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

Usually it is caused by a badly connected LVDS cable or a faulty (damaged) cable. Try to reconnect and ensure that the cable is correctly plugged in on both sides.
Another possibility is a faulty LCD. I recommend you to do your LCD test before completely mounting and putting everything together!

See this link for more information.

I hope this helps!

 

Free AV...I manage nearly 30 computers. Most are Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, some are XP Pro 32 bit, a few are XP Home and Vista Home Premium 32 bit. While I feel that Norton is probably the best overall Security Suite, I was sick of paying for it. For business use, Symantec Endpoint (Norton) was the usual installation, but again, it is expensive.

Some will argue that a good AV is much cheaper than paying IT to fix the problems and that is true. What I can tell you is that after 14 months of using Microsoft Internet Security on all machines, I have had only two instances of malware. In one case, the person visited a site that they should not have and overrode the malware warning, basically forcing the downloading and installing the malware even though it was detected. I was not happy with the person! The second instance was on the machine of a constant Limewire user. To me, this is like dipping yourself in a blood bath prior to swimming with great white sharks. It is not a question of IF you will be infected, it is a question of "lets take bets on how long I can go before my machine is corrupted to the point of failure".

The other free AVs are good, but I really like MSE.

SSD discussion...I do not partition. There is no need. Of the computers that I manage, 9 have old Crucial M225 SSDs installed. On my particular machine, I run a 256GB version and my top read/ write speeds are around 255MB/sec and 235MB/sec, respectively. This is an old tech Indillinx drive! Of course, I have done all that I can to protect the drive...I do not index, no superfetch, no prefetch, I lessened the amount of restore points, removed the paging file...anything I could do to lessen writes was done. Writes kill an SSD over time. Sectors can only be written to a finite amount of times, so in my opinion, it would be best not to partition. In my opinion, I would rather have the ability to "wear level" the entire drive.

One other point...My SSD is about 1/3 full (256GB drive). The less you keep on an SSD, the fewer times a sector will be written to. A 120 GB SSD would have been plenty big enough for anything I will ever store on it. I bought the larger capacity in hope that this will mean less sector writes and a longer lifespan. Because of this, my SSD holds all of my programs and all files and folders that are seldomly modified. For instance, I keep all of my photos on the SSD for quick recovery (large files). All of my Office documents, which are constantly updated and modified, reside on an external hard drive in order to minimize writes to the SSD. I love SSDs and feel the are the ONLY way to go, especially in laptops. If you want to minimize the chances of failure, get yourself an external drive enclosure and install a conventional HDD into it for all files that are routinely modified, and also for your daily or weekly backups.

Just my opinion.

Oh, by the way, it looks like we may be purchasing 3 more laptops today or tomorrow...F13s. If we do, I will be moving to 120GB Intel G2 SSDs, simply because I found them on Newegg for $177 USD!!!!!

 

Hi I am new here. So I bought an F series almost two weeks ago and I wanted to find out if any of you have any experience with the Accidental Damage Protection plan they were trying to sell me at the sonystyle store.

They claim they will replace my vaio if I break it or damage it no problem for the same price I originally paid. I have 30 days to decide from the purchase date.

I bought this laptop as a desktop replacement and plan to use this machine for the next 4 years. I also have a 1 year old so I am concerned that she will eventually damage my vaio. They were offering 3 years for approximately 299 USD. Any input?


VAIO F Series owner from Miami.

 

2 days ago sony picked up my laptop, today i decided to give them a ring... and well big surprise what young lady told me on the phone. If anyone forgot why my laptop went for repair look at this video i am 100% sure 20% f owners is the minimum who have this whistle:

YouTube - Sony Vaio F12 - VPCF12S1E Lüftergeräusch (fan noise)

So 2 days ago DHL picked up laptop and it's been repaired already, i should get it back on tomorrow or friday. Fan been replaced, no surprise here, but the next thing she told me surprised me, they did replace main board!!! And reinstalled windows of course she said. She also said there was overheating issue, but it actually wasn't max temp i had is 67C while overcklocked and playing say Mafia2 on max, normal use 40-50C, anyway when i get it back i will post here it was fixed completly or not. Also they upset me a bit, they should call me and ask me for changing main board lol, i would advise them to put f13 mainboard with 425m gpu instead of 330m lol

 

twoflower5150, did you replace your screen ? Did you find out what is the “B” ending ?

