Official Sony Vaio Fit multi-flip PC Owners' Thread

@koolxxx : sorry for joining in so late. Calibrator has supplied his usual excellent advice. If I may add something concerning SSDs :

- I remember one Flip 15 owner who came here and said he tried to fit a 9mm hybrid drive and it was too thick, so 7mm is the size to go for. I upgraded a Flip 14 to SSD and I didn't check the height clearance ; but for the 15", definitely a 7mm drive. Most SSDs are 7mm now anyway.
- I bought a Crucial M500 480GB back in November 2013. Great drive. You do need to watch out for speeds on smaller drives though, especially on Crucials. By the way they have the BX100s now too, on top of the MX100 , M550s and M500s. If you want a 240/256GB drive, the M550 is the fastest from Crucial by far. For the 480/512GB group, you can go with any of their models because they are all very close in speeds. Heads up : the new OCZ drives are very decent now that Toshiba has purchased the division, and pretty fast too. Look for deals, either Crucial or OCZ would be my two choices. Samsung has brand new drives out (850 Evos I think ?) but they seem to be a little expensive right now.
If you let me know in which country you live, I could help you find a great deal

 

Thank you Calibrator for your help as always, boss.

Thank you Mark for your input. Tovanswer your question, I'm looking for a cheap SSD with good speeds, thats all. If you can point me to a couple of them that are a bargain yet arent sacrificial on speed, I'd look into it. Thanks!

 

Are you in the US ? If so, here are a few bargains right now, and I'm also guessing you'd like a 500GB disk :
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100-2-5-Inch-Internal-CT512MX100SSD1/dp/B00KFAGCUM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424985565&sr=8-2&keywords=crucial ssd
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-BX100-500GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B00RQA6M5Y/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1424985602&sr=8-6&keywords=crucial ssd
http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Solutions-2-5-Inch-Ultra-Slim-ARC100-25SAT3-480G/dp/B00LULV4K8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424985764&sr=8-2&keywords=ocz 480 ssd
---------------------
A little bit faster but more expensive, the new Samsung 850 EVO and the flagship M550 from Crucial :
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1424985824&sr=1-3&keywords=samsung ssd
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-512GB-adapter-Internal-CT512M550SSD1/dp/B00IRRDHVW/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1424985947&sr=1-3&keywords=crucial m550
===
Now wait a minute... I've just found a new Crucial model at NewEgg, named the MX200. It is very close to the M550 in speeds and less expensive :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...8949&cm_re=crucial_ssd-_-20-148-949-_-Product

===============
If I had to choose a new SSD for myself (for the Flip), I'd go with the less expensive from those I've listed above. The slight difference in speeds between the cheaper ones and the EVO 850/M550/MX200 is negligible.
However, if you want a smaller drive (240-256GB range), then you'd need to look at each model's speeds. The new Crucial MX200 appears to be the clear winner in this category with 550/500 MB/s sequential read/write speeds ($119 at NewEgg right now).
Decision, decisions...

[edited a typo]

 

Hi Mark. Sorry for not responding sooner. I think youre right. I'd go with the less expensive drive in this case. I think I'll buy it. Aporeciate your help!

Just to let you guys know, I upgraded to Win 8.1. And in the Vaio Update utility I got 22 drivers listed that need to be updated. This is a used Flip. I dont know if I need to update since its possible that the previous owner may have updated it already..

Calibrator, I think you said that if it was updated already that I dont need to update it. But I still got this list that lists the drivers. So do I update them?

Also, most of the drivers are listed in black. Only 2 are listed in red. What does that mean?

I'd appreciate your feedback soon!

 

Yes.

What I meant earlier was probably a different scenario (Win 8.1 already on the machine).

*This* scenario is like:

- You got a used machine with Win 8 (either cleaned to factory settings or not upgraded to 8.1 so perhaps with Win 8 drivers).

- Then you upgraded it to Win 8.1 (yes, that's an upgrade and not an update, IMHO).

- This means you get a whole lot of new Windows updates, which you should update.

- This also means that you now have Win 8.1 drivers available from Sony for various things like graphics, touch screen, NFC etc. Some of those updates are absolutely essential and others have a more "optional" character for many users, just like with Windows updates. In your specific case I'd recommend you install all updates to be care-free.

Note: There is some debate whether you update your Windows drivers or the original device drivers first but I usually do the latter first as Microsoft also supplies some hardware drivers (especially for graphics and optical media drives) but usually in a more generic version without user control (which components to install).
An example would be the Nvidia graphics drivers: If you get asked if you want to install the Nvidia 3D drivers you *can* deselect the option as the Flip isn't 3D capable (because it uses Optimus technology which prevents it). I don't install drivers when I don't need them as they cost memory (both on harddisk and possibly RAM), delay the update process and possibly introduce other problems.

So it's your decision *when* you update the drivers from Sony but you *should* update them.

I never had this when I was still using Vaio Update and there are several possible explanations for that: There could be a problem with the hardware associated with them (possible but I doubt that), they could need another update first before they can be installed (you may have to run the update process twice) etc.

Which driver updates are marked red? And are there additional infos available (Version numbers etc.)?
Did you try the help function of Vaio Update? As I haven't installed it anymore you have to look yourself... ;-)

 

Hi calibrator. Sorry for the wait in replying to you. I get physical therapy for an injury and it takes up a lot of my time unfortunately. Hope you understand.

To answer your question as to which 2 drivers in question are highlighted in red, they are:

- Intel wireless LAN update version 17.13.1.13
- Nvidia graphics driver update version 9.18.13.2762

Maybe the red highlight means that these updates are critical. Who know?

Btw, I'm loving the Flip. My only concern is that the keyboard doesnt have a lot of travel. I hope that the keys never get stuck or lose their response and responsiveness. The headache would be to buy a keyboard and go through the dreaded motions of taking the Flip apart to install it.

