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

RTFM!

In fact you just insert recovery disc 1 and install Vaio_Care, no need to download it.

OTOH one can simply disable or uninstall unwanted programs from the OEM factory install. If your system is to your likings with tweaks and user installed software, it's not necessary to go through the trouble of wiping everything & starting anew.

 

Thanks again. I already made recovery discs when I got my F11, I know how important that is- I meant does one need to do it again after the clean install, but I think you have answered this now

 

I have tested and removed the page file.
I have deactivated all services and startup app.
I have defragmanted the HDD, also the boot files.
Registry error with a clean install from different sources, not likely.
The slowdown is 10% to 30%.

All this steps is almost to be Safe Mode, but something is still active.

Sata1 can be limiting because different optimization protocols is turned off. Like an SSD, you turn off TRIM and Cache, your performance is dropped.

It is also a hardware fault if we are taking about SATA generation, but still the speeds is not near yours in the same OS and Drivers. MS drivers gives more in performance.

 

It is an AUO 15,6 full HD led display.

 

Missing from the AUO data you posted previously: color space coverage. F EU 1080p matte Premium: covers 100% of the Adobe RGB color space.

LED does not mean anything in term of color space coverage: it could be sRGB like_Envy's 17 white LED or US F 1080p glossy CCFL while dual CCFL EU 1080p Premium F's cover a larger gamut w/o LED.

 

Ahhh pooh. A few days after I order, Sony UK does the free blu ray writer upgrade again. Wish I held off on ordering for a couple of days now.

 

What is the F12 case made of? Some kind of plastic or there's something else ?

 

If you order is not shipped yet, why not give them a call asap?

 

Yes, I don't think they'll be able to change the configuration if they have started to build it but you can cancel the order up to the point it is shipped with no charge - just give them a call, I don't think you can do it online. I did this in the UK when I changed my mind about the config I'd ordered. It means you'll have to wait longer, but you can take advantage of the offer.

 

It went into production on saturday (yeah I know, saturday). I guess its not a huge deal but the blu ray writer upgrade was so expensive I never considered it. Until it was was going for free. I'll give them a call anyway. If you don't ask you don't get and I got nothing to lose. Shall I play the angry or sympathetic caller?

 

Why angry? It's nobody's fault if you missed the promotion. Be nice.

 

Or you could read my previous post - if it is still in production you can cancel the order and place a new one to take advantage of the promotion. I did this and there was no problem. If production is complete then you may not be able to cancel.

 

Well, I didn't have to put on my angry or sympathetic telephone face.

I had to cancel my order and reorder over the phone. In 5 days time I'll get refunded so when that happens I call up the representative I spoke to authorise the direct debit again and my new order gets moved into production so that I'm not paying for 2x laptops whilst waiting to be refunded for the canceled order.

To speed things along they gave me free express delivery and the laptop cost the same price I paid last week (which appears to include the free memory upgrade from last weeks promotion and now the free blu ray writer). This is in exchange for a 1 to 2 week delay. I can't be mean to people on the phone when they are so nice like that.

Its the exact opposite of my last dealing with telephone sales which worked out pretty badly for me (Dynaudio BM5a monitors trashed in transit. Cue 6 months of being without monitors and money whilst carrier tried to sort out who eats the cost with the retailer). That time I had to put on lots of different phone faces to get anywhere but I know being mean on the phone doesn't work so good most of the time. I've done call centre duty and its a rough gig so thanks for reminding me that I'm talking to a person and not a faceless multi national.

 

I understand. I also have seen all the curves. Some begin at 100MB/second and smoothly descend, while others begin at 80MB/second and stay flat for the first half of the drive, then descend.

Spinning hard drives SHOULD get slower as the reads move farther on the disk, thus the downward trend. The drives in question do not do this in normal mode...they peak lower at the beginning and only begin their downward descent where the physical ability to read becomes the limiting factor.

You want your curves to look like Joe's.

See, I DO understand.

That being said, I also see that the drive IS PHYSICALLY ABLE to perform on the same general level as Joe's, as seen by running in safe mode. When running in normal mode, there is an instruction set of some sort, a registry entry, a process or a service that is being turned on that is limiting the drive's ability to run at the same speeds as you can get in safe mode.

