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

My Asus netbook with XP crashes whenever it's been in Standby or hibernate for more than a few minutes. My F11 with Win7 seems to be good for at least three hours in hibernate but then won't resume after a longer period without freezing. My Vista X64 desktop (Q6600) will go for days in Standby and still resume cleanly, that system never crashes for any reason.. The Q9450 desktop with Win7 won't go into standby at all without requiring a reboot.

They all have different purposes, I suspect the Q9450 is too loaded with multimedia junk. On the other hand the Vista desktop, what I'm using now, is loaded with internet junk, live webcam, mail programs, file server, Agent, etc. And Win 7 seems to have specific problems with sleeping. It's nothing to do with the Vaio.

.. So it goes...

 

Sorry omaroo
It worked for me yesterday, but I see its not working today

site:forum.notebookreview.com - Google Search

Put a space after the text and type in keywords

When I searched in the windows section I used lid as the keyword

The answers will be in that section of the forum as this is a software issue , that is not Sony specific

 

To add to the sleep BSOD thing, I sleep my laptop all the time (sometimes for a day or more) by closing the lid and it works just fine.

Perhaps you need to go into your power management settings and disable the "hibernate after xx minutes" settings. Then disable automatic installation of Windows updates (This happens at a pre-set time that you choose, if you choose it).

Without doing that, your computer will wake itself up "on schedule" when it's sleeping to do those tasks. It freaked me the heck out the first few times I saw that behavior lol.

Even with that though, I never had a BSOD.

Also, I'll agree about the keyboard - it's pretty good! The space bar squeaks a lot when the computer is new though (worry not, it goes away after a few weeks). Squeak squeak squeak!

 

Same here. I'm only ever having to close down/reboot for an update, otherwise I just close the lid and enter sleep mode.

This is a testimony for Win7, could never do this with XP! For games playing, you had to reboot often or they would either end up running sluggishly or crash a lot, and ya memory would dissappear up its own backside!

Oh, and as OoTLink said, make sure nothing can disturb the laptop from its sleep!

 

To add to this discussion, I use both sleep and hibernate a lot (every day) on my F12 and have never experienced a BSOD or lock-up upon waking. I also have windows update set to automatic and and have never had any problems there either.

 

thanks guys awesome replys, but i think you misunderstood me, i have no sleep mode on, not sure about hibernate, i just close the lid for a while.

Also i dont have a BSOD just a black screen and nothing comes up and have to press power button.

 

When you close the lid it might be set in software to do something
I have my laptop set to do nothing
If yours is set to go into sleep or hibernate ,you might have to use a hotkey
(one of the function keys) to get it back to normal
In my case it is not the power button as that is set in software to shutdown the computer

 

I have my F12 set to sleep by pressing the power button and hibernate when I close the lid. When I wake it from sleep mode, I press any key to start it and when I wake it from hibernate I have to press the power button. But you can set it however you want to.

 

The problem actually seemed to work itself out. It's working just fine now. Dunno what the problem was or if it was just a minor hiccup when I was reinstalling all of my drivers or what not. Took the computer to the hotel room...booted it up the next morning and everything was the way it was supposed to be haha!

Thanks!

 

Sweet SSD! Sounds like everything had to find itself after the clean install. Needed a few reboots.

 

6 processes running at start up.

 

Did you just clean install? Or do you always have your startup so bare? That's pretty sweet.

 

So jealous of you right now Those are some crazy times

 

Like I said in an earlier post, I always use sleep mode. So, time to desktop = 1.5 seconds!

 

Only fresh start. Laptop is getting to be a year old and I'm planning to do a clean install over the holidays. This stuff is all so relative. Right now I'm jealous of crzytimes 160GB Intel X-25M G2 SSD! When I purchased this F with an OEM SSD I knew somethings but not as much as I do now. I certainly would have swapped out a 5400 RPM and added my own SSD. Envious of both of your superior knowledge towards all things computer related.

 

Just a reminder to those purchasing an F in the future. Certainly consider taking advantage on Sony financing. This amounted to $50.00 off the purchase and free financing for 9 months. Just made my last payment to Sony. I could have paid it in full at the time of purchase, but why not take advantage of the discount and free financing ( time value of money). Also remember if you are buying a CTO laptop with a few extra upgrades to expect at least 10% discount if you buy direct from Sony. Myself and others have posted in the past on how to go about doing so.

