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

Agreed. I seem to switch around a lot and have tried many. I had the paid version of Avast before, still running paid version of Malwarbytes and using MSE. What I do not like about MSE is the large amount of RAM it gobbles up at startup. MsMpEng.exe really spikes up at startup for approx a minute. Just a side note it disables Defender- it's included with MSE. Might go back to free Avast.

plugin-container.exe sometimes uses alot of RAM as well and apparently has been added to FF to prevent the whole browser from crashing.
http://www.technogadge.com/how-to-stop-firefox-plugin-container-exe-process/

What to do. Always tradeoffs!!!

Additional info: Grooveshark moved from flash to HTML5 and it's a lot better! http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/

 

Thanks for the link about plugin-container.exe.

I also switch a lot.

In favor of MSE speaks that it is the only full 64 bit antivirus solution and coming from Microsoft it has the least of false positives.

When you go back to Avast! try the new 5.1 beta: ** INTRODUCING: BETA VERSION OF AVAST 5.1 [NOW 5.1.798] **
There are a lot of improvements:

 

Yeah, its been sometime since I last posted. My gateway 7508GX has been a wonderful machine for the past five years, completely maxed out...

???????????????????????

Its still going strong but I just started looking for an upgrade.

Yeah, I understand. I think I am willing to take that chance. I am going to call American Express and check if they provide extended warranty for refurbished machines.

Thanks for your inputs. It was helpful.

 

Dell has a newer (not sure how long it has been out) XPS 17" and it really looks great. Comes with a Nividia 445M 3G graphics card ( have not researched) and a minimum of 8g of memory. One glaring weakness, I see no option for 1080 only offering 1600x900. Has eSATA and two USB 3.0 ports. Prices up pretty well.

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

 

I'm debating on whether to buy a regular HDD or an SSD. Does buying an SSD mean less high temperature, fan noise, & heat?

Also, is there a configuration for an i7 that would reduce the high temperatures, fan noise, etc...

I also heard that buying a Read/Write Blu-ray drive makes the laptop nosier as well. True?

 

I've been trying to search this here and in general, but haven't found this yet, if anyone can point me in the right direction? I have an F series VPCF1290X custom, I'll post my specs at the end, and I keep my screen set to high brightness all the time, with a 10 minutes to hibernate setting, and only very rarely ever go to battery, so my laptop should NEVER use dim, but my screen almost never maintains it's full brightness setting, and flickers constantly. It never actually goes "down" a full dim setting, but it never actually maintains full brightness either. Right this moment I'm sitting in front of it, and the it's on a cool pad, physically cool to the touch, running very low demand, and once in a while it will go full brightness for a few seconds, enough that I can see what full brightness should be, then it dims down a bit, and maintains a lower setting for a while, will dim a bit more, flicker to bright again, etc. We do live in an older house, but I can put it on a voltage regulator, and it still behaves the same, and I have used the computer in about 15 different locations and it has behaved the same in EVERY one of those locations, so I have a really hard time believing it's my electric causing the flicker.

Incidentically, this is my SECOND replacement, my first had a defective video card and could not play video clips and the mouse wouldn't track, so I returned it and had to wait over a month for a replacement. This one is less than 3 months old and has done this since it was out of the box, but at first it would bright then maintain that lower dim setting, so I felt like I was being paranoid...but the flickers are increasing in frequency and are more noticeable now--over the last 30 minutes, it's flickered over a dozen times in a highly visible way, so I know it's not me.

I have had my task bar set to hide, so I'm resetting it now to show and try to see if it's in the AC supply. I have noticed a few odd battery charge notices, but I can't say that many that I feel they were significant.

Anyone know anything? I can't imagine losing my laptop to warranty services for another month or more. At this point I will have NOT had a laptop more for more time than I've had one since I've paid Sony for this disaster. =( Plus their customer service has been so bloody rude, I'm really dreading the call.

Thanks in advance.