 

Don't worry - I wasn't that much available either as my TV set died after six years and I had to spend a lot of time researching the new set, how to set it up correctly etc.
Perhaps I'm getting too old but somehow everything costs more time than before... ;-)

Back to the Flip:

Don't worry about the keyboard: You don't need much travel thanks to the construction of the keys (I believe they are called "scissor keys") and you'll adapt to it provided you don't love to slam your fingers into the keys like some people I know (they type so hard that the desk vibrates!).
Actually, I can type quicker on this keyboard than on my regular PC keyboard! However, thanks to the different layout I still have problems with some of the special characters.
I also think it doesn't strain my wrists as much.

Apparently nobody knows how long this keyboard will last as I haven't found any long term experiences but I suspect that it will neither be better nor worse than other notebook keyboards of similar construction. Also this if highly personal, obviously.
Just keep in mind that - in a Flip with an SSD - it will be the only "movable" mechanical component besides the fan and the display mechanics. So never force anything...

Drivers:

The update for the WLAN driver is much newer than the one I have installed (17.1.0.19 - works very well for me). What version do you have installed right now?

The graphics driver update is from February/March 2014 and not exactly "current".
I'm lagging behind a bit, too, as I use drivers from July/August 2014 (9.18.13.4052) but I never had problems with them and you can't expect big performance jumps from them either (for notebooks like the Flip the updates are practically only increasing compatibility with applications like newer games - and you know my opinion about running newer games on the Flip...).
Does it make sense to install those old drivers? I dunno.
In your shoes I'd try to install the regular notebook drivers from nvidia.com first and see how that one works out.

 

Hi Cal.. Sorry to hear about wjat happened to your TV. I'm the same way too. When something like a TV breaks the first thing I do is research to get a replacement.

As to yoyr question, my current WLAN driver is 16.5.3.6.

Wanted to ask how to hide the right pane in windows explorer. When I open it up, a preview pane opens on the right side. How do I hide this annoyance?

---- EDIT ----
Never mind, I fixed the issue. Thanks anyway Cal. Hope you got a good TV replacement.

 

Hi,

no worries - I got my defective Sony TV replaced but I won't go into the details here (off topic!). However, I did choose a product from a different company as I deem 6 years *not* sufficient for a high-end TV set. I don't know if the new set will last longer but I didn't want to reward Sony for their weak performance.
(This is for those people who accuse me of being a Sony fanboy or at least apologist)

As for the WLAN driver:

Ignore the red marking in Vaio Update! Never trust your computer software *blindly*! Windows also produces dozens of error messages in its logs with many of them being totally irrelevant for the user!
Personally, I don't have the best experiences with VAIO Update which is why I deinstalled it.

First of all: Do you actually need to update this driver? Do you have performance issues like low speed or massive signal dropoff? Do you have compatibility issues with your current driver (connection problems)?

If I were in your shoes I would probably still try to get the newer drivers anyway but I would go directly to the Sony support website for your particular Flip model and download and then install the newer driver they offer there.
The file should be called EP0000322509.exe or something like this and clock in around 100 MB (the number will be different but that's Sonys naming scheme).

If this won't install properly (not likely) you can still try to get newer drivers directly from Intel (provided it's really an Intel chipset) or try to get a driver update via Windows Update (yes, Microsoft also distributes such drivers but like I said: Always try the manufacturer first!).

 

Hi guys.

I'm just wondering if any of you guys use a screen protector on your flip? I've been looking around for one at a reasonable price that's available in the UK/delivers within 2 weeks. Unfortunately, there isn't I don't see many advertised specifically for my Flip 13.

Do you guys think a screen protector advertised for the Sony Vaio Duo 13 (13.3") would be suitable for my Flip 13 (13.3")? If not, could you guys suggest me some options please.

Link for one example:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PL12-LCD-...860?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43bf1d993c

Thanks!

 

Hey guys,

I'm new here, and I just ordered a Flip 13A so hopefully some of your guys can help me if I have any questions! It will be my second computer, my main computer is a MacBook Pro, but it's too heavy for me to take to University, hence the impulse buy My first VAIO was back in high school, it was a VGN-SZ58GN/C.

 

Hey Cal.. very good to hear from you. To answer your question, I had slight performance issues. But I went ahead and updated all the drivers anyway. I noticed better performance.

So now my next mission is to uninstall all those pre-loaded programs and apps that I dont need. I believe you said that you uninstalled all of them except for 1or 2 of them, like Vaio Update. I'll look at each program individually and decide if I need it.

My only concern is the Realtek program. I know its got something to do with sound. I got several pre-loaded programs under the Realtek name. I fear that if I uninstall 1 or 2 of these programs that I'll accidentally uninstall the sound driver which I dont want to do.

Hope to continue talking to you, Cal. When you have time, let me know what you think about my fear of uninstalling the wrong programs like Realtek by accident. Take care!

 

Did you guys here do a clean install? I was planning to do a complete install of the OS once my flip arrives and just install the essential drivers from the Sony website. Does anyone know how to get the OEM key from these machines? Apparently with Windows 8, there is no COA sticker on the bottom.

 

Cool!

Exactly. Make sure you at least keep the Vaio Control Center to be able to control various settings of the machine, some of which aren't availabe in the regular Windows settings.
Perhaps you should keep Vaio Update a few months, until you get the feeling that you don't need it anymore.

Which entries do you have in the program manager that you are unsure about?

Realtek usually only provides drivers and utilities for their hardware - like interface (LAN) or sound chips. My Flip, for example, has those three Realtek entries:
- "Realtek Card Reader" - driver for the SD card reader
- "Realtek Ethernet Controller Driver" - driver for the LAN connector on the 14" and 15" Flips)
- "Realtek High Definition Audio Driver" - this is the sound chip driver, obviously

All of those are necessary if you want to keep the respective hardware "alive".

