Official Sony Vaio Fit multi-flip PC Owners' Thread

I found a new problem. I was using Skype with a friend and they said they heard a high pitch noise, like a tea pot boiling.

Could someone else please test to see if they have it too?

I recommend using the "Sound Recorder" windows app and not the desktop version. It might help to turn up the gain on the microphone. From the Desktop > Right Click Speaker in System Tray > Recording Devices > Microphone > Properties > Levels > Microphone Boost = 30dB

You should be able to hear the whining noise in your recording when you talk. Unfortunately if this doesn't get resolved I might have to exchange mine. Skype and video chats are one of my primary uses of a laptop.

 

Does your fan get loud during the video call? Mine sometimes does if I use a web browser at the same time and my boyfriend said he could hear the fan on his end of the call. That could be the whining noise.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

Hi Mark,

thanks for your help.
Just to be sure we are talking about the same problem. I, and I think the other two guys, have a problem with the trackpad, which doenst work properly, not the touchscreen.
I downloaded that update anyway, which I had to do on the us sony site, because it doenst exist on the german site, and installed it. Cant say if it helped right now, because the problem just occures once in a while.

 

Finally got the tracking no. For a custom fit 13a I ordered on the 5th of December. In the tracking it says picked up from shanghai China while Sony customer care repeatedly told me the laptop is coming from Japan

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

 

Sounds like the Problem i had 2 times. I wouldn't be surprised, if yours will die again...

 

I have had the Flip 14 for about a month. After doing all the updates, the only thing I am not happy with is the wi-fi. It does not have much range and always shows a weaker signal than my other devices, including my 3 year old Vaio. Has anyone figured out a way to improve this?

The other question I have, has anyone ordered their Flip 14 with the enhanced camera package, 2 mp front camera and 8 mp rear camera? I'm not sure how necessary this is, but the $30.00 upgrade charge for this seems very reasonable. Since you can only order it with an ssd drive, I suspect getting the rear camera necessitates using the ssd drives with the smaller form factor, and limits your ability to replace the drive.

 

Its not the fan in this case. They can hear it when the fan is off. I can also hear it when I use the app Sound Recorder.

 

To "Smoerijf" - Thanks a lot for screen shots but now I am totally mixed-up I will think few days more about the display..

To "Everybody" - Do you anybody knows, what is the supposed time right now, for delivery of customized device, in the United States of America? If I purchase the "Sony Vaio Flip 15" in the end of this week, can I get it before 20 January 2014? And what about the processors? Does it worth 150$ more for "Intel I7" compared with "Intel I5?

 

@Hound88
I replaced the 500GB HDD in a Flip 15 and the bottom cover was indeed very hard to remove. the right front went off pretty easy, but the part at the powerconnector didn't want to go off. Somehow i managed to loose the cover on the back between the two rubber-feet. (don't forget to remove the screws under the two/three rubber feet) ... after that i was able to get the whole cover off. I've also upgraded many notebooks, but this was a hard one. xD

 

So I accidentally fixed my fan problem by dropping my phone on the right side of the keypad, kind of shocked me, but I'm waiting on the tech to call me for an appointment, so I'll wait till he calls to tell him what happened.

 

Yeah, i'm sure if I took more time I would be able to take it off but just didn't want to since I don't have a SSD drive to swap yet. What size SSD did you replace it with? I'm thinking of getting the Samsung Evo 256GB and use their magician software but I heard migrating data from a larger mechanical drive to a smaller SSD drive causes issues.

 

Hey,

made a quick video of my problem, to make it more clear.
When the problem occures, the center of the trackpad does not register input properly, and can't be used like this.
Does anyone have this problem too?

Sony Vaio Fit Flip 14A Touchpad not working properly - YouTube

 

Yes, there's a catch on one side which I was unable to release as well. After getting the other side released as well as the front and the back (both hinges freed), opening the back up like a clamshell freed the last catch and the back came off easily. FWIW, I worked my way around the base with an old iPod spooger and a couple of guitar picks.

