Official Sony Vaio F22 2D Owners Lounge

Does the F23 have an IPS display like its smaller brother -- the SE -- has?

How are the viewing angles and colors on it?

Thanks.

 

It's not IPS. The horizontal viewing angles are great, but vertical isn't as good. Color reproduction is better than the SE, particularly if you like your reds to be red instead of orange.

 

I don't get a bubble when I plug in headphones, so I don't think that's the issue. I'm not sure what is...sorry.

 

Realtek drivers normally have a popup when you plug in headphones, Sony disabled that for their laptops.

 

Just thought I'd report back about the install of the Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230. I have to say it was pretty easy and I'm glad I went through the trouble. I did have trouble with the bluetooth at first, but then I uninstalled all of the broadcom software and I was fine. Works great now.

The 6230 seems to maintain a connection better than the Atheros did. I can't really speak for throughput yet. Although simultaneous dual band should be faster if your access point supports it. At first I was somewhat concerned because it didn't want to connect to my access point at first, but after waiting a minute it locked on and hasn't had a problem since. There are 17 ap's all on channel 1 in decently close proximity... this isn't ideal, but its what I have to put up with to get internet where I am. The Intel deals with it much better than the Atheros. That and the ability to connect on the 5gig band seals the deal for me on this one.

On a side note, I picked up 2 4 gig sticks of Corsair 1333MHz ram. A nice little upgrade over the 4 it came with. I was surprised to see quality Samsung RAM in there from Sony. It's nice to see them not cheap out on things like that.

I took some pictures of the guts if anyone wants to see.

-Sean

 

What do people here do in terms of color mode (in the Vaio Control Center)? Color mode off? Switch automatically? Keep it in one of its presets?

It seems to me that turning color mode on results in pleasantly-vibrant colors and easy-on-the-eye hues, but somewhat inaccurate colors (I can't figure out exactly how, but it seems a bit...off). Turning it off seems to result in some stuff being startlingly, excessively vibrant, and everything else looking a bit washed out. But maybe I'm just not used to it.

Anyway, just curious what others were doing with the Vaio Control Center's color mode.

 

I dont even see these options in the vaio control center. I do use the icc profile posted somewhere near the beginning of this thread.

 

Wow, you don't? I wonder if it's just an F23 thing. For me, in the Vaio Control Center, if you click on "display" to the left, the four sub-options it gives me are "automatic brightness settings," "color mode setting," "HDMI resolution settings," and "motion reality setting." I'm going into the second option in order to change the color mode.

 

id like to see them. my f23 is still "being built" but hopefully itll be done soon

 

On my F23 all i have under "display" is automatic brightness and hdmi.

 

Okay, THAT'S bizarre. Why on earth would two F23s have different menus for the Vaio Control Center?

Did you do a clean install? I had mine with Fresh Start but never did a clean install. Just grasping at straws here...

 

I did perform a clean install the day i received it so maybe that is the difference?

 

Must be. I bet that the color mode is not removed by a "fresh start" option from the factory (neither was Arcsoft, etc), but is something you can manually leave out when re-installing drivers, etc after a clean install.

 

Okay, so I tried turning off the Vaio Color Mode because it made everything yellowish (even though it looked "rich" and "vibrant"). Now I'm fiddling around with the NVidia color settings. What does everyone use? I'm having trouble finding the right balance between washed out and oversaturated. Right now, trying the following, though it feels just a wee bit oversaturated:

Brightness 50
Contrast 65
Gamma 1.0
Vibrance 55
Hue 0

Edit: just ran Windows color calibration to help me get it right, and now I'm running the following, and it's an improvement:

Brightness 40
Contrast 70
Gamma 1.0
Vibrance 50
Hue 0

 

I've recently bought a F23, and... I have an ergonomy problem with it
Namely, the old F13 could open the screen to a much higher degree and that worked fine. The F23 has a ~105 degrees limit (the plastic behind doesn't allow it to go further, and I don't see a way to open/change that part)
Any ideas how to either:
- remove the plastic without breaking anything
- what notebook pad could mitigate the display folding limit?
The F13 is sitting on a Coolermaster pad, which can lift it just correctly for it to fit perfectly. But it is too low for the F23. The keyboard being closer to the display doesn't help here.