 

tomcat its set to "do nothing", but what can i do to avoid the black screen.

 

I had a tech out today to change my motherboard. I fell very ill over nite and had no energy to handle the tech that came over tday so I let my wife give him my laptop to repair it. When i started to recover around 4pm It was time to test it.
Well not to my surprise the pos doesnt work properly. The f11 will completely just power off with no warning. Ive tried looking at any obvious signs and tried to see if any patterns were causing this symptom. Well it wont run very long with the a/c adapter plugged in. I tried de energizing the power supply but the same problem occurs. I have to run the unit in battery mode for some reason until a sony contracted tech comes out again. I told sony tonight with all the issues ive had they should send me a new one but they opted for another tech to come out.
I wonder what went wrong here and it really sucked being sick not being able to make sure my laptop was assembled properly. Ive also made sure the battery was in properly and ive tried it with the battery in and of the unit. Im just so unhappy with mine its turning out to be a lemon and I really think sony would take better care of there customers when it comes to getting a faulty unit.
If anyone has any ideas to why the power supply which was working flawless until the tech changed the mobo shorts my lappy out please leave a response. I was kinda wondering if something was not connected perhaps touching something it shouldn't be, thanks in advance aarrrggghh

 

is the fan meant to be this insanely loud?

 

Then it makes no difference if the lid is open or closed in your case
You must have the power properties setting set to either hibernate or go into sleep after a certain length of time
I am not really up to speed on what application sony uses to control the power properties , but I would disable this in your case as it has caused you grief in the past
In my case I have it disabled while on AC , as I have had issues with this in the past like some others here have reported

Yes, I think you must have an i7 processer and it needs to dissipate heat
You are not the only member posting on this issue

The loud fan would bother me for sure, as my current notebook is totaly silent
Thanks to a lower spec'ed core2 duo ,onboard graphics , SSD , and passive cooling using the chassis of the notebook for heat dissipation
No fan at all in my notebook to make noise , but the downside is no game playing

 

Hello everyone! This is my first post in the forum as I only recently bought my first laptop, a Vaio F series VPCF133FX model.

Overall I am very impressed with the laptop up until now, though I haven't tried the gaming part yet. I had some trouble through updating my NVIDIA card and that is how I located this excellent forum, which helped me a lot.

I have a few beginner questions and I hope I'm not being a burden here. I want to try a clean Windows 7 Ultimate installation or an Ubuntu one, and I was wondering if it would be possible on this laptop. Will the backlit keyboard still work?

The USB 3.0 drivers or any other drivers for that matter are available for both? Can I somehow download the whole VAIO software package included on the laptop anywhere again if I do a new clean windows install?

Thanks in advance and see you around!

 

hi sharidin

do u have problems with the fan noise?

 

so tomcat is this now a sony issue, what would i need to disable and where.

 

Is this a serious issue or is this something that happened once?
Some times such things happens and 99.9 % of the cases it's a software issue. A simple hard restart and it's gone. If this problem keeps returning then it's a problem and you should time trying to find the problem and solve it.
Please try to just enjoy your F and ignore these small hick ups.

 

@omaroo

Start
Control panel
Hardware and sound
Under Power options , change when the computer sleeps
Under plugged in , Put the computer to sleep ,select never
Save changes on the bottom

This is where I find the properties in W7U
And it's how I have my laptop set

What I was trying to say before is there is a chance Sony has it's own software that controls this , and if that is the case ,my sugestion will not be able to control when the computer sleeps

Report back when you have followed my steps

 

Yes, although on ubutnu the keyboard may just stay lit all of the time. Same with windows 7 until you install the vaio control center/event service drivers.

Basically, the keyboard light will be on all of the time until you install the appropriate drivers.

EDIT: A bit off-topic, but has anyone here played CoD Black Ops on the pc yet? It seems like there are a lot of issues on the PC version and while I'd be down to drop $60 on a working game, I don't feel like spending money on something broken.

 

I borrowed it and played for a half an hour and it seems to run fine. I don't overclock.

 

I just noticed today that my f11 cpu is running @ 97 celsius in power saver mode. No wonder this machine kicks off after my repaired service yesterday. The tech dropped a new mobo in and im not sure about him putting any heat sink paste on on a laptop cpu. I know on a desktop its done with paste but not sure about the way its done on this notebook. Or the heat sink isn't attached securely to the laptop cpu.

