Official Sony VAIO F Series i5/i7 owners thread *part 4*

Damn looks like the f13 is a he'll of a lot better then the F12. I am waiting for the f12 to get home. I wonder if Sony will exchange it

 

It's all relative. The second point is doubtful unless you simply returned the F12 for a refund and waited for the F13, up to you if a solution like that would be worthwhile. I'm lost as to why it would be .

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To Trancedellic, have you disconnected anything from the USB ports w/o first ejecting them? If the USB mouse was working all along then evidently something brought on the fault as you know already, although I'm not sure what that'd be.

 

For the simple fact the gpu is a hell of a lot better and it had 3.0 USB. When does it come out?

 

If these specs are accurate the F13 sounds absolutely awesome!

 

True! Makes me wish that I had waited for 6 months to buy mine! Of course, six months from now something else will be out that will improve on the F13 so much that I will wish I had that one. It is a never ending cycle.

Fortunately, my F11 is still abolutely blazing fast and I really have no need for the additional features of the F13 since I don't game and I don't have any USB 3.0 equipment (plus, I could always add a couple of USB 3.0 ports simply by utilizing the expresscard slot).

I think that Bobby Mcferrin said it quite well when he wrote "Don't Worry, Be Happy"!

 

I'm suprised the biggest HD option is only modestly increased to 750GB and not to a full 1TB... at 750GB I'd still be disappointed. Glad I didn't wait. Very happy w/my F12. Only three things I wish were better about my F12:

1. full 1TB hd instead of only 650GB
2. better speakers
3. "real" black case & bezel (not the dark charcoal gray Sony calls "black")

Other than those issues (all pretty trivial), couldn't be happier.

 

I don't believe that there are any 1 TB 2.5" drives that will fit in the standard notebook drive space. There are a few that are 12.5mm thick, but that is 30% thicker than the standard 9.5mm thick form factor. Very few notebooks will accept these oversized drives.

You could always spend $120 on a 1 TB drive and let us know how it works. I have seen 5,200 RPM models, but I have not noticed any 7,200 RPM models, so my guess is they would be quite slow also.

 

Aw man, why not a gt 460m in there? It runs cool enough... Sony_would rather you gamed on the PS3

Anyway, the gt 425m actually isn't THAT much of a performance upgrade (you get dx11, but tessellation and soft shadows are really performance intensive anyway, so I don't see the point...).

But the usb 3.0 sounds nice.

 

I waited five months for the upgrade. I bought the F12 a few weeks ago. Mostly I was waiting for the new GPU. Unfortunately, I needed a new computer to work now. USB3 is unnecessary to me. All my external HDD have USB2. Life goes on ...

 

Agreed. I guess for Sony the benifit of making a few gamers happy with a 460m isn't worth it. Also as you say there is the PS3. The 460m would be a great gamers choice in a cool F_series. The 425m on the other hand is more power but then has more work to do, dx11 is nice and all but it is also a major strain. From Sonys side there is no motivation to put anything above a 425m in the F from what I can see . Hopefully when the F12 drops in price and the F13 comes there'll be some more great posters in this thread.

 

Somebody asked a few pages ago how to clean the fan on the F_Series. Basically you have to remove the speakers cover as shown in the LCD replacement link in my sig below + remove the keyboard which has tricky mounting tabs & 2 screws. I will post a complete how to for both later tonight. Meanwhile here is Byron my Nica assistant/apprentice & the fan:



Edit: Now online, it took 10 times more time to make the article than actually swap the keyboard.

Vaio_F Series - How To Replace the Keyboard & Clean the Fan

*****

 

I bought a 650hard drive. I made the recovery discs but I have win7 home. I want to install a copy I have of win7 ultimate with the new hdf with all the Sony vaio software goodies. How do I do that? Or is my only option is to upgrade my win7 home to ultimate?

 

Just enter your Ultimate key in Start > Anytime Upgrade like I did. See bottom of the OEM clean install guide linked above in my sig. Worst scenario: call Microsoft to activate but it's probably not necessary.

 

Wait your saying that even if my vaio came with win7 home I can just put the key for win7 ultimate and that's it? Where do I enter the key?

 

Joe, could you make step by step photo guide "how to replace keyboard" ?
With you assistant of course.

 

Simple search... JoeB even told you how. If needed here is a video Windows Anytime Upgrade video. Sorry if my tone sounds a bit mean.

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To xp17, JoeB says in his post, he'll make a post about how to both remove the keyboard and the speaker cover. It's also been discussed how to replace the keyboard previously in the thread.

 

Do you think the Zalman ZM-NC2000 is the right choice?

 

You should refrain from double posting. The cooler seems ok, it blows air to the middle and bottom of the laptop and the vents are at the bottom.

