Official Sony Vaio Fit multi-flip PC Owners' Thread

My experience with 15A on Windows 10 is that everything works as far as hardware goes. Touch, pen, rotation, NFC etc. Most OS bugs have been sorted out since the release too it seems.

I know most people here don't care for Sony's software, but that's where the issues are if you do.
If you keep X-reality for mobile turned on (through Vaio control center), videos played using Intel HD will get quite messed up. It's solved if you turn it off, but needless to say, there's no benefit from it. If you use the NVIDIA card on the other hand, it works fine.
After upgrading, you won't find Sony's modern UI apps in the store anymore. Unless you go all the way back in your download history. If you want to use these, it might be a good idea to have them installed before upgrading as I don't know if it's possible to download them through the history page. I was able to get the Album app update a week ago though, so that works.
Scaling in modern UI apps is lower after the update. Especially in desktop mode. This messes up the UI in a lot of these apps by a little bit, Music by Sony is one of them.

 

Hi Calibrator. Thank you for your exhaustive explanation. In addition to unlocking the BIOS, I will also explore those questions that you forwarded as possibities for the throttling. Its not an easy endeavor by any means but I am willing to extrapolate as much as I can and provide as much detail from my findings upon the issue.

I am thinking of installing Ubuntu which is a linux variant to test whether or not Windows is mutually exclusive of the throttling perstering. Nvidia should provide linux based drivers for the GPU, though this is something I'm not 100% sure about. Doing a clean install is also on my agenda and I'll note any throttling.

As a side note, when I play GTAV, the throttling does appear but its controlled. What I mean by that is, during graphic intense gameplay throttling occurs but ceases once theres less graphic intensity. From there, gameplay is smooth until I'm confronted with more graphic demanding scenes. The throttling alternates between these extremes. Decreasing the native resolution also greatly lessens throtting. Maybe wwwwasdwww can use that in his game testing.

Questions. ..
1) I haven't upgraded to 10. How do I do a clean install of 10?

---- EDIT ----
I forgot to ask you these 2 questions:

2) I can boot Ubuntu from an external hard drive without installing it on the internal hard drive. Would this suffice to test throttling?

3) Nvidia recommends installing Nvidia drivers from Ubuntu's repository which they claim are better suited than those directly from Nvidia. Which would you think is better?

 

Thanks guys for your input on Win10, I might jump the gun this weekend. I don't use any of Sony's stuff, and I don't use many of the apps either. I was very enthusiastic when 8/8.1 first came out but lost interest since then. Based on what you're saying, though, Win10 doesn't improve on the experience all that much. That's sad, I would've liked the option to switch to an interface that feels closer to the mobile devices I'm used to. Well, windows remains windows it seems.

 

Maybe I should clarify one thing. When I said desktop mode, I didn't mean hardware-wise (like one of the Flip's physical modes), but one of the two UI modes in Windows 10. It's still possible to enter tablet mode which looks a lot like Windows 8.1. But if you're using touch, your assumption that it doesn't improve things remains a fact.

As for messed up UI in apps, a lot of apps are being optimized for Windows 10, so this likely won't be an issue in the future, unless you really like an app which has been abandoned by its developer.

 

Hi,

is anybody of you able to use the "Add a wireless display" function? I stumbled on various posts by Vaio users, all stating that this W8.1 feature doesn't work, same is for me... Any help is appreciated!

 

That actually sounds reassuring. I was sure this is how you meant it, 'flipping' the screen has nothing to do with the modes you can use in Win8. I'm one of the few who liked the idea of the apps and I never even noticed Start was missing in desktop. That said, the way this has been implemented in 8/8.1 soon made me switch to desktop permanently and never look back. Which is unfortunate, because Metro (or whatever it's called) would have been a great way to capitalize on the potential of devices like the Flip.

Well, then I'll give 10 a go, my wifi issue's driving me crazy anyway. Tried all the tweaks that are out there, but I still have to log in to my home and office networks every time.

