Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

It's not so much a "need" as a "want" !! More storage the better !!

I plan on using my E mainly as a desktop replacement so it will be hooked to the mains electricity most of the time ...... does this reduce battery life or create any excess heat? Just wanna make sure!

 

Being plugged into the mains does not reduce battery life or create excess heat. Speaking of which, my EB seems to stay pretty cool, even without a notebook cooler. However, since you'll be at your desk anyway, you might want to get a cooler such as this one:
Amazon.com: Zalman NC1000-S Notebook Cooler (Silver): Electronics ---it's very quiet and may prolong the life of your notebook.

But since you're mostly at a desktop anyway, that's all the more reason to just use an external drive for excess storage. YMMV.

 

You might want to see my post upthread (#1042) regarding 5400 vs 7200 drive speeds in a read-write test. I'm not sure if/how that would apply to gaming though.

 

I don't think the resolution will make all that much difference in WoW because you can scale the interface according to your needs, and it's very much an interface kind of game. In other games that can't be scaled, hi-res screens will give you more screen space.

But it's worth considering that the HD screen is better quality beyond just the resolution. I haven't seen one personally, but a few people here have said they were disappointed with the lo-res screen's brightness.

Overclocking is very easy. It's just a matter of downloading AMD GPU Clock Tool, entering two numbers for the core and memory clocks, and clicking 'set clocks'. then when you're done clicking another button to restore defaults.

 

I'm happy with 1366x768 for WoW and for games in general. As previous poster said it's easy to scale the UI size in WoW and then for other games I know that I will be able to play at higher settings than if I'd have the better resolution.

However colors are pretty meh compared to my desktop screen. Productive applications like After Effects, Photoshop, Video editing apps, etc could really benefit a lot from a better resolution. If you plan on doing any work in any application like that, I'd say go for the 1080p screen.

And as for the 7200 RPM drive as a previous poster said it's not a safe bet on actually getting better performance. Though as I understood it, tantamount did buy his own 7200 RPM drive and there might actually be a chance that Sony's choice of 7200 RPM actually performs better than their choice of 5400 RPM drive. In my Notebook, the 500 GB (Western Digital) 5400 RPM drive was bottlenecking the whole experience by quite a lot though.

And yes "overclocking" (in this case bringing up the clock closer to reference speed) is very easy. As Mythdat said, just install the AMD GPU Clock tool and set the speed closer to 600 Mhz. I myself run MSI Afterburner, which is a little bit trickier to set up and has less powerful clock options but in exchange it can manage different clock profiles.

 

Woohoo!!!! I am now an official E series owner! Laptop arrived yesterday but I only had time to unpack the box last night. So tonight is the big night - in between the footie.

What should I do? Check the memory size etc. is what I paid for? What's best way of doing that? What software should I put on first? Should I un-install everything and then redo? only 3 hrs till I get off work.... the excitement.....

 

Grats!

Easiest way to check is to just look at the Windows system properties

You could do a fresh install, but I'd suggest playing about with it for a few days first. There's quite a lot of Sony software that comes pre-installed. So see which ones you want, which ones you don't, then you can just install the stuff you need when you do the clean install. Or maybe you'll decide you're happy with it as it is. If you do want to do a clean install, check out this thread for the easiest way of doing it:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/146033-how-optimize-any-sony-vaio-semi-clean-install.html

 

I'm having to do a complete recovery as Sony support recommended. Then, if that doesn't work they will have to take it away for repairing (to fix the wireless - the signal strength goes to zero when the lid is closed). I wonder if I could request a free blu ray seeing as they have that offer right now and I only missed it by a few days when odering anyway. That would be nice.

 

sory to ask this but can i try clean install,i do have make already 4 recovery disks and i have a copy of seven,like previous hp 530 i had?

sony vaio EB1Z1E/B

 

Hi friends,
I'm from India i got sony CW series lap @US..
2.2Ghz
4GB DDR3
Bluray drive
500HDD
and i'm satisfied with this CW series now i'm in an idea to Get a E series laptop for my brother ..can u suggest me the battery lyf and its perfomance comparing with CW series...
waiting fr ur reply guys
Thanks in advance

 

Right guys, I have just found this Toshiba laptop and am now seriously having doubts about getting the Vaio :/

Satellite Pro L670-11D - Product Specifications - Toshiba

I can't see any faults with it - im guessing there will be no underclocked graphics card too which is a bonus and a mid way HD resolution which id prefer.