Man it really suked that I had to be sick while he worked on it. you would think they would at least test the machine before they leave.

The next tech that comes ill be ready like a hawk.

 

And what really suks is that the tech who didn't do his job right and left your machine in a mess is still going to be paid by Sony for the service though improperly rendered.

I'm a believer that the technician should not be reimbursed by Sony as Sony has to pay yet another rep to clean up the mess. That translates into higher costs overall and is soooo not cool.

 

I have a problem on my F12 with url links in emails not going to the webpage. When I click on an link in an email in Outlook IE fires up, but it just goes to the homepage, not the correct page for the link.

I don't understand why this is happening. It may be linked to the fact that every time I open IE it says that it is not the default browser - I tick to make it the default browser, but after restarting it says it is not the default again.

In the defaults the default for .url - Internet Shortcut is 'Internet Browser' and not 'Internet Explorer'. But IE is not on the list of applications I can change this default to.

As IE does fire up when clicking on a link perhaps it is problem with the security or privacy setting in IE itself. This is quite an inconvenient problem so any help would be welcome!

 

Try manually setting it to be your default browser:
ALT+T+O = Internet Options > click on the Programs tab > click the button to make IE the default broswer.

Note, that IE 64bit cannot be set as the default browser, so you'll need to open the 32bit version and set that one to be the default.

Report back what happens.

 

I have just tried this - I clicked on Make Default and ok. It says that IE is now the default browser. After closing IE then opening it again the same message about IE not being the default browser appears. I am using the 32 bit IE.

 

Hmmmm... And IE8 isn't something that can be uninstalled and reinstalled easily. There are steps to shut it off, but I don't remember how.

Wish I had a solutioni for you.

What about making another browser your default, like firefox, confirming in outlook that it's set, then trying to make IE default again?

 

Called sony today about my overheating issue and their recommendation was to send a tech out to replace the memory chips and make sure everything is secure lol. Memory chips? ok Ill take some new ones! then just to make sure according their the next level of support they'll send another tech to replace my fan and heat sink cooler. Ok while their at I told them why not just send me a new laptop and they can can keep this one for experimental purposes.

I really don't know if I should laugh or cry at this point. Almost all my electronic devices are made by Sony and I don't recall anything as odd as their computer tech service support.

 

You can turn off IE8 under Control Panel - Programs - Turn Windows Features On or OFF. So you can try turning it off, setting another browser, like Firefox or Chrome to default, and then turning IE back on and see if you can successfully set it to default. Also, do the links work with another browser set to default?

Edit: A couple things
-I was able to set IE8 as my default without a problem so it's not a general problem with IE8/Win7. Maybe turning it off and on like above with fix that for you.
-Did you only set .url to default to IE8? Because there are other web page defaults, like .html and others. Try setting all default for IE8. Control Panel - Default Programs - Set your default programs - Internet Explorer - Set this program as Default. Then make sure all those things are set to default by clicking Choose defaults for this program.

 

Hi guys,

Anybody have experience with hooking up an F-series to an A/V receiver? When I hooked up mine to an Onkyo tx-sr608, the receiver registered 5.1 sound, but couldn't play it.

 

Are you using the optical out ive never tried that maybe their is a configuration in the playback properties of the volume mixer. I have used the standard 1/16 jack out to the a/v amp with no problems 2 ch stereo.

 

Hey guys, I have a question regarding the health of my computer.
I currently own a VPCF127FX Sony Vaio Laptop

Nvidia Geforce 330m
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q740 @ 1.73 GHz (8 CPUs) ~1.73 GHz, Turboboost up to 2.93
Windows Home Premium 64 bit
6 GB DDR3 Ram
Full HD 1080p Monitor(I don't use this though, I have it hooked up to a 23")
Anything else important?

Anyway, my question was: I'm a hardcore gamer, and I generally go on for 10-14 hours, RARELY 16. And even rarer, 19 hour gaming marathons.
If I am playing this long, would that degrade the life of my notebook by a significant amount? Is the VPCF127FX prone to overheating? I play on Power Saver, if that's of any help.

