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

Thanks for all the help everyone! This thread is a godsend when you're having trouble. Really, it is.

At this point, I think the hard drive is corrupted in some unrepairable way (either because of a hardware or software issue - I still think its a software issue). I've repaired the mft, mbr and recreated the partitions (redefined, really) and it still fails to boot. I don't think its a bios problem because I popped another drive in the internal hard drive bay and that disk showed up in the bios. I am going to try to create an image of it, wipe the disk clean a few times and then load the image to see if things are better.

This is basically what happened so far:

In my usb/esata enclosure (usb on the macs, as they have no esata) the drive shows up as 2 partitons in OSX (Windows and System Reserved). All of my files are intact and ok.

On Ubuntu, using the external enclosure, the disk appears in the same 2 partitions as OSX, but they are unmountable (linux spits out an error message saying there is something wrong with the drive and to check connections...).

With the drive in an external enclosure, the files show up when I use a disk utility such as testdisk in the UBCD linked to by Anseio. It even booted to the Win7 splash screen via the external enclosure after I repaired the partition table, mbr, and mft (until it hit a bsod before it hit the logon screen). Then, when I went to fix the bsod by repairing windows with a win7 install disk (I figured some .dll's were mission or corrupt), the install program would not see the disk at all.

The drive does not show up at all in Linux, bios, or the testdisk utility if it is installed in the internal drive bay.

Now, the F11 isnt even booting to the splash screen via the external enclosure.

I talked to a sony rep who was really helpful (waited a while to get the awesome Philippines call center people) and he said that Sony would ship me a new hard drive free of charge sometime next week (I get to install it to, if I choose).

haha yep. Although alcohol + caffeine = massive hangover. I thought it was strange that Joe hadn't posted on the new thread yet. Banned again? Man, that sucks

 

@mango: could you please tell me if sony already fixed the high-pitched noise that comes from the integrated speakers.. I'm really getting impressed with F series though.

<< getting ready to buy it right away if there is no issues regarding that field..

thanks in advance

 

I think they did. I used the DIY fix that is available in the unification post (in my sig), but I do believe that for the later f11s/f12s the issue was fixed by a firmware update.

 

Wow Mango, hopefully you can get a clean image from it or at least your files proerly so you can load up the new HDD that Sony sends you, maybe even use the files when you have them to continue with the work you had to do . It's a very strange issue though... but heyif you get your files off and load up the new HDD then well can just leave the old dead/corrupt/lazy/gdmfsob HDD for what it is . Glad Sony helped!

 

If it comes down to just getting data off an HDD I would recommend Spinrite.

Home of Gibson Research Corporation

I've heard this thing just never gives up and in some rare cases taking weeks to complete. It never says no.

 

I'm using the disk utility on the imacs in our computer lab right now, but I've heard about Spinrite (apparently it increases the longevity of the hdd as well?). I hope this mac image works, but if it doesnt then spinrite it is.

 

HAHAHA. I used to be interested in MAC's, back when it was Windows Vista. Ugh. Now that we've got Win7, I much prefer it.

No, the screen was glossy. We like them shiny here, apparently. Makes the colors stronger or something.

To my understanding, you will not void the warranty.

DON'T TELL HIM TO GET THE F13!!!!! He JUST got the F12. He's actually got one now. Yay!

 

Apparently glossy screens have better color reproduction - matte screens are usually for field work and things like that.

Oh really????? Ah shouldve waited for the F13 . Just kidding omaroo, glad you took the plunge!

 

That's sorta bull. Virtually all LCDs, glossy or matte have some kind of film over them, and besides we're talking about TN screens - calibrated or not a TN screen will never be color accurate (across much of the color gamut, anyway).

You can, as Joe and others have pointed out, use a calibrating device on a TN LCD and get some kind of color accuracy, but it's usually a compromise and you'll see it elsewhere unless you have a REALLY good screen (10 bit IPS ftw)

Aside from a few random Thinkpads, there are no IPS-equivalent LCDs in laptops (and even Lenovo rarely, if ever offers them). Therefore, most laptop LCDs suck.

