Official Sony VAIO F Series i5/i7 owners thread *Part 5*

Trike,

Did yo install this memory:

Newegg

Along with this drive:

Newegg

Thanks,
Chad

 

Thankyou for the information. it was helpful.

 

does anyone know how to enable the surround sound, as i want to experience the brilliant sound.

 

Is there a bios unlock , American Megatrends bios version R0280Y6 ? It seems to me is too simple..we can access all functions hidden like here http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/480992-acer-laptop-phoenix-bios-bios-mod-request.html.

 

Actually the sound on the F Series is crap. Period. And I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on the forums to make it sound nicer was to disable the Surround Sound.or it might have been the Wow effect..

 

the sound is aright to me anyway, but i got told if you put earphones in or connect speakers then the sound is great especially with surround sound, so how do you enable it.

 

You have to go to Speaker Properties:
Click the speaker icon in your taskbar > then click the speaker icon on the volume bar that pops up > There is a tab where you can choose to enable surround sound.

It's not "real" surround sound, but emulates it well.

 

i thought it had surround sound built it, thats what sony says, will this be sound great with earphones and speakers.

 

Anyone know the solution to this Vaio Care error:
Everytime I start Vaio Care, I get a message that 1 problem needs to be fixed and when I click on it, it says "Unable to verify Vaio update status."
I click to fix it and it opens Vaio Update and there are no updates. The settings I have are that the Function settings are unchecked and the Notice settings are checked. (I don't want to check the Functions because I don't want things automatically downloading and installing without my knowledge.) When I did a google search all I found was to make sure it's allowed in your Firewall, which I did, but didn't help. Any ideas?

 

Yes, it will sound good.

It's not an error with VAIO Update. It's an error stating that VC cannot verify VU status. It's no big deal if VU is working fine when you run it. I get that error too, on occasion.

 

true surround sound is 6 channels:

center
front left
front right
rear left
rear right
sub

as opposed to stereo which is 2 channels:

left
right

There are some obvious problems with trying to recreate sound that is literally 'behind' you in headphones where you only get sound in one ear or the other (or both ears).

One way of doing this is binaural recording, which is a method of recording that simulates the way we hear with our ears. See the 'virtual barber' youtube video to hear what this sounds like (its amazing). We localize sound based on the time it takes for sound to reach our ears for instance. One way of simulating this effect or tricking the ear into perceiving 'off center' sound in headphones is by creating a small time delay (a few milliseconds) between the left and right channel. You can try this for yourself using a wave editor like audacity, importing any dual mono sound and delaying either the left or right channel by x milliseconds but not both at the same time.

You'll notice the direction of the sound appears to change in odd ways as you increase the delay up until a point where the delay is so long that one channel is perceived as an echo of the other. For repeating/cyclical sound we tend not to think of the delay in terms of milliseconds but rather in terms of its relation to a start point. We measure it in degrees and call it 'phase offset'.

Phase modulation is the basis of most stereo enhancing effects including faux surround sound. It can be used to exaggerate sense of space, depth and direction. It doesn't always work well and can cause some parts of the sound to disappear when summed to mono. It can also create an unnatural perception of depth. Describing it is difficult but if you toy around with audacity and delaying channels in a stereo pair the effect soon becomes evident.

The only true way to get surround sound is to have the audio mixed in surround sound. I write and produce my own music which involves simultaneously recording say 5 to 20 channels of audio which you then mix together and reduce to 2 channels (stereo - just left and right). Well for surround sound, you have to mix it down to 6 channels.

Then a surround sound decoder will know what channel goes to what speaker. Everything else is faked.

The F series has an optical out which can carry 6 channels of digital audio via s/pdif (I think). So if you get yourself a 1/8" ts jack to 2x red/white rca cable, plug the jack end into the headphone out on the Sony and the rca sleave ends into the auxiliary input of your surround sound system and provided the program material is mixed down to 6 channels, you can get true surround sound.

