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

so do u think I should wait for the holiday season? Does sony usually go on sale at those times?

 

i HATE 3D TECHNOLOGY, wont be getting a 3d laptop for a LONG TIMe, my top laptop will be great for a long time anyway.

 

Omaroo - That guide is a compilation, by Joe Bleau, of all of our experience and knowledge with clean installing. The F12 has little differnces than the F11. Please read through the guide several times and then come back with SPECIFIC questions about it.

Everyone who has used it hasn't had a problem figuring out. I'm expecting the same of you.

Sorry, I have no opinion on that subject, so don't want to steer you toward, or away from, the wrong thing.

 

Does anyone here have experience with the latest edition in the F Series line? I'm trying to decided between the latest Vaio/ Asus or a Sager 8760 and I'm pretty much at a stand still here. I played with one today and partially fell in love but I figured I'd ask the masses first.

 

I Have the sony vaio vpcf11z1e and i hear a very lazy noise for some seconds and then silence and then the same noise! It's forever!! I'm going crazy! The cpu usage is 1%. I disabled also superfetch,memoryboost, but no hope.

Maybe it's the hard drive, but why working? Or the fan? What is it??

 

So I installed the new hard drive and installed Win7... it seems like my backup image was corrupt (I think there was actually a hardware problem with the drive...). Anyhow, it's actually pretty nice having a clean slate (installing Sony drivers right now), but the downside is that I lost all of my games and all of my saved game files . I was pretty lucky in that I managed to save my school and work documents. An interesting note - the backlight on the keyboard starts on whenever you type if you don't have the sony drivers installed.

Just one request from you guys (thanks to anseio and fishon for the links and especially anseio for pointing me towards the UBCD) - does anyone have count_scheluma's screen profile? I'd really like to have it, but I saw that the original link is now dead. If anyone has it and would be willing to share, that would be awesome and I would be forever thankful!

 

Hey! Good to see you! Glad you got things worked out. Sucks about the game saves though.

UBCD is kinda nice. I've got mine to boot from my USB drive and can use Ghost4Linux to clone my 2nd HDD. It's a bit for bit clone, so takes several hours, but it's free and will save me in a pinch if I have to swap it out.

I used to have those profiles downloaded, but lost them a few months ago.

 

Are good programs deleted in regards to a fresh install, and is it true u need 3 disks to make recovery disks

 

Programs that you deem useful may not be installed. You can install them later from the recovery discs. Yes, you'll need 3 DVD's to make your recovery discs. More just in case the process errs.

 

Hi Guys
I have some questions and i am sorry if they seem to be repeated or something
I am about to recieve my Sony Vaio F13 New Laptop and it is a desktop replacement and my first laptop ever
I am very excited about it and have some questions :
1- When i recieve it what is the first thing i have to do ?
2- Will the clean install make a big difference knowing that it isn't with fresh start ?
3- The battery issue : is it safe for the battery life to use it while the Ac Adapter is connected ? And What is the best way to use the battery without affecting it's life time ?

Finally thanks for this awesome thread ​

​

 

Hi Mido...

1 - The first thing you should do is start VAIO Care and make your Recovery Discs.

2 - Clean Install and Fresh Start are very similar. I think Frest Start does actually come with some Sony programs installed. I think Fishon has a Fresh Start, so can answer better.

Yes, a Clean Install will make a huge difference. There are a lot of things running in the background that you may neither want, nor need. They use up resources and cause your CPU and fan to work more than they should. See this Clean Install using Recovery Discs guide for a lot of useful information. Give a read a few times over, then feel free to ask questions.

3 - Yes. There is a feature in the VAIO Control Center (that's the S1 button) > Power Management > Battery called "enable battery care...". This has a little bit of info. Basically, you can set a max charge limit, which will help prolong the life of your battery.

You're going to love having this laptop.

 

1... Unbox it!
Then check that everything is present and correct.
Check for scratches, dents etc.
Boot up into windows and make sure the spec is correct and that everything is working OK.
Try out the included sony apps to see what you'll want to load back after doing your clean install.
NOW MOST IMPORTANT! Make your system recovery DVD's.

