Official Sony VAIO TT Series Owners Thread

BTW, I replaced my TZ37 with this second hand TT46. A little bit heavier but comes with a faster CPU, bigger HDD and more RAM. Well worth it.
However, it cannot go to sleep when I close the LCD lid or awake when I open the LCD. All software settings and checked and enabled.
Does anyone have similar problem with this machine before? And how you solved it? Of course, the last resort is to bring it to Sony service.

 

tmtsui my sleep is working perfectly. Have you tried doing a clean install? To upgrade the ram to 8GB you need to open your laptop. It's not that hard and this is a guide.
???????????:VAIO typeT?TT???????????????

 

Yes, I tried a clean install from Win 7 Pro to Win 7 Home Premium. No luck and still not able to go to sleep. I believe there's something wrong with hardware. Should find a time to take it for repair.
Thanks for the link. Looks like simplier than opening a TZ.
BTW, heard someone said that the Optical drive can be replaced by a HDD. Any idea how it could be done?

 

I've not read of anyone who has replaced the optical with a HD/SSD in the TT series. You might want to make a post about this in the main support forum as other Sony owners could have input on this.
The TT model that was sold with a 2.5 HD also came with an extra usb port, so you'd need a new bezel among other parts. You possibly will need to change the connector to fit a 2.5HD. I'm trying to imagine this correctly lol.

If you buy your own non Sony HD holder from like newmodeus you may have problems with the bezel and of course you lose the exta usb port.

I don't know where you live but in the US at least one model was sold without a dvd drive. Mikemyers bought a VGN-TT190N without an optical drive.
You could use that as a starting point and search here


Sony Vaio VGN-TT-Series (VGN-TT190) Laptop Parts and Repair for Notebook Computers

https://servicesales.sel.sony.com/ecom/accessories/web/index.jsp


https://www.servicesplus.sel.sony.com/default.aspx


Yes, it's not that hard at all to open a TT, i've upgraded my TT36GD/W to a 256GB SSD and 8GB of ram. I also had WWAN and a HDMI port fitted. If you open the TT just make sure you remove the top casing by releasing two tabs at the back of the laptop.

 

Thanks for the information. Just googled and found a Chinese site describing how to add another HDD to TT. Here's the link and hope that you might find it interesting by looking at the pictures.
Mobile01 ??VGN-TT???????+USB? SUPER TYPE Hi??~~
BTW, does your machine's NT Kernel & System sometimes occupy a lot of CPU processes, upto 50%? Mine does and it is quite annoying and eats a lot of battery time. After different tries, it seems the solution is to disable Windows Superfetch. Now I don't see any significant NT Kernel & System activity....at least so far.

 

^
I haven't noticed that with the CPU. Mine usually idles pretty low with light usage. I have tweaked some settings in system configuration but have left superfetch on. I have mine set to selected start up and have tweaked a few services/start up. I also have turned indexing of as i have an SSD.

If you actually search on model VGN-TT190 and leave out the N on the end more options come up.
https://servicesales.sel.sony.com/e...ctSearch.do?sessionId=V4ii4SBhp7hOOlyom_UpyCQ

I'll have a look at the TT service manual and see if can find any other part numbers. I forgot i had that, a forum member sent that to me ages ago. It's clear what usb parts you need to buy from the diagram.

eta,
ok i attached it and the parts list. The last attachement the copy.txt contains the part numbers for the 2nd attachment. The FPC-168 looks like the RAID/2.5 connector. The FPC-167 is the RAID/Optical connector. FPC-142 is the 1.8 HD/ 2.5 connector. You need more parts that though which you can find in the attachments linked.

 

Yeah, I wish the guy could list clearly the parts as well. It's quite tempting to install an SSD and replace the optical drive with a second HDD. That would be perfect for awhile.
I thought about the new Z series too and they are quite nice. However it is far too expensive and I don't like its short battery life and particularly the "heavy" power adapter.
My coming goal is to have my LCD lid - sleep function fixed first. Then consider an SSD upgrade.
Regarding the link you sent me earlier, here's one with rough English translation.
Google Traduction

 

Hi Rachel,

after rsuesse post reply I decided to dig a bit further into checking the Intel chipset used on the TT1 (or TT15V as it's the case) and found this - http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/prodbrief/319505.pdf , where it states that both the GM45 and GS45 graphics memory controller hub chipsets are capable of supporting up to 8GB ram.

