Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

it does seem impractical with 6, but heres why I took it, :because i intend to turn page file off. on my vista, with page filing on, ram useage is like 30% and with it off, its around 65-70%. why? massive, massive performance boost. my pc performance does not degrade, with a fragmenting HDD,(of course i'm an unemployed 18, I dont have the money for an SSD), windows is always snappy and feels so crisp. and yeah, i know, why do i have a sucky graphics card?..i didnt know anything about graphics cards when i was ordering, now i know how openCL and hardware tesselation and even how stream processing works, so i regret the 5470. if you dont have an ssd, get the 6 gig(note you can upgrade at anytime in future though, save your money and get stuff you cant upgrade later like the graphics card and processor) and yes there are applications that can use 100% of your ram, try uharc file compressor with the highest dictionary size, its a tiny free program used to compress files but uses massive amounts of ram, others too like Vmware virtual app and xenocode virtual studio use up all my ram and cause the system to crash in seconds.

my estimated delivery time was 3rd agust, then 23rd agust and now 1st september,
JonnyCasino(or some one, anyone!!!), I would be eternally thankful if you could suggest me a laptop/brand of similar specification, might as well cancel the damn order...

 

hi there, they did have me upgrade the bios through phone support, and same sound. it may have decreased ever so slightly but definitely still noticeable. its really high pitched and i cant ignore it, its not like a hard drive whirring or anything... any other thoughts? i think they want me to ship it back to them now but if its never going to get better i don't know what to do...

 

When choosing the colour of the 15.5", I'm confused about where it says 'keyboard glossy white, outside lid silver'
Does that mean all the inside is white but the cover is silver?
i wanted it all to be white

You've made me want the 1080p one now

I don't think I will though, because it adds an extra week to delivery and I need it asap so it gets here before I go to uni

Plus I'm gunna get a 1080p monitor + HDMI cable, and I'll only be playing the sims when I'm hooked up to that anyway I think

 

Proof that Sony's ordering system is borked.

Unless you get shafted on the estimate like we did lol

 

You need to enter BIOS and manually disable C3/C6 support (this was the new option you got in the update). Apparently that fixes the issue, but it should have a somewhat negative impact on battery life.

On the bright side the silver lid got an engraved VAIO logo looking stylish while the glossy lids just have their logo painted on! But yes silver means silver.

 

hi all vaio owners ^^
i really had a hard time deciding between these two vaios , can you guys help me which one to get

Vaio VPCEA16FG
Intel Core i5-520m
ATI 5650 1GB
14" 1366x768
DVDRW
4GB DDR3

vs

Vaio VPCEB27FG
Intel Core i3-350m
ATI 5650 1GB
15'5" 1920x1080
BD combo
4GB DDR3

i'd love to play games like NFS Shift , COD MW2 , Dirt 2 , GTA IV etc
i heard gaming at non native res will make games look blurry and bad
but the problem is i love watching 1080p videos too , can you guys help me decide
-___-
oh and regarding 14" ea16 low res , is it that bad compare to 15'5" EB27 FULLHD screen ?
thx ^^

 

you can just change the resolution in the game setings.

i hear the low res is dull.

 

Hey all, punched out some new numbers. This time real world results in Starcraft 2

Setting Min Avg Increase
Stock 450/790 11 19.1
Mem OC 450/950 11 19.1 0%
GPU OC 630/790 13 21.6 13%
Full OC 630/950 14 23.4 22%


Shows us in SC2 the memory is only holding you back at higher clockspeeds.

 

yea i know , but isn't the graphic turned bad compared to low res native gaming ?

like for example playing shift at high with low res native and with 1080p tuned down to non native 720p , is the difference noticeable ?

sorry for bad english

 

slightly yes, thats the problem with lcd's they work best only with native resolution. there is one thing though, if you run the game below the native resolution, you will get some free antialitsing at no performance cost(the blurry bit you are talking about). so to properly tweak the idea of running a game at lower resolution, lower the antialiasing or turn it completely off. this should make the difference only slightly noticeable.

 

Does anyone have any idea if the E Series has extra internal slots for 2.5" HDDs? I'm looking at getting an SSD ( 60gb OCZ from eBuyer - £119!) but 60gb isn't really enough for the rest of the gumf I tend to have on my laptop.

Thanks in advance!

 

The 17" EC has two bays, but the EB and EA only have one. Or, you can remove the optical drive and mount a HDD in there with a bracket. If you want two functional bays on the EC though, you need to order it with two HDDs. If the second bay is empty, they remove the connectors.

 

Ah, so is there a solution if I already have the 17" laptop but ordered it with only one HDD? Is it possible to order the connectors?

