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

The DM3 does have configurations with a dedicated graphics card that seem to move the 3dmark score to around 2500. But still far short of the sony. It has switchable graphics, so you can get pretty good battery life, but if you are doing nothing but watching video seems to be the same time as the sony. Someone reported around 2hrs while watching a Netflix movie.

 

On the most powerful DM3 available (DM3t SP9300 processor w/ G210 Graphics card) at person from the DM3 forum said they got 4 hours of battery life...not that much better than the CM...

 

Correction, the video card on that DM3t is a G 105m, not a G210

 

I am going to go to BB to take a look at this laptop. The only thing i dont care for in the pictures is the seemingly all plastic look.

 

back from sony store, loved it! but they changed their story, will honor 7% off but no other cash discount like they said on the phone, don't u just love it. So I came home to think it over.

 

I'm planning on picking one of these up.

My build is a GT 230M, 4GB DDR3, and the 2.53ghz Core2Duo.

I plan to do some gaming(Team Fortress 2, Last Remnant, Left 4 Dead+L4D2, and Bioshock+Bioshock2 when it's out)

Do you think it will run these well?

I am really glad to hear it runs cool as my last laptop reached temps of 109c in mere minutes(HP DV2000 series)

Thanks : ]

 

I'm getting about 3.5h when watching streamed movies. Full brightness, full volume, wifi working all the time (has to leech a movie, right?) and some CPU/GPU load, they have to decode it all. I would say 4+ hours should be possible with light use.

Up to 6h quoted by Sony must be with bigger battery and only when reading text files in minimum brightness

My CW is P7450 2.13GHz CPU, 230M, standard battery.

 

I just got an email that my computer has shipped! I was all set to buy the Asus UL80-vt, but the more I read, the more I wasn't sure it was the right computer. I went into Bestbuy and saw this computer and liked it. Read what everyone has said about it and ordered it. I got the 8700 with the nvidia 230 500gig HD with the extended battery. I can't wait to get it!

Has anyone tried to use the bluetooth to connect sound to a home stereo? In the past I always hooked headphone jack to an RCA adaptor, but was hoping bluetooth might work for me?? Anyone have any advice on this?

 

Got this laptop a week ago via sonystyle.com. Specs are 2.5 ghz processor, 6 gig ram, 500 gb hd, nvidia gt 230m 512mb video card, blu ray drive and the large capacity battery. Overall, I've got to say that it really surpassed my expectations and then some, I actually consider it to be one of the "better" laptops I've had so far.

Performance wise, it eats up everything that I throw at it, multiple CPU intensive programs on and it's yet to lag or bog on me.

With the 230m 512mb videocard my gaming experience feels like it got upgraded to another level, graphics are stunning and real smooth at the highest of highest settings. Connected this bad-boy to my 62 inch 1080 LCD and tried its BluRay wonders and it delivered. Crisp-clear beauty.

Aesthetics wise, I'm really enjoying the icy white finish. The white keyboard looks real sharp and feels good, the design itself is real cohesive and just down-right pretty.

The only complaint I have is that there is a bit of light bleeding on the left corner of my screen. Not to the point that it's intrusive while i'm using it but just a bit irritating when you've got OCD with the way things look.

Anyone else getting this light bleeding problem?

For those who are torn between this piece of beauty and that certain DELL laptop, I HIGHLY recommend this laptop to anyone who's looking for portability and high level gaming / use.

 

Check this out, CPUz reports this on my 230M



All those speeds are some 10%+ lower than official NVIDIA figures:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gt_230m_us.html

So I suppose there is room for easy improvement, ie. with other drivers.

 

How many hours does your large capacity battery last?

I'm expecting that 9cell battery could last at least 6 hours with power saving settings.

 

When would one choose the T9600 over the P8700? Would there be any noticeable difference? Any change in heat/noise?

$200 extra is giving me pause.

 

I couldn't say as far as noticable differences from first hand experience, but just from reading benchmark numbers, I would say not to bother going from P8700 to T9600. One thing is the P8700 consumes 25watts while the T9600 consumes 35 watts. I believe all the P series consume the less wattage. Here is a benchmark score showing the T9600, notice how the P8700 is only a 200 points lower, which I don't think is worth $200, especially since it will consume more power. This opinion is truly based on limited experience. Someone else who might have used both processors might be able to confirm something different:

Benchmark:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+T9600+@+2.80GHz

CPU Stats (T9600/P8700):
http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=37006,35563,

 

http://www.modernwarfare2.com/games.php#/videos?id=8

 

Asked this before, but no answers yet. Could you guys who ordered from sony online or bought at a sony store let me know what wireless card you have? Thanks!

 

Sony Online have the Intel 5100 wifi card as listen in the mini product overview when you click on customize. try calling Sony and get it configured over the phone so you can be 100% sure that it has the Intel cards, but im guessing that all computers that sony has now have the intel cards and maybe when they 1st shipped it the lower models came with that card. its wierd why only BEST BUY has atheros wifi card and places like new egg have the intel wifi cards....but if you order from sony im sure you can get the intel card, but you can confirm it by chatting online with a rep or calling in to confirm all details on customized orders and pre configured

 

Considering the Bestbuy model sells base (no discounts) at $799 with a blu-ray drive, the fact that cost were cut somewhere (atheros) isn't particularly surprising.

 

To MrPresident, corteen, albertom, Fapuse, reeceb73, enthusedenthusiast, and all CW owners,

nobody seems interested to remove all that crapware installed and to do a clean install of W7!
May I ask you how many processes are running at idle and the CPU percent usage ? Are you planning a clean install or are you happy with your CW as is? please tell us about how you're going to clean install ?
I've found clean install procedures for other vaio series; maybe it's too early to ask some for the CW ?

thanks
nalooti

 

I thought my heart was set for the CW for this black Friday!!! But the battery life is what is turning me down.

I'm now looking at the Sony SR!!! ERGH!!!

 

i've reinstalled w7 with a non sony versione... all work fine
only think i need to check is fan

my fan is always on , not noisy but always on...but i don't know if it's normal for this NB or i need some utility to control fan and stop it when no needed..

anyone can say me how fan work in a original w7 sony installation ?

thanks

 

as someone has already suggested, the first place to look is in the BIOS. There, you should be able to see/select the speed of the fan as fixed or regulated.

You could in addition install some programs like speedfan (freeware) telling you about how many rpm your fans are speeding. Doing more or less CPU intensive things you will then see if the speed changes. If it changes, chances are that it is regulated but you have probably a problem with the low water mark value either for the minimum temperature or min speed.
speedfan has also a case to check in order to regulate the fan automatically but I don't think it can do anything if the BIOS isn't configured to let it so.

It would also be helpful to know the motherboard brand in the CW (anyone ?), so you could check for diagnostic/monitoring tools directly on the MB's manufacturer's site.

If I understand, your problem is because you did a clean install . May I know how and what procedure you followed (which vaio serie). MBs are different in each serie so that could explain.

If I were you, I'd ghost (or via W7 included image backup tool) my newly clean installed system and restore the original one and install speedfan in order to look at the BIOS and speedfan for fan parameters.
Then you could restore your new clean system back and check again for those values to compare against what you saw with the original system.

hope it helps
nalooti

 

CW I bought was for my wife, don't really want to touch the system because "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Now I think about getting another one for myself - really like it! - so when i get it I'll take care of all the bloatware, custom drivers, etc.

So far I just stopped/disabled some of VAIO services & and uninstalled only 2 apps of which I was sure it was OK to remove. I also noticed that one of those services (vaio inteligent something) was constantly using 100% of CPU, (although running as low priority process, so almost any other app had a higher priority to get to CPU) , which I believe may reduce battery life.


@albertom
My fan also runs all the time on the standard Sony installed W7, so I suppose it's either not system related or buried somewhere in basic W7 settings.

 

Great, thanks!!

 

Thanks for the info...I can't seem to find the "Mini Product Overview" that lists the Wifi card, it just lists the CPU, RAM, HDD, etc. Can you give more specifics as to where you see wifi card listed for the CW online? Otherwise I'll just call like you said.

 

Nevermind, I found it...it shows the following listed when you first click on the "Shop and Customize" button:

Intel® WiFi 5100 (802.11abgn) with built-in Bluetooth® technology

Thanks a bunch for checking into this for us.

 

http://www.frys.com/product/6029078?site=frysecampaign

on sale for those that don't need BRD or GT 230

 

I had top end sony SR with P series cpu and ATI video card, 3 hrs max battery life no matter what I do, brightness down, bluetooth off, wifi on, browsing and office document, NO streaming videos. SR ain't any better than CW in term of battery. Sorry to make your friday harder

 

I have a question, has anyone seen or bought a laptop with Royal Indigo? Is it a good blue like the pictures. Some people have been saying its more of a purple.

 

A cool little video I found on the CW, not any new news by any means, but shows some really nice closeup shots of it:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xayjhz_sony-vaio-vpccw13fxw-notebook_tech

 

FYI, here is a post from Electrobuzz about the indigo color...

 

You can always order the CW with the extended battery, which advertises at 6 hours, so it probably would get 4 1/2 to 5 hours...but I think it does stick out on the back bottom a bit, post #182 shows a picture of it which the larger battery

 

Will it fit into a neoprene sleeve with that extra battery?

 

Cool thanks, too bad I want the GT230...maybe somehow they would transfer the discount to other CW's on their site that do have the GT230 w/ P7450. Or maybe we can find a Fry's discount coupon and then get these GT230 machines at a cheaper price...just doing some brainstorming:

White (GT230m w/ P7350):
http://www.frys.com/product/6029208

Red (GT230m w/ P7350):
http://www.frys.com/product/6029188

Pink (GT230m w/ P7350):
http://www.frys.com/product/6029178

Black (GT230m w/ P7350):
http://www.frys.com/product/6029148

 

Sonystyle store has discounted the 919 top end one to 899 dollars..and if u can find someone who's a student u get 7% off

 

Hi all, anybody into HD editing does think CW is acceptably good to edit AVCHD videos shooted by a Sony camcorder (for example) at 16 Mb/s. Thank you very much in advance.

 

I watched the video, drooled a bit, but he said DD2 again! grrrr. Are they mis-informed?

 

It's DDR3 according to CTO site on SonyStyle:
2GB (2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1066

3GB (2GBx1 + 1GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 [add $10.00]

4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 [add $20.00]

6GB (4GBx1 + 2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 [add $170.00]

8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 [add $370.00]

 

I ordered my CW 3 days ago by calling Sony Style. The rep I talked to told me that my wireless card would be Atheros bgn, even though the website says an Intel card is included? I didn't realize the Intel card was listed on the website specs, and since some people said that it did come with an Atheros card, I decided not to argue with the rep. When I get my laptop, if it has an Atheros, would you all recommend I contact Sony to get the Intel card?

 

It has probably been discussed earlier, but is the Atheros card that bad? And is it a part that can be swapped out latter?

 

I think the biggest complaint about the Atheros card as compared to the Intel 5100 is that is doesn't support the newest Wireless N 5GHz band, but this only comes into play if you have a newer router that also uses that newer technology. So if you don't plan on changing out your wireless router anytime soon, you probably won't need the newer wifi card, except maybe if you'll be using the laptop at public places that have moved up to the newer technology, but it maybe take them awhile to upgrade as well.

Also if you go to Sony's support site, the only wireless card driver download available is for the Intel 5100 card, so maybe the Sony Customer service rep was mistaken:

See here under Wireless LAN:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VPCCW18FXB

 

Thanks for the heads-up! My wife's (shhh ... birthday surprise! Don't tell her) White CW arrived this afternoon, I tested/set it up and hid it until I surprise her tomorrow.

I paid 919 for that specific (preconfigured) one, and will be initiating their guaranteed refund/discount. I know I could have waited and gotten a slightly better deal (neither of us is a student though, but BB, newegg, frys is bound to discount them soon) but that was the only one configured close to how I wanted it (230m, BR, 4GB) that would ship in time to be here for her birthday. If I had gone CTO I would have bought Win Pro 7, the most basic Virtualization-supporting CPU, and possibly a BR burner. Saving 20 bucks makes it worthwhile now, eh?

I'll post later on how she likes it, but I was impressed. Decent screen, snappy performance, decent sound, quiet and smooth, and built as well as my Lenovo T61P! And way more fun looking!

 

Well put! And I knew this (and the fact that my D-Link 655 router doesn't support the dual-channel N).

FWIW, although I didn't check the chipset (had to hide the laptop) - it connected to my N router at 130 MBPS, which is precisely the same speed my intel 4965AGN on the Lenovo T61n shows! Not that that guarantees it's an intel chip, but it might well be I'll check later this weekend if my wife lets me, and stops playing with her new toy!

 

Hey I just noticed that the Preconfigured CW's on Sonystyle are backordered, indicating no date when they might be available again...it does not say that the CTO ones are backordered...CW's must be pretty popular!

Also, I found some high res (LARGE) photos from sony of the different colors of CW's:

Indigo:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/image_l...ral/notebooks/detail?archive=0&asset_id=42009

Red:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/image_l...ral/notebooks/detail?archive=0&asset_id=41997

Pink:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/image_l...ral/notebooks/detail?archive=0&asset_id=41991

White:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/image_l...ral/notebooks/detail?archive=0&asset_id=42003

Black:
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/image_l...ral/notebooks/detail?archive=0&asset_id=41965

 

What wireless card does it have? Seems to be ALOT of confusion around this

 

Anyone checked the UK sonystyle online recently? Just popped on and all mention of the CW seems to have disappeared. Apart from in a section labelled 'Exclusive offers this week only' which says the CW has a FREE upgrade from the P7..... to the P8.... processor! Clicking on the link takes you to a 'Application has failed' page.... Anyone have any ideas about this/having the same problem??
-- Checked the french version of the sonystyle site and everything seems to be in order there... How strange!

 

Hey Scotty, so did you decide yet?

 

Yep, pretty much decided on the CW. Trying to be patient for a discount to come up, but it isn't easy...I hoping to pay closer to $800 versus $1000...but between now and black friday if no sale comes up, I'm just going to get it at full price...of course if I didn't have to have all the bells and whistles, I could go out and buy one today, but oh no, since more is available, I "need" it! And you?

 

debating between the DM3

CW series with GT 230 or

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+...lack/9556072.p?skuId=9556072&id=1218124204092

purely for modern warfare 2 on the go. I have a kick gaming desktop thats why i'm hesitant to get the asus.. weight is no big deal but wonder if getting the asus is a bit over the top and if so which other one to pick aiya.. choices..

 

Would you be getting the DM3 with the SP9300? Your Asus link doesn't work...can you post it or just tell me the model?

 

FYI, from notebooks.com, for anyone who hasn't pulled the trigger yet like me to purchase a CW, they are giving a little clue on some deadlines...

Both the customizable Sony FW series and Sony CW series notebooks come with a free upgrade to a Blu-ray disc drive (approximately $70 value) if you place your order before November 14th. A Blu-ray drive turns your laptop into the ultimate media center by allowing it to play Blu-ray discs for a higher quality movie experience.

Lastly, all orders from SonyStyle.com qualify for free shipping through November 30th! This is great news because any current deals and upcoming Black Friday specials from Sony Style will be shipped to you for free. The free shipping also applies to the other to deals described above, making them even sweeter!