 

I've done the same for the past 10 months or so. No issues yet. Temps never go above 80C so you should be fine. My keyboard went once and my hard drive died, but all of the other internals are working just fine (keyboard may have been related to gaming, but I doubt it. I'm pretty sure the hard drive went because I was driving it hard by frapsing and playing games from it for about 3 months straight heh. Poor little thing).

But yeah, I've played Crysis Wars and SC2 at a lans for up to 18 hours (we took breaks, but the computers were always in-game either in the menus or just idling in a map). Temps never went above 81C and that was without a cooling pad. I'm not hardcore enough to turn all of my settings down to low though, so these temps were after playing with a good amount of eye candy enabled . When the BFBC2 beta was out I think I was pushing 10+ hours a day almost every weekend. I don't have as much time to play nowadays, but I still leave my computer on 24/7 (either rendering, downloading/uploading files doing virus scans, defragmenting, etc.).

The life is probably shortened by a bit (more than average), but you will probably have long since moved on to another machine by the time that happens.

*EDIT*
I don't think I mentioned this, but the thing I am most afraid of breaking is the exhaust fan. Running that thing at full rpm for that long seems like it could shorten the life of the bearings by quite a bit.

 

Thanks for the response, it was just the one I was looking for. How much did it cost to replace your harddrive btw? I also use a wireless keyboard, so I don't think I'll have to worry about that. I have an external fan as well, do you think I'll have any internal fan problems?

Edit:
Oh, I forgot: I used to have an older Sony Vaio Laptop, I can't really remember the model number but it was quite old, something like 3-4 years. Anyway, it overheated even though I kept temps under 60 degrees, all that the processor could handle, although, it wasn't the processor that overheated, but the motherboard that fried(or atleast that's what the Frys Electronic's help center told us). So, I replaced the motherboard, and sure enough, it was fine. Do you think I'll face motherboard issues with my VPCF127FX? I keep CPU Temps under 65 celcius. I only play on High Performance and hit 80 degrees when I'm playing important matches, so... I don't think I do that often enough for 80 degrees to be considered.

 

When I go to Default Programs - Set Your Default Programs IE does NOT appear in the small list of programs on the left-hand side for which defaults can be set. I don't understand this, but it seems like a combined Win 7 / IE problem.

I set Google Chrome to have all its defaults. The email links did then work - with Chrome firing up to the correct page.

As IE does not appear in the set defaults list I opened IE and selected it to be the default browser again. Then it was back to all the same problems! IE has a popup every time I open it to say it is not the default, even though I make it the default each time. The email links still don't work with IE.

So it looks like I will have to use Chrome - IE just doesn't seem to work with Win 7 on my laptop. Perhaps the bug is related to the browser choice thing.

 

Did you turn IE off and then on again in Windows features? I think something must have got corrupted in your IE installation since it works fine on my computer and IE does show up in the Default programs list. Not sure if the "off/on" will fix it - it could be another program or something that got changed in the registry that is causing the problem, but it can't hurt to try that. If it really bothers you, you could try a factory restore but then you'd have to re-install all your programs and transfer all your files of course, so it may be more trouble than it's worth. I wouldn't bother doing that for this problem unless your computer is brand new, with little on it, and a factory restore wouldn't be a hassle, but it depends how important it is to you. Well glad it works fine with Chrome so you have a way to open links. I never use IE myself but if you prefer it, you certainly should be able to use it.

 

No probs. The hard drive replacement cost me nothing. I called in using my warranty and they overnighted me a hard drive (send at 10pm pacific time, got to me by 12 noon eastern time ). *A good tip* - if you ever need customer service, try calling after 5 or 6pm eastern. You get re-routed to the philippines call center who I found to me very helpful.

Yes - I'm most afraid of the internal fan dying. The whole reason I bought the F was because the fan on my last vaio died (a 7 year old z1ra), but that was after I dropped it one too many times (hehe whoops). Like I said, it's unlikely that anything will die before you move on to another computer (like 5 or 6 years maybe?), but if something were to break, my guess would be that it would probably be the fan.

EDIT: Huh. Overheated at around 60C? Anyways, I think the i7/330m are designed to run up to 100C (I'm just guessing here, but I think that the default shutdown temperature for the F is 100C or something like that). I'm not sure who manufactures the F-series motherboard (foxconn maybe?), but I don't think the chipset will flake out any time soon. Anyway, your computer will shut down if it detects that things are going to get hairy temperature-wise, so you should be safe from any overheating problems. If it makes you feel better, the F-series is one of the coolest-running quad core i7 laptops out there right now (the macbook pros with the dual-core i7 6xx chips run quieter, but hotter than the F-series with the quad core i7 7xx and 8xx chips).

