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

Hi,
I just brought Sony vaio VPCF111Fx/B from Fry's electronics because it was on sale for great price. But, came to know that this model is now not available anymore.

Is there any reason for this model to be discontinued that I should be concerned about. Looked around some of the sites, but was not able to get proper answer.

Any help is highly appreciated!!!

 

probably because the new f12 series has just been released the one you posted is an older model..no drastic changes nothing to be worried about..but if youre still in the return period and considering you just spent best part of $1000 you could always get the newer one

 

The F11 known for some issues, the morse code issue, whistling fan, lightbleed on the display, some of them reported to have some issue with the heat (updated via BIOS recently), squeaking space bar and probably some few more issues, I didn't remember the whole thing.

The new F12 supposed to be an F11 with issues fixed.

 

Hello guys!
Can anyone tell me what model of SSD (128GB) do they offer you on Sonystyle Europe site when configuring VAIO F?

 

How much did you pay for your_F11 and for which specs exactly? I paid $1350 4 months ago for my VPCF115FM, no problems & satisfied with it.

If I would buy today, I would get a_F12 with the same specs but bigger HDD & faster CPU, revised motherboard & updated programs & drivers for $59 more.

On page 1 post #1 of this thread you can see a link to the Unification Post with comments & fixes for the_F11. If .007% of_F11 overheated for example, it does not mean that your will.

It does not matter which issues user x or y had, what counts is how is the machine you have in your hands now.

 

These are the statistics from the tests I did today. I played various games and it seems that now after the bios update the temperatures don't go above 75. The laptop also stays at about 69 CPU and 70 GPU during 4 hours of gameplay. Surprising is the RPM of the fan max 6900 . I am a bit concerned about it's reliability on the long run.

 

Thanks for posting your data, glad you like Everest v5.50.

Why did you run the Multi-GPU Furmark test version as you have only 1 GPU? That may have skewed your test results a bit. Which video driver are you using, is it the latest 257.21 64-bit found on Nvidia? @ idle, usually my mobo & video card are a tad cooler than the CPU.

Your 5 hours test is pretty impressive considering that you have the 820QM. While not at max operating temperatures, the mobo & video are a tad hot for my taste. Do you prop the back of the laptop to help natural cooling when you run your 20 hours rendering tasks?

Look at BennyPac's HP_Envy 17 Heat Tests, after only 20 minutes of Furmark + CPU @ 100%, his GPU was @ 98c (208°F) while the same stress tests on my F (with the same i7-720QM processor) was cooler: CPU 87c vs 84c and GPU 98c vs 80c. 3c is not significant but 18c is IMO.

I did not measure the palm rest temperature but it was surely cooler than the 33°C/90.5°F he reported for his Envy_17

My fan never reached 5880 RPM so far, glad to hear that there is still some rpm margin left above that as xcougar also pointed out that he felt that the fan was not running @ max, even with both CPU & GPU @ max 100%.

Ironic that the_F11's BIOS update was labeled "recall" for overheating as it is the coolest quad core laptop out there at the present, isn't?

 

Hey guys. I just bought the F12 yesterday, customized and all. Anyways I was wondering basically what you guys think of the laptop, and how the webcam is. Thanks for the help guys.

 

Well why not post your feedback? Or is it that you ordered & do not have it yet?

Many would be owners would appreciate, i'm sure.

If the webcam is like the one on my_F11, it's only 640 x 480 (VGA) & not very good in low light. They cheaped-out on that accessory IMO. I plan on upgrading it. Here is what I saw under the bezel:

 

That's pretty cool considering 4 hours of gameplay.

Thanks for posting that, I did not know about that logging report in Everest v5.50 > Preferences > Logging.

For the fan, mine shows a minimum of 2940 rpm today so I wonder if your 6900 rpm is a Everest program reporting error as your minimum is only 420 which is not possible. Anyway your average @ 4483 is fine & my guess is that if it would have jumped @ 6900, you would have heard quite a change in the pitch of the sound it makes.

BTW > Start > search: Snipping Tool so next time you can crop only the table instead of your entire desktop, it's a fun tool included in Win 7 & beats print screen + paste in an other program. It's pinned on my taskbar.

What is the white fan on black square background seen on your taskbar for?

 

@joe Bleau

hahaha...Glad you noticed that. I was thinking multi CPU instead of GPU. (I started the test late at night and was probably too sleepy to notice the difference.)
I am quite surprised that both CPU and GPU reached the 90's I never propped it to increase airflow because it never felt hot but after seeing those results I will in the future.

Yes, I am using the latest Nvidia drivers (257.21 64-bit). No problems with it so far especially now that it held up in Furmark's test for 5 hours.

 

That is SpeedFan running.

 

Speedfan caused problems on my F + it did not even report the fan speed. I removed it immediately but it was a while ago. What version are you running & what kind of info does it report?