2... The clean install will speed up the (already fast!) laptop quite a bit, so is worth doing.

3... If you're going to use it plugged in most of the time then go into battery care and set it to charge to only 50%
If you use it out and about alot then put it on 80% and top it up before you go.

Hope you have fun with your new lappy!

 

As anseio said, it includes instructions for the F12_reading the guide through and through a few times should make it all come clear. The fact is that if it goes wrong you'll have the recovery disks to start the process again, so no problem if you went wrong. The install is from recovery disks which return your F_to factory condition but you stop the process early hence the clean install. You get your Win7 as it was from the factory fully active, you get most of the drivers etc and the guiide tells you which other drivers you may need. As far as programs go, try them all out and write down the ones you like and want to reinstall, also check the guides list of programs to further help you decide which programs to reinstall from the recovery disks or from the Sony_support website. Everything you need is there, you can speak and write English and you're at University so you shouldn't have any problems at all, if you do ask (again as anseio says) a SPECIFIC question to do with the process that you're having problems with. You should be able to do it all and fine as many others have before you. I write this post because I hope to reduce the following posts from you questioning the clean install process, read the guide carefully.

Regarding the post about 3D tech and your F12_ we get that you're happy with your laptop but now you're sounding like someone defending their purchase decision and their laptop over the future (just like some others). Be happy with your F12_if others want to talk about future revisions then let them.

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@MrVGA, what will be your use for the laptop? Makes a large difference also, how important aesthetics are to you, screen quality, graphics card and thermal management among other things. Depending on your preferences we may be able to advise you on a purchase, also which region are you from? Granted the which laptop should I buy section may be a better place to look, I doubt many F_owners would frequent it so no problems from me having the post here to get good answers.
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@mangosango, it's great you got your work files off shame about the game saves, if you got the work files and docs is there no way to get just a few game saves aswell? Great to see you up and running again! Is this the first proper HDD failure from a user in the thread, after using the laptop for a while (as in not a HDD failure in the first week)?

 

Hi all,

Have been reading the F series threads and am leaning towards getting the F13 series (instead of the Z13 series) but i do have a few questions before getting one.

- When receiving the F13 preinstalled with an esata 2.5" harddrive, is it possible to fit an SSD as the primary drive and the harddrive as secondary?
Any tutorials or guides on this already?
- Does the F13 have any display or sound or fan problems that many previous F series laptops had?

Thank you in advance

 

Pls help me!!

 

Look through this part 5 thread - on pages 18ff., the non-fan high pitch sound problem is described in all detail.
In the following post, user Drambuie perfectly explains where the noise technically comes from:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...i7-owners-thread-part-5-a-20.html#post6769572
Roughly, the noise comes from the chipset and sets in when the CPU is almost idling. Appearantly it's a common problem of many, though not all F notebooks, and high voltage Intel processors in general. You may use Google with the keyword "CPU whine" to find many other threads and examples of more or less similar issues, also concerning MacbookPro and HP Envy.
I'm not sure what to recommend - I think sending the notebook back in favor of a new F isn't even a save option (Edit: obviously you're out of the return time anyway), as the problem is that common and there isn't a way to fix it. At least I was told so by my repair service, and my forum impressions support this. But then, it isn't a damage at all, it's just very irritating, especially in combination with the F's standard droning and unsteady fan sound in addition. So it depends on you what to do with it!

 

1. Replacing the HDD guide here.
Using the HDD as secondary you have 2 options, a) Replace the ODD with your HDD using this guide here. You could then just use an external ODD enclosure, all detailed in the guide. b) You could buy a power over eSATA enclosure as discussed by many users, although this means when you want to use it it'll be a plugged in as shown in a picture in the second link.