See, again, I do understand.

there are TONS of variables that could be the cause. Perhaps there are 2 or more drivers present and even though all but one are uninstalled, there is somehow a conflict, such as one being installed but another having it's own registry key and not wanting to play nice. Perhaps Windows itself has been corrupted in the way that it handles hard drives due to changing drivers, settings, etc back and forth. Perhaps it is as simple as having an external drive connected to the eSATA port while performing these tests, or even harder to find, perhaps the eSATA port was used at one point and the media was not properly "ejected". I used to find this a lot on USB ports where people would pull out thumb drives without ejecting, then the USB port didn't work properly because it would only recognize the last user's drive instruction set.

The fact is that all of the drives in question look to have the same "safe mode" curve as the good ones have in both safe and normal mode. That rules out hardware. Each of these drives are identical aftermarket Seagate Momentus drives, so they are not original equipment. All have had some sort of clean install performed, whether from an MS disc or from the F recovery disks. The variable could then only be two things...either the Sony hardware has changed and no longer fully supports this drive, or the software is different between these machines. I am 99.5% sure it is not the Sony hardware because Joe's machine is older than most on this forum . Also, others with newer machines also have curves like Joe's. This means that newer machines are also capable of running this drive correctly. Of course, we do not know if each has the exact same operating system with the exact same updates.

This leads me to believe that it is software related. I have performed MANY clean installs on the F11 machines. At first, I had problems with Vaio keys not working and certain drivers not being recognized. I had two instances where I had to do a second clean install on the machine because I had not installed drivers and applications in the correct order. Both times I had problems, I followed the instructions given by someone on this thread long ago. I have not had any problems with machines set up using the instructions on the Sony F help site.

You can explain to me all you want about how you chastized me for not understanding. However, I am now working on a half dozen F11s. Each have had at least one clean install performed. I have had problems and solved them. Not only are they personal laptops, but each are also local and remote portable workstations which are server based, both in a local work environment and also at any remote site with internet acces (via VPN). My variables are much greater when troubleshooting than most on this forum.

The hardware looks fine given the safe mode numbers. There is a conflict somewher in the software.

What will be interesting is how Joe's machine performs when using emil's system image. I will be quite interested, mainly because the machines are not the same. Emil has a newer machine with different hardware. The windows image is set up for his hardware, not Joe's. I am more interested in seeing if the image automatically notices slight changes in hardware and adjusts, or whether it tries to run Emil's instruction set and has problems.

I went back to Emil's original posts where he showed his AHCI controller info. Here is what I am using with my older F11 and a very high performing older generation SSD:



I am using the 4 year old microsoft driver on my 4 month old SSD and you can see that my controller is different than his.

 

Yea it's just plastic with metallic powder thing on it.

sadly

 

I talked to Seagate Support. Sony have HW altered the drive too run in a slower mode, and Seagate can not do anything. F/W 0002SDM2 was made by Sony not Seagate. They recommended a total wipe with Seatools for Dos or replace the drive.

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS220ALL.576.ISO.

 

Why sadly? Check this post about aluminum bodies that are hot to the touch: VAIO_F Series "Left Side" Hot vs. Macbook_& HP_Envy.

MelodyMaster posted some photos of the inside of his F & there is a metal frame. Can't find the link @ the present.

 

Will,

That doesn't necessarily mean your controller is different than his. I tried a half dozen different versions of the Intel storage driver plus the Windows driver and the device description string changes depending on which driver is installed.

AFAIK, all the F models use the same Intel PM55 chipset.

I wouldn't do that. If Sony did alter the drive's firmware to disable SATA-2, there may be a reason.

I also don't see why you're hung up on SATA-1 vs. SATA-2. If you get the expected drive performance over SATA-1 while in Safe mode, then what difference does it make?

Did you ever do a full system restore to the OEM out of the box configuration and post an HD Tune result?

 

Maybe it's a custom firmware to show as SATA Gen 1 but that does not change the fact, the hard fact, that your transfer rates in Safe Mode are near 80MB/s! :wub:

So... they did not slow down the max transfer rate that this drive is capable in the F. The 3-4MB/s difference between my rates in normal mode vs. yours in safe mode is not significant.

BTW, I read the Envy_17 thread and HP_downclocked the GPU and throttles the CPU when the laptop is plugged because the cooling design can't handle the task!

Now if Sony_would have done that to my F, I would take a sledgehammer to it.

 

I know how to get there and all of that, but how do I get to uninstall VAIO and PMB products specifically? They aren't listed in the program list

 

Maybe it's a custom firmware to show as SATA Gen 1 but that does not change the fact, the hard fact, that your transfer rates in Safe Mode are near 80MB/s! :wub:

So... they did not slow down the max transfer rate that this drive is capable in the F. The 3-4MB/s difference between my rates in normal mode vs. yours in safe mode is not significant.

