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

Awesome thanks so much! I disabled most of the programs that you did, so hopefully that will help the computer have a bit more pep

 

So when will the new CWs ship? Anyone know? I need a new computer, and am waiting for the 7th, but if they wont ship until late Jan. or Feb. , I might just buy one now.

 

Me too... I've been checking every day on the site but nothing. I need a new laptop (very) soon. I'm even considering looking at the SR or FW models... what do you guys think?

 

I got my Vaio CW just a few days ago. I was wondering if I wanted to change my processor to an i7 on my own, a. is it possible?; b. how hard would it be?
otherwise, my vaio's running smoothly... only downside is processor's lack of speed (for my liking, that is)

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Black Vaio CW, T6600, 4gb ddr3 ram, 500gb HD (5400 rpm), Blu-Ray, Bluetooth, GT210 256mb GPU, Bluetooth

 

The one with the P7450 and 230M is back in stock at Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117970

 

Nope impossible, difference chipset, different CPU pins.
I would guess that when the new CW model turns up with i3/5/7 support then you could possibly do a mobo swap (if the chassis is the same). But that's gonna cost.

 

I am hoping to get a CW soon! but I have a few questions.
I am a college student that will be using the laptop mostly watching TV and movies, writing papers, etc. I don't know that much about laptops so will
Intel® Pentium® Processor T4300 (2.10GHz) be good enough or should I pay extra for the duo 2?
Also I plan on getting the large capacity battery but I want to know how much more the laptop will weight. I have a 7lbs dell and I can't carry it anymore!

Thanks in advance!

 

Yes, you want to upgrade to the 64 bit CPU. The 2.13ghz (Pwhatchamacallit?) one uses less power than the T6600, so if you're concerned with battery life that might be a worthwhile upgrade too.

 

The official specs list the CW series as weighing in at 5.3lbs.

I personally would go with a Core2 Duo processor, assuming I would absolutely not be able to wait for a few weeks more and pick up one of the newer generation models with the brand-new Intel chips.

 

heard that the new intel i5 chips will cost the same as P8700, so we can expect both i3 and i5 as options for the refreshed cw, and also according to reports the performance of even i3 chips are slightly better than P8700, so the i5 should provide a substantial increase in performance.

 

My CW finally turned up today and I have to say I'm very impressed. My concerns about the screen, based on what others have said, have been allayed because it's fantastic. The horizontal viewing angles are great (way better than my mate's new 17.3 inch Acer screen) and the vertical angles aren't too bad. I'm typing on it right now and feels great. Currently in the process of uninstalling all the rubbish that Son'sy unloaded on the machine (McAfee AND Norton!?). I'll report back later with some more impressions and maybe some pictures for those of you are sitting on the fence or waiting for yours to arrive

 

Anyone got this update and noticed any significant changes?

Improvement of battery charge feature... Hmmm...

 

Just received my CW today. Bought it from sonystyle.ca.
I ordered a custom make model with P6670 cpu. It is clearly stated in my order confirmation.

However, Windows 7 device manager show that it's a T6670. Could not find much information about P6670 vs T6670 online. Wonder if sonystyle.ca has given me a wrong cpu...

 

Arent they coming out tomorrow?

 

I have the same confusion. I ordered a bestbuy model here in US that says it has the P6670. No specs on this processor available online. Also, i got the shipment today and it says T6670 on the box. The bestbuy customer service insisted it is a P6670, i.e, 1066Mhz system bus. But T6670 is a 800 Mhz system bus. So, most likely i have to return it. 800 Mhz is so old.

 

New CW's up:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...Id=8198552921644659495&parentCategoryId=16154

 

NOT impressed... core i5??? what happened to just offering core i3?? it's not even an option. i hate rumours... always jump into things early, i should really wait...

sony have messed up the uk website. i was getting excited when i went on the CW's page; full colour reproduction, anti-reflective display, 1080p screen.... but then i noticed its a glitch, and its all for f-series gutted

on another note, the sky blue coloured one with the silver casing is fairly nice... at least it looks silver, not sure actually

 

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666033768

i3.

 

Did anyone notice?? the graphic card is available only with 256 mb memory ,no option for 512 mb

 

lmao the page has changed, before it let you customise a cw and everything

yeah it's kind of odd, the 230m is what seperated the cw from the rest IMO. It would knock me off buying a cw. i bought it for the power of the 230m GPU, and the 310m in the refresh models just wouldnt cut it for me. this just puts the cw in line with every other 14 inch notebook

Makes me think "maybe i did buy at the right time".

