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

I think this MelodyMaster quote clarifies it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-102.html#post6012734

The CPU is not soldered in (in some rare cases, i.e. mostly netbooks today, they are "surface mounted") so therefore should be replaceable.

 

I've had my F12 i5 for a few months and am very disappointed. The overall noise from it is quite high, but in particular the noise from the fan under the upper left of the keyboard. Even under very low load it makes a variable droning noise that is very distracting. But worse than this there is an intermittent high-pitched squealing, or whistling, noise. If you use it in the lounge with the TV on loud its not so bad, but in a quiet room it's dreadful.

If you're in any way concerned about the noise definitely give the vaio a wide berth. I'm never going to buy another Sony laptop, unless I can trail it over a period of time in a quiet room.

 

I think the CPU should be able to be replaced. The GPU is soldered.

 

I'm assuming your out of warranty right and can't get Sony to do it? Your best source of info for this on this forum is jacksjw's post (he no longer posts here). He had a tech come out and replace the fan and then later took it apart himself again. I'll post the most relevant links here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...es-owners-lounge-part-2-a-86.html#post6005699

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...es-owners-lounge-part-2-a-86.html#post6005889

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-136.html#post6036774

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-137.html#post6036822

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-137.html#post6036930

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...s-owners-lounge-part-2-a-183.html#post6064272

 

Nice job in representing posts I've forgotten.

Can anyone confirm CPU can or cannot be replaced with the motherboards we have? I really want to know now.

 

The CPU is a replaceable unit on the F1x motherboards. See the images posted by jacksjw in his post. Specially this and this, where the knob for unlocking the ZIF socket is clearly visible. I also posted a link to an F1x motherboard in my previous post where I replied to Importbeats about the video card/chip replacement. That had no CPU on it, but the image is much smaller:

The listing is ended, so you must click on the “See full description” to go to the original page, or just open my attachment below.

You can use the following CPUs: i7-720QM, i7-740QM, i7-820QM, i7-840QM.
The extreme edition versions are also pin compatible (i7-920XM, i7-940XM), but the cooling offered by the thermal unit might not be enough. Also, personally I question if the motherboard is able to source the extra power required (see my post with conclusion on my Turbo Boost Testing).

The only question is if the BIOS will allow this CPU change. Outside EU the F1x is sold with configurable CPU, but in EU, as you know, the CPU is not configurable. The first units were sold with the i7-720QM, and later they switched to the i7-740QM. If they wanted to enforce their marketing decision, then they probable locked this in BIOS (Please note, that this does not imply different BIOS version/upgrade for EU or non EU notebooks). I just hope that they didn’t locked this.

I hope this helps!

 

I feel deja vu. I guess I already told you somewhen that CPU is replaceable

 

Hell my Alzheimer is back, wonder if it has got sth to do with this whistle tone that keeps buzzing thru my head :confused2:

 

hehe very funny indeed.

But the best recording I found till now is this: YouTube - Sony Vaio F12 - VPCF12S1E Lüftergeräusch (fan noise)

 

It was fine for a whole year. It started acting up two weeks ago. It developed from a soft wispy sound to a grinding noise. I cant take it to school anymore because the sound it too noticeable. I opened up my laptop and saw that it was the fan. I even poked the fan slightly and it went back to being quiet. But this only lasted a few seconds until it started making noise again. The sound is cuased my the blades rubbing on the side of its housing. I tried putting WD40 on the inside of the fan housing to ease the friction. I thought i remedied the problem, but the WD40 caused the fan to be quiet for only 4 hours. I assume the noise came back after the the application of WD40 dissipated from the airflow and constant friction with the high RPM fan blades. I am going to try and buy a new heat sink/fan and replace it myself. To my regret, I never bothered with a warranty.

 

To my very limited understanding of these things, the fans are not to be lubricated with liquids, but some kind of graphite lubricant.

 

Will the F series get Sandy Bridge processors anytime soon? I mean the regular models, not the 3D version.

 

Hello all,

I have the F Series VPCF136FG model from Asia (i7 740QM, GT425M 1GB, Full-HD).

Just a quick question, is anyone having any issues with the speakers? I've been listening to Spotify and occasionally you have this "noise break" (I'm not sure how to describe it) whilst listening to a song (it happens in a split second).

