Official Sony Vaio F22 2D Owners Lounge

I have been reading up on the f series as im thinking about picking up an f23 as a desktop replacement. You can now choose what programs are installed when restoring through the recovery discs? You dont have to follow this guide ? Vaio F Series Clean Install Guide - F11 F12 F13 by Joe Bleau

 

Let me clarify. When you insert the discs WITHOUT having done a fresh install, it lets you choose program-by-program what to uninstall and reinstall. I assume that the same would be true when doing a fresh install from those same discs, but since I've never felt the need to do a fresh install on mine, I can't say for sure.

 

So if i buy the laptop power it on as is and create the discs i can then restore from the discs choosing what i want to install?

 

Like I said, I don't know for sure because I've never done a fresh install. But when you stick the discs in after creating them, the first question it asks you is if you want to reinstall Windows. If you don't, then it will ask you which bundled programs or drivers you want to uninstall or reinstall.

If it asks you at that stage which programs you want to install instead of trying to put them all on, I suspect it would do the same when you do a clean install. But I CANNOT say this for sure because I've never done it myself.

 

Ok thanks. Has anybody done a clean install via the recovery discs on the F22/F23?

 

I have been waiting for the F23, English language version with the 1920x1080 Premium display, for 2 months now and I'm getting fed up. It is not in stock on the Belgian internet site of Sony in Belgium.

So I'm wondering if I buy the French language version, format the disk, and install my legal copy of Windows XP, English version, would I be able to restore the Sony functions, eg Web access quick start, etc. that come with the machine.

Also,will I be voiding my Sony guarantee by doing this. Your thoughts will be appreciated.

 

I have question regarding TOSLINK audio output formats supported by the F22. I noticed that Linear PCM is the output format defaulted to when I play blu-rays. Does anyone know if there's a way of switching the output format from Linear PCM to Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1, or whether it's possible to do so?

I understand that the HDMI port does output HD audio. However my home theater receiver isn't HD Audio compatible. I know my PS3 has no problems supporting 5.1 audio playback through a TOSLINK cable so I'm assuming its a sound card limitation or a setting configuration.

I couldn't find anything on this thread on the same. Any assistance would be appreciated!

Thanks!

-
F22 Signature White (June 2011)

 

So im officially the owner of a VPCF23JFX/BC bundle that came with the Sony headphones and Battlefield. Ive had it almost a week now. I upgraded the ram to 8gb and installed a 128 gb crucial m4 ssd. This is an awesome machine and has exceeded my expectations!

 

I have just done a clean install.

Everything works fine but I am missing the Sony top "toolbar".

Does anybody know what I have to install to get it back?


Has anyboday tried to unlock all or some of the hidden bios options?

 

Vaio Gate is the software to get the top bar.

 

Thanks, that was it.

The driver support page is really a mess. It was only listed under updates and not under preinstalled.

 

Awesome! How do you find BF3 runs on it? What graphics settings and resolution do you use?

 

Believe it or not im not using the machine for gaming (thats what my 360 is for) and have the battlefield code for sale on ebay. Besides everyday tasks the machine is mainly used for hd rendering/streaming.

 

I have the same machine as njfoses. It's a pretty awesome machine (except for the battery which I know before I bought it). I'm planning to upgrade it to 8GB RAM and get the Crucial m4 128GB SSD too (once price goes down to about $160)! What a coincidence! haha

One annoying thing is when I'm on battery, the processor isn't running as fast as when plugged in. I have set it to High Performance (on Windows 7 power setting as well as VAIO Control Center) and the processor minimum & maximum state to 100%. Anyone else have the same problem or found a solution? Btw, I did a fresh install, but that shouldn't affect the how the processor work.....right?

 

The slowdown on battery is well-known and often discussed here. The battery can not sustain the current needed for full power operation of an i7 so the system clocks at half speed to prevent premature battery failure.

 

Interesting. My machine is basically a desktop replacement and is plugged in 99% of the time but this is good to know.

 

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but I just got the F23JFX, and am loving it so far, except for the webcam is extremely dark and has almost no color, everything has this greenish tint to it. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this? I've tried it in multiple applications and the picture still looks like s***...

 

I have not done this personally but have read that the ArcSoft webcam software causes this color issue. If you uninstall the program colors should improve.

