Official Sony Vaio F Series Owners Thread *Part 6*

For JamesD and others.

Paragon has a free download again of its 3 user backup software. Open for a few more hours.

Paragon Software Group - GIVEAWAY!!! | Facebook

 

Thank you! I did it! I'm really glad.

 

Knocked my external hard drive once when not in use, and when I went to use it again it was not working. Turned out the drive only separated from the enclosure. So make sure you screw the drive in tightly.

2.5" USB 2.0/eSATA Aluminum External SATA HDD Enclosure (Black) - Supports up to 500GB & Power over eSATA! HE-2521B



Latest desktop look borrowing from Tomcat avatar.

JamesD. Why do you want to change your processor?

 

Fishon,

Can you benchmark your esata enclosure? I would like to know how my HDDs compare to yours. Perhaps I can change a setting to speed the writes.

 

You obviously have different settings than I do. Do you cache writes? I am concerned about my writes only.

 

Hi,

This is the result of the install of a Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 240Gb into an european F11.

View attachment 64362

The laptop is flying!

 

Write cashing is enabled.

What made you decide on the Mushkin and not the OCZ Agility, Corsair Force, or Crucial C300? Not to say any of the others are superior. What is its primary use for you?

 

I found an opportunity on eBay and the price was really interesting.
Mushkin is also a company which has a good reputation for their products.

 

If given only those 4 choices, my order of preference would have been the Crucial, the Mushkin, the Corsair and the OCZ.

I always look at price first, then look for the most reliable in each price range. Speed is last because I feel that all of these drives are fast. Kind of like the difference between HDDs when one reads at 90MB/sec and one reads at 85MB/sec. The difference is not great enough to warrant a higher price and the difference is also small enough that I would base my decision on reliability.

Of course, this is only if price is similar. I would not pay considerably more for any of them if they are all the same capacity.

Just my opinion.

 

I am trying to find out how fast the data stream through the esata connection can be. I have a sans digital raid tower TR4UT-BP this has esata and usb 3.0 connected to it. my connection the the tower through esata gives a write speed of 15 mb sec SLOW!Yet on my tower pc the raid tower gives write speeds of over 200mb per second. Can you say bottleneck?

So I connected a seagate 3.5" Baracuda 7200 32mb cache to esata through a simple esata to sata adapter. With external power supply to the drive. I only get 51mbs (see image)

So knowing this does anyone have any info on the esata connection and the potential though put available? I cant find any hard data on read write potentials.

 

A single HDD is going to be the bottleneck and will not show off the transfer speeds of the eSATA port. You'd have higher numbers using a SSD. I've benchmarked my Intel SSD. A while back, I benched it using Everest for Linear read:
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD eSATAp Everest Linear Read | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

yes I understand that 1 drive does not tap the esata's potential but thats my point what is the esata connections potential? What are the specs on the esata's port? Like I said in the former post, my Sans Digital raid tower (WHICH IS SELF CONTAINED) shows up as a single drive and reads and writes over 200 mbs on my other PC. Why is it the Sony esata port is so terribly slow in this situation? And again does anyone know the esata ports speed potential? The maximum bandwidth if you will.

 

I ran an SSD through an external Power Over eSATA enclosure and I was limited to 128MB/sec reads and writes (exact...128.00 MB for each). This was the limit of my enclosure, not the port.

I know this does not fully answer your question, but what it tells me is that MY enclosures (the same one Fishon links to above) will be faster than any 2.5" platter drive.

I am trying to figure out if my 5400RPM OEM Toshiba drives are truly this slow to write or if I have a wrong setting or driver for them. I am considering trying to install a different driver for the platter drives, but do not quite know if I can install it without affecting my internal SSD. I am not sure if two storage drivers can co-exist side by side...an AHCI driver for the internal SSD and a more generic SATA driver for the eSATA drives.

Any thoughts? I have not had the time to spend experimenting, but I plan to.

