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

That doesn't make enough sense. The HDD in an external drive kit doesn't care if the connection is USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 or eSATA. It spins and reads/writes. The connection determines the max transfer speed. USB 1.0 and 2.0 are limited by the max speed of the connection, so the potential of the HDD is not realized. The eSATA port allows for more speed than a HDD can give. So, if the external drive has an eSATA port and a 5400-7200rpm drive, one should expect transfer speeds of at least 50Mbps (guess).

My 2TB external had both eSATA and USB2.0. While connected via USB, it maxes at 30Mbps. With eSATA, I've seen it get up to 100Mbps.

So, virtually any HDD should be blazingly fast when connected via eSATA compared to when it's connected via USB2.0

 

Wait, so you weren't referring to a fan noise issue when you posted the sound file of your fan? I'm getting confused here....

There isn't much you can do about the fan noise. Either deal with it, send it it, or return it. Both of my F laptops occasionally rev up their fans creating a fair bit of noise, but you have to understand that it is a trade-off for having an i7 processor. I've accepted the noise and to be frank, I usually don't notice it.

 

Thats you better write me now if did you tell us that you googled smth about c3/c6 changing anything except disabling turboboost and making CPU slower? You better give more information to have better answers and don't try to be rude when you got an answer based on information before, ok? You can leave yourself "listen to me", "and than talk ok" and give us info not only after I or else make a suggestion.

Turboboost is highing frequency up of single or all cores if it has space to high temps and voltage (if not mistaken). So by disabling it (what you did) you could lost sound because of all that which also can be provided by disabling core or cores. Understood me now? You said that Sony support gave an advice to turn c3/c6 off (disable) but did anyone from sony said that it is the reason that it somehow "effects RAM"??? If they did (i doubt) you also did not mention that

 

Good for you. Seriously. I did not tell that all of them are slower. But what I told was based on post I saw here (sony f forum) that someone bought SSD and used internal HDD as external one using eSATA. His speed was (not sure that remembered right) 30+ or 40+ MB/ps. And also I used mine HDD through USB 2.0 which also gave me 30+. So based on this I assumed that some of ext drives (I believe many of them) cheap one or made manually using ussual HDD and eSata case are not so good as you can expect.

 

It definitely depends on the quality of the external enclosure.

 

Ok ok, no nobody said the reason how it effects ram, sony don't tell people that they gone have boost cut off, about the ram i mean benchmarking, this is the way it is effecting it, same with cpu itself by disabling c3/c6 in bios you get lower score = slower cpu, i am not trying to be rude чувак, now about noise, there is diffrent types of noise we can get from our fans, it was mentioned many many times, someone need to just adjust sound setting to get rid of one type of noise, some need to disable that c3/c6 (crazy), some need to replace their fans, what i got is whistle and it's not normal, no matter what cpu is inside, it is design, or hardware issue, it also could be cheap material used around cpu, i don't know, i keep reading what 100's of people saying and trying to think myself, it's not just f series!!! In case you didn't listen that "whistle" i attached it again, listen so we will understand each other more, turn yr volume up as well and then tell me if it's normal or not, thanks..

 

And just a small example with some benchmark cpu score with c3/c6 enabled: 3224
disabled:3151

No matter what are you doing on yr pc, cpu randomly can use more speed to get faster in to something, so it can jum 2ghz 2.5, 2.2 what ever, even with small processes, doesn't matter, but if you disable c3/c6 yr cpu jump max to 1.86ghz and never more then that.

 

Honestly, I listened to your file on max volume and my opinion is it doesn't sound so bad to me. I was expecting some horrible sound and from what you said thought maybe something was broken in your laptop, but after listening to your sample, I don't think it's a big deal. Now, as far as you keeping your laptop, it doesn't matter what I think or anyone but you thinks. If you can't live with it, then return it.

I personally don't like my glossy screen, but I had to make a decision to return it or not. Based on my circumstances at the time, I chose to keep it. I didn't expect it to get better or to get used to it, and it hasn't and I haven't. I made a realistic decision, assuming it would not change and I would not get used it, would it be better for me to return it or to live with it. Based on my options at the time, I chose to live with it and that has been the end of the story. You have the same decision to make regarding your fan.

 

Whistle my friend, listen after 9 seconds and then around 25-30, turn volume up and think this is happening all the time, my screen is glossy too, but i don't see problems with that 1080p looks good and looks like enough brightness to me..