 

Hi!
Just one quick question: what do you think about those 20GBP auctions going on for the Vaio Pen on ebay ( like this ) can it be the real think ? Did anyone tried them ?
Sadly in hungary, Sony does not include a pen with any Flips, not even my one, which was the highest specced one can buy here (they did include it with the cheaper Vaio Tap11. Efff logic)

 

It looks genuine and looks exactly like mine (same color, same construction in the cap).
It also appears to be exactly the same plastic casing the pen comes in.

That being said you may want to check if you can alternatively get a Surface 3 pen in Hungary.
In my opinion this pen is slightly better in regards to drawing (the nib isn't as hard as the one on the Sony pen) and both side buttons are easier to operate as they protrude a tiny bit. The Sony buttons are totally flush with the pen and very smooth - a design mistake, IMHO.
As a bonus you also get a bluetooth button on the cap end with the Surface 3 pen that you can assign with AutoHotkey or a similar tool.

 

Thanks for the detailed answer!

 

Hey Calibrator. I dont know if you saw my last post to you, but hopefully you or someone else here can help me. You mentioned to me before that it would be a good idea to test out the throttling in a Linux environment. I plan on installing Ubuntu for just that purpose but need some guidance before proceeding.

I want to boot Ubuntu from my external hard drive. Ubuntu provides 2 options to either, 1) fully install the o/s or 2) to try it out which means not installing it on the hard drive (I presume it will just run off the external hard drive). Would I be able to test the throttling if I just try it out, which means just running it off the external hard drive?

 

Didn't see your last post but obviously nobody else answered...
To be truthful I'm no Linux expert, but from what I know it should suffice to boot a test installation from either an external harddisk or a USB stick. The decisive bit is that the BIOS boots a non-Windows operating system.
The test isn't if the graphics drivers throttle or not but if Windows itself throttles and if you test that with a different OS (Linux is the obvious choice here) - regardless of the boot medium - then that question can be answered.
Personally, I'd recommend a non-permanent install (= not on the system drive) to get quicker results but you should make sure that you have a Linux application or game at hand that really stresses the system.

Addendum & clarification:
With trying out a different OS you also can't rule out any shenanigans the BIOS makes - it really is only a test if Windows itself has a part in it.
As you will need graphics drivers to do any serious graphical stuff with Linux you can't be sure if those are guilty, too.

 

Hi Cal. Appreciate the response. I installed Ubuntu on my external HD using a software called pendrivelinux. I then went into the BIOS (from within Windows) and changed the boot order so that 'external devices' boots 1st. But when I restart the laptop with the external HD connected via USB, the computer boots directly to the Win 8.1 desktop. I dont understand. What do you suggest?

Also, how do manually I boot into the BIOS at startup? I tried pressing F1, F2 and F12. But it boots to the desktop all the time.

Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!

 

Hi,
the two times I went into the BIOS I simply used the Assist-key so I don't know if there is another magic key-combo to do the trick. In the past I often used F8 or SHIFT in the boot process to enter the BIOS but this was on PC mainboards.

Anyway, normally, the Flip should recognize external media and boot from them, if they are prepared correctly. We have many reports of bootable USB-sticks to know this.

What Boot Mode have you set in the BIOS? UEFI or Legacy?
This has consequences on how the boot medium has to be created.

Like I said I'm not a Linux expert so I don't know how to correctly create a bootable Linux drive. I do know that there are boot managers like GRUB for Linux to easen the burden.
You should read up on how to create a bootable Linux drive for an UEFI BIOS if you need this (for high capacity drives, for example).

An alternative would be to create a bootable USB stick for Linux. See here for a tool that helps you creating something like that:
http://www.linuxliveusb.com

I'd recommend that you try that out before you format your system drive or anything like that for a simple test...

