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

Good morning!

Mango, I never thought you were trying to provoke or incite me. that was the furthest thing from my mind. I agree that SSDs have had problems in the past and that older model SSDs, which are still in stock and are being discounted in price, may not be great performers.

I also believe that pretty much all SSDs that have been introduced since January of this year correctly implement TRIM and have newer, faster and more reliable controllers. My SSD was originally introduced in very late summer of last year. There WERE problems with degradation and failure. There were several firmware updates whichfinally corrected these problems and they perform much better now. In fact, I bought my SSD for my machine at a very low price from Newegg. When I received it, the firmware was TWO editions older than the current version. I had to take the time to install it into my desktop, change the desktop controller from SATA to IDE, them perform the firmware update.

This was not desireable, and I thought of returning it, but it took me about 20 minutes and saved me about $200 over comparable SSDs. Since installation into my laptop, it has been perfect. Had I not updated the firmware, who knows, I may have had tons of performance issues and a quick failure.

Mango, I am still a bit nervous that the SSDs that I have installed in the church machines, as well as my own machine, may not last or may become corrupted. This is new technology for consumers. On the other hand, this technology has been used for quite some time in harsh environments and military applications. It is probably perfected more than we know and many of the early consumer problems could perhaps be attributed to the cheapening of controllers in order to reduce consumer price points.

As far as insane, if I had a desktop, I would be looking at one of these during the next year, after I feel more comfortable of the reliability:

OCZ's RevoDrive Preview: An Affordable PCIe SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Bill

 

Thanks, will probably try to check it @fry's. Strange thing, Best Buy doesnt carry 1080P F12, they only offer the 900P. To me the 900P is enough, however, for 50 bucks more, I can get the 1080P..but it seems that the 1080P screen have more issue then the 900P, like vegas..his screen was really bad, the 900P that I saw at BB wasnt like that at all. The light is lit almost evenly.

 

Actually, it's only the 1080p, 330M combo that shows the July 27 shipping date on Sony Canada CTO. The 330M with the 900 screen shows a July 5 shipping date, as does the 310M with the 1080p screen.

 

Hey guys,
I've been following this thread for quite a while now and just love the information that is given here. Probably the best source on the net.

Today I orderd my F12 and also a Momentus XT. I just wanted to check if I'm missing no usefull guide that was posted here before and that I should be doing once my notebook arrives.

So far I'm considering:

- the HDD Replacement Guide
- Clean Install Guide
- Monitor Calibartion Guide
- Anything else? Firmware updates?

Thanks!

 

new_vaio_F: Let me know what you think when you see it. I too could not pass graphics with 3x more cores for less than 50$ and a free 1080p on the side. The one I saw was more like Mango's than Naz's. If I looked at 45 degrees from left or right (I dont consider that normal viewing) it lost some brightness but no inversion and such. I was also wondering if text would strain my eyes at such small font/pixels on a 16", it was solid and beautiful for my taste.

 

What happens if you plug headphones or mute speakers or plug external speakers or use an external monitor? Are you using a third-party equalizer? If so, try disabling it. Did you try disabling all sound enhancement & Dolby by right clicking the speaker icon > Playback Device > Speaker > Properties? This works also to fix distortion coming from the onboard speakers:



It this an OEM OS? Did you download the latest Realtek driver for your model in the esupport page?

 

The F & Windows 7 are excellent for scaling the text & OS representation size w/o changing the 1080p LCD native resolution. I use 125% & it's extremely sharp.

Changing the LCD's resolution is the worst method to get larger text, icons, etc.

I'm farsighted since a few years & was hesitating between the 900p & the 1080p. I'm really glad I chose the 1080p, for photo editing it's simply awesome to have a high DPI when zooming in for detail photo editing & tweaking. I did up scale the OS UI to 125% with this method.

From Control Panel > Display, try also > ClearType Text Tuner (worked great for me) or Custom DPI Setting to fine tune between 125 & 150% (I don't use that). Windows 7 has much better tools to upscale the OS representation compared to XP for example.





Keep in mind that when checking the F's display in a store, you are probably looking at the worst scenario & properly tuning ClearType & Vaio_F Series monitor calibration can only make it better.