Search the thread with "Laptop cooler" for information about recommended coolers such as the Coolermaster Notepal U2, and the vents on the F_series. Searching goes a long way when you have questions.

 

Double posting results in getting an answer.
I have seen that thread.

I just wanted to now if anybody recommends this cooler.

 

Thanks to both of you. Now I understand. I had idea about this feature.

 

so far i dont know anybody that owns a zalman nc2000 with a sony vaio f series. i was thinking about getting one but decided to get the notepal u3 instead. you should buy it and try it out and give a good benchmark about it

 

But you returned a Zalman, why not mention it?

 

VPCF135FG : F Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific
VPCF136FG : F Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific
VPCF137HG : F Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific

 

Thanks! +1 for your rep. (Come on cheapo/lazy, click on the weird icon if you find a post helpful or interesting).

Following your HG link got this side-by-side: F11_vs F12_vs_F13!

 

was just about to post this but you beat me to it!

 

Yes i know, but there is only how to replace LCD.
For you it is simple and I believe that it is simple, but I would not want to damage anything.

 

Aside from the aforementioned changes the only other one I see is there is a new power adapter. Looks nice for anyone getting one whenever they come, the F will continue to be a great choice imo.

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xp17 I meant that JoeB said he will make a guide that you will be able to follow with pictures. If he makes a guide to remove the speaker cover and how to remove the keyboard then all you have to do is follow the keyboard one and then when putting the keyboard back in, use your new one. Then you just need the advice given by others previously about plugging in the power for the backlight and where to put the wiring. As long as you're careful you'd be ok, just wait for his picture guide if you'd like to .

 

Quick question regarding the battery care function included in the vaio. Is it worth using? Does it really prevent battery degen? I will use my vaio with both ac power and battery, so I chose 80%.

But if I'm reading this right it says the battery will be set to only 80% and it will be permenantly set and the battery will only get used to it. So I'm going to lose 20% of my battery?

 

Battery care set to 80% will cap the battery to 80% charge reducing battery wear/degradation. In the short term you lose 20% of your battery capability yes, in the long run you prolong the life of your battery and also prolong it's ability to hold 80% charge.

Check JoeB's post here for a better explanation and a few pictures, the image showing long term battery wear being important.

 

Is this something u use? Do you recommend this?

 

I don't have my F yet due to a great delivery system... but I will have mine set to 50% as I will be plugged in nearly all the time and want my battery to be ok the few times I do use it, so when I need my battery I'd just turn off battery care charge it up to 100% and use it. If you use battery a lot and don't need the full 100% charge time like JoeB says he does, then yes using the 80% charge time makes sense. If you use the battery a lot and value the full 100% capacity then just be warned you may be looking to replace the battery when it wears to the point of holding under 80% charge. That said I can't say how long that wear would take JoeB says his battery is still fine! So go figure, pretty much if you want to prolong your battery life and don't mind losing 20% capacity then use it, you can of course turn it off the few times you want the full 100% charge.

 

In Portugal the notepal u3 is not available.
I just bought the Zalman.

I dont know how to do benchmarks, but i let you know the results here.

 

Thanks guys for the battery help. I will use 80% since I use the battery from time to time and good to know I can go to 100% when i travel.

Loving the vaio

Hey there this gadget that comes with the vaio the accuweather icon. Love it but when adobe air ran an update now that gadget doesn't work. Anyone know how to fix this? If not where can I redownload the gadget? I can't find it anywhere.

 

For anyone who cares...the Vaio battery care function really screwed up all of the F11s that I work with. It worked fine with W7 HP, but when I did the clean installs to W7 Pro, each machine began giving error messages that said that there was a battery error due to an incompatable battery or a missing battery.

The fix for this was to reinstall W7 Pro and instead of using the recovery disks for drivers and applications, I used the drivers and apps on the Sony support page for my F11s. The Sony webpage hase the applications separated out so that I can eliminate battery care and keep other needed apps. When using the recovery disks, battery care was bundled as a single application with other needed Vaio functions.

My guess is that this was a W7 Pro incompatability because it happened on all machines. Perhaps Sony has a different battery care code for W7 Pro users or perhaps they eliminate the program when they ship their machines with W7 Pro.

Has anyone here bought an F series machine with W7 Pro preinstalled? If so, do you have the Battery Care function, and does it work?

 

I have compiled this list to serve as a reference to the community. I am aware that it is not a complete list. For heaven sakes I can't even remember all of these.




You can get the Excel table in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/517448-windows-shortcuts-colection.html

 

I bought my F12 from Costco and it came with Windows 7 Professional. After reading the posts about prolonging battery life using Battery Care, I set mine to 80% since I occasionally use it without the adapter plugged in. As far as I can tell it is working. Right now I am plugged in and my battery charge indicator says "85% and not charging"

 

Working for me. Never a problem as of yet.