 

I upgraded to Windows 10. On the whole everything seems to be OK, but there appear to be some issues with the display. The text in some programs run from the desktop (ie not Windows 10 apps downloaded from the store) don't appear that sharp. Also, videos - particularly if using Windows or Microsoft software (inc. when video is embedded in PowerPoint) don't appear to run properly - I get streaky lines on one side of the video. Any suggestions about how to fix this?

 

Turn off X-reality for mobile in Vaio Control Center. There's a chance a compatibility fix will come out in October, but turning this off will at least solve these issues.
The other issues sound a lot like general non-HiDPI optimized software issues you may encounter on certain 15A models with the HiDPI display. Which shouldn't be dependent on which version of Windows you're running. Are you sure that you didn't have the same blurry/pixelated text before the update?

 

Thanks. This seemed to help with the videos. Text still not as sharp as it used to be - but I think this may be a problem of Windows 10 not wanting to vary sizes between desktop & tablet mode, so some things end up at the wrong scale.
My other Windows 10 gripe is that the automatic changing of desktop pictures no longer works.

 

HoodCP,

You may want to check your display settings - right-click on the desktop (desktop mode) and select display settings. Under display, check the "scale" factor. It's probably set to the default 175% - it was for my Flip 15A @ native res of 2880x1620. In my case, with my vision (I'm near-sighted), scaling down to 150% got rid of the fuzziness.

There's 2 ways to set up the scaling, you can use the Win8/10 way which is method above. Or you can do the pre-Win8 way. Try the above method 1st and reduce the scaling to 150% or lower to see how you like it. Just remember to restart after changing and applying each change. Windows says to Log-off but I find that some settings, I think the scroll bar widths and the window titles seem to change a bit if I just log off instead of restarting. So better to restart to be sure that everything is re-set.

If you play games, especially old ones, the old games may have issues with scaling values of 150% and higher. In that case, you will have to use a custom scale. That's where the pre-Win8 way of changing the scaling comes in. To do this, you need to set the Win8/10 scaling to 100% - the lowest value; then restart.

After restart, go to Control Panel/Display and click on the "set a custom scaling level" link. Note the "not recommended" warning beside it. So if you're not comfortable with such warnings, just be content with the Win8/10 way. But if you still want to continue, then click on the link and play with the values. Remember, you only need to use the custom scaling if you want to set a scaling that is not a multiple of 25.

In my case, I set the value to 148% - the highest I can set it where the game I was playing (which didn't like 150%) still worked ok.

 

Thanks

Thanks. That seems to be helping. It looks like my settings got changed during one of the updates that got rolled out & I was on 100% on the highest resolution it would go on. Seems to be working with 150% - which is what I thought it had been on from the start.

 

For everyone looking for a permanent solution to throttling: check out navidnouri's post here http://community.sony.com/t5/VAIO-H...U-throttling-while-gaming/td-p/298758/page/17
I think this is the only way we can fix this since it is a design flaw, not a software one (rising the throttling limit will only delay it, not eliminate it) the solution presented here works (tried it) and it also looks good.

 

Thanks for the info!

I assume you mean this post:
http://community.sony.com/t5/VAIO-H...GPU-throttling-while-gaming/m-p/524357#M30983

You can link directly to the post you want. Just click on the respective number on the lower left info panel ("Message 166 of 169" - in this case it's the number 166 that is linked to the post).

 

For those who want to know what it took to upgrade my clean install Flip15 from Win8.1 to Win10, here's my story.

 

Do I have to wait to upgrade to Windows 10? I checked the Windows icon in the taskbar and and it looks like I got to wait for it. Is this correct? How did you guys get it and I didn't?

 

Sony said to wait for November, to be sure.

 

I agree.

koolx, my Flip was probably flagged as ready for upgrade because I had a clean install plus had a fair number of device drivers sourced directly from the device manufacturers.

And as I wrote, I still had a lot of issues with Bluetooth and NFC drivers in the end, granted that those were my fault because I insisted on turning off some services related to Intel device drivers.

Still, even without those device issues, just keeping on top of privacy settings is a pain.