BTW, I read the Envy_17 thread and HP_downclocked the GPU and throttles the CPU when the laptop is plugged because the cooling design can't handle the task!

Now if Sony_would have done that to my F, I would take a sledgehammer to it.

 

But I do not want to work in Safe Mode :wub:

I did test it, the first thing I did when I opened the package. But I do not think I posted a picture. But I will do a Copy of the disc then wipe it. The Notebook is going to the reseller anyway as DOA.

They do not want to say why they altered it, and that is the wrong answer.

The slowdown only exist in combination with HDD+F1x, but the Sata generation is still 1.

I do not care of that small diffrence, but why does the software show different result. :laugh:

 

I am not sure why they aren't listed there, but I typically use CCleaner to uninstall programs, manage start-up programs, and perform general cleaning. If you opt to use it, be very careful. Changing the wrong settings can cause problems. I know there was some discussion a while back about CCleaner vs. Vaio Care for general cleaning. For most, it's a matter of preference.

I know it isn't too late, but I have the machine configured pretty well and I have uninstalled enough programs that it runs pretty well too. The few remaining idle percents I could get don't really justify the work for me. If I could go back to when I first got the laptop I'd do it though.

 

Hi lundstrom.emil,

thanks for finding out the facts (At least I hope it's the truth,
with sony we'll never know for sure ).
For me it's ok now. The Performance is slightly slower than Joe's drive but
not so much. I probably wouldn't find a difference if both F1* where
running side by side.
My biggest concern was actually that SATA 1 would be still
"enabled" if I put in a ssd-drive or other drive.
This is now answered and I'm quite satisfied.

(At the moment I have bigger problems with my IRDA-device not working
with windows 7 )

 

It could be as simple as hard drive Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) setting to reduce noise & vibration emissions. Tweaking the AAM is disabled on the 7200.4 BTW (I tried with different utilities), the settings are in the firmware. Every design/engineering decisions have pros & cons & priorities.

I like_Sony's priorities when it comes to the F.

Maybe you could befriend these disgruntled Envy_17 owners?

I'll take anytime a theoretical loss of 3-4 MB/s average read speed in a synthetic benchmark test over CPU + GPU throttling in the real world usage of a notebook.

Everything is relative.

*****

 

im thinking of buying the VPC121GX_BC (aka VPC-F121GX) from costco, and returning the dell studio 16 bc i keep reading horror stories of dell's tech support.

however, i like solid full keys and dont like the chicklet kinds, and the fact that the sony has the number pad on the right side also makes me think the keys will be smaller altogether. is this true?

is the noise and heat on the sony very annoying?

i basically need a pretty fast machine that has firewire for home videos, has an sd card slot, and multitasks well. this machine seems to fit the bill (especially because so few new laptops have firewire), but im nervous about some of the "annoying" features that this laptop might have... and ur opinions and experiences would be appreciated.

 

Already tested with AAM, No change in peformance. Couple of years ago I needed too change the AAM in DOS mode on a 60GB 7,2k drive non-OEM. Unsure how to change it with Seagate Momentus in DOS. :S

If they bought an Envy then they brought that on themselves, no one can help them not even the vise. The signs was clear and shallow --> HP

 

Read again my post above. If you found a utility that can tweak AAM on the 7200.4, please name it. With Everest v5.50:



Hence a possible tweak by_Sony via firmware for a quieter, more power efficient & cooler drive.

 

In HD Tune, the only utility I have seen without looking after it.

Isn't it good that is disabled, to get max performance? Googled about this and it seems that Seagate have disabled this feature in HW.

Will check my drive.

EDIT: It is supported, and enabled. It is sat to max peformance. I used HDDScan. http://hddscan.com/

 

How do i go about doing a clean install with the OEM disks cause the menus are totally different =/
Oh I have the F12 version i think VPCF120FD/B

 

Hum. Seems to work in HD Tune Pro. I have too many programs running for work to do proper testing @ the present:



Note that sometimes the utility shows that it's tweaking the AAM but if user tweaking is disabled in the firmware, the tweak will not stick & the drive will return to it's default setting.

 

Question: Is there a way to disable the idle screen dimming on the F12? (This is not the auto-brightness feature. The screen dims when idle whether auto brightness is enabled or not.) I often use my laptop to simply monitor the status of a business program while using a different computer. The dimming is annoying and requires me to regularly touch the mouse pad to wake it back up.

 

Yes, you can change the value, but I can not see any different in performance. It might be the choke effect

 

Hi, I don't have my laptop infront of me, but from what I remember, go to Control Panel and then Power Options.