Thanks for the prompt reply, by the way!

 

Not sure, I suppose it's technically possible but I don't know how easy it would be to find the parts. You could always open it up and check if the bay actually has the connector in it, they might have left it.

 

Hi got a problem w/ my sony laptop order.

I've order the laptop from sonystyle.ca a couple of weeks ago. Two days after I placed my order, my friend show me a cheaper laptop but w/ better specs. Decided to get the cheaper one and called sony to see if I can cancel my order. The sales rep from sony says I can't. So around a week after my estimated shipping date, I called sony a couple of times to see when it'll be shipped. One of them says he'll ask around and e-mail me the status of laptop cause I kept hearing them saying that production facility require more time or shortage of supplies. Anyway I got an email today saying it was canceled, so I called to confirm it. A different sales rep says its not. Have no idea what's going on. Anyone know where/who can I ask

 

I'm new here, and a owner of a Sony Vaio EC series. I have several questions with the laptop.

1.) I have a screen resolution of 1600x900 (sucks that they don't have fullHD avaliable), and when I lower the screen resolution to a resolution like 800x600, the screen doesn't stretch the resolution out, and instead enlarges and leaves the aspect ratio alone. I'm left with two black bars on each side. Is there a way to let it stretch the resolution out?

2.) If 1.) is not possible, is there a way for me to swap out my panel for a better screen?

3.) Is there a way to overclock the CPU? I tried setFSB and clockgen, but doesn't seem to support the PLL and motherboard.

In exchange, I can give out some basic stats about the extended battery. For people that are curious about the 54 Wh extended battery, I have it and a full charge will give the laptop roughly a bit over 3 hours with brightness lowest and a i540m with a ATI 5650 GPU. With full brightness, RAM and GPU overclock, it was able to last me about 1 hour 15 minutes. Of course, I don't keep it overclocked much, but it does well.

 

Woop, my new EB series arrived! Everything seems ok at the moment, but I think i'll get a UK Vaio power adapter in a Sony store though, just in case (plus I don't like having to use the plug adapter all the time).
Quick q re. re-installing Windows onto an SSD for anyone who might know (Mythdat? ), is the SSD formatted automatically before re-installation?

 

1) I had the same thing, I fixed it in the Catalyst Control Centre.. not at my laptop now so I'm working from memory. In the CCC, go to the desktop and displays tab. Somewhere there's a little black arrow, click that and choose configure or attributes. There's a setting there to choose your scaling method. If it's greyed out, set your resolution to a lower one so you can change the setting.

3) At the moment, no. But CPU overclocking gives very limited gains anyway.

 

SSDs usually come formatted. But if it's not, Windows installation will prompt you to format it. Remember to update your SSD firmware first - a lot of SSDs wipe all data when updating firmware.

 

Ah right. The SSD I'm going to use is the one I put into the last EB (the one that got the "OS not found" error), so it actually already has Windows 7 installed on it, but I think I need to re-install it as it's a new laptop (is this the correct assumption?), also, I'm trying to rule it out as the cause of that error.
And... I know I'm going to come off as a huge n00b with this, but... how do I update the SSD firmware first?

 

yeah sony is a pretty reputed company, but i say that their customer service sucks. try this though, call sony customer service five different times during the day. and see what they say, majority wins...thats the best i can think

try a site called laptopscreens.com, take apart the screen and put a new one in, yes it is possible from what i hear


***********!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHOPPIE!!! MY 100TH POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*******************

 

can anybody tell me which E series model suits my needs @US

1. Core i5 -540M
2. 500Gb HDD
3. 1080p FHD
4. US Backlit Keyboard
5. Essentially White one (i dnt like black color)
6. 6GB DDR3 RAM

 

I suppose if the hardware is exactly the same in your new machine you could just use the existing installation. But I'd always say new machine/HDD = new install.. way too much potential for things going wonky.

Different manufacturers use different methods to update firmware - look for the firmware update on your manufacturer's site. With Intel you burn the update to a CD/DVD then boot from it.

 

None of the E-Series models have a backlit keyboard. As for the rest, it could be pretty much any 15" or 17" E-Series.

 

Thanks for the information. It now works just fine.

Thanks, but I've heard that you need to know the specific screen model and such in order to do so. I'll see later if I need to do that.