If people could give me their opinions on this laptop in comparison to the Vaio EB that would be great!

Thanks

 

Cakefish, let me know how it goes? I have exactly the same problem!

Thanks

 

Hi Lutze,

I have an EA2 laptop with core i5. My previous laptop was a Vaio S4XP which whose fan sounded like a tractor. This EA laptop I find very quiet unless it's under full load. Then it is very noticeable but I personally don't find it too obtrusive. At other times it's quiet and barely noticeable. You'll find at the initial power on the laptop will start off with the fan at full power but it quickly cycles down as it boots up to idle speed.

It's difficult to give an opinion on what is loud and what is not as everyones expectations vary. Having come from a previously very loud laptop, this to me is very quiet!

 

Update on the power drain in my EA2 laptop...


So I rang the Sony tech support line to investigate why my laptop was losing power in both hibernation and when it's fully switched off. The answer?

'It's designed like that'. What a load of dribble. Who would design a laptop that loses 10% power overnight when switched off? In hibernation it even drops around 8% after only 20-30mins.

His explanation was that even when switched off it needs a small amount of power to maintain some services, like the clock and that all laptops were like this. Seriously? 10% for a clock? I pressed him as to what other services needed power when switched off but he couldn't give me an answer.

His solution to the problem.. Take the battery out when not using it. Marvellous!

I really felt like I was being fobbed off. I also spoke to him about my new extended battery dropping the first 20% in 30mins. So he has had me do a test..

1. Charge to 100% and remove the battery
2. Boot into BIOS on A/C only
3. Whilst in BIOS connect the battery and remove the A/C cord

and then time how long it lasts. In BIOS the laptop must be at full power, the fan was at full load the entire time and it got quite hot. It lasted 78mins. He's calling me back sometime today. I'm not all that happy with the service so far though.

Also since he has had me do the test I have charged the laptop twice. It is now only charging to 72.2% (I have the 80% battery care enabled). Previously it was charging to 80%, whether that's just a coincidence or not I don't know.

Rant over

 

Just slapped a 256gb Samsung SSD in my E Series and did a clean Windows 7 install, very happy with the results, windows is booting in 11 seconds and everything is just extremely responsive, this is my first experience with a SSD took a chance as I managed to get it for £220 from ebay which seemed like a steal for 256gb.

Only annoying thing is the WEI Score for the ram now making everything else look bad.



Shouldn't 1033mhz ddr3 score higher than that? My desktop memory scores about 7.7 altho it is 1600mhz dd3, the drop to 5.9 just seems rather large.

To Cassiem about the toshiba, I guess it comes down to how important those extra 234 x 132 pixels are to you as that price is about £150 more than I paid for my Vaio through the SonyStyle site, I definitly prefer the look of this Glossy White build to anything else I've seen and I have never worried about the card being underclocked as its so simple to overclock to normal speeds and doesnt seem to affect the temps at all according to MSI Afterburner.

 

It needs repairing. They're collecting it tomorrow. Takes about 5 days apparently. The recovery didn't work, it's a hardware fault.

 

Mine's exactly the same, it's pretty normal as far as laptops are concerned, I've never seen many scoring much above 6.

 

I'm sorry to be barging in but, I just ordered my Vaio E notebook, here in the UK(they're so much more cheaper in the States....anyway

its

Intel Core i5 450M 2.4Ghz -free
6GB DDR3 RAM
320GB 5400rpm
Blu-Ray Writer -free
ATI HD5470
1920x1080 Screen

I guess I'll be reading every post from the start then, thanks to whoever started this thread...hmm....feels good to be part of something...I woulda never been able to afford a vaio if it werent for the free goodies..

Say, does anyone know, how long it takes Sony to assemble and deliver?, to say mainland London?

And how many hard disks can the E series take cause I was thinking in a second one.

Sorry, guy above me, please dont mind...

 

Just to let everyone know, I've have ordered my Vaio EB

I decided against the toshiba, although I am going to have to wait a loooong time for the Vaio - they are saying 8-9 weeks haha, think it was because i went for the 7200rpm speed hard drive.

I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Has anybody else got any experience on how long it takes for Sony to get them made and delivered? Have they predicted longer then it actually took?

