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

quick question for the F12 users - does your power cord inlet flex? I just noticed this on my F12, it has some slack and you can wiggle it about a bit - just wondering if its designed this way (in the case of someone pulling the cord by accident) or if mine is faulty?

 

That's why I wrote 98%, it leaves 2% of the time for hardware issues considering the whole of the posts in the 4 threads.

I live in Costa Rica & it's a 6 to 8 weeks round trip to Sony_USA at best + possible customs headaches (which is a 4 hour drive round trip for me on partially dirt roads) for servicing so believe me, I try to fix things myself before shipping it & I make sure to check all troubleshooting steps before blaming the hardware.

For example, my default F display settings was bland, overly blue, lacking saturation. Did I RMA my F? No, I created a custom profile with a colorimeter that I shared along with others in the F owners created monitor profiles roundup. It was not hardware.

In your OP, you wrote that only text was the problem so I replied with a text sharpness fix, what's wrong about that reply?

 

I live in Wageningen, so going to Amsterdam just to compare the two is a bit much. Maybe they have them in Utrecht as well. Thanks

 

I don't think it's that simple. Notebooks do very much differ in screen quality. I quite like my current 4,5 old Inspiron 6400 screen, but hate the screen on the 1 year old Studio 15 my brother owns. Both are glossy. So I don't mind it being a glossy screen, I do mind if the vertical viewing angle is that narrow, its easily noticeable. So i'd much rather like to see the actual screens in person when I can.

 

I have a F11, but yes, it flexes. Since the cord turns with a 90 degree angle and sticks out, I believe this is good design.

 

Several users in previous threads saw the 1080p matte next to the 1080p glossy & all said that the matte was superior by a huge margin. Check the F user display satisfaction polls: F11_and new F12.

It's a pity that you are in the dilemma of choosing the proper CPU/memory configuration for your needs vs. the display but at one point since there are already about 20 different F configurations on Sony_support, I guess that they have to limit the number of configurations mix offered for cost/market size/demand reasons.

If you want a superior display w/ an i3 or i5, maybe you should look at other brands/models according to Tanis.7x's post.

 

Thanks for that but could you mention the enclosure's brand & model number to put this screen capture in context as everything is relative.

*****

Power Cord Flex?

+1.

 

Are you making a database on E-sata enclosures?

 

I am checking out other brands and models. Thing is. I want this laptop to last, like at least 4 years. So one brand is ok in the spec department, but the build quality is questionable. The other is ok buildquality wise, but has a lesser quality screen. I just can't seem to find one that has medium specs with good screen and sturdy exterior. So far, the Vaio's are my best chance, however I still have to decide whether its worth the 1400 Euros

 

I got curious, why does this noise be audible if the adapter is delivering 120W; the signal is boosted, change of amplifier, more sensitive to signal disturbance?

EDIT: Saw the price for a new one, 167,76 USD. xD expensive or not?

EDIT 2: The noise increases when the Screen is dimmend. I have the latest graphic drivers.

 

tausif: Regarding the VAIO care not recognizing your ODD. I personally encountered this. It is due to the dumb VAIO care not able to tell or choose the correct ODD when you run an emulated one like daemon or powerISO.

Try removing the drive from the software(no need to uninstall) and run vaio care again. It should work.

 

Funny, I noticed this very thing for the first time only moments ago, when I picked up my new F12, placed it on my lap & continued reading the new posts in this thread, which I had been reading when I got up to answer the phone. Yours was the first post I read after sitting back down & noticing the "play" in the power cord plug... The "play" does seem intentional, to avoid damage when the cord is sat on, stepped on or otherwise yanked on a bit. A wise feature, though not quite as effective as the "breakaway", magnetic power cord connection on my prior laptop - a MacBook. (IMHO, so-called "MacBook superiority" begins and ends with this one feature - the breakaway magnetic power cord connection - for everything else, I'll take a comparable PC over a Mac any day...)