 

Where do you get the latest BIOS updates for the F11 if any? Because I really want to tweak with the CPU abit but on my current BIOS there isn't any CPU clock settings

 

Not gonna happen even if there is a BIOS update.

 

There is none @ the present & they don't want end-users to mess up with the complex CPU thermal management & Turbo Boost parking some core or not, etc. Turbo Boost is managing cores & threads & overclocking on demand, why let the user throw a wrench in there?

BIOS are usually released to solve problems like HP_did for the Envy_15 & now the Envy_17 or Dell_recently for the_XPS. We compared BIOS & some users here reported newer versions but we suspect it's for newer motherboard revision. BTW could a_F12 owner run the free & standalone (no install needed) SIW 2010 & tell us what data he sees under the hardware > motherboard & BIOS tabs? Again, for my VPCF115FM:

C603ENDZ
North Bridge Intel DMI Host Bridge Revision 11
South Bridge Intel PM55 Revision 11
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
Cpu Socket Socket 989 rPGA

And under the BIOS tab:

BIOS Vendor American Megatrends Inc.
Serial Number 27514932-xxxxxxxxxxx
BIOS Version R0250Y6
Firmware Version 2.50
BIOS Date 12/07/2009

Everest Ultimate Engineer v5.50.2143b Portable reports (I replaced some numbers with xxx's in System Serial Number and in System UUID):

DMI BIOS Vendor American Megatrends Inc.
DMI BIOS Version R0250Y6
DMI System Manufacturer Sony_Corporation
DMI System Product VPCF115FM
DMI System Version C603ENDZ
DMI System Serial Number 27514932-xxxxxx
DMI System UUID 20844ACD-4BD7DD11-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx
DMI Motherboard Manufacturer Sony_Corporation
DMI Motherboard Product VAIO
DMI Motherboard Version N/A
DMI Motherboard Serial Number C603ENDZ
DMI Chassis Manufacturer Sony_Corporation
DMI Chassis Version N/A
DMI Chassis Serial Number N/A
DMI Chassis Asset Tag N/A
DMI Chassis Type Notebook

Searching the web with Tanis.7x's BIOS R0280Y6 I found this Sony_support page but w/o links for downloading nor notes saying if it would brick my mobo or not as BIOS updating is a dangerous thing if it's not for your specific mobo:

I tried to find a download page for EP0000225488.exe mentioned in the page to no avail. My guess is that the download link could be given to a user or to a repair tech by support in special cases.

 

Ah Bill - sorry again . It's always so hard for me to tell the kind of tone I put across though text. Anyhow, thanks for all of your info about SSD's - I've certainly found it very eye opening and I am sure others have as well

EDIT: on a different subject, I've also started playing age of empires 3. It's not a really new game, but like other RTS games, it can be demanding on the CPU. Anyhow, it runs pretty much at 35fps with all settings on high (including antialiasing) at 1920x1080. I will get a video up later.

 

I would recommend updating the video card drivers to the latest 257.21 (or at least 197.16/197.44 as outlined in this thread. Even if you don't game the new drivers have nice goodies like support for gpu-accelerated flash media and support for CUDA.

 

It may also be coming from the backlight inverter? The reason I think this is because all the "display off" button does is disable the backlight and that the inverter can sometimes make the sort of high-pitched noise that the mic produces.

If this is the case you may need your inverter replaced by_sony.

 

No need to be sorry...I like discussions! There are times when I am annoyed with the same questions over and over or when someone asks a question about something that was answered 5 posts earlier, but otherwise, things are usually all good with me.

I probably don't reply to you enough, but you usually post about gaming, and I do not play computer games (other than Tiger Woods PGA Golf on the kids PS3).

When the subject of SSDs comes up, I usually respond. I am not an "expert" about the technology, but I have studied everything that I can before spending thousands of dollars retrofitting them to several machines.

At first, I felt just like you...most random reads and writes are very small in day-to-day consumer computer use, and SSDs are considerably slower at this than they are at continuous large file reads and writes. However, using one will very quickly change your mind. Then you will begin to wonder why they are quicker, even though the benchmarks say they should be slow. Well...all HDDs are slower at random small file R/Ws and their large seek times add huge amounts of time to the equation.

One more thing...you can set up Windows 7 to perform even better with an SSD. While setting up the way I set mine up MAY slow your SSD just a touch, it will speed your computer overall. If you ever need to know, just look at older posts of mine and you can find it under SSD.