 

Bit of bummer there chucky_1234, I'm glad I didn't cancel my order though because I reckon the refreshed CWs would take me well beyond my price range. As promised, here are some badly taken pictures. Sorry, had to use the flash:



I spent hours yesterday expunging the billion Sony Vaio programs and processes that were installed and now after installing most of my programs, sorting through the start-up processes in msconfig, Windows 7 boots to the login screen in 40 secs from a cold start and has 67 processes running which takes up about 1GB of RAM. Seems a lot, but my only experience is XP, nothing seems sluggish though. So far, with less than 24 hours of ownership, I'm loving this machine - you don't know how much I've missed a computer that turns off and on properly

 

I've noticed with flash that the keyboard always comes out with a bluish tint. it did it with my pictures too

What services, programs and processes have you killed off? at the moment ive got 85 (87 including 2 IE windows) which seems a bit high considering you've cut down to 67

please tell all


o and btw, does anyones cd tray just randomly pop open now and again :S mines done this 3 times... which is a bit odd

 

Hmmm... Apparently, this update actually did improve the battery.

I kept the laptop without the AC adapter in during the night and it hasn't lost any battery life. Prior to this update it would always lose like 10-20%.

 

...Ditto. I'm coming straight off a crappy, donated, Dell, XP Desktop, so everything seems better to me. But, while I'm wowed by all the stuff 7 (and Sony) has to offer, there's a lot I don't ever see myself using...

Er... what update is this?

Also, does anyone know how to change the contrast of the screen? I remember someone posting better color settings, but can't find them.

 

I saw some spec online saying that the P6670 has 1066mhz FSB. That's why I went ahead and place the order. CPU-Z confirms that my CW has the T6670 with 800mhz FSB. As you said, there is no such cpu as P6670 under Intel site. Also, sonystyle.ca didn't state that the P6670 has 1066mhz FSB on their site. They may most likely say that it's only a typo. I may just keep my CW instead of going through all the hassle to return it. Should have done more research before making the decision.

 

I posted this a while back. it was 70 pages back when i posted it this thread moves so fast and things get lost

 

hey guys, i did a clean install with w7 ultimate and i need to find a way to download the splashtop web...thx

 

I am having a bit of a sound problem with my CW-- when streaming videos full-screen, the built-in speakers will crackle every few seconds of so, it is really annoying! I've tried playing with different volumes settings for the computer and/or the video player, to no avail. The problem is not apparent when the video returns to its small-screen format (not full screen). Has any one else experienced this? Suggestions? I will have to do some more extensive tests with DVDs and CDs perhaps.

Yeah I have the same problem, and it has also been mentionned in the forum, so I assume it is a design issue. Overall, it doesn't really loosen, and you sorta get used to it

 

Any one interested in sharing the Windows experience score. Want to know if the CPU FSB is really the bottle neck of my CW:

Processor: 5.7 (T6670 2.2g)
Memory: 5.5 (2g ddr3)
Graphics: 6.4 (GT230M, 512m)
Gaming Graphics: 6.4 (GT230M, 512m)
HDD: 5.8 (250g SATA 5400rpm)

 

Processor: 5.7 (P7450 2.13Ghz)
Memory: 5.8 (4g ddr3)
Graphics: 6.4 (GT230M, 512mb)
Gaming Graphics: 6.4 (GT230M, 512mb)
HDD: 7.7 (160gb Intel X25 M G2)

HDD perfomance in AS SSD Benchmark:
[img=http://img210.imagevenue.com/loc210/th_80988_as-ssd-bench_INTEL_SSDSA2M160_2010-01-07_11-17-18_122_210lo.png]

 

Anyone put SSD on the CW?

 

My WEI score:

CPU 6.2 (P8700 2.53Ghz 3mb l2 Cache 1066Mhz)
Memory: 6.2 (4gb Elpida 1066Mhz DRR3)
Graphics: 6.4 (Nvidia GT 230m)
Gaming: 6.4 (Nvidia GT 230m)
HDD: 5.5 (WD3200BEVS)

Obviously my bottleneck is the harddrive, but its not something thats gonna affect much apart from load times. the WEI score isnt the most reliable score to go on either for the CPU. wprime does a better job

Apart from that theres only a .5 difference between the P8700 and P7450/T6670, so the peformance difference is neligable.

I wouldn't say your CPU FSB is a bottleneck in any way. any core2duo is fast enough to run pretty much anything, and the peformance difference isn't going to be major between 1066Mhz/800Mhz, nothing that is going to be noticable anyway, it would probably only show up in benchmarks.

nice score for the ssd Torusy i really want an SDD. the only thing i wonder is why does your RAM get a slightly lower score than mine. bit odd since the P7450 runs at 1066Mhz like mine (p8700)

 

how good is Intel Core i5-540M processor (2.53GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz .. is it better than intel core 2 duo processor 2.53ghz.. ? what is turbo boost technology.. ? what is hyper threading technology.. ?

 

Turbo Boost allows a duo core to shut off one of the physical core and redirect power to the other one, thus boosting the speed from 2.53 to 3.06.

So you can have two core running at 2.53 or single core at 3.06.

