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

I watch Blu-ray movies on my Vaio F all the time and fan noise has not been an issue. I have a Blu-ray power plan profile and it is set to limit the cpu maximum speed to 50% in hopes of keeping the cpu at a low enough speed so that the fan won't ramp up. I find now that I don't bother using the blu-ray profile too much, I just leave the power plan on balanced which allows the cpu to go up to 100% if necessary and with this plan I don't hear the fan getting loud when playing blu-ray movies.

After a bit of testing on cpu usage while playing Blu-rays I came up with this. With the CPU limited to 931mhz (maximum speed I can get on battery) I average 7% cpu usage watching a Blu-ray movie. When choosing a High performance power plan (minimum processor state= 100%)I get an average of 3% Cpu usage while watching a Blu-ray.

I don't know if any of this info is of any help to anyone, but I figured I would post it anyway. For the most part I keep my power plan on balanced and don't have fan noise issues. My balanced plan show that minimum processor state on battery and also plugged in is 5%, my maximum processor state shows 100% for both on battery and plugged in. This plan seems to work best for me most of the time.

Dernfara, if you haven't tried then try limited the cpu speed to while watching HD movies and see if the cpu fan stays quieter. I might not make a difference, but it is worth fiddling with.

I have the i7 720 processor with 6gb ram.

 

thats the thing im really confused whether the F12 EU matte screen is RGB 100% adobe.

 

YES it is!

 

oh it is thats great, just wanted to make sure, as the above user what saying that the F11 or even the F12 hasn't got the RGB adobe screen

 

I recently purchased a F series Vaio and i have this very strange problem that only occurs when i have headphones plugged in i hear this sort of static sound and sometimes when i click folders it wont even make a click sound

anyway i tried using dif headphones and i still had the problem.... even ipod headphones did it to me

any idea why this is?

Oh yeah i never hear this noise when there isnt headphones plugged in

edit: just installed the new realtek driver and still has the problem..

 

Thats happened to me too. Some recent Sony or MS update has broken WiFi wakeup.

 

Yup thats why I want it. but don't all the i7 have the same amount of power? because you have the same amount of bus, cache and data flow/manipulation on an i7 820QM and with an extreme i7 cpu. Just the clock speed is higher. So it should be powerful to be honest. Might even handle explicit research on the unknown/beyond/infinite (hard to explain/mind consuming :confused2 or even research on high tech propulsion, physics and stuff..the universe... but if not..i have the grid to exploit.

but gaming and multi-media hands down sony can handle...ami right? also how big is the power supply. and what problems u speak of?

really? can it run crysis 2 and all the other newer games fine?

 

Sure, and overall I think the cooling on the F12 is excellent, but didn't want Forc3 to think he wouldn't hear any fan noise - which was his question.

Having said that I'm still setting up my F12 and haven't tinkered with the power plans yet. I'll follow MaxieHQ's advice and see what difference it makes.

 

Ok, just setup a quiet power profile. I did this by setting up a new profile through the power management option in windows, then editing it in the Vaio Control Center capping the cpu performance at 50%. Playing a HD video there was no noticeable change in the fans.

MaxieHQ - thanks for the tip.
philm94 - I take it back - fair to say the fans are quiet if you use this type of power profile.

 

I've posted it before, but you really just need to check the performance page on NBC and see for yourself if the performance is acceptable.

Link : Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

 

YouTube - MrChowderClam's Channel

You can check his gaming videos at F11. He's also a member here

 

Yesterday i bought F12S1E (europe model).
Disadvantages :
1. There is so much fan noise (only browsing or mp3 playing)
2. Little whistling sound which is annoying
3. If a key is continuously pressed fan speed slows down.
I must say I'm not happy with this computer because of these reasons. If you know how to solve these problems, please write.

 

I'm never quite sure that watching a low-res 24fps video of someone playing a game is ever a good indication of what you can expect to see

 

I'm sure he's not playing with low setting plus he's using fraps to record it, which also drops fps

 

I've got little experience with these things, but I'd look at the vids and look for lags and delays during gameplay, rather than resolution attributed to his video capturing program.

