Official Sony Vaio CW Core 2 Duo Series Owner's Thread

Hey guys, I was lured here because I'm thinking about purchasing a Sony VAIO myself and am waiting for the perfect moment to purchase the darn thing.

Anyways, I was wondering if you guys had an idea of when Sony would offer the Blu-Ray playback as well as the Nvidia g230m graphics card again. Right now they don't have any of those options available in customization.

I had the shot at customizing my VAIO to these features during Thanksgiving (they were free too)...but I missed out and was unable to purchase one at these times.

 

They will get new stuff next year...!!! people who ordered during thanks giving are still waiting for their laptops...so....

 

Great news.. My CW finally shipped..

It says some Special Holiday Standard Shipping Upgrade.. How long does it take usually.. And all laptops are shipped through FedEx only right?

 

well like i said try to get newegg to lower the price somehow, or check around for any discount someone here might be able to help you out with them, i dont know if they have extra discounts for students or anything but its always cool to check and ask maybe they might.

try to call few times and get to talk to 2-3 people maybe someone might give more discount than the other, or best is that most companies usually match prices with their competitors so try to find a company that has a lower price than they have even if that company has the item out of stock, who knows plus best of all its holiday season so maybe they might do something extra for that too.

yeah you can check it out some Sony stores have an in-store centre or technician center, while other's dont. Mine doesnt

 

Items:
1
Order Status:
SHIPPED
Shipping Method:
Special Holiday Standard Shipping Upgrade
Shipped Date:
12/17/2009

 

I got my CW a little after 5 pm today. I'm creating recovery discs now. I also got the blu-ray burner upgrade. I don't know why I ordered blu-ray. I don't have any blu-ray movies or plan to buy any. I guess it was because it was a free upgrade.

 

My shipping updated to the 1st of Dec. too. That would be great if it ships tomorrow.

I called when my shipping update went back to the 1st and I was told this. "blah, blah, it still shows the 22nd on my computer so you should see before xmas, blah, blah, blah, by the way, you will be happy to know that we have upgraded everyones shipping method to the express shipping which means it should be there within 3 to 4 days of being shipped."

 

I found out that none of the matte models come with the Gt230M only the 210M that really stinks....

 

I found that The North Face has a great array of backpacks, plenty of style/function options in an array of colors. They are good sized as well, about 30L or so, so room for books or gym/hiking stuff. Plus, most of them have an integrated laptop sleeve along the back of the pack (with buckle to secure) that is padded at the bottom and about an inch or so above the bottom of the pack, so if you drop the pack, the laptop is well buffered from the impact. I have a Recon myself (with front mesh pocket for bicycle helmet and/or random stuff) and I love it-- my CW fits in the pack like it was made for it

Check it out: http://www.thenorthface.com/catalog/sc-gear/equipment-daypacks#1261106397922

 

Thanks vaioforme, am sifting through all the suggestions now to see what works. Until then, Firefox is my new BFF

 

i just called sony again to see if my laptop got shipped...and they said sir your laptop is delayed and is waiting for the video gard gt230m and the bluray drive...once it is shipped we'll let you....

This is the status they gave me despite sending me the email that my sony laptop was in production.... also when i had called in earlier, i was told that my laptop was ready for shipment...i am not sure whats happening here...!!!
Sony needs to get its act together...!

 

Cool, thanks!

 

OK, I took the plunge. I really did not want the 210 video card from sonystyle, and I did not want to wait till January, so I found this gem:

Sony VGC-CW190X - Icy White
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P9700
4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU (512MB VRAM)
640 GB Hard Drive 5400rpm
Extended Battery(9 Cell, I think)
Win 7 Pro(I paid $25 for an upgrade from Home)
DVD Burner

I paid for it yesterday(12/16), and UPS tracking says it will be here tomorrow(12/18).

I found it on Ebay, this is the seller's ebay name: computerupgradeking

Very professional, and easy to deal with.

He has more, but not Icy White.

Thanks to you folks for your opinions and advice, I would not have been able to make such an educated choice without this forum.

 

It looks like I'm returning my white CW to Best Buy. The 2.20 Ghz T6600 is too slow compared to the 2.53 Ghz P8700 in my Q320 when encoding/decoding video.

If I do get a new machine, it would probably be the Asus N81VP-D2 (T9600 2.8 Ghz, ATI 4650....) which I can get for less than a CTO CW w/ P8700 and GT 230M.

Hopefully I can find a local buyer for my Q320 who won't try to low-ball me.

 

Thanks for that sadly the 2.13 GHz doesn't have VT! Such a major pain! Currently the viewing angles and sound quality are high on my list.

 

checking your track number on fedex, mine have been shipped on 16th and estimated to arrive on 23th, so i think you will see it within a week. That is a Special Holiday Standard Shipping of Sony . Anyway still lucky more than other member in these forums. Hope all of you will see yours soon.

 

What is the idle and load tempt of T9600 configuration and battery ?

 

That's why it's not a good idea to download any other images of recovery disk than yours as asked by jangidk.

