're cheaper than a Gallardo with more or less the same engine and have lower scheduled maintenance costs.

 

The F11/F12 is a BUDGET notebook. It is at the cheapest price point and construction possible while offering high-end features. The Z-series and such is Sony's PREMIUM line of notebooks.

 

+1 -------------

 

Just as long as I get the "industry leading viewing experience" and not the "move your viewing angle slightly and the picture looks like sh1t experience".

 

Hmm that's so strange - I have the one that came pre-installed with the computer (version 4.1.0.10160).

You may want to download the control center off of the sony esupport page ( Sony eSupport - VPCF1190X - Software Updates & Drivers for my F11 - VPCF1190X). The Control Center is available on the Drivers page under the Notebook Control and Utilities section as part of the Original Sony Notebook Utilities download.

Good luck

Here is a screenshot of my Control Center:

 

An interesting read: Roundup: 2.5-inch Hard Disk Drives with 500 GB, 640 GB and 750 GB Storage Capacities (it's recent: 2010-06-16 & 11 drives are compared). The Hitachi 7K500 won the Editor’s Choice award. There is interesting data to help make a decision considering speed/power needs/storage capacity.

I live in Costa Rica & 4 months ago a US friend was coming to visit me & offered to bring some stuff that I needed to ship to him besides my_F11. My first choice was a pair of Hitachi 7K500's but for some online ordering/shipping address limitations, I could not ship them to him. Got a pair of Seagate ST9500420AS 500GB 7200rpm instead and so far so good with excellent benchmark results but for a similar price & capacity the Hitachi 7K500 is faster & has a lower power consumption @ idle (.91 vs. 1.15 Watt) for better battery life in the 7200rpm class when surfing or doing light work for example.

While the start current power consumption is higher, in the rest of their tests there is no significant differences except for the Seagate's 2.59 vs. 2.21 Watts sequential read consumption. More info in the Roundup's Power Consumption page.



BTW the power consumption data for the Seagate 5400rpm 640 GB and Scorpio Blue WD7500BPVT-22HXZT0 with 750 GB are quite surprising considering their large storage capacities & are good candidates for a secondary HDD in the ODD bay if aimed at storage.

Naturally if you can afford it, nothing beats a large capacity SSD. Price drop, where are you?

 

Just took the plunge and bought my own Vaio F12 (my friend is buying one tonight) on the SonyStyle.com website!

I got the educational discount plus got express shipping since I chatted online with a customer service rep. I noticed, and when I chatted with the rep he confirmed it, when you choose a warranty (2 year or 3 year) you get an additional promotional discount so I went ahead and chose that as well. This is the educational, USA side of the site btw.

I tried calling Sony 4 different times to see if I could get a better discount and was told each time, by different reps, that I would have to purchase at least 3 accessories before they would give me a discount greater that the student discount I was already receiving. Oh well. I am happy with what I got.

I plan to comb the unification posts again now that I have my own Sony to configure. Can't wait for it to arrive!

 

Super jealous of your specs vs. price.

 

Yeah the EDU discount is only 5%, thought it used to be 8%. And they only bump it up to 10% if you buy the protection warranty I don't want to drop $160 on.

 

Nice buy. I don't, however, believe that the turbo boost spec is correct. I thought that the turbo boost on the 740QM was 2.93. I think that we had determined earlier that the Sony spec was wrong.

Still, a great machine.

Bill

 

You right Bill, I posted this a few page back: i7-720QM, 740QM, 820QM vs 840QM Specs Side-by-Side on Intel's site.

 

I was thinking about getting the 840qm but it added $300 to the overall price and I wasnt sure if it was worth the extra cash.

I didn't think I would go with it either until I noticed that promotional discount I recieved, on top of my student discount. I figured with that promotional discount it ended up costing me roughly $30 to get 3 years of warranty.

That was the spec sheet that Sony sent me in an email (copied and pasted) so it might be wrong on their site.

 

Agreed, I would rather spend the $300 on an SSD for a far greater performance gain compared to HDD + i7-840QM upgrade.

 

I dropped the bomb a couple of days ago on the new F12's. It was a perfect timing for the refresh, as literally the DAY it was put up on the Canadian SonyStyle website for CTO was the day I started looking for a new lappie.