 

Has anyone done a fresh install or windows 8 or 8.1 and lost the battery care option under Vaio Control Center? I thought I reinstalled all the drivers and sony software again except the Vaio media programs but the battery care option is missing from under the Vaio Control Center battery options. How could I restore that functionality? I want to set the battery charge level to 80%. Alternatively is there a 3rd party program that can limit the battery charge like the sony program?

 

Makes sense. I'll keep those then.

Sure, I'll keep the Vaio Control Center and Vaio Update. But there are other items that I hope you can tell me about before I decide to uninstall them. If you can tell me which are safe to uninstall them without hampering my system, then I will uninstall them. I ask this because, for example, the vaio CPU fan diagnostic seems needed since youre dealing with a histioically ongoing issue with the fan. These items are:

- vaio NFC connection utility
- vaio care
- vaio care hardware diagnostics plugin
- vaio care recovery
- vaio CPU fan diagnostic
- vaio data restore tool
- vaio gesture control
- vaio image optimizer
- vaio improvement
- vaio media server settings


Please let me know. I always value your intelligent feedback.

 

I guess you installed everything that is available from the Sony Support website?
This apparently *doesn't* install everything as users in this forum complained about that in the past, which is why I usually not recommend doing a fresh install without a Sony Flip recovery medium.
It's also possible that you have lost other functionalities which you haven't noticed, yet.

I understand the problem but the solution to it can be problematic.

You see, the Vaio Control Center is a more or less only a program to define some settings, with a nice graphical user interface. The settings that aren't supported by the underlying operating system (Windows in our case) have to be supported by a "program" that even runs when the Control Center has been closed again. This "program" is usually a "system service" and while Windows already has many of those running in the background (for communications, logging, hardware-support etc.) Sony needs to install various services for the stuff Windows doesn't provide out of the box. This is common behaviour for many programs doing "behind-the-scenes stuff".

These Sony services have names like "Vaio Event Service" (IMHO a major suspect for your problem), "VAIO Entertainment Common Service" or "Sony Digital Media Server".
These services do not necessarily need lots of processing power but without them certain functionalities simply don't work.
Usually, when a program needs a special service it is being installed together with the application itself. Installing a service on its own is very unusual (it does occur but it is very rare) and I certainly haven't seen it in combination with Flips.

If you don't have the service that is needed for the missing functionality you simply haven't installed the correct application, yet. As I don't know which service is needed (my guess would be the "Vaio Event Service" - check if you have it and if it is in fact running!) I can't say which program you should install. As you have re-installed the Vaio Control Center I would then reinstall "VAIO Hardware Diagnostics" and if this doesn't help the "VAIO Care" program.

What you can also check:
See if you have an entry for the battery in the device manager. There should be an entry each for the battery and the power supply - both drivers from Microsoft.

If this doesn't help the only thing I then can recommend is that you do a search in this thread to find other users who did a fresh install and who solved their driver problems.
Personally, I think it's likely that most people who did a fresh install didn't care about the 80% battery limit, though...

Don't know as I simply use the functionality described above but I guess there are options out there. Google is (very likely) your friend!

 

If you want to keep the full NFC functionality (this is located under the touchpad, underside of the Flip) you may want to keep this. I don't know if NFC only works with Sony devices like smartphones or tablets but I see no harm in keeping it. This is a very low-power device and it's even inactive practically all the time - but *if* you need it someday and deinstalled the driver...

These all belong to the VAIO Care program. I don't use that and deinstalled all of them but your mileage may vary (I don't care - ha ha - for the Sony support and my warranty was gone the moment I replaced the harddrive with the SSD.

The fan diagnostics is only a test program to spin the fan up to full speed when you activate the test option in VAIO Care. It does NOT make the fan spin down when there is less heat etc. (this is done automatically) so you can deinstall that, too, if you want.
If you should run into trouble you can re-install this one easily as it is provided on the Sony support website for your Flip.

Some people may argue that you can use this option to remove dust from the fan blades but I don't resort to such methods. I instead open a machine at least once a year and clean it if necessary.
If you use only the software the dust would at best be scattered inside the Flip and eventually reattach itself to the fan - so it's always better to physically remove the dust from the Flip entirely...

I'm not entirely sure but I think this could also belong to VAIO Care.
So if you keep the latter keep this, too.

This is for using the built-in camera to recognize your "gestures" and then execute something. This obviously needs to turn on the camera (increases power usage!) and analyse the video data (needs processor time and therefore reduces overall speed and also increases power usage!).
If you don't need this functionality you can safely deinstall this. I sure did.

I'm not entirely sure where this belongs to but its icon indicates that it may belong to the VAIO Movie Creator or the Movie Studio Platinum software. As I haven't thrown away these two apps, yet, I still keep this "optimizer" software.

Deinstall this immediately, if you don't want to provide Sony (or a "partnering company") with a multitude of your usage data for marketing purposes. Sceptical people would also fear that private data can be transferred but I haven't heard of a proof. Can't fully exclude it either.
It has nothing to do with the Sony support in the event that you may call them and it only costs your money (power usage, online data rate - depending on your contract).
Also remember that Sony dropped the Vaio brand completely so there is not even a theoretical reason why you should provide your data...

This is for the Sony media server which I guess is used for bringing "sweet Sony music" to Sony mobile devices like the Xperia smartphones (-> "Media Go" software)...
It's also possible that it is used for the crappy and disgustingly slow image program they preinstall on the Flips (I forgot the name already as I deinstalled it immediately after the first usage).
However, I'm not 100% sure on this and I also keep this entry.

 

koolxxx, Calibrator, my apologies for barging in...

In addition to Calibrator's advice above, after you've decided what you want to keep, check out the Windows Task Scheduler. Sony has a section there for some "maintenance" tasks.

My experience is that some of them are resource hogs (link to a post I did before... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-pc-owners-thread.734539/page-93#post-9566411). They tax the CPU and consequently trigger the fans.

You might want to disable some of them.