 

Indemnity

I sell commercial lines of insurance to building contractors and I am often having discussions with clients concerning an amount of coverage, or if something is even worth insuring based on cost. There really are alot of factors that go into making this decision. My F11, total price including tax and the non accidental warranty ( $179.00) came to $2,150.00 US dlls. If I got a stock F that warranty would be approx 20% of the overall cost, not the 10%- what I paid, and therefore would not have purchased. Consider the $300 accidental warranty price you would be spending and know that you could certainly use that money in the future to buy a component if something did fail. This would cover the price of many replacement components but not anything tied to the motherboard- any type of catastrophic damage/failure.
You have a child which certainly increases the likelihood of damage. Could you absorb the risk and just repurchase if something did happen or would this be a large financial hit to your family? And do not underestimate the 'sleep good at night' factor. The $300 does give you a nice level of comfort knowing things will be covered in the event of and accident. If you are going to go without I would get a keyboard cover if your infant is around. I've also trained my family, friends, and co-workers to keep the heck away from my computer with any liquids!

 

Thank you, that did it.

Can someone please tell me which VAIO drivers/apps do I have to install after I reinstall Windows 7? Which ones are really necessary?

 

I'm really very interested if the fan replacement will have solved the beep problem. Please post about it as soon you know. I only have few days left I can return the F13. I really hope there are good Panasonic fans outthere and the problem is solvable. If not I'll have to return the vaio. Cannot live with the beeps.
Today I tried to find out if the fan could be replaced by a Sunon Maglev fan, but I was told this was impossible.
Do you know if the complete thermal unit was replaced or only the fan (rotor)?

 

http://tinyurl.com/23nq4ta

It's all here.

 

I wonder how many people have fan noise problems with clean installs and minimal running processes. I have to say that none of our F11s have a fan or noise problem and I ordered 3 new F13s today. All are VPCF1x90X CTOs with 8GB memory and backlit keyboards. Four have upgraded HD monitors and the higher end graphics cards while 3 others have the standard display and graphics cards. Five of the machines are the base processors (either 720QM or 740QM), but two of the HD display machines have either the 820QM (mine) or the 840QM (ordered). I would say that we will have a very good range of F series machines. I will be interested to see if any of the new ones have fan problems.

If no problems are found, I believe that it would be a reasonable hypothesis that fan noise could be due to a large number of running background processes, by driver incompatabilities or by software clashes of some sort. My machine is never shut down other than to move it or when a shutdown is needed after updates. Still, I commonly have 52-56 processes running...60 at the most, even when working. When idle, it drops to 50. All drivers are up to date. I do not game, but my power settings are not simply "high performance", but modified to run all out, all the time.

All of our other machines have been set up the same way as desktop replacements.

I hope I do not have noise problems. If not, I will argue that perhaps those that do have some sort of software or driver problem. In fact, I believe that I have given this as a possible reason for high fan speeds and high temps in prior posts.

Just my opinion.

 

For those who are interested, on the SonyVaioPart UK site there are spare parts for sale from an used VPCF12S1E (European) notebook:

Sharp LQ164M1LA4A B Full HD 16.4" LCD Screens <- The European Premium Display (1920x1080, Matte)
Sony Vaio VPC F Series CPU Fan And Heatsink - Panasonic UDQFRRH01DF0
Sony Vaio VPC F Series Motherboard A1783601A
Sony Vaio VPC F Series USB /Audio Board M931 CNX448

I also found an already expired eBay bid for a LQ164M1LA4A B display (sold for ~165.11 EUR). So twoflower5150 and markds keep up looking!