 

I'll drop a quick question in here, so I can confirm the second post in this thread I made a few days ago.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/636514-f23-does-support-6gb-s-sata-3-0-a.html

Does the Vaio F23 support SATA 3.0 (6gb/s) ?

 

I was wondering the same. I am about to receive my F2390 in a couple of days, but with only 5400rpm HDD which I intend to replace with a proper SSD. So, would it be worth buying SATA3 SSD or only SATA2?

 

I have a crucial m4 128gb ssd installed in mine and i can confirm it supports sata 3.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Hi,

has anybody tried 8GB Modules in the F22 ? I know it is officially not supported by Sony, but the chipset might support it. Anybody knows more about this ?


/Gompf

 

This has been extensively discussed in the F1 thread, answers? No, and we don't know. http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony-owners-lounge-forum/569280-official-sony-vaio-f-series-owners-thread-part-6-a-200.html#post8168577

 

Hmm F13 and F22 (i have both) have different chipsets i think, so not the same necessarily. Anyway i have ordered 2 sticks and will try it out.

/Gompf

 

Only a few months in, I'm having my first issue.

About three or four times now in the past couple weeks, I've had display driver failures watching YouTube. The speakers put out static for a couple seconds and the screen freezes, then it releases, a balloon tells me there was a display driver failure but it's been recovered, but the YouTube video is all green. If I close the window and open a new window, it's fine again.

Anyone heard of this? Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening?

 

Another oft-discussed issue, it happens with certain builds of Flash. Try updating or installing a different version of Flash. I'm assuming this happens ONLY with YouTube and Flash-video sites? If it occurs with mpgs, AVIs etc. then what I just said does not apply. In either case it's not the computer that's at fault..

 

You'll be the first, I think. Let us know! And as discussed in the F1 thread, larger ram sticks are slower by nature (row refresh time) plus anything above 8 gigs may not be cached, (no prefetch) so measure SPEED and memory access time with both the old and new ram. If the 8 gigs is not needed then you will have a slower system for the sake of unnecessary extra space.

 

I think it's only happened with YouTube so far, so it sounds flash-related. Glad to hear it's not a hardware issue...that's making me feel better already

 

I know this is crazy, but I want to make Fn+Up/Down to change the volume instead of Fn+F3/F4. Anyone know if it's possible to alter/hack the Fn key to make that work?

Edit: Just did some research and found that most Fn keys don't generate scancodes and are at the hardware level, so it's near impossible to remap them. Luckily, I managed to remap some functions like Volume Up and Volume Down (but not Brightness Up/Down) to a single key using KeyTweak.

 

Now it's my turn to hang around the Sony webpage and refresh order status for the next three weeks.
I've put an order on Vaio F23 with my own configurations, and this is how it looks:

Intel® CoreTM i7-2670QM 2,2GHz
Seriell ATA på 500GB (5400rpm) *
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3-SDRAM *
41,6cm LCD 1920x1080 Premium (s-sssshiny)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M 2GB

* I will upgrade ram myself, because it's really easy, and much cheaper.
Going to go for 8 GB. And the harddrive will be swapped with a Samsung 830 256 GB SSD, so the "old" harddrive will be used in a NAS server instead.

I can't friggin wait, and it's only been 1 hour since I placed the order.

 

I've tried now and since it really looks like i am the first one to have taken this risk of trying, and for the benefit of all others: 8GB Modules x2 (so a total of 16GB in two modules) work perfectly in the F22 and in the F13 as well ! I also can only notice the increased speed and not a slowdown as predicted here.

I seriously doubt the CPU or the chipset limits the caching/prefetching, as there is similar notebooks from Dell and IBM using the same chipset and supporting 16GB. The CPUs basically do support up to 32 GB according to the datasheet. So the only way would have been if the BIOS would have a barred it, but it certainly does not look like.

So whoever is contemplating to get the 16 GB and didn't dare to order them so far, go ahead, you won't regret it i think.


/Gompf

 

How do you know it's faster, what benchmark utility did you use?

Specifically how did you measure caching above 8 gigs?

Does this slowdown affect virtual OS, with XP running under Win7?

And under normal use, how much of your memory is being utilized?

Answer the questions above, THEN I'll listen to your case for memory greater than 8 gigs.

