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

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

I think it will. A big time poster here JoeBleau stated is does/would work. Believe he had a 750GB. Price is only $14 so it may be worth the chance. Again, I cannot personally confirm.

This is the enclosure I use for my external drive and it's great.

 

Does this include the power over esata cable or do I need to purchase it separately?

 

It comes with. It's three feet in length, which for my use is too long, however I tuck it under my cooler so it sits right next to the laptop.

 

No BluRay players in these "office" machines. I will check BIOS and get back to you.

I have finished the 840QM model and I feel that it is the same as my 820QM model. WEI shows the same scores for processor and memory, graphics moves from 6.5 to 6.6 on both 3D and 2D, and the hard drive goes from 7.4 to 7.8. I agree on all numbers except the hard drive. The new Intel G2 120GB SSDs do NOT appear to be any faster at reads than my Crucial M225 256GB drive, and is definitely slower at writes than my Crucial. I tried several tests, and both open and load programs at the same speed, including startup. The Crucial is MUCH faster at writing. Windows and othr programs were installed MUCH faster on the Crucial.

Otherwise, I have to say that my year old F11 is just as fast as this new F13!

 

Thanks a lot ZPerf for the useful info.

 

Would be interesting the responses this post would get in the SSD thread. BTW how many F's to you own exactly?

 

Will the f13 support intel XMP (extreme memory profiles)?

 

I only own 1, an F11 (well, you can see it in my signature at the bottom of the post). I also bought 3 other F11s (well, I didn't buy them...I ordered them) for our church, where I take care of the church office computer system. The 3 church F11s are all 720QMs w/ 8GB RAM, lighted keyboards and 1600x900 screens and 310 graphics. All church F11s have 128GB Crucial M225s. I talked a relative into an F11 and a friend into an F12. Neither have SSDs, but I also service them. I just received the F13s. The two for the church (740QM, 8GB, 1920x1080, 425GT, backlit keyboard) are unboxed and I am currently creating recovery disks. I will then wipe the hard drives and remove them, installing them in Power Over eSATA enclosures. I will install the 120GB Intel G2 drives and install our multi-license W7 Pro 64 bit OS on them. Then the drivers and utilities from the recovery disks will be installed, all needed programs, the domain, server access, networking, printers, etc. The F13 840QM I just finished was personally bought by one of our church's staff for personal use. It also has a 120GB Intel G2 SSD.

I guess that adds up to 9 Sony Vaio F series laptops that I take care of...one that I own.

 

The thread where this was discussed is:
eSATA external hard drive enclosure that supports power from combo USB port

The enclosure mentioned by Fishon ( Model HE-2521B ) I discussed with Willscary some time ago. In the documentation about the chip used by this enclosure nothing is mentioned about hard disk size limitation (see my post for the links).

Theoretically speaking, if this chip makes a direct eSATA to SATA bridge, there is no limitation involved. Is like your hard drive is connected to a SATA port on your computer. If this chip does a USB to SATA translation, then the involved protocol is USB Mass Storage protocol. This protocol from my knowledge uses the ATAPI commands. So all the limitations should come from this. But the limitation for ATAPI is 28 bits versus 48 bits LBA addressing. Which means that the limitation should be 137.4 GB! So if it supports larger size than that, then is already supporting 48 bits LBA addressing, which allows sizes till 144 petabytes (see this for details). Windows XP starting with SP1 supports 48 bits LBA addressing (see MS KB303013), and this is used also when addressing USB hard drives (with a limit of 2048 GB), see Microsoft - USB Storage - FAQ for Driver and Hardware Developers:

So I see no reason why this enclosures would not allow larger hard drives than 500 GB! It’s just my reasoning.

 

Don't forget about power draw. The cable has its limitations, though I don't know if that would impact a 750GB 9mm drive.

 

I personally have 3 of these drive enclosures from last March or April. They work perfectly with the OEM drives that I remove from the F series laptops. However, as I did discuss earlier, they absolutely brick wall limit my M225 SSDs at 130 or 135 MB/sec. (I don't exactly remember because it was just a test a while back). I say brick wall because the transfer graph was not a normal jagged line, it was dead straight.

Still, for $14, it is faster than any 2.5" spinner drive and it is perfect for the 320GB OEM drives that I am using. One cable! I ordered 3 more this morning. They should be here next week. Unfortunately, I won't have an extra SSD to throw in them to see if they are still limited.