2. If by your name, you are Dutch then you'd have the EU matte screen which has only received good feedback. Sound? If you mean the high pitched noise from the CPU area (the issue gr-fan links to above) then nobody has said if the F13_has this problem but apparently it's prevalent among i7 & i5 processors, and you may or may not suffer from it, but with the apparent mobo change on the F13_and the supposed better i7 management then maybe there is a change in the problem causing the sound. If not, then not that many complain about the sound. The other "morse code" sound shouldn't be there and if it was it's easily fixed. There is a chance of getting the sound I mentioned first with any i7 laptop supposedly, and there are ways to minimise it's presence. Fan problems I'm not sure which you mean... The fan is louder than some but the laptop is one of the coolest and so has good thermal management with a single fan. If the fan spins on max the whole time then you need to reset the CMOS that's all and has happened to a few people once or so . Not sure of much else to mention about the fan.

Any other questions just ask, with either the F13_or Z13_you should be happy! Of course this thread may be biased .

 

i am really confused, i have read joe bleaus guides but its too much to take in, i dont know why you have to abort vaio rescue care in F12, i thought it would be simplier to do a fresh install.

 

Hi Guys,

I'm nearly there in purchasing the F13 but am still confused on a few points. I hope someone can give me some advice towards my decision.

I am now lookig at two different series's and due to the screens. How do you feel the UK Vaio Display premium compares to the E Series Full HD 1920x1080 17.3 Led Backlit screen? Will the Led backlit screen give a crisper, clearer image? It seems that the F series really should have had the same quality screen as appose to the ccfl backlight.

Also with the UK Dispaly Premium being matte, is it true that the images/videos are a little duller and not as crisp as the normal glossy screens. Screen quality, brightness and crispness is all important to me and I dont really want to throw away £1600 if its not going to look as good as a normal dell led backlit full hd screen which in my opinion is very crisp.

Thats my only really dilema left as I am used to a dell glossy screen at current but love all the other feautures of the F series.

It seems that the E series maybe a better option and screen may produce better quality than the display premimum.

Your thoughts and comments would be much appreciated.

Thanking you in advance.

 

Quality and crispness are very different things. The F_matte screen will give better colour representation and is meant to be a screen for those that care about quality screens. The EC series screen I'm unfamiliar with, apart from passing one in a store, with the glossy you "may" have a brighter screen and look crisper.

A screen is not just about it's backlighting technology, the F_matte screen uses dual CCFL backlighting and achieves near 100% Adobe colour representation. Those lucky enough to have these screen have been very impressed, and so I would say the best way to see which would be better for you would be to compare side by side. It's oversimplifying to say anything else, such as the E series would be x y or z. If you search for luminance information on both the F_matte screen and the EC_series you'll find out about brightness, other than that it'll be hard to find out on the web but I'd definitely say the F_matte screen is great. You may want to compare a few other things between the series such as CPU, GPU and so on, good luck .

 

Just one request from you guys (thanks to anseio and fishon for the links and especially anseio for pointing me towards the UBCD) - does anyone have count_scheluma's screen profile? I'd really like to have it, but I saw that the original link is now dead. If anyone has it and would be willing to share, that would be awesome and I would be forever thankful!
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Here you go

 

Just one request from you guys (thanks to anseio and fishon for the links and especially anseio for pointing me towards the UBCD) - does anyone have count_scheluma's screen profile? I'd really like to have it, but I saw that the original link is now dead. If anyone has it and would be willing to share, that would be awesome and I would be forever thankful!
__________________

Here you go

 

Most of the info in the guide isn't the actual clean install, it's background information. Such as what programs do what, which things are important etc. How to choose whether to keep recovery partition or not and so on. The important actual clean install process is pretty much booting to the recovery disks, choosing the option as described in the guide for the F12_then selecting to start the process of your choice. After the restarts as said in the guide you have to kill a certain process by having your task manager open in advance being ready to cancel at a specific program. The whole point is for the CLEAN INSTALL. Recovery disks give you the FACTORY install, the CLEAN INSTALL is achieved by stopping the FACTORY install before it's done installing all the extra bloatware. That is the whole point. You get Win7 fully set up, you get your drivers and so on, and it's just a few things you have to install from the recovery disks or from the sony_website.

If this is too much then don't bother clean installing, it's nice to do and gives you a clean and lean system but if you can't figure it out then don't bother, the laptop works as it is. A clean install is for the user that wants a clean system to run faster and wants the best from their system, it's not exactly required for someone who isn't that technical (eg. thinking they need ultimate without researching it). If you still want to do it, ALL the information is there AND in the owners lounge threads, it seriously is.

