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

I've been searching for disassembly photos of the CW and I was wondering if you guys could help me.

I bought a CW from the Tottenham Court Road Sony centre and it was a display model although the guy said it had only been on show for a few hours. After 2 weeks I realised that the power jack has been yanked and now it doesn't charge properly except when the cable is at certain angles. It's now increasingly difficult to get it to charge.

Sony obviously aren't taking responsibility for this and said they'd charge £hundreds for a fix.

Looking at the insides it looks like the power jack isn't soldered onto the motherboard.

What do you think I should do? I use it for uni so I can't really give it to a shop and have them spend weeks ordering the part etc. Is it an easy fix? Also, can the part be bought easily?

If not, does anyone know of a place around central London that can fix it quickly (within a few days max)?

Thanks for any help

 

Hi. I remember somewhere on this thread it said the best color qualities for the CW. At what settings on the Nvidia control panels does the screen look the best (gamma, brightness, vibrance, etc.)

I was comparing my CW to my dad's new NW and it looks like my CW got owned in color quality.

 

Here's a link to the color settings, just scroll down a bit.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=427692&page=259

 

Hi everybody. I've had my VAIO CW for about 3 months now. Everything's running smoothly so far, but there have been a couple of setbacks. First of all, I've gotten quite a few unexpected shutdowns (CW's words) while leaving it on overnight. Anybody know what the cause might be?

The other problem I've had, and it's only happened twice so far and both times with iTunes open, is that everything just freezes and crashes while the screen goes black. The music playing keeps repeating itself and it just goes kaput, then the screen goes black.

Anybody else have these problems? Any kind of help would be appreciated.

 

hey guys i'm from india i got my cw at the month of december at U.S and my uncle got it for me..and i have an Apple MAC OX disc and Application disc..do everyone got it or my uncle unkowningly added his mac disc in my lappy case?

 

Is there any way to use the hdmi output for video and use the headphone jack for audio at the same time?

I have a Samsung T260HD and Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers. When I connect with hdmi no sound comes from the headphone jack.

Is there a setting, also noticed that when you toggle Windows + P one of the options is projector only, so I might have answered my own question.

Haha!!! I just figured it out. For anybody that hooks their CW up to a monitor via hdmi and wants their audio to output from the headphone jack click Start>Control Panel>VAIO Control Center>Sound>Advanced>On the Playback TAB select Speaker/HP and click Set Default.

 

anyone play battlefield 2 on the CW? how many FPS are you getting?

 

Anyone overclocked the GPU lately? Read on here where someone has, and have tried following that and can't get it to work. Normally when I change the speeds I'll hit apply and they won't stay. But a couple days ago I tried and then my computer just blue screened. Not sure if it's because I was hooked up to a monitor or not. But the reason I wanted to OC was because I was using a 24" monitor at 1920x1200 so I wanted a bit more performance. It does run MW2 pretty well though considering the monitor and resolution.

 

Can you tell me where did you the get the 2nd Hard Disk caddy. I have been looking for one for a long time but no luck. I have the Sony VAIO CW 14" with i5 (VPCCW27FX/B) model. I will really appreciate any help on this. Thanks!!

 

Can you tell me where did you get the ODD HDD caddy? I have been looking for one for a long time but no luck. I have Sony Vaio CW 14" (VPCCW27FX). I will appreciate any help.

 

Here is my score with a i3 CW.

 

Stock speed on the GT330M on my i3 i hit 6300, but its way underclocked. As you can see when i hit 8.1k, it closer to the normal speeds of what Notebookcheck says for the GT330M. And there is more to squeeze out of it. Temp never goes above 58c when overclocked. Since the GT330M is actually a bit higher clocked 230, it should be possible to get some nice results on that one also.

 

Would anyone happen to have disassembly instructions for the Viao CW?

I've searched through the thread for information on how to remove the keyboard for cleaning, but I can't seem to find any good directions. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Can anyone tell me where to get the a second hdd HDD caddy ( ODD caddy)? I have been looking for one for a long time but no luck. I have Sony Vaio CW 14" (VPCCW27FX). I will appreciate any help.

 

Does anybody know if you order through sony and get a 4gb ram; does your computer only have one slot for ram in it? Or is there an empty slot into which you can expand later.

 

How do you enable multi touch?? I can find it anywhere!

 

There's 2 ram slots and as of right now, if you order 4GB of ram it only comes in a 4GBx1 configuration.

If the touchpad driver supports it, then it should be under mouse properties.

 

New nVidia drivers, but how do you force them to install?

http://www.nvidia.com/content/Drive...international_whql.exe&lang=us&type=GeForce M

 

Ah, the inf from laptopvideo2go worked. I had to reboot twice though

 

Can you help me? I've downloaded the Nvidia driver and it won't install. I also don't know what I'm supposed to do on the laptopvideo2go website. Driver and modified inf file? Eh? What goes where?

You have delve into the Synaptics touchpad icon in your tray (if it's there), forgot the exact route but you should find pinch zoom and two-finger swiping as well as spiral scrolling and some other things. I love the touchpad on the CW

 

I can't guarantee that you won't mess something up. Don't install the new drivers unless you have a reason to, because you could end up in trouble.
I was just experimenting with no idea what would happen.

Go here http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers and don't enter anything. I tried entering some stuff I found in the Device Manager and it said no drivers were available. Click the link for 64 or 32 bit for your OS under 197.16, then click through to download the .inf file.

OR just right click and save as this link to get the x64 inf http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/infs/195series/19716_win7x64/nvac.inf


Then try to install the 197.16 drivers you downloaded from nVidia. The installer will unzip them wherever you tell it to, but will refuse to install. Go to where it unzipped and find that nvac.inf file and replace it with the one you downloaded from laptopvideo2go.

Then install the drivers. For me it uninstalled the old drivers, rebooted, then installed something, then made me reboot again, then said it had to remove old drivers one more time, then finally installed. I may have messed up somewhere, but now I have the new drivers.

 

hey hi every1.. did anyyone notice a black line on the display screen on the top right down the motion eye camera.. ?

 

Hmm, think I'll give it a miss then, cheers.

No such problems here.

I've been contemplating upgrading the CPU to something like a T9400 (2.53GHz, 6M cache) or a P8700 (also 2.53GHz but only 3M cache) but will I see a performance increase in Photoshop, gaming and multitasking? There's also the question of cost as well...

 

I'm trying for core 2 duo p8700,4 gb ram, 500 gb Hard disk.
which gives better performance - Dell Studio or Sony vaio CW 16 fg ?

 

Hey guys,

I'm having problems with my Splashtop browser. I'm using VPCCW16FG. Can't connect it to wifi. Though internet works fine on IE after I boot up Windows 7.

Have tried system restore, resetting to factory default settings. Tried installing the browser at http://tinyurl.com/ydxksb5 for v.1.1.4.4 as well.

I have officially run out of ideas. Help!!

 

Just wanted to add that the Splashtop Browser works just fine through LAN when I connect the cable from the router to the laptop directly. I have tried updating the firmware of the router to the latest version but still failing to connect to Wifi. Thanks!

 

hi everybody

I have a problem upgrading nvidia drivers of my cw1s1e

I need to upgrade to the latest version in order to solve a compatibility issue with adobe premiere elements 8.

Official sony drivers for the gt230 are stuck to december 2009, so I downloaded the latest drivers from nvidia site, but I can't install them because they didn't recognize the graphic card.

how can I solve this trouble???

ps: I'm using windows 7 home premium 64bit

 

Check this post

 

Hello,

I have a Sony CW with Core i5 540M and 6GB of RAM. I have a 120GB SSD installed and am using Windows 7 Home Premium. My Wifi card is constantly dropping signal, and I am rather annoyed by this as I play games online and I lose connection all the time, making the game less fun.

What can I do? Sony support was no help. I read here that its not easy to switch the card.

Opps wrong thead I now see

 

Can someone link me to the post that tells you the settings to overclock the gt 230m without it overheating? I'm having trouble running some games

 

Just successfully upgraded the stock Atheros internal wifi card to the Intel 6300 wireless chip, purchased from babyhemi from this forum. Pretty simple, just need to be careful to unscrew every screw on the back of the laptop and make sure you put them all back in the same slots you took them out of!

 

here is the link regarding overclocking GT 230 to stock levels as it comes underclocked, you can use nvidia system tools for overclocking


http://forum.notebookreview.com/5553861-post942.html

 

can somebody help..
I can't enable the finger scrolling..what to do .....whether to change the synaptic driver?
i am having the battery drain issue...Any suggestions ...