BIOS...

I have no problem finding BIOS with Everest and other software, but does Windows 7 actually list it somewhere?

EDIT: Forget it...Brain fart. Found it in Vaio Control Center.

BIOS is R0190Y9 on these brand new F13s.

 

That's interesting they gave you the new BIOS and Zperf as well but won't post it for us with the original one - R0180Y9.

 

What's the difference between the two, and is your BIOS on an older F13? Perhaps some hardware has changed with the newer F13s, like an F13.5?

 

Mine are 32", but I would much rather see something no more than 12" long.

 

The only thing I know for sure is that you're supposed to have the C3/C6 disable option. Don't know if there are other changes. I have one of the original CTO F13.

Edit: based on the above option at least it shouldn't be because of new hardware since they've been promising that option for the F13 since it started shipping.

 

So there is no confusion mine are 32" as well. Trying to respond to a question made here and work at the same time.

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

 

I got my new F13 yesterday (740QM, 8Gb, Premium display, 425M graphics, high capacity battery, backlit keyboard, BD reader, fresh start).

Here are my initial thoughts.

- I immediately noticed the whistling or whining fan noise. Its not that loud, but it sounds like that beeping sound you here when trucks backup. I keep thinking there is a truck outside backing up. It is subtle, my wife only hears it if she sits in front of the laptop.

- One dead pixel on the screen. I only notice it when the screen is dark. As far as the screen goes, it seems no worse or no better than the screen on my old Dell Inspiron 1515 (cheap laptop). Same reflective issues, same viewing angle issues.

- Wondering if I shouldn't have gotten the 1600X900 display. The 1920X1080 native resolution is a little small for me. (forces me to put on my reading glasses)

- Audio isn't that good, but it never is on laptops.

- I like the overall look and feel of the laptop

- Really like the feel of the keyboard.

- Nice long power cord

- Someone was asking, the BD reader is a 'Optiarc BD RROM BC-5500H'

- BIOS out of the box is R0190Y9

- This isn't Sony's fault, but I left the signed Fedex door tag on the door, came home from work and got the laptop off the front porch. Box was heavily damaged (they had tapped up the gash on the side of the box). After opening the box, the laptop seems to be ok, but the battery (packaged separately) was damaged - one of the latches was broken completely off, plastic was deformed. Battery still fits in the laptop, but I clearly will have to ask for a new battery if I keep the laptop.

- Overall, the only real turn offs are the fan and the dead pixel. I don't normally see the dead pixel, but I've never had a laptop with a dead pixel, and all my laptops in the past were just $500-$600 laptops. The fan is the bigger issue for me. It is a subtle noise, but I don't know if I want to hear it all the time. I'll let everyone know after using it over the weekend.

..by the way, my fan noise clearly sounds like some kind of harmonic of the fan - the noise can be heard most clearly by putting your ear up to the fan exhaust port.

I've seen the fixes where you change microphone settings, etc, but those fixes must be for a different type of sound - I don't see where the microphone or audio devices would have anything to do with this sound.

 

That’s right, anseio. But many of the new drives actually consumes less power than the older 100GB and 240GB hard drives, so by looking up the drives specification it should be easy to tell if it would work or not.

Thanks Willscary!

That’s really strange. Now I’m even more puzzled why this BIOS version disappeared from the Sony site (see my previous posts: this and this).

 

Hi! I installed the drivers but the pointing device (touchpad) isn't working. S1, ASSIST and VAIO keys neither. What should I do?

 

Same question again. Do you have unrecognized devises? In Device manager? If so you should manually search drivers for them in directory C: or C:/Windows. Of cource after installaton of driver for Sony firmware bla-bla. After that go to step 2 (If you had no unrecognized devices go to step 2)

2. Install Sony notebook Utilities (including Event service) and VAIO Care

 

Thanks rogressem! Congratulation for your new notebook!

Rogressem check out the link in my signature for the fan noises. I added links to samples, so it should be easier to identify which noise you have.

 

Oh yeah....good post. My noise is definitely the first one in your post. The variable fan noise doesn't bother me, but I'll have to get used to that whine. I would also like to have a way to set the minimum speed on that cooling fan so that it is above its "whining" rpm.