 

That's all very true, but IPS panels aren't going to come down in price to notebook friendly levels for a while now. I think a 24" on Dell was still $1K, which I used instead on this:



My Vaio isn't being used right that second, but you get the idea. I don't do much with digital media creation so my priorities are obviously different.

/brag off

 

Actually, on the topic of screen, anybody know of any monitors with a very high pixel density (I remember seeing a 24" 2048x1152 or something).

I would love a 2560x1600 monitor, but they all seem to cost over 1k and I can't justify the cost.

Actually, I'm still a giant monitor noob. Does anyone have any recommendations for good lcd monitors in general? - I know resolution /= good monitor, but I usually like a screen with a relatively high pixel density or resolution.

 

I'm sure that's awesome for games, but I wouldn't do it for muhc else really XD

 

Hey Guys I had a query about the new F13 model and it's colour - I've managed to find a Sony store in the uk (welywn garden city) that are taking orders for the F13 latest ultimate hd studion model at £1699 but I just noticed that in the description the colour states black but if
You configure it online it's premium black for the same spec -

Does anyone know If they've taken it away for f13 as I was after the model with the black faux palm rest. It seems you can only get this if
It's configured online via the fX range?

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Well I would interpret it as being the standard black as is on the F13S1E, instead of the premium black with the faux leather palm rest. Thing is that'd be an odd change because without it the Z1E just has a blu ray writer and 8GB RAM over the S0E with its blu ray reader and 6GB RAM. £200 difference in price, you'd think the premium black would still be included for that large price difference. My advice is to wait for our fellow poster the lucky Dutchy to tell all about his F13Z1E that he picks up today, you'll get an answer about if it's really black or premium black.

 

I think I figured out why I was getting bad framerates in Mass Effect 2. After about 3 to 5 minutes (gpu temp = 53 degrees), it automatically switches down to 405mhz core/810mhz shader which is when everything suddenly gets slow.

It looks like its going into some battery mode but I'm using Windows high performance power plan and heres the rub: my battery isn't even plugged in. Its sitting in my desk drawer whilst the F12 is plugged straight into the mains. That means its not the commonly prescribed bad AC jack because if it was bad, my computer wouldn't have any power to switch down to battery mode. It would just switch off.

 

Hey Guys,

Im an owner of the F12M1E/H with an i5 520M processor.

I was just wondering, is it possible to replace this processor with an i7? Like the i7 620M or even the newer i7 640M (both dualcores)? The TDP is the same for all the processors, so I guess the cooling should be sufficient.

Thanks.

 

Depends if the chipset itself supports the new processors, but in my opinion there should be definitely NO PROBLEM. Problem lies in the cost, i7 alone might cost you quite much.

 

Your GPU shouldn't underclock to 2D clocks even when on battery mode if it's on load. Did you overclock it? Because an unstable overclockk will cause it to throttle down, requiring restart to regain 3D clock back.

Your temperatures are fine.

I don't really understand what you said in the last paragraph

 

I agree with Daniel's theory - it sounds like the card is throttling down because the drivers think the clocks you're running are unstable whatever game you're playing (furmark can be stable, but some games - like ME2 or SC2 - don't like overclocks). This happened when I pushed the clocks on the card really high (I pushed them to 775/948/1705 and 800/948/1760 core/mem/shader - these clocks are beyond insane!! do not overclock your card this high - no game will run and if they do, you gpu life will probably be very very short).

Sorry I misunderstood your initial post btw - I though you meant that the framerates for the game were running between 15 (absolute lowest) and 30 (absolute highest) fps with an average in the high 20s, and not that it was running well and suddenly got much slower.

 

I just love seeing how each of the regulars here has something different and unique to offer everybody else. That's so cool to see the generousity go around and around and around.

Have a great day everybody!!!

 

My F13z1e doesn't have the palm rests. I can't say I'll miss them because A:they can't come unglued or wear out and B: as it's mainly a desktop replacement I'll be using an external keyboard most of the time.

