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

I explained all that including the mislabeled Intel turbo boost technology driver & more in my guide. Again: see sig below.

 

I saw it several times. But i didn't understand. Anyway, i deleted it.

I cant delete PMB. Can someone help me?

 

I'm thinking that you need to get rid of StreetFighter and bwin Poker. Definitely bloatware, for sure. LMAO

Again, I dunno much about this, but you're really good. 66 processes at 45 seconds is stellar, considering boot time is usually over 60 seconds. I'm at 70-80 processes and 48 seconds. Thrilled with it.

I think you're good. Don't worry about it anymore. Personally, I might be able to get into VAIO PMB, as I have tons of photos. So, I still have it installed, just disabled from running in the background.

 

check out the stress test results I just posted for my F11. Temperature really isn't a problem with this machine. Don't know what to say about Firefox. I don't use it too much.

 

Also... make sure you've got VAIO Care installed. It can be very useful.

 

Wow, that is really cool. I guess that the GT 310M explains that a little bit. You have the newest Nvidia driver, right?

Just for laughs, check these two stress tests & temperatures made by these Envy_17 owners here and here.

 

Yes you can. BTW one does not delete a program but uninstall it via Control panel > Programs.

Do you know a guy named omaroo by chance?

 

What a contrast! The Vaio's are quite impressive in comparison. I can't imagine reaching almost 100c under these tests. I also noticed the lack of stability they mention while running these test. I didn't come across any of that.

I'm so glad I got a Vaio. I was choosing between that, that Toshiba A500, and the Lenovo z560. My friend, who recommended Lenovo, was in town last night and came over to see my Vaio. He was so impressed, especially with the blu ray AND the keyboard AND the backlit keys AND the display AND AND AND... LOL

 

I don't know him, but i think he was making a lot of questions, like me!!

 

This happened with a couple of F11s early in the first thread. Some HDs were inadvertently shipped with the sata 1 jumper left in place, (test mode when checking the system) thus setting the MB's port to sata 1. Remove the hard drive, (easy to do, and WON'T void the warranty!) remove the Sata 1 jumper, put drive back in, and all will be well.

(Edit) Take OUT the drive, remove it from the cage, check the model number ON THE DRIVE, then google that model to get a diagram of the pinout to see which jumper to remove (and to check that indeed it HAS the unwanted jumper..) This all beats sending the computer back to Sony with the additional wear and tear of shipping and loss of productivity.

 

OK, I looked at your attachments. Everything with a red dot should be kept, all the rest can be uninstalled safely.

Unless you really know what you are doing, CCleaner is aggressive & can mess up badly your system. Why not use ASSIST > Vaio_Care > One Click Care instead?

How did you measure "45sec boot time"? Have you check in the One Click Care report?

 

Hahahaha....+10 I know what this is like but it's a lost cause....Sometimes I wish my relationship came with a FN + F3, F4

 

Sorry, that was an insider's joke. I saw some Greek in your programs screen captures which may explain why some stuff is hard to understand for you. Heck, many here are English native speakers & have a hard time understanding.

Are you from Greece? If so: Από πού είσαι?

*****

How about Mute?

*****

 

Hahaha....no definitely not...the silent treatment is always deadly..

 

No, it keeps on playing. It's just that you don't hear it anymore. You just trow in some yes's, no's and maybe's in there once in a while.

 

That's good tips but does not explain nor fix his low HD Tune's scores.

 

Question. Is there really a huge difference between 1600x900 and 1920x1080? If there were two laptops, exactly the same, except for the screen resolution, one was 1600X900 and the other was 1920x1080, how much more would you be willing to spend for the 1920x1080 laptop?

Would you get a f11 (1600X900) for $850 or a f12 (1920x1080) for $1,110?


http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...mId=8198552921666199715&IRTrack=CategorySpot2

http://www.sonystyle.ca/webapp/wcs/...d=20153&langId=200&LBomId=8198552921666067651

 

So, I ran HD Tune and got these results:

much lower than the benchmarks listed on the product spec for the ST9500420AS. Just as low when tested on Everest as well.

I screwed up the install of the new Intel software and lost my restore points AND couldn't get it to work. Back to the old version. Regardless, mine is also showing "generation 1" for the HDD.

 

Hence the importance of creating frequently a full system image backup with Windows 7 Backup, Acronis or whatever.

What good is restore points if your drive fails for example? With a full system image backup, you just trow in a new drive, boot with the system repair CD & connect the external drive with your image & voila, you are back to your customized current working state system with all you personal files, settings, tweaks & added software.

 

Thanks!

Now what about this "Generation 1" thing. Is this an issue I should be concerned about. Did I pay for a HDD that was supposed to be Generation 2, therefore better performing?