And thank you to this thread and everyone who replied and gave me help on what specs to get, I think i've defo got whats best for my requirements now

 

The 17" has two HDD bays, but unless you order it with two HDDs in it, there won't be any connectors in the second. 14" and 15" only have one bay - if you want a second HDD in those, you'd have to take out the optical drive and put it in there (with the help of a bracket, which you'll have to find seperately)

Mainland London? Did it flood recently?

The delivery estimate was pretty accurate in my experience. But hey, you never know, maybe they'll get an early delivery of whatever component is holding it up.

And yeah - good choice!

 

OK, this FREE Blu-Ray Writer offer is too good to miss - I'm gonna pull the trigger tomorrow (finally!)

All in cost £719 but 5-6 weeks delivery! What ya'll think of this spec peeps?

i5-450M CPU (they are out of the 520m, dang it!)
4GB RAM
320GB-5400 HDD (wanted bigger but now plan on getting a SSD in 6 months!)
Blu-Ray Writer (saved £140 squid, hurrah!)
ATI HD5650 GPU
15.5" 1920x1080 Screen

I still haven't decided on the colour though! How glossy is the Glossy Black? Is it similar to a WD Passport finish?

Actually the normal Black looks pretty good too as does the Brown! Anybody got pics of their Sony E please!

Also, when I do replace the HDD, how do I reinstall Windows/Drivers etc - does Sony supply all the installation CD's?

Is there any way to get that price down - does Sony offer Student discounts or Quidco or anything?

 

Hello everybody. I'm having having some trouble with my Sony Vaio EB2Z1E/BQ (W7 HP, Corei5, Blu-ray).

First of all everytime I connect somthing using USB ports (mouse, flash drive) or turn on the webcam I can hear the dreaded CPU whine / high pitch buzzing noise comming from the upper left part of the keyboard. When I'm on power supply it's bearable but as soon as I swtich to battery it's becoming awful. It's gone almost instantly after unplugging the USB devices.

I was trying to find a solution but it looks like it all comes down to RMClock software which is not compatible with Core i5. Are there any other options to consider?

My second question is about warranty because I'm getting mixed answers. Long story short I've lost my recovery partition and never made recovery dvd's because I thought I would never need them (typical story ). I don't want to pay Sony for the dvd's because I don't really need them. Right now I'm on OEM W7 Home Premium installation using the CD Key that came with my notebook and drivers provided by Sony on their website.

What I want to know is if I decide to RMA my notebook because of that high pitch noise could sony service refuse to repair it because I'm not using their stock Windows installation?

...anyway sorry for the lengthy post and I hope somone will have the patience to read it through . Thanks in advance for any answers.

 

now thats really funny!

 

@breakdafunk

It's strange, a whine could mean either the cpu is damaged, or the fan is damaged. -thats a hardware issue and sony may pity you and fix it

or it could be a simple firmware thing-this may be why they are reluctant to fix it cause you tinkered around with the system and its kinda like voiding warranty.

or maybe they'll pity you or forget to read the 1 million page warranty handbook and just goddamn fix it for you.

(it should be your right though to delete the partition or whatever, and with loads of websites suggesting it, people are bound to do it, at the end of the day, you are still using their serial number and product so they should fix the problem.)

 

Ah, I see we've met a mutual offer!, I get you, more processing power than ram, I ordered yesterday and took 6gb ram and the hd5470, with the intention to make it future proof to an extent. I got the normal black cause i dont want people using my laptop as a convenient mirror.

i see that you have taken a slower hard disk, if you look on previous posts, as per the system rating on the eb, the hard disk seems to be the killer, so yeah, you should shove an ssd in.

Here: I've got a bunch of pics from several places, unfortunately only of the white and black one:

click me!

the software in the laptop will prompt you to make recovery disks. when you install the new hard disk, boot with those recovery disks, and then its all automatic. the new os will be installed on the ssd. you do not need to install drivers as they will come on the recovery disks. So basically, when you use the laptop for the first time, or next couple of times after getting it, Sony will tell you to make installation disks and it will make them.

If you buy another OS, and clean install then you will have to download drivers from sony.

And no, Sony dont care about us students, its costing me an arm and willy- 736GBP.(its waaaaay cheaper in the states). bout who can miss free blu-ray and i5?

 

Just ordered the same config (non glossy white). Delivery prognose between 20-27 July. So faster as on the site says 4-5 weeks. For the "free BR-writer" I give up the i5-520. I go for the smallest HD, I will replace with SSD.
Consider that dust is more visible on dark colours And glossy get scratched with the time when you clean it. My 2c.