I'm just burning the recovery discs as I write, but I probably won't get to the Clean Install till monday.

 

Thanks for the info . Good luck with the clean install, hope you enjoy your new F13!

 

I just got my new logitech K800 (backlit & wireless) to accompany my F12. It's a great combination!!

Also for a little speed improvement I cloned my Momentus 7200.4 to a hybrid 500GB Momentus XT. It's noticeably faster yet I can't wait to replace it with an OCZ vertex II.

 

I had an OCZ Vertex "I" with F11, worked great! Highly recommend! Also the battery time went up around 20 min.

 

When you do can I have your momentus xt?

I'm surprised by how large that battery improvement is that wintereq saw 20 min, very nice indeed.

 

Got some great news,

I passed by SonyStyle in Manhattan yesterday and yeap they did had the F13 there for display!! It was the F13AFX, they even still have an F12 next to it, so I was able to do a side by side comparison.

First the screen!! For my surprise the 1080p screen of the F13 looked just GREAT!!! Brightness, colors, viewing angle, everything looked just as it should be!! With the default settings in auto Brightness. I am not sure if it comes with Adobe RGB or not, or if its completely different screen from the F12 but whatever it is, it looks amazing now and I am very glad I saw that. Pictures, Videos and basic Windows 7 navigation now looks great on that gorgeous 1080p display. Sadly the F12 next to it looked so bad it was no comparison of what so ever..

And yes I know a lot of people manage to get better display results with custom settings on the US F12 but I am talking for the default settings and for me those sucked big time.
So again I am not sure if this is the European Screen with Adobe RGB or not but the point is that it does satisfy my needs and it looks a lot better than the previous F12 1080p monitor which I personally didn't like AT ALL.

Second, the manager told me that both F12 and F13 was TURN ON from about 10:00 in the morning and I was in the store around 6:00pm I touched the upper right place where the processor is and check the heat, not that the F12 was hot but for the F13 you where barely feel any heat coming out of it, it was running very cool
I am guessing that the new F13 motherboard can handle even better the i7 processors.

I run a couple of sample 1080p videos in the laptop and the nVIDIA 425m looks to handle them pretty good, very high performance quality no lag and no frame loss at all. I didn't test a game thought. But from that quick experience I got is a thumbs up to the 425m as well.

The USB 3.0 plugs have now Blue Color in the inside, I don't know why but I did noticed that.

The only downside of the new F13, for me at least, was the MotionEye camera. The model I tested had only a 0.3 MegaPixel camera that only does video on 640X480. I do use Video Calls a lot and for me not having a HD webcam in year 2010 is really a letdown.

SonyStyle USA insist that F13 will come with 1.3 Megapixels camera. I am not sure what the case is, maybe the F13AFX i tested just comes with 0.3 or the software Sony put in the laptop only goes 640X480 maximum, I can't really tell until I get my own F13. Hope my customizable model comes with a better camera but even if it comes with a 0.3, an external HD webcam is something you can easily add, but seriously I do not understand why in the world Sony put an ancient 0.3 camera on that high-end model in the year of 2010 almost 2011...

There you have it guys, If you have a SonyStyle in your area, check with them they may have some new F13 ready for display, go check them out.

I can wait for mine to arrive, after todays visit and my experience with the F13's 1080p monitor I cannot wait for it to come to widely sit in my desk and I cannot wait to send back my current brand new HP Envy and all the whole bad experience I got with it.

I spend quite a lot of time testing the F13 today so if you have any question please feel free to ask.

 

How way the vertical viewing angle?

 

nMIK-3@
What about the laptop itself, does the housing looks different from F11 or F12?

 

Vertical along with side viewing angle was very good. Just what you expect from a decent high quality 1080p monitor.

Not really. Design-wize they do look the same. I didn't sit there to spot and find the differences as I was testing the F13 screen most of my time, but as I said what I noticed was that the F13 now has a blue color in the inside of the USB 3.0 plugs.