 

Will there be a none 3D Sandy Bridge refresh on the F series?

 

I'm doing a clean/fresh install using Windows 7 DVD, not the recovery disc. So I have no drivers in C:\Windows. I don't know why the touchpad isn't working since I've installed it's driver (Alps).

 

Oh my God. Repeat. But now I will try the longest way. If in device manager you see unrecognized device or device without driver (like Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device) you should download from sony support page this driver and other drivers. Then install them. If after all installations (as you said you did) you will still see them then DO a manual search in that folders I told you: Device manager, right click on device which has no drivers, update drivers, Do a search for drivers on this computer, Drive C and subfolders.
About touchpad. Can't say for sure why is that. Is it possible that your disk is scratched? I suggest you to use Windows 7 Usb/DVD tool for creating bootable USB flash drive as the safest way to install Windows. Touchpad must work without drivers. Doesn't it working at all or just additional functions doesn't work?

PS Perhaps you did not understand what manual driver search means.

 

The touchpad should work regardless of having to install the Alps drivers. This is supported by the fact that it works when booting into Windows Repair Center (no sony drivers), or booting with the Ultimate Boot CD.

I assume that your touchpad worked before you did the fresh install? Hate to recommend this, but I think you should restore from recovery discs and bring your machine back to its factory state JUST TO SEE IF THE TOUCHPAD WORKS.

good luck.

 

Yeah, it is strange how they removed the update, my F13 BIOS is still R0170Y9. I should have downloaded the update when I saw it.....

 

I know. After the previous conversation, I was thinking that something must be wrong with the BIOS and they pulled it from Europe and Asia. Even then it didn't make sense why it was never given to us in the US since it had been out for so long. Then you said that you got your laptop back with it and all these new laptops, including US ordered laptops, are being shipped with the new BIOS, so clearly there was not a "recall" of the BIOS. This is the same one that was out since at least the beginning of December but they refuse to give it to those of us who ordered the laptop first and for some reason never made it available in the US. Sony frustrates me.

lulz - you have a Best Buy model, right? So, on your model's page you saw this update or were you looking someplace else?

Edit: I did send Sony Support an email about this. I'll post when I get a response.

 

Yes, it's a VPCF136FM from best buy. I saw the BIOS update on Sony's model page around the end of January/early February; right around when I bought this model.

 

I'm wondering if you saw an update for R0180Y9 instead of R0190Y9 since you have an even older BIOS from a pre-configured model. Anyway, I asked Sony about it and mentioned yours as well.

 

I am just finishing my 3rd clean install on an F-series in the last 2 days. I have done over a dozen clean installs on these computers. Perhaps I can help.

I purchase F's with Windows 7 Home Premium. I take these computers and swap out the factory hard drive for an SSD, then I perform a clean install of a mass licensed version of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.

The best way to accomplish this (I guarantee it as I have done this MANY times!) is to take your brand new computer out of the box, plug it in (WITH A WIRED INTERNET CONNECTION ALSO CONNECTED) and turn it on. The first thing to do after you have done this is to find Vaio Care in your programs and open it. You will find "Recovery and Restore" in the menu. Enter "recovery" and click on "Create Recovery Media". It will tell you how many disks you need. Follow the directions and create the 3 or 4 disks that are called for. Be sure to check the box to verify the write. It takes longer but is safer.

Once these are complete, you are ready to wipe the hard drive (or swap out one for a new, empty one) by inserting the Windows OS DVD into the optical drive, then shutting down the machine. When the machine starts, it will begin the process of the clean install.

Myself, I don't like recovery partitions on hard drives. If you use recovery disks, I don't see how you need to waste the space of a recovery partition. Because of this, when I get to the point in the beginning of the OS installation where it asks me where I want to install the OS, I click on each partition, one at a time, and I delete it. Once this is done, I am left with one large unoccupied space. This is where I install the OS.

When the OS is finished installing, I insert the 1st recovery disk and tell it to run when the popup window asks. This will begin Vaio Care Recovery. You will be asked if you wish to restore to original or simply reinstall drivers, utilities and programs. To restore to original, you would need to restart the computer. You do not want to do this. Instead, you just click "OK" to reinstall missing drivers, utilities and programs.