They all looked good to me, but I play old games like X-Men Legends II

 

How more do you expect since it's not a pure gaming laptop like Alienware or Asus g series?

 

I've taken a look ... and I think, though better visually than the "point a camera at the screen" technique, this is worse. There is at least a 25-30% performance impact from just doing the screen recording.

I guess you can see it as a 'worse case scenario' video, but certainly not representative of actual performance.

There are a lot of benchmarks out there for the 330m, which show not only average FPS, but also the max and (crucial) MIN FPS.

I'd take my own experience of subjective playability at a certain FPS against a benchmark over a crippled video any day.

 

Ah... good to know. Thanks!

 

David,

The model I ordered is in fact the CTO VPCF12X5E, the other model label (VPCF12C5E) is the "market" (whatever that means) label and its what is printed on the laptop itself. This is what I got: i7-740, Win7 Pro (this gets you an extra year warranty here in UK), Premium Black colour, 500gb 5400, 6gb, BlueRay writer (was £200 off), GT 330M 1GB -- £1301.

About the "No Vaio S/w" my order also did that when I selected Win Pro, but on the Order Ack email it did not mention it -- in fact there are about 6 - 10 vaio software progs showing up (I can send you a list later if you like).

I ordered on the 7th July, delivered to me on 19th July (though it had arrived in UPS UK on friday 16th but had to wait for weekend). IMO the CTO VPC-F12X is the best way to go: matt screen, win pro + extra year warranty, feed bd writer.

Cheers,
Mario

 

Some of the vaio programs are necessary. Vaio Care Center is a must. Vaio Update is nice, but not necessary. Vaio Messenger, still don't know what that does. What else is coming up?

 

Mangosango/Chowderclam's gaming videos are among the best-looking on Youtube. All the newer ones are 1080i HD as well. - and all done on an F11 with GT330. The GT330 is a very capable gaming card, and the F-series is a capable gaming LAPTOP, without the noise and heat, and in a slim-form factor unlike the Asus and Alienware monsters.

 

You SO have the wrong attitude! Mangosango is a true, dedicated video gamer, PLUS he has the technical knowhow to do the job properly, since he's in the software industry. His videos are completely unlike the awful artifacted crap we see from most gamers of their playing efforts. Mangosango's videos are as close as you can get to actual onscreen results, AND he spells out, in detail, how many FPS are being lost to Fraps recording since he plays the same level also WITHOUT recording. He reduces losses by recording to a second drive. Often the fps loss is minimal.

I'd take Mangosango's gaming videos as THE definitive benchmark of the F-series' gaming performance. He has been posting his videos in all three F-series threads since March and we all KNOW how good the quality is, and how accurate the results are! We highly appreciate the hundreds of hours he has put into doing these, he's a champ..

 

Random question.

I downloaded Cyberlink PowerDVD 10. I use it to play Blu-Ray movies and whatnot...mkv files, etc.

It works great...but here's the random thing. I just put in a DVD for the first time, and it plays at like 60 FPS...where the Bluray discs don't, they play at normal speed. I know it's kinda of hard to explain, but it's the type of smooth you're watching on like 120Hz HDTVs. Why aren't my Bluray files playing like that?

Thanks!

 

As I have said in the past...get yourself a laptop cooler. Of all the coolers I have tried or seen, the best (by far) has been the CoolerMaster U2 dual fan unit. I found them on Amazon for $23, and now they have been selling for less.they have 2 MOVEABLE fans that I have placed directly under the intake grills on the bottom of my F11. Search and you will find pictures in this thread.

This will make the F11 fans work silently about 90% of the time. That is saying something considering the amount of heat that an i7 and GT330M can produce.

 

I will try that but i thought these problems were resolved before new f12s released. Thx for your help

 

No problem, glad I could help.