I consider that the SonyVaioPart UK page confirms that the European FHD Premium Display is indeed the “SHARP LQ164M1LA4A B” model (The VPCF12S1E is sold with the EU Premium Matte screen).

The used display price is £168 incl. tax. So add this to the previously discussed amount. A new one will be definitely more.

 

I'm not sure that's the EU Premium screen. It may be the EU (semi-)glossy Vaio HD screen. If you look at the Details it says Surface is Glossy.

 

I think we all have it, just some users are far more sensitive to it than others.

Will, I hope Sony gives you a great discount for ordering such a plethora of laptops. A non profit discount at least.

 

I've got none. No fan noise whatsoever, unless under heavy load. But that is to be expected.

 

As i said sony replaced fan, main board, i should get it back later today, will update if whistle is fixed..

 

There's no need to worry about SSD partitioning, Anseio is correct. Because of wear leveling, there is no fixed relationship between a file's location on the virtual "disk" (the logical block address or LBA) and its physical location in the flash memory. When you partition an SSD, you are setting aside a range of LBAs for use by a particular filesystem, not a region of flash memory. When the OS wants to write a block, the controller will decide where to write it, preferring to write to memory which has had fewer write cycles regardless of the block's logical address.

So the decision to partition or not is really just a matter of convenience. I find it convenient to use a single partition on one of my laptops, but on the other I have a bunch of game data and copies of media files that I don't want to be part of my automated backups so I've put that in a separate partition.

That's a big issue with older SSDs, but newer ones support "static" wear leveling. With static wear leveling, the controller will move static data around in order to free up NAND with fewer write cycles. Thus even if the drive is nearly full with unchanging data, it will still wear evenly. Of course, moving the data also accumulates write cycles so there is still some acceleration of wear if you keep the drive full. But it's much less than without static wear leveling. I know the SandForce drives support this since the 1.1 firmware. Intel does too. Not sure about other controllers.

Personally, I don't worry myself all that much with minimizing writes. I've disabled defrag and hibernation except at critical battery level, but left indexing and paging on. SSD tech is moving so quickly that I'm very unlikely to keep the drive long enough to wear it out (5 years of heavy server use I think is standard these days).

 

So I finally got my f12 and it has the whining fan noise that i've heard about before I ordered. Should I return this unit for a refund/repair or is the fan fine other than the annoyance of the whining sound?

Did the BIOS update and disabled mic still has fan whining sound.

 

I have the feeling, that “Surface is Glossy” sentence makes all this confusion.
I never saw an official Sony document (not reviews or press releases) stating that the European FHD VAIO Premium display is matte (in the old LCD sense)! Did anyone see that ?

The only thing mentioned in the overview or specification is that the VAIO Display Premium screen is: Anti-Reflection.
See their image from the overview page. The items with * are specific to the European VAIO Display Premium screen.
Even in their marketing documents you have: Anti-glare coating or anti-reflective coating.

To quote one of the Sony’s description:

Of course, my reaction was that if is not glossy, then must be matte. But if you read the technology presentation for Sony XBrite, X-black and Clear Bright (or all the other name given by other companies), you will quickly realize, that these screens are not matte (again, in the old LCD sense).

Sony XBrite Technology:

Or another link: What Makes The Sony XBRITE Laptop Screen Technology So Amazing?

Or a very good description by ScreenTek: Sony XBRITE™, X-black and Clear Bright — What are they?
They also offer to apply the same anti reflective coating to any display (they call it PixelBright). Read the technical description here: PixelBright LCDs by ScreenTek (on the end of this document you can find the other names given to the same technology by the other companies).

I even saw somewhere that they mention “shiny glossy screen” versus “smooth glossy screen”.