 

That's interesting. I use MagicDisc & for all purposes, Windows Explorer & other programs sees it as just an other ODD so I would not be surprised if Vaio_Care > burning recovery media would be looking at one of those & not seeing a media in it. There is no drop down menu in it to choose which ODD it should use.

Nice find!

Since I don't need all the time a virtual disc, I disabled a long time ago MagicDisc from startup with Autoruns (last line in image below) & use it only when needed instead of having it running in the background all the time.

 

It's possible that there is a registration error. I didn't think that could happen with LCD panels, but maybe the control matrix has one colour shifted one line, a firmware issue. I don't know.. Try a test pattern with widely-spaced dots, look with a magnifying glass and see if one dot is a proper triad, or if one colour is shifted. If one dot IS misregistered, then this is a demonstrable defect.

 

Well disc management was showing a healthy recovery partition.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Vaio Care both from esupport and then from the recovery partition.

On both counts, each time I run Create recovery media , the same 2 errors occur as above

 

Look @ KenQuek's post, 4 posts above yours.

 

I would like to use a bluetooth headset with my F11 (going to do some Rosetta Stone). Can someone recommend a good?

 

Hi, the reason I stated to test with a new Sony 120W adapter is to fully prove that your old one is defective. There is a slight chance that the sound could still be due to the laptop handling the larger wattage but it's unlikely. I strongly suspect it's a defective adapter but you want to be sure eh . If you have your relevant documentation on the laptop and prove that you adapter is faulty and the new one doesn't have the fault, to the Sony staff and have your laptop documentation I'm guessing they'll give you a deal on a new one or maybe the warranty will 100% cover it I'm not sure. So going to the store is to kill two birds with one stone and make sure your adapter is defective and then get a new one based on that defect so hopefully you pay little or nothing . Good luck.

 

tausif I'm glad the partition is healthy and if reinstalling vaio care didn't work it's good your assist key was unaffected. Look for disc emus as discussed by KenQuek and JoeBleau, Deamon, MagicDisc or Alcohol120%. Disable the virtual drive and then fully exit the program then follow as KenQuek says and open up vaio care. It'll be funny if that's your problem too and vaiocare really is that, smart.. Hopefully you're using one and this fixes your issue.

This should be added to the FAQ, Why can't vaio care see my ODD when other programs can?

______________

AmunNL I think it'd be easy to find a store in Rotterdam to view both laptops side by side not sure about Utrecht but I'd suggest calling Mediamarkt and/or any other store to ask if they have them both in stock.

 

Thanks Ken, I still have to try this. Pwncakes said "Uninstall anything that would use the disc drive, like daemon tools, and any mounting software".

I use Virtual CloneDrive. So are you saying I don't actually need to uninstall Virtual CloneDrive ?

I am not sure what you mean by removing the drive from the software.

Removing the virtual drive from Vaio Care ?
If so, I don't know how to do that, could you please instruct.

 

Check my reply he just means disable the virtual drive and then exit the virtual drive program. Not to uninstall it or to remove from a program. Just disable the virtual drive emulation .

 

What tausif is saying is that he doesn't understand how to disable virtual drive emulation, or what that means. He's requesting that someone who does know how to please give instructions that he can follow.

 

Hi AmunNL,

I have the much lauded EU premium matte screen F11, I have had it for several months now.

I saw the F12 version of my laptop in a UK Sony shop yesterday, side by side with the semi-glossy F12MOE , 1080p display.

I know you are concerned about the vertical viewing angle on the glossy version and due to the way they were both below a shelf, i wasn't able to assess this ( I think someone has already commented on this though). But for what its worth, the horizontal angle is as good as my matte display.

Not only that, the quality of the glossy display surprised me and reminded me of the few Macbooks I have seen.

It was impressive and has left me feeling a little envious, it has a little more 'pop' than the matte one. I never saw the glossy or matte display F series in person before I ordered my F11, I assumed I would prefer the matte one due to lowered reflections, but in my use of the f11 reflections would not be an issue anyway- I use it indoors only and in a room with no windows behind me or at the sides. Having said that even in the Sony shop, the display is not Mega glossy like some are , and reflections weren't distracting.