 

The noise you accepted is not whistle, imagine yr girlfriend or wife sitting by you and doing litlle whistle by yr ears, then you will say she just breath like that i got used to it? lol

 

I can't "turn volume up" from max volume. Nothing you just wrote changes anything I said. In fact, it just made clear that you aren't understanding my point at all. I'm just going to not respond further. Good luck.

 

Both of mine produce the same whistling noise in your file at times....

How old is your F anyway? Was it a display model?

 

yeah, i heard. 10, 12-14 seconds and 25, 27 seconds. such feeling like it is really fan's problem. Like it is not accurate on some speeds. I suggest you to use program like Everest to check fan speed. but it is little board work

 

why is that when i type BLUETOOTH into the start bar and hit anter, nothing happens ?

 

bluetooth is a finicky feature. What are you trying to do?

 

i'm trying to enable it to transfer something from my phone

 

did you install smart-wi connection utility? It is little bit strange tricky question because answer may be very simple but it depends on many conditions like:
When you type bluetooth in start bar you should choose transfer files through bluetooth.
Do you see that or not?
Do you have bluetooth devices in device manager?
and other

 

Perhaps you saw the original discussion about the cheap "power over eSATA" enclosures that we discussed way back when Joe Bleau was still here. Those enclosures gave us full speeds on HDDs (100MB falling to 60MB/sec) but for some reason my CRucial M225 SSD, which reads at about 250MB/sec and writes at around 200MB/sec was throttled to 125MB/sec. reads.

I don't know why it maxed out at this, perhaps it is the enclosure driver? Perhaps I should be using the newest Intel drivers to control the device? Perhaps the interface really maxes at 1Gb/sec (125MB/sec)? I don't know.

I do know that I don't use an SSD in this enclosure so it really doesn't matter to me. I own 3 of these enclosures and I have had NO problems with them.

 

My Vaio was picked up for service at friday. So I think in next week I know more of the problem of dark grey bar at bottom of the screen.

I today googled about the same problem, and found rather interesting thread, about Toshiba laptops having same kind of problem:
Toshiba Support Forums: Dark line at the bottom of screen - ...

There answer was that grey bar is essentially a limitation of the display technology with high contast and cannot be fixed. That's really surprising.

 

actualy, I don't see Bluetooth device in my device manager. and when I type Bluetooth in the Start Bar it only shows the blue icon Bluetooth under Programs...

 

mmm123, this was discussed several times on this forum. From what I remember, there were several people who successfully replaced the keyboard with an US backlit one. The only problem what I remember is a slight color difference for certain keyboards bought from eBay, so pay attention.
A quick search returned several results, for example start reading at:
Post #2141
Post #2161
…

 

A question for all of you who own the F13 (or any other from the F series): has the noise got louder after time?

Check this one out (it's not a F series VAIO, but there are F series noise videos like this on youtube too):
YouTube - SONY VAIO - NOISE NOISE - Sony VAIO FW Series - Ultimate Screen Experience

Is this likely to happen to my F13 after, I don't know, a year?

I'm buying a laptop and really can't decide between VAIO F13 or ASUS N73. I would have gotten a VAIO already but I'm very scarred of that noise/whistling/buzzing issuse.

 

5 days old, i mean this how long since i bought it, model is f12s1e/b screen is 1080 full hd vaio premium, screen is really good, nothing wrong with that..

 

I believe they will replace display for you, it's matrix fail. I had kinda the same with my old fz21s, after replacement there was some dots on the screen, so if you notice any dots return again till you get it perfect.

 

Thanks for that!

 

James D, my response was pure technical. But you are right, this story has a technical side, a product quality side and a marketing side.

Technically eSATA is a slightly modified SATA connection to allow longer cable length, has a better noise tolerance and different connectors. It is possible to use passive adapters to connect eSATA to a SATA drive! This means that if you connect the same HDD over SATA or over eSATA to the same SATA Controller, it should give the same speed.

From products quality point of view, anseio is right, it depends on the type and quality of the enclosure. Please note that there is a higher chance to get a good eSATA only or eSATAp (eSATA powered over USB) enclosure than one with a hybrid interfacing (eSATA / USB / Firewire / …) enclosure, but this doesn’t mean that you cannot find one. For the hybrid ones the best ones are which just disable the other interfaces when the drive is plugged to eSATA and switch to “direct” bridging (almost like a passive adapter).

From marketing point of view, there is not much to say, I guess everybody knows how much you can trust the advertisings these days.

