Official Sony VAIO TT Series Owners Thread

Quick question , can I upgrade my TT to 6Gb of memory ?

I'll open it soon to put this insied ... so it's can be a good oportunitie ...

 

8GB so 6GB should to. I've tried 6GB and it worked.

 

I've tried 8GB et it worked as well

 

Well I think the first few revisions of the TT works with a few specific rams sticks, while the latter revisions officially supported 8gb and could work with a wider variety of ram sticks.

 

I thought it was the VGN Z that was more picky about ram and not the TT.
Elipida, hynix, Micron and Crucial are good brands to use for the TT though.

 

Hi all anyone had experience of keyboard fault

some keys not functioning middle row on uk keyboard including space bar.
all other keys ok also onscreen keyboard ok

where can I purchase spares as just out of warranty

thxs

sony tt 11 vnx uk model

 

My TT is with Sony now for a keyboard fault. I've no idea what caused my problem and on close inspection i found that a part of the keyboard was burnt out. May be the power button caused this i have no idea.
Most of my keys were working some were not.
It has been with Sony since the beginning of May so about 1 month.

As yours is out of warranty you could try the out of warranty repair service that they have listed on the UK website.

Hapton - Lanway CBS Ltd.

Address Bridgewater Close, Network 65
BB11 5TE Hapton
Mo. -Fr. 8.30h - 17.30h
Website Lanway IT Solutions Provider - Professional IT and UMPC Services - Making IT Work
Telephone number 44 (0)1282 418824
Fax n/a
E-mail address [email protected]

 

thxs for prompt reply not had any joy with sony during warranty. got stupid quote from out of warranty found a source of parts gonna fit myself fraction of the cost
TT11VNX SoNy

 

Hi there,

I have got my TT21WN (like new) but the fan is a little bit noisy compared to the TT11 of my wife. I have checked and cleaned but still remains.

I have replaced the 128gb ssd by a 256 gb ssd coming from a Lenovo and also replaced the DVD by BluRay drive. This core2duo with this quick SSD is very powerful for me.

I just liked it except that bloody fan. But I do not want to send it back to sony, Last year, they kept my TZ for about 6 weeks ! If I find a spare one, i'll do it myself.

I couldnt find proper codecs to play a bluray, at the moment I do have the demo of PowerDVD 10.X and runs good. If anyone has another idea for playing directly into media player.

The battery is 100% healty and last over 5 hours in balanced mode, wifi and internet. Is that normal ?

Stephane from Belgium

 

sdnv if you know the part number of the fan you could try purchasing it of Sony direct.They might not want to sell it to you but you could try. Look at sparepartswarehouse to find the part number.

Just today i purchased a new keyboard for my SZ from Sony UK direct on the phone as my keyboard was getting a bit worn. The warranty division sold me the keyboard for me to replace myself. Ironically the cost of the keyboard was cheaper than some second hand keyboards on ebay.
I know a keyboard is a bit different than a fan but maybe it is worth a try.

Failing that try a service centre in your country. You should find the contact numbers listed on the vaio support page.

6 weeks for your TZ? I started out being impressed with the service but i'm not so much anymore lol. Several weeks after i sent my item in i ordered from as far as China and had my items delivered to me ages ago by standard mail.

As regards to battery life i can get at least 9 hrs out of the TT but then again i don't use balanced mode. I use power saver, silent mode in the control centre and set the graphics on max power savings.
I also dim the display to at least 30%.
I also use Firefox and flashblock and no script to surf.

In performance mode in the control centre my laptop is definetly louder than it is when i use silent mode or balanced mode as you would expect. May be take a look at your settings if you haven't done so already.

 

Thanks Rachel,
I forget to mention that I was running Win 7 64 bits. Maybe it is more power consument ? And the ssd consume twice as much as the original. What windows are you running ?
I folow this thread for a few weeks now and saw you TT was in repair centre. I hope for you you will get it soon. When I send my TZ for the "Sony Recall", they lost it between Germany and France and I am in Belgium...
Hopefuly, they found it back

 

I installed W7 64 bit on my TT also.
For regular usage i leave mine in balanced mode in the control centre and on W7's balanced or power saver mode and my laptop is pretty quiet unless quite pushed.
What is the part number of that SSD?
Some of the Lenovo ones are Samsung G2 drives which shouldn't really consume anymore power than the G1 Samsung drives. If anything they should consume less power. I presume you had a G1 Samsung 90/70mb drive in your TT?