All the same definitely see it in person, as you plan to.

I sometimes do crazy things to rectify mistakes I make ... maybe selling my EU premium F11 and getting the F12MOE might be something I wouldn't put it past myself to do.

BTW, thanks DeWinte , Anseio too! Anseio my assist key is still working, as you predicted.

 

I'd have thought after enabling it he'd have been able to disable it but maybe that's an unbased assumption . Taken from the makers Slysoft's forum describes two methods to disable I'll link the easiest one from James on the dev team, "It may be even simpler: In Virtual CloneDrive settings, set the number of drives to 0."

I'm guessing you can access settings via a system tray icon or through the main program window. Hope that helps.

Edit: editting here instead of a new post. No problem at all tausif also thank KenQuek who suggested the fix that hopefully works .

 

OK, although I use Virtual Clone drive as a mounting tool for playing iso's by right clicking the iso file, I have never actually double clicked the Clone drive icon ! And I expect the I will be able to access the settings in there. Thanks. This seems certain to fix it I hope.

Thanks for providing the link,I will try it and report back.

 

Can someone pls confirm re EU F12 models:

Are the non-CTO preconfigured F12s only available with i7 processors , not i5 ?

I can see the CTO f12 can be CTO'd with i5.

 

In the Netherlands there are 3 "retail" models:

Sony Vaio VPC-F12M1E/H ==> Intel Core i5 520M ==> 4 GB ram ==> Gloss 1080p screen ==> € 1.092
Sony Vaio VPC-F12S1E/B ==> Intel Core i7 720QM ==> 6 GB ram ==> Matte 1080p screen ==> € 1.423
Sony Vaio VPC-F12Z1E/BI ==> Intel Core i7 720QM ==> 8 GB ram ==> Matte 1080p screen ==> € 1.604

Notebooks | Hardware.Info Nederland

 

Interesting, the Sony UK site refers to a F12M0E, i7 processor:

VPCF12M0E/B (VPCF12M0E/B) : Technical Specifications : VAIO and Computing : Sony

There is no F12M1E on the UK website that I can see.

 

Same here in Greece.

 

Same here in Belgium

 

Maybe they have still a lot of the old F11 i5 UK model in stock, because I can find that model on the UK site (VPCF11M1E/H) and not the newer F12 version. F Series : VAIO and Computing : Models : Sony

 

thank you very much. i will try that!

 

To our american contingent, which US F12 models have backlit keyboards available ?

I presume still none of the EU F12 models have backlit keyboards.

 

Any report about your no media thing?

 

Both retail models and all of the ready to ship models from SonyStyle have backlit keyboards. It's a $25 option on the CTO model.

The backlit keyboard is over-rated IMO. It only looks nice if you're looking straight down at the keyboard. When you're actually using the computer, you'll be looking at the keyboard from an angle and you mostly see the light glaring out from under the keys.

Also, the light sensor is placed right under the screen, so in semi-dark conditions the backlighting may switch on and off depending on what's displayed on the screen. That's especially true if you disable the auto-dimming on the screen and raise the screen brightness.

Some laptops used to have a pop-out keyboard light built into the top of the screen bezel. That was a killer feature and works far better than a backlit keyboard.

 

I recently replaced my EU F12 keyboard to the US backlit. Took me alot more than 5minutes as i was being extra careful. Oh, the US spacebar did produce a squeak when pressed but that is not an issue.

Let us know if the VAIO care works after removing the virtual drives.

 

Agree! I tend to tilt the LCD further back.

 

Will do, it will be a few more hours I think.
T.

 

I agree with the glare when looking from my normal working position. You can see the LED output, shown as round dots on the photo below. It's distracting. I would prefer w/o any light coming out from under the keys, just trough the keys' symbols would be much better IMO, exactly like what you see when looking from straight above the keyboard.

The light sensor is dumb, if you have ambient light coming from the side or behind you, any shadow made with your head or arm will affect keyboard turning on/of or screen dimming. So: S1 > I disabled screen auto brightness and set keyboard to always on when I need it & cover the light sensor just above F9 with a piece of tape.

