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

You will need to install nvidia system tools first

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.02.html

 

i am looking to install MS Office 2003 on the CW. It sounds like I will need VT to do so? Thererfore I will need to get the P8700 and T9600. Can you confirm or amend this logic?
TIA
SALSA GYPSY

 

Thanks! The spiral scrolling thing is awesome.

 

Looks like it's still available at other 'net stores though. Jr.com, newegg.com, Amazon... etc.

 

Check this out.. I ordered a Sandisk Memory Stick Pro HG Duo Extreme (who names this stuff?) from here http://www.memorysuppliers.com/sand...mory-stick-pro-hg-duo.html?CAWELAID=362281215

The read/write speed is supposed to be 30mb/sec, like 10x a normal card or thumbdrive. Should be great for Readyboost. I wonder if it's a good idea to put the whole swap file on it.

 

Report back on how you like that. I never thought using a flash memory card for ReadyBoost. I have 8 GB already but if I ever feel the need for more memory I might need to try that.

 

could anyone tell me if they are having problems with the disk cleaner in the sony vaio? i keep getting over 200+ problems when i run the program. i want to know if i have a defect.

 

thats amazing that jr.com still has some vpccw18fx's in black. I thought I got the second to the last one.... they lied haha

 

no, you dont need VT to run MS oFFICE 2003, I can confirm that i have used office 2003,2007, 2010 in XP, and Windows 7
VT applies to certain programs that arent compatible with win7 or vista things like certain company softwares or such things

 

I use the Sandisk 8GB MS HG pro Duo Extreme III in the memory stick slot of my Sony A900 dSLR and it works like a charm.

Note that the read/write speed is 30MB/sec and not 30mb/sec.....the capitalized "MB" refers to MegaBytes, while the small case "Mb" refers to Megabits.....where 1MB=8Mb.

 

Do these memory sticks have wear levelling? If not, using it for the swap file may not be good. Readyboost has ways of dealing with that I believe.

 

Hi,

I am interested in getting this laptop. The config i am looking at one from bestbuy, that has a blu-ray disc, but the cpu is an intel P6600, which has an 800 Mhz FSB. Will i be worse off with this processor versus one which has a 1066 Mhz FSB (like the P6700 or something faster)?

The problem is that at ALL the retailers the faster CPUs don't come with a blu-ray capable DVD drive or with 500 GB of disk space, which this model has.

Thanks,
-Raj

 

is it just me or is VAIO personalization manager in task manager, takes up like 50% cpu at like alot of times. I notice it when I close my laptop, and then open it back up and then the VAIO manager will just take a bunch of cpu?
Anyone else? (VpmLM.exe)

The folder is in Program files, Sony, Vaio personalization manager... I tried clicking on the four applications and only 1 seems to work. and its like tv? ???? W?T?F? ( VpmIfBroker, VpmIfPav) What is this? its in the folder.

 

Wear leveling? I haven't heard that term before, but I definitely would NOT recommend using flash memory for swap file usage. Even with the newer flash chips, there are a limited number of write-cycles before the memory cells wear out.

Even if you force it to write to different addresses rather than the same ones time and again, as I'm guessing "wear leveling" may refer to, you're still going to be hitting the same addresses a lot more often than you would with regular file storage use.

 

I don't even have this process running... should it be running?

I'm a bit weary of all these VAIO programs, processes and services... I've yet to find any of the programs of any use to me, and it seems that the content analyser seems to just eat up cpu idle time. it makes it even worse that sony sets all their services to start up automatically

i set alot of the VAIO services to manual in the services tab in device management; If they are needed, they will start up, they just wont start up automatically when windows loads

Me thinks tomorrow, i'm gonna sit for hours and figure out what every service, and process of sonys does, and then if they do sod all... they'll be gone

I really wanna do a semi-cleaninstall but i cba to do it... takes too long

 

yeah, this program doesnt boot up right away but it seems when i hibernate, sleep or something for like a few mins and wake it up, it will suddenly have the sony manager running in taskmanger but i cant find it anywhere else and it just takes cpu to 49-50% all the time. try it out, cause i have 11 percent cpu right now and i just restarted my comp but if i let it alone or close my lid for over a few mins or something. it will be there

 

I tried copying what you did (putting the cw to sleep for a few mins) but when i look at the task manager it's still around 3-10%, and the vpmlm.exe isnt on the processes list...

however the vpmifbroker.exe and vpmifpav.exe have appeared, and since the CW has been back on they seem to have pushed my cpu usage up (not loads but it hardly goes back into the 0-9% region now).

