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

Sounds normal to me. My fan will usually stay off for a bit of time before it starts to kick in.

 

Hello, i've got just one question.
since i unfortunately bought vaio f12 with 1600x900 glossy screen in us, is there any calibration available for this one?
Researching this topic for many hours now but can't find one.

 

I do not recall anyone with a 1600x900 providing their calibration. I would try one of the 1920x1080 and see. Know that even when you use one of these settings it's not the same as using the calibration puck on your particular screen.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/5784440-post1572.html

 

I never found a calibration for the 1600x900 display. The 1920x1080 calibrations all looked a little "off" on mine, so I stuck with the default. Got a friend in Canada who's got a Spyder. When I ever go to visit (been meaning to for 2 years), I'll get a profile made of my display and share it.

 

Finally got a slimline windows install, with a fully working vaio. Check out the process count! On a vpcf12s1e/b.

With the standard seagate 7200 HDD I get a restart time of 42 seconds! Can wait to get the SSD in there...

If anybody wants to check their restart time, just change the extension of the following text file to .vbs

 

36 processes is impressive. Are you going to keep it this way or only for test purposes?

 

Hopefully keep it this way. I have a 60GB Vertex 2E in my desktop along with a 2TB HDD, and a spare Vertex 2E 120GB. I'm hoping to use the smaller drive in the laptop. However, because of the natural 'deterioration' of SSDs, I'd like a minimal working footprint (and less drive writes) to maintain performance.

I got the 36 processes by only installing the newest drivers available (direct from the vendors, not from Sony support) without all the bloatware services they like to include. I've also switched off all non-essential event loggin and windows features that I don't need (IE8, media services, XPS, scan and fax etc). There's no Sony software apart from the firmware extension driver, shared library, utilities and event service. The rest of it is worthless to *me*, but maybe more useful for others.

However, the ASSIST and S1 buttons don't do anything (not sure what they do by default), and the VAIO button mutes the volume. I can happily live with that.

With an SSD, I should be able to get a cold boot to desktop well below 20 seconds, which is why I've also disbled hibernation support - it's simply surplus to requirements.

EDIT - I should add that the 36 processes include NOD32 virus software, It would be 34 as a bare system!

 

Has anyone found a cooling pad that works especially well with the F series?

 

NOD32, I like your taste already. Antivirus software has been a discussion in this thread from time to time but no one but myself has ever mentioned your pick. I've disabled many services using Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Service Configurations by Black Viper as a guide. You come across as very knowledgeable and I/we look forward to more info and opinions from you. Hope you stick around.

 

I must have missed that discussion, been using nod32 for years.

 

Fishon, thanks!

NOD32 is easily the best AV programme on the market. Really effecient, low resource usage and totally non-intrusive.

PS - my process count is down to 35. I forgot to disable Windows Defender. Doh!

 

I seem to remember seeing somebody mention the Cooler Master U2. I plan on getting one in a week or so and see how much it helps.


Somewhat related, I'm on my F115 and have been getting temperatures around 68C/150F while just browsing the Web, and even up to 98C when playing games.

I've heard nvidia cards run hot, but this just seems a bit too hot.

 

The cooler master U2 is a great laptop cooler for the VAIO F.

Your temps seem really high. A few pages back, someone was recommended to clean out the dust that may have accumulated near/around the fan. You should look into that.

 

Thanks! The U2 seems like a good deal, so I'm glad to see other people recommend it.


I'm going to run to the store and pick up a can of air asap, too. One thing, I'm running Ubuntu as opposed to Win7 most of the time. I haven't checked the temp on the Windows end, so I'm wondering if anyone else running Linux has seen any temperature differences between OSes? I've hit 100C while running WoW under wine, which made me a bit worried.

 

I just thought I'd chime in with a warning for people cleaning their laptops. Do not use a household vacuum. The high airflow, combined with the dust particles, can produce a static charge. 10 years ago I worked in a computer shop and at least once or twice a winter, where static charges are particularly nasty because of the dry air, we'd have someone bring in their computer they "fried" by just vacuuming out the dust.

In other news, my laptop just shipped from China. ETA 6pm on Dec. 24th. Merry Christmas to me!

 

Your laptop gonna be your cristmass dinner if you don't clean it from inside.
I had 82C degrees on GPU when I overclocked it and checked it using FurMark for 20 minutes and notebook was on old newspaper which was blocking air

 

http://tinyurl.com/3xuf23c

 

The Steam Holiday Sale

http://www.steamgamesales.com/

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/eovb0/steam_holiday_sale_begins_with_full_guide_for/

 

Intel just made an official release of the 10.​1.​0.​1008 driver. If you were on the sidelines here it is:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...=Intel®+Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel®+RST)

 

My machine has arrived! I've maxed out the RAM and made my recovery discs. My next step should probably be a clean install. I'll read it a few more times and see if I can get it to work. Once that is taken care of I'll start looking at monitor calibration and battery settings. Anything else I should be doing? Is monitor brightness a common tweak? I know that button assignments is a thing to look into, but I feel like I'm forgetting something.