 

Alright guys, about a week or so ago I reported hearing this strange high pitched sound from my laptop .. Well I recently got a DSLR and used that to make a small video which captures this sound brilliantly .. Have a look at it here:

YouTube - Strange low volumne yet very high pitched sounds coming from my VAIO laptop ..

Read the description of the video to find out when sound I'm referring to .. Has anybody had this issue before here ?

And just in case if anyone's wondering, this is NOT the usual HDD activity sound one hears if they put their ear right next to a hard drive .. Although the sound pattern is similar (and probably this sound IS somehow RELATED to HDD activity), its different for two main reasons: 1) This sound has a significantly higher frequency .. 2) It can be heard clearly even if your head is like 5-7 meters away from any part of the laptop in a quiet room, which is not the case for the HDD activity sound (unless the HDD is really failing very badly) ..

And yes, I like French's mustard a lot

 

I notice that you're energy concsious and are using the exhaust vent to heat up your French's mustard rather than using the microwave. Or, is it that you don't want to get up to heat it up when you can have it warmed right where you are?

 

As far as I know, two lamps mean higher brightness levels. Don't know about uniformity or anything else...

The inverter has nothing to do with the resolution, it just powers the lamps. Your existing inverter should work with any LCD that has one lamp.

 

Thanks, what else is needed to make this upgrade will there be a special cable needed between the panel and the vga controller or will it be universal?

 

The higher quality Sony panels have a darker light filter, to achieve deeper black levels and better contrast. Therefore, they need brighter backlights to achieve the same screen brightness as the lower end panels. The dual lamp configuration also provides more even screen illumination over a wider range of viewing angles. The downside is that they consume more power.

 

Im thinking about buying a laptop from Sony - last yr's i7 chip.. any thoughts on the i7 740QM or the 840QM vs the new Sandy Bridge i72630QM??

either system will be 8gbram, bluray write, 1gb GeForce GT330m, 500gb 7200 HDD, 1080p, backlit keyboard.

I dont game - just have heavy, heavy multitasking, videos, etc.

Will I notice a difference in speed - and is saving the $300 or so worth it or am i knocking a year off my new computers useful life once i get it?

 

The newer chip will most likely be 25-30% quicker. it is new architecture and a new circular bus.

The 840QM is still very quick. My 820QM + 8GB memory + SSD is very fast. I do not game and I am very happy with this machine.

If you can afford the new i7 with 8MB level 3 cache, I would get it. The question though is whether you want to pay Sony's premium for a 3D display and other upgraded features in the new model. I would much rather see an F13 with the 2nd gen i7 and 4 memory slots allowing for up to 16GB of memory and a pair of SATA 3 hard drive enclosures. Since I am not q gamer, I would also love to see the option for the on-chip intel HD 3000 graphics. Based on reviews, the 2D and video capabilities of these graphics would suit me well and would save power, create less heat and increase battery life.

Just my opinion.

 

I would add this to the above post:

Stop being duped by the 3D scam | TechRepublic

Advances like higher frame rates and 4K resolution will allow our brains to 'see' in 3D- this is the future. I believe 3D technology is a gimmick.

 

thanks for the input - so do you think the 25-30% quicker statement would still apply if the 2nd gen i7 was only 6mb cache like the 1st gen? (such as the i7 2630QM)? It looks like the 8mb isn't even an option on the F series yet.

 

25-30% not sure, but better. Benchmarks for these processors have been very impressive. 8MB is being offered, see Sony's website. You state you will be doing a lot of video and apparently the new Sandy Bridge allows for Quick Sync- a feature that may be worth it by itself.

I,tel Quick Sync Video

 

I don't know, simply due to the new bus design. I would guess there would still be a 15-20% gain, but without reviews, I can't say for sure.