God 117 processes are running... too many for my liking, my Hp with a clean install of win7 only has about 70.... GAH

 

I too tried to order one last night too and had the same problem. I want to order is custom from SonyStyle so I can get the "Fresh Start" to get rid of the Sony programs and such (espcially I think important after reading all the posts here).

This makes me think, is sony going to come out with an updated version of the CW? or a newer version of the SR? Soon? Maybe in more color options?

Also, I was really torn between the SR and the CW. After reading a many old threads here, I'm still not exactly sure which one to get. My heart says to go with the SR cause it's lighter and even thought I tried to buy the CW last night, after they said there were out of stock, makes me think I should wait?

I like the instant web button on the CW too, I don't think the SR has it?

Any advice for me between the 2 models? Here are my uses:
1. No gaming at all
2. Major multi-tasker with multiple windows open at one, business use, blogging, writing contracts,
3. Photoshop, video editing.
4. Will be used a lot
5. Travel - yes, hence why the light weight of the SR is very intruiging to me. My current VAIO is a 15" and it's HEAVY and too big, it seems reviewers have said the CW isn't all that much smaller weight wise.

I currently have a VAIO FS 550 that is SLOW due to not enough RAM and memory, but generally I have been happy with it. It has all the VAIO crap programs, that's why I really want a fresh start/clean install but don't want to have to do it on my own.

Laslty, the CW seems like it would be a finger print magnet, even though the colors look very cool. Thoughts ?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hmm as far as specs per dollar go, the CW seems very solid. I customized it to...

2.66ghz
4 gigs ddr3
500 gig 7200rpm
GT230M

all for just $1280 CDN

It's confusing me because until now, I could have never configured a Sony Vaio to this price level even though I really wanted one. Similar configured Z with lower graphics card is $2250 CDN.

I tried the SR, CW, Z out at the store and CW seems more solid than Z in terms of keys, casing, hardware.

 

Whoa, 117? Thats shocking!

Im at 52 with my wiindows 7 installed clean a month ago.
The quantity of Sony processess are ridiculous.

 

Right, that's what wear levelling is. Some flash devices have that function built in, so they spread load. I think even with the wearing down of flash memory, it lasts a long long time. There's no problem using SSD drives for an OS after all. If you use only 2gb of a 4gb flash drive for swap, it would last even longer.

 

What do you think Sony's strategy is by releasing the CW in the very end of 2009 when there is CES in January? Do you think CW will be updated with new processors and graphics in January-February? Or is that for the Z and more $$ series?

 

You can have a harddrive and SSD for OS and booting? How do you go abouts doing this? can you configure it from Sony or did you do alone?

Also, what is your boot/shut down time?

 

My HDD replaces my DVD drive using a caddy I bought online. I rarely ever used the drive and install most of my stuff through my desktop connected on my network.

Bootup is about 40 seconds from pressing the on button until everything in the system tray loads.

Windows 7 score for the SSD is 7.5

 

What kind of battery life do you get with daily usage (non-gaming)?
Do you suggest going with the bigger battery?

I have a DV3...do you expect the CW will have much better battery life relative to the DV3?

 

I use batterybar and that tells me that my full battery lifetime is 3h20m, It takes it on an average of the times its been on battery.
I use it on battery with brightness at 4 blocks (1/2) and wireless on.

I dont know anything about the DV3, How long do you get now on battery?

 

The CW will almost certainly remain with roughly the current specs for another year at least, with some incremental improvements along the way. It will be the flag-bearer for Sony's consumer-grade, smaller-screened models.

The much-more-expensive premium Z and SR ranges are sorely due for a re-design (the SR range plods on with DDR2-800 RAM, no less !). The FW and the AW are also way behind the technology curve. Those models will have their successors released during CES.