 

These are not "problems" as much as they are the product of a thin, lightweight notebook case being crammed full of state of the art equipment. The fact that my F11 runs between 42-48C at normal light tasking and barely hits 72C when benchmarking all 4 cores at 100% plus the GPU at 100% is amazing. Of course, this is with the laptop cooler mentioned in my previous post running and its moveable fans PROPERLY PLACED.

I find it both amusing and frustrating that nearly everybody here feels that this laptop (and others) should perform blazingly fast, have EVERY POSSIBLE bell and whistle, run every game at 60fps at max settings, have a display that is perfect at every viewing angle and never run more than a few degrees over room temperature.

Open the case and look at the fan. Laptops are thin. Sony packed a tiny fan into a tiny space in this chassis, and engineered it to very efficiently cool the space in a very tightly packed area that is occupied by very powerful, high heat production components. It does this quite well. With a little help, however, from a good cooler, the design works extremely well.

 

Willscary is it possible to take a pic and share with us your U2 cooler with your 17" VAIO F? I wanna know how they "fit" together

And i'm guessing we can change the fans with the new 80mm ones, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_hFy6hKPsw

 

That is a settings that I disable on my HD tv as to me it makes things like a vhs tape playing and not natural looking. I do have Cyberlinks Powerdvd 10 and I purchased a license for it after I trialed it b/c I like it. Anyway I noticed that that option is greyed out when playing blu-rays also. It is under video settings in Powerdvd and it is called truetheater motion. Playing Blu-rays will also disable mouse functionality too in most cases so I guess playing blu-rays is more restrictive in software players. I think it would make the blu-ray movies look very strange anyway and I would rather watch them the way they were intended and not add extra filters or so called motion enhancements. Anyway, I also trialed the arcsoft bluray software player and it disabled the same type of options when playing blu-rays, but overall I like PowerDVD the best of them all. And just for people's info, I had Corel Windvd BD, Cyberlink Powerdvd 10, and Arcsoft Total media theatre platinum installed at the same time and they didn't conflict with each other.

 

All you need to do is search. Searching works wonders on a thread this large. I have already posted pictures HERE:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...7-owners-thread-part-3-a-146.html#post6432774

 

Thanks and sorry How about my 2nd question? Can we change the fans whenever we need it?

 

guys i hope someone can anwser my question in regards to the battery. What will happens if i use the patop extensively with the charger plugged in, and how much battery time will i have if i use the laptop extensively with no charger plugged in.

 

i understand fan noise but i think it is not normal when a laptop's any key continuously pressed, laptop's fan speed slows down (same issue with f11s). I tried ASUS N61Jq i7 and LG r590 i7 but i didn't have any noise problem like whistling sound so I can not say it is a normal situation in my opinion.

 

I am thinking it may be time for me to upgrade to a SSD drive. Willscary, you have no regrets going with SSD I take it?

 

I would think you would need to purchase new ones specifically made for the cooler as they have a unique mounting technique. I have purchased 8 of these. Each have 2 fans. One fan went bad. I have not yet had a need to replace it, but I probably will sometime next week.

 

What will happen if you leave the laptop extensively plugged in? Nothing really other than you can only move so far with it before the plug rips out of the wall. Battery runtimes have been covered here extensively.

 

Well, in the past I have had several HDDs die on me. My last Dell desktop had its original die after 3 months. The rlpacement died in less than a week. The next replacement lasted for about 8 years!

I have replaced several hundred hard drives. Some due to lack of capacity, but I would say that at least 150 replacements have been due to mechanical failures.

I have been working with 8 SSDs for over 5 months. They are blazing fast and truthfully, it is hard to explain how much quicker they make your entire system. That said, I recently had one die. Well, it didn't die, it began having data errors. It was the first SSD I bought, and it had old firmware. The F11 does not allow me to update the firmware OF THIS PATICULAR SSD, so I sent it back. Crucial has a 5 year warranty and they were GREAT about it.

YES! I love the SSDs and I will never go back. I had to install an HDD in the laptop that had the SSD problem. It is noticably slower at all times. It feels sluggish.