Bill

 

Yeah, some screens can do that. Just like televisions. If I'm in another room, I can tell if the TV is on in another room due to the high-pitched frequency.

 

Mango, thanks for all these gaming benchmarks. They have really shown me what this thing can do in games. I realize the 330m is not quite as good as the ATI 5650, but it sounds like it holds up pretty good in most games. What type of VRAM does the F series use?

And do you have any benchmarks for Fallout 3 or perhaps Anno 1404?

 

1. Question - ah...nothing happens. The noise remains.
2. I'm not using a third party equalizer.
3. i've done your procedure disabling all enhacement and dolby and the noise remains.
4. OEM OS?what does it mean? I've made a clean installation with another OS (Windows 7 Ultimate).
5. The drivers are from 2009. When i try to install the 06/2010 drivers he begins extracting and the installation dosent continues.

I think the problem is really with the display. I cant understand if the sounds comes from the mic or the display. But if it goes away touching the "display off" button it really keep me thinking about being a display problem.

 

Im going to speak with sony.

 

In case anyone wants to dive in for one...Newegg has the Momentus XT 500GB now in stock again...

Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive -Bare Drive

When I ordered mine a few days ago it came with a free $20 CMS USB 2.0 enclosure!

If you order it via TigerDirect it ships within 10-15 days, and with Amazon within 1 - 2 months. So Newegg's your best bet.

 

I just got the VPCF11JFX the other day and I was curious to find out if I could put another sata drive in place of the BD drive. Is that possible?

 

If the drive is hooked up via SATA its worth a shot provided the BIOS will cooperate. The bay would likely be too large for a standard 2.5" drive however.

 

Yes...ask Joe Bleau here on the forums, I believe he did it. You buy a specific bay that holds a SATA hard drive and you put it in place on the optical drive.

 

OEM means Original Equipment Manufacturer & OS is Operating system so OEM OS means the custom Win 7 that was installed specifically for your F by_Sony in the factory with all the necessary specific drivers & patches. Clean install means you installed a generic Win 7 OS & we don't know if you installed the proper stuff for your F to work properly.

"The drivers are from 2009. When i try to install the 06/2010 drivers he begins extracting and the installation dosent continues" - That's fishy. Are you sure that on your F11S1E Sony_UK support page there is a 06/2010 Realtek driver? Don't you see any Realtek Audio Driver PCEE Registry Patch?

You said that using headphones changed nothing but then you posted this:

Which one is it?

 

cool, thank you. I'll contact him.

I found this link

Secondary Drive in the Optical Drive Bay of a VAIO VPCF Series

 

So, this is my first post, but I've been following along since about the beginning of part 3.
I purchased a Sony F 12 last week and received it yesterday and wanted to share some thoughts and possibly get feedback.

I got a CTO: i7 840, 1080p, 1gb video, 8gb ram, blu-ray player, 7200rpm 500gb.

First of all, the processor is amazing and I'm happy I went for the 8gb as I've never had Windows 7 before and with it idling it was consistently over 2gb usage.
Second, I did have some reservations about the light bleed and screen from reading this forum. I turned off auto-brightness and added one of the color profiles, this certainly improved things. However, comparing to my sister's Macbook Pro, I am somewhat disappointed in the screen mostly due to the light bleed at the bottom, really only noticeable when it is black. I did do a comparison with the 900p model at Best Buy, the screens looked very similar so I figured there wasn't any unusual or special problem with mine. In conclusion it wasn't bad enough to return.
Thirdly, today after about 6 hours of total use I got the blue screen of death with something to the effect of "beginning dump of physical memory". After a few times I called tech support, and while we tried to run some diagnostics on the memory it rebooted again, so I was transferred to customer service and given an RMA number.
So, it has been a bit of a disappointing weekend, but I'm wondering what to do now. I can't think of another laptop out there with the same specs for even a close price. If I do order another one I'll probably go with the 256gb SSD. I was kinda on the fence with this before.
Thought I'd share since I've received much help by reading this forum. Thanks.

 

Check this also: VAIO_F Series Best DIY HDD Upgrade?

 

Memory dump does not mean necessarily memory problems.