If ViperRS ran Speedfan + Everest, I'm not surprised if Everest reported crazy speed like 420 & 6900 rpm.

ViperRS, turn off Speedfan & check if you really have your fan running @ 6900 rpm.

 

I keep speed fan because it gives me a chart of how the temperatures fluctuate rather than just the maximum and minimum which are important but more important is how they fluctuate. I think Speed Fan was closed during the everest log. Don't worry I will do some more logs to see whether the 6900 RPM was an error.

 

Hello,

Please can you tell me if I could use my old powerpack from my old F series laptop for my F11S1E? It's a AC19V14.

Thanks, Colin

 

Any of you have a problem with the fans? I'm living in Turkey and there are lots of owner here complainig about fans, while you're texting fan stops. I don't really have that much detail about it

 

Never heard of that one! Can you provide links please, preferably in English but no matter if not.

Nobody in this forum has ever reported their fan stopping for any reason (that I know of) other than powering off the system!

 

Well all of my links are Turkish, sorry btw i just read it more carefully the fans don't stop but their RPM levels drops if you know what i mean
For example you're writing an article in Word and whenever you press a button RPM levels drop, even after some BIOS updates...
This is a pretty funny problem actually

 

There is always something...

Well, I wrote something with MSWord and Excel and, guest what ?
The Everest monitoring the CPU fan droped to 0 rpm, then back to 2100, then zero again and...
closing Word and Excel didnt stop this roller coaster.
If the program is right, the FAN switchbacks occours no matter what you do.

It was just this weekend that we discover how to read the FAN behaviour with Everest. If this is happening all the time since january...
Seems like the FAN rpm drops to zero whem the temperatures of the motherboard/processor are 42°/41° C, them rises to about 2100 when that temperatures are 44/43.
Maybe a ordinary design.

 

hey,

im on the same turkish forums as him..i think he's talking about the fan slowing down when you press the ctrl button and in general people over there want to know if the issues have been fixed with regards to the fan noise etc since the f12 series havent been released over there yet and no ones had a chance to play around with it yet.

 

No, the FAN rpm dont slow down when you press the ctrl buttom.

I played a HD video with VLC, pressed several times the ctrl key and even kept it pushed, and watching the Everest monitor the FAN speed just rises, never decreased.

Hey, but this is just my F11.

 

i have sony Vaio F i7 and it is freezing till now more than 6 times!
i have update to the latest bios and still the same situtation,

please someone can give me any suggestion!???

 

Well maybe you could translate this post in Turkish & get your friends to download the free Everest Ultimate v5.50 trial so they could have real data about the effect on the fan speed when pressing continuously on a key? See this post: VAIO F_Series Fan Speed Utility + Hardware Monitoring.

This quirk about fan changing speed while pressing continuously a keyboard key was already discussed a while ago. From VAIO F11_Continuous Key Press Test, Fan Speed & Max Temperature:

I just tried it while monitoring with Everest v5.50 as well as turning on/off the stability test & all is normal. The continuous key press in Word 2010 as no significant effect on the fan.

Edit: Apparently the VAIO_F11 "recall" BIOS update fixed the continuously key press quirk that was lowering the fan speed. Includes Word 2010 key press test: VAIO_F Series Recall Bios Update Tests - F11_VPCF.

*****

SpeedFan & Fan + Temperature Graphs

SpeedFan is aggressive as it it a program to manipulate the speed of the fans in a desktop. A desktop has usually at least 3 fans: one for GPU, 1 for CPU, 1 for PSU, often 1 for the case & plenty of openings & space inside the box for natural cooling.

The F has only one fan to cool CPU, GPU and the motherboard. It is critical for heat management & that's why Sony_prevented the user from messing with the fan speed, especially with Turbo Boost that instantly kicks in the CPU in overclock mode according to demand & consequently jacks up the heat output.

That's why Speedfan messed my F & caused some slowdown & freeze, because it was trying to mess up with the fan speed management. Didn't you noticed all the cr@p that was going on when you installed it? Does it even record fan speed on you F?

There are many free utilities that will log temperature fluctuations for you, several are stand alone w/o any installation or messing up with your system.

BTW, you can see graph of temperature fluctuation as well as fan speed fluctuations in Everest v5.50 > Tools > System Stability Test. Just don't run said test & do your other tasks to see the graphs reporting. See this post about how to tweak the graphs.

 

First we need more details. You are going to the doctor & saying I'm sick & that's all?

Is your Shift key broken?

ZoneAlarm caused some BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) on Win 7 64-bit system. Are you using that software?

Please read this post & post details about your BSOD: VAIO F_Series BSOD: Bad Memory?

Did you mess up the OS or is it the original factory Operating System? Do you have BSOD's even with ALL external devices disconnected?