 

So I bought my CW17FX in November, and since then the DC in port has come so loose that it wont charge anymore twice.

It happened in February and a few days ago. Anyone else having this issue? I'm really worried about what will happen when my warranty is up and it breaks.

 

open synaptics pointing device software by double clicking on its icon in the task bar, then select device settings, in device settings you can enable finger scrolling and all other options. in case you dont have the option of finger scrolling in device settings then download the latest SCRYBE driver from synaptics website, this driver even supports two finger scrolling , two finger swipe and you get many options along with the scrolling.

 

thank RS4 for the quick reply. in the device settings finger scrolling is not given as an option. then i checked the synaptic website. there new synaptic drivers and new SCRYBE drivers are available. I don't know which one to download. i don't think scrybe drivers are there in my system. plaease help..

 

1. download any one of the above drivers.
2. uninstall your current synaptics driver.
3. install the latest driver.

 

Anyone else here getting poor battery life and wear? When i first bought this laptop in December I was lucky to get 2 hours 30 minutes just from browsing the internet, now my battery seems to be wearing at a rate of 1.2% every 12 - 14 days and i'm not even getting 2 hours from light usage now... and battery wear is already 12.3%!

 

2 hrs of battery life from light usage is very low, i am getting 1 hr 30min with screen brightness set to max and internet browsing on wifi and i have enabled battery care to limit charging at 50%. so i am getting 1.5 hrs with 50% charge.
if your battery is wearing at that level then its good for you as you can get replacement battery within one year warranty peeriod

 

yeah! tbh i thought my battery was dodgy right from the start after the so called "up to 4 hours battery life advertisement" lol. never ever got 3 hours... even just typing on word got me like 2 hours 45 max.

do you know how i could get about contacting them for a replacement?

 

i dont have any experience regarding battery replacement, but i think you should wait another 4 months and let the battery wear level increase to a higher level, so that you can get the replacement easily and also you will get a new battery near the end of your warranty.

 

Thanks once again RS4 for the advice. i have downloaded the new synaptic driver and installed it. Now i can scroll down and rotate and zoom. i don't know how to flip pages...any advice is welcome. Is it better to keep the battery charge function to 50% or 80%. Any suggestion regarding battery drain issue..

 

1.i keep the battery charge limit to 50% as i use the laptop mostly on AC power, if you are going to use it on battery then its useless to set it to 50%, so it all depends on your usage conditions.

2. regarding battery drain, there is whole thread dedicated to this issue. please refer
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/465569-vaio-cw-battery-drain-information.html

 

For those of you who have OCed your GPU, did you have to wipe the computer and re-install a fresh copy of Windows first? I'ved tried a couple times now with the Nvidia Systems Tools. I set the clock speeds, then apply and click yes to save or w/e, and each time I go back and look at them, they are reset back to the original speeds.

If I have to reinstall, maybe I'll just do that.

 

The honeymoon period is over now...

I've been experiencing audio stutter when playing music in iTunes and Spotify during basic tasks like web browsing in Chrome, moving between PDF files, using MS Word etc. Oddly enough, I tried playing a video file and the audio didn't stutter once. The stutter is only for a split second, like when a CD player skips, but it absolutely infuriates me because a £700 notebook should be able to handle this kind of multi-tasking without a hiccup. I'm used to having Chrome open with 10 tabs, a bunch of Adobe Reader, Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents, iTunes AND Counter-Strike: Source and the audio would never skip. But now, audio stutters even with handful of documents open. The problem has occured recently and it drove me so mad I decided to complete a system restore, but the problem still persists albeit not as often. I've done some reading and there seems to be a myriad of possibilities I don't even know where to begin....

Help will be rewarded with a huge metaphorical cookie.

 

Anyone know w here to get a disassembly manual? The Sony site only has a user manual. I need to replace my keyboard because I spilled coffee on it

BTW, I got a new one on eBay and it has "NW" written on it in pencil. Do the CW and NW use the exact same keyboard?

 

I have the same issue. Bought in december and is now charging very intermittently. Do you think it is the adapter plug or the charging pin on the motherboard that is the issue?

 

I think it will be better to get it checked by sony. Do inform about any progress on this issue.

 

Dont get that vaio NW keyboard, its completely different from the CW one.

 

Same issue on a two week old i5 CW totally annoying.