If you can afford one, get it. Just consider this: it is best to make sure that the SSD is never more than about 60% full. This allows for efficient wear levelling and trim operations. Do not purchase a small SSD and then fill it 90% full and expect it to be perfect. This is the same with HDDs. You really shouldn't fill them more than about 2/3 full or they will not defrag decently and will take a long time to search.

 

Do you recommend some model of SSD for the F12Z1E ?
(your post make me think on change the HDD)


Thanks

 

Thanks Willscary for the helpful response. I am currently using 100gb out of the 500gb drive that my F came with. I'm thinking I will need at least a 200gb drive to make me happy. I am currently browsing newegg.com and I see a Corsair Force CSSD-F240GB2-BRKT which is 240gb. The specs look good, but I am not super knowledgeable on SSD drives. This drive has a sandforce controller, trim support, Sequential Access - Read: up to 285MB/s, Sequential Access - Write: up to 275MB/s. Any issues I might have with this drive? Newegg.com - Corsair Force CSSD-F240GB2-BRKT 2.5" 240GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but the British T3 magazine reviews the EU F11 in its September issue, describing the screen as "industry leading" with detail better than the macbook pro.

 

Another answer from Sony, All their screens av glossy, no one is matte on vaio. But I saw the evidences in the store xD :O

 

I'm using a 256GB crucial C300 which is performing very nicely so far. I'd echo Willscary's comment that SSDs make your whole system seem much faster, much more responsive. Obviously the processing performance is unchanged but boot time, waking from sleep, shutdown, application launching, etc is all massively improved and just makes for a much more satisfying experience.

One word of warning re: the crucial C300 - it required a firmware update but I could not perform this in the F12 as the Bios is locked down and I couldn't change the SATA setting from AHCI to IDE and the firmware can't be updated in a caddy. Instead I had to install the drive in another laptop where I could change the bios.

 

...and here is a recent review of the F12 by PC Pro. They rate it highly overall...

Sony VAIO F12 review | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

 

Yeah the gfx card is alright. but its class 2, so i think it should run future games fine . Lets hope the i7-820Qm can handle other work that is not multi-media or gaming..maybe research and other high tech stuff. (check my previous post)

So far the F11 seems all fine and dandy

does anyone have any problems with it?

 

For those of you looking for SSD information, this guy's site ( Storage - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News) has tons of info. Anand has written plenty of articles on SSD's and does some good testing on them, with benchmarks.

PS - I just got shipment confirmation today! 5 days earlier than estimated for my F12!

 

The refresh rate is a function of the TV/Display, not the blu ray player. Go into the NVidia Control Panel, then Change Resolution. In there, you'll have your refresh rate options. Most likely 50, 59, and 60Hz. You can also check this setting in the VAIO Control Center > Display > Motion Control Settings.

I do not believe that 120Hz is an option here.

 

The desktop is too big for the screen.
Thanks

 

Many thanks for the info Mario. That's virtually the same spec as I am going to order, with the 6GB memory and buy a seperate 4GB stick later and sell the 2GB stick. I can't understand their pricing for memory. It's something like £50 extra for 6GB but £170 if you order 8GB, so you are paying £120 for the extra 2GB.

I didn't know about the extra years guarantee, di you do a telephone order to get that? I haven't noticed it on the web site. My config works out at £1259. It's the same as yours without the guarantee, so it's well worth the extra £42 for a further years guarantee.

Cheers
Dave

 

maxie no need for sarcasm, i was only asking a queston

 

Actually that is the same price I paid, my mistake -- the difference was for the carrying pouch I ordered at the same time. You can see the 2 year warranty after you select Win Pro (or Ultimate) then go Next till you get to the Services page and click the Product details under Free Standard Warranty:

VAIO offers you as standard, a 1 year warranty for models with Windows® 7 Home Premium or Starter. For models with Windows® 7 Professional or Ultimate, a 2 year warranty is offered.

I don't think many people noticed this one.