I don't have an HD to upgrade to yet, so that will have to wait.

Thanks,
Chad

 

I think I've made a mistake here. I'll quote the clean install guide.

"1- Option to keep or not the Value-added content to create a full factory state recovery partition - I kept it because it's only 8.66 GB out of the 465 GB HDD capacity and the Windows 7 OS will be included in the recovery partition. If you do not keep the Value-added content then only the Windows Recovery Environment will be saved in the smaller recovery partition BUT NOT the full Windows 7 OS nor all the extra software like WinDVD, Roxio, Vaio PMB, etc. F12: Office 2010 Starter, Adobe Bundle (If your Vaio F Series was bought from SonyStyle) and those are NOT available for public download on Sony esupport so don't loose those recovery discs if you make that choice!"

I wanted to keep this content but did not have this option on the F13. I had this option and chose the same option highlighted here:



I chose to make C: 128gb and the remaining the D: drive. It's a 320gb drive at the moment. I'm now into the fourth disc and I've noticed this part of the guide:

"Note that if you are installing on the OEM drive and want to keep the OEM recovery partition, you can use that partition to do the clean install described here w/o using the recovery discs by hitting F10 when booting or if the F is turned off: by simply hitting the ASSIST key."

Does this mean I'm losing the oem recovery partition since I am using the discs? Will I lose all the things I feared losing above?

-Chad

 

The *Note does not mean that you're losing the recovery partition. It means the opposite. What it's telling you is that you don't need the recovery discs to do a complete system restore. That can be done by using the recovery partition by pressing F10 during bootup or by pressing ASSIST while powered down.

 

Thanks for the reply. I thought I ran into a snag when I entered the task manager and started over. I chose c:drive only this time. It's almost complete now. Hopefully it works.

-Chad

 

The clean install appears to have been a success and I've installed any wanted software and drivers from the discs. I am getting an error on startup however that I'm trying to google but not having much luck with.

 

Can you give us the error message, maybe we can help?

 

It's a microsoft.net unhandled exception error. It's the same one that's discussed here:
Error

I've searched for a few files that I've seen mentioned now, but can't come up with anything. I do not have an anti-virus tool, so I've downloaded MSE. It is scanning at the moment, but I'm not very optimistic.

Thanks,
Chad

 

Sorry also no idea how to fix that.
Maybe installing the latest version of Microsoft .NET Framework 4 solves the problem?
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads...51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992&displaylang=en
If it is virus related do a full scan with MSE and do a second scan with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.50.1 free.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

I'm assuming that windows update has done that, no?

 

Not sure of that
Can't hurt.

 

I've done both now, with no luck. I guess another clean install may be in order.

 

Further trouble shooting:
You have performed Windows update and VAIO Update?
What programs have you installed after the clean install?
Maybe one of them is not compatible with your configuration?
I have had this error with some program, unfortunately don't remember the program anymore and uninstalled that program and used an alternative.

 

I have done both updates. I have only installed OEM software thus far (adobe bundle, Office starter etc). It looks like windows update installed the 3.5 framework. I'll try the 4 update as a last resort.

-Didn't work. Firing up disc 1.

 

We are looking to order two Sony VAIO VPC-F1390 CTOs for work and I just have two quick questions.

1.) Does it have USB 3.0?
2.) We will be getting both with the 256 GB SSD does it support TRIM?

We were only going to get one of these because I was waiting for USB 3.0, but it looks like it supports it. I was going to wait until USB 3.0 came out and then get a new laptop, but if it supports it I don't have to wait any longer.

As for the SSD and TRIM I understand the benefits of SSD vs HDD so from that perspective I am sold. I tried to read what I could find on the forum about the SSDs that come with the F series and TRIM support, but I have not read anything recent. From what I understand the SSD manufacturer Toshiba does have a firmware update with TRIM support, but it is simply an issue of Sony providing that update to its customers.

Lastly in a worst case scenario what if there is no TRIM support? What effect will this have? I understand it in a basic sense (will be slower over time), but what are we talking about here? Slower is an in can measure with software but not notice, or slower and I will notice. Also if there is no TRIM support would a format and reinstall of the OS once every year solve the "slower" user experience.

Thanks in advance for the help! We are looking forward to ordering these bad boys!

P.S.
We are in Canada. We are looking at the 1920x1080 VAIO Premium Display. Is it worth the extra C$100 or should we just stick with the default display?

 

1) Yes it comes with 2 USB 3.0 ports
2) Not sure about the SSD in F series

Even if it does not support TRIM, I do not really think you should be worried as it would come with something similar to TRIM which should take care of the "slowing down and other issues".
You could also opt to buy an SSD on your own that supports TRIM and just choose a normal HDD from Sony now.

Go with the FHD Vaio Premium display, you get more screen real estate and a better quality display.

 

Thanks avmaxfan! Two USB 3.0 ports is perfect! I was only expecting one. The nerd in me really wants SSD, but alas the accountant and rational side of me is taking over. The numbers are below...

