Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

They're talking about replacing the E-Series keyboard with a backlit F keyboard

And yeah, without the sensor it'll just be on all the time

 

wow, now thats some news..

Well thats gonna put people off from doing it, I mean they are LED's but still thats still a lot of battery juice to keep it running all day...the only I can see this is now is a software modification that lets you control the light by actually using the keyboard, like a certain button configuration to turn it on and off..

 

To all those with 1080p display: is 1366x768 a supported resolution on your display?

How can I get this resolution to work in games? I've tried several ati driver versions.

 

What about right click, display properties?

 

Heh, oh believe me my family have been calling me worse things than a notebook geek for the past few weeks! I've been obsessing over how to fix my HP laptop (still have the parts of it scattered all around the house), then about which laptop to replace it with, then which color, which screen, which size, then which SSD to get for it (think I'm gonna go with a Corsair Force 120GB ), which ExpressCard firewire adapter to get (StarTech EC13942) and now which keyboard. My head hurts from laptop overload. And this forum hasn't helped, in fact I think it encourages this behaviour .

Anyways, after scouring the parts database on Zakkant's link ( awesome find by the way ), I found out that there are a few part numbers for the EB series Keyboards, e.g. A1773544A (US layout, Black) or A1773563A(Canadian layout (I think), White), but all EB series casing parts (inc. keyboards) seem to be listed under the code M970.
Search for EB series parts by putting "M970" in the "Description Contains" box.

The F series Keyboards also have a few part numbers, e.g. 148781111, but all casing parts for the F series are listed under the code M930.
Search for F series parts by putting "M930" in the "Description Contains" box.

Using the code numbers, I found a picture of the EB series keyboard, so I was able to look at both side by side. Here they are:


As you can (hopefully, I know the images aren't great) see, they aren't exactly the same . The clips on the bottom are in different places, which, even if they were the exact same dimensions, would make installation a real pain. It's too bad. At least the part number for the EB series keyboard is there for anyone who wants/needs to get another one.
I've only managed to find one guy selling them on eBay, and he's got a bunch of them in different colors and regional layouts, but if my theory is right, any one of them should fit in any Vaio EB series. I think I might go for a white one myself, just to be a bit different .

 

Wow, it says you still have your eb to be delivered(hold your horses!?!). By the way, what are the specs you've ordered?

 

Well I'll at least wait until it arrives of course! But I will *have* to switch out the keyboard sooner or later, because I've ordered from Germany. So the keyboard it will have when it arrives will have the German "QWERTZ" layout. It's supposed to arrive on Monday. Waiting sucks!
Specs I ordered are: Core i5 430M, 500 GB 5400 rpm HDD, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 5650, Blu-Ray player, 1080p screen. I ordered it from here, because Ireland has been screwed with the E series (as usual) and we can't get a model with the Radeon HD5650, despite the fact that people across the water or 100 miles up the road in the UK can get any configuration they'd like . And guess how much the models with the 5470 are going for? $1250! (€970)

 

Aww man, I ordered the 5470, I seriously hope its not a pathetic GPU, and yeah youre right, some electronics distributors tend to get things a little confused in Ireland(I lived in Dublin(Rathmines) for 4 and a half years, and did notice some strange things with the retailers(i guess its issues with demand, you'd see people buying electronics products just by coming to uk and only to buy electronics but they wouldnt see ireland as an option so its not a mass market). Anyway, yeah, in major countries like in the us and uk you'd expect them to put up offers, like theres no way I'd ever be able to afford a vaio(i'm only a student), and hey, getta load o this, free processor upgrade and free blu-ray writer, thats like gold.....

 

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I have the EB16FX in black. I knew it would be a fingerprint magnet and it is. I didn't think it would bother me too much, but it is starting too. Does anyone know of skins that would fit the e-series? I am seriously close to throwing on some electrical tape or duct tape. So bad.....

The other option is selling it. That could be annoying because I don't trust selling something for 700 on ebay or amazon, plus it has the higher capacity battery which isn't spec and it is used for 2 months.

 

A free Blu-ray writer sounds nice but not really useful, I much rather have an LED backlit screen (live in UK). Hope they gonna replace the "free upgrade to Blu-ray writer" with a free upgrade to ATI 5650 or a new option for a LED screen.

 

Anyone have tried overclocking ATI HD5470? and what is the maxed clock settings?

 

Imna Double that question. Anybody know? And what did you use to overclock it?

 

I would advise against overclocking. First thing you should try is to see if it actually works for your games. If you're satisfied, there is no need to overclock. Second issue, it's a laptop GPU. If it does not survive the overclocking, then you can throw away your notebook. There was some talk about overclocking the 5650s, but those were presumably underclocked by Sony, so they still have some overclocking tolerance built in. However, the E-series 5470 already runs at its rated clock speed, 750Mhz. I just checked that.