 

WOW, Hayte that is confusing. I just tried "surround sound", and it was playing in the back, so had to turn it off. I dont know how people are saying the sound is really good with earphones and external speakers, for me its not that loud when i put my earphones on especially at full volume. Im kinda of getting put of by the sound now. I have to blame sony for this, i thought the sound would be greater then the laptop speaker when connected to headphones or external speakers. But looks like im wrong. Sound is IMPORTANT, and im disappointed now.

 

Hmm, ok. The update works when I run it so I guess it isn't an actual problem. I just don't like it telling me I have a problem to fix. But I can live with it if there's nothing I can do about it. I'm still trying to decide whether I want to do a clean install. I've done it before on other machines but I kind of want to see how it runs as is for awhile. Everytime I encounter some little thing like that, it makes me lean towards a clean so I can start fresh. I'm a perfectionist. I drive myself crazy sometimes.

 

What are you playing the sound through? Music? Movies? Come on, omaroonie, it's time to start giving specifics when you have a complaint.

Sound enhancements don't sound so good with music, but do better with voices/movies. Explore a bit.

The sound on the VAIO is very good. It's the speakers in the VAIO that blow.

Don't confuse perfectionist with control freak. LOL j/k We're all a little OCD here.

 

I'm using headphones right now (shure SE420s) and its absolutely fine. Same as my old PC. All sound enhancements have been turned OFF.

 

thanks a lot for this practical test. One of the big pluses for this machine ARE the two USB 3.0 ports. I was literary waiting for them to be added to F series so i can place my order. Although one would satisfy me. Two are amazing.

I believe USB 3.0 can be enhenced to much better than 3x the USB2.0 with better drivers, and better harddrives setup. 3x is great as it beats the hell out of FW800, but it still doesn't beat ESATA at that speed. And it certainly should once you get its full potential.

question?

Does this WD hadr drive have eSATA to try the test as well. If you have time- of coarse.

best regards. and +1 from me.

 

Thanks. Nope, no eSata. I didn't see any drives that were both eSata and USB 3.0 so not sure they make any yet. I've never had an eSata drive so I don't have an idea how much faster it is than USB 2.0 in real life use. Wish I were able to test all three.

I knew the 3.0 was too new to reach the 10x speed it potentially has and since these hard drives are so new I was happy to get the 3x speed out of it. Transferring my files last night to Vaio went so much quicker than I expected. I would've waited for a 2nd generation HDD but I needed it now.

 

If it is grease-less then could he have used graphite to lube it? Of course it is too late now but I am wondering.

 

I have that memory sitting on my desk right now and I should get my F13 by Friday. I will let post on here how it turns out.

 

Is there a bios unlock , American Megatrends bios version R0280Y6 ? It seems to me is too simple..we can access all functions hidden like here http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/480992-acer-laptop-phoenix-bios-bios-mod-request.html

 

The stereo analog-out audio quality of the F-series is superb, one of the best of any laptop OR desktop. 6.1 Surround sound is output from the OPTICAL port (on the bi-purpose audio output socket.)

You can't drive inefficient high-quality headphones to full volume from the LINE-level audio output on the F, which is designed to feed to an external amp or efficient headphones.

Personally I use a USB DA with heaphone amp for sound playback to Sennheiser 540 cans. Those are the best-sounding heaphones I've ever used, but very very inefficient.

 

Hey everyone, just received my first Vaio on Friday (F13) and I absolutely love it so far!

I bought a WD 500GB 7200rpm hard drive and external enclosure on Newegg for $90 total because, where upgrading to the same hard drive via Sony would've cost $80, I can put the 320GB hard drive that comes in the laptop in the enclosure and effectively get a 320GB external hard drive for $10 lol.

Anyways, I'm in the process of doing a clean install on the new drive now (following Joe Bleau's guide) and unfortunately the instructions for the F12 aren't the same as the F13 as I had hoped so. Everything up until it boots into Windows is still the same as the F12 (although I did have to insert the discs in a strange order: 1, 2, 1, 3 I think lol), but once it gets to the black screen in Windows where it starts installing drivers the process is completely different. Here's a picture of the new dialog. Since I had already screwed up the installation a few hours ago (stupidly closed the lid during it forgetting it would go to sleep...such a stupid default setting), I didn't wanna to kill the install via the task manager unless I was sure it would work and wouldn't require me to do everything over for a 3rd time. I guess I'll just have to manually uninstall all the bloatware :/

I figured new F13 owners would appreciate knowing this and may wanna wait until Joe's guide is updated for the F13 before trying the clean install.