I have a T23 with W2K running 1 gig of memory, twice its rated 500 megs, it works well until several apps are open then it slows to a crawl as programs are running in uncached space. Likewise the infamous BX chipset only supprted 64 megs, put in 256, sure, but bootup takes 5 minutes, plus benchmarks are pitiful.

 

well, a few points here:

1) first and most importantly, everybody must decide for themselfs, if they really need so much RAM or not, if you don't it is a waste of electrical power and money. For I am a developer, I program windows codes, drivers and firmwares, i have lots of development systems and virtual machines running at the same time and i typically only boot my machine every 4 to 6 weeks only, so i definitely use lots of RAM and it does make a difference to me.

2) there is no better way to increase your machine speed other than adding RAM to it if you are at the limit. No doubt, larger modules do have a longer latency and thus slower in theory, but there is a difference between theoretical and applied physics, once your machine has more RAM windows will start to cache certain things, and you will notice that.

3) If you actually use more RAM than you physically have, Windows will swap, and no doubt even the slowest RAM is faster than a swapfile and eat less of your cpu time.

4) I did not have the time to do a benchmark, and i won't unless i am unhappy with the situation and want to know the rootcause of this unhappyness. i know how fast my machine used to boot and how much time it uses now to boot, I also know how long it roughly took to resume a 4gb Virtual machine, and i can notice the difference. Seriously that is all i need to know for my work

I did not plan on having a lengthy discussion on the pro and cons of RAM vs. Performance, everybody must decide for themselfs i believe, all i wanted to do here to give people the feedback that it actually works, dispite SONY's spec. For me, my subjective results are positive, no noticable drawback, noticenable upgrade from my point of feel, and i hope that information is somewhat usefull to others who like me were researching on the net if it works and could not find any confirmation on this.

/Gompf

 

So I have a question for F22/F23 owners, and it might be hard to answer because not everyone notices stuff like this.

I bought a Sony VAIO CA2290 way back when. I liked the computer except for one fatal flaw: there were crackling and "popping" noises in the sound, especially when Windows sounds played, such as the "ding" sound. There'd be a delay in the ding sound playing (such as after clicking the volume settings adjuster in the task bar) and then there'd be a "pop" afterward. This, over the course of a week or so, degraded into me being able to hear the computer's electronic functions (i.e. scrolling on a webpage produced a "crackling" sound in the headphones). No amount of driver adjusting was able to fix the problem. It only got worse and worse.

Now, I went to the Sony store with my own headphones and tested many different computers, including the F22. I heard that same delay and "pop" sound. However, I did not hear it on the F23 and the Vaio SE.

So what I'm really trying to find out is if this problem was fixed with the F23 and the newer line of computers (including the SE). I recognize that a lot of people wouldn't notice this problem or care, but because it eventually got worse and worse for me, I'm afraid of buying another Sony after that.

 

I've never noticed that sound, and I sometimes use a decent-quality pair of studio headphones with it (for gaming when everyone else is asleep), so I think I'd notice. As the signature notes, I have an F23. I'll fiddle around this weekend and see if I can hear anything, and report back with more definitive conclusions.

And it's not like i'm immune to caring about that stuff. For example, mine has a slight creak if I set my right wrist down on the very front edge of the case (where it would be if the right hand is using the arrow keys). Far from a deal-breaker, but slightly annoying, and proof that I do notice subtle noises like that.

 

Thank you

Part of the problem is that I have trouble explaining exactly what it is I'm talking about. However, I was able to get my mom, someone who knows little about computers and doesn't care about them much, to notice it. Essentially (just for more clarification and anyone else who's reading), it's: go to the task bar, click the speaker symbol, click the slider to get the "ding" sound. On a regular computer, the ding will happen instantly and sound clear. On the Sonys that I tested, there was a delay between the ding sound and the clicking of the slider and it did not sound clear, it was muffled at the beginning. Same went for the "click" sound that plays when you browse through folders on My Computer, etc.

 

I upgraded my F2390 with an addtional 4gb of ram from the factory 4gb. I also added a Crucial M4 SSD 128gb. And installed Norton internet security 2012.

I have had no end of BSOD's, i removed the SSD and still the problems occured.