 

I hadn't turned IE off and on in Windows features - but I have now just done it and still the same problem! IE still does not appear in the Default Programs list. I also noticed that IE does not appear in the All Programs list from the Start Menu and is not displayed in the search results (e.g. type 'explorer') from the start menu. I don't think Win7 recognises IE as a program.

I have spent a considerable amount of time getting my files and settings onto my new laptop so I don't want to do that again. However much they say that things are improved with more recent OS like Win7 it's still the same old story - very flakey, just some registry setting randomly changed and you can't properly use an application that is supposed to be available on your laptop. It's like buying a TV and not being able to watch some of the channels.

jpride, thanks for your help!

 

My experience with changing my ( Vaio F-Series 1390x CTO)
Operating System :

1- I downloaded a windows 7 x64 Home Premium iso from here : http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html
2- I burnt it into dvd then started my Installation process .
3- When I finished installation i installed all original drivers from Sony official website and also all original software like (Vaio Care - Vaio Control Center - etc)
4- After finishing these installs and restarting my laptop i noticed the following :

A- All The Multimedia Keys in my keyboard didn't work and become useless .
B- Vaio, Wireless Button, S1 and Assist keys in my keyboard didn't work too
C- My backlit lights went crazy they works when ever i touch any button on my keyboard .
D- An error msg appeared warning me that my battery isn't running functionally and isn't suitable for this model and press ok to go hibernate mode to replace it or remove it .

And the hard part is that :
I didn't find the usual options in my original system that i used to use like :

A- Backlit options .
B- Battery Care Options in Vaio Control Center .
C- When i switch my wireless button SmartWi Connection Utility didn't recognize that .

The Only Thing That Was Good Is That The Recovery Partition didn't get affected by all of that and worked fine .

After I lost hope to fix all of that, I decided to use my Recovery Partition and recoverd my Vaio to it's Original Factory Settings and it came to life again

I wanted to share that to make people know what will they face when they try what i tried to do .
And also to find solutions to these problems if it is possible.​

 

@ mido201005, Sounds like your experience didn't go to well. It appears you missed a driver or the shared library.

In any event, glad you got it back in the end!

rek

 

Mido...

What you forgot to do was to install the the Sony software that makes those buttons and functions actually work.

Here's what you need to do:

1 - Very first. You must go to the Sony eSupport site for your model and download/install VAIO Care. VC will gain you access to the rest of the software that you need, which is stored in your recovery partition.

2 - After installing VC, launch it via your Start Menu.

3 - Click Recovery & Restore > Recovery > Reinstall Applications and Drivers

4 - Install these programs for these reasons:
a - VAIO Event Service - controls your backlit keyboard, the Fn keys, as well as ASSIST (launches VAIO Care) and S1 (launches VAIO Control Center)
b - VAIO Control Center AND Settings Utility Series
c - VAIO Power Management (for the battery)
d - the software for Smart Wii. You do not need Smart Wii for your wireless to function correctly. It runs a RAM hogging process called ThirdPartyAppMgr and I mean it's a REAL RAM hog considering what it does.
e - You should also install VAIO Help & Support, if it's on the list
f - any other application you might like

Once you've installed all of these and restarted as necessary, restart again and your buttons, backlight, and wireless will work.

What you experienced is actually not a problem. You just weren't aware of what else needed to be done to make it work like you're used to. It looks as if VAIO Event Service was the main thing you were missing, if you already installed the other stuff.

So, give it another try and share your experience if you want.

 

That's what I am working with now. Just got back from Seoul so I haven't started modifying my processes yet and I have a few programs starting at startup that don't need to be....time to start playing! haha

 

F13 bad screen comapared to F12

(EU/Asia model in question)

Test Sony Vaio VPC-F13Z1E/B Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

In summary -

1) Below avg illumination of 70 % Inconsistent brightness
2) Poor contrast ratio compared to F12
3) display score 85% vs F12 98% (Highest display score for any laptop)

Screen now said to be only above average and does not match the best screens in the market.

 

@mido201005

take a look here
Vaio_F Clean Install