 

Ok..

Had to re-install everything

Either my Windows Backup Images were corrupt (but I rather think the external HDD I save it on got corrupt).

But now I have made a ghost clone on an "old" 100GB slooooo Hitachi which I will save in the safe for a rainy day / ssd / new hdd day.

Tested the ghost cloned HDD and everything is working 100% (although 10 times slower than the 320 Momentus XT I cloned

So with new install, time to reset color etc.

Found Joe's old display thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...o-f-series-owners-lounge-538.html#post5955001

And tried his 5900 ICC profile on my MAT 1920x1080 "Asian" (I am from South Africa and has a F127HG i7 740 premium notebook) - WOW.

The colors and text and everything on the screen is MUCH more vibrant (I tried mat800 and the 6500 (was part of a 3 pack somewhere on this site) - but the color was never that WOW).

Thanx Joe

PS - 79 processes running - with about every Adobe CS5 app installed - all running SUPER nice on this machine - Office 2010 Pro (with default settings), Powermenu (excellent app to keep windows on top of others - I like to stream my TV (other room) in a small window - not very productive, but hey... like to "multitask") and AVAST Free (best for ME).

 

Bill, the program that checks if you are using a Genuine Sony_battery is Battery Manager (also called ISB Utility): c:\program files (x86)\sony\isb utility\ isbmgr.exe. It's Genuine cr@p IMO. It also may be telling you when a battery needs replacement but one can see by himself when a battery does not hold it's charge anymore and as seen in the screen captures below, Battery Care and free & useful utilities like BatteryBar will tell you the health of the battery.

Battery Manager & Battery Care are 2 different things. One may use one w/o the other, like I do.

Months ago when I checked with the free, small & standalone Microsoft's Autoruns > Logon tab to speed up my startup time & eliminate unwanted background processes, I saw & researched what the heck isbmgr.exe was doing. From several web pages, it's only function is to scare you from using third party batteries, just like printers manufacturers do with ink cartridge.

So you could have solved your errors by simply removing from startup isbmgr.exe with msconfig or better: Autoruns. I've disabled mine months ago & everything is working fine on my F.

After writing the Battery Care post that DeWinte linked to above, I decided to test Battery Care set @ 80% to see how long it would take to reach 80%. @ night, I disconnect the F & it took 5 nights + the daily normal discharge to go from 100% to 80%.





More reading about ISBMgr.exe:

Sony_Support: Error: Battery is not for this model, not detected, not compatible, or not connected.



Sony_laptop Battery Mal-ware
Problem with Sony_VGP-BPS2 replacement battery
Problem with Sony_VGP-BPL2 battery
Problem With New Battery in Sony_Vaio Laptop

BTW, I ordered a Japanese aftermarket 7 200 mAh 9 cell large capacity battery on Fleabay for $85 shipped worldwide, much cheaper that the VGP-BPL21 (7 500mAh, $220~249 + shipping). I will run a 'battery' of tests on it & report in 2 to 3 weeks (customs willing).



*****

 

Thanks for the tip about isbmgr.exe that's on the list of things to disable now. Funny how Sony_tries to stop you using other batteries and then charge a sick amount for their own but then again look at apple . Good luck with the new battery Joe, and don't tell me about customs I've heard enough about my home in Jamaica, it's just eye popping. Seems I can't +rep the helpful people until I give it to others.

 

Thank you for the feedback.

There is a more recent article here: Vaio_F Series Monitor Calibration and Users Created Profiles Roundup.

While I suspect it would be similar, missing: a profile created by an F12_owner with a colorimeter. PM me & I will gladly add it to the article.

"...79 processes running" - That's quite a few! Check the bottom of Vaio_F Series Windows 7 64-bit Clean Install Guide Using OEM Recovery Discs for suggestions about bloatware. Check also the Autoruns comment in the Battery Error post above. Agreat tool to disable stuff & you can always undo it & even save a configuration & tweak & then compare the two with that awesome small utility.

"...Either my Windows Backup Images were corrupt (but I rather think the external HDD I save it on got corrupt)" - Windows Backup has a check box for checking the integrity of the backup. Look at the HDD's manufacturers support pages for HDD heath checking utilities or use stuff like HD Tune, etc.

Enclosures and/or cables can also cause problems. I had tons of errors once from an external enclosure & after changing the stupid USB cable, all problems were solved.

 

Here goes (if you care)

Background:
1) Had a work laptop - 1.6 Core 2 Duo, 15.6" 1200x800 display, 2GB Ram, X1400 Radeon, 320GB 7200rpm HDD, Windows 7 Ultimate (from XP to Vista to Win7). But it just could not cut the new applications (CS4 was OK, but beginning to struggle).
2) Wanted - something to handle CS5 (video editing, flash development, not really a gamer).