Concerning the speed, I don’t think that you can still find SATA HDDs with lower then 40MB/s peak speed these days. And this speed exceeds the USB 2.0 real world speed (not the theoretical one). Of course just adding eSATA connector to a slow chip controlled HDD will not give you (much) improvement, but that’s why we discuss and share this information on forums, to know which enclosure to avoid and which one is a good one. In the end the slowest component will give the max speed (HDD, chip, interfacing used, …).

In my opinion, Seagate took a good direction with the exchangeable interface on their GoFlex external storage. I don’t know the quality though!
FreeAgent GoFlex Pro Ultra–portable Drive
Different connectivity (cables) which connects directly to the HDD’s SATA connector! (see lower on the page)

 

Guys can you tell me something about screen in this model:

Sony Vaio VPCF13Z0E/B

On sony website it says: Full HD VAIO Display Premium
And in specs:

Screen Type


VAIO Display Premium

Diagonal Size (cm)

41.6

Diagonal Size (in)

16.4

Resolution

WXGA++ (1600x900)

Aspect Ratio

Wide (16:9)

Max Resolution External Display
1920 x 1200

So i don't get it, if display resolution is 1600x900 it's not full hd am i right? or it just working resolution, but in 1080 BD movies you won't notice any diffrence between other model with 1920x1080 resolution? Confused here. Because this F13z0e is new model, but it is got handrest and looks even better then upper model F13z1e. Can somebody tell me about them screens please, thanks..

 

I tried to keep my post short, but I admit it become too vague.

I was not speaking about super gamer notebooks, or super expensive notebooks. I was speaking about “normal” notebooks, but from the professional line. And the price difference I mentioned is a real one, coming from my experience. After my first experience with the F12 what I returned, I tried to find another notebook with the requirements I had. Even after giving up all my wishes about the notebook and kept just the needs (FHD Matte screen, quad core CPU, NVidia for CUDA, Blu-Ray, eSATA or USB 3.0 for external storage) I ended up looking in the highest end of the professional line from Dell (Precision M4500 Mobile Workstation) and HP (Elitebook 8540w). For the same configuration as the F13 I have (except Blu-Ray writer) the price was more than 3000 euro after negotiation. With the HP I even tried to get a lower configuration and upgrade memory, HDD, optical drive afterwards, but the best offer I got was almost 2300 euro just the notebook, which was over my budget of 2000 euro (with bag included). As you can see there is no other option like “go with another manufacturer” with my requirements, so remains the Sony Vaio F1x. I considered that I had a bad luck with the F12 and that’s why I tried again, buying the F13, but I still have the same problem with the display. I know that in US you can have a much better deal on professional notebooks, but at this price and with today’s problems with the electronic devices, for me ordering a notebook from US is not an option.

 

do you know that there is such site like Custom Laptops, Gaming Notebooks, Custom Gaming Laptops | XOTIC PC you can try to find smth there

 

Jeez, a lot of complaints going on here.
Seriously, I've had an F11 since it first came out...and yes, I did notice a dark bar at the bottom (and still have it), but it isn't disturbing in ANY way. The screen is excellent. And yeah, my laptop does whistle sometimes but I don't care. You get used to its noise. The laptop stays VERY cool though.
What was really disturbing was the high pitched noise, but the simple mic fix did the trick! To sum it up, I've had this laptop for a year now and still love it. I would buy it again instantly.

Just enjoy your new laptop and stop nitpicking god damn it!

 

mmm123, the temporary solution by disabling the CPU C3/C6 State Support in the BIOS was for a different, high frequency noise, which was not coming from the fan. Read this post. I don’t hear that noise in your mp3 (can be my ears , your microphone or the mp3 encoding). So what you have is something else, that’s why disabling the C3/C6 CPU State don’t solve your problem (it will spin your fan more, but that’s all).

I have that high frequency noise mentioned in that post on my F13. But it is very, very quiet, so it doesn’t bother me. I mean I have to use the Power saver plan with VAIO’s “Silent Mode” thermal control strategy, no CPU load at all and in a completely silent room to hear that high frequency noise. And, if I disable the C3/C6 CPU State in BIOS the noise goes away.

On the S o n y discussion group there is also a thread about this noise, and someone attached a WAV file.

It seems the E Series has it too.

 

Are you sure that the enclosure was a SATA300 one ?

 

Reading the thread you mentioned, and my previous experience with Sony, when they ignored the display problem and just returned the notebook, starts to worry me.