 

Apparently, the ATI Catalyst software suite 10.5 and 10.6 introduced some changes that breaks a lot of stuff in games based on Quake 3 (and older) engine (lots of textures look bad, etc). However, going back to the Sony package does not work. In fact, it completely breaks every opengl game I tried. It's hard to say what's going on. Some DLLs can't load. Perhaps ATI Catalyst made changes to the libraries that stay on the system even after removing the driver. Perhaps, the Sony installer of its version of Catalyst does not do a good job of installing things. I have no idea. I have spent hours trying to downgrade back to the original Catalyst, but older games stopped working completely when the Sony package is installed. Fortunately, Catalyst 10.4 does not break those games, so I went with the stock Catalyst 10.4 for now, and everything works. So, if anyone has those strange problems just install the 10.4 version of drivers and the control center.

 

Yeah, youre right, the 5470 is crazily clocked. the 750Mhz corespeed and 1.8Ghz memory clock is insane. A lot of high end cards arent even clocked at that much. I mean look at the memory, thats like high end 1866mhz ddr3(2033 or something is the highest). There is no point in overclocking insanely high speed like that. The only question that comes to my mind: does anyone know whether or not these high clock speeds translate to increased gaming performance, lets say in terms of FPS?

 

Right a question for all you Sony vaio owners e-series
Im from the UK and my laptop should be ariving early next week.

What would you advise to do when I first receive the laptop? - remove bloatware - how?
or is everything preloaded and good to go?

 

He guys, just bought this laptop, should be arriving in a few weeks

One sad thing about this is that there is no option to upgrade the battery, is it even possible to manually upgrade to a 9cell? I haven't seen the laptop myself so not sure where the battery fits.

Oh and for those who clocked the GPU to base clock, how is it running? fine?

Last question, it doesn't mention switchable graphics, is there way to do that myself manually switch to integrated graphics to save battery?

 

thanks a lot. was searching for this

 

The stock 3500 mAh is pretty old school. Once I made my specific power management adjustments mine got about 2.5 hours for common usage of internet and photo editing, some online video playing. I upgraded to the Sony High Capacity Battery, which is a 5000 mAh and is much better. For the same common usage it runs about 4.5 hours of fairly rugged use. I recently had someone watch Avatar blu-ray on battery and it was still going after.

I don't think you can switch to the integrated graphics... at least I don't know how. I am betting Sony disabled it in the bios. I have the 5470 which only has 80 stream processors vs the 5650 which has 400, so the power savings is already substantial. Plus these 5000 series cards downclock in 2D to low, low, low MHz.

 

I know that doom 3 can run at satisfying quality with the 1280x720 resolution, and it should run about as well at the native resolution for those with a non-HD screen. So Quake 4 and similar games should run as well. I am an old school FPS shooter gamer, so I haven't even tried anything newer but I believe some people had success with much newer games.

BTW, the graphics memory is GDDR3 and runs at 790MHz.

 

what the....they say 1800mhz on notebookcheck and 900Mhz on the amd site. No idea which it is until I get my laptop.

 

Those numbers are for GDDR5 memory - Sony must use GDDR3 instead. My 5650 has the same GDDR3 @ 790MHz as well (although 5650 can't have GDDR5 anyway). By the way, I overclock to 650/950 with no problems from 450/790. I don't know how different the 5470 is for overclocking, depends if it's undervolted or not.

On a different note: how many more hours could I get using the 5000mah battery with my spec? Is it worth the price?

 

Hmm i'm being slightly put of by 2 things:

1. The battery doesn't seem to be good and I can't find an option to upgrade to a high capacity through sony uk, does anyone know where is good place to buy one (for good price) ?

2. I was hoping to used the i5 integrated graphics for saving more battery when i'm not gaming, seems that's disabled. No fix for this I guess?

 

Hi guys,

quick question: for ati 5650 models, is there graphics switching ?

Thanks

 

I've asked earlier and it seems the answer is no, hopefully someone can tell me if it is completely disabled or if there is any way to manually do it.

 

thanks Da1

this is a pity, because the lack of graphics switching, along with difficulty of getting a 9 cell battery, means that the sony falls down on mobility. So I'm leaning towards an acer 4820 even though I am concerned about the build quality...

 

Same, the acer 4820tg would be ideal if it wasn't for the crappy low-res scree, that's the only reason I havn't bought the 4820tg. Otherwise it's great in all other areas and even has the 5650 clocked right and switcahble graphics.