If we add to this the fact that in several LCD datasheet you see different coefficients for the anti-reflective coating/treatment, then we can conclude that the display will be more or less reflective based on this value. So in the end everything is reduced to this anti-reflective coating/treatment coefficient. So the “B” might just mean that from the “SHARP LQ164M1LA4A B”. Without a datasheet I can’t tell for sure, but my previous post shows an indirect proof of this.

What do you guys think ?

 

Laptop not fixed, beep whistle not fixed, boxes ticked with the repair: main board, fan, touchpad. So i guess, it is a design problem than, should i call them again and tell them problem still exist

 

I have to say that Sony has been very good with multiple order discounts. Both the church's Executive Director and I have always been Dell fans. I researched and bought the F11s because they were the best value at the time. Well, with the current promotion and the additional discounts I negotiated, these F13s were an outstanding value.

Sony has been wonderful so far. I am impressed. Believe me...when I originally looked at laptops last year, I looked at Dell, Toshiba and Asus with HP and Acer being second tier. Sony was not even considered until the F11 came out. The F11 was a real game-changer for me. Plain looking but powerful, it had everything we were looking for at a better price than the others.

I really hope that the new F13s are as good as our existing machines!

 

My Crucial M225s have a 5 year warranty as did the original OWC branded Sandforce drives with the 1500 controller in them. Now, most have 2-3 year warranties. I see a lot of posts about failures of some sort on retail sites such as Newegg and tigerdirect. Anandtech is very good at bricking SSDs and usually finds a controller's shortcomings.

In the last 6 months, I will agree that controllers seem to have gotten better. I see fewer Anand reviews where he cooks an SSD. I do, however, still read a lot of reviews where Sandforce controlled SSDs are "unable to find OS" or simply showing BSOD after a few weeks. OCZ and Corsair seem to have a few issues.

My M225s have been superb, even though they are older, Indillinx Barefoot controlled units. They are no longer produced, so I had to find something different for the 3 F13s that I just ordered. These laptops do not have SATA6, so I did not look at thee ultra new SATA6 SSDs. the Crucial C300s are not new and get good ratings for speed. they are supposed to be reliable, but user reviews are not stellar. As much as I love the M225s, I stayed away from the new Crucials.

Intel is introducing new drives and Monday I found 120GB G2 drives for $177 each after rebate. these drives have different performance characteristics than the M225s...they are slower at some reads, much slower at writes, but quicker in small reads and much better at IOPS. I figure that in a workstation type server-based environment, these SSDs will hold programs while files will be written to the servers. Because of this, the write performance won't hinder us and I expect to see performance at least as good as the Crucials and probably better. The most attractive part of the Intel SSDs are that they seem to be very reliable. While I read of firmware problems causing failures, their ratings are overwelmingly positive. People really like them compared to other SSDs that seem more likely to fail. In the end, it was the user reviews that led me to purchase them. I only hope that I have no problems. Only time will tell!

I still believe that writes kill SSDs because writes slowly kill all NAND flash. Wear levelling is a great thing, but static, constant leveling, indexing, superfetch, prefetch, defragging, creating large numbers of restore points, etc all create a lot of writes which will lessen the life of the NAND. Controlling or eliminating these will prolong the life of your SSD, guaranteed. Now, your SSD may brick due to a controller or firmware issue, but limiting writes will always help.

Finally, computer drives do not have an expected lifespan measured in the same way as other products. When they are listed as having a MTBF of 1.5 million hours, that does not mean that the drive will last that long. What it means is that you can expect that many cumulative hours out of all drives prior to failure. In other words...if you had 1.5 million drives, you could expect that one would fail within an hour. If you had 150 drives, you could expect one of them to fail within 10,000 hours. It is a screwy way of showing life expectancy!

I have had conventional hard drives in a stationary desktop fail after only a few weeks. In fact, I had a computer HDD fail. A factory tech came and replaced it and the replacement died within a week. A second drive died less than a month later. The 3rd drive is still functioning over 6 years later.