I searched in the first thread and didn't find much. Will skim through it, rather than search.

 

First, I have to say how proud I am of myself. So many "firsts" today. Removed my HDD and put it back in. So much fun. Really.

Anyway, here's what I've found on the SATA I and SATA II. Obtained from Everest, my HDD ST9400420AS has this info:



This version, the 7200.4, has the capability of being SATA I or SATA II based upon its jumper pin configuration, taken from the Product Manual -
Momentus 7200.4 SATA as seen here:




Found a website that says pretty much the same thing, but with an actual photo of the pins:



Were our Generation 1 and 2 problems solved by the jumper configuration, we'd have one of these set into these set into the left 2 pins in the jumper block:




So, I removed my HDD and took a look. NO JUMPER in it. I guess this means that Intel Rapid.... showing "Generation 1" is a software or motherboard issue, but not one of the HDD or its jumper configuration.

Grrrr.

 

Yes, your Seagate ST9500420AS should have better scores on HD Tune. See this review which is similar to mine ran on the F:



See Melody's & my post above about settings & maintenance before benching.

This said, Gen 1 or 2 should not influence your benchmark scores in this case because as I explained earlier, Gen 1 max speed is 150 MB/s & HDD's are slower than that. But yes, a SSD capable of faster speeds would be throttled by a mobo that is only Gen 1 BUT the F's mobo is Gen 2 capable as my screen caps illustrated.

But even if it can & does, my 7200 rpm HDD simply just can't output or write @ sustained Gen 2 speeds.

Now @ what speed HDD x or y should work in the real world and why it's slower on one's F & faster on the others, is beyond my current knowledge.

*****

Edit: you just updated your post with this:

Yes, it could be the Intel program's mistake as Everest reports actual transfer speeds, I think. At least Hard Disk Sentinel Pro does, see screen grab below. Check to see if it says 300 MB/s max interface. Check also the Info tab in HD Tune Pro.



Edit again: For my Samsung, Everest says 300 MB/s max & Hard Disk Sentinel Pro & Intel IRST both say 150 MB/s max. "...confusion... will be my epitaph..."

In the free SIW 2010 utility > Hardware > Storage Devices:

- Samsung: Transfer Mode (Current / Max) SATA-150 / SATA-150

- Seagate ST9500420AS: Transfer Mode (Current / Max) SATA-300 / SATA-300

*****

 

Everest shows SATA II and 300 MB/s
SIW 2010 shows SATA-150min, SATA-150max

Defragged this morning, auto schedule, disabled perfectdisk and avast. Still HD tune averages 70MB/s

EDIT - is it possible that it could be the firmware? I'm on 0002SDM1 and I saw that your on 0001SDM2. Lunstrom.emil is on 0002SDM2
Did a little bit of reading on that and it seems INVOLVED. Too much so for me.

 

No, mine is on the older but good enough 0002SDM1 also.



I uninstalled Perfectdisk as it ends up slowing down the system because it works in the background & causes wear & tear IMO. Vaio_Care TuneUp or One Click once a week or less does a good job for me.

Maybe search the web or the entire forum about what may cause the HDD to run @ slower transfer rates in a Windows 7 64-bit OS?

Are you sure you did this before benching: disable your anti virus & other media programs scanning the drive in the background, clean the HDD & defrag it before running HD Tune? Kill as much processes as possible in Task Manager?

As I said above, what is strange in your HD Tune curve and Lunstrom.emil's is that it's flat like something is throttling the drive. Compare them to mine & the review's. My stab in the dark is that it's something in your settings. For example, that same Seagate HDD but in an external enclosure, choked by the USB 2.0 interface:



In Explorer > right click C > Hardware > Properties > Policies > is you write-caching enabled for performance?

Got to go, see you later!

*****

 

Screw trying to figure out what to disable. I changed to Safe Mode and did it there.

Here are my results:

Before defrag (which wasn't needed):


After a tightly packed defrage on both volumes:


Write caching is enabled.

This has been fun. It wasn't too important to me, but seemed to be good learning and good education for someone who reads this.

Safe mode yielding a much truer performace to the drive's specs.

EDIT - using Perfect Disk cuz it's a free trial. Used VOPT for the inbetween HD Tunes. I like VOPT better in some ways. It's more fun to watch it work and I like to see the files in the blocks.

 

Aha! On Safe Mode you have similar performances to mine on regular Win 7 OS so... that proves that your mobo & hard drive are fine but that you have a fishy setting in your regular OS or some crapware hurting the drive's performance!

Congrats, that was an excellent troubleshooting step.

Yes it's important, when copying large files for example, 83 is much better than 66 MB/s IMO. And Burst rate & Access time helps running programs beside making the machine feel snappier.

*****

 

In response to an earlier post concerning the portability of the F12. While technically this is classified as a laptop replacement laptop, I would take that term lightly. When people refer to desktop replacement laptop 9 times out of 10 it is referring to a 17+ inch notebook. 15 inch and 17 inch notebooks are the most common, 16 inches not so much. Basically this laptop falls right in between a desktop replacement at 17 inches and a pretty standard 15 inch notebook. Most people place a 15 inch notebook into the portable category, and the F12 is only an inch larger than this. In addition, the F12 is only roughly 6 pounds, many 17+ inch desktop replacement laptops can easily make it to 10 pounds or more. Not to mention the entire chassis of the F12 is slim and compact.

What it really comes down to is compared to a 15 inch notebook, there's not any meaningful difference. The F12 is larger, by an inch. The F12 is heavier, by a pound. There just isn't a substantial difference. I don't think you're going to be traveling with your F12 at any point and say "Man if only I had bought a 15 inch instead". It just isn't going to happen. You may wish you had a 12 or perhaps 13 inch, but if you're in the market for a laptop and have considered the F12 I don't think those are what you want anyways.

For the past week I have traveled with my F12 extensively on a daily basis. I bought the Swiss Gear IBEX backpack for 17 inch notebooks (which is absolutely PERFECT for the F12!). The F12 is a breeze to pack up and unpack. I keep a 15 foot HDMI cable in the backpack in case I'm somewhere with a large LCD, it's always great to have more screen real estate. The AC adapter isn't that hard to pack up and get out. I have carried my 1tb external WD MyBook with this also, and its no where near too heavy on my back.

Whoever said this laptop is not a "lap" top is a liar. I have spent hours with this thing on my lap both in bed and in the recliner, it never gets hot enough to be a problem. Nothing like typing on this incredible keyboard while in bed!

The only thing I will say about the F series is you better make sure you're close to an AC outlet. You can get 2 hours and 40m minutes out of this thing on minimum brightness doing very light activities. Ive only used the battery once since I've had it and that was simply to test the battery life, I have had no trouble in staying close enough to a wall outlet. If battery life is very important to you and you haven't already bought the F12, get the extended battery for the extra 100 bucks its worth it. You could also get an external battery pack. The Swiss Gear backpack I have has a compartment that would be perfect for an extra battery, you could hook it up without needing to bring it out of the bag.

 

Hi again, and thanks

1. I've tried watching maybe seven blu ray movies, including Inglorious s, SWAT, Wacthmen and National treasure

2. But upgrading this would cost me about 50 $, what if it won't work then, and I have paid money for nothing. And i'ts my friends copy of powerdvd 8, he also has a Sony Vaio AW series, and it's working great for him (with some of the movies being the exact same copy)

3. All the movies have at some point been tested, on my friends vaio or my own ps3, without ever having trouble.

4 I'll get to it right after this post, right now I have version 8.16.11.8925

P.S. I did a test with the cyberlink bd advisor and here are the results:
oops, I don't seem getting the system how to insert images...
well it does these tests on hardware whether it is capable of playing blu ray, and mine is quite fine I guess, but on operating system there is nothing, where as otherwise it stands intel i7 740qm, or nvidia gt 330m, and it should stand windows 7 home premium 64 bit, the sapce is empty, I dont know if this is important or if any of you guys have used the software

once after the disc stopped playing. It also said no optical drive, which is kind of alerting, when I also tried Vaio care dignostics, it said no optical drive, but after a reboot the optical drive is recognised by both diagnostics.

 

So today I got a Sony Vaio F-series laptop, model number PCG-81114L (as far as I can tell. I'm not very good at this.)

Anyway, the computer clearly has an ambient light sensor, as I can see it above the keyboard and it affects the backlight on my keyboard and the brightness of my screen. Which leads to the problem. I don't know what idiot decided making my screen dimmer in dimmer light was a good idea, but that's exactly what happens.

EDIT: This was originally a troubleshooting post, but I figured it out. Even better I managed to keep the cool backlit keyboard without the settings. I'll just leave it here to reiterate the well-known truth that whoever came up with the light sensor should be fired. And preferably stoned.

The issue was that I was misreading the online fix advice -- it was specifying to go into VAIO control center, when I kept heading for the Control Panel. D'oh!

 

Great info! I tote my F11 around quite a bit too. It's not an awful weight to carry around.

You should check out this post from Joe Bleau
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...7-owners-thread-part-3-a-276.html#post6538667
It's got a quote with my recent CPU/GPU stress tests. Under full load for 20 minutes, my F11 only got to 66 C. He also linked to a few posts in the HP thread. Their temps are HOT and the testing seems much more fickle.

 

Joe,

I only did a system image backup a few months back. Yesterday my f11 failed to start properly and was hanging with the win7 logo on the screen. I powered off with the button and restarted. It stated the above and I chose the option to go back to a previous restore point which I did and it seems ok now.

I have vaio care installed. Question: does it automatically create restore points periodically ?

Also, the next time I started it it failed to eject an external drive using the toolbar, I tried to shut down safely but it was taking ages to log off and I used the button instead to shut it down. When i restarted it gave the option to use safe modes or normal win7, I procrastinated too long and it defaulted to normal start mode and seemed ok thereafter.

Sorry to burden you with all my problems but all the above caused some anxiety for what has otherwise been a blissful owner experience and continues to be. Is there anything you would have done differently ?

 

Thanks for the answers. I'm leaning toward it being the optical drive or its associated driver software. Did you order your Vaio or buy it from a store?

 

Hi, I bought it from a online store ( Verkkokauppa.com - Todennäköisesti aina halvempi) in Finland

 

I wonder what's causing the slowdown. Is it a hardware or software problem ? Does anyone know?
Computer engineer needed !!!

 

Since it can't be fixed with software/firmware updates I'm guessing it is a HW problem.

 

As promised

76C is not that bad, but still 10C higher than when the fan get free hands to do it's job.

I'll run some CPU stress tests next as the problem seems to be worse with heavy CPU load.
On the positive side I can't come up with any scenario where I'll be running 100% usage and have to continuously press a key.

 

Since this is a hardware problem, we could say all vaio F12s have this problem.

 

Not as bad as I thought.

 

I just chat with sony analyst and she suggested me to follow these steps:

1. Restart the computer.
2. At the SONY screen, press the F2 key.
3. In the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility window, press the RIGHT ARROW key until the Exit menu is selected.
4. On the Exit menu, press the DOWN ARROW key until Get Default Values is selected.
5. Press the ENTER key.
6. In the Setup Confirmation dialog box, press the ENTER key.
7. In the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility window, on the Exit menu, press the UP ARROW key until Exit (Save Changes) is selected.
8. Press the ENTER key.
9. In the Setup Confirmation dialog box, press the ENTER key.
So it is BIOS RESET and I think it's not that simple to solve this problem...

 

!- This does not work or change anything

2- "to solve this problem" - What problem?

3- Compare test above to two stress tests & temperatures made by these Envy_17 owners here and here: 97c.

Between 2 evils, I prefer by far the continuous key press quirk which I never do in real life except to post tests for nitpicking people.

Thanks for testing & reporting my Swedish friend, proves my point.

 

Yes i am from Greece and i live in Athens. Thanks for the info, i want to know if you have found a solution to the problems you are having with the clean install ( like the shortcut button pressed ).

Why CCleaner is dangerous? It's a must have program for many people. And very safe. I use it many years, without registry backup or system restore, without any problem!

 

Hm.. I've always thought that living in Denmark made me... Danish?...

 

CCleaner, and indeed all registry cleaners, can accidentally delete a registry key that it thinks does nothing, but is in-fact a pointer. It's minor issue, though, and updates tend to fix any incompatibilities found.

Always back up the registry keys that you're deleting (one of the options) and restore them if something stops working the way it should.

To put it in perspective, the app has caused me ONE issue in the 5+ years that I've been using it, and it was easily reversed.

I highly recommend CCleaner, it is a lot more comprehensive than Vaio Care.

**EDIT**

If you're just using it's cleaning function, and not the registry tab, it is 100% safe (or 99.99999% to be pedantic!)

 

Eek, this doesn't look good

I've noticed that the system sometimes feels like it's choking and suspected the HDD to be the troublemaker.
HD Tune showed some serious dips in performance (with all unnecessary programs shut down) so I tried again in Safe Mode = same result.

 

That's quite a normal HD Tune graph - it just means the HDD was having to read / write somewhere else during the test, which made the drive seek and interrupted the test.

Very normal.

 

WOW! Called Sony about my 3 day old F12 with a stuck red pixel that was annoying me.

They were so amazing!

Sending me a brand new notebook.

Gave me an additional 10% off.

And upgraded me to 8GB DDR3 for free.

Now that ... is sweet.

I had a bad experience with Sony Customer care but they totally redeemed everything LOL.

here's to hoping the new one is nice clean and problem free

Thanks Sony for taking care of your customer!

 

I was CTOing an F12 from the uk website and to upgrade the hard drive from 320gb 5400rpm to 500gb 7200rpm costs +£80.00. But you can buy a WD Scorpio Black from Amazon.co.uk for £55.00 with free delivery. Is there something I'm missing here?

 

nope most companies charge ridiculous amounts for a relatively simple upgrade nothing new here...

 

I was just going to edit my post. Anyway, it was ballpark, no?