 

No apologies needed - *we* are in a discussion here, not "just the two of us" ;-)
With added information everyone can benefit - and I certainly don't know everything about the Flips or even Windows, either.

You are certainly right about some services stuffing the Windows logs with unnecessary error messages - or rather "status messages that may or may not indicate an error, but sure look like they do". In fact Windows itself is guilty of this to some extent.
When the machine gets slowed down massively the logs are usually not the problem but something else is being in the background. I totally understand why users can get cautious here.

That being said, it's sometimes problematic to cut services down if the application that originally installed and started them is not uninstalled.

That's why I only recommend to disable services when we definitely know what they do and when we are sure that an installed application still does what the user wants and not necessarily what Sony wants (like sending data to Sony in your example).

Vaio Care is a critical candidate here: It's not only a program that starts some recovery and diagnostic functions but it's designed to help users that aren't computer experts (yet) and it's also designed to sell certain things to them (you see them if you click on the appropriate icons).

In order to help a user the help provider needs information about the machine and the user behaviour. Here in this forum we simply ask - and it's more or less anonymous. An automated way is using stuff like Vaio Care - and the Windows services it installs - but obviously there are limits to what it can do as there are limits to what we in a forum can do.
The difference is that I don't collect information on other forum members but Vaio Care does continue to do so, even if the user never ever has a problem with the machine (unlikely, but who knows ;-)). I also suspect that most Vaio users never ever use it consciously but they still collect data with it
What I don't know is if the data is actually being sent on a regular basis or only in a problem case.

Still, it depends on how knowledgeable a person is with his/her machine. Regular Windows doesn't come with this, either, and therefore millions and millions of Windows users don't have it. My question was what benefit I actually got from Vaio Care.

If I remember correctly the only reason that I thought Vaio Care was OK was the ability to create the original recovery medium with it. I recommend that users should first create the recovery medium (for example on a 32GB USB 2.0 stick) before they uninstall Vaio Care.
You can then restore the machine with this data without Vaio Care, obviously.

As I replaced the harddisk with a SSD and unknowingly killed the recovery partition with the imaging program in the process that function was of no use to me personally and I uninstalled Vaio Care (including its Windows services) after a shame period of about two months and never missed it.
I deem regular backups of the full system more important anyway...

---

Edit March 24:

I wrote a paragraph full of nonsense about Vaio Clip as I confused it with Vaio Scan (intended for using with the camera on some Flip models). Sorry! ;-)

 

Installed the latest Intel Graphics Drivers...

Sony hasn't updated the drivers lately, and I wanted to play Homeworld Classic (part of the suite from HW Remastered) in the original aspect ratio. So I decided to take the plunge and manually install the latest generic drivers (dated Mar 3 2015) from the Intel website.

I gained the option to maintain the aspect ratio across different resolutions.

The instructions here: http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033916.htm
only took me part of the way through the process. What I got was a message that I had the latest drivers after following the instructions.

So instead, here are the steps I took...

1. Go to the driver folder where the INF should be as per Intel's instructions above.
2. Right-click on the INF file and select Install. That should register the drivers with Win8.1
3. Follow the document's instructions again. Stop at the point after "Browse my computer....".
4. Instead of clicking on the "Browse" button, select the option below, "Let me pick...". This will show the installed drivers from step 2 above. Pick the newest one. This will install the latest driver.

You can stop at that point. But I want the updated UI. So after the install finished, I went back to the install folder and ran the installer. No more messages this time stopping the install and advising me to get drivers from Sony.

Another bonus... The new UI has the good old Custom Resolutions tool now.

Hope this helps people who want to use Intel sourced drivers...

3/25/15 update... I have a Flip 15 with NVidia graphics so screen res is 2560x1620. However, because I play games, and because not all software I use support high DPI, I just set my desktop resolution to be 1920x1080 all the time. Less area so less strain on the GPU when I play.

Because of this, I got used to a bit of fuzziness on the display due to not using the native res. The fuzziness also helped with games because even with anti-aliasing off, the fuzz smooths things out a bit.

But today, at 1920x1080, things are sharp. I'm nearsighted so I checked my blood pressure just in case my eyes suddenly had increased pressure overnight causing a temporary reprieve from myopia. No significant increases there. So it must be the generic Intel drivers.

 

Hi Cal. Hope youre ok. I was playing Batman Arkham City on the Flip.. It plays decently. But when I tried to play Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, thats when the Flip struggled.

So I'm thunking of getting the MSI GE70 as I mentioned to you before. Its got the Nvidia GTX 860M chip. It handles modern games amazingly, like COD AW. I saw a used one selling for $850. Do you think its a good investment for games and how future proof do you think it is?

Always good talking to you.

 

This comment may not be popular on a laptop board, but wouldn't it make more sense to buy a console if you're worried about staying future proof? If you are going to use your Flip for regular computer tasks, you would only be using the other machine for gaming, correct? With a console you'll be able to play most big titles for the next 5+years, although not with the most insane graphics around. But neither would you on a PC unless you are willing to spend a lot more money on it.

 

You posed a very good question. I've thought about getting a console. But the games are costly. At least with a PC you can download them. I also thought about getting a desktop. But I like the mobility that a laptop offers.

My choice therefore rests on a laptop. And I'm not sure, but some laptops out now are future proof to an extent. I'm sure there are 5 year old laptops that can play today's PC games. Plus, there are the emulation projects that will one day allow PC users to play PS4 games.

Again, it was a very good question. Let me know your thoughts. Maybe theres something you know that I dont that may help change my mind still.

 

Well I can really only present you with the commoly known advantages of consoles which I assume you already know of. So it probably won't change anything for you.

But it seems like you didn't consider the fact that trading console games may save you a lot of that money. Unless you're crazy about sports games which lose 95% value within a year, it's usually not hard to trade games with people (friends or people on forums) which is a good option if you don't mind physical media and used games. Selling games will usually get you about 25-50% money back. If you also play games which are less mainstream, it's more like 75-200% if you hold on to them for a couple of years. This is if you find the end buyer yourself or let them come to you through ads or Ebay and such. Trading games in at stores will give you half the amount at best.