 

AFAIK, most of the laptops with USB 3.0 have blue-colored plugs (I've already seen some ASUS laptops), doesn't seems a disadvantage to me.

 

Yes this is what I thought, that the Blue color inside USB 3.0 plugs is probably part of the USB 3.0 standards, for people to quickly spot and separate the USB 3.0 plugs from USB 2.0.

I didn't mention it as a disadvantage, I just mention it as a difference from the older models

 

Hello all ! I recently purchased an f12 1600 x 900, I7 740 500gb, 4 gig ram, blu ray, 310m gpu .. For $950. I am very excited i cant wait! Shipping is a week. Not really gonna use it for games more for blu ray and other multimedia stuff.. I didnt think the f13 was necessary due to the fact there are nothing major other then the new graphics card. Which is good for gamers. I love sony their products are always good quality.

 

Guess we'd need someone in the US to check the model number to find out if the screen really has been changed. Sounds like all good news, and yea I guess the new mobo was for USB 3.0 and better i7 performance among other things, also the 425m has energy saving mode to reduce power consumption I think. So that can explain the lower temperatures you observed, would be interesting to see temp data on the F13s once people have them. Would also be nice to know the EU F12 and F13 screen models see if any changes there too . If the F13 really is cooler that's awesome for am already cool F series!

 

As far I remember, USB 2.0 had pink plugs, at least in printers.

 

Hey everyone,

I ordered my first customized F11 from Sony Style in February of 2010. The unit died within a week and I ordered a replacement.

I've had the replacement for around 6 months, and the unit constantly shuts down due to the battery being loose when locked into the computer. In other words it wiggles quite a bit and shuts down if I try to move it. Also, the computer runs significantly warmer than it did when I first purchased it

I'm really hesitant about sending this unit back and waiting another 3 weeks for them to build me a new replacement. I'm considering going the route of a Macbook Pro...

I've had nothing but problems with Sony and am really fed up with their computers and HORRIBLE customer support.

If I send the laptop back to Sony and they find the unit to be defective (which it is) is it at all possible to be reimbursed?

 

Where are you from mate? Sony works differently in Europe or US.
I don't think you can get any money back from them, they will probably try to fix the hardware. If it won't be possible, they just send you a new one (maybe even F13 or at least F12).

IMO, stick with Sony, you might get a better revision of F series.

PS@Have you flashed BIOS to the newest one? You've probably heard about warming/battery problems with older BIOSes.

 

Forum pros, I need a bit of help. I purchased a used F12 last week and am trying to upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm drive. I've cloned my drive and am ready to swap it out, but I need a little assistance getting the drive out. I've searched the forum and found only this link:

http://www..org/images/Sony_Vaio_F11/VAIO_VPCF_Hard_Drive_Replacement.htm

which is missing the domain and won't open. Can someone point me to a guide? I've got the hard drive cover off and the screws out, but it's still attached. I'm not usually a laptop-upgrader... do I have to remove the whole bottom? I was hoping there'd be a guide in the manual, but I suppose that's naive.

 

Repped you and Mango. Lesson learned: overclocking is a slow process. Do it too quick without stability testing and bad, weird stuff happens. Like your gpu crapping its pants and throttling down to 2d clocks.

Problem solved by lowering clocks a bit and running furmark for 2 hours. Now its stable and ME2 gets a good 24 to 34fps with x16 AF like expected. Good call you guys.

 

Its easy. First before you do anything, Press F2 at the VAIO screen when you turn your computer on and change the boot order so that the DVD rom drive is first or an External drive. Whichever you want to boot from. Once you are done, save settings and shut down. Unplug from the mains.

Step 1:
Open the plastic backplate. (2 screws) It falls off if you just tilt the laptop.

Step 2:
You will see the hard drive cage (2 screws). When you remove the 2 screws it will still be fairly secure. What you need to do is slide it in the direction of the touchpad. It should click out and you can lift the cage+ hard drive out with the translucent plastic tab.

Step 3:
Remove the drive from the cage (4 screws).