SSDs are only as good as their parts. A bad controller, a firmware glitch or defective NAND can cause quick failure. Wear levelling or not, a virus that continually writes to your SSD will cause it to fail quite quickly.

No matter what the manufacturers say, limiting writes can go a long way towards protecting your SSD from failure!

Just my opinion.

 

Hmm after running for few hours i noticed the whistle is like almost gone now, it happens sometimes but not often and not really noticable, so i would say sony fixed 75% of it!!!

 

Congrats! Now you've become a happy F owner I hope.

Now we have empirical knowledge there are variations to the noise level of the whistle.

 

Hi everyone! I haven't been here a while as I've been loving my F12 for 7 months now with only one small problem that's beginning to frustrate me. I use my F12 as a desktop replacement so it's always on my desk. I also use a Microsoft 5000 bluetooth mouse and I disabled my touch pad so that brushing it while typing doesn't cause problems. Lately I have been having a recurring problem (once every couple of weeks) where the mouse doesn't work and I have to pair it to my laptop again. To do this, I go into devices and printers, select the bluetooth mouse and try to reconnect it. When I click on 'connect' I get a message that says 'Windows Shell Common DLL is not responding' and it looks up on that screen. I go through this several times before it finally reconnects. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be and how to fix it? It's a pain because when this happens I have to go find another mouse to use because I've disabled my touchpad. Any help would be appreciated . . . thanks!

 

Is there a shorter version? Like just a list of apps/dirvers with a short description of each one? I would just like to know which drivers and apps from the Sony VAIO downloads sections are worth installing. Thank you.

 

I had problems with wireless connections at one time and got rid of SmartWi and have had not issues since. Not at all sure this would help in your situation but you may want to take a look at that. Also, I think Jpride recommended touchfreeze that disables touchpad automatically while you are typing text. I'm using this and it's perfect.

touchfreeze - Project Hosting on Google Code

And here is a guide for adding bluetooth to a Vaio via SmartWi

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Adding-Bluetooth-Devices-Windows-7.html

Good luck and let us know if you get this fixed.

 

*VAIO Event Serivce (Fn keys)
*VAIO Control Center
*VAIO Help and Support
*VAIO Power Management
*VAIO Update
*Setting Utility Series (necessary to make S1 key work and to populate VAIO Control Center with any settings to use)
*Corel WinDVD for Blu Ray

 

If you guys are interested in viewing NBR in a dark theme checkout this FF add-on.

NotebookReview Forums - Cryptic Theme (0.4) - Themes and Skins for notebookreview.com - userstyles.org

If you wish to switch back and forth with it, just go to Toolbar> Tools> Add-ons> Stylish> Options > Notebook Review Cryptic theme where you can temporarily disable or enable theme. I use Stylish for a few other sites, Google being one of them.

 

I bought a refurb sony vpcf136fm and I'm having problems with my wireless internet connection. It keeps dropping my connection every few minutes which makes it a pain to have to re-connect and reload the websites I go to. I was wondering if anyone encountered this problem before and how I can fix it?

 

That's all? OK, thank you very very much. This weekend I'll install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on my VAIO and this list will be a great help to me.

Edit: I can't find all of those utilities on this site: http://support.vaio.sony.eu/computing/vaio/downloads/preinstalled/index.aspx?l=en_GB&m=VPCF13S0E_B
Why are some missing?

---

Do you (or anyone else) know what to do to set F13 for audio recording via an external sound card? I borrowed one from a friend (before buying one myself) and connected it to my F13 but I was no good. A lot of breaking, noises etc. I tried different drivers but with no success. Please help.

 

I got rid of SmartWi and have not had this issue since removing.

 

I honestly don't know what to think. Here are a few things we know:

-Two people with US HD screens said their part numbers were both SHARP LQ164M1D4C.
-Two people replaced their US HD screens with FW X-brite screens whose part number was SHARP LQ164M1LA4A.
-One person with an EU HD screen (who didn't specify whether it was a premium screen but the model should have premium) said their part number was SHARP LQ164M1LA4A B.
-The FW part number you can see is the same as the supposed F screen for EU HD Premium. No "B" or other trailing letter was noted for the FW displays.