 

My mistake, the ssd comes from Dell Latitude E4200 :
SAMSUNG 256 GB MMDPE56GTDXP-MVB Firmware VBM9LD1Q - TRIM Compatible (but not recognised as trim compatible in windows 7 !) 220mb / 200mb. I bought it on Ebay UK.
The original 128gb ssd had about 0.4amp consumption, this one is about 0,8amp.
It is quite fast. Maybe in the future I could add the cable for 2 ssd's but not needed at the moment. And if it was the case, I would not use raid but just 2 drives.
Thanks for your numerous contributions to this post and some others too, very nice.

 

sdnv for the older drive Samsung list ( see below)-
It would be nice if more reviewers actually reviewed 1.8 SSD's so we didn't just have to go off manfacturers specs. It seems like you measured the power consumption though.

For your older drive though Samsung list
Read / Write 0.481 / 0.455
Idle * 0.191
Standby * 0.191
Sleep * 0.191

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ucts/flash/ssd/2008/down/pm410_slim_usata.pdf

For the 256GB and newer drives they list
Typical(W)
MMCRE28G8MXP-0VB - active- 0.27 W idle-0.17 W
MMDPE56G8DXP-0VB active- 0.23 W idle-0.12 W
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/downloads/PM800_18_SATA_II_Spec_rev11.pdf

I have a 128gb SSD G2 Samsung in my TT and i'm also very pleased with it.
Battery life increased compared to the original HD.
Interestingly Tomshardware did some tests on the 1.8 Toshiba Microsata drives.
Power Consumption Results : Three Generations Of 1.8" Hard Drives Benchmarked

I've totally lost any interest in RAID or running my laptop in non RAID mode LOL.

 

I did not measure with a multimeter, it xas written on the disk itself dc 3.3v 0.8A, see here :



What I do not understand is how they come in the datasheet with 0.23 W ?
P(w)=U(v)xI(a)
P=3.3x0.8
P=2.64w !

Maybe I must be mistaken, I'm not electrician ;-)

For info, I did run CrystalDiskMark 3.0 64 bits and the results :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 203.160 MB/s
Sequential Write : 129.119 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 158.348 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 53.195 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 13.861 MB/s [ 3384.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 6.267 MB/s [ 1530.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 14.273 MB/s [ 3484.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 3.964 MB/s [ 967.7 IOPS]

Test : 500 MB [C: 40.3% (96.1/238.4 GB)] (x2)
Date : 2010/06/02 21:22:18
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

 

sdnv i'm not entirely sure. If you want to get to the bottom of it you might want to consider posting in this thread/or starting a new thread in that forum to see what other people make of it.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ssd-thread-benchmarks-brands-news-advice.html

Your drive looks to use less power consumption that mine lol and that is always interesting to know for potential upgrades.

Those Crystal Mark figures are pretty good.

 

I'll soon open my TT to put the ssd on it.
any precaution to take ? did you have some tutorial ?

 

Where did you buy at ebay?

Thanks,

 

Google Traduire

here, the author shows all the tricks to opening the tt. i've personally used this to do ssd, ram, and bluray upgrades. the only tricky thing is the silver hinge area... take care as not to break off the little tabs that click it in place. otherwise the same precautions as with any laptop opening... take care with all connectors and ribbon/tape.

good luck.

 

I'm having a motherboard upgraded on another ULV laptop right now and it is costing me £110 to transplant a cpu from a dead motherboard to the one i need.
It might even be cheaper if it is more of a straight swap well where BGA jobs go lol.
Who knows down the line when my warranty has expired i might opt for a
SL9600 for the TT. The SU9600 is ok for me for now though. It makes it a cheap upgrade though for maybe those that have the base spec and might demand a bit more power in the future.