The clean install is fairly simple. JoeB's guide is thorough but the key points are also clear to see, seriously read it through many times. Is English your primary language? Any which way if you can't figure it out after all this then just leave it and uninstall some of the bloatware if you want to.

____________________

As an aside, it's quite annoying not being able to rep people for good posts when this is the only thread I really frequent. Having to spread the rep around.. apart from viewing other threads I'm yet to find more posters to rep :/

 

well the recovery disks are factory settings, kinda of weird u have to terminate a process for a clean install

Just made my recovery disks i think, hope they work, thing is when i put the first disk in it came with an auto run for sony which i ran and then came up with amessage said click ok to reinstall driver or programs or click cancel to format or reinstall windows, and i clicked the latter, hope everything works.

 

So, there is nothing that we can do..

 

thanks man. much appreciated. I'm typing this on $2000 dell inspiron, the best money could buy 6.5 years ago Its still hanging in there but this F13 will be a worthy replacement.

cheers

 

guys can you please give me anwser to which option to pick to do a complete fresh install from the following BOLD text.

In the Select recovery type window, select the desired recovery option:

* Factory condition : Restores the computer to the original factory software configuration.
* Custom recovery - Remove recovery contents : Removes the recovery drive and restores the computer to the original factory software configuration.
* Custom recovery - Resize C: and create D: drive : Allows you to change the size of the C: drive and allocates the remaining space to a newly created D: drive.
* Custom recovery - C: drive only : Restores the C: drive to the original factory software configuration. If a second partition exists on the hard drive, such as a D: drive, the files stored there will not be deleted.

 

btw.
This high pitched noise is not uncommon in other brands. My old Inspiron 8600 dell has it noticable specially when mainly idle when its very quietin the room. One other laptop (also dell inspiron but about 4 years younger) at my work does the same thing.

I used to do a lot of sound, and i can tell you this "micro noise" as i called it used to get even through my fire wire 410 external sound card and get into sound recording. I coud hear it on headphones whhen playing back tracks recorder with this machine. let me resure you, as i did A LOT of trouble shooting and investigating, it did get through the 1394 port from my dell to headphone and mic pre amps. Different laptops didn't have it at all.

I don't know weather this was processor producing this noise when its working at certain level, or some other component, but I can hear it right now as i type this on my dell. Not continuous, but in short/long bits

 

anyone please reply to my above post?

 

If possible, I'd return it and try another F. The sound exists on my F11 but only at a very low level; I can't hear it with the fan running unless I put my ear near the vent. Since only a minority of F owners are bothered by this sound, I think there's a good chance that another F would be better.

For those who have a bad CPU whine, which processor? I wonder if the problem is worse for some processors than others because their clock speeds may be different in the same power state.

Dave

 

Just thought I would post a warning. I have the new f13z1e and I have the Fan-whistle problem that Tausif originally reported.

 

Omaroonie,

There are two ways to do a clean install:

1 - You can install a retail copy of Windows 7. Doing this means you'll need to reactivate Windows 7 (annoying) AND you'll have to manually install each and every hardware driver, one at a time, in a very specific order.

OR...

2 - You can clean install from the Recovery Discs. What this does is install the version of Windows 7 that came on your lappy AND it automatically installs all but one or two of the hardware drivers (saves work).

To do #2 (no pun intended) you need to let the recovery process happen. It will install Windows 7 and create the disc partitions. It will then begin intializing Windows and installing drivers. THEN... this is the important part... it will restart (one of many) and begin installing all of the bloatware. This is where you are told to interrupt the process using Task Manager.

The timing is important and make take several attempts. If you decide that you can't make it happen, after a few tries, then just allow the process to complete and settle with a full install. You can always uninstall programs, but this only does so much good. There are always options.

Regarding Recovery Options mentioned... Since you're starting out with a new machine, I'd recommended a Full System Recovery. The other options are for when you've got your system set up a certain way, need to restore Windows, but don't want to lose data.

Good Luck. After a few attempts, it should make sense and not be that hard.