I've considered connecting it to a monitor, plugging a keyboard and mouse, but that beats the idea of a laptop, I could get a cheaper/faster/cooler miniPC.

 

In what position are you sitting so that the screen hinge bending that far is not far enough? Have to literally place my head above the keyboard in order for it to be an issue, and I can't imagine typing like that.

 

The laptop where the screen and the rest of the laptop meet is up, the one closer to me is down on the desk. I put the laptop approximately an inch off the table with the CM pad, and it lifts the touching side some 7". I haven't looked at a keyboard for... 15+ years, so typing is no issue at all. The F13 keyboard is actually exactly where I want it. The F23 is a bit further, but that isn't big of a deal.
However, the screen in this position hinges the upper side towards me - so the touching side is further from me than the free side.

 

Hi, about to buy an F22 but it only comes with the i7-2630QM processor and was wondering if it were possible to upgrade it myself? Is it hard to locate or get to, soldered in? Thanks.

 

Hi

I recently began using a new F22 2D and ran into a very annoying problem that I have some questions regarding. The problem is that when I use earphones or headphones in the jack and a bluetooth mouse (Dell Travel BT Mouse), there is a lot of noise in my earphones. The noise is constant, loud and a mixed in with beeps. It just sounds like audio interference of some kind.

I tried using a regular wireless usb nano adapter mouse (MS 3500), and although the noise isn't as bad, there is still low audio noises coming from my earphones. With trackpad only, there is a faint noise still of a static crackle pop, pop, pop, pop, pop with a pause in between each low pop.

I have the previous generation F series, an F12, and never had this issue with it. Is the F22 2D defective, or is this normal in this model? Can anybody who uses it with a bluetooth or wireless mouse with earphones/headphones chime in on their experience with this model? I am frustrated and don't know what to do. There is no noise from earphones when I am not using a wireless/bluetooth mouse, and unplugging the AC Adapter doesn't make a difference.

 

I use a logitech bluetooth mouse with my f23 and i have no abnormal noise in my headphones.

 

I use a Logitech USB wireless mouse and I use headphones on a regular basis. Not once have I run into the sort of interference you describe.

 

Hello guys,
I´m seriously considering buying a Sony Vaio F23 series the only thing thats been holding me up are the reported fan noise issues...
I currently own a HP DV6 and while doing light tasks such as web browsing the fan literaly doesnt make any noise at all.

Btw has anyone used design programs on the F23 or F22? Wonder how it performs on 3d Max and rendering speed on Vray, Revit, etc.

Thanks

 

I have the same problem with my F23. I've used Sony bluetooth Keyboard VGP-BKB1, Sony bluetooth slider mouse VGP-BMS10, and Microsoft bluetooth notebook mouse 5000. I'm upgrading from the FW and I didn't have this problem using the same devices. I don't have the same problem your having with the trackpad though. Do you think it could be from the A2DP (2.1 + EDR) radio? The previous models used bluetooth 3.0. I was wondering if you fixed the issue?

 

Fan on my f233fx/b is silent unless gaming or benchmarking.

 

do the f23 and f22 have the same display? i'm pretty sure the f22 has the ips screen but what about the f23?
also is it hard to install extra ram? extra ssd?
edit:is the onboard audio card (alc275) high def? doesn't seem so from its name which is pretty disappointing for a media/ desktop replacement computer.

 

Does it make a difference if you only use one of them at a time, as in not mouse + keyboard together? What about usb wireless receiver mouse or keyboard? I'm using another laptop now so not the F12 nor the F22 but I think they use the same bluetooth whatever it may be, unless I'm mistaken. The F12 has no problem.

Wouldn't 2.1 be downgrading the Bluetooth profile? Shouldn't this be at least a 3.0 if not a 4.0? Is this something that can be altered through a firmware type change or software or is this purely a hardware thing?

I haven't fixed the issue yet. I had wanted to do a restore to factory settings to see if it changed anything in case it was some driver or firmware issue (b/c I'm not sure if this problem was there since the beginning or not, as I only started using earphones with it after I had used the computer and updated firmware and drivers). I haven't contacted Sony yet. Have you? Was this a problem when you first started using it when it was new?

Again, if this is not isolated I'm not sure why more ppl aren't posting about it or noticing it.