 

The CW is a really good choice since the GPU would come really handy wil video editing, and photoshop, and the good thing is that the CW comes in a business matte version on the Sony Business Site, whilst having a matte version you loose the 3 function keys next to the Power On Button, which are, Display Off(laptop stays on and only the screen backlit is turned off and saves a lot on battery too), Web Button(boots to splash top a very small linux boot that is made for browsing quickly since it boots in 15-20 secs and never even touches windows, and in windows it opens default browser), and the Vaio button(customizable to your liking), and some of the matte versions do come with a fingerprint but mind you, i think there are only 2-3 models with the G230m GPU card if you cant any then i guess your best choice could be SR
SR is lighter than the CW, comes with an ATI 512MB GPU(sorry forget which model, but its really good not as good as the G230m but almost there. Its made for business class and it has that sleek matte look, the speakers on both laptops are somewhat the same, and i always loved that cylinder power button that the Z, TT, SR have had just brilliant and looks just beautiful
its up to you
oh yes one more thing i liked about the CW over the SR is that the CW comes with a 16:9 ratio screen and the SR comes with the usual 16:10, and due to the fact that everyones saying that an SR successor is due soon at CES id like to wait and see since the SR is oudated with its DDR2 RAM anyways, but yeah i hoped i could help you decide

 

Even with the fresh start you get Sony crap loaded on it. It wasn't much, but I don't have a regular one to compare it with. I should look at my processes and see what I find. I should also try to stop a lot of them from loading. My computer runs fine though. I played CoD MW2 the other day. I was at my fiance's parents and they have slow dsl hooked up to 1 computer. I hooked my 3g phone up to my laptop and played MW2 online. My last game I was top kills with a high kill/death ratio! I was pretty amazed by my internet speed while playing

I am thinking if I get a new hard drive (7200 rpm), I may first try doing a fresh install. If it doesn't work to my liking, I'll copy the old hard drive over.

 

Picked up my laptop yesterday and so far it is great! Made all the recovery discs fine and am now looking at what bloatware I can safely remove.

Norton and McAfee trials are already gone along with a couple of other things.

I have looked through quite a lot of this forum and not found a list of what is ok to remove. I don't want to stop any of the laptops functions (web startup for example) from working, but I don't need all their music, photos, films, etc... software. Also is it worth removing all the microsoft office programs before installing the actual 2007 version that I was given for free.

And finally, is there anything good about vaio gate? I removed it the moment I saw it but it is still installed.

Hope somebody can help. Thanks very much and happy new year~!

 

I don't know why people bother switching to 7200rpm drives. A hard drive is an inherently slow device, so why not stick with the 5400rpm for less heat, less power usage, less noise, longer life? You aren't going to notice the transfer speed difference-- I can't tell any difference in load times for any apps between my desktop and 5400rpm laptop.

 

After starting up my computer I had 62 processes running. For some reason now it's showing 64 and keeps going up to 65 then back down. I have no idea what my computer is doing...lol. OMG now its 61. I haven't touched it since I started it up :S

Least it's less than everyone else is saying. I uninstalled a few things, including the sony update program. FIgured I can manually update.

 

I am planning to go with CW series, getting out of Dell. I got couple of questions-

* How is Sony's after sales service? Should I buy the extended warranty?
* Can I swap the 5400 rpm HDD with a 7200 one?
* What does the 'Fresh Start' do?

Thanks in advance.

 

Fresh Start means they don't install any crapware (trial software and Sony proprietary junk) but you have to spring for Windows 7 Professional ($50 more than Home Premium) to get Fresh Start.

It's nice if you need Windows 7 Pro to begin with, but not worth upgrading if you don't since you can uninstall the crapware yourself. =P

 

Yes you can change the HD from a 5400 to a 7200 rpm. I did its very easy. Although the guy said a few post up that you can hardly see a different in 5400 vs 7200 and in laptops I have to agree their. I was expecting much more its slightly faster but nothing earth shaking. Getting an SSD would be a big jump though......

 

One of the biggest improvements in system responsiveness you can ever make is jumping on the SSD bandwagon, much better than a cpu/memory upgrade.

I agree with the 5400 - 7200rpm HDD differences. Not very noticable at all in everyday tasks.

 

Hello ,
I am getting conflicting info. The following was found on Consumer Reports website:
"Looks and feels like a MAC. Runs faster than any PC I have ever owned. Unfortunately, SONY has disabled the Virtual Technology on their BIOS for this and most other models of VIAO notebooks. Thus Windows Virtual PC, Virtual XP and any chance at backward compatibility are disabled. Absent Virtual XP, there are no drivers available for printers, adapters, software, etc. Since Windows 7 drivers are also missing for most printers, adapters, etc. this notebook and others from SONY are little more than BlueRay Disk Players with keyboards.