Why the F12:
1) Price seemed decent for the specs (firewire, HDMI, 8GB RAM, Full HD premium, 740 QM) - need something for mobile video streaming and post editing.
2) Got a Handycam XR550 - Full HD (so full HD screen, quick quad, max RAM required)
3) 16.4" still seems "portable" - it is almost exactly the same size as my old 15.6" 1200x800pix acer!
4) Anything similar in South Africa costs ALOT more and either is missing some ports (and no Expresscard to add later!), not full HD screen, core2!! etc.

What I like about the F12:
In no particular order: amazing screen, blazingly fast (after "upgrading" to 320GB Momentus XT -I believe in external backups so 500GB was overkill - Laptop has apps installed and "work" is copied to and from external / NAS / networked PC's).

What bothers me about the F12:
The fan (a little bit) - but since it runs cool and I ALWAYS have the radio / tv / mp3's / earphones on it does not bother me THAT much. I also DON'T have it in my bedroom so it is not bothering my wife and I don't hear it when it is HOWLING during Premiere CS5 / Super / Handbrake - trans/encoding sessions

Would I have waited for the F13: NO
1) There was no mention of the F13 when I bought the F12 (many stores still had the F11 on the FLOOR in South Africa!)
2) In the past month it has been used to MAKE me some money and saved me ALOT of time. TIME = MONEY. So waiting for me would have cost me..
3) Nothing I own is USB 3, BUT I have a few eSata enclosures with TB HDD's

It is a really powerful laptop and best of all: it fits in my "new" Crumpler Dark Side 17" backpack (snugly in the inside "carry pouch" with the larger batter!).

 

I upgraded the W7 in my F12 from the preinstalled Home Premium to Ultimate, using the upgrade key that came w/the Ultimate package & the 80% battery care setting works fine...

 

Hi all:

First off, I simply cannot believe this thread is STILL active! I came here before buying my F12, and got great advice (I am tickled pink with the PC). That being said...

Last night, I connected my F12 to my Sony Bravia KDL-26M4000 TV (1280×720) via HDMI cable, to watch a Blu-Ray disc (Planet Earth). The image would not display. The Corel WinDVD GUI displays, but the content window just shows a solid blue screen, with sound.

Other PC images, like the Desktop etc, do show on this same TV, with no problems. This same HDMI cable connects to my Samsung TV with no issues, with this same Blu-Ray disc.

I get the feeling this may be DRM related, or Sony brand related (as both lappy & TV are Sony) but after scouring the web (and this forum) for answers, came up empty-handed. It seems that this must be a pretty straight forward issue, but I am unable to resolve it on my own. Can anyone advise me on what my problem may be?

The TV manual is of no help...that's the first place I looked. The TV has a manufacture date of April, 2008, if that matters.

I was not sure if this is the proper forum for this question, so if it is NOT, KINDLY advise me to where I may post this.

Thanks

 

Sorry guys- I thought this was a recent update. I'll fill this up with something else.

Edit: NVIDIA Geforce GT 425M

nicksti posted this in another NRC thread.



http://www.overclock.net/attachments/nvidia/166332d1280640283-info-gt-425m-1007301917d70d3c0ba9703f8c.png

 

true but i got a zalman nc3000(which i returned because did not help a bit) which is a bit different from the nc2000

 

Usng the Restrict feature on notebookcheck's Laptop Video Graphics Cards - Benchmark List to compare the F13's GT 425M to the GT 330M:

 

Hmmmm.... Have you updated the NVIDIA driver for your GPU? Link provided in my signature. Have you also installed the latest WinDVD update (which came out earlier this year)? When you connect via HDMI are you running duplicate displays, split, or projector only?

I had no problem playing a Sony Blu Ray Disc using my VAIO F11 on my friend's Bravia (do not know model#) at 1080p with the projector only display setting.

 

Now online, it took 10 times more time to make the article than actually swap the keyboard.

Vaio_F Series - How To Replace the Keyboard & Clean the Fan

 

I'm certain its not DRM related . Not sure if this will help your problem but I installed the NVIDIA 258.96 driver update a few weeks back after a clean install... after that, when I started WinDVD, whenever I tried to maximise the winDVD window, the whole screen would freeze to black although there would still be audio .

I didn't try updating winDVD but reinstalled the factory installed nvidia driver from the recovery partition . After that , winDVD worked fine.

Hope this helps. BTW, have you updated the NVIDIA driver since you tried it with your Samsung TV ? If so, you could try going back to previous restore points prior to your update rather than reinstall the NVIDIA driver if that is supected to be the problem.

EDIT- But more to the point, are you even able to see the movie on the F laptop , nevermind the Sony TV ? If yes then it is possibly not NVIDIA driver related, but may still be worth a shot.