 

Hello all,

Just wondering if anybody knows anything about the non availability of the 128gb ssd on new 14A. I can order the 256gb version but for €310 more than the standard 500gb sata version, I think not

 

Talked to a person on sony chat and he said that the 128gb ssd will be available from early January and no sooner on multi-flip 14A orders

 

Hi everyone. I think this laptop/tablet is what I need for my work but I have a question about gaming.Can you play games like skyrim or lineage 2 on it ( I'm thinking abaut i5 nvidia 2 gigs version)? I know this isn't a gaming device and it's nt ment to be but some gaming capabilities would be welcome What do You think?

 

Look up some 735M tests... For example: NVIDIA GeForce GT 735M - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Performance won't be limited by the CPU.

More Video-RAM won't make the GPU faster, it just provides storage space for textures, buffers (Higher screen resolution needs more VRAM) etc. Skyrim seems to eat up a lot of VRAM.

 

I had this problem. I am with win8.1. After going from bios R0190 to R220, it got better. I also disable the touchpad when using an external mouse. Its not perfect though: ocassionally the cursor still jumps to another open window. It may be a win 8.1 problem.

 

I just want to say, whatever you do, don't crack your screen if you don't have the accidental damage protection. Even though when I sent it in it was just the touchscreen layer not the LCD itself the estimate is $450(US) on the 13A. Pretty expensive mistake. Oh well...

 

@Hound88
I replaced it with a crucial m500 960GB.

I've cloned many Systems from hdd to ssd and most times it worked without any problem. If you've got a "fresh" sony-installation, i would suggest the recoveryinstallation, because cloning can affect the systems performance. (hybrid hdd driver?!) With the recovery installation you don't have to install all drivers manually and you get all the original software.

I couldn't create a recovery image, because it wanted a 16-20GB big USB-Flash drive - an external harddrive was not accepted and i didn't want to burn 10 dvds. So i performed a clean installation with windows 8 prof x64 - unfortunately my ssd does not show its full performance and i've not got any sony software working. (vaio update shows no updates and vaio care is pretty useless without the other software) Anyway the notebook is fast and quiet and everything is working, so it's no problem.

 

Hey, thanks for your anwser.
After I didn't get any response in 3 forums I posted this, I called sony today and told them about my problem.
The tech support said it is probably a hardware defect, and I should send in my Vaio, which I'm going to do now.
I'm also on Win 8.1 and have the newest BIOS, but the problem still occures at least once a day.

 

Can you share with use a link to this 32GB USB stick, I bought one but it showed up as a hard disk not as a removable drive.
thanks!

 

Long shot (and maybe you have already done this) but I was getting some whacked mouse behavior until I disabled "Tap" under mouse settings. Maybe worth a shot?

 

Hi there tomeli

I posted a link for one at Amazon over a week ago, but I totally get why you missed it with over 1072 messages in this thread

The stick I got is a Lexar "TwistTurn" 32GB like this one : Amazon.com : Lexar JumpDrive TwistTurn 32GB USB Flash Drive LJDTT32GASBNA (Gray) : Electronics
I got it at Staples (Canada). I know there are other/different cheapo Lexars out there. I made sure it was a USB 2.0 model because I am aware of some problems relating to booting with [some] USB 3.0 devices. I also later mentionned that I could have probably used a 16GB stick instead of 32GB, simply because of the "Fresh Start" option I got, so my Recovery partition contains less than 10GB of *stuff*, compared to just over 16GB (I think) for full bloatware Recovery partitions. One member here said he needed 5 DVDs for the Recov set, while I got mine done with 3 DVDs only ( the third was not full). Yeah, I did DVDs even though I had a working Recov stick, mostly out of curiosity but also for the extra backup (kids can't accidentally write to finished DVD-Rs lol).

Anyway... I hope you find a good stick for your Recovery, and cheap too

Edit to add : it doesn't say on that Amazon page, but the TwistTurn is a USB 2.0 model. And at $14.95 as it is now, a pretty good deal. I got mine for $12 but that was a Black Friday shocker deal.