Product: CA-VPCF1290S-LBOM
Component: Adobe Creative Bundle
Component: Intel® Core™ Quad i7-740QM processor
Component: 16.4" VAIO Premium Display Full HD
Component: NVIDIA® GeForce® 330M GPU
Component: Keyboard Backlight
Component: Norton Internet Security™ 2010
Component: 500 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm]
Component: Blu-ray Disc™ Read and Write Drive
Component: Large Capacity Battery
Component: Microsoft® Office 2010 Starter
Component: No Fresh Start™
Component: Black
Component: No Engraving
Component: Microsoft Windows® 7 Ultimate
Component: 8GB DDR3-SDRAM-1333

For some reason it is significantly cheaper in Canada than the US for the same hardware. I have no idea why.
Anyways, lets hope my screen isn't all crazy Probably wouldn't affect me keeping it anyways though! Haha.

EDIT: To put it in perspective, I paid CAD$ 1463.86. For the same exact specs on the SonyStyle USA site it says it would cost about USD$ 1889.99. I wonder if there is a difference in some sort of component in the CAD version or something. Usually I have to pay MORE money compared to the US prices. My world is upside down ATM

 

An interesting notebookcheck Review LaCie rugged 500GB eSata / USB 2.0 comparing the speed of two pocket LaCie 500 GB external drives: one with Power Over eSATA that fits in the Vaio_F Series & one with an USB 3.0 interface that does not unless you use an ExpressCard/34 USB 3.0 adapter. Virtually the same average read speed!

What I like about my F is that I have 6 external HDD's w/ eSATA but none w/ USB3 so I like the Power Over eSATA/USB combo port.



*****

 

Well good luck to you too but for my needs there are several show stoppers in your new choice besides the much higher price as the Bing cashback program is only for US residents.

- Aluminum casing - that is minus for me: easier to nick, hotter to the touch, nosier.

- i5-540 - check this Intel i5-540M vs i7-740QM page: 2 core vs 4, 4 threads vs 8, 2.53 GHz x 2 vs 1.73 GHz x 4, 3 MB cache vs 6 MB, Memory Types DDR3-800/1066 vs DDR3-1066/1333, Max Memory Bandwidth 17.1 GB/s vs 21 GB/s and it's worth $121 less according to their bulk pricing. The only plus for the i5-540M is the lower TDP @ 35W vs 45W.

- 6GB RAM - But @ what speed? According to the CPU specs above, it should be slower than the F's 1333MHz or at least work at slower 1066MHz speed for that CPU in the real world.

- 17.3 inch diagonal Full HD Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display - "Ultra BrightView" is marketing speak except for the lack of bezel which I prefer for easier servicing. Side-by-side reviews or with data could tell the display quality difference. Since they don't specify RGBLED, one may presume that it's the cheaper white LED back-lighting.

- 17.3" display & secondary HDD bay is nice but the downside is a bigger form factor & 7.51 lbs vs 6.9 lbs (277 gr difference).

- "the 5850 has some sort of mini port out thats capable of driving 3 screens as if one...." - The ATI HD 5850 video card w/ GDDR5 is definitely a big plus but to plug in 3 monitors, you need to use 3 different ports. From the HP store page: "Group multiple monitors into a large integrated display surface, enabling windowed and full-screen 3D applications, images, and video to span across multiple displays as one desktop workspace. You need to connect each display to an HDMI, VGA, and Mini-Display Port". Sounds cool, I wish I had 3 monitors to plug in my laptop.

- It's an_HP. They have the worst reliability rate according to Square Trade which sells service plans & made stats recently from the repair claims they get from their customers:

 

HP sells a lot of cheap consumer laptops, which is the main reason of their high failure rate. I've had this HP for 6+ years, and other than purchasing a new keyboard for it (~$10-15) cause it got messy, and buying a new hinge for the screen after 6 years of abuse (~$20), it's been a very solid laptop and has served me well. HP also gave me a refurbished laptop of their newest model, free of charge, after my previous one's AC adapter plug broke after 2-3 years. I've also never had a problem with HP's support, as compared to Sony who shipped me the wrong laptop and refused to give me their money back and charge late fees too because they "lost" my returned laptop, in addition for them refusing to cancel my order unless "it goes through a manager first" which I had to argue through the phone.

If this Sony turns out to be a disappointment, I'm dropping Sony for good and buying an Envy 14 or 15 (when they refresh the 15).

Post #1000 on this thread.