Did you check your Start > search: event viewer > Custom Views > Administrative Events? Look for 'Error' or 'Critical' events.

What were you doing when you got your BSOD?

Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback.

 

1. Sorry, not 06/2010 but 02/2010. No, there isnt a "Realtek Audio Driver PCEE Registry Patch". Just a 02/2010 driver update and a 01/2010 original driver. And the name is "Audio Driver (realtek)" for the 02/2010 and "Audio Driver" for the 01/2010.

2. Sorry again. When i posted i forgot to say to you too. It apears that the sound is coming from the bottom center of the display so its very likely a display problem. Laptop Repair Help Screen inverter replacement. Fixing laptop backlight problem.

Something like that, i think. I have no problems with the screen, just the noise, so its probably the inverter problem.

 

I'm disappointed to hear that Lucror, and I'm quite wary as mine is coming is arriving very soon .

If you want a laptop with those specs and same price, there's the ASUS G51, which I configured to everything you have there + a much higher-end graphics card, and it yielded $1865.18 after the $100 rebate (no sales tax for me). With the Vaio, I got $1804.99 but this is before taxes, which would yield $1953 for me since Sony operates in several states. This is one of the laptops I have considered heavily, and may purchase if I have the same story as yours.

 

Yes, it could be an inverter problem that's why I suggested to connect an external monitor to take it out of the equation as a troubleshooting step. Try reducing brightness. Does it do it when the F is cool & just booting up or after using it a while?

If the driver update does not unpack properly, download it again.

 

inno89, yeah it's a bummer.

Joe, there are quite a few, some even dated way before i got the machine.

Bonjour Service (it did crash a few times and itunes was running at the time for sure)
Dhcp-Client
SidebySide
Windows update client
Application
Service Control Manager
WLan-Autoconfig
Schannel
BugCheck
Even Log
SRTSP
DistributedCOM
kernel-event tracing

First time was working in PowerPoint 2010. Probably with itunes and firefox in the background.
The other times I made sure not to run office 2010, so transferring files, itunes, firefox, control center.

 

Why worry? The odds are that your machine will be worry free. If it's defective, return, exchange or repair.

Smell the roses.

 

I'm new to windows 7 and 64 bit. Is it possible a 32 bit program I'm running is causing this problem?

 

Nah...highly unlikely. That "dump of physical memory" is normal for any BSOD...what software are you running that is 32-bit? Also, has the problem happened again? Sometimes programs crash for no reason, but then work perfectly fine after.

 

Nuggstein, possibly zonealarm firewall (I made sure to turn off the windows firewall), other than that I've only installed itunes (64 bit), office 2010 (i assume 64bit), avira (says in help it is compatible with 64 bit), and firefox. I believe that is everything from the past two days.
It does it every 2-5min no matter what I'm doing, but it ran fine most of yesterday and today (6-8hrs of use).

 

I don't like itunes & their Bonjour Service caused some problems on my XP system.

I would seriously check your errors one by one (they have link to more info) & check if all your added software is up to date before returning the unit. The BSOD normally mentions an error # and the memory dump contains info which I don't want to get into.

BTW Firefox 3.6 is out & they recommend an Adobe Flash update as the previous one may cause security & stability problems...

You can run 32-bit programs on your machine, it's automatic most of the time. Check "windows 7" compatibility mode.

Odds are that it's not a hardware problem. Have you run the ASSIST > Vaio_Care > OneClick Care or the hardware tests in the Troubleshooting tab?

The ultimate way to find out if it's you that messed up something or if it's the machine that's defective is to revert to the factory state. I would do that before shipping it back.

Good luck!

 

Everything seems fine and doesn't seem to be a software issue, it shouldn't matter if you're running a 32-bit program or a 64-bit program...hmmm...have you tried running the computer in safe mode and see if the BSOD occurs?

Hold F8 during bootup and select Safe Mode, or Safe Mode with Networking if you want to go online, and see if the same issues occur. When in safe mode it's not running any software except Windows and the default services. If there is a BSOD, then either your installation of Windows is corrupt or your hard drive is corrupt and would require a replacement drive.

 

Joe, I've always had THE worst luck in almost anything I'm expecting in life. I'm 500000% serious. This is why I try to work as hard as I can to reduce the luck factor in anything I'm expecting as close as possible to 0%.