Jangidk, I wasn't able to analyze every answer related to your question - this thread is going too fast for me but I suppose you already have your problem doing recovery disks

1/ Explain how do you do it; via VAIORecv (recovery tool) ? what option you use ?

2/ Did you do any fancy thing before trying to make the recovery disks ? If yes reboot, F10, restore C: or restore complete system and try again

3/ Did you try to restore from recovery partition (on the HDD) first ?

4/ Did you try to burn anything else on your burner to see if the problems come from the burner or from the recovery process ?

5/ If everything seems normal I'd try the following:

a/ try the recovery process from the HDD: reboot, F10, recover C (if you created another D: partition that you want to keep) or recover complete. This will make you sure that you can always recover from HDD but I agree you'll not be safe if your HDD fails for some reason. But at least you have tested the recovery process. This will also put you hopefully to the original case so you can try creating DVD from a known state (same as 2/ above)

b/ Maybe I'm mistaken but you said you also tried on other media ? If yes how did you do that ? There is one way I see you could do this is via W7 image backup but not via the sony recovery tool!
In any case do a W7 image backup on an external disk. This will ensure that if you have any HDD failure in the future, you could change the HDD and recover to your old system from an external disk.

I'm no expert on Windows backup utilities and always use Norton Ghost. This way I can boot on the Norton CD and restore my image to the existing HDD (probably I'll do this because of a virus or an unwanted apps, etc.) or to a newly installed HDD in case your HDD has failed.

I agree this doesn't explain why creating recovery disk doesn't work for you but at least this is a good workaround that can replace completely sony recovery.

Doing sony recovery will revert back your system to the original state as delivered. Either via DVDs if you have a hardware problem with your disk or via recovery partition which is faster.

Now, if you do it via W7 or via Ghost, before installing anything other (obviously you need to install Ghost if you chose that way, but that's all you need to install), well, you'll find your system as in the original state.

The only thing that remain is creating the vaio recovery partition. Actually I think the recovery DVDs will create a recovery partition on the disk as delivered originally. You can't do this via W7 backup (at least I don't know).
However, it is maybe possible to backup an image of that partition with Ghost so you can restore it. But I don't know if after that, doing F10 at boot will work (although I don't see any reason why it wouldn't).

You're right to insist on resolving this issue.
good luck
nalooti

 

are you running vaio recovery at boot time or after you log in to windows ?
you should obviously do it when windows is running.

Tell us what do you see, what do you have as option ?
take a screen shot as send it to this thread.

Note that when running VAIORecv.exe and click to install softs/drivers, you'll have two tabs, one for drivers and one for the other softs. I don't remember where is "Quick Web Access" but check both.

If you really don't have it, try to download it first via VAIO update utility

 

Just keep in mind that Asus is a ***** when it comes to RMA cases. And make sure to check out the review of the mentioned laptop, because my former Asus notebook had some huge issues with heating.

 

thanks very much for answering.

My concern is also about the fan lifetime itself not about the noise because it is really not so noisy.

Anybody else can tell us if its fan is running all the time ?

thanks

 

Hi,

HDMI question:

each time I connect the HDMI to my TV, the TV gets the image without doing anything in my part. The resolution is also good (1080p).

However, in order for the get the sound on the TV via HDMI, I have to change manually the default output for the sound.

Is it a way to also switch the sound automatically to the TV via HDMI when the notebook detect an HDMI cable connected ?

Are you experiencing the same constraint ?

Note that when I disconnect the HDMI cable, the sound comes back automatically to the notebook speakers.

 

The fan is off for the first 5-10 seconds, then about 10 seconds of very low speed and after that it hits my normal idle speed.

I would prefer the fan to idle a bit slower since the lappy never ever gets warm. The HSF is certainly doing a good job of evacuating the heat.

 

I bought a Targus RG0322 5.4 Matrix Notebook Backpack from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00007LTAI/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

It's pretty big and should be great for me. I bought it for school so I can have my laptop plus my books and everything. The only problem I see it being with the CW is the laptop compartment is made for bigger laptops, so it will move around a bit. Could probably find something to fill the gap if you wanted though.

 

Pretty sure you can't make the sound switch to HDMI when you plug it in. The reason it goes back, is because it notices that the connection is no longer there, so it goes to the speakers which are there.

 

Luckly I'll be going to see a demo of the laptop today, so I should be able to test the angles and sound. If the webcam is fluid then I don't see any issues there. I use it mainly for Skype.

I'm not too happy that the 2.13 CPU doesn't have VT, my Acer 5720 from 2 years ago has VT (not enabled in bios)!

 

Shipped from Newegg, less than a day after ordering! Glad I didn't do CTO, at least this time of year, even though I missed out on Blu Ray and Win 7 Pro.

Estimated delivery 12/21/2009

 

Thank you... is it only the black is matte? I noticed the rest are glossy.... just wondering.

You're right... I have checked the sony business website, best buy, and amazon. All of them have the 210M... I wonder if they will have any upgrades in Jan.... hopefully.

