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

Using VOPT, I identified the unmovable files as System Restore. I was then able to disable, repartition, and enable it again. Actually shrank down to 80GB, since the Intel G2 looks so sexy.

 

For those curious about how unnecessary a super detail oriented Windows 7 clean install is... I did not do a clean install, or even JB's SUPER clean install. Rather, I used his guide as a tool for what I can safely remove and disable. I'm the type who doesn't want to let go of everything. I want to have the option later on. So, disabling via MSConfig works best for me.

Anyway, here is my recent Passmark Score. I think it's a damned good score considering I'm on the lowest model VAIO F as described in my sig.

 

If you mean a whistle kind of noise, it has almost disappeared after upgrading the BIOS. You have to check with Sony though if your model is part of this upgrade.

 

I don't think this is off topic at all. Anything we do with our F's, along with all of the peripherals attached, is something I believe many are interested in. Interesting- thank you.

 

Seconded

 

FedEx just delivered. I'm tempted to do an unboxing video LOL ... I am most curious to see the screen quality though given the various complaints ... stay tuned for an update

 

Quick question.. I bought a Vaio F122FX, when I turned it on brand new, I heard what sounds like a faint fan coming from the hatch below the battery on the bottom of the laptop.

It's not the heat fan, or the CPU 'processing' sound. Is this sound normal? Is the laptop supposed to be completely silent when no CPU usage or heat fan noise is going on? (My old HP was silent when it was at idle.)

I am wondering because I am close to exchanging this laptop or just returning it, the sound is makin me crazy!

 

Hey guys I've juts bought my first laptop (F12S1E) Big noob here. I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and I wanna download it. After the download (which I think you guys call it "clean install") which programs should i download it from the Sony support web page?

 

This link was just reposted a few pages ago. I think it has what you're looking for:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/5905694-post4228.html

Good luck!

 

I hope you know that the post you referred to was a joke!

I used to have a technics DD turntanble much like yours, but I can't match the Thorens. My current TT is a mid 70's lower end Dual belt drive with a mid-grade Audio-Technica cartridge. It is not un use right now, awaiting my desire to build a new theater room (eventually).

 

I tried to use Vaio care with my recovery disk. I selected the memory stick drivers, installed them and rebooted the computer, but the problem is still there.

I tried to scan all the hardware with Vaio care, Vaio care can see the problem wih the memory stick reader, but cannot fix it.

Really need help on this one.

I really should have paid the extra 30$ for Win7 pro instead of using the copy I have.

 

Wow- three posts and three new purchases. Maybe it's time to buy some stock in Sony Corporation (SNE).

SNE: Summary for Sony Corporation Common Stock- Yahoo! Finance

 

Boot performance with F12S and Intel SSD is simply amazing....

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/8890/54131568.gif

 

So are there any solutions to the low frequency noise issue? Its only audible in a pretty quiet room but its pretty loud and can be heard from a distance. Ive read it has something to do with the i7. Somebody above said update BIOS but I thought that isn't necessary on the F12 only the F11.

 

Hi guys,

I am having this high frequency noise coming from the touch pad area. Is there a solution for it?

Great thanks!

 

Win Pro or Home has absolutly nothing to do with your problem. Both OS are identical except the XP mode & domain join.

Uninstall your Ricoh memory drivers, download updated drivers from esupport & re-install.

*****

Jacol: don't post such huge images, crop, reduce size, optimize for web or attach to your message. My ASDL is broken & it took more than 10 minutes to load your image on my alternate dial-up.

 

Low frequency or high frequency? I had a squealing problem on one of my nvidia desktop cards which i fixed w/ some nail polish on the capacitors. Not sure if i'd attempt that on a laptop though.

 

It sounds alot like the 8kHz sample on this site.

Can you hear THIS? Musicians high frequency hearing test | NoiseAddicts music and audio blog

Just no where near as loud as that, but still pretty noticeable if you're in a relatively quiet room.

 

lol people think that the versions pro and ultimate are so much better. home premium is perfect for anyone unless you wanna get onto network logins via computer startup...it's misleading guys. most of you just need home premium.

 

Looking at NVIDIA driver details on my F12Z1E i get this information

22-02-2010
8.16.11.8925


VAIO says that is the most up-to-date driver but i remeber from a time ago ppl talking on new drivers from NVIDIA that gives a performance boost ?
(something perfect to do now that i have Starcraft II)

Anyone tried new drivers ? work fine ? issues ?
Thanks in advance

 

Lucky, use the 'search' function on this tread and you will easily find.