So, maybe the "B" is significant and indicative of anti-reflective coating and is specific to the F screen or maybe that letter is just left off most ordering sites. Maybe the FW X-brite screen, which is "glossy" but a good screen, is actually the same as the F EU HD Premium. No one has mentioned whether they have seen both screens to compare. There are a lot of SHARP LQ164M1LA4A displays for sell on US sites so that would be good news for US folks who want to replace it, but everyone has been assuming this was not the same screen. Hopefully, we can get more clarification on this issue from the couple people who recently mentioned being about to replace their displays.

Edit: Also, no one has mentioned a part number for the non-premium EU HD display. I've been curious about this. It could be the same as the US HD or it could be the same as the FW or it could be a completely different display. If anyone who has one knows the part number or can get it from Sony, that would be good info to know for when people are comparing and/or asking questions about their displays.

 

Are they in Vaio Care?

 

What exactly is this screen?

NEW SONY LQ164M1LG4BZ 16.4" WUXGA LAPTOP LCD SCREEN - eBay (item 400196157309 end time Mar-19-11 10:40:12 PDT)


I'm also on the hunt for an EU premium matte (I currently have the crappy single-lamp 1600x900)... Anyone know what inverter I will need, and where to find one?

 

and

and

and

and

and myself I have the intermittant whistle too always at the same rpm's and very loud and clearly and irritating!

So: I think we may conclude that:

- the noise(and thus irritation) level of noiseproblem #1 varies indeed per laptop, on a scale from nonoise-at-all to very pronounced and irritating

- in some cases the noise seems to disappear or weaken down after a few hours of "breaking-in" ?

- the noise is directly or indirectly related to the mechanical rotation of the fan, it occurs at welldefined rpms; probably unbalance of the fan-rotor or bearing, or accoustical interference caused by the airflow

 

Can this really be true? Some kind of breaking-in?

Was the sound initially still present with the new fan with same volume level as before?

 

I found this model yesterday, together with other 16.4” Sharp LCD screens, but I had no time to get more information about it.
Now I searched for any relation with the Sony F1x models, and there is only one Turkish site where they mention both models (LQ164M1LA4A & LQ164M1LG4BZ) to be compatible with the F1x (and also with some FWs):
16.4 "INCH DOUBLE FLUORESCENT LQ164M1LA4A & LQ164M1LG4BZ HD LCD DISPLAY PANEL

I hope we can get more information about it.

 

I’m really tuned on that too!

I built a list of 16.4” LCDs I found so far, but I can’t find any datasheet for the Sharp LCDs. And for some of them even the available info here and there is contradictory.

 

So this infamous "fan noise" thing; is this something noticeable right away after getting the laptop or is it something that develops later?

 

The little brother LQ164M1LG4B (without the Z) it seems is coming from the Sony FW.

Sharp Display LCD LQ164M1LG4B 42cm /16,4" WUXGA FHD

 

I saw that Turkish site too. By the way, see that number on the screen on the Turkish site (FU-16-004)? Is that some kind of alternate designation?

When searching on google, "FU-16-004" comes up with LQ164M1LA4A, while FU-16-008 is associated with LQ164M1LG4BZ (sometimes found without the Z at the end). The second one seems to be a matte screen (but I've also seen it called 'glossy').

I googled for other ending numbers (001-009) and found the following:

FU-16-006 (LQ164M1LD4C - 1CCFL glossy Full HD)
FU-16-002 (LQ164D1LD4A - 1CCFL WXGA++)
FU-16-001 (LQ164D1LA4B - 1CCFL WXGA++)

 

Well, if you running on balanced mode and browsing internet you will get whistle sometimes, but it's almost accepted now for me, in perfomance mode there is almost like no beeps..