It is vaiorefurbs who is doing the upgrade for me.

Also, Sony contacted me and told me that my part should be delivered to them by the end of next week. So that will be about 7-8 weeks in all by the time i get my laptop back.

Also, i've got another SSD drive LOL.

 

I'm looking for a new laptop.
People were really helpful on the other thread where i asked about the smallest laptops with optical drives and the Sony TT seems perfect for me.


Ive read lots of online reviews and they are all very positive (apart from the price) but of course they are from late 2008.

Reading through this thread people seem pretty happy with it on the whole.
Does it still compare well to new laptops?
If i can find one at a decent price (ebay?), would you recommend i go for it or advise me against it for some reason?


So you know, this is what i would be using it for (in order of regularity/importance to me, most important first);

Internet browsing (wireless)
Digital camara
I-tunes,podcasts
Google earth
Making very basic movies from photos/videos from my camara
Watching dvds
Some fairly basic, low graphic games


As is probably obvious, im not massively IT proficient, looking for a very portable machine thats fairly straightforward and does all the basics well rather than the very latest laptop with bells and whistles.


Many thanks for your thoughts.

 

Hi Busby - If you don't mind paying the premium, it's an excellent choice from a very small class of sub-notebooks with built-in optical drives (including a Blu-Ray writer option which I recommend if hi-res movie is your thing). I only know of one other choice in this size category and it's made by Fujitsu

(Edit: models P770 and P8110 - http://ts.fujitsu.com/products/mobile/notebooks/lifebook_p.html
Review: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc...etbooks/fujitsu-lifebook-p770-692782/review ).

It could be worth looking into since my family have the cheaper 11.6" Fujitsu Lifebook P3110's (no optical drive) which are on the whole solid and well put together, although the case materials/ screen/ keyboard are not in the same class as the VAIO TT (as one would expect from the large difference in price).

I've had my TT since September last year, and it's proving to be a solid and reliable machine. I work in the IT industry and carry it with me at all times for both work and entertainment. I went for the (expensive) Blu-Ray option and have not regretted it. Blu-Ray movies play well on my TT without noticeable stutter, and the image quality is stunning.

Other pluses: excellent bright, matt coated wide-galmut screen (although not all TT's come with the matt version - check with the potential supplier), excellent keyboard feel ala 'chicklet' design (that Apple copied in their Mac Books), quite acceptable sound quality and level from the tiny speakers, and high quality case materials that seem very resistant to finger marks.

Negatives: HDMI out is not standard on all models, although upgradeable later. The touchpad can lack 'feel' and responsiveness for some users. It wasn't the best on my TT, but was overcome to a large extent by using a Dell or Toshiba driver that gave enough configurability to compensate. Other TT users have found their touchpads working fine without need of modification. The ambient light sensor is located in an odd place, so when typing the right hand shadow can sometimes annoyingly cause screen brightness to modulate.

In terms of the kind of usages you are suggesting, I would say the TT would suit your needs well in all areas. Best wishes for your purchase!

KJ

 

Busby i recommended the TT to you in your other post.

Kendall covered a lot of the points about the TT.
It is the nicest laptop that i've owned. I don't have any problems.
All EU models come with a built in HDMI port, it is just certain models sold on the Asian market that don't. You might find some of these on Ebay. I bought one and added in the HDMI port later.

The TT has the best display in its class. For some people that is worth paying extra for.

It takes a 1.8 microSata HD but it can be upgraded to a 1.8 SSD Intel/Samsung etc quite easily and several people have done this here. The standard drive is ok though for most people. To upgrade you will need to dismantle your laptop which as i wrote above is not hard to do.

The HD can also be upgraded to RAID drives (as some high end models were sold with RAID drives which are 2
1.8 SSD drives ) if you buy the Sony connector.

Ram can also be upgraded to 8GB.

I think if you don't spend too much money on one now it is a good choice.

The last gen Elitebook comes with a SL processor which is better than the SU variants. For what you listed though the SU9300-SU9600 should be fine. If you want more power though maybe the SL line of processors are the ones to go for.
Like i mentioned though in my post above yours it is possible to upgrade the CPU of the TT down the line to the SL lines as this has been done before. It is also very affordable to do so now in the UK as well. It is costing me £110 to get this done on another ULV laptop. This requires a BGA job and you would lose battery life going for a more powerful processor.