You may have to ckick "OK" a second time, then a list of all applications and drivers will appear. Check the box next to all drivers, any programs that you want and the few Vaio utilities that are needed for use (you can find which of them are needed by reading many posts on this site).

As it works, you will need to exchange disks a few times. You will need to watch the process as there will be windows popping up that need a response. When windows pop up that say that something has installed successfully and a restart is needed, DO NOT RESTART! Tell it to restart later. When the entire process is finished, it will tell you it is completed and you can restart at that time. In each case, when I restart after the finish, I will see a popup that tells me to restart again. For me, this happens twice for a total of three restarts.

After all of this, I then update windows several times until it tells me that there are no new updates. I then open "device Manager" in Control Panel and look for missing drivers. On these new machines, a PCIe Reader driver and the Wireless Network Adapter failed to install, so I went to Sony USA website, found my model, clicked on drivers and Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, then downloaded and installed them. At that point, everything works.

I then go to nvidia drivers site and download the latest drivers for my video card.

Done.

EDIT: At this point, I install my security...in my case I use Microsoft Security Essentials.

I have had no problems. Just be sure that you get all the utilities that are needed to load and be careful not to put all of the unneeded crap back onto the computer!

I hope this helped!

 

I honestly don't remember which revision, I was downloading drivers after doing a clean reformat. A bios update wasn't on top of my list at that time, and I forgot about it.

Thanks for mentioning this to Sony.

 

Well, here's the lame response from Sony:

Thank you for contacting Sony Support.

I'm sorry that the BIOS Update for the VAIO is not available for download from Sony. I suggest that bookmark the Sony eSupport website and visit the website periodically to check for any updated information:

Sony eSupport - VPCF1390X - Software Updates & Drivers

Regretfully, due to all the variables involved with, testing, manufacturing, shipping and distribution, we are not able to provide any definite release dates for the update released from Sony. However, I've forwarded your request to our Sustaining Engineering Team. If any update is available for your VAIO, it will be available for download from the model specific website.

Thank you for choosing Sony.

The Sony Email Response Team
C10Z
Brad

 

For someone who doesn't know that you can use 2-nd HDD instead of optical drive and for that who knows but still did not do it because of expensivness of SSD Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTX50G 2.5" 50GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) 50GB for 90$ (75 after rebate) free shipping

 

That's the same price per GB that I just paid (each) for 3 Intel G2 120GB SSDs...$179.99 after $30 rebate. $1.50/GB beats the heck out of the $2.75-$3/GB that was common just 1 year ago! Worth every penny then and an even better value now, in my opinion. Peopel will spend tons on processor, memory and GPU upgrades, but nothing will make nearly as much of a difference on system speed than a good SSD.

 

Yeah, I told 1 guy not to buy laptop with 16 GB of RAM 1333Mhz or to buy it at least aftermarket to safe money and he was speaking with me like I am an annoing fly who doesn't let him live in patience. Also I told him that he will be able to buy 1600 Mhz in 1-1.5 month which is better... did not listened to me. All he did was listening people who said how great and lucky he must be. Palmhand. He spent about 3.000 I guess and no SSD while he had 3 slots for hard drives.

About SSD. You said that Intel is not as good as crusial. If the price is the same per Gig perhaps OCZ is better to buy? (yes it is not big capacity, only 50 GB)
Also, frankly speaking I did not found that Intel SSD for that prise you told about last time...

 

Yeah that would be great. If we only could modify bios so the fan doesn't linger around problematic rpms.

Wonder if you have the whistle around same rpms as I do: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...7-owners-thread-part-5-a-341.html#post7204433

 

Even if it was the R0180Y9 now is gone too. I checked for several models including VPCF136FM and there is no BIOS update.

Also add to this that on the Sony discussion group, in the “ Vaio Laptop fan noise?” thread, the east_eden user mentions that:

Based on this, in BIOS version R0180Y9 you supposed to have support for CPU C3/C6 state enable/disable, but, jpride, you told me that you don’t have it!

 

I know. This is why I am so frustrated with sony. The email support guy totally ignored all this information I told him in my email. And just to confirm, I checked again before I left my house and I certainly do not have that option in my BIOS.