You can also find info about your errors here: Start > search: Event Viewer > Administrative view > Errors and under Source, look for BugCheck. For example:

Eventviewer > Source BugCheck

details:

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorReporting
[ Guid] {ABCE23E7-DE45-4366-8631-84FA6C525952}
[ EventSourceName] BugCheck

- EventID 1001

[ Qualifiers] 16384

Version 0

Level 2

Task 0

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x80000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-01T02:31:27.000000000Z

EventRecordID 54465

Correlation - Execution

[ ProcessID] 0
[ ThreadID] 0

Channel System Computer Joe_Bleau-VAIO

- EventData

param1 0x0000003b (0x00000000c0000005, 0xfffff800033ee0f3, 0xfffff88007e67dd0, 0x0000000000000000)
param2 C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP
param3 063010-33212-01

 

ill do the test ,im downloading.
more information:
it start heating than to much , and i hear the loaud of fan.i must press powrn on button to shutdown my notbook :S

 

i have bitdefender installed

 

Shift key: not broken
i have origican factory OS
im using external Mause and nothing else.
the freez happen after some minutes and i can say hours

 

Thanks but i didn't get this part. So you're saying when we press the Shift button fan slows down? Is that because of Everest?

 

I suggest you go here, follow the instructions, post in that forum & then report here: How to ask for help with a BSOD problem. BSOD means Blue Screen Of Death which is what you see when the system freeze during a critical stop.

I was joking about your Shift key being broken as you write i instead of I and never use caps when starting a phrase.

Please don't post 1,000 times about your blow-by-blow exploration of your problem as a thousand things can cause BSOD. Work on it & post 1 post with details. Relax!

If your English is too limited, I suggest you visit a forum in your own language as this is a technical subject. You may find it easier to understand & solve your problem faster.

Good luck!

 

No.

Read linked post please. Everest is a reporting tool. It will tell you what happens when you do something to your system but does nothing to your system. It's not a tweaking tool.

 

i passed up to 4min test and no freeze!

about dump, there is no logs

 

If you have no dump file then you did not read the posts I linked to so I am not wasting my time replying to you anymore.

The F OEM OS creates a .dmp file by default during a BSOD in: C:\Windows\Minidump

Why not call your Sony_support?

 

i have read carefully what u wrote!
i have follow all steps !

what is different ,im not receiveing BSOD

 

But you did have multiple BSOD's in the past according to your post #1 so you should have a .dmp file & several Error events in your Event Viewer > Administrative View > Error > Source: either BugCheck or BlueScreen.

Unless you never got any BSOD?

Could you describe exactly what happened to your computer when you wrote "it is freezing till now more than 6 times!"?

Anyway, BSOD or not, look into your Event Viewer for info about errors.

 

NO BSOD !!!!
just freezing, cant move mouse , keyboard is unavaiable nothing work,
it is like: you work on something and it freeze!

 

Freeze is even MORE likely to be hardware, even, than would be a BSOD. Check memory, as has been said.

 

have any of you guys heard of the recall for the sony vaio f11 series?
i read a small article on it on the newspaper saying it was some overheating issues or something like that. im a bit worried now but i really had no problem yet unless they were talking about my whole left side of the keyboard being really hot while playing games...

anybody here want to chime in please?

 

You are kidding right? Try searching with: recall.



You don't read or search the thread, just post questions?

 

i found these logs on events but no DUMPS:

The HomeGroup Listener service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147023143.


- System

- Provider

[ Name] Service Control Manager
[ Guid] {555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}
[ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager

- EventID 7024

[ Qualifiers] 49152

Version 0

Level 2

Task 0

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8080000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-04T22:04:29.990815000Z

EventRecordID 7144

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 776
[ ThreadID] 892

Channel System

Computer m-VAIO

Security


- EventData

param1 HomeGroup Listener
param2 %%-2147023143




second:


- System

- Provider

[ Name] Service Control Manager
[ Guid] {555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}
[ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager

- EventID 7011

[ Qualifiers] 49152

Version 0

Level 2

Task 0

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8080000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-04T22:03:10.243474900Z

EventRecordID 7120

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 776
[ ThreadID] 3608

Channel System

Computer m-VAIO

Security


- EventData

param1 30000
param2 ShellHWDetection
A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the ShellHWDetection service.