The Fujistu P7700 is not cheap but you would get the latest intel graphics which is better than the 4500MHD especially so if you want to do a bit more gaming but neither are intended for gaming.

The same would apply to the latest line of HP Elitebooks.

The TT screen is 11.1 and i find this to be the perfect sized ultraportable. However, it is not my work computer. I have a 13.3 notebook also which is my work computer. If i want to use it for extensive times to do my work like writing i may be more inclined to use the bigger screen of my SZ. When i finish my thesis work i can see the TT being used as my main computer. Of course some people will use the TT as their only laptop and do extensive office also. However, owning both in those conditions as i mentioned above i find the bigger screen easier on the eye.

In my opinion a 12.1 1200X800 would just about cut it to be used for long durations to do study. If you don't have these needs though then it is not an issue for you.

 

+ Nice to anybody eyes >

 

i also echo rachel's sentiment about tt not being the primary machine. although it has a very nice screen, it is a bit small for serious work of document editing, pdf reading, and excel spreadsheet working. it all works perfectly fine, it's just that it feel cramped.

that said, it's perfect for emails and web surfing, as well as media consumption. especially in the bedroom, where you don't need a 15" screen on your lap. tt is really light (compared to my unibody macbook pro 15) so tt is going to travel with me when i go to conferences where i'm out and about all day. another cool feature that many of these came with is the gobi data card... in the states, it did NOT come with a sim card slot, so without modding, i was restricted to verizon (cdma). i never use it... i do mywi with my iphone.

who needs an ipad when you've got a tt, i say...

my 2 cents...

 

Rachel,
I have been away for a while. I am interested in this SL upgrade right now! Regardless of the cost, do you know anyone that would be able to do this?
Let me know. I am on stand by. I will send to the UK if need be.
Thanks!

 

About doing serious work on the TT you could always get an external display if you need a bigger screen to do serious work. I mostly tend to serious work on my desk but i'm not so keen on external displays.


The wwan card in the EU is an Option card GTM382W and it is unlocked and has a sim card holder so it can be used anywhere in the world but just not on the EVDO networks. I'm using a Gobi 1000 Z5 EU WWAN card and my daughterboard is a EU one so it is has a sim card holder. So i can use my Gobi anywhere even the EVDO networks.

@guyyy
It is vaiorefurbs who is doing my upgrade for me on another laptop. He is on ebay and has done about 3 jobs for me in the past. I sent him my TT before and my TX. Just send him a message through there. First you would need find a SL9600/SL9400. I've only seen ES cpus on ebay right now.

Maybe you can buy a damaged (or a working) motherboard like i did which i prefered doing actually because at least i know i'm getting a quality CPU lol. Just a tip but the x200 and Dell adamo shipped with the SL9600 also.

This is a link to one of vaiorefurbs items.
Let us know how it goes of course.

Sony Vaio VGN-FZ Series Motherboard MBX-165 A1369753B on eBay (end time 17-Jun-10 21:36:38 BST)

This thread is interesting because some forum members suggest that if you underclock the SL9600 battery life might not take much of a hit or actually be better but i doubt that. Use some excellent thermal paste like ICD7 if you're going to do this mod.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-better-power-battery-life-su9600-sl9600.html

There is a forum member who does this upgrade in the US also. They charge about $300-250/£200-171. I've been charged £110 for mine. You can contact them through the email link on their site if you're interested.

The SU9600 can be overclocked to 2.13ghz did you know.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...rket-upgrades/472156-su9600-overclocking.html

 

The MBA, Lenovo U110, and HP 2530 also use the SL9x00 series cpu,

 

Thanks Rachel!
The overclocking looks involved, especially to read those threads. Maybe I will get around to it, hoping it is easy. I'd rather go full force for the upgrade and I emailed VaioRefurbs on Ebay and see if he can Help.
Hopefully he says he can get me the part and install it, which would be that much better!