 

mine says it will be arrived on the 23th also, sony shipped on the 17th, from CA to NY

 

Actually, i kind of find it wierd that the display goes to the TV automatically...i thought we'd have to select the external display option...! i had to do that on my old vaio when i connected my TV via s-video...!

EDIT: I just remembered i didnt have to change anything,but i did have to right click on the screen for the display to move to the TV...! i had to change the settings only when i wanted to have extended desktop...!

 

I faced the same problem as you. My web button was also not working. The answer i found was on page 118 of this thread. You can download and install the file from this location... This will install the splashtop. This is for the NW series model but it works just as fine on the CW. I've used it myself.

Enjoy
Link - ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/VAIO/Updates/EP0000207216.exe

 

@AKS316 - did you get a shipment email yet?

 

Well i thought ram is useful for multitasking, how is it going to make everything smooth

 

More RAm, means lesser read write to the physical memory - hence smoother operation , for example, if you were to play a game, more parts of the game would get loaded with 6GB of Ram than with 4GB of Ram...so the game will hang less (feels like a skip at times...) ... the processor speed is more useful when doing heavy video encoding/decoding etc.... but again in that case tooo a jump from 2.26ghz to 2.53 ghz would not be very noticable. in such a case for example if a video conversion took 1 hours on 2.26 ghz processor it might take about 52-57 minutes on the 2.53 ghz processor...!

So normal notion says... more Ram vs a lil bump in processor speed....pick more Ram...!

hope this helps...

 

So intel announced mobile core i3 and i5 processors will be released in January. Anybody know if they will fit the socket on the CW. (note: they are dual core not quad)

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/17/intel-core-i3-mobile-core-i5-processors-coming-january-7/

 

It does mate, I see many people advise me to take the rams ><, I'm contemplating T9600 ( 2.8ghz) or 6gb of rams with P8700 ( like yours )
Can you describe me how smooth your unit performs ? I don't like lag...
And some say Overclock will reduce the processor life time, is that the case when the processor is hot ? I thought I could OC P8700 to 2.7ghz with a few degrees change like 3 since CW has a very good heat exhaust system

 

I don't think its any faster than C2D P8700, the fastest one I have heard is Core i7 640-UM 1.2 ghz something -> 2 cores 4 threads o.o

 

Mine runs most of the time, but not all of the time. The fan is near silent anyway so i wouldnt call it an issue... especially if it gives us excellent low temps

 

i still havent recieved my laptop... :-( so i cant really answer that...! but i can look around for that info...what do you plan to use the laptop for?

 

I went with 8 GB of ram for my computer only because from 6 GB to 8 GB it was only $150 more. To upgrade to 8 GB later I would have had to buy a 4 GB stick, which would have cost about $300 or more.

Went with the higher processor just for the 6 mb cache. Probably not a huge difference, but again because I didn't want to have to upgrade later.

 

I thought I posted this already.

Mine shipped this morning, less than 24 hrs after ordering. I'm glad I went with Newegg vs CTO, even though I missed out on Blu Ray and Win 7 Pro

 

BTW with more RAM, Win7 will cache often used programs or files (not sure of the details). So that is how you get snappier performance.

Processors don't really matter these days because they're all so powerful, but I went with the Twhatever 2.13ghz because the FSB and RAM are synced at 1066mhz

 

Question for all those that utilise VT tech for XP Mode in windows 7, what applications do you use it for and is it worth spending £90 to get a faster processor with VT?

 

yipeee....recieved shipping confirmation...!!!

DO NOT BELIEVE THE SONY CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CALL AT NIGHT AND SOME GUY ANSWERS YOUR call...they have wrong info... and you will simply get disappointed...!

When i called last afternoon...a lady answered and said my laptop was being prepared for shipment...

when i called last night (called twice last night)...some guy picked up and said...the laptop was delayed and was waiting on parts...!!!

 

Am I the only one who's experience battery drain? I left my laptop off without the AC adapter attached to it and it's now stuck at 80%. It simply won't charge any further... :S

I'm really concerned about this...

 

I think most people with battery problems would have it drain over night, but I think it would actually charge back up. If yours isn't charging, you may want to call Sony and ask them about a replacement or something.

 

No, a number of people have noticed it. Sony call it a feature. I find it very annoying and the only way around it is to remove the battery when you will not be using it for a day or two.

 

What sort of a feature is a battery drain?

but like many people have noticed before the battery does drain over night but then stays at that percentage (i remember someone said 92% for example) for an extended period of time...!

but if you plug it into the AC adapter and still the battery doesnt go upto a 100% - then thats a problem... you need to return it and ask for a new battery...!

 

LOL? How is that a "feature"?

 

That's a really... I'm so fed up with RMA-cases. Just went through a pure nightmare with Asus and now upon a bit research on battery - something that I expected was without any major issus regardless of manufacturer - is a "feature" on Sony Laptops!

LOL

But yeah... Now stuck at 80% and it's not going any further. I'm going to shut it down later and see if it does anything different.