 

Hi Mark,

thanks for your informations, I confirm the USB key you mention works like a charm for the recovery disk (bought on the french amazon market, not the same packaging)

I did my fresh install using a 8.1 USB installation disk, using these keys for installation : 334NH-RXG76-64THK-C7CKG-D3VPT for Core, XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB for Professional. These keys just let you install, not activate, I replaced it just after install with the one from the original OS and the activation was successful.

Did someone succeed to install vaio update after a fresh install ? The package on sony support page didn't work for me, the same for all the Win 8.1 updates... And i still have one unknown device in device manager

 

Hi pTTy

I'm just going to take a guess here and hopefully someone with first hand knowledge will chime in : I think some of the Sony programs are not on the main system partition and that a separate partition is needed (thanks to Sony...). This could explain why they won't run after a clean Windows install on a bare/new/formatted drive, if Sony has programmed them to install and work from a different drive letter. No Sony partitions, no Sony software. I have 5 partitions and some have reported 7 or 8. I can't really use the Flip during the day (it's a gift, must stay hidden) but I'll try to check later if I can trace the path to some of those VAIO utilities.

I do think someone with enough experience could find a way to put those tools back on the drive and make them work, but it won't be me. Not unless I get down and seriously learn what's where and how stuff works in these things.

Wish I had answers for you...

 

I have a similar query- I am planning to get a flip 14 preconfigured with the 500 gb HDD which I will replace with a new 240gb SSD. What is the best way to migrate over everything from the HDD to the SSD? I was just going to do a fresh install of Win 8.1 from a USB stick but I haven't found an official Win 8.1 installer for USB yet and I am not sure if I can install things like Sony Care and the other bundled software that I may or may not use.

 

Hi there vsg28

I had ordered the 14 with the 500GB hybrid drive and have replaced it with a 480GB SSD. I did it via Recovery. I guess there are three choices :
1) Clone the drive, 2) do a Recovery install or, 3) do a fresh install of Windows 8 or 8.1
I don't think we have a single member who has been able to do a fresh install and get everything to work properly. Maybe I'm wrong.
I also haven't seen confirmation from anyone here about a) doing a Recovery install on a drive smaller than original or, b) cloning successfully to any drive, bigger or smaller (or equal).
I do know that a few of us have successfully done Recovery installs on drives of equal size to original or larger (well, my SSD is slightly smaller but only by a few GBs)

Maybe others will give us feedback on how they did it and how it has turned out.

Good luck

 

What is the issue with a fresh install that other people have had? I went through the entire thread but did not find out exactly what goes wrong. Thanks!

 

Follow up post. I was able to resolve the issue with microphone noise. I was getting a whistle / whining / buzzing noise from the microphone. I resolved it by going into Control Panel > Sound > Recording... then disabling the microphone and then enabling it. That's all it took.

 

Thanks for the update PopsGG
Hopefully others with this problem will read your post, or other members will direct them to it.

@vsg28 : I don't remember where those posts are, but I remember one or two other members who have done clean installs and have reported problems with getting some Sony/VAIO programs to work. Very similar to your situation. I don't believe anyone has been able to solve these issues yet ; if they have then they haven't posted here about it. I think one member said he'd wait for Sony to offer more Flip utilities for download ; I'm not sure the problem lies with the availability of utilities, but more with how to get them to work on a clean install.

One member clearly said he would post detailed instructions on how he clean installed. That was about 3 weeks ago. He never did...

 

I have good experience (Not on the multi flip) with TeraByte's Image For Windows. Cloning between different sized drives shouldn't be a problem with IFW. (At least: It didn't cause me troubles when doing so, it's smart enough to not copy empty space). I'm going to use IFW to clone the original 500GB HDD to my 256 GB SSD, when I receive my new flip 15 (Sony's estimate is end of next week, ordered 3days ago. We'll see...). IFW works live, cloning while Windows is running is possible, no Linux live-CD/USB needed. CloneZilla also works well (I have also experience with Clonezilla), but this requires a live-USB (Linux based).

 

Ok guys. I'm expecting my brand new 'fixed' flip 13A tomorrow. Hopefully the rumours are true and the fan noise has been eliminated.