Step 4:
Slide your new drive into the cage, line up the holes and put the 4 screws back.

Step 5:
Slip the drive cage back into the laptop and when its flat, slide it away from the touchpad. It should sort of click into place. Replace 2 screws, put the black plate back and put the last 2 screws in.

If you are cloning a hdd to an ssd you need to make sure the cloned drive is 4k aligned. If this is applicable I can run you through step by step how to make sure your drive is aligned. Otherwise you should be good to go.

 

AFAIK, F12 has 7200 rpm HDD, all of them. Older model, F11, had slow 5400 rpm HDD.

The HDD installation is pretty easy, just take the cover, you'll see a plate that is situated right to HDD. You won't need any help with it, if so then look at YouTube or at the main topic of F11.

 

I don't know if any other Canadian buyers have run this experiment, but I priced out an F13 with EXACTLY the same specs as my original F11, with 425 instead of GT330, and the 740 instead of 720, but also with 256 Gig SSD, 4 gigs ram, but with Adobe and MS demoware, and it came out to $528 MORE than the F11. Put another way, I paid almost exactly that same $1820 price for the F11, but THAT had Adobe Premiere, Fresh Start, and Win7 Pro.

 

As my f12 is on its way... Any of you experienced users have any good tips to start? Thank u guys.

 

Does the 7200rpm make a big difference from the 5400rpm? Is it worth switching the hdd for the 7200?

 

No not really. The 7200rpm drives will make a bit more noise, have a little bit more power consumption and run hotter but the difference is pretty small. These days hdds are pretty high capacity and the platters have very high data density so its not as important anymore for the platter to spin super fast. Some of the high capacity 5400rpm drives are faster than many older, lower capacity 7200rpm drives. Either way the difference isn't worth much in this day and age.

If its going to eat at you anyway, you can take solace in the fact that you can at any time pick up a WD Scorpio Black 500gb for about £55. That drive will be faster than anything Sony will sell you. For a while it was also cheaper back when the 500gb hdd upgrade on the F12 cost +£80.

 

If its not a big difference i wont bother with it. thanks.

 

I like to ask the F12 users with i7 processors.

Can you please tell me how much battery life you getting with High Performance or mid to high brightness and how much battery you are getting in Power Saver profile? Both of them with basic operation without DVD/BluRay playback.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hey nMIK - did you (or anyone else who's seen the F13) see both an F13 with the HD display and one with the 1600x900? I'm wondering how the lower res display looks and if that also looks better than the F12 version.

I ordered my F13 yesterday with the HD display but I'm still torn about whether I did the right thing. I had the opportunity to get an F13 with the 1600x900 but still with the GT 425 plus with 2GB more memory, Bluray (which I didn't get on mine), and a larger hard drive for $500 less than I paid for mine. The only reason I turned it down was to get the HD display. But $500 is a lot of money to me and all the rest of the specs were better. I'm still wondering if I should cancel my order and get a lower res screen with better memory, better optical drive and HDD for a lot less money.

Unfortunately, I can't go see one in person because I'm stuck at home due to health reasons. I previously saw an F12 though with the 1600x900 screen so if someone has seen the F13 and can tell me if it has improved that would be helpful.

 

I just looked at the F13 HD display yesterday side by side w/ my F11 1600x900. There's no comparision. You did the right thing getting the HD display. I would have bought it, but it was out of my price range.

 

In the US, the F12 had 5400rpm drives. You could upgrade to a 7200 but the base model was with 5400. I'm not sure where the poster who asked the question was from but he probably got a US computer or some other country that gets the lower specs like we do.

 

Thanks anseio. I wish I could see in person. It's hard spending all this money blindly. I suppose I could just wait to receive it and if I don't think the difference is worth the price jump, I could return it. But I'm not supposed to get it in my hands for almost two weeks and the deal I've got available will be gone by the end of this weekend. I know if I could see an F13 HD side by side with an F13 16x9 I would be able to make a decision one way or the other without regrets.