But to be honest, for this price we pay for this laptops there shouldn't be issues like that, it's incredable laptop which is staying really cool, never over 45 C degrees normal use and beve rover 65 while gaming, with amazing perfomance as for the laptop, and just one weird thing - whistle. I think i5 owners don't have it, or may be i am wrong, but at least i never heard from videos on youtube this whistle, only mic problem..

 

Well, I think this is as good as time any to say this then. Recently I scheduled a Sony on site tech to replace my f11's LCD panel, but that's not the strange part. What's odd was the model number of the replacement panel, which was "SHARP LQ164 D1LD4C" instead of the stock SHARP LQ164 M1LD4C which everyone complains about. I'd post more info about the screen, but it turns out the panel was faulty, thus the tech had to put back the original. From what I've gathered from Google, the LQ164D1LD4C is either 1920x1080, or 1600x900(conflicting information for the res) glossy finish screen with a 1 lamp CCFL. My F11 screen still needs to be replaced, so I'll post back with relevant information about the screen once I schedule another appointment. Hopefully this time it isn't faulty.

 

Sounds like you cannot pull the trigger on your laptop. I'd be interested in how you are contemplating your purchase. What are the shortfalls and strengths that make it so tough?

 

Well, basically, I'm a mess. My Mac's hard drive fried in September. I then decided I wanted a new computer and I wanted a PC. I'm done with Apple/Mac, I just prefer Windows and PCs. I tried Mac, but I didn't like it. I'm selling this Mac to a friend of mine. I tried to get a Dell XPS 15 in December, but the screen I got (1080p) gave me headaches due to the small text, so I had to return it (not to mention it overheated on the day I decided to return it, so luckily I got a full refund). Then I decided to wait until SB, but the recall screwed everything up.

I've always liked the Sony VAIO F, I was even considering getting it before I got that Dell. But I was worried about battery life mainly (and the large size). Then, I heard about this new HP coming out ( http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/hps-pavilion-dv6-and-dv7-get-envy-like-design-and-features-g-s/ ) which seemed perfect for me, but people started telling me it wasn't going to have a backlit keyboard. I must have a backlit keyboard. That's a basic requirement for me.

So I ordered a Sony VAIO F13 knowing that I could return it for a full refund within 30 days because I was afraid that if I waited long enough to see if the HP had a backlit keyboard or not, the Sony VAIO F13 might be unavailable and replaced with the F21 (which I do not want, it's too big and bulky for my liking).

So that's where I am. F13 is coming soon in the mail, probably going to return it because of this fan noise crap (since it's mainly a desktop replacement for me, I don't care so much about battery life anymore), then I'll be waiting for the new HP. If that doesn't have a backlit keyboard, well then, I'm back to square one again!

 

Thanks! How do I remove SmartWi? I can't find it using the Uninstall program

 

Well, don't decide before you even get it that you're going to return it because some other people don't like the sound of their fans. Some of us don't see our fan noise as a big issue and some people don't even have any perceivable noise other the fan normally spinning. See for yourself what yours sounds like, without being influenced by others opinion. You may want to send it back or you may decide you like the laptop and want to keep it. Just be open to the possibility that it may not be a dealbreaker for you. If you go into it expecting the worst with your ear down to the keyboard concentrating on nothing but the fan noise you can certainly talk yourself out of a decent computer. Maybe it will be too much for you but it's at least as likely that it won't.

 

SmartWi Connection Utility is there for me under Programs and Features. It's not there for you?

 

I don't see it. Is that the same as VAIO Smart Network?

 

Ah, I think that is the European/Asian Software. I don't have that. You can try uninstalling. I don't know if people have the same issues with that as they do with Smart Wi so don't know if it will fix your issue. You should check first that you have a way to re-install it in case you change your mind. Check in Vaio Care/Recovery and/or your Sony support page.

Edit: Strange, that looks like a US model, but I don't have Smart Network on my F13 and do have Smart Wi. Anyway, same advice as above.