 

I'm still on Win 8.1 as I said. But I use the Intel driver directly from Intel, not Sony. It alone covers the wifi AND bluetooth. Do you have this driver? This driver alone should cover both devices. I guess from what you wrote that you didn't use any drivers related to Intel, hence why you had problems with bluetooth. Why didnt you install Intel drivers?

I checked and it looks like I can download Win 10 anytime. Do you think its worth the trouble? BTW, I dont use ANY Somy drivers. What issues would I face even if I download all the Intel drivers?

 

If you have the latest Win8.1 drivers, then you won't have issues. I had Intel drivers in Win8.1 and had no issues after the Win10 upgrade.

I ran into issues after I disabled some Intel services that I didn't like running on my system.

So if you're ok with the stuff Intel piggybacks on the driver installs, then you shouldn't encounter the issues I had.

 

Which Intel services sre you referring?

And which o/s do you like better? Win 10 or 8.1?

 

One thing that I never was able to kill completely is Intel Smart Connect.
The most useless service when you use your smartphone to keep track of messages and/or updates.

It will wake up the machine from sleep to check for email, etc.

 

Services I disabled...

Intel Capability Licensing Service Interface
Intel Capability Licensing Service TCP IP Interface
Intel Content Protection HECI Service
Intel System Behavior Tracker Collector Service

 

Okay, so I've just created a recovery using one of these. I did it using Vaio Care (I know, lazy), so I had very little control over what was going on. Once it's done, a message tells you to switch off the PC and remove the key (and keep it safe, blablabla). So, although I ticked the box to check if it's OK, I still have no idea whether the recovery's fully functional. Is there any way for me to check that? I'd like to upgrade to Win10, but first I need to make sure there's a way back. BTW, my Flip originally came with Win8 installed, the message at the end said 8.1... I don't really mind, just thought I'd let you guys know.

 

This is one of those times where you can't be lazy about things. You need to go old school; wax-on, wax-off.

The recovery media produced by Vaio Care is just enough to re-image your drive to factory condition. It is a combination of a Windows install plus Sony driver install plus bloatware.

This is in line with MS goals to nudge users into the cloud - their cloud if possible. The premise is you only need the factory image. The updates can be downloaded later. The apps, if you only used Metro/Modern apps, can be installed from the MS Store. Your personal data and settings will sync from the cloud if you had a MS account plus OneDrive. There is absolutely no provision for side-loaded apps or desktop applications or personal folders that are not in OneDrive's scope.

As I wrote in my upgrade story, what you need is a System Image Backup. Here's the How-To-Geek article on it.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/?PageSpeed=noscript

The System Image backs up ALL the partitions in your HDD that Windows created. That includes the hidden ones. I don't know about the Sony partition. This is why way back, when I did a fresh install of Win 8.1, I used Vaio Care to move the Sony Partition to USB, just to be sure that I have it covered too.

While you're at it, create a System Repair Disk too. It's in the same screen as the System Image. Theoretically, the Repair Disk is functionally the similar to, or even the same, as what you got from Vaio Care. But better to be safe than sorry.

You can use your trusted 3rd party imaging tool if you feel more confident with that over Win System Image.

The point is, if you want to go through the Win10 upgrade with the assurance that you can go back to your current image, you need an image of ALL the Windows partitions.

 

Quick offer for those who may have come here looking for parts. I have just stripped my nearly-perfect* 15" Flip SVF15N190X [i7/4500U/Nvidia735M/2880x1620](SN54681061....) and will be selling it off for parts. I have, seriously, nearly everything on it. I had a screen crack, and a shop tried to replace the screen but (in my opinion) fried the LED driver while doing so. I didn't find out that the LED lamp driver was dead until I ordered a second screen and found that - like the one they put in - there was no backlight. The machine was in (otherwise) perfect condition with very low miles. The motherboard is available but should be considered "for parts". The rest should be in great shape, including the keyboard, wifi card, nfc chip, new 2880x1620 screen that was never installed, outer screen bumper, start button assy, webcam assembly, battery (low miles!), LED strip, hd frame, hd cable, touchpad assy, bottom shell, speakers (r&l), SD/network/usb board, and power connector w/ cable. I've also got an unused screen protector for it.