 

+1

I LOVE the backlit keyboard feature! I used a small but bright clip-on USB LED light on my last notebook and though it worked fairly well, it was somewhat of a pain to clip and unclip whenever I opened or closed the laptop. Plus it was powered via a USB port. I also prefer using a mouse and love the fact that I can use a buetooth mouse on the F12 without tying up one of the USB ports.

 

Hi guys,

I'm a proud owner of a sony vaio F11M1E (portuguese model), and it runs perfectly, with the exception of the battery drainage problem, when the laptop is disconnected from the power and is turned off. I lose about 40% battery power in 7 hours (overnight), and the only solution I've come up with is to fisically remove the battery from the laptop.

When removed, the battery does keep its charge, so it's definitely the laptop sucking the power out of it. I've also calibrated the battery and updated to the latest BIOS version, but still no dice...

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

 

So you post repeatedly your problem if you don't get an immediate answer but the 4 of us that replied to you have to wait a few hours for you do do a procedure that takes 2 minutes @ the most?

*****

Another case of user added third party software.

Hence this advice: burn recovery discs out-of-the-box which means before starting to mess up things. Yes, it could be added to the FAQ after confirmation by other users too.

My guess is it depends on the letter assigned to the drives, needs to be checked, but Vaio_Care must chose the first one it encounters hence my remark above about the lack of drop down menu to select drive in the burn recovery media tab.

Fixes:

- Insert a blank DVD (Duh!)
- Burn recovery discs out-of-the-box.
- Assign letters like Y or Z to virtual drive(s)
- Close, disable or uninstall virtual CD/DVD program (thanks KenQuek)

 

See: VAIO_F Series & Battery Discharging Overnight? and run powercfg -energy to find the culprit(s)



And read the Sony_support docs linked in the post: some battery discharge is normal.

*****

 

Thanks, I will

EDIT: Sorry, just one more thing... The OS is not loaded when it is turned off, so how will this power diagnostic help, or is it independent from the OS?

EDIT 2: So, from what I've read, this is in reality just a faulty reading of the battery's true charge, and it is not discharging at this "stupid" rate? Is this correct?

 

Great for wiping your hard drive clean:

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

Great tool for hard drive data recovery:

GRC|SpinRite 5.0 to 6.0

SpinRite never gives up!

I'm sure you guys will never need this because you always backup.

 

Fishon,

Did you get a chance to see if that nvidia driver affected winDVD ?

Joe no-one wants to know more than I if this remedy will solve my vaio care issue so relax.

 

Was at Sony Centrum and the issue could not be reproduced.

2 of 3 stereos is showing noise from the Vaio, no one of them is on grounded plug, but the vaio is on a grounded plug.

0 of 2 intendant Speakers is showing noise, not grounded.

With sticky tape the issue is solved: Tape over the grounded parts of the plug and it is good.

 

You probably have "wake timers" on (mine did by default). This will allow your installed applications to wake up your laptop to perform whatever. Go into Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change plan settings -> Sleep -> Allow wake timers -- set these to disabled. My laptop loses 1% after being off (hibernating) for 18 hrs. More about this here My Computer wakes up from Hibernate - windows 7 - Operating Systems
Sleep and hibernation: frequently asked questions

If you want to see what your laptop was up to when it was turned off look in Control Panel -> Admin Tools ->Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> System -- then scroll the event list and you will see some events occured at a time when (you thought) your laptop was turned off.

 

Edit: There is already a Wipe and Erase Data utility as well as Rescue Data in Recovery Tools when booting from the recovery discs. When booting by pressing ASSIST with the F turned off or by hitting F10 when booting, Wipe and Erase Data is not offered. For the F11_and F12 from the OEM clean install article:



I never tried the Rescue Data utility but took a peek when running the F12's discs on my_F11, seems like a backup thing but this is interesting: "saves data... to an external hard drive... when Windows does not start...".

I used Pandora Recovery twice after deleting by mistake some photos that were completely deleted, meaning not in the Recycle bin.