 

Same here
F1390X
with R0180Y9 BIOS

 

More memory is always better, but right now, 12-16GB is kind of a cap for higher performance in personal computers. A friend of mine, on the other hand, has 256GB or RAM in his main system. Of course, he manages thousands of computers all over the world from his basement office in the middle of a quiet woods (just down the road from me). I would love to put 16GB in these machines, but I have not seen that density in our 204 pin sticks, and I doubt that our motherboards would handle that much. Also, I am still quite sure that putting in 1600mhz RAM would not be any faster than 1333mhz RAM in our F series as the mobo only supports up to 1333. If anything, it would clock the faster sticks down to 1333, or perhaps they would just not work.

I love the specs and prices of OCZ, but their reliability bothers me enough that I have stayed away. OCZ seems to stand behind their product and replaces defective units, but I don't have the time to reinstall everything after failures.

I don't know about the Intel G2 SSDs yet. I know they are rated higher, and I know that they are faster than my M225s at small file reads, but I also know that they are faster on small file writes, but are much slower at large file writes. I just installed 3 of them and I can tell you that installing the OS and programs took much longer on the Intel G2s. I will say that it now seems that the G2 is a bit snappier than the M225s when opening files and small programs, but it does not load the OS (large file) any faster than the M225s. One thing I do know...they are about 3.5X more reliable than the M225s and about 10x more reliable than the OCZ branded SSDs. I care about reliability more than the difference in speed. On a final note, the average SSD is more reliable than the average HDD. Some HDDs have 1 year reliability rates of less than 90%! These are not off brands, these are well known brands and models! I have had HDD problems in the past...3 dead in under 6 months in one machine, all replaced under a factory warranty.

With the price I got (Newegg on March 1st), the Intels were too good to pass up. For one day they were $209.99 USD with a mail-in $30 rebate...$179.99 after rebate for 120GB. By the way, the Intel only really has 111.2GB of usable space where the 128GB Crucials have 119.2GB of usable space. My 256GB drive has 238.4GB usable.

 

Hey guys .. So I had a question .. Well my laptop still hasn't arrived yet, but when it does I would be interested in playing the new StarCraft II on it .. According to the benchmarks mentioned here: NVIDIA Geforce GT 425M - Notebookcheck.net Tech .. the performance doesnt look TOO good if you want to play on ultra or high, especially if you want to play in 1920x1080 ..

So is there anything I can do to maybe slightly boost the frame rate a little more ? How about overclocking the CPU or GPU or using some different drivers, etc .. ?

I'm not familiar with the i7-740 or 425M so I'm asking this ..

Also, can I buy a 460M card separately and upgrade from my 425M to 460M, and then maybe sell the 425M ?

I did find some other laptops that had the more powerful 460M card in them that were within my budget, but I really wanted a VAIO so I skipped on them .. But a VAIO with a GTX 460M sounds very pleasing to me

EDIT: Oh I just found out .. Laptop components cant be changed like for PCs .. sad

 

@ahmadka no you can't replace the GPU - it is soldered down. You can download the latest NVIDIA drivers and system tools and overclock. A couple people have posted their clocks but you can test it out for yourself.

 

Counting down the days, hope Sony is quick and I get it in under 10 days. Does anyone know if my new F13 will have the latest BIOS release? Been reading the forum about them pulling the BIOS update down.

 

Can't guarantee you anything but everyone with a new CTO F13 has been getting the latest BIOS.

 

is there an easy way for me, living in NY, to order F13 with full HD MATTE screen?

need one for service department at work.

thanks

 

Only if you know somebody (that you trust enough) in another country that can get it for you. Then there is the warranty issue. Probably not a good idea for a work machine.

 

Thinking of buying me a Sony Vaio F, how's the durability with it and is there common problems with it?

 

In my opinion, because this is a laptop with a reletively small display (compared to a desktop), there is no need to play games in Full HD. I play all the latest games in 1280x720 usually on high settings (with some over clocking!) and they look and feel great. Its only when your using a bigger monitor (say 24") that 1280x720 is going to start looking chunky.

 

@Willscary: Thank you for your detailed post, bus is there a simple way to install windows 7 on my VAIO F13 and then just install the drivers, without recording recovery disc, just install and then the drivers and then it works? I really don't want any recovery discs.

And I have no idea why my touchpad isn't working. I don't know where to enable it. It worked normaly before the fresh install.

I installed Vaio Care but that didn't help either.