Oh and this is taking absurdly long, it's up to 71% now but it's been an hour and a half since I started the whole process with booting from the recovery disc. Granted it's installing all the 3rd party crap but that didn't start until about half an hour ago at 50%....

EDIT: wow I just realized that took like 45 minutes to type on my BlackBerry because I'm in my car at work, please excuse any typos lol

 

Teflon on brass or Titanium is very very slippery. That combo has been used for dry motor bearings for decades.

Any type of grease absorbs moisture, increasing friction.

 

Hi, welcome!

There's a bit of trial and error involved with clean installing from the recovery discs. Usually goes like this: partitions are created and filled with data, OS & drivers are installed, bloatware installed. You get the joy of trying to find the point where OS is done and bloatware begins,

With the clean installs I've done on the F11, it only takes about 30 minutes or so, but if bloatware installs, it's an extra hour. Ugh.

You may be able to email JB on his page. He might have some knowledge for you or request of you to share some screenshots from your F13 so they can be added to his guide.

 

Pointless if the bearing isn't the source of the noise.

 

I really don't understand why Sony didn't just put in dedicated volume buttons?? Such a hassle having to reconfigure keys or hold down two at the same time- to me it's just a silly design flaw; I would have preferred volume keys over the media keys- it's a standard!

I'm finding the casing very susceptible to marks/scratches and grease, which I didn't suspect. Can anybody reccomend a good skin to prevent that?
And I now have a dent in my speaker grill from the little rubber feet on the screen which is v. annoying. I LOVE this laptop but things like this and the constant noise irritate me so much.

 

i heard the sound with earphones and external speakers are supposed to be great, but i watch videos, movies and listen to music. Melody i played the music or video at full volume with earphones but its still not that loud. Why is that. Are you saying i can get truly great sound with earphones like i would get with external speakers.

 

Actually, the volume control with the easygoing Fn+F keyboard keys works way better than with dedicated "click" keys. The earlier Vaio FW has dedicated volume buttons, I miss the F's solution. It's just easier to adjust to the wished volume level with keyboard keys. You don't even have to spread your fingers, if you take the Fn key with your thumb. Maybe this was changed on purpose even (even better, they could have done it with a jog dial), it definitely is an improvement. Speaking of design flaws, anyone can tell me where to spot the S2 button?

 

The fan is lightly greased from the factory, and as for the 'disturbance of the fan blades past the nearest flat body' , according to jacksw you can take the fan unit out of the laptop completely, apply power, and it still makes noises.

I highly doubt they are going to void my warranty. They won't even know that I opened it up. I'll just take it apart again and remove the small amount of grease I added just to make sure.

Just curious though, has ANYONE had their F serviced under warranty and had this fan issue resolved?

Reference:

 

I agree the outside casing is susceptible to scratching and most of all oil from your hands. I have been using 100% carnauba wax (Mothers) for a long time. I apply with a terry towel, lots of elbow grease, and using small circular motions to really get the oil off. Now here is the epiphany. I have been doing this once a week for months now and all of a sudden the surface seems to have changed. The casing is now smooth and the oil from my fingers does not stick any longer. So I would recommend a buffer to get it to the point where mine is.

 

Just how loud is the whine/whistle you are experiencing? On the YouTube video, it's about the same volume level as the regular fan noise. I think that's typical. Unless yours is a lot louder, I don't see the point in sending it away for service. Sony is just going to tell you that it's normal and send it back. The noise is a design flaw, so even if you could somehow convince them to replace the fan, it's not likely to make the noise go away.