You can choose between different settings in there for both on battery power or plugged in. You can also choose for the computer to sleep after so many minutes etc.

If you do not want it to dim, just choose the option for "Never".

 

Hey guys,
After returning my F12 and replace it with HP Envy 14, I want to let you guys know that this is indeed a very good trade. The E14 doesnt come without any issues but overall I was pleased that I did that.

The F, even though it was a great machine..it lacks in several departments, the screen is the most major disappointment. The high pitch sound somehow not 100% fixed by the popular "mic fix" on mine and E14 is sometime has almost the same sound when using bluetooth or USB and turns out it was intel/microsoft issue in regulating the voltage for those ports. (The only issue I have with my E14).

Anyway here is how the screen is (I have the 1600x900 Radiance screen)..this screen is BRIGHT & CRISP! Not to mention full adobe RGB coverage!





I do not have any heat issue that effect the 1st gen Envy. This laptop is cool. I choose i5-520M instead i7 for the switchable graphics. I can get roughly about 4-5 hours using standard battery and another 4-6 hours using a extended slice battery.

PS:All light in this system is LED and white in color. Even the Ethernet port light! Very cool. I hate to return my F, but I cant live with its flaws. So for those who is disappointed by F, I recommended go with this route.

 

This has all been very interesting to read this morning. FWIW, my HDD in external eSATAp still reads as Gen 1, while my internal SSD reads as Gen 2.

 

Can anyone help me with the OEM clean installation for F12

 

Glad you were happy.. maybe I'm just unlucky, every ATI card laptop I owned, I was bombarded with driver issues and green screens of deaths.
Sure 5650 is slightly better in performance, but I won't leave my i7 ..

I personally took my F11 to laptops on display.. there is no difference in contrast, color, even better at times. Maybe alittle dimmer? But I've got the matte display. I bought my F11 in Asia, which might have made a diff.

 

Thanks for that. Last time glanced at that setting I thought it said "turn off the display."

 

For the past few days, when i'm watching youtube or other streaming programs, I sometimes get this problem where I would hear the speakers crackle for a second and then the sound switches from normal to incredibly hollow sounding. Volume up and down still works and restarting the video stream brings the sound back to normal.

IS this hardware or software related or are my speakers shot??

 

From what you described, it looks pretty much hardware to me. Did you tamper with the speakers physically before? or played music etc at max volume? or attempted to play very high/low frequency sound? if so you might have damaged it. reserve those for external speakers

if not, try uninstalling realtek high definition audio and try installing the latest from sony or realtek's site

GL hopefully u wouldnt need to send it to be fixed

 

RTM! & follow link to posts by: kcirtaP about his_F12 clean install tips or Search this thread for his posts.

 

Where can I find this information? The Radiance screen in Envy 17 is 80% Gamut.

 

Nope, it's 72%. From this HP_Envy 17 product page:

 

You can read the full review here (Btw, I dont have the E17, I have the E14 with Radiance screen)

Notebookcheck: Review HP Envy 14-1010eg Notebook

Its in German, but easily translated using google chrome.

 

What is your point again for pushing a 14" dual core i5 900p that I should get instead of a DTR_16.4" 1080p quad core i7 that fits my needs? & that's not talking about that brand.

Why don't you go to a 14" forum or a what laptop should I buy thread?

 

It says almost, so it not 100%? Might be a PVA - panel? But the Colors on MacBook Pro is too saturated and glossy

I also wanted the Envy 14, but I only saw issues about it and self deaths, it maybe takes suicide because it cant live with itself.

If it had 1080p screen, 100%+ gamut, matte screen, almost no issues as with the F-series for me (No bleed, viewing angles of almost 180 until inverted colors show up, no overheat with I7-720M, quiet, and so on). Only the HDD thing is bugging me, but it was designed like that.

Nice to see that i works for you.

@ Joe: Swedish HP is not that informative, googeled it up and found 82 % Gamut.

 

I can't type the joke about Swedish people & data that comes to mind.

 

PM me please, need to hear it

The majority does not care of data, it only need to work and look decent, thereby many buys mac

Fine print: Do not take actions of peoples reaction.

 

Because using your notebook on battery isn't real world usage.

*points at CPU throttled to 931mhz while you enjoy it on battery*

Joe that is the single most FAIL damage control statement you've given in all of your time on this thread lol.

Sidenote: I'm aware that most i7 quad laptops have throttling issues one way or another, and even the Envy 15 goes to half speed on battery. Just saying, that was a pretty hardcore miss right there man.