My computer:

Component: Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
Component: 500GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm)
Component: Intel® Core™ i7-840QM processor (1.86GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz (Reg. price $300.00)
Component: 16.4" VAIO Full HD Premium Display (1920x1080)
Component: NVIDIA® GeForce® 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
Component: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333 (Reg. price $300.00)

 

do you use the battery care thing? that limits the battery to 80 or 50%?

 

i overclocked to the frequencies in the article, seems fairly stable, am getting up to 20% improvement in games.

 

You will experience lower temperatures with a SSD therefore the fan will take longer to kick in. The drive is quieter as well. Some people have experienced what they call a noisy optical drive, some reporting it gets quieter after some use. I do not know of different noise levels based on non Blue-ray, Blue-ray reader, or Blue-ray read and write.

Sorry to hear about your experienced with this laptop. Two lemons in a row is very unlucky along with the crummy way they are treating you. You say you do not use the battery very ofter but I assume this happens on battery power as well. Vaio control center>Display>Automatic brightness setting, make sure the adjust brightness automatically is unchecked. Start> type in Windows Mobility Center. Keep this open to see if the level changes when this happens, probably not, but check nonetheless. Tilt your screen at different angles and see if wiring/ connection may be an issue. Even gently press the screen together in certain spots to see if something is loose. Where the laptop 'folds' is one of the most common problems areas in regards to repairs.

When dealing with Sony, get a case number assigned to this and you will given a case manager, one person who will deal with this issue. Better chance of getting professional service. The normal drill for every manufacturer is they get their hands on it twice, and if they cannot fix, a new laptop is due to you. They should return within three weeks max. Anything longer is unacceptable in my opinion. People here seem to get service techs come to their house, so this may be a reasonable request you can make. Always stay polite and professional yourself, and this usually flows back to you. But stand your ground as well. Mention this is your second laptop, calmly speak to them as to why you believe you have had bad service. Everything to evoke empathy and a sense they need to get their act together. Keep in mind these are mass produced and you could be just extremely unlucky. Good luck.

 

What do you mean by fairly stable? The system only crashes now and then?

 

Happy tweaking.

The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better - How-To Geek

 

Does anyone know what kind of motherboard is in our F's? And what is a sound adapter?

 

My F11 is Intel PM55 based, assume F12/13's are the same.

Sound adapter/card (Realtek), responsible for all things noisy! Just like the GFX adapter/card (GF 330M) is responsible for all things graphical.

 

guys my up arrow key makes a cracking noise when i press too much is it broken.

 

update for my f13 fan issue!

first the fan was changing its speed and sound every second i can deal with this and i think this issue will not damage the fan...but...NOW ..when i press the start button and it become green,,the fan doesnt work!!,,,i dont hear any sound,,after many secondes it work for a sec,,then it stop, then it work again(in a very low speed and sound)..then the windows start,,,this issue continue for 4 minutes and then when i play a game or use any application it work normaly ..so the issue appear only when start the laptop....sony esupport told me to reset the BIOS andreinstall the utilities ,i reseted the BIOS and nothing happen!....in everest fan sensor the rpm in 3 secondes (1940,620,0)!..but now everest fan sensor doesnt work after the RPM is 0 so its not useful now :S

 

Yes, it is broken.

 

Either that or you got biscuit crumbs under it.

 

Hey fellow VAIO users. First off, I'd just to like to say how excited I am that I finally found a respectable and extensive forum for the VAIO F-Series. Sony's support and forums are a joke at best.

I have a problem, perhaps someone may be able to shed some light on this:

First off, I have a VPCF11NFX/H 720QM i7, GT330M, 4GB Ram, 500GB HD.


Now: I'm not sure how immediate this was, but after I installed the BIOS Firmware update (in response to the melting F-Series incident), I began to notice a significant lag in graphics performance.

Even the index score dropped significantly. The Aero score used to be a 7, now it's a 4.9. I've noticed a very significant drop in performance in games like Starcraft II, Torchlight, L4D2... literally any 3D application doesn't perform nearly as well as it used to. I have to run everything on low settings (at native resolution) in order to be somewhat playable (25-30 fps). Now I'm not much of a gamer, so this isn't my main problem... though it hurts, as I like to get down once in a while.

The other problem has been that, any time I do either a desktop clone or extension to an external monitor (obviously crucial for web design / development / music production), there will be this black-screen stutter, as though there's some sort of a draw issue every few seconds. Sometimes it'll stop for 10 minutes or so, but for the most part it'll just flash a black screen for may a tenth of a second. It's insanely aggravating.

I apologize for the long description... but does anyone have... ANY idea? I've been considering the following:

1. System wipe. Hell, why not?
2. Reset the CMOS/BIOS... but how do you do that with a laptop...
3. Uh. I give up.

If anyone has some insight into this, I would be sooooo happy.

Thanks folks.

Mike

 

1] A system wipe will probably fix it but where's the challenge in that!

2] Press F2 on boot up when the VAIO logo appears and select BIOS defaults.

3] Don't give up just yet! Try re-installing the GFX driver. Infact (if you havn't already), goto the Nvidia site and get the latest driver, version 260.99 I believe.

If 2 or 3 don't work then maybe option 1 will be your best bet.

 

Is there any way to get the VPC-f121GX to wake like every other laptop simply by opening the lid? There is a setting for behaviour when closing the lid but nothing for opening.

 

Is it a good idea to use the driver from Nvidia rather than the one on the Sony site? I've noticed that video drivers for laptops aren't as generic as they are for desktops. So I figured it was always best to use the ones supplied by the manufacturer.

 

The NVIDIA VERDE drivers are meant to work with the Sony Laptops. Well, some of the drivers are. Those that are not will not allow you to install them.

v260.99 for the GT 330M does work well. It should actually work much better than the version that shipped with your lappy.

 

OK I'll try it.

 

Yeah man! I know where ya coming from. Its like soooo much hard work to be expected to lift the lid AND press a key!

Seriously tho, I have no idea. Not been much of an issue for me but would be nice to know.

 

I just installed it. There does seem to be a noticeable improvement, especially when editing with Videoredo. Thanx for the tip. Now if only someone could tell me how to get this thing to wake when the lid is opened without the extra step of having to hit a key. With wake on open it would be faster since the process would start before I could even get at the keyboard.

 

Since I've had this machine I never even peeked at the Bios settings. Did the laptop actually ship with the default settings? Usually a few are tweaked for better performance. On my desktop I used to have to fiddle with those to get the best results.

 

Sony has seriously crippled the BIOS. There are virtually no settings you can adjust, on the F13 at least.

Edit: To be specific, in case other models (which have different BIOS versions) are different. On the F13, you can do 3 things:
- Choose boot device order
- Set a password
- Turn on virtualization

 

Well, you could always invest in an SSD. Mine wakes up in about 4-5 seconds.

Ditto, for the F11.

 

This may have nothing to do with your problem but I'm just throwing it out there because it is an easy thing to test. I do not have an external monitor and I have a different model and different BIOS than you and also a different graphics card so I can't try to replicate your issue. However, I was having a flickering problem on my screen and after much troubleshooting I determined it was from the Desktop Window Manager.

If I go into the Task Manager to the Services tab and stop DWM, the flickering goes away. You can either look for it by description - Desktop Window Manager - or the name of the service, which on my machine is UxSms. Now disabling this will take away Aeropeek and some other features depending on what you have configured. But you can just test it out to see if that happens to be your problem.

 

This is not what you asked for, but have you tried the Hybrid sleep mode? It should wake up faster that way once you do hit a key. I have no info on battery drain compared to full sleep mode but you could try it for yourself and see. It's in the Advanced settings tab under Power Options.
Control Panel - Power Options - Change Plan settings (link next to whichever plan you're using) - Change advanced power settings - Advanced Settings - Sleep - Allow hybrid sleep - switch to On

 

I don't believe it is the problem but rather one of the symptoms. I think his graphics adapter is under performing hence the low Windows Experience score and bad gaming performance. The F series is more than capable of displaying Aero on its fullest settings.

If re-installing the GFX driver doesn't fix it and/or a clean install/recovery discs doesn't work, it may be faulty hardware or a screwed BIOS!