It's going on ebay soon, but I've gotten a lot out of this thread in the past so I'm going to throw it out to you guys first. If you're missing something, PM at my username in the forum at gmail.com and maybe we can come to an agreeable price. I really *don't* know whether the 15N190X parts will fit the other 15" flip models. I have photos of every part, though.

Mods - my apology if this is against the rules. I just know when I've gone to find replacement pieces, this machine is basically made of unicorns and mermaids - there's very little out there in the way of parts.

 

Thanks, bc4m5, I'll definitely look into these options. I've had to return my FLIP once and restore it twice due to issues. So I keep everything in the cloud(s) (yes, multiple places). Including software. I might be paranoid, but this also means that I can factory reset any of my devices without second thoughts. And I've given up on PCs a while ago anyway. So I guess a factory image should suffice for me, although I'm very grateful for the details. I've already read some of your 'story', a gripping read. Thanks a lot for the tips, much appreciated!

 

Does anyone know how to get into the V-BIOS?

Also, I'm ready to unlock the BIOS. But I got a concern. The moderator at BIOS-Mods.com said its necessary to use a firmware to flash and rewrite the BIOS. He said the firmware contains the Bios (Region) to unlock it. Is rewriting the BIOS really necessary for this purpose?

bc4m5, I read your upgrade story. But you never stated how to do a clean install of Windows 10.

 

koolxxx, sorry if I gave the impression that I was ultimately going with a fresh install. I'm sticking with the upgrade for now while I learn Win10's quirks as I use it as my daily driver.

Like yesterday, I noticed that I'm getting a lengthy pause after bootup where the screen is just black. After a minute or so, the Flip wakes up. I did a search and found out that it was a symptom of a corrupt MBR. So I decided it was a good excuse to check if the restore works and went about going back to last weekend's system image.

So good news is the restore from system image works. After the successful restore and MBR fix (the backup also had the same MBR issue so I had to fix the backup before it can be restored; I admit that for a while, I was scared that I lost everything because I have a corrupt backup), the NFC started getting flaky again.

Found out that Win10 updated the driver after the restore. I went through several cycles of uninstalling NFC from Device Manager and re-installing it using the Win8.1 driver and patch from the Sony UK site ( http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/SVF15N15ST); then Win10 would upgrade the driver - darn forced auto update.

Searched again and found this Microsoft tool to exclude specific devices from driver updates ( https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930). I used the tool to exclude NFC, uninstalled and reinstalled the Sony Win8.1 driver and patch, and everything's been working without issues for a day now. NFC is now happily running on Sony Win8.1 drivers - no more kludges.

 

bc4m5, I'm.confised. How did you fix the corrupt MBR inherent in the image backup when you restored your system?

 

The restore from system image ended with 0x80070057 (I used the system repair USB to boot up to repair mode).

With Win7/8/8.1 images, I just ignore this error and use the restored image. The error is generated because I was using a non-US region in my PC setup and consequently, my system images. However, when I tried to boot up the Flip, I got the 0xC000000F error instead.

Thinking that it was a cascade result from the 0x80070057 error, I tried the restore again using a Windows 10 installation USB.

The system repair disk/USB, when it boots up only asks you your keyboard layout. The installation USB makes you enter your region settings - language, country and keyboard layout. It is common practice to leave these as the default English-US-US keyboard and proceed with your task - either to repair/restore, or install Windows. Doing so if you're restoring using the installation media will prevent the 0x80070057 error from happening in my experience.

And as expected, when the restore finished, I didn't get the 0x80070057 error. But I got the 0xC000000F error. Didn't really paid attention to what the message was but took a picture of it anyway and tried to boot up. BSOD and it's the same message from the restore. That's when I started to panic. When I calmed down, I did a search and thankfully, found this solution...