 

It makes no difference whether I use just one or both devices at once. A usb wireless or wired mouse does not have the same problem. I noticed even with bluetooth devices disconnected, just having the wireless switch on gives a very quite and faint pulse (similar to a clock tick) through the headphones. Its almost unnoticeable.

I doubt a factory reset will correct the issue. I just got this laptop and have been having this issue straight out the box. I tried reinstalling the bluetooth drivers and software, and it didn't fix anything.

I'm also surprised no one else is reporting this which leads me to believe its not a firmware or driver issue. I could be and I hope that I'm wrong about this. I have not contacted Sony yet but we really should bring this to Sony's attention. I'm puzzled as to why they would decide to include an older version of bluetooth in their newer models????? Anyways, I'll keep yall posted on the issue.

 

Is the problem identical in scope whether on AC or battery or on AC with the battery removed? If not then it may be a motherboard power supply problem, otherwise it's software, a resource conflict that can be resolved by toggling "Plug and Play OS" off or on in BIOS. Otherwise try disabling and removing drivers for the soundcard then allowing Windows to find the device and reinstalling. Also a no-reboot uninstall then search for new devices and reinstall of the Intel AHCI driver. ....

 

Also the problem can be casued by RF ingress. Are you near a transmitter or switching circuit or such? Try grounding the laptop since the wired devices may be introducing RF into the system.

 

Regardless of power source, the problem remains. Plug and Play is not listed in my BIOS. I disabled and removed the sound card and let it find the device and reinstall the latest drivers. Couldn't figure out how to reinstall AHCI but I don't think its a problem is Intel related. The headphone jack and headphones work perfectly normal when the wireless switch is set to off.

 

I'm also using the same workspace and set up that I used for my old Vaio FW series and didn't have a problem with that.

 

Same as f12zl3, mine is present with the AC Power Adapter unplugged as well. The main reason for the noise is Bluetooth is seems, and to a lesser extent, USB wireless signal. With trackpad only, it's very faint, almost nonexistent. So if it's non AC related does that rule out any other hardware problem as a possibility and it can only be software, or can it still be a hardware problem? This is only an issue through headphones/earphones.

I don't know much about computers so I'm unsure if something loose, bad GPU, bad shielding, motherboard defect, defective jack, etc might be possibilities or not for causing this issue. I'm hoping it's software related so it might be easily fixable.

Again, same as f12zl3, it seems as if only this laptop is affected. When I use three other laptops in the same identical spot, they are fine. I also have the same feedback issue with the F22 in other spots in other areas where these three other laptops again have no feedback noises.

 

In the F3D thread, another member said he has the same issue:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/8394090-post864.html

Yet he says that it goes away when he is playing something with audio such as a song/movie/game. However, my feedback noises never goes away. If I am playing a song or movie at low volume, I can still hear the feedback noises. The only way it ever "goes away" is if I turn up the volume on the song or movie loud enough to drown it out, but it is still there in the background. Is it the same with you?

 

Yup, the feedback is constant regardless of whats comin through the headphones. I just opened up Zune software and had the Vaio's volume on the first notch and you can hear the static. I can't notice it with the Vaio's volume all the way up while the application's volume is low but I know its still there.

 

Hey guys, I have a serious problem with my VPCF22C5E and you are my last hope in this small Internet....

I got a quite agressive drive by- virus on my system, so that I had to format my Laptop completely.

I forgot to create a recovery-disc when my System was still virginal. After some hours of trying and reading in other forums, I managed to create some recovery dvds via the Vaio tools.

But now, with every recovery, even with formatting the harddrive, the virus gets installed again... I guess its like that because I created those DVDs after I already got the Virus.

When I install from the recovery Partition on Harddrive, its the same.

My first solution was to Install a complete naked Windows 7 Professional version, this is what I planned anyway, because of so many for me useless programms coming with the original VAIO-System.

This worked so far, that the virus was gone and I was again full of hope...

BUT here I'm facing the problem, that I come in serious trouble with the Driver-Installation.

The Devicemanager is complaining, that the Realtek-Ethernet-driver ist not correctly installed and also a Device, that I would translate as a "Basis-System-Device" what probably should be the driver for "Ricoh Memory Stick Host Controller"

When I try to repair the drivers by Vaio care, the failure-message "the driver can't be installed. If it is already installed, remove it and try again.."
But there is nothing to remove.

I tried so many various options, installing drivers from the sony-support in Safe mode, in various orders....