Worth noting since you like a portable experience is that in the case of PS4, you may stream games to a PS Vita or Xperia smartphone/tablet (still allowing you to use a gamepad). Wii U allows off-TV play thanks to the built in screen on the gamepad, but you won't be finding CoD on it as Nintendo has had issues with third party support for a while and will continue to. It's also slightly limited due to range.

Otherwise consoles go with large TV displays or projectors rather than small monitors and a whole different local multiplayer experience in the couch. They also utilize gamepads. This all comes down to personal preference. And of course you will never have to worry about specs and finding the right settings as everything is already optimized for you machine from the start.

Lastly there's of course the fact that the hardware is used to run the games and nothing/little else, so if you were to buy a laptop wich could handle the same game, you would have to pay more.

As for disadvantages, digital games are (way) more expensive than they should be as long as there is also a physical release. And by the end of the console's lifetime, the graphics will be comparatively worse than what a new gaming PC would offer. Though one might argue that we have come to a point where it's much harder to make enough improvement that it really matters now. So it might only be true for earlier generations.

 

Sorry I'm only just replying to this - I had a family emergency and completely forgot! Thanks a lot for the photo. Unfortunately, Sony are refusing to fix my display, even though their first 'repair' of the laptop actually made the backlight bleed worse, which I would say amounts to material damage by the repair centre, and is a distinct issue to whether the backlight bleed is within specification or not, analogous to receiving the laptop back from repair with a scratch on the casing. Sony are having none of it though, and are ignoring my emails - after 6 months of trying to get this issue resolved, I can honestly say this is the worst customer service I have ever encountered, from any company, and shocking for such a huge brand like Sony. Anyway, rant over!

I now have another problem...I finally decided to (possibly?) void my warranty by upgrading my hybrid HDD to an SSD. I made recovery media from the original HDD, replaced it with the SSD, recovered the drive with the recovery media to factory default, but now Windows (8.1) won't activate. Under 'Activate Windows' in 'PC Settings', a message 'This product key doesn't work' is displayed, with error code 0xC004C003 and error description: 'The activation server determined the specified product key has been blocked.' I emailed Sony, and they replied with:

"Please be advised that the Windows version installed on your HDD cannot be used or activated on your new SSD. Unfortunately, we do not support any hardware changes made to the device. For this reason, we recommend that you purchase a retail version of windows, to install it on your SSD."

I'm finding it hard to believe the Windows product key is somehow locked to the original HDD - as I understand, it's embedded in the BIOS for Windows 8.1. I'd appreciate it if anyone has a solution to this. Oh my model is the SVF15N2B4E (with Windows 8.1 pre-installed), and the SSD is a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro.

 

Frankly, I'm not surprised by your experiences with the Sony customer "support" and your evaluation.
A popular German computer magazine ran a poll last year which notebook manufacturer has the best service. Sony placed 8th - in a field of eight contenders...

I've also had it with those "blooming and corner flashlight antics" of LCD panels and when my six year old LCD broke down recently and I had to think with what I had to replace it (if simply for the fact that I game on my TV and watch mostly DVDs and Blu-rays) LCD "fell between the planks". I simply don't tolerate this ******** anymore - and in fact it's the very same ******** they offered six years before when I bought my last TV set.
This is why my new TV is from LG and has an OLED panel instead of yet another "new & exciting LCD adventure" with Sony again: How bad is the contrast? How bad is the image when viewed from the side? Will it have the famous "corner flashlights"? How strong is the blooming of the local dimming? Oh, right, Sony only offers full area local dimming in their 75-inch-set!

But let's keep the rant aside and get back to the Flip! ;-)

If we ignore the people who did a clean install using a regular Windows license and install disk the two most popular methods to replace the default drive with an SSD are these two methods:
a) Doing a recovery installation from the recovery media they created with their Flips (like you tried)
b) Cloning the existing drive contents to the SSD (this is the method I used)

Both of these methods do work as lots of owners have done this and I can't remember people having mentioned your problem before in this thread.

a) Many people have done the installation via the recovery route. For them it clearly worked but as it doesn't for you - and if we discard the possibility that you made an error in the process - there may be indeed a hidden problem that hasn't surfaced before. I'm no expert with recovery media so perhaps someone else can contribute but I would propose a different solution in your situation if no easy fix can be found: Clone the old drive to your EVO 850.

b) If you clone the drive you should use software that is able to clone a drive to a slightly different sized one. The Samsung EVO 840 I have came with a cloning software called "Data Migration Software" that takes this into account and worked painless and fast (with an USB 3.0-to-SATA adapter). The SSD works well since a year now!

However, some cloning softwares sometimes ignore the recovery partition on the original drive so the recovery partition may be gone on the SSD. Be sure to check the partitions the cloning software created before you toss the old drive!

You can get the Samsung "Data Migration Software" here: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

You simply install this software on your original drive (temporarily put it back into your Flip!) and then it clones all of its contents onto another drive/SSD connected to one of the USB ports.
For this you need an USB3-to-SATA-adapter, which are relatively inexpensive and you should get one in most good computer shops. Samsung also sells one but it is a bit pricier.

After this you swap the drives and simply boot your Flip from the new SSD as the complete installation has been copied, included the already activated Windows system. Windows does *not* demand to get authenticated because it now sits on a different drive. If you would change more hardware on your system than the drive then Windows could indeed ask for a fresh authentification.

 

Hi Calibrator.. Its been a while. I got a hardware concern with the Flip. The lid opens and closes ok. But it seems a bit "loose". Not that its loose that its noticeable or ridicuous. But I wish I could tighten the hinge more to make it more secure. Is there a way to do this?