For a mate LCD I woud pay a fine premium, but no manufacturer listen to customers

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the Glossy White, my gf got the exact same spec as me but in glossy black at the same time and imo both look great, can take some pics of the black once I get home if your more interested in that.

Glossy White EB Vaio

I ended up making the choice after viewing them in a sony store nearby and felt the glossy versions simply looked higher quality and scratch wise going by the display models its the opposite way round marks were much more noticeable on the non glossy black ones (hard to notice anything on white ones at all).

So far the gf's black one has no visible marks and she is pretty rough with hers throws all sorts of stuff on top of it when its sitting closed on the table ><

 

Do you lose all your data? I've had mine a few months and don't want to lose all the settings.

Thanks

 

guys, I ordered 6gb ram and a crappy video card-hd5470, big mistake?

 

If you're talking about the complete recovery then yes. If you mean the repairing then I don't know but they say they're not liable for any data loss and it could come back in factory condition. I just went and bought a backup external hard drive to be safe.

Depends what you want to use it for.

My old computer with 667MHz DDR2 RAM scored 5.0. New laptop with 1066MHz DDR3 RAM scores 5.9. Only 0.9 increase.

 

Mythdat did you install any special chipset drivers or just the ones from the support site, noticed in an SSD tweak guide they recommended using the latest "Intel Rapid Storage Technology 9.6" drivers but since I don't know what mobile intel chipset the E series uses I was unsure if they were compatible.

Wish it was possible to set AHCI mode in the bios too.

While posting might as well also ask if anyone ever managed to find a downloadable version of the Quickwebaccess for the e series or extract it from the restore discs.

 

The RST drivers aren't a part of the chipset package, they're a standalone "Rapid Storage Technology" install. But yeah, I got both that and the chipset drivers from the Intel site - the E-Series uses Intel 5 series drivers

AHCI is on, no need to set it

 

As someone else said, depends what you want to use it for. The 5650 is a LOT better than the 5470 though, so if you play games you might want to reconsider.

 

I went to the Sony Center today and they gave me a brand new notebook which is great. Unfortunately the high pitch noise is still present. I guess it's some kind of design problem and I will just need to learn to live with it because I really like this notebook .

 

Take some pics of the black one and post em tonight, I'd like to see them.

 

While on the RST topic. Installed it and it showed a great increase in performance according to windows experience index (though personally I didn't notice any speed dif. at all, but maybe it counts in other things like trim support and not just raw performance).

However, the disk activity light went nuts, and continued going nuts. Every second it blinked. Couldn't find any suspicious disk activity so I didn't get what was going on. Reverted to the old drivers and the blinking went away. However, the new WEI score is still 7.5 (as opposed to 5.9 before fiddling with RST). I'm very confused right now.



Edit: Though the new WEI score is still a mystery to me (I did run the tool between every driver installation/rollback), I think that either there's actually no real disk activity on the drive or it's the trim doing stupid stuff (doubt it). Googling about this didn't give much sane answers about why this is happening. Someone on these forums had found it to be the DVD-drive reminding the pc about its existence every second, showing it through the disk activity LED, but he referred to an article concerning windows 95/98/ME so I'm in doubt about that. Besides the old driver also showed dvd-drive activity through the disk LED, but not a notifier every second.

Running crystal disk mark now to see if there's any disk speed differences. (Edit #2, running without RST gave better performance according to the benchmark)

 

Can somebody give me cliffs about pros and cons about this serie? Can this be a good gaming laptop?

How about the battery drain? Any problems with fan (like in the F series), overheating...

And how about the material?

 

Gaming? Yes, but depending of which gfx you can get. Can you get a configuration with Ati Radeon HD 5650 you're good to go. Low res 1366x768 instead of the Full HD screen may be an advantage for higher graphical settings in games, but there are of course cons of choosing low res as well.

Drainage? There are reports of battery drains and also reported solutions like updating the Bluetooth firmware/driver.

Material? It's plastic. Pretty solid but there are places where dirt get stuck. If you don't care for a glossy plastic cover there is a fake silver (kind of like the nintendo DS original) lid that makes it look a little metallic. I'd guess it's called matte white when choosing color on sony style.

 

As a gaming example so far I've played / am playing the following at stated settings on my Vaio which has i5 520, Ati 5650, 4gbs ram, 1366 x 768 screen.