 

Anyone else's Flip going to sleep after a few minutes of inactivity (3 minutes) when plugged in? I have it set for screen off after 10 minutes and sleep after 30 minutes when plugged in.
I know it's going to sleep as the power LED is off (green when on) but when the screen turns off the power LED goes off to. Waking it back up comes back to the lock screen and I have to log in again.
Any ideas on how to fix?

 

Hey guys I have a question regarding screen fonts and was hoping someone could help me out:

I've owned a Yoga 2 Pro for about 2 weeks and have become completely spoiled by the ultra sharp and clean fonts. I have noticed that even when I reduce the screen resolution from 3200 x 1800 to 1920 x 1080 to run Photoshop the fonts remain remarkably clean. I am guessing because even with the lower resolution, the pixel density on this panel is still very high.

Anyway, the thing that BUGS me about the Yoga 2 Pro is the lack of an active digitizer. I stopped by BestBuy the other day and looked at a Flip 14A they had on display. I was honestly shocked given the fact this is a 1920 x 1080 resolution on a small 14" display that to me fonts looked quite jagged and pixelated. I was like wow, those look AWFUL.

Now mind you, I hadn't run Windows Cleartype or qdipp fontsmoothing yet which would surely improve things, but here's the question, how do fonts look to you? Are they sharp and clear or fuzzy and jagged? I would love to have this machine with the pen but fuzzy fonts really annoy me.

What are you thoughts? Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'm going to try IFW when I replace my 500GB with a 256GB SSD as well.

Have you used it to clone from a larger regular drive to smaller SSD yet?

 

Question: what are you using for Software to clone your disk. I have a 500gb SATA and my usual Acronis is having problems with the drive. Thanks

 

I was a little unhappy with the fonts (I have a 14" A) so I set the screen for recommended settings and then went through the Cleartype several times before I got it. Looks great on the 14" and on my 22" external.

 

Just picked up a Flip 13A today from Sony HK.

Quick question...does anyone here use a screen protector?

I have a Duo 13 too and I have a screen protector on it from day 1.

I ask because Sony says a screen protector is not required, nor do they sell one.

TIA!

 

I asked this question a few times before, but no answer, so here's one last try. Surely somebody will have similar issues and maybe some advise? :

I sometimes need to change the resolution of my flip15a from 2880x1620 to 1920x1080, in order to use some programs without hurting my eyes too much. That's all fine, but when I flip the screen from laptop to tablet mode, or vica versa, the screen resets to it's native 2880 resolution. Maybe it automatically loads its default display profile, I don't know why, but it's very annoying.

I haven't been able to google any solutions, Any tips here?

 

Hi, I have so many Problems with my RJ-45 Network Hardware connection on my Vaio Multi Flip 15.

I try 5 various 1 Gbit Cabels with bigger and smaller plugs but only 1 cable give me a Connection. I Need to press the Network cable in the vaio connector with my Hand and hold them to have any connect.
The Cable (plug) click in the vaio connector but the plug have 5 mm wobble space in my vaio flip 15, so if i move my vaio or touch the cable the RJ-45 Network disconnect.

Have anybody the same RJ-45 Network Problems, I think this is a Big Problem of the RJ-45 connector design ?

see my Video: http://youtu.be/qV6HNG-teYk

 

Hi Peso,

I think you have a faulty connector. Mine also wobbles, but stays connected. Only if i kinda push it down and to the front in a certain way, it will disconnect, but it will instantly reconnect if i stop touching it.

 

I know it's an extra expense, but if returning the Flip because of a wobbly ethernet jack is not something you'd wish, then perhaps something like this might be an answer :
Amazon.com: StarTech.com USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet NIC Network Adapter - 10/100/1000 Network Adapter - USB to Ethernet LAN Adapter - USB to RJ45: Computers & Accessories

That adaptor (or similar) would definitely be useful to Flip 13 owners who'd like an ethernet connection (no jack on the 13s).