 

Thanks once again for the very detailed help! The problem is, I foolishly put my old drive into an external casing and formatted it, to use for extra storage...I only formatted the Windows partition so it does still have the EFI system partition (260 MB) and the recovery partitions - 4 of them! (Two 'OEM Partitions' of 970 MB and 14.91 GB, and two 'Recovery Partitions' of 260 MB and 26.4 GB.) I would also prefer not to open up the Flip again as I did some minor damage to one of the clips keeping the back casing in place, so I wouldn't want to make that worse.

Do you know if there's any way I can use the VAIO recovery media to recover an external hard drive? I think that would be the best option for me, and then hopefully I could clone the external HDD to the internal SSD. I thought it might help to install a bootable 'Windows To Go' (8.1 Pro from Dreamspark) image on the main partition of the external drive via this method: http://www.howtogeek.com/196817/how...-go-usb-drive-without-the-enterprise-edition/

I'm not sure where to go from here though! (I would just do a clean 8.1 Pro installation on my internal SSD, but I want to keep all the functionality of the Flip, such as the function keys, as well as software such as Photoshop Elements 12, which I would lose this way.) Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

Hi!

I understand what you want, even though my Flip seems to be on the "tight end of the spectrum". I always wondered how long it takes for the hinge to get loose...

However, when I opened up my Flip to replace the drive with an SSD I didn't examine the hinge construction closely and I have seen only the screws that secure the whole assembly to the base.
Therefore I don't know if there is a screw for adjusting the lid movement or if the hinge mechanism has some sort of internal, "automatic" adjustment.
The photos of Flip internals I collected via this thread and other sources also don't show the hinge mechanism in detail (they only target the electronic components like the drive, the RAM etc.).

So, no, I have no immediate advice for you. Sorry!

Although: If you decide to keep your Flip and put an SSD inside you could use the situation when you have opened up the Flip to examine the hinge mechanism carefully and try to see what happens if you open the lid. Of course: Be extra careful and don't touch electronic components to avoid a static shock that can fry them!

 

You are absolutely correct -- it was foolish!

*That's* the only good news so far...

Win 8.x indeed uses several partitions and the layout seems confusing. That's normal.
The partition with 26.4 GB is indeed the recovery partition that holds all the recovery data and it is the base data which is written to the recovery media you created. You can see that a 32GB memory stick is sufficient for this.
There are explanations for the partitioning of the various Windows versions on the web - and with each Windows version the situation gets more complex. It therefore gets more complicated to manually (re)create partitions in special situations like yours. Add to this the massively increased drive capacities and new standards like extended sector sizes etc. and you know why advanced users and even experts have to rely on partition managers and other advanced (and modern!) utilities.

Back to your problem:

I understand but it's really the only way now that you killed the working Windows partition on the original drive.

I don't consider this a good path, to be frank.

In my eyes you still have some realistic options:

Fix the recovery installation so that you can activate Windows correctly. Sony won't help you and even though their support sucks they indeed can't as they don't activate Windows. This is the job of Microsoft - and the way you do it is via telephone - or precisely an automated process via telephone.

Note that I haven't done this myself but this method has been published on several websites:

- Open a command line interface by running CMD.exe
- Type "SLUI 4", of course without the quotation marks
- Choose your country and continue
- You should then see an installation ID and at least one telephone number
- Call one of the numbers shown
- An automatic system will ask for the ID and have to type it in with your phone
- You then *should* get a confirmation ID which you then have to type into the respective field
- Finally click on Activate Windows

I don't know the success probability and wasn't even aware of this method yesterday but it should cost you much time trying out.

If this works out for you: Done! You now have a recovered system with all the programs and drivers you want on your SSD and you don't have to open the case again.

If this method fails the next best thing is to:
- Open the case and put the original drive back in.
- Then do a recovery install using the recovery partition on this drive (which you managed not to kill - I would have been more thorough ).
- Then activate Windows (ignore the whole shebang of Windows updates)
- Then clone the whole drive to the SSD - using the adapter I wrote about earlier.
- Finally swap the drives again.

Everything else will either cost you more money and/or more time.

Some additional thoughts:

To the best of my knowledge it is not possible to do a recovery installation onto an external drive.
This doesn't make much sense from the perspective of the system builder (Microsoft and Sony, in our case).
The recovery installation is for recovering the system drive - in the machine! - and for this you need both a system drive and recovery media.

The Sony support gave you a misleading answer because they either don't know better or simply wanted to get rid of you quickly. Call centers work cases and the more cases they finish the better they get paid. Also they don't care much about people who modify their systems (and possibly void their warranty).

I can't say where the activation key is stored. I read conflicting information regarding this as some claim that it is stored in the BIOS chip (or somewhere else on the mainboard) and others say it's on the harddrive.
It doesn't matter though because if it's somewhere on the mainboard the Windows activation mechanism would find it and if it's on the harddrive it must also be in the recovery data. A recovery installation wouldn't make *any* sense if a non-activated system would be the result, or would it?
So in consequence I can't answer what went wrong with your recovery but without an activation the recovery was not a success. That much is clear...

 

Hi Cal.. Appreciate the reply. I'll look into finding out if theres a video on tightening the hinge. Thanks.

Also, I've noticed that when my laptop is conected to the AC and goes to sleep, the fans whirl like crazy. It doesnt do this when its not connected and when its awake... only when its connected to AC and asleep. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Always a pleasure talking to you!

 

Sounds like a configuration problem with your energy settings.
There are different energy settings for running the machine on battery and AC - so this is the first thing to check. As I use a Windows set to German language I can't readily say what you have to change (Microsoft translated everything) but if you post your settings here I can have a look at them and may be able to give advice.
Also, there is only one fan in the Flip and it's only aggressive when the CPU (or GPU) gets hot. I'm willing to bet that you don't have this problem if you power down the Flip completely, even when connected to AC.

 

Yes indeed! Although in my defence, I did read from multiple sources that the Windows key is embedded in the BIOS, and several reports of smooth recoveries after upgrading to an SSD on this forum. Still should have waited till activation to be sure though!