 

You're right - video is important and i hadn't read about quick sync until now. In a side question - since i can't seem to find info on this that's clear - it says it's a type of integrated graphics.. so do all Sandy Bridge i7's come with Quick Sync and does it matter which GPU you use it with? (I'd imagine in a Sony or Dell online build from the site - they wouldn't match up a GPU and i7 that wouldn't work together to optimize this??) or am i completely confused?

 

All SB processors have it, but the motherboard may not unlock it. It depends on the motherboard.

 

Hey, does anyone know how I might check my Sony F series warranty online in Canada? Is there are warranty search page like HP has?

 

It sounds similar to the mic (morse code) noise some of us had with the early F11's. There is a fix for that you could on the unification post under Microphone “tweating” or "noises" or "morse code". Check it out on the unification post and see if it helps. http://forum.notebookreview.com/5992644-post554.html

 

Thanks Fishon!

Your results made me look harder. I uninstalled and deleted the IRST drivers, which really made no difference on my SSD. I hoped that perhaps the IRST was affecting my eSATA drives. Here are my original results from last week:



and here are the new results with IRST off the machine:



You may have IRST on your machine, but there was definitely a conflict with mine. Now, my results are in line with yours, and mine results are with the OEM 5400 RPM 320GB drives that came in the F as the original "C" drive.

Thanks again! I feel much better and am satisfied that I found the problem.


EDIT!!!: As you can see, the drives are NOT in the same order from the first time to this time. To compare, be sure you look at the drive letter!

 

I am all too happy to reciprocate. I am using the Intel RST 10.1.0.1008 driver.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?lang=eng&DwnldID=19601

 

Did a re run of my WEI score, just doing a basic re run and scores did not change. After which I went into 'advanced tools' and used 'clear all WEI scores and re-rate the system'. Rerunning WEI again lowered memory to 7.3, graphics 6.4, gaming graphics 6.4 and primary hard disk 6.7. All were lowered by .1. Only the processor did not change.



First is 6 months ago- second is today only 2% more fill.

Latest Nvidia driver and Intel RST 10.1.0.1008 driver

 

Very interesting! My results for my SSD are above, but my WEI for the disk shows 7.3.



I would think that mine would be lower than yours. This is from Friday. I will re-run just to see if perhaps they changed the points system to account for newer SATA6 drives.

 

Just re-ran with same results as above.

 

Here are my results for the Crucial M225 SSD:



I have the older 1916 firmware, but I refuse to update after hearing of a few problems. I sure wish Crucial would allow updating while in AHCI mode.

Here's one with the same settings you used, so it is "apples to apples":

 

Again, using advanced tools and 'clear all WEI scores and re rate' my base rate went back up to the original 6.5. Graphics card and gaming graphics back up to 6.5. Memory and hard drive still showing 0.1 less than before.

 

Since we seem to be sharing today, I want to join in. Intel X-25M 80GB IRST 10.5.0.1022. Note that my Seq writes are drastically lower because I have a smaller SSD.

Fishon, might your 4k numbers be so low due to lack of garbage collection and TRIM functionality?

 

Anseio I don't think so. First generation and this SSD never had high 4k scores. I purchased almost a year and a half ago, when I knew little about solid state drives. Would never have dropped my own SSD into the machine at the time- just didn't realize how easy it is. Knew the importance of TRIM, and relied heavily on this review which stated it supported TRIM, but alas it does not.

Toshiba HG2 43nm 256GB Solid State Drive Review - Toshiba's 43nm HG2 SSD - Legit Reviews

But I'm at peace with it. Some tech buddy's strongly suggested not to get one- too new a technology in their opinion, so I'm just glad I got a SSD, period. Will never use a platter drive as my primary drive again. Still has the wow factor.

 

WOW! That's pretty good results for a non-TRIM SSD.

Can you update the firmware to allow for TRIM?

this review says that it supports TRIM:

Toshiba HG2 Review and Benchmarks

 

Recently my my s1 will sometimes not go to sleep when I close the lid. When I reopen it, I'll just see a black screen with the hard drive making sounds and the fan still running so my only option is to forcibly hit the power button to shut it down.