Dirt 2 - All High + 2xAA
Just Cause 2 - All High + 2xAA
CoD:MW2 - Maxed + 4xAA
Bioshock 1 and 2 - Maxed
Metro 2033 - DX9 High
Grid - Maxed + 4xAA
LFD2 - Maxed + 4xAA
The Witcher - Maxed + 2xAA
HL2, Ep1, Ep2 - Maxed + 4xAA
Oblivion - Very High + 4xAA
Fallout 3 - Very High + 4xAA

All these games played very smoothly at those settings, this is also without overclocking the 5650, havn't bothered overclocking as I havnt felt like I've needed it yet.

Have had no heat issues, battery wise obviously while gaming it vanishes rapid, however for general use, surfing etc on balaned power mode I've seen roughly 3 hours almost, not sure how much difference an ssd makes to the battery over a normal hdd. The fan is nice and quiet and as far as build quality goes the glossy versions (is what I own) are nice and solid.

 

Great info JonnyCasino thanks and repped

btw why you guys rather choose 1366x768 screen and not the Full Hd?

 

"As a gaming example so far I've played / am playing the following at stated settings on my Vaio which has i5 520, Ati 5650, 4gbs ram, 1366 x 768 screen.

Dirt 2 - All High + 2xAA
Just Cause 2 - All High + 2xAA
CoD:MW2 - Maxed + 4xAA
Bioshock 1 and 2 - Maxed
Metro 2033 - DX9 High
Grid - Maxed + 4xAA
LFD2 - Maxed + 4xAA
The Witcher - Maxed + 2xAA
HL2, Ep1, Ep2 - Maxed + 4xAA
Oblivion - Very High + 4xAA
Fallout 3 - Very High + 4xAA"

I cant believe you get it to play that smooth...i have the HD screen and wish i didnt because most new games only run on low settings and some i have to ramp the res down to 1366x768 just to play(mass effect 2/dragon rising)

Im going to sell my vaio because of this and get and different config with the smaller screen.

Anyone interested in a glossy white VPC-EB16 FG (I-3 330/4gig ram/500g hd/5650/full hd 1920x1080) ????

 

Sorry missed this, took a couple photo's but quality is crap only had phone camera to hand here.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

 

Alright, after reading through here I'm convinced I want a Vaio EB with Radeon HD5650. Couple of quick questions first I hope you knowledgeable folk can answer:

#1. I'm in the Rep. of Ireland, so I'm thinking of ordering from Germany and switching the keyboard for a UK one. Are keyboards easy to get/replace for the E series? (just had a quick look on ebay there and couldn't see any Vaio EB series keyboards being sold...)

#2. I'm seeing two model numbers for the EB I'm looking at:
VPC-EB1Z1E and VPC-EB2Z1E.
Is the latter an updated model (i.e. 2nd gen.) and if it is, is it worth waiting for it (it's not in stock yet)?

#3. For gaming, I've seen people with the 1080p screen mention they have to lower the screen resolution to play games, while people with the 720p screen don't seem to have any problems. Is the 720p screen actually recommended over the 1080p screen for gaming?

#4. I'd be using the ExpressCard slot for audio recording. Any issues I should be aware of (e.g. unusually high dpc latency, loud fan noise, issues with the ExpressCard slot etc.)?

Thanks!

 

So you guys telling me I should buy the one with the lower resolution?

 

Does anyone here who has ordered an E series laptop in the UK know, how long it takes to get the laptop, from order to receipt?

 

EDIT: Uh checked emails for dates and I was totally wrong before when I said 3 weeks. I ordered on the 26th April, was despatched on the 5th May, gf says it arrived on the 7th, so just short of 2 weeks.

 

I ordered 13 May, it said 6-8 wks. Went into production 26 Jun and arrived 6 Jul.

 

Which color is more manly? lava black or gunmetal black?
anyone go pics of either of em? and also which one has glitter on it haha? Thanks

 

free.......

 

I really do think that HD 5650 should be enough for moderate settings at 1080p and that actually lowering the resolution to a non-native of the screen, which obviously is the very last thing anyone would do with a game, is not what you have to resort to if you would choose the 1080p screen. You'd probably have to give up some eye candy though. Since I don't have the 1080p myself, I can't really bet my life on that however

Should I get the time, I'll try checking my own statement by connecting an external high res monitor and run some games.