Official Sony VPC-Z2 (VAIO Z 2011) Series Owners' Thread

Yea i was thinking maybe there is a program set to run only when the comp is idle?

Where is the intel one exactly?

 

It's without PMD but I've installed Intel Drivers from Sony... I want to test them with some benchmark and then try those downloaded from Sony..

 

Sorry should have been more specific, you right-click the desktop, select Graphic Properties, go Advanced, and you get all your options there.

On a related note, I asked the friendly chaps over in the SA thread about the disappearing Wake On Lid Open feature in the SA and the Z21, and it doesn't look like we can do anything about it unless Sony enables the feature in the BIOS. Which seems highly unlikely. Or you could start hacking your way around the BIOS like others did with the previous generation Z... you won't find me doing that however

 

There is a program that I've used for years that controls the fan speeds. It's called speedfan and it works for both desktops and laptops. It worked for my Z1.

SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

 

I am curious if anyone else is having this issue. It could be driver related, but, all other features (3d games) etc work flawless.

It would be cool if a driverset came out that allowed you to specify that Aero, IE, etc all ran off of the internal display,and the PMD was used for gaming, etc

 

hi guys,

i need your help

- can anyone tell me how to activate the sprint WWAN after clean installed?
- is there a way to limit touch area on my trackpad? ie. i do not want it to register my touch when i touch the left and right click area.

TIA

 

Really have only had one person do any attempt at testing them thus far and he couldn't get them to work. I am not sure if it is due to an incompatibility or an install issue. From what I read the PMD is very particular about HOW the drivers are installed.

The issue reported was that the AMD/ATI device shows an error in device manager after being installed. I have seen a similar occurrence in other switchable graphics notebooks. This is due to device manager grabbing what it thinks are updated Intel drivers when the switchable graphics drivers are removed. The installation of standard (single GPU/non-switchable) drivers can sometimes add registry entries that cause switchable graphics not to function. There are certain situations where these registry entries may not properly be removed and cause conflicts.

I was hoping that this was something they removed on the SC as it was a lower end model. Disappointing to hear that it is also removed/disabled on the Z2. As quick as I am required to go from place to place this is a very convenient feature for me. Seems odd to have removed such a convenient feature.

AFAIK this should be how it is intended to work. Assuming the tech being used in the Z2 is what I think it is, this slideshow gives a pretty good run down of how it is meant to work. If you look at slide 15 you can see which device each component is meant to run on.

 

EDIT: double post.. meant to edit above.

 

Can any one confirm if this car charger works ?Pwr+ Car Charger for Sony Vaio Z
Amazon.com: Pwr+ Car Charger for Sony Vaio Z Vpcz13ahx Vpcz13bgx Vpcz13cgx Signature Collection ; Pcg-31112l Vpcz1 ; Ec Vpcec2rfx Vpcec3afx Vpcec3dfx Vpcec490x Vpcec4afx ; 90 Watt Dc Adapter Laptop Battery Charger Notebook Power Supply Cord Netbook A

thanks

 

Does anyone know whether a pre-configured will arrive in 2 weeks? I'll be away for awhile then and don't know whether it'll be better to set the mailing address to where I will be after the 12th.

 

if you willing to buy pre-config why don't you go pick up in store?

 

Received mine from SonyStyle Malaysia two days ago, it's the VPCZ217GG/X model. Also purchased the sheet battery, battery life time indicator initially indicated 21:54hrs but now has settled down to the teens, around 14hrs.

 

For those that are having the fan spin up after the display powers down, double check several things. Many windows processes (Essentials, win update, etc) are triggered by inactivity which is typically measure to the first level of system semi-sleep.

There are also third party utilities that behave the same way. Unless you have a fresh out of box machine, it will be hard to compare with others. Most of these processes are fairly intensive, hence the delayed inactivity trigger. I would recommend a thorough scrub of running services and processes as a first level check.

 

Quick question about the screen. When I activate the auto-hide task bar option, I can still see the top line of the task bar when it is hidden, i.e. the task bar is not completely hidden. This can get rather annoying as I'm using a dark wallpaper as background and the contrast with the thin line can be quite distracting. Is anyone suffering from the same issue? How can I recalibrate the screen to resolve this.

Any advice would be grately appreciated. I have the full HD screen. Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for your answer. I've decided like you did to rely on a dedicated software, in my case Acronis True Image as I was already used to it and already had a licence.

After a few days of using my Z, here is my opinion on it:

+ :
- Very light and thin, I like the concept of the PMD as I don't need optical drive and a good graphic card when I'm traveling.
- Very fast. The Adobe CS5 apps start quicker on my Z2 than on my desktop which has a better CPU (but an older SSD and a little less RAM).
- Very quiet, most of the time.
- The "Quick web start" is an interesting feature. When you press the Web button while the PC is off, it will start a linux-like mini OS and browser in 20s. However, to start the regular Windows isn't that much longer, so speed-wise it's not that usefull. However, when I travel abroad I'm often connected to Wifi networks that may not always be safe, so to use that mini-OS when I only want to browse Internet on travel might be a good idea to avoid messing up with my Windows 7.
- The PMD has a USB port on one of its side. Very useful. I thought they were only of the back of it.
- The screen is great on my 1600x900 panel.