 

Which GPU do you have? The 310M or 330M

Here's a link to download the NVIDIA driver for the 310M
NVIDIA - Download Drivers

Maybe it can be used for both. I don't know enough about them to answer that question.

 

Hi

I've ordered a F12X5E from sony-style europe which should be coming tomorrow! I'm can't wait for it to come. I have had a great time reading all these posts with so much useful information.

This is the system I am getting:

Processor: Intel CoreTM i7-740QM, 1.73GHz
Operating system: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Finishes: Premium Black
Hard drive: 128 GB Ultra SATA Flash SSD
Memory: 8 GB 1333MHz DDR3-SDRAM
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Disc(TM) writer
Display: 41.6 cm LCD, 1920x1080, webcam
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB

I'm so excited.

 

I overclocked my GPU...check out my clock speeds. They're stable. No game crashes. Was playing Counter-Strike: Source Maxed out @ 1920x1080 over 60 FPS. And was playing Just Cause 2 @ 1280x720, High Texture, Medium shadows, then AA 4x and AS 16x...at an average frame rate of 37 FPS.

Default clock speeds: 575/790/1265
OVERCLOCKED CLOCK SPEEDS: 730/930/1550

It's great! If the card is not overclocked, it's impossible to play JC2.

I'm using nvidia's latest drivers from nvidia's website. -- 257.21

And I used NVIDIA System Tools to overclock: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.05.html

 

There are many recent posts about this with screen grabs.

Go back 10 pages & read or use the search feature top of this page, right side. Search this Thread with: video driver.

*****

Yes it can, it's now a unified driver pack, it supports desktops, laptops & several video cards including both 310M & 330M.

 

i know, i have been keeping an eye on this thread
my questions is more to get some feedback if the drivers are really stable ...

now i have installed the 258.96 and from my first impression the performance is worst that the Sony original ones

now i will try 257.21 ...

 

I think only one or two of the people here have had issues and rolled back. I've updated with no issues. I think it was a keyboard problem.

 

The responses from others in previous posts were contrary to yours. I had a 65% increase in improvement using FurMark. Others have noted that certain actions in CS5 are smoother as well.

 

To my knowledge, you are the only person so far that reported any problem with the latest Nvidia Video Driver 258.96 drivers. I ran benchmarks & stability tests, all OK. I have a F11_i7-720QM GT 330M with the most recent BIOS.

Could you give details about your system specs & describe what do you mean exactly by "the performance is worst that the Sony_original ones"?

Did you uninstall the Nvidia System Tool (if you are using that) before installing the new driver as recommended in the installation notes?

 

I spoke too soon

"Your package is in the UPS system and has a rescheduled delivery date of 02/08/2010."

 

Got my F12Z this afternoon, I am so Happy

It is fast and have "trouble" to hear the high pitch noise.

Will try the semi-clean install.

 

I did upgrade BIOS but it did not help.

 

Congrats.

BTW, if you are talking about the Clean install w/ OEM Discs, it's not "semi", it's super clean, lean & mean and customized for the F.

The proof is in the pudding, look at the screen captures in the bottom of the article found in my sig.

*****

 

Admittedly I still use an M-audio card in a Shuttle with Q8400 to capture audio from 78s, then plug the firewire drive into the F11 and edit on that. There are some things however I've not yet been able to do in Win7 so it's back to the Shuttle's XP for final cleanup..

 

Yes, but it was an opening... There's too much technotalk, complaining, and, erm, thingy-waving in this thread, and not enough on how the F-series is actually USED by lucky owners.

P.S. the Thorens cost me 50 cents at at a flea market in 1982. The motor has been relubricated but that's all. The SME 3009 is still as solid as a rock. The V15 MkIII is my original bought when it came out, the hyperelliptical 78 needle is Shure NOS bought last year. The Technics has a V15MkVMR.

 

I still cannot find a Matte screen protector for my F series Vaio.. Can someone that has bought one send me a link to where they got it at? Thanks!

 

Search F owner's thread #2 with: screen protector for F users testimonials & links.

Use the google with: Vaio_16.4" screen protector OR Photodon +Vaio_FW or with 16.4".

Note that there is no free lunch: you loose some contrast, sharpness, saturation & luminance. Less w/ a good film, more w/ a bad one.