No joke, in the last three Days I formatted and reinstalled my system not less than ten times for trying to Install the drivers in various ways.
I'm defeated by this damned Hacker.

So I would be so thankful, if there is somebody, who had similar problems with Installing drivers after Installing Win7 Professional from a Microsoft-DVD, that did not come with Sony software on it and can help me to solve them.

I would be soo glad.

 

I had the same problem, documented in the F1 thread, where my F11 was devastated by a virus. I also thought the virus was reinstallled from the recovery partition. In fact it had somehow remained in the root record, not being overwitten by a fresh install. The solution was to take the drive out and reformat the main partition in another Win 7 computer, then put it back in. Then recovery from the recovery partition went fine. You may still have that bug, even with an external install.

Missing drivers may be for the camera and "Sony Hardware Extension."

 

A quick question for the masses: My Vaio F23 serves as both my desktop and my mobile solution. I can't say I miss not having optimus technology because not only have I never had it, but I've also read about more than a few nightmares with it. That said, where I overclock the 540m for gaming, I was wondering if I would realize any extended battery life while on the go if I were to underclock the graphics card; any thoughts?

 

Hi,
I have a VPCF22SFX. I want to replace the hard drive to an SSD drive but I cannot find any info on changing the drive. I looked in the owners manual and own this site but couldn't find any mention of it. Is it too hard to do so people instead are installing in the optical drive bay?

Thanks. Sorry if I missed something. This is my first post and I really did spend a lot of time looking through the site.

 

Haven't been on here in a while, hope everyone is chuffed with their new laptops.

Few RAM questions (looking to upgrade from stock 4GB to 8GB)

Does anyone know if the F22(90X) (i7-2630QM) (GT 540M) supports DDR3 1600 RAM modules and can the motherboard/CPU take advantage of 1.35V sticks?

I'm looking at DDR3 1333 CL9 1.35V (8GB) vs DDR3 1600 CL11 1.5V (8GB)
price difference is 4euro between the 2 sets.

From what I understand the lower CL of the 1333 negates any increases in speed of the 1600. Only difference is the voltage then really . . . if I understand correctly.

Finally is a 16GB kit over kill? (30 euro more off ebay rather than crucial for the above RAM) I am an Architecture student so big Photoshop files, CAD work and 3D Model Rendering is the height of what I will be up to.

Any advice of much appreciated.

Cheers

 

I'm finding that overall the general issues with the F2x range are the size and fan noise. Everything else can be tweaked to personal preference, like display brightness and colour settings and sound quality etc. Am I right in this? Since neither the fan noise nor the laptop being chunky or heavy is a bother to me (I've never gone for this trend of thin = good), this should be an ideal laptop for slightly older games and general use otherwise. Have I got it right?

 

Yep, pretty much. A lot isn't perfect out of the box (webcam settings, audio settings), but if you tweak things to your preferences, it's a very solid machine at a good price. Great screen, good keyboard, great CPU. The 540M will make modern games run smoothly, just not at high graphics settings. Mass Effect 3, for example, runs perfectly smoothly for me (once set to 1366x768 and moderate detail settings).

As for the fan, you can map the physical "VAIO" button to a multitude of functions. I've mapped it to toggle between the three fan profiles that the Vaio Control Center gives you. "Silent" nerfs performance but keeps the laptop quiet for meetings. "Balanced" is audible but not bothersome, and good for most tasks. "Performance" is loud, but great for extended gaming sessions. And with headphones on (good for directional sensing of audio for gaming purposes anyway), the noise isn't an issue.

 

Sweet, thanks! I have since that post received the Vaio. Oh my Celestia this thing is sweet. Runs TF2 smoother than silk undies. Thanks for the advice gang!

 

New guy here, buying my first Sony Laptop. Decided it was time to replace my Dell Latitude D610...

I ordered the VPCF233FX/B, so I hope I am in the correct thread. I was hoping someone could advise me on a way to do a clean install of Windows 7 on this laptop. I have no experience with installing Windows 7, never went to Vista. Currently running Xp Pro on this Dell, but have Windows 7 on my desktop at work. Its my understanding the laptop won't come with any discs and I'd have to create my own recovery discs but I assume that'd include all the included software that's bundled on the laptop.