This has started to happen when one day I closed to lid, then remembered something I still had to do and reopened it before it could settle into sleep mode... so basically I interrupted the interval between closing the lid and the 5 seconds it takes for it to prepare going into sleep mode. Never had the aforementioned problem until I did this.

Anyone experienced this and know the problem/solution to this?

EDIT: further examination of the things I did on this computer before the problem arised also shows that because of me uninstalling the McAfee software that came pre-installed, Windows Defender (a program I never knew I had!) got activated and according to event logs and system restore it immediately downloaded a definition file update without my knowing. I have set Windows Update such that it lets me choose whether or not to install new updates, but this obviously got around that. Could this program being active have anything to do with this or is it because of me interrupting the computer to go to sleep mode as described above that's the culprit after all?

 

Hey guys,
Hope any of you can help me fix this problem... I have recently connected my HDMI cable from my Vaio VPCF115FM to my Samsung LED TV 40". The video is great, however I´m not getting any sound coming from the TV. The sound keeps coming out from my notebook speakers. I have searched numerous sites through google, though none helped me to fix this issue. I keep wondering if there might be a connection with this problem and the whinning/buzzing sound temporary solution that sony F series owners, such as me, had to make in order to make that annoying sound stop. Well, thanks for the attention and hope to hear from anyone soon.

 

You need to disable your laptop's onboard speakers to get sound through the HDMI port.

Right click on the loudspeaker icon in your taskbar, and select Playback devices. Then right click on your speakers, and select DISABLE. Right click on your onboard output of the HDMI, e.g. "Realtek digital output", and click "Enable".

 

Summer is coming and I was wondering whether it worth the shot to change the thermal paste of our beloved VAIO by the Artic Silver for example?

 

Hi all,

I received my new VAIO (VPCF13C5E custom build) from Sony yesterday. I purchased an Intel 320 series 120GB SSD to go with it. I installed the SSD and successfully installed Windows 7 Ultimate edition. Prior to installing Windows I tried to set the SATA mode to AHCI (as recommended by Intel for their SSDs - and is required for TRIM). Unfortunately there is no option within the bios to enable AHCI so I presumed it must be enabled by default.

After installing Windows I notice that AHCI is not enabled by default.

Does anyone know of a workaround to turn on AHCI? I have checked the sony website for a new BIOS but there isn't one.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

AHCI is enabled in the BIOS by default. A stock VAIO F will come out of the box using the Intel drivers in AHCI mode. If you clean install a separate copy of Windows, it *should* use the msahci driver in AHCI mode, which can be confirmed by checking the Registry.

 

Hi dmk2 - thanks for your reply.

I installed a new SSD and so did a fresh install of Windows 7 from a retail disk. I checked the registry key that determines whether Windows is running in AHCI mode and determined that it is not. It is this which led me to believe that AHCI mode was not enabled within the BIOS.

I'm away from the laptop right now so I'll double check the registry when I get home and will see if I can change it to AHCI mode. If the BIOS is set correctly then it should work, right?

 

How to enable AHCI in Windows 7 RC after installation | iThinkDifferent

 

Go into Device Manager, find the drive controller, right click -> Properties -> Driver tab -> click Driver Details and see what comes up.

If it's msahci.sys, then you're running the right driver, regardless of what the "start" key in the Registry says. If it's pciide.sys, then you're running in IDE mode.

If you're running in IDE mode, that would suggest the controller is configured in IDE mode for some bizarre reason that I can't explain. And if you force Windows to use the AHCI driver it may not boot. Have a rescue disk ready if you're going to try that.

You could also try installing the Intel RST drivers and see what happens.
That's what I've been running since my F was new, although I upgraded the version after Intel added TRIM support.

 

I just reinstalled my system after installing a SSD. AHCI was enabled by default.

 

A message from Sony.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/DrForester/SonyIsntGoodWithComputers.gif