Thanks for the advice again. I tried activating by phone, but Microsoft said that Sony have blocked my license key for some reason, so I've now asked Sony to unblock it. They've escalated the case to level 2 of their customer support, and they said they'll get back to me by tomorrow.

 

Cal I GOT AN EMERGENCY...

Two days ago I messed around with setting permissions on some folders and files to modify them. This made some store apps unresponsive and slowed my Flip.

After I ran the Windows All in One Repair tool that I downloaded, it restarted and it gave a message saying: "Scanning and repairing drive C. 10% done." It stayed this way for 5 hours so I powered down the laptop.

I rebooted and I now get a black screen that stays like this forever. It doesnt boot to any screen or to the desktop.

I cant even boot into safe mode anymore. It just stays black. I'm sorry for bothering you. But what do you suggest? I'm going crazy!!!!

 

What happens when you start the Flip with the Assist button?

 

It does nothing. The screen remains black.

 

Using the Assist button properly should bring you into the "Vaio Care Rescue Mode Screen". This tool is completely separate from the Windows installation and any files you may have messed up.

What happens when you connect the power supply? Does the charging indicator LED light up?
Have you tried to boot up the machine with the power supply connected?

 

I tried pressing that button after boot up. But the screen remains dark.

Whether I coonect to the power supply or not, both orange and green lights are on.

 

Doesn't sound good...

Here's what the manual suggests (I removed a few that I think don't apply in this case):

---

What should I do if the power indicator light turns on in green when I press the power button but the screen remains blank?
- The display output may be set to an external display.
Press the Fn+F7keys several times to select your desired display output, and then press the Enterkey.

If you wait for a while and the computer screen remains blank, restart your VAIO computer by following the procedures below in order. Note that following these procedures may cause working data to become corrupted.
- Disconnect all peripheral devices, such as a printer or a USB device, and your VAIO computer from the network, if any.
- Press and hold down the (Power) button for more than 4 or 10 seconds and make sure the power indicator light is off.
- Then, turn on your VAIO computer again.

If the problem persists, reset the battery pack.
- Press and hold down the (Power) button for more than 4 or 10 seconds and make sure the power indicator light is off. Disconnect all cables connected to your VAIO computer, such as the AC adapter, and push and hold the battery off button for three to five seconds with a thin, straight object (such as a paper clip).
- Wait about five minutes and then put all cables back in place and turn on the computer again.​

---

The "battery off button" is very likely the "reset button" behind the tiny hole in the bottom of the case, near the HDMI jack.

 

Cal I think I got it under control. As of this writing, I went into this blue screen with troubleshooting options. The options are as follows:

- Reset
- Refresh
- Startup Repair

I basically know what each does. In my case, which option in your opinion do you think is best for me?

 

I wound up getting the battery charge percentage feature back by installing the sony shared library application from the vaio driver site for my svf15n18pxb. I think I have all the drivers from the sony site installed now. Looking at the windows task manager though, it appears that I don't have anything called Vaio Event Service running. There are alot of vaio care services running though, some that have the exact same name.

I had no idea that the sony website didn't actually provide all the drivers. I think I do have a backup usb stick that I made with vaio care when I first got the laptop. Would that contain any missing drivers that sony doesn't provide on the website?

I have 2 new problems that I noticed after getting the battery charge limit working again.

Problem 1 is that the audio volume seems quieter than it used to be. Before I was able to keep the speaker volume around 10% and that was plenty loud enough to hear videos if the room was silent. Now I need to keep the volume around 30-40% to get what I think was the same apparent loudness. I used to never have to raise the volume that high as long as the room was silent.

Problem 2 is that the Xreality and Xloud options are missing from the audio and video sections of vaio control center. I don't need either but I thought it was unusual they were missing even though I have everything from the sony site. Under the pen input section where you used to be able to set a button on the stylus to open one of the sony note programs (I think it was clip or something like that), the button configuration isn't shown anymore. It now just goes to the windows pen settings which don't let you configure a program to open. Again this isn't something I ever used but I do think it's weird I can't put it back.

The most important thing, I am trying to fix it the quiet audio. Having it that quiet now is very disappointing. I've searched everywhere for a fix to this audio problem. I found a couple mentions of it but no actual solutions.

The reason I did a clean install was because I needed to remove the uefi install of windows so I could reinstall windows as non-uefi and also add linux. I wanted to be able to dual boot between the 2. I also wanted to swap out the hybrid drive that was in it (the solid state part of the drive appeared to be failing, it was retrying reads and writes with increasing frequency) for a solid state drive.

 

So what happened?

I can't say what is best for you - that depends on what data you have on it and how much work you are willing to put into it. I also don't know what really is wrong with your machine (your installation, your drive) because of your tinkering or otherwise.

Normally, I'd recommend to use the less drastic measures first to see if they are already sufficient.
This would be the startup repair and it should be the quickest repair option and should let you keep your other changes.
I can't say if that helps in your situation but you can't really do anything wrong with it and it's usually the quickest option.

The most drastic measure is doing a recovery installation (aka "factory reset") - which formats the system drive the operating system is on and freshly installs Windows, all supplied applications and all drivers. In other words this puts the machine back to when it left the factory and everything you changed or save on the machine will be gone (= all your user data will be gone!).
Some people do this simply to be sure that all changes are "axed" and they get a system that behaves as expected (provided that no hardware problem exists).

A refresh isn't as drastic as a recovery but you should still get a clean default operating system (in which you should install all available "necessary" Windows updates). This means still a bit of work but you should be done quicker as it doesn't format the system drive and keeps many of your data intact but you will have to reinstall applications like games, video players etc.
I haven't done this to my Flip (and won't - I have several backup sets of the machine with various driver and Windows updates installed so I don't have to reinstall all Windows updates), so I can't be specific what you will keep and what not but there is help on net to find that out.