It's something similar to faulty speakers when you've accidentally turned the volume too high on the speakers, damaged them and so the sound is no longer clear.

I've used external speakers and the result was the same. So I reckon this might be more of a soundcard issue? I've tried listening to the same song on Spotify using a different laptop and the issue wasn't there. Hence, I don't think it's caused by the song quality.

I've already accepted the "whining" noise from the fan and I thought that was it! Any help on this would be great!

Cheers guys.

 

The speakers are just crappy. I have sent it to repair and they were not fixed. I had the same problem with you.

The only solution is to buy an external set of speakers (for me at least). It's a pity that such an expensive model has some crappy speakers.

 

Thanks for confirming. Totally agree, it's a shame that they've not included better quality speakers for a laptop of this price!

I think I'll purchase an external soundcard and hopefully it'll fix the issue!

Thanks again

 

Spotify is a streaming application, isn't it? Do you have the same problem when playing audio CDs or music files stored on your HDD? It seems more like a streaming and/or codec issue to me...

 

Yeap same issue. I've tried streaming on another laptop and it was fine. I've also tried playing music files stored on my HDD with iTunes and Windows Media Player and they both had the same issue (random occurrence at different points of time).

I'll have a look into the codec issue. Thanks.

Had a quick google and found someone had the issue here (page 172):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-5-a-172.html

EDIT: Now downloading the latest realtek HD audio codec from Realtek website. I'll check if it solves the issue.

EDIT: Still not solved

 

Off Topic

We all have troubles and gripes about life and our laptops, but if you are interested, here is a great collection of videos coming out of Libya. Kind of puts things in perspective. Imaging living in a country where if someone beats down your door there is no one to help. Your government is your enemy.

PiratenPad: uXB3mitz0c

Sorry Mods, just had to do it.

 

F13Noob, if this is also happening with external speakers, then it’s not about the speakers, as you mentioned.

If Spotify is an audio streaming application, are you sure that what you are experiencing is not the already addressed audio drop-outs ?
Did you run the DPC Latency Checker to see what it reports ?

This was already discussed in this thread. You can search for “DPC Latency” and “audio streaming”. Here is for example, Joe Bleau’s summary about Audio & Video Streaming Latency.

Also check this out: Windows 7 - How to fix 99% of Win 7 audio problems

I hope this helps!

 

Thanks philbond07 for the link! I added to my Summary of F1x notebook noises (fan, ...) post.

The update contains:

- Added Noise #1 Sample:
youtube: Sony Vaio F12 - VPCF12S1E Lüftergeräusch (fan noise)

- Added Noise #3 Sample:
by angcasad31 on the Sony Discussion group ( the audio file - turn up the volume).

- Added Noise #4 Sample and also the tutorial how to fix this issue:
by Joe Bleau on youtube: Vaio F Series Fan Noise, Whining, High Pitch, Morse Code Fix - VPCF115FM F11 F12 F13

- Added News links for Noise #4:
New Sony VAIO F Series Encountering Buzzing Or High Pitched Whine Issue?;
No Worries – The Sony VAIO F Laptop Is Okay And Back On Sale

- Added new link to the Links:
“ Vaio Laptop fan noise?” on the Sony Discussion group (Noise #1 and #3).

 

What should I observe from the DPC Latency Checker? It says:

"This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs."


I'll try and read through the links. Thanks for that!

 

Has anyone encountered problems with devices connected to the USB 3.0 port on the F13 ?

I already mentioned that I have problems with my webcam, but since then I had problems with other devices (some external HDDs, card readers, flash drives, digital camera, …). All these devices work without problems on the USB 2.0 port of the F13 or on other computers. The problems appear when I transfer large quantity of data (example file larger than 200 MB). These transfers don’t work/fail with different error codes. For example testing an SDHC class 10 card in my Storex USB 2.0 reader using ATTO fails with error code 1110 (ERROR_MEDIA_CHANGED), which makes no sense in the given situation.

Please note that I have the latest USB driver update installed:
USB 3.0 Driver (NEC) - 2.0.4.1 from 23/09/2010 (EP0000229663.exe) (7.09 MB)

 

Welcome F13Noob!

On the DPC Latency Checker page you can find example for a problem scenario.

Also leave the DPC Latency Checker running while you are streaming music using Spotify. The idea is to use the notebook in the same condition (example to use your network card, especially if you use the wireless connection) while checking for DPC latency.

 

Hi I am new to the F Series and just wanted to know if I made the right decision. I recently ordered a refurbished F1290x Customized from Sony's outlet site. Should I have spent the extra on the 1390x? I do not play games just HD Video editing and encoding. Here's the specs.


Product: 9736470/BSTOCK
Base Unit: Base Unit (C50877560)
Display: 16.4" VAIO Full HD Premium Display (1920x1080)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
Color: Black
Other Software: Transfer Jet None (C50877601)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-840QM processor (1.86GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz
Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
Hard Drive: 256GB (256GBx1) Solid State Drive
Optical Disc Drive: Blu-ray Disc player/burner
Battery: Large capacity battery (Reg. price $100.00)
Keyboard Backlight: LED Backlit Keyboard
Keyboard Skins: Black LED backlit keyboard
Channel: Channel (C50877654)
Warranty: 1 year Limited Standard Warranty with In-home service
Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Software Optimization: No Fresh Start
Office Software: Microsoft® Office 2010 Home & Student
AntiVirus Software: Norton Internet Security™ 2010 (30 Day Trial)
Adobe Software: Adobe Bundle ($448 value.)
Limited Warranty Term: 90 Day Limited Warranty
Per Unit Price: $1,909.95
Quantity: 1
Total Price: $1,909.95
Description: VPCF1290X CTO Customized Notebook

 

I will suggest what other would. Buy laptop with HDD and separately buy an SSD which will be cheaper and better at the same time (and you will have additional HDD as present Also about f13... I suggest you buy f13 with better GPU (15% better).

 

I had the same concerns but the price on f13 is 700 more with the same options. I couldn't justify the 700 bucks for a faster gpu and usb 3.0. Can the gpu be overclocked and do I need a cooling pad? I have heard they run very hot.

 

I have to admit that I'm utterly appalled at the screen quality on the Sony Vaio VPCF1390X. I built a CTO with the following specs:

You would think an electronics company that makes top-of-the-line TV's could at least get a laptop screen right. Apparently not... I'll be returning it for replacement and then refund in the coming week.

If you're curious, here's a video of how bad it is: YouTube - Why I'll never buy another Sony VAIO.

 

I hope mine does not look like this. Has Sony's customer service been good about returning your laptop?

 

I haven't spoken to them yet and plan to tomorrow at work. I'll update this thread afterward. I really hope your laptop isn't the same way. Was a serious letdown for me- I've always loved Sony products but this screen has given me doubts about their products.

 

I have not encountered any problems with my USB 3.0. The two things I most often connect to it are my external HDD and my smartphone. I've also connected printers, flash drives, USB hub with multiple devices connected, but mostly the first two. Yesterday, I was copying ISO files to my backup HDD, the smallest of the files was over 3GB and I did not have any issues and they transferred quite fast as well. In Device Mgr, my Renesas USB 3.0 Host controller driver says 2.0.4.0, even though I've "successfully" installed the 2.0.4.1 update repeatedly.

Edit: Just to add, the HDD is USB 3.0, the phone of course is 2.0 and the other devices I've connected are 2.0, but all of these I've connected to the 3.0 ports.

 

Just wondering if you priced the F13 CTO on Sonystyle, with the currently slightly reduced price, without the extra RAM and SSD to see how much that would be. You can get 8GB RAM for $82 on newegg and a cheaper SSD (plus still get to keep the HDD from the laptop). I can't go do that right now to see what the price would be so maybe it's still more than you want to spend, but it shouldn't be $700 more.

And yes, you can overclock the GPU. I don't know where you heard the F series runs hot because it's just the opposite. However, if you are going to overclock, then you should probably get a cooler to be on the safe side. Of course, you can always see what your temps are like first.

 

try to set one colored desktop image for a start to see is it bad or not. this video doesn't show what you mentioned

 

+100500. where to sign up this?
I can only add that using larger battery will solve a problem with cooler. This laptop doesn't need a cooler if there already is enough space underneath for air

 

I'll upload another video to show you. May not be as accurate as it is daytime now and I tried to filter out as much light as possible.

Here it is against a solid black desktop: YouTube - Why I'll never buy another Sony VAIO [Part 2]

 

Thank you jpride for your reply!

I have only one USB 3.0 external HDD (Verbatim 1TB), but I don’t have any problem with it (at least so far).
The rest of the devices I use are USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 devices. It happens only with some of these devices. For example the Logitech mouse wireless receiver works well, my printer also works well, so does the Kingston USB 2.0 SD card reader. But the Storex USB 2.0 SD card reader shows the above mentioned problem. In the same way some of my USB 2.0 external HDDs works ok (ex. 2.5” WD Passport HDD), but one of the 3.5” HDD in external USB 2.0 enclosure has this problem. And so on…

I just observed not a long time ago the same about the driver versions. Both, the “Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller” driver and “Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Root Hub” driver shows version 2.0.4.0, but in the “Programs and Features” the update “Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller Driver” shows version 2.0.4.1. So I downloaded the preinstalled driver package and compare with the update. The only difference is in the “nusb3ver.dll” (File description: “Product Version Information”), and even for this file the only difference is the file version and the digital signature which is missing! I hope that this is just a mistake by Sony/NEC and that they will fix it very soon !

 

This is a 1390 config without the ssd and ram

LED Backlit Keyboard
Fresh Start
Adobe Bundle (Free - $448 value)
Blu-ray Disc™ Read and Write Drive
Microsoft® Office 2010 Home & Student
Large capacity battery
No additional AntiVirus Software
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 425M GPU (1GB VRAM)
No Engraving
Intel® Core™ Quad i7-840QM processor (1.86GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz
16.4" VAIO Full HD Premium Display (1920x1080)
320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333

$1715.98 with the promotional discount, about 194 dollars different from the 1290 refurbished with ssd and 8gb ram. Do you still think it is worth it to get the 1390 and do my own upgrade? Also do you know anything about sony refurbished products?

 

First, you can take off another $50 because your refurbished config does not have Win 7 Professional. so that would be 244-82(for memory)= $162. Then it all depends which SSD you would get how much more money you'd be spending on the new F13 vs the refurb F12. Prices vary by hundreds of dollars for different SSDs.

My understanding is that the included SSD provided by Sony is one of the lower end ones (I don't know the model). And I don't mean that it's bad at all - it would be sooo much better than my HDD - I'm just saying pricewise if you were to get a comparable SSD, it would be one of the less expensive ones. So find a price for an SSD you would get and subtract 162 and you'll have you'll number.

It's totally dependent on your circumstances whether it's worth it to you. I personally can't afford your config, with either model. I have never bought a refurb from Sony, but I would never buy refurbished electronics. That doesn't mean you shouldn't. You may get lucky and some people are perfectly happy with their refurbs.

Basically, there are two reasons a computer becomes a refurb. Either it was broken is some way and they had to fix it or someone simply returned it because they found something better or it wasn't what they were looking for, etc. If it's the first category, the computer almost never gets fixed correctly (or something else gets broken in the repair process) and they just but a "bandaid" over it and re-sell. This is why I don't buy refurbs.

If it's the second category, and the person who originally bought it did not do any hidden damage to it, you can get a great computer for lower cost than new. But there's no way for you to know which it is. Assuming you have a return period with the refurb, you can take your chances and test the hell out of it during that time and see if you feel confident in it's reliability.

I'm not pushing you to get the F13. You could be just as happy with the F12. Just making sure you looked at your options properly before your decision. I'm glad I have the USB 3.0 (my backups are nice and fast compared to USB 2.0) but I wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars more for it. The GPU - I haven't had a chance, due to circumstances, to really play any games or tax my GPU - although I intended to be playing games when I bought it. It could be worth the extra money for someone who would use it to its potential.

 

Thanks for the advice. The 1290 is already in the mail so I will see what it has to offer. I have 30days to return it if not satisfied. Is there a cheaper way to remove all the bloatware without buying a copy of windows and doing a fresh install?

 

You don't have to buy Windows unless you want to. You can use your recovery DVDs (that you will make when you get your laptop, so buy some writable ones if you don't have them) to do a clean install (or semi-clean depending how you want to call it). Here is a guide you can use. Sony Vaio_F Series Windows 7 64-bit Clean Install Using OEM Recovery Disks

 

Anyluck finding the replacement part or how much it costs from sony??

 

From someone who purchased the OEM SSD (see my specs) I would also recommend switching out the hard drive and installing a SSD yourself. You'll clearly get more value this way. Think SSD for Windows and programs and second drive for storage. Knowing what I know now this is definitely what I would do.

 

Do you have a SSD you recommend? Do you know what the specs are for the OEM SSD that comes factory from Sony?

 

Just to reassure any potential F buyers, we just forked out for the F137HG, mainly because of the screen quality. It's got the matt screen, which may make a difference, but the only laptop in this class that came close for display quality was the MacBook Pro, with a lot less power for a lot more dollars. We'll use it for photo and video editing on the road, and it's looking very good.

The reason that even high-end Vaios don't look like Bravias is that nobody makes IPS panels in laptop sizes - the return on investment is much higher for big TV size screens.

Also, the noise level is fine at idle, and working hard (8 cores at 95%+, rendering video in Sony Vegas, temps around 70C, no extra cooler) the fan is about the same as our old 1.6GHz Celeron Satellite.

We're happy campers!

 

Where did you get yours? I can't seem to find it on sonystyle.

 

You can't find it because it's not available in North America. Really, saying that people who can only get a glossy screen shouldn't worry about the quality of the screen because the European/Asian matte screen is good is like saying someone with an Acer laptop should be assured they are getting a good screen because the matte Vaio F screen is good. They are totally different displays - might as well be different laptops as far as the display goes.

 

It's an Australasian market model:

VPCF137HG : F Series : VAIO Notebooks & Computers : Sony New Zealand

 

Good job no one was saying that, then. Just out of interest, has anyone been able to directly compare the two HD Premium screens?

 

I had the chance to compare the matte and non-matte FULL-HD screens. The matte one was appx. £400 more expensive with more RAM but a less powerful gpu. I compared the screens and thought I preferred the matte screen (colours were more vivid, non-relective).

However, I use my laptop mainly at home and I don't see glossy screens an issue for me (that said, I don't think the F13 screen is as glossy as the MBPs!). Plus, I can't justify spending that amount for a better screen.

Hence, if you have the cash to spare, go for the matte one! I'm pretty happy with the non-matte one after calibrating the screen to my liking.

 

Sony only offers 2 or 3 good displays in the whole VAIO lineup right now. That's a big step backwards from a couple years ago when almost all VAIOs had better than average screens and most were very good. Then again, the other manufacturers have gone backwards too. For example, the full HD display on the Acer Aspire Ethos (a logical competitor) is even worse than the VAIO F. Unless you're willing to spend significantly more money, it will be hard to find something better.

If I were buying right now, I'd go for a Crucial with the Marvell controller.

I put an OCZ Vertex 2 in my F and have been cursing myself since. I had stability issues with the original firmware and the real world performance of the SandForce controller hasn't lived up to the hype. SandForce controllers compress/decompress data on the fly which extends the life of the NAND (fewer writes) and gives them ridiculously fast but utterly meaningless results in benchmarks like ATTO and Iometer that use easily compressed data. When reading or writing incompressible data, especially in small-medium block sizes, their performance sucks eggs. The problem is that the vast majority of the data we store these days is incompressible. Pictures, video, music, game data, and any other media are already stored in compressed file formats. The only stuff on my drive that's somewhat compressible are the OS and program files. So I'm getting very quick boot times, but otherwise the performance isn't as good as I remember from the lowly 80GB Intel X-25M.

 

Hello! I recently purchased an Sony Vaio VPCF1390X (Customized version) from ebay and will receive it next week. it come's with 500gb hdd and 4gb ram and i want to add an SDD Drive(Already bought vertex 2 SSD 120GB) and i want to know:
1) Does It have 2 spaces for adding 2nd drive or i have to remove original HDD to put this SSD?
2) I want also to upgrade ram to 8GB and i'm looking thru amazon.co.uk and there are a lot of DDR3 Rams, which one you recommend and will fit on my Vaio VPCF1390X

PS: If it is necessary for you to know it comes I7-840QM and Full HD Screen. Also Video is Nvidia 425 and comes with bluray burner.

So please let me know what kind of ram i should buy to fit on my laptop. THanks!