All prices are in Canadian dollars
500 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm] [subtract $400.00]
640 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm] [subtract $370.00]
750 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [5400 rpm] [subtract $330.00]

I am starting to think that the 500 GB HDD would be the best value overall in terms of price and performance. Since the SSD is 256 GB and costs $400 that means it works out to an incremental cost of $1.56 per GB plus whatever the base cost they have for a HDD. I just looked up on TigerDirect.ca and a 500 GB 7200 RPM laptop HDD is $93.99. So $494 for 256 GB is $1.93 per GB is not bad. But the 500 GB HDD 7200 RPM for $94 comes to $0.18 per GB. As for a 256 GB Kingston SSD it is $649.99 which is $2.54 per GB.

I am looking at the above numbers and I am thinking 10x the price per unit of storage... Am I realistically going to get 10x the performance? Probably not. But people still buy Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Hum...

The joy of being an accountant! Since both me and my business partner are nerds we will see. He is the one controlling the money so maybe we will get just one with a SSD and I can always get mine later.

P.S.
How big is the difference between using a HDD and SSD in user expereince? My partner complains how slow HDD are but that is mostly because of seek time which SSDs more or less solve. Also the only experience I had with a SSD was with Mac mini at the university computer lab. It really did not have much of anything on it so I really could not judge how much of a difference it made.

 

If you ever install SSD in your computer, there is no trning back - its so fast that you will never look on hdd again - even velociraptor and other fast mechanical drives in raid. Very low access time of the ssd is what makes its fast as hell, not max transfers.

 

Thanks Jacol! In that case all it comes down to is the TRIM function. Without the TRIM function what is the performance "decline" over time? Can it be solved by simply doing a format and reinstall of the OS? I have a backup image of my HDD using Windows 7 Professional and it takes me only 20 minutes to reimage everything (OS and all my software) from DVDs or around 10 minutes using an external HDD.

@everyone Thanks for the posts they have made this a lot easier to decide. Oh! Also the reason why this is on my mind right now is because there is a big tax credit that ends January 31, 2011 (it started January 27, 2009) and that would help make this more affordable for us.

P.S.
At least one of them will have 8 GB, but probably not mine.

 

Damn
I hope the reinstall works, let us know.

 

Atlantian...

You already have Windows 7 Pro? If so, get the laptop with the cheapest HDD. Remove it immediatley!

Buy a 120gb OCZ vertex or similar (unless you really need 256 gb)

Install the SSD, install windows + drivers. Install your apps. Run Windows Backup.

You'll have a much better experience, and *should* anything go wrong you can just put the original HDD back in for warranty/return/emergency reasons (also protects against a drive failure by having a backup to hand).

I work from home, and currently have this capability for my desktop, and will do the same for my F12 straight after christmas. (I have an OCZ 120gb Vertex 2E waiting to go in).

With respect to TRIM, the sandforce controllers basically ignore it - they use their own Garbage collection. The trick is to log off periodically to let it maintain performance.

 

also 2-nd HDD can be put instead of optical drive

 

Those of us who got SSD's didn't get them for the most rational reasons. There's nothing like the "snappy" feel of a responsive SSD.

So true! There's no going back.

The user Fishon has a F11 with an OEM SSD that does not support TRIM. He has to rely upon "garbage collection" for his SSD to keep clean. I'm not sure if the SSD that would ship in a VAIO today would support TRIM or not. That's a valid question, for sure.

Garbage Collection a process similar to TRIM, but is done while the SSD is idle.

 

As others mentioned, there is no comparison at all. SSD is way faster than any HDD. And it is a VERY noticeable difference.

 

I know this was a few days ago, but I found something odd.

Whenever I hook up another monitor, my temperature will shoot up about 10 - 15C higher. Since I usually use both the laptop and my other LCD, I didn't notice that was one of the factors.

Has anybody else noticed a (significant) increase in temperature when using an additional monitor?

 

Atlantian- My recommendation is not to get the SSD through Sony. Buying aftermarket will result in either dollar savings or a better/larger SSD.

 

Third tier support states my VPCF1190X order is the same as my VPCF119GX in which I received. Since I purchased with fresh start I am not entitled to PMB software. I can't argue with this, but a new laptop would have been nice. Thanks for everyone's opinions on this matter.

 

I performed the clean install again and everything appears to be ok. Now I need to figure out the monitor profiling thing.

 

Quick! Make a system image so you don't have to deal with the Clean Install again.

 

Here are a couple of pictures from my clean install on the F13.

This is what the screen looks like after all 4 discs have loaded. I have the task manager pulled up and I'm waiting for the moment to "End Task". If I remember right, the restart driver appears somewhere between 55-57%.



Here is what my program list looked like after the clean install finished:

 

Yes! I'll be doing that shortly. My SSD is set to arrive next week. I'm going to try and keep it clean until then, but the temptation may be hard to overcome.

Can I also make new recovery discs from this clean installation?

 

Hello everyone please Welcome me to this thread i have just received my new laptop today. Hopefully i can find some useful information and learn more about my new laptop.