- :
- Vaio Update won't work on my computer.
- The touchpad buttons are very hard and therefore not easy to use, and noisy. I was used to my HP Pro soft and quiet touchpad buttons, which were a real pleasure to use. Really, those buttons on the Z2 shouldn't be that bad on a +2000$ machine. However, I found the touchpad very pleasant to use.
- Considering the high price tag of the PMD, its 3 USB port should be USB3. We only get 1 USB3 port, which is not enough.
- Same thing on the main unit, why is there only 1 USB3 port out of the 2 USB ports available? The Vaio F also has only 2 USB ports, however both of them are USB3 despite a much lower price.
- Speakers are just a joke!
- Battery life is definitely not 7 hours, maybe half of it.


A question on using the battery : when you use your computer mainly at home with the power supply, what should you do not to damage the battery? I was used to remove the battery while at home on my previous laptop, but you can't easily do it on the Z2.

 

Yeah, sorry Nautis. I said I'd help but haven't.

The Z2 is my daily driver and I haven't wanted to dork around with the OS. I'm hoping to have some cycles to work with your package this weekend.

 

Has anybody measured the battery drain rate yet?

1) When in standby/sleep mode, how much % drop say overnight (8hrs).

2) % drop over 8hrs or 24hrs when fully switched off.

 

There is one USB3 on the lappy and one on the PMB.

There is a battery care function within the VAIO Control Center. You can have the batteries stop charging at 50 or 80%, which should extend the life of the batteries.

 

Same for me - vaio is on the road with me since i´ve it

Wrote mails, twitter-messages, facebook posts and emails to sony USA, sony europe and sony asia about the driver problem - no (!) answer yet!

 

True, but when using the PMD, the USB3 port on the PC is "condemned"...

 

Yeah, but we must remember that ATI GPU is connected via PCI-E 4X 1.0 (bad thing it's not 2.0) so 16 Gb/s maximum. Usb 3.0 reaches maximum 5 Gb/s, usb 2.0 480 Mb/s, plus a lan 1000 Mb/s and the odd. All of this when the light peak implemented seems to be the first one, the former technology which goes @ 20 Gb/s.. in this case an additional USB 3.0 would be useless.
For sure, It would be useful to have an additional 3.0 on the laptop.

By the way, I'm doing a battery surfing test. I put a long playlist in youtube. It'll be less energy draining then a continuous charging on various web site but at the same time it'll be more energy training since there's the charging of the video and the playback of the video.

I think I'll get 5 hours..

Uhm.. how can I make a script to do automatic wlan surfing? Cuz' running in youtube it's more energy draining in my opinion.

EDIT: after 2 hours... 63%

 

Do we need yet another Z review? This one is generally positive.

Sony VAIO Z review: Portability, meet Power by VR-Zone.com

 

I've seen that the computer automatically goes into hibernate when in sleep for a certain amount of time. Once i left it overnight at 100% and slept it, sometime during the night it went to hibernate, and when i resumed it was still 100%.

The other time i did the same thing except slept it at like 80% instead of 100% and upon resume after a night's sleep saw it go down maybe 10%

When I've set it to hibernate from the start though, I've never gotten battery drain. 50%>hibernate for a few hours>still 50%.

So I'm guessing the time limit that the sleep mode has causes the 8-10% drain. I just always use hibernate, as it takes about the same amount of time to resume as sleep (ok maybe not, but its still very fast.)

Does anyone else have the problem where if you use the optical drive you cant disconnect the PMD later? It says that the drive is still in use, but i have no idea what program to terminate.

 

I need one from notebookcheck... in my opinion it's the only one web site realiable for noise and screen test..

 

Quite interesting regarding the PMD which is also mentioned at the end of the page: High-speed PCIe is not important for graphics cards

 

Well, it fails to mention the 1600x900/1920x1080@60Hz worth of pixels moving back upstream, and the article mentions the Z2's PMD without also mentioning it has a bit more than a GPU to deal with (reguardless of the other components being used or not, at least all of them are hooked up in a way, to the PCIe link).

 

After a Youtube looping with 360 480 e 720p videos mixture, I got 5h10m.

 

youtube looping on the same file, or a full playlist with never before cached/viewed videos? I know someone mentioned a playlist earlier, but just to be sure

 

Thank you ZoinksS2k! The French translation of the Vaio Care software is rather approximative and I didn't understand it quite well. Thanks to you I won't f*ck up my brand new battery

About the USB3 ports, as you know you can't use both of them at the same time, so that's only one USB3. I don't care that much, it's just a pity considering the price of that Z2.

 

A playlist never cached before.

 

Has anyone tried updating to AMD/ATI to Mobility 11.8?