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-hel...-status-0xc000000f-boot-selection-failed.html

It was the same behavior the Flip was showing during boot - except that the OP in that post just started having the problem in their Win7 pc whereas in my case, it happened after the Win10 restore.

Further down the post (the link above) were instructions to use good old CHKDSK to check for errors and automatically repair the errors for possible drive letters starting with C:.

But that's going in blind. So I used DISKPART first to look at the state of the SSD - list disk, then volumes. I found out that all the partitions are there, and confirmed the drive letters. So the restore did work, it's just that the restored image was corrupt. I proceeded to use CHKDSK as described in the post.

CHKDSK reported that the primary MBR was corrupt but the backup MBR is OK. That was enough for CHKDSK to automatically repair the damage. I didn't have to rebuild the boot record like another person did further down the post.

After I got a clean report from CHKDSK, I booted up the Flip and it was OK from then on.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. I could have just run CHKDSK when the Flip acted up. But if I did that, I wouldn't have learned how to salvage a backup. Learning was better.

 

bc4m5 I understand now. I wish I knew know how to do a clean install of Win 10.

Also, I made a backup image of Win 8.1. There are several partitions in the backup. Apart from the recovery partition is another partition called 'Sony' thats 20MB. Maybe this is responsible for the throttling.

Calibrator, maybe you or someone can help. I'll be unlocking the BIOS. But the mod at BIOS-Mods said that I'd need to flash a file, 'flash.bat' in order to do so, which involves rewriting the BIOS. Does this make sense and do you think its safe?

 

A ".bat"-file is usually a "batch" file - which isn't exactly magic.
Think of it as a list of instructions that run one after another like when typed in on a console input.
There are several scenarios why batch files are used, for example because a users wants to start a program that doesn't have a graphical user interface (= uses the Windows system) or because they simply want to automate something.
A batch often contains several instructions (hence "batch"), sometimes with conditional program flow ("IF something = true" "THEN do xyz" "ELSE do nothing" statements or something like that).

A batchfile can't flash anything on its own, though - it needs two additional files:
- a utility program that does the actual flashing
- a file containts the new/modified BIOS that you want to flash into the FlashROM chip

In the batchfile you then usually have an instruction like (rough example!):
"amflash.exe -o -n /biosfile.bin"

In this fictitious example the amflash.exe utility gets started with three parameters:
-o to overwrite the current BIOS without a warning
-n to not write the current BIOS to the harddrive for safekeeping/backup reasons
/biosfile.bin = the file that contains the new BIOS that shall be flashed

Note again that this is only an example - the parameters depend entirely on the flash utlitity!

What you have to do now:
- Finding the batchfile the mod means
- Finding the correct "ingredients" (the flash utility, the BIOS file)

Make EXTRA sure that you get the right files! Otherwise the risk to brick your Flip is enormous!

 

Hi Calibrator. I got an issue now. I cant enable nor find Bluetooth in device manager. I can see it in services.msc. But it disappeared in PC Settings > PC and Devices > Devices and also disappeared in device manager. It was there before and now its gone.

I tried reinstalling the Intel Pro Wireless Wifi driver to see if that could help but it didn't. How do I get this back?

 

Do you try to get every possible error/problem with your Flip, koolxxx?

If the device doesn't show up in the device manager it's usually not a good idea to install drivers (except the manufacturer says that you have to do it).

Do you have any yellow "question mark"-entries (for not recognized devices) in your device manager?

 

With Windows 10, can we still change in the Intel Setting the colors of your screen ? because it has by default some yellow teint, I put it cooler, is there no problem with the rotation of the screen in flip mode ?

 

Hi folks, It's been a long time since we were all complaining about shipping speed on this machine, huh? Glad to finally have it and be typing away, even if the gamers among us are having throttling issues.

I bought the Flip 15 (SVF15N190X) with a 256GB SSD. I just started a new job and they're offering to by me a work computer. I'm thinking of asking them for a 1TB SSD upgrade to my Flip instead. But I want to make sure that I'm looking at the right kind of drives.