Third :

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Service Control Manager
[ Guid] {555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}
[ EventSourceName] Service Control Manager

- EventID 7011

[ Qualifiers] 49152

Version 0

Level 2

Task 0

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8080000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-04T22:02:40.229022200Z

EventRecordID 7119

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 776
[ ThreadID] 892

Channel System

Computer m-VAIO

Security


- EventData

param1 30000
param2 Browser


about memory:
i have :4gb 2Rx8-10600s-09-10-F2
M471B5273BH1-CH9 1006
on notebook i see:
030335F03A 1012

 

another log:

System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41

Version 2

Level 1

Task 63

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x8000000000000002

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-04T22:00:42.515217600Z

EventRecordID 7028

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer m-VAIO

- Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18


- EventData

BugcheckCode 0
BugcheckParameter1 0x0
BugcheckParameter2 0x0
BugcheckParameter3 0x0
BugcheckParameter4 0x0
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0

 

Apparently the VAIO_F11 "recall" BIOS update fixed the continuously key press quirk that was lowering the fan speed. Includes Word 2010 key press test: VAIO_F Series Recall Bios Update Tests - F11_VPCF.

HP_Envy 17 BIOS Update failure?

Well those Envy_owners are not so lucky it seems. BennyPac repeated his benchmarks on his Envy_17 after yet an other BIOS update by_HP & he reports that most temperatures went up! His GPU now reaches 105°C/220°F.

 

i did the update but one question
after freeze i dont wait more than 1-2 min and maybe thats why i cant see the BSOD ! how long should i wait after freeze ?

 

I tried the newly posted Everest software (thanks Joe!) and here are some results:

My single core overclacking fluctuates between 3 and 3.059GHz. Here is a snippit:


Here is my cooling fan speed and sensors when surfing a single web site and all background programs running (very basic every day use):


Here is my cooling fan and sensor data near the end of running Load Tester on all 4 cores at 100% usage. This test heated up all cores, but once they got to these temps (about 3 minutes into the test) they stabilized. Note that the GPU really was not affected by the test as it was only a CPU test:


I hope this helps...I am not a gamer, but as I have seen in the past, my CPU never gets over 67 degrees Celsius, and usually tops out where the above sensors show.

My house is air conditioned to be 74 degrees Fahrenheit and as I have stated before, I use a $23 dual fan laptop cooler at all times.

Bill

 

Thanks for posting this data. Fan @ 1980 rpm is the lowest I've seen so far! Could you run the same tests w/o the laptop cooler, laying flat on a desk? That would include leaving it @ idle for 10-15 minutes or so.

Could you try running Everest's > Tools > Stability test to push the CPU while running simultaneously FurMark Graphic Card Benchmark & Stability Test to push the GPU to 99% for 20 minutes so we could compare apples to apples but with your 820QM & SSD as a difference?



FYI 74F is 23c and water freezes @ 0c & boils @ 100c... metric is beautiful.

 

If you have a hardware freeze you will not see a BSOD because the system is halted and unable to generate a report. The system has to be running at, at least a supervisory level to generate a BSOD. A BSOD is a software halt initiated by Windows in response to an error, or inconsistency. The OS is still running at the core level. That's why it's able to generate a report. The most common causes of BSODs are driver problems, video drivers being the usual culprits. The most severe BSOD is a "Fatal error", "System frozen" one. Even that one is generated by the OS, which generates the report, flashes the BSOD to the screen, then halts the system. A fatal error requires a hard reset, or a power off/on cycle to restart the system.

 

Overclocking the CPU? ... do you mean Turbo Boost? That's not overclocking.

If you did overclock, how did you do it? I didn't think it was possible with the F series.

 

Yes, that was Turbo Boost does: it overclocks on the fly my i7-720QM which is a 1.6 gHz x 4 core nominal but gets overclocked @ 1.729 gHz x 4 core as the screen capture illustrates below.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology frequently asked questions

 

On the program, there is a section on overclocking. Turbo Boost is built-in overclocking. I changed nothing, but this portion of the program is showing how fast it is actually running.

Bill

 

Joe,

Here is about 25 minutes worth of the same "idle" type activity of surfing a singe website (this one), except now my cooler is gone and I am working with the F11 lying flat on a thick oak dining room table.



You can see that the cooler saves me quite a bit in heat buildup.

EDIT: This works out to 4C on the motherboard, an average of 4C on each of the 4 CPU cores and 3C on the GPU. Not to mention that the fan is silent when using the cooler...660 RPM less!

Bill

 

I just ran a 20 minute stress test as Joe asked with both the Furmark graphics stress test AND the Everest test running. I began right after my last post, and my F11 was still lying flat on the oak table with no cooling. The temps began at about the same levels posted above for the "no cooler" test, but quickly rose to about 67-70C, where they then levelled off. The fan skyrocketed to right around 5,000 RPM and fluxuated about 40 RPM from that point. After about 5 minutes of stable temps and fan speeds (about 8 minutes total time), I picked up the running laptop and placed it on the cooler, plugging the cooler into the USB port for power. Over the next several minutes the system cooled about 3C at each core and also the motherboard. The fan speed dropped about 160-200 RPM also. Here is a snippit of the results after about 18 minutes:



After the tests were complete, it took about 10 seconds to notice a large cooling effect, and within a minute (with the cooler running) the temps were approaching normal again!

Bill