Comments Please
TIA
Salsa Gypsy

 

Unless you own an older vaio model, then you wont be able to use VT, but if you are looking at buying any current model (like the CW), then you can enable VT.

Sony doesnt disable access to VT anymore since the release of windows 7. VT and virtual pc are only needed for compatability anyway, so if you cant get a program to run on win7, but it ran on windows xp, 2000, 98 etc, then you would use a virtual machine with one of them installed in it to run the program. Virtual machines benefit from VT because VT allows access to the hardware

microsoft office 2003 runs on vista/7 as someone has already said. it doesnt need to be used in a virtual machine, or does it need VT.

As for hardware, this was a problem when users were migrating from XP to vista. Hardware manufacturers like (sony for example) didnt develop vista-compatable drivers for older hardware, so when windows vista was released in 2007, machines that were about 3 years or older (before 2004) couldnt run vista properly due to some missing drivers.

However this isnt the case with windows 7, it is based on the same kernal as windows vista(NT6), so drivers that are available for windows vista should work with windows 7, which means hardware spanning from around 5-6 years ago should work with windows 7.

i got my lexmark printer to work from 2003 with my HP which i bought in 2008, which was running vista at the time. That article is a load of balls.it sounds as if they arent up to date with tech.

sorry if i've wrote loads , but i hope it helps

 

Does anyone know why the CW is no longer available? my dell broke over christmas and I was hoping to get this computer before my school break is over at the end of january...

 

Most probably lack of parts. where are you from? on sonystyle uk it says that the current configuration isnt available, so it's most likely just that. you'll just have to keep checking untill it appears again

 

Yup, they've actually bumped up the price to £663 on sonystyle UK now, despite not even being in stock. Since the beginning of the week I've tried to buy from 3 different online vendors to no avail but managed to get one from Comet - £699 for the black model with blu-ray playback which seems to be £100 cheaper than everywhere else. Does anyone know how many DVDs the recovery process requires? I plan on doing a (semi?) clean install as soon as I get it. Cheers.

 

If you want to get it quickly, your best bet is an online retailer instead of custom built

 

2 dual-layer DVD's, or 3 single-layer DVD's.

 

I was wondering if it takes like 5 mins to load windows, i havent install any program yet, just the updates and it takes around 5 mins to load windows, hope someone answer me before returning it.
Thanks

 

I did a clean install of Win7 on mine and it takes like less than 30sec to load for me. That was even with the T6600.

 

how to do clean install? im just noob with that kind of stuff.
Thanks

 

Pop in a Windows 7 installation Disk and boot from it. Wipe your HDD with the installer, that is if you don't have anything on it you want saved right now because that would totally delete everything on it, then install you a new copy of Windows, then install your drivers from here. Then you're done, with a fresh completely clean, non-bloated, awesome os.

 

i dont have windows 7 disk, BestBuy doesnt give me any disk with it.

 

Hi,

I am looking at getting the VPC-CW1XGX/U from bestbuy.com. The site has this model listed as having core2duo P6670 processor with a 1066Mhz FSB. However i have looked all over the web and could not quite find this particular processor model. The closest is see is a T6670, which is a 800Mhz FSB. Also, interestingly enough all the web hits for this particular laptop model have it as a T6670 with 800Mhz FSB!

So, did bestbuy just mess up the specs on this laptop or is there something else going on? I am quite particular about this because i need the VT for my XP applications and also the 1066 speed for any graphics/other IO intensive applications.

Any info will help. Thanks in advance.

Thanks,
-Raj

 

what does 96khz/24 bit decoding do.. ? i want to watch blu ray movie on my lcd through my vaio laptop and the sound will be coming from my sony home theatre.. will it damage the home theatre speakers.. will it be helpful in improving sound quality.. ? what doES SEND 0.1 LFE SUBWOOFER TO SPEAKER/HEADFONES DO.. ? WHAT DOES SEND THE LOW FREQUENCY CONTENT FROM MAIN CHANNEL TO 0.1 LFE SUBWOOFER DO.. ? SHOULD I ENABLE IT.. ?