 

Newegg Asus G51 reviews mentioned blue screens of death too much for me to jump in when I looked. They may have addressed it with software fixes since. In a review dated this week one user mentions loading updates for 4 hours.
It is hard to build a cool running i7 laptop, the f12 is cooler than most as far as I read and heat is another cause of mysterious issues that are hard to debug. To be clear I don't know what the Asus problem was.

Lucror, you can also take a look at your internal temperature readings, if you have a problem with the fan. If you can feel it pushing warm air when you hold the top left it is likely fine. Joe will have a wealth of details if you find that path suspicious.

 

I remember that used to be a problem with a few people until they released a new BIOS I believe. The Vaio will of course be cooler due to the large difference in graphic chipsets, although I remember I played around with the older Core 2 Duo 15" Macbook Pro (before the i5/i7 refresh) and that thing got HOT while its graphics card was sub-par.

 

The next time get a friend to order it for you.

*****

 

The current Macbook pro i7 is a 2 core w/ the same GT 330m card as my F 4 core & posted some benchmarks & it runs at least 30c hotter than the F in this one (104c - 219F max ):



@ btugalover: did you try disconnecting all your external devices? I had several system freeze recently because of a stupid defective $2 USB cable to an external drive. It took me a while before finding the culprit.

 

But for the F11 in Canada there never was a GT330/900 option, you could get either screen, but the GT330 was only offered with the 1920 and only for the first six weeks. I should know, I was the last Canadian CTO buyer to receive a GT330, LONG after they had become unavailable for everyone else. (long story, read thread #1.)

 

So has anybody had luck in getting any additional discounts on the F series by talking to someone on Sony eSupport Live Chat? I'm getting the 5% student discount but sales tax in my state is 10%, i figured they might match it, considering I'll also be buying a 2 year service plan. What should I tell them?

 

The memory sticks can work loose, or not be pushed in properly by the builder. Make sure both are clipped in securely.

If they are secure - removing and replacing both sticks doesn't cure the crashing - then try removing one stick of memory, then the other, and seeing if the bluescreen goes away. If the system works perfectly with one of the sticks only then call support and tell them it's the memory, and ask if you can ship just the bad ram stick back. We know it's probably memory but you can run Memtest86 anyway to make certain.

 

I can guarantee one thing, Windows 7 does NOT bluescreen; an application error never crashes Windows out of the GUI. App hangs, slow program opening, and warning messages, are the most you will get after an application error or crash. A bluescreen means a hardware issue, virtually always being bad system ram, with the F's power supply being a distant second possibility (quite a few F11s have had bad motherboard power supplies) and the third possibility is hard drive. WAY below that is a software issue, and it would be with the graphics driver or other hardware driver rather than with any third-party software.

That bluescreen is due to bad, or loose, memory, I bet on it. As I say, take out each stick to see if the bluescreens stop happening, and run Memtest86. Also Vaiocare diagnostics will probalby point to bad memory.

 

I'm guessing you're trying for SonyStyle USA? If so, i'd try for phone rather than chat sales. Look at posts in Part 1-2 of this thread on discounts. Some have received up to 10-15% in discounts. I got 15% off by pairing my purchase with an accessory and 2 year plan. A few lucky ones got 15% with just the purchase of the laptop. Get the neoprene case for the F12. It's cheap ($20+) and very useful. It fits like a glove too.

Just be nice to the sales person and be upfront about asking for a 15% discount because you'd like to purchase an accessory and a service plan. The success of this still depends on the mood of the rep who'll place you on hold to get permission from his/her manager. IF they don't give it to you in the end, just politely tell them that you'll try the purchase later and then call them up at a different time hoping not to get the same person.

It's worth the wait in my opinion. The student discount is not special. I was told by a phone rep once that anyone can get 5% off just by asking for it over the phone. Regardless I needed the 15% as a true relief from my NYC tax.

Good Luck!

EDIT: Phone sales gives better discounts when you buy more of the expensive items. My rep was willing to give me 20% off the total purchase if I had bought a new Bravia TV as well. I would have too if he had not mentioned 3D tv's coming out this summer.
EDIT2: The above really only applies to personal purchases. I wanted to get 6 F11's for my office and no dice, I only got 10%