Thanks again!

 

I remember reading somewhere on here how huge a problem this pain in the rear trackpad/touchpad mouse is on our TT's. I also read where someone took one from a Tz and added it. So I ordered one and Im gonna retrofit the surface and get this thing working better. Mine sucks, and it isnt getting any better.


On another note, I emailed Vaio Refurbs and they are still trying to tack down an SL9600 for me so I am stuck without the upgrade still.

I dont know if I had mentioned it earlier, and I know it is off topic a bit, but I got the 2GB memory module for my HTC Shift manufactured! It was made by Mem-Store on ebay and has worked wonderfully so far!

 

guyyy see here, why not buy it and just send it to him? Living outside the US he probably cannot bid on that unless the seller permits him to.
Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600 2.13 GHz Processor ( mobile ... - eBay (item 150455660657 end time Jun-21-10 14:17:09 PDT)

Also, you could get a motherboard sent onto him.

You know i still have not got my TT. I'm less inclined to what to use the International service warranty again for future purchases. It has been in like for 7 weeks. The top case has been in stock in the US spare part centre since i sent it in but who knows may be they cannot get the part from there.

My trackpad was perfect lol, i say was because i'm getting a new one now and i hope that is just as good.

 

I have been tracking that SL9600 for a few days but his feeback has warning signs. So I am unsure about it. What do you think?
Its very reasonable! and I have had WAAYYY more positives than negatives on Ebay!

Ill think about it tonight, and I am soooo iritated at the new M11x. I may sell mine and buy it. I am seriously contemplating that as well, I wish sony could retro-fit a GT335m in the TT!!! Then I wouldn't need the M11x!! hahaha

I hope you get your TT back soon Rachel, this is getting borderline rediculous, if it hasn't passed that point yet!

Good luck!

 

Thanks guyyy, hopefully i'll get it by the end of the next week.

I did email that seller and ask them if the processor was an ES and they confirmed that it is an ES.

Vaiorefurbs can remove gpu's lol but doing anything with a GS45 might be very tricky.

They clearly had to remove the one below to reball it.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-Vaio-VGN...aptopMotherboards_CPUs_CA&hash=item5ada275232

 

Excuse my ignorance Rachel, but is that Chip not the Chip we can use in our TT. Is that ES something different than the SL9600 that I would need?
If this is the Chip, then I would bid. You are saying that it may in fact be possible to take that GS45 we have and put in that NVDIA Chip or am I wrong. I am pretty skilled, but BGA is way out of my league and changing hardware components I am sure is very very tricky!

Please let me know Rachel as I think that auction is time sensitive now.
Thanks!

Guyyyy

 

guyyy ES= Engineering sample

The processors that we have in notebooks we buy are OEM. ES processors may possibly not have all the features of an OEM processor or it might behave a bit more erratic as the processor might have some flaws. These flaws would be ironed by the time that they are released. They may also be perfectly ok.

You can find SL9600 motherboards on ebay. Some motherboards may well have had the processor upgraded to an ES if they are refurbished also so keep that in mind.

The SL9600 appears to be only be compatible with the GS45 chipset anyway so really it looks like there is nothing you can do.
Intel® Core?2 Duo Processor SL9600 (6M Cache, 2.13 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) with SPEC Code(s) SLGEQ

Edited to add:
Apple seemed to team the SL9600 with a 9400M so i'm not really sure what the SL9600 will work with. You might want to start a thread in the hardware forum on this board to see what other people think.

 

:smile: Job done !
this TT is more easy to open than the TZ

@Rachel I'm not sure to understand ... will you do a motherboard upgrade on your TT ?

 

marcition, i'm not going to, at least not yet anyway. It seems that guyyy might replace the cpu though and upgrade it with a SL9600. It works and these soldered processors can be removed if you use the correct tools.

 

anyone have the disassemble instruction for VGN-TT36GD? Thanks

 

The best that that there is pinned in the Sony forum. You'll find it in a thread titled Sony Models/Specs, Support and Dissassembly Links .
The TT36GD and all TT models can use that guide.