So I took the plunge and ordered a pair of 4GB DDR3 PC8500 CL7 dimms from Crucial, should hopefully arrive next week

I'll update my findings.

Best regards,

 

Aussie: The locating key on the plug should face directly toward the front edge of the TT case. I seem to recall the first few inserts required a bit of pressure with my TT.

KJ

 

Thanks for that. I will post a picture of the hole though as I think maybe I don't have the right sort. It's definately round and not shaped. My machine didn't come with the headphones when I imported it and I'm thinking that perhaps there were versions without the noise cancelling function.

 

May be you're onto something there. Perhaps this could be the actual headphones itself or the actual hardware.
see the description for the headphones.

Choose from the following:
Noise, "included" is selected:
Stereo mini jack (for noise-canceling function) * 34 × 1

Noise "None" is selected:
Stereo mini jack × 1

Google Translate


If it helps at all mine looks like this-you see on the right how you're supposed to angle the headphones.

 

Yep confirmed. If you didn't order the noise cancelling function you end up with a standard mini jack.

 

Odd my headphone port looks like it maybe the standard one aussie posted, but I had software/drivers pre-installed(in Vista and now in 7) that related to the noise canceling.

 

The software is built into the audio drivers and may be the same for TT models. If you don't have that slot/opening to the right like mine then you don't have the noise cancelling supported at a hardware level but you could buy your own noise cancelling headphones with the device built in.

May be it is something that you can buy as a spare parts and add in.

 

As a new forum member I am not sure if this is the right place to post this. So if I've got it wrong, please forgive me.
My TT11 is just about to finish its warranty period - and it's never missed a beat. I want to ask if anyone has any idea whether a backlit keyboard has ever been fitted to any of the TT series, whether anyone has succesfully retro-fitted one, and where they sourced the screen.
The TT does everything I need but using it at night, in a darkened boat, is almost impossible!

 

I've not seen this being done on this forum and i've not seen a mod being done like this elsewhere. No models were ever made with a backlit KB and to my knowledge no other models use the same keyboard that come with a backlit KB. Probably your best bet is to get a usb keyboard light like so-
Mr. Brightside USB keyboard light illuminates your keys, taste in music -- Engadget

There is a modification section on this board and may be you can try there if you really want to get into modding.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-cosmetic-modifications-custom-builds/

The silver keys against the white chassis makes it pretty easy for me to see the keys in the dark especially so with the ambient sensor turned of. I guess that is one advantage in going for a white or gold model. I can also touch type so that helps as well.

 

To those who have upgraded to 8GB of ram have you noticed this - a difference in battery life with a 4GB single stick/8GB ram?

When i first upgraded to 8GB i checked my battery life and it seemed to be about the same where it was before, may be 5-10 mins less max. Around the same time as i upgraded to 8GB i also upgraded from a 128GB Samsung SSD to a 256GB Samsung SSD and by the figures the 256GB SSD is meant to be a little more power conservative.

My previous battery life testings was also done mainly with 2X2GB ram and a single stick might possibly be more power conservative and hence an increase in battery life which i'm seeing.

Now several months after i've done my upgrade to 8GB of ram i checked with a single 4GB and 8GB and there seems to be a noticeable difference. I checked because i was trying to improve battery life over WWAN and just decided to check it again. The difference in my max start up time over wifi well was over 1hr just by swapping out one 4GB stick.

I wrote about it here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6893805-post37.html

Those times were using silent mode, power saver and Intel's max power saver setting. I also disabled a few other things.

Has anybody else found this to be the case, if you have 8GB of ram may be you can check?

I see that my ibattstat tests earlier i already removed the extra 4GB stick so i cannot go back and compare that now.

 

1 hr is a lot specially while using WWAN...good info RACHEL..
i would be more than satisfied swapping 8 x 4 and get 1hr of batt life..