I don't know what kind of bloatware the Sony has or even if its necessary to do a clean install and maybe its only necessary to simply remove any programs I do not wish to have on there.

I'm thinking maybe I need to buy the Windows 7 professional upgrade and use that for a clean install, or will it perform a clean install with OEM pre installed software?

Any guidance would be appreciated, direction to posts that'll inform me of what I am looking for or whatever.

Rod

 

Well, I've been extremely pleased with my F23 laptop so far. It came equipped with 4 GB ram, and my extra 4GB didn't arrive for a couple of days. Having had time to play with it prior to 8 GB ram, the extra 4GB really made this thing shine.

I'm not a gamer, but I do play a few games and it does so very well. The current game is World of Tanks. It'll play OK with ultra high settings, but I pretty much set it at High and it runs in the ~30FPS area. The laptop loads the game extremely fast. It's always in the game before the 30 second count down. I know slower systems show up during, and sometimes after this 30 second count down as I launched the game on a P4 3.06HT with a gig of ram and it generally gets in just after the count down has finished. Both launching from the same internet connection.

Out of the box, it was nice to see that I could watch BluRay by simply inserting the disc. WinDVD launches and the movies play.

I've updated the video drivers to that of the ones on Nvidia's website, quite a bit newer than what is offered from Sony. My laptop arrived with all current drivers installed as per Sony's website.

Upon initial bootup, Sony's easy web access failed to allow configuration to my Wifi. It allowed me to enter my WEP code, but wouldn't connect, no way to select an option for a shared connection, versus open. So that Sony Easy Web Connect wasn't much use to me. I've removed that, and the VAIO Care software. There wasn't anything in VAIO care that I don't already routinely do myself and I didn't want the resources tied up with it always in memory.

I usually use it with a Logitech M185 wireless mouse (15.88 from Walmart) and it works great. Like some have mentioned, I don't particularly like the rocker style buttons on the mouse pad of this laptop.

 

hey guys
how can i create recovery dvd on my vaio F23?

 

Open VAIO Care, select advanced tools, select restore and recovery, select create recovery media.

 

found it! thanks

i recently updated my gpu driver from nvidia website and i got the 3d player software installed along with the gpu driver update.
my vaio is F23 2D. dont u think that the 3d software is useless?

i saw on the earlier page of this thread showing some steps to minimize the fan noise by tweaking the setting. and it said also that the i7 can not really automatically adjust the fan noise (u will either get silent or loud fan noise, can not get the intermediate one). i remembered that i need to change 100% to 99%, but not sure what it is. Can anybody refers mo to the way to minimize the fan noise?

ps: please not advise me to change the performance setting, since i already did it

thanks

 

Just wanted to post as there was conflicting information on the web (not just here).

You can add 16GB of ram to your system.

I have a VPCF232FX

Which came with 1 4GB stick of RAM.
I added an additional 4GB of RAM and got to thinking if I could add 2 8GB of RAM.

Yes you can.
I am not here to discuss the theoretical speed differences of 8GB vs 4GB sticks.
I would rather have 16GB of RAM as I do a lot of video editing.

This laptop is working out great.
I scored it on Amazon for $656 last week and its hands down freakin awesome!!!!

Pics of before and after of the RAM

 

It's not true that fan noise varies from max to nothing with no pitch in between. Not true at all. Sounds more like reports of the Dell XPS 15. The F's fan can operate at a multitude of different speeds depending on load.

And if you want manual control, go control panel > VAIO Control Center > power options > thermal control strategy. Balanced is the stock setting, performance makes the fan more aggressive, and silent is self-explanatory. This is different from the power options supplied by Windows--it's dictating fan performance, not CPU power.

You can also select the "special buttons" option at the bottom to map the VAIO hardware button to toggle between the three thermal control profiles. Very handy for quickly switching to aggressive fan for gaming, silent fan for meetings, and balanced for everything else.

 

I notice your Windows experience Index is 5.1, it's limited by the lowest scoring peripheral, I'm assuming that is the GT520 video, but is it the 2d or the 3d score? The VPCF233FX gets a 5.9 score, limited by the hard drive. The video is 6.7 for both 2d and 3d (GT540M), processor I believe is the same between the 233/232 so it should be 7.5/7.6 or there abouts.

I've read more than once that 5.9 is the limit for mechanical hard drives, but have no idea if this is true or not.