 

@professorkliq

If you want to try resetting the CMOS, here are instructions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-140.html#post6226008

But I would certainly try updating your graphics driver and resetting the BIOS defaults first.

 

Fairly stable as if in, doesnt get too hot and the odd artefact, I have had the system reboot a couple of times on higher frequencies though so best not to push the over clock too far!

 

OK cool, (pun intended) I'm only overclocking my 330m by 10%, I figure its not so easy to replace a fried GFX chip in a lappy as it is in a desktop system.

Runs sweet as a nut, never gets hot, no artefacts, blue screens or freeze ups! And I've played Fallout New Vegas for 2 days solid and when I say solid, I MEAN solid! Just go's to show how good the F's cooling system really is.

 

Hello!

I bought a brand new Vaio VCPF 1390S from the F series, with the Intel i7 Core and the NVIDIA GeForce® GT 425M GPU.

I have the same problem that the F series lives sooner this year: Fan noise!

I've monitored the CPU temperature, 2 of the 4 CPU are at 47C most of the time. It never pass over 55C. Is that normal? I don't know...

I'm contacting the support today to inform them, maybee simply a BIOS patch could resolve this, but if any one of you can give me an advice on how I could resolve this that would be very appreciated!

I read for hours over the forum but I found nothing that could help me to resolve this...

One more thing: I don't really need the full power on this laptop, so if someone could tell me how I can "slow down" the CPU to get it cooler, the fan will have no reason to run as fast as before so it will slow down and everything will become acceptable....maybee a crazy idea, but if it could get the whole coolest, I will be happy cause this laptop is great!

Thanks a lot, I will be reading your advice!

Jeff


Note: The fan is already noisy even just when I'm in the BIOS on computer boot...
Note2: How can I get the BIOS to give me more options? There is nothing to tweak!
Note3: Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 doesn't change anything, I'm working and testing with both of them

 

Thanks for the reply! I've already done options 2 and 3 several times over... but doing a system wipe for me is a bit of a pain right at the end of the semester. I'm planning to have a Format C: party in about a week, though. So this will get done either way. Do you think it's some sort of a wonky hardware issue?

 

Did you un-install the GFX driver first and use a driver cleaner program before installing the new one? Sometimes not doing so can cause issues.

It does seem strange how it started after the BIOS update. Are you sure your particular F needed it and are sure it was the correct BIOS?

Otherwise if the format doesn't fix it, it can only be a hardware fault. In which case, get sony to repair it.

 

i mean the arrow key is still working fine but it makes a weird noise when i press it loads.

Also im fed up with the sound when using earphones, i thought people said sound is great with earphones.

 

Stop using cheap earphones.

 

what earphones/headphones you think i should use which will delievery great sound, as even at max volume the sound is not loud enough.

 

Hi Gandalf,

Mine is an American f1290x custom vaio - Sony America posted it about 2 weeks ago, but my update picked it up last week.

Im travelling right now so unfortunately can't give you the update number - if you can hang on till Tuesday I will post, otherwise you could check the Sony America site.

 

In what scenario is the sound too low?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/accessories/523590-nuforce-udac-2-review.html

 

anseio when at max volume it doesnt sound really loud its sounds quiet, not sure if its the laptop, the speakers are really annoying me, i know dells and toshibas speakers are the best.

 

My HP Altec Lansing speakers are good too. My recommendation if they are annoying you is not to use them. Get some headphones and/or external speakers. Minimum investment per what you gain. Look at the post right above yours, great info there.

 

fishon the external speakers are great, i mean the sound coming through my earphones isnt good enough. Fishon have you got HP Altec lansing speakers internally in the laptop or are their externnal.

 

Internal. They are not that good but they are better than the F. I'm right next to an Asus G73 and internal speakers are better than the F as well. Note both of the others are 17" bulkier laptops.

 

so i take that as a yes, so anyone who have got really good earphones/headphones can you tell me if the sound is brilliant.

 

I use the Sennheiser MX 95 VC, series II twist-to-fit earphones. I've used them for years and love them.

 

but anseio hows the laptop sound through them at max volume.