 

do you understand from this site : if the SSD MMCRE28G8MXP-0VB is compatible with the TT ??? it's not clear for me ...

 

Yes, it is comptabile mariction that is the original SSD that i upgraded to and it has been very reliable for 6 months plus.
I got my laptop back today and everything is ok.
It was good of them not to bother about my WWAN, SSD, HDMI and BD upgrade on my TT36GD.

I have already upgraded to 8GB of ram now and have RAID installed, i have it in non RAID mode. I'm not sure if i will try RAID 0.
I tried to fit the 5300 card but couldn't get a screw out. I will leave it and when my warranty is up send it to Vaiorefurbs again to change the thermal paste (as it so tricky to to the cpu) and also get the screw out lol and upgrade my card for me.
I'm going to put the wireless card to one side and not open this laptop again. I don't even have a router right now that can make use of those speeds right now. I have a BT N router but it is not one of the best type out there.

I'm really glad to have my TT back.

 

rachel,
that was a LONG time for them to have it... glad you have it back as well.

 

Yes, it is compatible. I had the same SSD in my TT.

@Rachel: Do you have to pay anything for the repair?

 

Thanks golggo13

NHT no i never paid anything for the repair. It is still a mystery to me what happened. Maybe the nice letter i enclosed with my laptop helped a bit lol.
It seems that Sony doesn't care too much about upgrades as long as you haven't damaged your laptop.
For my SZ (which is in warranty) i was sold a keyboard to fit myself rather than send it into Sony to do and they didn't care at all that i would be upgrading by myself.

I bought another 128GB Samsung drive and that died again yesterday evening after being in my laptop for less than 2 hours.
The 128GB Samsung MMCREXXXXMXP has proved to be much more reliable for me than the newer MicroSata DXP drives. This is really the last time that i'll try RAID again. My laptop is fine though. It's a shame that i can't upgrade to the 5300 card yet.

 

Gidday Rachel

Great to hear you got your TT back in one piece after all that time!

A bit of a concern that a second samsung SSD has failed I've been watching the SSD market for some time and wonder what the true failure stats are... Last year I took a dabble with an OCZ Vertex 120GB 2.5" for a desktop PC and it failed totally two months ago, taking a further 7 weeks for the factory to replace it. Have decided to hold off for awhile for a TT SSD until capacity and price reach a sensible level (and reliability improves?).

Excuse my ignorance, what is the advantage of the 5300 wireless card over the stock one?

Kendall

 

so Rachel , my SDD died after 1 day , your after 2 hours ...
I really hesitate to invest on the Samsung

 

Hi Kendall and marciton

Kendall the 5300 is meant to give you better reception as it has 3 antennas as opposed to 2. It can also get up 450 Mbps and the 5100 can only get 300 Mbps.

On paper it is a better card but depending on usage you might not notice the difference.
Some models could be configured with this card so i can use those drivers.

Btw, i'm sending my notebook to Vaiorefurbs today and they will fit a new end cap for me as a bit of the chrome came of. Also, they will fit my 5300 card for me.

I needed to send something to him anyway and i thought i might as well sort this out now as well. I just upgraded my nieces P7230 that came with a core solo to a U7600. I need to send it to him again to solder a sim card holder on the motherboard so i might as well send my TT along. Btw, the BGA upgrade went very well i know some people were thinking of using his service.

I really don't know what is happening with the Samsung SSD. In the RAID bracket the newer drive is 2nd drive and two new drives have failed in less than a day. When i connected the drive to my laptop it in computer management it instructed me to intalise the drive but it would not work. It also shows up as 0GB in diskpart and i cannot do anything to it.

However, the other drive i've had since last October is fine and very reliable. This is a different drive MXP as opposed to DXP. It could be that a batch is faulty. I don't think a SSD should really be anymore unreliable than a standard HD really if it is not in RAID.

 

I have installed windows 7 64 bits on my TT21 but I my option wwlan card is not working. Is this issue already solved by some one?

 

What is your problem? We don't have the this issue to begin with...

 

Actually I have this problem as well, but I don't mind because I am in Afghanistan. I discussed it before, but could not get it working after all. Maybe when I go back home to the US again.