Fire Bird Tech's thorough video service manual leads me to believe I need a SATA III 2.5" 7mm thick drive. So I should be good getting anything on this list, right?

Also, any thoughts on specific brands? Samsung, Crucial, and Sandisk I've all heard of. Don't know much about their respective reputations.

Finally, since I'm paranoid, anyone in the US know about how much a reasonable charge is to have a pro do the installation/upgrade for you?

Thank you!

 

Calibrator I think the way to get my bluetooth back is to reset my BIOS. Either that or to remove and put back the CMOS battery, which I dont want to do. How can I reset the BIOS which is the 1st option?

 

I don't see a list of drives on this link but you are right about the SSD type: 2.5", SATA3, height 7 mm max.

I can't recommend a specific drive as I have an "old" Samsung EVO 840 in my Flip, a model that isn't on sale anymore. Rightly so, by the way! Samsung built them with "cost effective" memory chips that get slower with time so they had to issue several firmware updates to finally (hopefully) resolve the problem.
The newer Samsung SSDs (850 etc.) shouldn't have this specific problem, though.

Also, several manufacturers had problems with their SSD products, including Crucial with some compatibility problems. My advice therefore is to choose a product (for price or performance, althought they don't vary that much in the latter) and then do some research online if there are specific problems associated with this drive.

 

Basically, you can reset the BIOS parameters from within the BIOS setup menu.
Enter the BIOS by using the Assist key and then press the appropriate function key (the menu should have an entry either on the bottom of the screen or on the "exit page" where you can also save your changes.

Of course you should write all parameters down so that you can restore them easily (not that there are many in a Flip BIOS...).

The question remains if this is sufficient, though. Did you already try a reset using the pinhole on the backside, yet?

 

Calibrator I'm making progress in getting my BT back. Appreciate it.

On a side note, I tried to unlock the BIOS. But I got a typical security message common to many computers that states that the BIOS is not bypassable. The mod at BIOS-mods. com then suggested that I buy 2 circuit adapters to physically connect them to the BIOS chip on the motherboard; and run a program to unlock the BIOS. It looks like its the only way to do this. On ebay these adapters are very cheap so I'll buy them. Once I do this I'll provide the unlocked BIOS to the forum.

My request to you or anyone here is to upload a pic showing where the BIOS chip is located on the motherboard. I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks, Calibrator. The list I meant to post was here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/searc...+4294949651+4200150884+4294949649&srtclk=sort

Most cost-effective is a SanDisk 960GB "Ultra II " Any thoughts?

 

I'm glad that you are after cost-effective drives as differences in read/write speeds of the various SATA3-SSDs (450-550 MB/s) are irrelevant for most users. All drives are fast but you only notice the differences in benchmarks and not in person.

This is also why I never buy "the fastest" of anything as the top products are often only slightly faster than the second best products but unproportionally more expensive (+10% speed, which you personally won't notice, but 20% more expensive).
The only exception was the Flip where the fastest is barely sufficient for me... ;-)

That being said I don't know the Sandisk SSDs personally. I recommend that you do a google search yourself and not only depend on the opinions of other people. Most users usually won't have negative experiences and no compatibility issues - it takes the internet to collect the misfires...

 

From what I gather from the photos of the motherboard of the Flip I can't see the BIOS chip at all when the Flip is in working condition (backside cover removed).
So the chip is either on the top side (between motherboard and keyboard) or buried under one of the coolers.
I therefore assume that you more or less need to completely take your Flip apart - at least remove the vital parts - to get to the chip.

This immediately leads to two questions:
a) Will the circuit adapter work if you stick them onto a powerless chip?
(If you remove the cooler or even the complete motherboard you can't simply power it up)

b) Are you really sure that you want to tackle this? Getting things apart is relatively easy but you need to assemble them again...
If you choose to do it be extremely careful with some of the connectors - they are very fragile!