If you get this to work, you may need to manually install your ALPS driver (touchpad) and Realtek HD Audio drivers. Do this by installing VAIO Care (which you can download from your Sony support site), launching it, reinstall drivers/software. All of your bloatware and drivers are there and can be chosen one at a time.

Once you get this to work... come back and we can tell you what we think the minimum programs to install are.

 

Mine had the bigass i7 740 QM inside.

 

Dear stevieg

Many thanks for your email reply and for posting this message on the forum. It seems like the old problem with the fan noise still exists and has throughout the F series - I may have to Change my mind and go with the E series especially if your planning on returning yours.

I hope it all works out for you

Regards

It a

 

I found it easier to do the interupt step of the clean install when I did it the clean install from the hidden recovery partition rather than the recovery discs. But most people have managed fine using the discs. I didn't though.

 

ye i finally done it, a clean install. In regards to vaio care, in just downloaded it from my recovery disk 1, is that ok. Also is realtek and the other driver installed. I did have a problem with the wireless driver, had to unstall that manually.

Are all the drivers and programs on vaio care which i got from recovery disk, to download from or shall i use the sony site.

Got to say i found some weird noise, maybe it was the whistling noise after the clean install. Hope its not consistent, dont want to send it back as sony wont even do anything.

 

Gald it worked. You can install VAIO Update and get what updates it has to offer.

Now that you've got a clean system, PLEASE make a backup system image onto an external drive. You do not want to have to do the install again.

 

can anyone tell me where to download VAIO Update 5 Software and VAIO Hardware Diagnostics software.

Also what is the best free anti virus and anti sypware program i can dowload.

 

Yep. I've got a Vertex 2 in the 2.5" drive bay and a 500gb WD Scorpio Black in an enclosure running into the eSATA/USB combo port (only 1 cable needed since the USB supplies bus power over the SATA cable).

Alternatively you can remove the optical drive and put a secondary hdd in there. Instructions can be found in Joe Bleau's guide here.

All present indicators are that all the things wrong with the F12 have carried over into the F13. US folks might be getting lucky with matte premium 1080p screen availability but theres not enough F13 owners yet to confirm. Any F13 owners feel free to pipe in with a review.

 

Use your recovery discs.

 

how can i use my recovery disks, joe bleaus guide said insert the first one and download vaio care, which i have, so now would i need to reinstall my drivers and programs from the vaio care which i downloaded from the recovery disks. So am i doing anything wrong.

 

Can anyone tell me if the F13 comes with LED Screen or just LCD screen, Can't find this info anywhere.

 

VAIO Care is your gateway to all of the drivers/software that did not get installed with your Clean Install. EVERYTHING that you need is in VAIO Care.

ASSIST > Recovery & Restore > Recovery > Reinstall Applications and Drivers.

 

do you mean click the assist button on the laptop, if so it doesnt work, like i said i have followed everything step by step from joe, as i could find drivers which had to be done in order.

I downloaded vaio update and it updated vaio care, so i dont need to put the recovery disk in the drive to reinstall programs/drivers. Right?

 

I read that the Vaio FW comes with a 1.3 mp camera, so did they really reduce the camera quality for the F to .3.

 

My bad... I forgot to say that you have to manually launch VAIO Care from the Start Menu > All programs > VAIO Care.

You MUST install these:
VAIO Event Service
VAIO Help and Support
VAIO Control Center
Settings Utility Series
VAIO Power Management

AFTER you've installed VAIO Event Service the ASSIST and S1 keys will work. You need VAIO Control Center and Settins Utility Series in order for the S1 button to actually launch anything.

 

any more useful programs that i need to install from sony site or vaio care. At least all the bloatware is gone and i want to make sure i dont reinstall any more. I cant find vaio help and support in vaio care.

 

yeh, i was wandering if anyone knows how many megapixels F13 camera has as well?

thanks

 

Help and Support "should" be one of the things you can install.

You're on your own now. The rest of the programs you can try out as you wish and uninstall them if you do not like/need them.

Antivirus? www.avast.com

 

My understanding is that it's a CCFL LCD