 

258.96 has been very stable for me.. 257.21 was a version my F11 did not like at all. I had non-oc'd display driver crashes at multiple times running stress tests and games. The 258.96 version actually gives a slight improvement from recent drivers but from what i've seen, I don't think we'll get that much of a jump anymore from the stock driver

 

Finally have chance to deal with the screen / noise issue now. For some reason, now I notice that there is another source of high pitch noise coming from below the left side of the keyboard (around the left shift area) this is even more annoying than the screen noise. (I have a video showing the noise, may post it later) I called Sony Canada and I'm surprised that they know this issue. I also complained about the light bleed of my 1080 screen (I posted back in page ~134 of this thread), and so now I'll just bring it back for repairs and see what they can do. Luckily the repair centre is only ~15 mins drive away.

About this new high pitch noise - i think it's not from the fan or the HDD. I can make it go away by doing a virus scan of my computer - at which time both fan and HDD activities goes up. However, the noise immediately comes back as I stop the virus can BEFORE the fan spins down. To test the HDD, I tried copying a bunch of files from C to D drive, and during the copying, the noise didn't go down. Perhaps it's the fan controller? After a few other tests, I think the noise is gone as the fan spins up, and the noise comes back just before the fan starts to spin down.

 

yea that's still pretty high freq. i'd say you have one or more cheap capacitors somewhere in there squealing. no real way to fix it besides replacing it w a solid one or else lowering the power through them. I found the squealing so annoying i ended up underclocking my vid card. the nail polish helped w/ the vibration a little too; but didnt completely fix it.

 

Ahhhhh! STUCK RED PIXEL.

I just got my notebook today after a very long wait

And I have a stuck red pixel. Everything else about the notebook ... screen included is fantastic.

If it wasnt for this one pixel

im running one of those color flicker videos now ... and i tried the massage thing a little bit but no luck yet.

maybe im not doing it right.

any ideas

 

I had problems with my 1st F, returned it for another wiith no problems and a red pixel. Tried to fix it,couldn't then decided I would learn to live with the pixel rather than take anymore chances.don't really notice it now.

 

I was hoping someone could recommend me one that they are using..

 

Hrmmm .... well. I don't know ... maybe if this was my second one I would feel the same.

But since its my first Im pretty annoyed about it.

Does Sony have a pixel warranty? Such as "x" number of pixels = bad screen?

Or if i can't get it unstuck ... can I return it still?

 

NVIDIA System Tool ?
At programs list i only have this three:
* NVIDIA Display Control Panel
* NVIDIA Drivers
* NVIDIA PhysX

I didn't run any benchmark or other test tool, my "worst performance" statement was based on Starcraft II Single Campgain where i played again with the new drivers the last one i had alredy played with the Sony Drivers

But since the game don't even detects the card automatically maybe its not NVIDIA drivers fault (should i run FunMark to get a benchamark between drivers ?)

 

Not sure this will help but... in the everything is relative series:

- 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 pixels and 1 is stuck red.

- I have a red pixel & a magenta mini cloud on the LCD of a Canon camera's display. I don't see it anymore but everybody that looks at an image comments on it. It's getting on my nerves, need to replace it.

- I was on a photo shoot today & brought along the F. Just took a macro photo of the display before cleaning it. Even if I had a stuck pixel, I would have a hard time finding it through all the crud!



What should you do? Depends on your character & if you are a gambler or not:

- Is the red pixel dead center?

- Could you learn to live with it or will it bug you for ever?

- Inspect the rest of the machine thoroughly, run some demanding benchmarks. If it's perfect, are you ready to gamble that a replacement would also be perfect + w/o any stuck or dead pixels?

*****

That's what F users testimonials meant.

*****

@ Glashub: Hello stranger!

 

^^ well said.

i think i will sit on it a bit. who knows ... maybe it will "unstick" itself in a couple days or something.

worse case scenario ... i live with a stuck pixel.

and if anything else goes wrong i can still return it and get it all taken care of anyway ... i think the policy is 30 days.

time to wait and watch ... and i might just forget about it except when watching dark scenes in a movie and it's popping out from the middle ...

Here's to hoping it unsticks!

 

You should definitely run Furmark, and even Passmark, to get an idea of before/after. Subjective experience can be to your disadvantage here. It's better to have the numbers to support that it is, or is not, working as intended.

Let us know what happens.

 

Strange, I get very different results - some better, some worse.

 

Tried to install the drivers, however, it still says "Generation 1"