Upgrading rather than installing/uninstalling seems to work with other AMD/ATI switchable graphics notebooks. Make sure you do an update and DO NOT uninstall the original Sony drivers.

 

While I'm not a Z2 owner, doing that on the SC doesn't work

I know what you mean, I've asked Dell Alienware owners with the HD6xxxm cards, and they say you just directly download from AMD and install over the dell provided drivers (the Dell provided m17xR3 Intel IGP drivers are overly massive, if that helps).

Sony even blocks the default installer (well, AMD blocks it since Sony, Toshiba, and one other didn't join the AMD driver program ).

 

Woah! I just realized you linked the full installer file!

It's working, so far, in Speed mode! (still SC owner, I cannot comment on Z2). Gonna test a few games with it (actually, just SC2 and borderlands, the only two games I have left ).

I installed it in Speed mode, if that matters.

EDIT: well, beyond NBR's edit button finally working....


it works! SC2 and borderlands both played a bit of singleplayer fine!

 

A new review of the Z2 : VR-ZONE

 

Another review in german - it´s the first review which given more information about the open gl problems in the driver!

Test Sony Vaio VPC-Z21Q9E Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

 

^
Also mentions that though the PMD 6650M works as good or better than expected in benchmarks, its performance is subpar in games when compared to notebooks with a dedicated 6650M inside.

 

I read the following in the Z2 User Guide (page 146, "Handling the LCD screen" section):

"Closing the LCD screen lid with a LAN cable, a display cable, or a security cable connected to your computer may cause damage to the corresponding port on the computer. Be sure to disconnect each cable from the computer before closing the lid."

Can someone confirm that it is impossible/not recommended/difficult to close the screen lid when cables are connected to the Z2 ?

 

^ The problem with the cables is that when the lid is closed, the notebook is no longer in a raised position. So when the cables are bigger (like LAN), the notebook is lying on the cables and ports. If you are careful, nothing will happen (the notebook is far too light for that), but of course you shouldn’t apply pressure to the notebook etc.

 

No.. read carefully, it goes slower then a normal HD 6650 .. this is proof that it goes like a 2X 2.0 / 4X 1.0 and not over.

By the way, good review.. as always. And finally, we see what I was thinking.. good color coverage, high brightness but lower then in the past (only a bit) and great contrast for 1080 p

Big and bulky connectors have to be unplugged if you close the lid, since they would force the plug entry (since the laptop is raised up when opened) but with normal usb connectors, audio connectors and hdmi connectors there's no problem (unless they're bulky)

 

^
They reviewed the 1600x900 model not the 1920x1080 one.

 

^ yeah, I read the wrong line.

I'd like to understand if the too good performance in 3D mark 06 / vantage / 11 (better than a 540GT, like a 555GT) and the poor performance in game (worse than a real HD 6650M ) are due to a low and high bandwidth request (so smal bus cap) or due to drivers problem (and still I think about those PMD recognised as 6750M)

 

If you go to Power Options and then Change Plan Settings you can change how long before it hibernates or disable it so it would just stay in sleep mode.

Personally I avoid hibernation on SSD systems as it involves writing a rather large amount of data to the drive.

The thing is, on the Z1, the battery drains quite fast even with it switched off, if you have it in your bag for a weekend the battery might be 20-30% down so I was hoping they'd improved on that (only Sony seemed to have such a high drain rate).

 

^Meh, you will never affect your SSD with hibernation, even if you do it several times a day.

 

No workie. Some packages fail, but the driver seems to load. Borks the adapter and it no longer functions (yellow exclamation in device manager).

 

I made a test between Intel driver by Sony and those by Intel:

Cinebench 11.5 OpenGL

Sony 10.68
Intel 11.41

3DMark06

Sony 4481
Intel 4497

The problem is that... auto brightness sucks with Intel drivers.

If I set it @ 50% .. and then I cover the sensor it'll set @ 30% without any fading effect. Then, uncovering the sensor it won't return @ 50% but it'll go @70% always without any fading.

 

Is anyone else seeing the poor wifi performance when on battery? I was in balanced mode and had to change the wireless power savings to maximum performance in the balanced mode's advanced settings in order to get fast web browsing and such. Thanks to whoever posted this tip earlier. I tried both ie and firefox. I then tested my Z1 on battery in balanced mode and had no such issues. The list of pros and cons over the Z1 is starting to favor my Z1. Glad I have 30 days to decide since I bought a CTO from Sony.

 

I've not noticed any difference in web performance between battery and plugged in. I used it both ways daily.

 

You mean tested with PMD and without PMD or installing special drivers?

 

^ only without PMD and changing drivers (from Sony's driver to Intel's)

I'll do some benchmark on:

Crysis
The Last Remnant
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Lost Planet 2
Street Fighter IV

 

That´s it. On my system WITH PMD i´m not able to start cinebech as it requires Open GL 2.0...bad driver, open gl 1.1 is standard in the year 1997!

Sony, THIS is MEGAFAIL!