 

uau i am gonna play lotto...u posted at 2:26 and i replied at 3:26

 

I took my TT to Sony service center. After a day, I got my TT back and Vaio service man told me that some system files were corrupted, which caused my TT couldn't go to sleep when closing the LCD lid. Glad to hear that my TT hardware is intact.
BTW, instead of opening my laptop for RAM upgrade, is it possible to replace just the accessible RAM stick from 2GB to 4GB, making total memory to 6GB?

 

Yes I did it before the upgrade to 8Gb (and I upgrades the HD in the same time)

 

So you meant you left the original 2GB inside the laptop and just replaced the 2GB from the memory compartment at the back of the computer with a 4GB one, making your laptop having a total of 6GB....and it worked.
Do I get it correctly?

 

zimbros12, i wish i could win the lottery one day soon lol.

tmtsui, i was using 6GB at one point in time before i upgraded to 8GB.

 

yes you get it correctly

 

Hm...interesting. I should give it a try cause I am a bit worry about opening up my laptop, plus the Sony service guy told me that my TT's warranty will be voided if I open the case myself.
BTW, any side-effect to overall performance? better or worse?

 

If you don't do any tasks that would benefit from more ram then it's very likely that you won't notice it, no. I've upgraded from 4GB->6GB->8gb and now am currently using a single 4GB stick and i've not noticed any difference because none of my tasks demand more memory. Tasks like demanding audio/video editing would benefit from more memory. Getting a decent SSD and having 4GB you will appreciate the upgrade more if you don't actually require anymore ram. Using the activity monitor i can see that my memory doesn't really top 30%.

That is Sony's official line in regards to warranty and you should accept it. However, many have opened their notebooks without causing any damage and Sony has honoured the warranty.

 

Thanks for the note. You are right that 4GB should be enough for general usages. I don't have any memory-thirty programs installed on my computer. BTW, do you use Readyboost? I am having a 4GB memory stick dedicated for it. I have an impression that it runs a little bit smoother with Readyboost.

 

I own a 32GB Sandisk ultra sd card i don't use readyboost though. I own a SSD, it would have little or no effect. I've used readyboost before though on another computer and saw no benefit.

 

8GB is worth it if you run virtual machines.

 

Hello again, just an update on my attempt at upgrading my Vaio VGN-TT15 to 8GB.

Upgrade went smoothly, the 2x 4GB I got from Crucial work perfectly, even though Sony says 4GB as limit.


In the meantime I installed Windows 7 64bit and gone through the drivers installation procedure somewhere in this forum, and just realised that since then the fan doesn't stop and have this cmd.exe process consuming a constant average of 30% of the CPU, has anyone else seen this odd behavior ?

 

Ok, fixed the CPU usage (rogue application), however the fan remains constantly on (it didn't with Vista).

 

After a clean install i used the TT4 drivers and never had a problem. All the needed drivers are there. Check and see if you've missed out any? May be your power management is missing?
VAIO : Sony Europe

 

I accidentally dropped a metal part on my TT180C. Luckily, my lid was closed. But, the right hand edge was damaged. I can see that the edge on the lid is a single piece surrounding the front and 2 sides. I can remove the whole thing easily, but I do not know where to get the replacement part, or the part number. Anyone help please. Thanks.

 

See my post here, you should be work it out from two of the attachements i uploaded, the copy.txt and the second image.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6878970-post1811.html

 

Thanks. In your attachment, there is a picture of the bottom. Is there a picture of the top cover? I looked at the parts list, but since there is no picture, I am not sure if it is the right part. Is it called ASSY HOUSING BEZEL?

 

I don't know if you can see the part in this picture?

 

Rachel where did u get the schematics 4 ur TT
I would like to get one for my TZ .

 

Thanks. There is a Sony Repair facility in Toronto here, so I'll go and see if I can get it there.

 

zimbros12 from another forum member.

TZ300 can you not take a picture of the part you mean and highlight it because from your explanation it's hard to be sure about what part you're refering to.

 

Finally, I finished reading through this topic.