Hyper Threading allows the process to trick the OS in believing it has multiple physical core.

So a i5 is really physically 2 cores. With Hyper thread, each of the core become two from an OS perspective, as the result in a sense you have 4 internal cores.

 

Bottomline, if the software is so designed, then you can get a LOT more work done with the newer processors, in every CPU clock cycle, even though the lower numbers in the new generation CPUs could mislead one.

I believe all of the future/upcoming softwares will be designed to take advantage of these multi-core/multi-threading capabilities, which is when the older generation processors might fall behind.

 

Thanks so much chucky_1234, the FSB issue has been haunting me since I received my CW yesterday. I am very happy with the CW apart from that. Now I am much more relief knowing that the performance difference between P8700 and T6670 is negligible.

BTW, I've been doing some google'n about the WEI. One can find out more information about how they come up with the numbers by checking the files under C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore. I found out that they limit the mem score to 5.5 if it is less than 2ghz. Torusy may be able to find out why he has lower RAM score.

 

thank u bro..

 

Well that is pretty strange, because I guess that your processors fsb also is 266mhz? (2530/9.5=266)
And that allows the dram:fsb ratio to be max 4:1=1064mhz which is within what the ram is rated for (1066mhz). On my computer the dram:fsb ratio is set to 2:1. I guess that your computers dram:fsb ratio is 3:1 or 4:1??
If that is so then it is strange that Sony haven't used the full potential of the ram in my computer.
Does it make sense?

 

Yeah your correct, my fsb is 266Mhz(2530/9.5=266), but when i checked my DRAM:FSB ratio in cpu-z its the same as yours, 2:1







i took some screenshots of CPU-Z. i think it's probably more a RAM issue than cpu, brand related maybe? or it could just be even how windows tested the ram that time round i'm not an expert when it comes to RAM and timings

 

Well it turns out that we have exactly the same memory, so then it must be a matter of the cpus. Yours is obviously faster then mine, which most likely influences the memory test result in WEI.
I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu, a p9700 would be pretty cool...

 

Some nice and cheap p9700s going on Ebay now. Some of them are eng-samples but they should still be fine.

 

Looks like a bug in CPU-Z. Try Sisoft Sandra.

 

I am new to this forum and struggling between making a decision between Sony Vaio CW (Of course not available from sonystyle until 19 Jan) and Dell Studio XPS 13 (I have got one for $750 from Microsoft store http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Dell-Studio-XPS-13-Obsidian-Black/product/838F7FEE ...P8700, GRAPHICS, NVIDIA..., 1340, HDMI output) ... .But more inclined towards Sony CW Series because of heat related issues that Dell XPS 13 has) ... Any users who have used both Studio XPS 13 and Vaio CW please share your thoughts...

 

Just did the Sony Vaio Update 5 upgrade. The version 4, was horrible and I don't think it worked at all. I think Version 4 was supposed to be like Version 5, but I'm glad they fixed it because I was getting sick and tired of checking sony esupport page every now and then.

Does anyone know how to reduce the number of processes running, without having to stop them manually or without having to do a fresh install. Is there a way to disable some of the sony bloatware from running ?

 

Hi there...I don't understand what happened with the first batch of CW's that eventually stopped offering the GT230M, and now the refresh only offers the G310M...I feel Sony downgraded a great laptop...seems they are favoring the new F series.

 

What i don't understand is, that on sony's usa esupport page for the newer cw models, they list a driver for the GT 330m... now why would they do that if they weren't planning on offering it?

I think it could be one of those things only available with preconfigured models maybe, but then that would be very unusual, not offering it to CTO

maybe it's planned to be released later on, could be building up stock of 330m first before offering maybe? so that they don't run into the same stock problems as they did with the original cw, after all it's a popular laptop

It's all a bit odd and confuzzling to me

 

Don't worry guys, this kind of thing delay in upgraded options happens pretty often, both with cars and computers.

If the driver is listed, I would think it's coming at some point.

 

Well what an unexpected suprise. A cw in yellow?



Looks a bit fugly to me. yellow and blue-tinted silver (or is it white :S)? looks a mess

Another unexpected suprise, 1600x900 resolution display, this was never mentioned

"35.6 cm LCD, 1600x900 + webcam 35.6 cm (14") VAIO Display (1600 x 900 pixels) (16:9) with LED backlight + built-in "Motion Eye" digital camera (0.3 Mega Pixels) [+£110.0]"

Still doesnt make up for the fact that the GT 330m isn't offered, but i wouldn't mind that display

finally figured: i did buy at the right time

 

I think that res is too high for the size screen. That comes down to personal preference though.

 

yeah it maybe is a bit too much for a 14inch

it would be nice, but at least with the 1366x768 res, games can run at that resolution natively. probably couldnt say the same for 1600x900. hate playing on games when their not set at the native monitor resolution. does my eyes in