I connected my flip 14 via ethernet to get the 8.1 upgrade and had no problems. I didn't have to move the Flip around though.. Cable I used is a cheapo Wal Mart made in China house brand.

Edit to add : similar to the adaptor I linked to up there, they have another model (USB 3.0 + Gigabit also) that has USB passthrough (an extra USB 3 port on the side of the adaptor). Nice touch from StarTech. A bit more expensive though at $47 : same link as before but click on the USB 3.0 with pass through option

They also have a $20 USB 2.0 model. Now why would I pay an extra $11 for USB 3.0 ? It's a Gigabit adaptor even on USB 2.0... : same link, choose USB 2.0 option.

$20 for an external Gigabit ethernet adaptor is a pretty good deal.

Edit #2 : oops on the USB 2 vs USB 3. Max transfer rate of 480 Mbps on USB 2, whereas USB 3 can deliver the full 1000 Mbps of of a Gigabit connection. But still, 480 Mbps is more than most of us ever need.

 

Bump...
I called Sony Support today and after the usual hour long frustrating discussion and remote control with a tech he offered me a USB wifi dongle that he said would make my wifi work properly... I told them "no thanks, after spending $1,500 for a new computer I don't think I need to use a dongle to fix a bad wireless card". So I'm sending back my Vaio... I really like this machine but this kind of experience makes me crazy. As a last ditch effort I may call Intel on Monday and see what they have to say. If they can't get it to work I'll send it back and never buy another Sony product again.

 

Hi there Hank

Sorry that no one had an answer for you. My initial thought was : what if it's the router ? Some routers can't handle multiple connections properly. Have you tried connecting only the Flip, with all other devices shut down ? If you have ruled out the router as a possible trouble spot, then... I wouldn't buy the * get a dongle* crap from Sony either and send the unit back ; if they know what the problem is then they can fix it for you (new card probably).

Your idea about checking with Intel is interesting, before returning the Flip. Maybe they have a driver solution.

Best of luck... and let us know how it turns out, please

 

Hank,

I have noticed when I run my flip with hard wire from my router (and to a lesser extent wireless) my connection really slows. But I am running another laptop, a PS3, a Sonos system, a pair of Linux drives and a BBerry cell phone -- on top of the Vaio. If I pull the other lap top, things climb back to normal. The last thing added was the last straw. So, yeah, maybe a more "powerful" router?

 

Howdy, tuningmania! You unfortunatly will not get the device by that time if you order now, if you order with a 2880 screen. I ordered mine exactly two months ago (from the US), and I still haven't even gotten a tracking number, let alone a delivery. They've even stopped giving me estimated delivery dates.

Also, no store in the US is going to have the 2880 screen for a while, according to a guy I spoke to at the Sony store in NYC. Part shortages, apparently. He claims they are available in stores in Europe (can anyone confirm this?).

If you can stand not having the 2880 screen, I'd have your friend buy one in a Best Buy or Sony store. If he's in a Sony store, see if he can get an additional student discount.

Sorry if this is disappointing, but it will be a lot less disappointing than you ordering the thing and it not arriving before your friend has to return to Sofia. Good luck!

 

I'm taking the bottom cover off my Flip 15 now, and I'm stuck. Maybe you can help?

I have the front, left side, and the front half of the right side free. But the back half of the right side (the side with the power button and ethernet port) seems firmly attached. It looks as if the attachment point is near the headphone jack. Is there a clip there that needs to be released? Should I be trying to pull outward as well as upward?

Also, I can free the outer part of the left hinge, but not the inner part, and I can't free the right hinge at all.

You say you were able to loosen the cover between the two feet - how did you do that?

 

Was the catch you were unable to release in the back half of the right side, between the power button and headphone jack? And how did you free the hinges?

 

Hey guys!

Just picked up a Canadian Flip 15A today.

Really liking it so far, just a few quirks i'm wondering about:

1) Is the hard drive a regular 2.5' SATA?

2) Apparently the wireless card doesn't support N? Can it be upgraded without voiding the warranty?

3) What are the chances of a stylus pressure sensitivity patch for Adobe products being released in the near future?

Cheers