First of all, I'd like to say hello to every TT ownere here, especially to the kind and helpful Little Miss.

I'm kinda new here, just ordered an used TT21M/N from Ireland a week ago or so, already ordered some parts for upgrades. I'll try to add fingerprint reader & TPM chip first, then replace stock WWAN with unlocked Option GTM378 with GPS.

 

zero endorphine, you still haven't got your TT yet, wow that is taking some time.
The Option GTM 382W is a better card than the Option GTM378.The latter is an older card and you should be able to get GPS working with the stock card. The stock card is also unlocked.

http://www.option.com/en/products/products/modules/gtm382w/specifications/#start

http://www.option.com/en/support/faq/article/articleen-176

 

Hi Rachel. Actually, I would be very glad if it arrive until Dec, 31 at all. Unfortunatelly, in Soviet Russia you cannot tell for sure how long your international shipping will take, for me it was from 11 days to 2+ months with various items.

I didn't noticed that the stock WWAN has GPS functionality before. Is there a 382W installed in the EU-spec TTs from the factory?

The seller has unlocked the stock WWAN, whatever it was, before the shipping, I was wise enough to ask him to do that.

 

The stock card in the EU TT's is a GTM382W. Sony never locked these cards but some people might think that they are locked if they use say T-Mobile software that came with their laptop. If you use the generic Option connection software you will find that you can indeed use any carriers sim in your laptop.

The North American models came with a Sony Gobi 1000 card which i now have in my TT.

 

So I basically will get an extra Option modem, I see.

Did somebody tried Blu-ray / other 1080p content with 1.2 GHz CPU, btw?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by extra modem, it comes with the GTM382W and if you use the Option connection software you can use any sim worldwide.

This forum member here tried BD on their 1.2 TT.

I'm using PowerDVD 9 on my TT11M (1.2GHz) and CPU usage is about 20% for Blu-ray playback. That doesn't tell you very much though because its using the X4500MHD for decoding and there's no option to disable it. Anyway, playback is nice and smooth and I get nearly 4 hours battery life with the backlight set a few stops down from maximum.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/5568235-post42.html

Coldmack has commented in this thread that 1080p playback for them is smooth on their 1.2 TT.

 

Thanks Rachel.

I already ordered an unlocked GTM382, I was planning to install it instead of stock card. So it will be extra part

BTW, a slight offtopic: is there a way to add an unlocked 3G to SZ? It looks like they used some daughter board with Ericsson soldered on it, no mini-pci, and I did not found this board unlocked.

 

Yes, you can, i've actually got the SZ EU spare wwan board but as this is about another laptop you might want to PM me about that. The SZ6-7 used the mini pc 3G card and the older models in the US used the Sony Ericsson wwan modem.

 

Hi folks,

I recently got a used TT230N/B. It is a betiful laptop. I'm especially loving the screen, it is simply gorgeous. Battery life is great etc.

I have couple of questions though.

1. My battery is kind of loose, it moves a little bit if when it is locked inside the laptop. Looks like they didnt set the manufacturing tolerances very tight. Do you guys have the same problem, is there a fix for that ? Should I put maybe a soft pad underneath the battery ?

2. I'm running on win7 64 bit. When I try to run big bunny video on youtube @1080p, it is not perfectly smooth. Could you guys give it a try ?(make sure to choose 1080p on youtube) Can it be because of the su9300 I have (which is 1.2) ? Would 1.6 help on that regard ?

YouTube - Big Buck Bunny animation (1080p HD)

 

Hi aras87.
It possible may be caused by the fact YouTube relies on Flash Active-X component to play video, so I believe it may be played by the CPU alone.

Playing videos via some of software media players may (and should) involve GPU decoding, the TT has a HD-capable videochip in it's chipset that can smoothly play 1080p, some people at this forum confirms that it's smooth even with 1.2 GHz CPU.

Maybe we should investigate, which exact players/directshow decoders are relies on hardware decoding with GPU; I cannot, until I get my Vaio.

 

It's smooth for me on a 1.6 TT. Last time i checked my CPU didn't really top 50%. Make sure you're using the latest Abode flash drivers.