Argh... this is difficult, it there are not switchable graphics then I wish I could pick a quad-core

 

Can anyone tell me if the new E series laptops has an option to enable virtulization in the BIOS (im thinking to run VMware Fusion)

Thanks

 

I'm thinking of getting this one:

Sony E series - VPCEB2M0E/WI
Hard Drive - 320
RAM - 4
Processor - Intel core i3


Any massive flaws I should know about? I'm not a gamer and I'm planning on using it for studing and for the usual photos/video etc.

Thanks.

D

 

Yes this option is available in the Bios.

 

Thanks for your help!!

 

The ONLY thing I don't like about this laptop are the speakers. Other than that it is totally worth the price

 

Solution for high pitched noise:

1. We have to change the registry.
Typing in the command line "regedit", you go to the registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Power \ PowerSettings \ 54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00 \ 5d76a2ca-e8c0-402f-a133-2158492d58ad

2. Included option in this branch will enable and disable the idle processor. In this case, it should be included.
To enable one or another hidden parameter, it is necessary to find and edit the value DWORD, changing its value SettingValue from 1 to 0.

3. Then, through the control panel - power - in the settings mode select power management processor.
There will be an option disabling idle processor and high pitched noise immediately disappears.

 

Forcing your CPU to run full throttle all the time and replacing the high pitched noise with fan noise, heat and power consumption isn't really a solution.. but thanks!

 

Hi Myth, and you know another solution to stop doing the tone and is not constantly running fan? Because I sent my vaio technical service and I sent it back with the same noise, and between foul and whistle blower, I prefer the latter. Thank you. (Translated by google)

 

I'm so glad I got lucky, as I hear no high pitch noise at all! I did hear it when I first got the computer but it stopped after a couple of restarts - strange huh?

By the way, has anyone noticed that there is no BIOS update on the Sony website available for download?

 

Other than opening up your laptop and physically messing with your motherboard to stop the capacitors resonating, nope. It's either high pitched whine or fan noise+heat+power consumption. I'll take the whine.

They haven't released one.. I wouldn't hold your breath for one either, Sony aren't big on updates.

 

My laptop arrived! Everything looks great, except it's all in German, so I want to re-install windows. Is there a way of creating a backup disk for all the drivers first?

 

one desperate way to copy the drivers is to copy everything in system32/drivers and paste it later into the same folder but this is only for system drivers and not for viao software(as i have learnt from some on in this thread)

why dont you ask some on who has them backed up to upload them somewhere and you can download them. i think mythdat stated that he had them in an earlier post.

 

Well I'd probably get rid of most of the vaio software anyway (the bar up top with all the quick links is pretty cool though, I might keep that). Funny thing about the keyboard: when typing on here (as I am now), it must think my keyboard is UK or US because I'm typing "z" and it's detecting "y" and vice versa. I'm gonna order a white UK one today. Has anyone taken apart one of these things? I don't think there's a hardware and maintenance manual out (yet) but I'm a bit worried about the idea of being a complete pioneer!

 

Create your recovery DVDs with VAIO Care, and copy the "VAIO Recovery" folder from /Program Files/Sony to a DVD or USB key or something. This will allow you to install the drivers and software from the recovery DVDs (or recovery partition if you choose to keep it)

 

Oh, and.. direct link to the installer file of today's Catalyst 10.7 for us Sony users:

www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/10-7_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.exe

 

Drivers for XP if you could please
Thx

 

Could I copy them to an external hard drive instead? And then download a Windows 7 iso, burn it to a dvd, reinstall windows from the dvd and then when it boots up, re-install the drivers? Is that the process? (sorry for the n00b questions, I'm brand new to the whole "reinstalling windows" gig ). I think I'll wait to reinstall until I get the SSD I ordered (no point doing it twice I figure, except maybe to practice!), so I'm stuck with "Das Deutsche 'Fensters'" until then... kinda wishing I'd been better at German in school right now...

 

Copy the Recovery DVDs to external HDD, you mean? No, you'll need them in DVD format. When you run the VAIO Recovery program from the folder I mentioned to copy, it'll first check for the recovery partition, and if it's not there, it'll ask for the recovery DVDs.

 

Hmm, I've only got a folder called "Vaio Care". Same thing? (it could be a regional thing maybe). Could I copy the "Vaio Recovery"/"Vaio Care" folder to an external HDD after I make the dvds?
EDIT: I've a "Vaio Recovery" .dll file in the Vaio Care folder, any use?

 

whoa...aint this a beta version?

 

No, that's the official release

 

Apparently I can download them direct from their website. There was no restriction at all!

But the drivers didn't install, they said they were already up-to-date

EDIT: the version you linked to works so thank you