This was the reason i bought the sony to replace the dell 1557, as it had the same problems.

So i removed the Ram and also uninstalled Norton Internet Security 2012 and i have had the longest period of time (2 weeks so far) with out BSOD's.

Has anyone else had problems with Norton Internet Security 2012?

 

I've been running NIS 2012 since it was released 4-5 months ago and haven't had any problem whatsoever. In fact I find it very useful.

 

OBVIOUSLY the new ram is bad, or it wasn't clipped into place properly. That was an easy one...

 

Spent some time playing Rise of Flight with studio headphones on this weekend. No "pop" noticeable at the beginning and end of the game, music, etc. On the other hand, that "pop" is clearly audible on my Kindle Fire whenever it finishes a song when I'm using headphones, so I know what you're talking about.

 

Well, thanks for the information

I'm probably either going to get this computer or the VAIO SE.

 

Hey guys. Just bought a VPCF23EFX and love it. I was disappointed to find that the Atheros AR9287 that it comes with is only single band. Has anyone tried to replace it with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230?

I think I saw some mention of it in the other F series threads, but didn't see any specific mention of it in the F22 thread. Not sure if the internal antenna will support the 5 gig band either. I don't mind pulling the gun and being the first to try it, but would be nice to know if anyone had any luck with it. The 5 gig band is empty where I'm at while 2.4 has 20+ access points fighting each other.

Also it didn't look like bluetooth was coming from the Atheros AR9287. I think its a Broadcom 2070. So I'm going to guess its on the motherboard. I figure if the Intel card works I'll just disable the bcm2070. I don't really use bluetooth too much anyway.

-Sean

 

I used a intel 6200 wireless, and it works perfectly, I used this guide

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...vaio-f-series-owners-lounge-part-2-a-246.html

 

Thanks jonsyp. I saw that earlier, but was worried that the f22/23 might have an "approved hardware list" setup in the bios like some other laptops. Good to know that's not the case.

So far I haven't been too impressed with the AR9287. Hopefully the 6230 works a little better. My old laptop (old Fujitsu Lifebook A series) had an Atheros card in it that was dual band that worked pretty well. Although it didn't support N or more than one stream, it was still pretty rock solid.

-Sean

 

How much is a fair asking price for a used VPCF226FM? There's one on Craigslist, and it looks decent. How much should I offer?

 

Hey guys,
Received my F23 a couple weeks ago and generally quite happy with it. Just a couple questions, hoping some of you might know the answer to it...
1. I hear uninstalling Arcsoft improves webcam video quality, but can't find a driver that will allow it to work otherwise! Suggestions?
2. Wanting to replace the ODD with a 2nd HDD, but are there any HDD caddys that will fit the weird shape of the side of the Vaio F23?
3. When I plug in headphones, the sound is hollow and all-round terrible. Is this just how it is, or is there something I can do with software to improve it?
Thanks for any and all help!

 

Hey guys,
Received my F23 a couple weeks ago and generally quite happy with it. Just a couple questions, hoping some of you might know the answer to it...
1. I hear uninstalling Arcsoft improves webcam video quality, but can't find a driver that will allow it to work otherwise! Suggestions?
2. Wanting to replace the ODD with a 2nd HDD, but are there any HDD caddys that will fit the weird shape of the Vaio F23? Generic caddys would look pretty bad and be pretty obvious from the looks of it.
3. When I plug in headphones, the sound is hollow and all-round terrible. Is this just how it is, or is there something I can do with software to improve it?
Thanks for any and all help!

 

I uninstalled the two Arcsoft programs (not clean install, just uninstalled those two), didn't install anything else in its place, and the webcam works just fine when I launch Google chat or Skype.

Have you enabled Dolby? Control Panel --> Vaio Control Center --> Sounds --> use Dolby --> advanced (I tend to use the "movie" or "music" setting).

 

Hey Mitlov,
I uninstalled both Arcsoft programs and now the webcam is not recognized anywhere. As for the headphones, I've tried with Dolby, S-Force, and no sound effects, and all result in much of the sound missing. I've thinking the issue might be with the headphones not being recognized as headphones, because if I remember correctly with Windows 7 it usually flashes a bubble saying headphones are attached...? Hopefully can get to the bottom of this, thanks for your help so far!