If that fails you may have a more severe problem than the stuff you did to the system.

 

If you don't use Vaio Care you can switch off the Vaio Care services like I did.
I'm not sure what bring the Vaio Event service back and what you need it for, though.

If this is a "recovery medium" then it indeed contains all the drivers but you can't extract and install them individually. A recovery erases everything on your drive: It kills all partitions and recreates them - including the boot loader - to install the system to factory state. This, of course, isn't what you want.

Search this thread! I seem to remember a guy writing that he got all drivers or at least all he needed.

My audio was relatively quiet to begin with. I usually have to crank everything up to around 90% to enjoy movies in a quiet room. Perhaps this is related to the sound effect setting (see below) but I don't think so. Everything appears to be normal.

I don't have those either.
I only have five sound effect settings (ClearAudio+ for Music, dito for Video - which I use as it sounds nice, "Mode 1", "Mode 2" and "Off") and an option to switch the built-in micro on or off.

I didn't remove anything related to audio on my Flip but perhaps it was an update of the audio drivers?

Yes, that's the last option in that section on my machine and it very likely depends on installed drivers. If they aren't you don't get this option...

Does the "button action" option actually bring you to the Windows pen settings or is it the "pen- and touch actions" option directly above it? That's the second to last option on my machine and it's meant to do that.

You may want to use it if you use the pen with some advanced software where you can define the buttons yourself, like Clip Studio Paint (aka Manga Studio).

Do you have the N-trig Wintab drivers installed on your machine?
If not: You should install them - version 16 or 17 - and see if you get the options back.
I believe I downloaded the ones meant for the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 from the N-trig website and installed them.
Perhaps these bring back the button settings? Even if not: You should install them anyway as they enable pen pressure sensitivy for programs, that rely on the Wintab interface.

Apparently I can't really help you either. Sorry.

This alone is a perfectly reasonable explanation. However, this still doesn't solve the driver problems - it rather was the cause of it...

For a simple drive swapping you don't need a clean install, though.

 

These are the vaio care processes that I have. They run all the time despite me having disabled all the vaio maintenance stuff. I could disable their ability to start of startup though through the windows startup program options but using vaio care's options isn't disabling it.

 

Hi Cal. I used the Reset option to reinstall Windows. Now I got to download and reinstall 8.1.

Do you know if a Reset is the same as a "Factory Reset" and does it reformat the drive?

After the Reset, I had to pre-register my info like, time zone, name of laptop, etc. which is routine. During this, a message popped up saying something went wrong and Windows had to close. It then rebooted and I had to start the whole pre-registering again. After that, I was back to the start screen. Then another pop up asked me if I wanted to report this problem to which I said 'No'.

Everything is smooth again. But I hope that pop up message doesnt mean something is wrong. As I said, everything seems to be working. But if you think I need to reinstall again based on this pop up message then I'll do it. Just let me know what you think.

Thanks for ALL your needed input! I'll await your next comment.

 

Yes, you are indeed missing the last option, which is for setting the button actions.
If you already have the N-trig drivers installed and no problems with them and the Windows pen settings work then there can only be some Sony software missing. I can only guess here but I think it's related to the VAIO Event Service.

I have all of those VAIO processes running, too, but you are missing two with the names "VAIO Control Center(SUSSoundProxy Module)" and "VAIO Entertainment Common Service". The latter is very likely irrelevant to your case as the file based on it is called "SpfService64.exe" and located in the folder "Common Files/Sony Shared/VAIO Entertainment Platform/SPF".

The "SUSSoundProxy Module", however, is based on an EXE in the VAIO Control Center directory: "SUSSoundProxy.exe" (surprising, isn't it?).
You could try to start it manually by running the EXE but I'm doubtful if this will work.
If you have installed the VAIO Control Center software *before* the Realtek audio drivers then you could deinstall the VCC software and install it new so that it can try to establish the services itself.

What we can't see in the Task Manager is the "VAIO Event Service" - even if it'a active like on my Flip - for this you have to open "Services" in the Windows service management (under "Administrative Tools").
If this service is installed - even if it's not running - you can find it there and see a short description what it does. If it isn't running some functions won't work like hotkeys and it could also be related to the pen buttons.
If it's running I'm and the above suggestions won't help I'm out of ideas.

 

No, sorry, I'm not sure. But as you have to reinstall the 8.1 upgrade it's likely that it reverted to factory settings. I also don't know on what grounds the setup program decides if it has to reformat a partition or if this is done generally.

I don't think that you have to do a new install - as long as everything is installed and Windows can be activated it, if it isn't already (in theory it should have, I don't remember that I had to activate mine).

You can verify if Windows has been activated in the system settings control panel, where you can see a short summary of the features you have (which Windows version, CPU, amount of RAM, network name etc.).
If it isn't try to activate it manually - there should be a button - and see what happens.

By the way: For more general Windows issues you should probably visit a forum that centers Windows problems. The folks there usually much more experience and better explanations - but of course I can only speak for myself.

 

Thsnks Cal. I did post this same issue on other forums. But believe it or not, your advice actually resolved it. So thank you a million times and sorry that I had to bother you like this.
Next time I run into trouble I'll visit those forums first. Thanks again Cal!!!

 

Hi Everyone! Please help me..

I have Vaio multi-flip 15A, and its not booting. (win 8.1). I got the error code 0xc0000185. (which means "bad disk") The Assist botton works, take me to Vaio Recovery first page, but when I select the recovery option (1-st option), the laptop restarts and got the same error message again. I just allowed to go to BIOS settings, I1ve changed the booting from UEFI to Legacy, but the only changes that I got, when I select the recovery option I got the message "No operating system found". And doesn't boot the windows.

I have no Recovery flash disk, and the windows safe mode also not working. (I tried F8 and Shift F8, nothing helped)

Somebody can help me how to recover all my data from the hard drive? Or any solutions/ideas to this problem?

Thank you very much