 

Based on the S o n y UK site this model has a HD+ (1600x900) resolution screen, not FHD.
Where they mention about the screen they mention both: “Full HD or HD+ VAIO Display brings …”, but I think this is a generic text for all the F Series.

I hope this helps!

 

I have a F13 with USB 3.0. I just bought a WD my passport with both usb 3.0/2.0 compatability. When I plug this into the USB 3.0 slots I only get 2.0 speeds. It is using power over usb so could that mean it is not supplying enough power?

 

James D, I actually did check custom built gamer laptops too. On someone’s recommendation I configured a mySN XMG6 39,6cm (15,6") Gaming Notebook from Schenker Notebooks, Germany. They offered the choice of anti-glare screen (not just glossy), it had a better video card than the F1x, with a price just under 2000 euro. The keyboard looks very similar to the Sony F Series keyboard. You can see it on this link.
I hesitated buying it, because I read somewhere that the customer support was almost nonexistent. Also later I read that the Clevo motherboard used in this notebook had some freezing issues.

 

2.5" USB 2.0/eSATA Aluminum External SATA HDD Enclosure (Black) - Supports up to 500GB & Power over eSATA! HE-2521B

these are the ones I use.

 

nope, on uk sitte it says this:

Amazing movies with Quad Core processor, Blu-ray Disc™ Player and Full HD VAIO Display Premium, but after you press more yes it says what you said, they made laptop with 900p screen but with nice handrest, and color, but higher model looks like most f series but with full hd, sony is doing funny stuff

 

Willscary, I looked up this enclosure, and based on this review (Pg 2) the used chip is a JMicron JM20316 bridge chip. I could not find the actual datasheet for this chip, but the summary from this page ( page 2) and some similar pages state that this chip knows SATA II 1.5G. In other words it supports SATA II but will work only up to 1.5Gbps. The bigger brother, JMicron JM20336 bridge chip supports the SATA II 3.0G ( datasheet). Which one is in your enclosure? If it’s the first one this would explain the speed limit you encountered.

 

quick question, i was looking at the first page of this thread and notice a solution to the squeaky spacebar, the videos are different from the actual keyboard on the notebook so is there another way to solve this problem.

 

it will work itself out. Just has to be worn in. Mine used to squeak intermittently. After a few months, it stopped and has been silent ever since.

 

i want to make a clean install and i have a F1390x vaio the only thing that i want to know is when should i interrupt the recovery procees using my recovery partition.
Thank you

 

Someone will give you a link with Joe Bloe's site (i don't remember it) but I suggest you to get somewhere distributive of Windows 7 Home (if you have home) install it and manually register using that serial code on bottom of your laptop. Mine installing process did not match with Joe Bloe's and it took over 1.5 hours (yeah I know that some time was taken for bloatware software but trust me still it is slower). While usual Windows 7 will be much faster (15-30 min). Also you can download SP1 so you won't need to download tons of updates which provides fragmenting hard drive and other inconvenient things.

PS you still will be able to use OEM discs for installing whatever you want.
PPS you can make Windows USB flash drive to make installing process much saver (discs can be scratched) and faster (usb is faster than CD).

 

mido201005

Google

Sony Vaio F Series Windows 7 64-bit Clean Install Using OEM

 

If it is working well, then I don’t think that it is power related. What is the speed you are getting ? Which applications did you use to benchmark your HDD ? What is the HDD model inside the WD my passport case ? You can see it displayed under Device Manager -> "Your computer name" -> Disk drives.

 

hi everyone
Can someone upload the files for the light sensor please? I had to install windows from a windows DVD, I managed to find all the drivers, the sensor aside.
I had to delete the windows.old folder so I can't get the files any more.
Thanks for your help

 

I have a problem when I was watching a video, all of a sudden it crashed and my desktop background and windows taskbar changed. So unlike before I cantt see what windows I have open when I minimise the internet. Dont know what happened.

 

Hey can you post here is it been repaired nicely or not? I mean the result ) Coz i might keep mine if it can be repaired, still got 5 days to go, might return it though..

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-5-a-297.html

 

Darn display! That's why LED displays are better! Look at my image. That's not a shadow or smth. Right in the center of photo you can see big dark problem It comes every time after turning display on after it was shut down for long time. Like lamp did not get hot enough on some parts of it.
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting
Trust me on photo dark area is not as clear seen as it really is...

Also couple more photos of my laptop with cooler:
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3345/img1335c.jpg recalls me a Kiwi with little wings when it is going down YouTube - Kiwi Mad World Version
ImageShack Album - 11 images