 

Maybe a stupid question but did anyone try replacing the fan with a different one instead?
Of course, taking into account the size / dimensions of the original fan (if possible)

 

It's not the volume level that bothers me. it's the intermittent high-pitched noise.. it's annoying when you work in a quite area and it's not something I would expect from a notebook in this price range. I just wish there was a way to control fan speed, so I could set it to a constant 3000 or so rpm for regular use, and then max speed for gaming use. It doesn't make the noise at certain rpms. I would have returned it during the 30-day period but a sony tech assured me it would be fixed with a new bios release that would prevent the fan from changing rpms constantly. He lied.

I just want to hear SOMEONE say they have had the issue resolved, and explain how.. then i'll stop bothering everyone with this . Otherwise, i'm just stuck with an expensive notebook that I won't use..

 

Could you maybe post an illustrative photo of the casing as it is now? I can't imagine how this smooth looks like.

 

I, too, am very curious about this. Sounds like a great thing! Do you wax just the outside of the lid, or the bottom of the base too?

 

just goy my F13 usa version.
Glossy full HD screen. Nice though.
Super quiet in very quiet environment here at work. No complaints about fan nor processor sounds.

question:
I did not get a single cd in package. I expected a bunch, at least Windows 7 pro. Is this what sony does?

thanks

 

How is GT 425M GFX card on this new F series? I haven;t seen any reviews or gameplay video of this card on the net yet. I heard it is worse than ATI 5650...

Any comments/video/review would be appreciated.

 

Hey sorry Hayte, been a little since I checked back. Unfortunately my problem is that cash flow is fine but banked cash isn't and I refuse to have a credit card for now therefore I need financing to just pay it off over a few months. So sorry about that but good luck with your sale you should get a good price for it considering how new it is! Regardless of the F13_release you should do well. I get what you mean about the size of the Z series it's a nice size to just carry around, also the X series is worth a mention. Happy buying and selling (the SSD will do well for resale ).

Just trying to work out this Alienware_purchase see if I it can actually be made to work, pretty huge difference in laptop but it's back to something similar to what I'm typing on now it seems .
_________

To the guy (not being rude just forgetful!) who tried clean installing on his F13_if you're having trouble go back a few pages and some users reported clean installing the F13_so if JoeB's guide isn't enough you could try PMing those who have done it for help, hopefully they'll be happy to .

 

According to notebookcheck they are pretty much the same.

NVIDIA Geforce GT 425M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

No CDs/DVDs are included. That's why it's important to make the recovery disks. You have to pay if you want disks from Sony. Most manufacturers these days don't include disks but some give them for free upon request. I got free disks from Dell. I can't believe Sony makes you pay for something you've already paid for.

 

Humm...interesting. It seems that 5730 is only X% better than 425M. I will wait until they post some games' FPS comparison.

Thanks for the link.

Weird how there is not a SINGLE video of 425M gameplay on youtube...

 

Can anyone link me to some ColorProfiles for my F13?
Thanks.

 

Yes, I promise to post some photos. I only buff the top casing and no longer have to shine it up all the time.

 

I hope you anwser my previous post melody mate. Also anyone know how to access files from pc to the laptop, as i have seen a commerical and it seems really good.

 

I'm a big fan of dropbox.

Dropbox - Home - Online backup, file sync and sharing made easy.

 

its not connecting for some reason, does this transfer files from the pc without doing anything major.

 

Once you set it up you do not have to do and thing. Downside: The more files you have in your Dropbox folder, the more memory Dropbox will need to keep track of them. I hate programs that eat up resources, but this one is worthwhile to me.

 

i see your point, but i still disagree. maybe it's just preference but to be honest 1click volume seems to make more sense to me. especially if/when i need to mute or change volumes in a work environment or if i'm watching a movie with friends. And I know when i'm multitasking the effort of stretching my thumb and forefinger is well... an effort.
a volume dial would have been brilliant- my old acer had one at the front, under the touchpad so to speak (where the sd slot is)- soooo handy/thumby.

 

but what i mean is on the windows 7 commerical the person trasnfers files from his home pc to his laptop, how is that possible, what program does he use and is his PC turned off when he does this.

 

Windows Easy Transfer - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows