Official Sony Vaio F Series Owners Thread *Part 6*

It is time for a new F series thread.

This popular budget priced performance laptop has been discussed at a very high volume since January 2010. Due to this high volume, five previous threads have been closed out prior to this one. They can be found here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...fficial-sony-vaio-f-series-owners-lounge.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony-owners-lounge-forum/464372-official-sony-vaio-f-series-owners-lounge-part-2-a.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...io-f-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-3-a.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...io-f-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-4-a.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...io-f-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-5-a.html

As the Sony Vaio F series has been so popular, several quick guides have been assembled by some very good-hearted members here. You can find a general F11 unification post here:

F11 Unification Post: Issues, Fixes, Tweaks, Reviews

 

Interesting Vaio wallpapers to start part six.

Mr. B's Domain - VAIO Wallpapers

 

I have seen these before, but I have two reservations...

First, there are very few cool 1920x1080 wallpapers.

Second, I always worry about downloading something free like this...I always wonder about embedded malware. Have you used these with no problems? I kind of like the 2009 Vaio black one.

 

Nope, these are safe. Well, at least the ones I downloaded are.

Hey, Fishon, what's that site where you got the Great Wave again? I got the koi pond as well, but want to check the images out again.

Oh, since we're talking wallpapers and what nots, I got this visualizer for Winamp called Plane9. It also sets up as a screensaver and has what I think is the perfect VAIO screensaver. Subtle and sexy, as seen here:
Plane9 - Lines

 

Was it here? Japan fish koi - Wallpaper (#439300) / Wallbase.cc

 

That be the one. Yay!

Thanks!

 

Hi all,

A strange request...

As some of you may rememer, I've been trying to upgrade my LCD from a single-lamp 1600x900 to a dual lamp FHD. For this I need the FHD LVDS cable that is difficult to find.

I did find an online seller that gets parts directly from Sony. However, they informed me that Sony requires a S/N to check compatibility. I'm worried that if I do give them my S/N, they will either cancel the order, or worse, substitute with the non-FHD cable (which I already have).

Here's the strange request: Is there anyone with a dual lamp FHD* laptop that'd be willing to give me their S/N so that I can complete the order? Not sure there are any privacy issues to be worried about here, so I understand if people are hesitant. But I'm a bit desperate at this point

* I think the non-dual lamp FHD versions would also be compatible, but just want to be safe...

 

YouTube - LCD Monitor Teardown


Blackball, good luck in your quest.

 

Am I remembering correctly that you are in the UK? Are you able to order from other European countries? On google, I see several German sites with it for sale, including on Amazon (they probably wouldn't ask for an S/N), and some other European countries. There are also some US sites but I haven't looked up their international shipping policies.

Edit: Here is one of the US companies that ship internationally. I don't know what kind of extra charges (customs, etc) may be involved: http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/Sony,Laptop,Part,A1772164A.aspx

And German Amazon translated.

 

I'm in Greece. You may have a point with the Amazon one. We'll see how it plays out with the French shop I found first.

Delivery from sparepartswarehouse costs $49 (!) which is just too much. My final option will be to have it sent to a friend in the US, after which they can forward it to me

After all this, the upgrade better work

Thanks for the tips!

 

I have a question about F series case

Which material used on F series ? plastic or magnesium ?

 

The case is plastic, but the machine as a whole is quite solid, in my opinion.

 

Wow, I was away just for a short time, and many interesting posts not to mention the switch to *Part 6*!

Some +reps to James D, anseio, jpride and Willscary for your posts on this fan RPM subject (for jpride and Willscary, the site is not allowing me to rep you for the moment, but I will do it as soon as possible).

In reply to jpride’s post:
Jpride, I also consider your fan RPM a little bit higher than normal. I wanted to ask you about the conditions in which you checked that, but being away, others already asked some of the questions I wanted to ask, like the Power Plan used (especially the Minimum Processor State set), ... . Did you disable the C3/C6 CPU state in the BIOS ? Did you disable the C1E or EIST using i7 Turbo ? If I remember well, Willscary used to disable the C1E and EIST (more responsiveness versus lower temperatures).

In reply to Willscary’s post & James D’s post about Thermal Control Strategy:
We already discussed about the VAIO Control Center’s Power Management->Power Options (Balanced Mode vs. Performance Mode vs. Silent Mode). See the post of Gandalf_The_Grey, the post of ReD2847, my post, and also in my post merged by notebookreview.com where I replied to Rottweiler concerning fan control.
James D, I will add all this to my post about the noises (which I have to move to the new thread now).

In reply to jpride’s post:
I confirm that on the F12 there were only two options, while on my F13 there are three options like you posted. So I think the “Silent Mode” was added starting with F13.

In reply to jpride’s post:
I my case on lower CPU load, changing to “Silent Mode” affects fan RPM (especially how the fan speed is changing) (See my previous post).
Also, you mentioned that on this settings the “temps can get out of control”. I’m using my notebook on this setting, and even when I push the CPU to 100% for several hours I have no problems. This strategy will not affect the cooling at high temperatures. When cooling is needed due to high temperature, the fan will blow at max speed whichever strategy is the currently active one! You mentioned that it throttles the CPU or that it affects the performance. I had no throttling issues so far and the performance looks right. Could you provide some links about that ? I would like to read more about the conditions in which others reported these issues. Thanks!

 

Blackball, if your new panel is a dual CCFL, you need the dual lamp FHD LVDS cable! Otherwise only one CCFL will be powered.
EDIT: Assuming that the CCFLs are not directly connected to the inverter board.

 

Awesome post!

+1 rep from me.

While I lurk here and read, I have not had much time to experiment. After seeing quick results, I came to a conclusion that is mirrored by your comments, but I have not had the time available to test it like you have.

Thank you ZPerf!

EDIT: This is in reply to the post 2 above this one...you replied to blackball while I was writing my post!

 

Hello everybody!

Please guys, tell me something...

...when loading from hibernation, does yours HDs keeps on massive activity for several minutes?
Is this a hibernation feature or can be avoided?

thanks

 

I would assume that there should be massive HDD activity when resuming from Hibernate. Hibernating is like Sleep, where the contents of your current state are written to memory. The difference is that Sleep has the contents written to RAM for FAST recall, while Hibernate has your contents written to the HDD, which can be a gig or more easy.

 

See also Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation_(computing)
So normal.

 

On my notebook, to load the 8 GB RAM content from the HDD (because that is what’s happening when resuming from Hibernation) and to resume Windows it takes ~1.5 minutes.
The HDD is a 7200 rpm drive, with an average 75 MiB/s read speed (103 MiB/s at innermost cylinder till 50 MiB/s at the disk outermost cylinder).
Please note, that this is not the time till the logon screen appears, which is showing up after ~18-20 seconds.

So depending on how much RAM you have, how fast is your HDD, where exactly the hibernation file is located on the HDD your resume from Hibernation can take more or less then the time I have. But even in the worst case with the current hardware it should be less than 5 minutes.

EDIT: I forgot to add the compression to the points to consider, compression which is used when saving the RAM content to hibernation file. So my time is small because the 8 GB is very compressible (I booted 10 minutes before testing the hibernation speed for you, and run no memory intensive application).

 

Thank you for posting your loading time FPerf.

My specs

RAM - 6 GB
Disk speed - 5400 rpm

After loading from hibernation, the disk activity keeps on at 100% for about 3,5 min.

Seems like the main culprit is the prefetch service. To disable it is not a option so a faster HD will be palliative.

 

Duna,

I don't use hibernate or sleep. I find both of them to be useless. I know it saves power, but simply leaving the F plugged in and only allowing the monitor to shut off works best for me. My max and min power states are 100% when plugged in and I run all updates and malware scans every night while I sleep. the added cost of electricity is minor compared to the time saved and the constant automatic maine=tenance that the computer performs.

I have always worked this way with all of my machines, both desktops and now laptops. Just my opinion.

 

Depending on your funds I would go for a hybrid HDD http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...e-momentus-xt-hybrid-hdd-w-built-4gb-ssd.html (love mine )
or a SSD http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...torage/565193-best-ssd-sata-ii-notebooks.html

 

Willscary,

Yes, the power consumption is not a issue to me either.
But leaving it plugged in 24/7 bring me that odd sensation of wastage.
I feel sorry for that poor thing.

 

Since its free for the rest of today you might consider downloading this piece of software:

Giveaway of the Day - free licensed software daily. Paragon Migrate OS to SSD Special Edition (English Version) - TBC

It seems not just to work with SSDs but with any drive. The drive alignment feature seems key to me. I'd be curious how it works with a ported "clean" install.

Note that you can simply obtain the registration key today and install at any point thereafter.

 

I don't think it's hibernation or prefetch. In most cases, hibernation should take about the same time as a cold boot. The process of reading data from the hibernation file and restoring it to memory is all done before Windows displays the desktop. Also, because hibernation avoids the normal process of loading the OS, drivers, services, etc. prefetch isn't really relevant.

I've seen lots of computers that churn on the hard drive for minutes after booting but usually it's an anti-virus program, or a remote administration app on a corporate machine, or spyware. I suggest lauching task manager, adding the I/O reads & writes columns to the processes tab, and observing which process is banging away on the drive.

 

Second time someone post here a link on a free software and I am late to download that. F..cken time zones!

 

As dnk2 suggested, I used Resources Monitor to observe what was happening in my HD when rising from hibernation.

Well, now I`m really lost.



There are contradictory references to syscache.hve using Google.
Some say it's a trojan, malware, and others relate to hibernation.

Any expert, please?

 

Did another reading, sorting the Read columm and the results are different.



Maybe I should ask in the Windows 7 Support thread.

 

I think you're better off in the Windows Thread on this one. I expect that the HDD would be super busy while restoring from hibernation, for the reason I've already mentioned.

 

Well, you specifically asked for an expert so I shouldn't be answering. I've disabled hibernate and I do not see this process in my system. Looked into a few malware troubleshooting sites and Volume Information\Syscache.hve does not seem to trigger any alarms with the 'expert' posters within.

 

syscache.hve is a Windows Registry hive. It's in your volume shadow copy directory, so it's probably a Registry backup. I also see a few installer processes near the top of your second screenshot. My guess is that Windows is installing some updates and creating a restore point.

It's strange to see so much activity on your pagefile though. Can you take a screenshot of your memory tab?

I use hibernation frequently on the work and personal laptops I travel with. It's very useful to be able to shutdown without losing your work.

 

Dont get me wrong, dmk2.
Your help is really appreciate and have pointed me to right directions.

'Expert' was a gentle way to ask for help.

Here is my memory mirror



I'm changing my power options, from hibernation to sleep, for now.

 

Ok, thanks.

If the disk activity was due to creating restore points and installing updates, then it would happen after a cold boot as well.

I can't explain why your pagefile showed so much activity.

 

I found that here are very good prices on screens for our laptops. LAPTOP LCD SCREEN FROM $44. HP ACER TOSHIBA DELL APPLE COMPAQ. Notebook screen, laptop display, notebook lcd, laptop tft, screen DELL, ACER lcd, screens SONY, lcd DELL, ACER lcd.

 

Just a quick question: is it better (to prolongue it's life) to shutdown the laptop every night or to leave it on sleep mode until the next day? Thanx.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...cles/265760-shut-down-vs-sleep-hibernate.html

My old habits get me to shutdown almost always. Goes back to the days where a shutdown flushed the RAM and helped a system run better. Also, shutting down removes the virtual memory/page file stored in the hard drive - in Vista and Win 7 you can choose to enable or disable (default) this feature. Some are concerned of security issues in regards to this matter.

Virtual Memory Paging File - Clear at Shutdown - Vista Forums

 

I don't sleep and I don't hibernate, but I don't shut down often either.

My computer is always on and always plugged in, plus it is always in high performance mode...except that the processor can go to a minimum processor state of 3%.

At 1 AM my computer does all MS updates (Windows and Office). At 2 AM it performs a disk cleanup, removing all unneccessary files. At 3 AM MSE performs a complete (full) malware scan. The disk cleanup triggers the TRIM command.

I have an SSD and 8GB of memory, so I have no paging file. While my memory always shows around 2GB used and 6 GB available, looking in the resource manager usually shows 4 to 5 GB of additional used memory...I guess this to be memory locations that are populated by the reserved data that would usually be in the paging file. If I restart my computer, this all goes away and I begin with just over 1 GB of memory usage.

My computer has 48 processes running at startup and only 5 programs which start in Windows at startup...Huey Pro, MSE, Nvidia audio driver, Realtek driver, and Logitech Setpoint (mouse).

I run IE9 for a browser, although I also have FF4. Although I run Chrome on other machines, I do not like the Google tracking. They scare me much more than MS! In IE9, I override automatic cookie handling, rejecting 3rd party cookies and prompting for 1st party cookies. I delete all temp internet files upon browser exit and I also delete browsing history and cookies on browser exit. the exception to this is that the cookies of all sites in my "favorites" folder are saved, so that i don't need to sign in at every site requiring a password.

All of these settings make for a very fast and quite safe computer. All of the computers in our house, along with all of the computers that I take care of, are set up in this manner. There are a few people who don't really like these "settings" because it hampers their computing style a bit, but in the long run, there are MANY FEWER problems with their machines, and they know it.

Each of these computers are shut down when moved (laptops being transported), when an update calls for it, or perhaps once every week or two simply to clear the memory.

In my opinion, this F series uses so much less power than a desktop and runs so cool that I have no problems leaving it on at all times. It is much more responsive when I walk over and want to use it and it performs a lot of maintenance during the time when I am not using it.

As a final thought, I do have the monitor shut down after 5 minutes of inactivity, but my SSD is "always on".

A page or so back there was a comment about "saving the planet" by shutting down and not using the electricity. Every light in my house is either LED or flourescent. I own a heavy duty pickup truck that sees about a thousand miles of use per year, but I have a vehicle that gets 38 MPG that sees about 45K miles per year. My lights and HVAC are on timers and my electricity bill is about 1/2 of what the average home uses, even though we have 3 computers, 3 printers, an NAS, 4 TVs and 2 surround sound systems (one a full theater). I understand conservation and use it where possible. I am NOT trying to save the planet...I am trying to save money on monthly utility and fuel costs. Even though there is never a light on in an unoccupied room in our house, our computers are always running. I simply see the benefits outweighing the costs of the added electricity.

Just my opinion!

 

Knowing you have a Crucial SSD, I thought cleanup occurs when computer is idle? How do you set your drive to clean at 2 AM?

Will and all others, just want get your thinking on this. Clearing memory is not as important now since most have 4,6 and 8GB of memory, but if you deem it important enough to clear it at least bi-weekly, why not everyday or why ever? How often does a program hang? I use CCleaner almost every time prior to shutting down as well. Are these just old habits which are unnecessary- always, almost always? If you are going to run a resource intensive program do you perform just to be thorough? With a SSD, 30 seconds and you're up and running. Open to changing my ways.

 

People say that often reboot/shutdown processes can hurt computer. Mostly to the hard drive. Parking/unparking heads may kill hard drive. Also other components becomes not healthier because of shutting down or reboot like processor's crystal etc. Hybernation is the same process as shutting down. Maybe sleep mode is not much better but I prefer this. Besides under normal activity computer may work even a month without loosing performance.

 

Noticed your baseball player avatar which made me think of baseball in the Ukraine or lack thereof.

Ukrainian Baseball

Maybe you can help them with their website. Looks like they need a little off the field assistance. As you state: 'Even genius without a proper knowledges can be mistaken'. Not sure what that means but I like it!

Friday bonus: Ever wonder what effect an object of x size/density/speed impacting the Earth would be? Find out with this simulator.

http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/

 

Fishon,

I use Task Scheduler.

First, I set Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) to clean what I want. To do this, I go to Start and in the search box I type: cleanmgr.exe /sageset:50

Be sure to put a space after .exe, but no space after /

This will bring up a full menu of items to check. I initially click on the bottom where it asks to clean up all system files...this brings up an even larger list of items. I then check all items except for windows error logs (there are a few of them). This menu offers to clean items such as temp windows installation and service pack files...a lot of data that i feel to be useless after installation. When finished...click "OK"

Now, I know that these files may be useful in the case of a major crash, but I backup a system image once a week, so I don't feel the need to keep these files.

the 'sageset" portion sets the parameters. The number does not need to be 50...it can be anything as long as the sagerun later uses the same number. You could actually do a sagerun of one number daily, and a more complete sagerun setting weekly or monthly. I simply set a single, comprehensive parameter and run it every night, after all updates are completed.

After setting the sageset:50 parameters, I check it by going back to the same search pane in the start menu and typing: cleanmgr.exe /sagerun:50

Again, be sure of the space!

This should start the program and you can watch it run.

If successful, then click Start, all programs, accessories, system tools, task scheduler and when it appears, click on "create a basic task"

Name the task "Disk Cleanup"

Describe the task as "Remove unneccessary files from the hard drive" and click "next"

In the Trigger Tab, click "Daily" then "Next"

Set Times and schedule and click "NExt"

Action Tab "Start a Program" then click "Next"

Set program path as: C:\Windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe
add arguement: (space)/sagerun:50
DO NOT FORGET THIS SPACE!!!

Set conditions that you want...I set it to stop after 30 minutes, wake computer, run with highest priviledges, run even if not logged on, run for all users

Set password and finish.

Note, this will only work if you are an administrator and you use a password. It will not work without a password!

If you set this to work overnight, be sure to go to bed with something in your recycle bin. If you awake to find the recycle bin empty, then you know that it is working! (of course, this is only true if you set disk cleanup to empty the recycle bin!)

I hope this helps!

Bill

 

Fishon,

TRIM is triggered when the Recycle Bin is emptied, so running disk cleanup triggers the TRIM command.

 

I always used RegCleaner Pro on my registry until I bought the F11. I now use VaioCare to clean my system monthly. It has been working well!

As far as memory dumping...I am not a memory expert. I have done away with the Paging File simply to limit writes to the SSD. I do noot own a program that needs a paging file. In the old days, poorly written programs would initially start and immediately reserve huge amounts of memory for their use. When memory in systems at the time was generally 512KB or maybe 1GB, this would tax the system, so a paging file was needed. Not so much so with 8-12GB of memory.

The memory is much faster than the SSD, so my system is snappier and I have only crashed due to lack of memory ONCE! When I did, I was attempting a batch manipulation of about 40 photos in PS Elements. It was simply too much to try to work 40 RAW files all at once.

From what I have read, W7 really handles memory well. After days of use, my running memory is under 2GB and I have another 4-5GB that is assigned, but available. I see that as memory that has simply not been flushed because it is used as a sort of paging file...the paging file is simply virtual memory to store data that is needed when memory runs out. In my case, the 5GB of used but available memory is simply the data left over that is there, but can be flushed if memory is needed by another process.

My setup not only works for me, but for dozens of other computers that I set up and manage. I am a minimalist. I want all of the machines that I work with to be lean, fast and secure. I am willing to sacrifice a cached webpage or bookmark for the ability to get to a fresh page quicker. I care about maximum hardware performance much more than keeping software handy for a slightly quicker load time at the expense of overall processing performance.

Just my opinion!

EDIT: By the way, I shut down my computer this morning because I had a message that an overnight update required a restart. Otherwise, I leave it on for the reasons stated earlier.

 

It didn't ask me for a password but it seemed to take. Will double check later. Thank you Will. Rep +1 again.

 

It should ask for your password at the end of setting up the task scheduler. In my opinion, it may not work.

then again, maybe you do not need one in the W7 Home Premium edition. I am running W7 Professional 64 bit in all of our machines, both at church and here at home.

Bill

 

OK, this is simply to brag!

With my old Indillinx based SSD, VaioCare says that my first startup is 22 seconds and that my average for the month is 24 seconds. it also says that my first shutdown is 8 seconds and that my average for the month is 10 seconds. this is faster than it used to be and tells me that my average time from pushing the "restart" button to complete "ready to run" startup is 34 seconds!

Not bad for "old" SSD technology!

 

I think that nobody can respond to the question of how much you will extend the life of the notebook doing one operation/thing instead of the other (shutdown/hibernation/sleep/keep it on).
While arguments can be found to support the pros and cons for each case, the difference would be unimportant. I mean, the probability that a component will fail in your notebook will way overweight the gain offered by using one operation instead of another. The manufacturing faults or component ageing or accidents (even small accidents which will provoke issues later) will kick in much sooner, and don’t blame yourself for the failure thinking that the right operation could extend the life of the component. A system, like the notebook, is using many different types of components, and most components age quicker while powered on, there are others which age quicker when activated/deactivated, others while temperature is higher (active and under load), there are components for which the difference is unimportant compared to human lifetime, not to mention the time while you intend to keep your notebook.

For the systems my company manufactures, the shortest times for preventive maintenance are for the cumulative power on times and for the cumulative periods while heat is important (under load), after these comes the cumulative periods while components are working under high frequencies, and so on …. On the other side of the list are times which are related to natural decay (tarnish, corrosion, oxidation, rust, …) or mechanical wear which are slow processes.

If you are really interested in this subject you can read up on the following: thermal fatigue of components, solder joints damaged by heat and frequency, whisker, … . Also check out the history behind: MTBF (Mean time between failures), which by the way is measured only during component operation; history of S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology); …

I personally use whichever operation is necessary or is more appropriate for what I want to achieve. For example, if I go away just for a short time, I usually leave the notebook on. For longer periods I close the lid (sleep). If I go away for much longer periods then I shut it down. If I run a long job overnight, of course it will stay on. If I need to bring my notebook with me, I never use sleep, I shut down or hibernate. I hibernate if I have something important running which cannot be interrupted or I want to come back quickly to what I was working on. For example, when a larger video project is mastered and saved as DVD/BD, this can take hours and cannot be stopped and later just resumed from where it was stopped. In this case, if I need to go and take the notebook with me, hibernation is the only way to go. And so on … it depends from case to case.

I think you should do the same. In the end, you bought your notebook to use it in the way which is more appropriate for you!

Just my contemplation on this subject!

 

I agree with Zperf.

I am an always on type of guy. I have audio components that have not been shut off in decades because the thermal dangers of cooling the system then heating it again are incredibly hard on solid state electronics. I take the same stance with my computers as I do with my audio equipment.

However, I can not say for sure how much laptop computers are hurt by these thermal fluctuations. I leave mine on for the thermal reasons, but mainly because there is no startup period when the computer is always on. I am always walking away and returning to my computer. there are many times where I am even awake at 2 AM, then back at 5 AM. For me, shutting down nightly is not an option.

But, I do agree with Zperf...to each his own! Do what you like best. I have seen no valid studies that show that a laptop that stays on lasts a different amount of time than one that hibernates, sleeps or is shut down when not in use. that is, of course, if the computer is shut down and NEVER used!!!

 

Guys I'm having this really weird issue with the F13 I purchased about a month ago ..

Since about 2 weeks now, I'm hearing this weird 'squeaking' sound coming from the laptop .. Its very low volume, but very high pitched, like somebody's blowing a whistle from very very far away and you hear only when your surrounding is very quiet, BUT, the whistle is very high pitched .. what I'm hearing is very much like this .. if I put my ear right next to the right side of the laptop (around the numpad region), i can hear it ... i can also hear a bunch of other sounds when my ear is right next to the numpad, but only this very high pitched component escapes enough to reach my ears when i'm just working normally ... I feel the sound is related to the hard drive .. sounds like a hard drive thats not of the top quality ..

Also, if I restart my computer, I do NOT hear it while the BIOS is booting, etc .. Its starts gradually as Windows is booting, and is virtually constantly coming when Windows is fully booted and I'm working normally ..

Also, maybe its just a trick my ears are playing on me, but it seems to me the sound is getting louder and louder everyday .. its almost unbearable to sit in a quiet environment with this .. the only solution is I play some music or something to die down this sound ..

Its a very very very annoying little sound .. it irritates the out of my ears, even though you can hardly hear it ..

Anyways, I called Sony support yesterday and talked to a lady .. she made me boot up the Control Center Diagnostics tool from BIOS and then I ran a 'Quick Test', which reported that no problems were found .. But I still think its most probably the hard drive as only the drive has any physical mechanical movement happening in it (the fans make a low pitches 'humming' sound, not a sound like this) .. I highly suspect this to be coming from the hard drive as just like the hard drive activity LED can randomly and very quickly turn on and off, the same pattern is apparent for this sound ..

The Sony rep said they can bring in the laptop and examine but, but the turnaround time around to them can be 12 to 19 business days .. the problem is I'm supposed to leave the US for vacations by the end of this month and would like to somehow solve this problem before 1st May if I can, even if its a temporary solution .. I can then send it to Sony for a full checkup when I come back in August ..

Any suggestions of any kind guys ?

EDIT: And here's a funny thing I've just noticed right now .. If I attach my earphones to the laptop and put them in my ears, I can hear the sound sound in the earphones, even when the laptop speaker is muted .. !! Sounds like a static sound when heard from the earphones !

 

I have Win Pro as well and I have confirmed it's working. Recycle bin empty. I didn't have a password to enter but checked a box at the bottom confirming my wish to create the task. In task scheduler > task scheduler library I can see the action created. Automating Disc Cleanup is very convenient, especially for people who are not proactive in caring for their laptop. I'll be doing this to a few other computers for sure. Thanks again.

ahmadka. A sound that does not come out of the speakers, sounds like hardware, but can be heard with headphones. Don't think anyone has posted about anything like this before.

I have been keeping Chrome updates disabled within the Task Scheduler. This keeps a process from running in the background, because of security issues, some are concerned about.

If you use Chrome check out Chrome experiments website: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ Interesting and includes some resource demanding projects which are great to view on our F. Also, if you missed it. http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/