 

To me, the web browsing on HD screen is a minor but somewhat constant headache. I went into Windows 7 settings and forced all applications to look bigger. After that, text still looked tiny in Firefox. Then I went ahead and forced Firefox to use font sizes no less than 22pt, overriding website settings. But this breaks the layout of the websites. I constantly struggle with buttons, tables, check boxes, and text silently disappearing from web sites because of this issue. A lot of websites insert images into their layout, and assume (wrongly) that everyone's text will line up correctly because the developers probably used the smaller fonts. The screen perfect for multimedia though. Ok, but not perfect for games. My old FPS games struggle at native resolution with the ATI 5470, so I went down to 1280x720. I never played at above 800x600 and now graphics look awesome to me. Sure, 1080p will look better, but I am happy what I get now.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy a laptop with HD screen yet, unless it's perhaps a 17inch model (a big maybe there still..) and a high end graphics card. The technology just isn't there yet. To be useful on smaller screens, Microsoft should add a higher magnification option to the OS and GPUs should get faster. The only reason I bought the HD screen (and paid about $100 more) was because the non-HD Sony LCDs do seem to have lower contrast, brightness, and overall quality.

 

Every time I login into my Windows 7 notebook, a message pops up asking for password to allow "VAIO Care" to start with administrator privileges (having managed proper multiuser OSes myself, I always insist on being a normal user without administrator privileges as much as possible).

What is VAIO Care, why does it need to run on login, and how can I disable it?

 

but in many reviews it's mentioned that the screen is only HD. Please tell me how to get FHD(1080p). i am ordering from online site sony.com

for more info, I am trying to buy EB series (15.5"). please guide me to get FHD. no customization option for FHD

 

Full HD screen is not available with EB series in US. However it is available in UK and some other markets.
Strange but it is a fact. Probably Sony US wants customers to choose their higher end models if customers want FULL HD. Who said - KKustomers are Kinggs !!
Probably Sony UK has more margin due to the 'NET' difference in price so they are letting us choose Full HD ;-)

 

Use Pinch on touchpad to Zoom Out and In. You would get better browsing experience than now.

 

This is an odd issue indeed. I live in the US and I got a 1080p model from newegg.com. I had to accept it with the i3-320 CPU and 5470 graphics. A few weeks later they run out of that model, and it was out of stock since then. Finding a model with ATI 5650 graphics is also pretty hard in the USA. newegg.com had it on and off sporadically.

 

Firefox doesn't play nice with DPI scaling, you can fix this by forcing Firefox to ignore Windows' DPI scaling setting, and then using an addon like NoSquint to let Firefox do its own scaling. That's what I do, works for me.

Personally I think the HD screen is worth it now. Maybe not with the 5470, but the 5650 is very capable of handling games at 1080p resolution. Even on rare occasions (only GTA4 so far) that I have to drop the resolution, the quality loss isn't bad at all.

 

Installed the SSD (Corsair Force 120GB). Re-installed Windows. Rebooted.

...
Turns out, it's the SSD. Found these threads on the Corsair forums, with plenty of people having the same problem. I reckon now the laptop I returned was absolutely fine.

Moral of the story is, if anyone is thinking of buying a Corsair Force SSD for this laptop, DON'T!!!

 

Ouch! Oh well.. at least you know what the problem is now, and have a shiny new laptop too.. and you can return that Corsair and buy a better SSD!

 

have you tried play NFS Shift at 1080p? and with most games which detail level you use when playing with native res?
thx

 

Not Shift, but I can play Race Driver Grid at 1080p res with nearly maxed settings at 30~fps.

 

I'm finally trying to order the 15" E-series through SonyStyle UK.

Bumping the screen to the HD one tells me that the resulting configuration is unavailable. Switching the graphics down to the 5470 fixes the problem.

How come I can have the HD screen or the 5650 but not both?

Edit: Seems the problem is actually to do with the colour chosen

 

No, but I play Dirt 2, which is probably a tad more demanding, on high

 

Although I am very happy with my 1366x768 screen I have to admit the 5650 is more capable than I thought it would be at 1920x1080.

I hooked it into my 46" Samsung and tried out Dirt 2 and Grid on high and they both ran great, fps was lower than I am used to at 1366x768 obviously but was still very playable (was using a 585/880 overclock for fullhd tho, at my normal laptop res I dont bother with OC'ing)

One game which did make me wish I had a full hd screen was Starcraft 2 the extra screen space made things so much better and the only graphical setting I had to turn down from my normal 1366x768 res was textures from ultra to high.

 

Hi Mythdat, I saw ur sig that you have X25-M 160GB SSD. is this product in Best buy - Intel X25-M the same model as urs? just different in capacity? How was its performance?

Also I saw Best buy - Intel OEM X25-M.. Which is better? and what is the big difference between the two?

Also, is it easy to install in the sony EB? are the screws compatible and the dimensions?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

 

Yep that's the same as mine. Performance isn't really the issue for me with SSDs, you won't even be able to notice the difference between one SSD and another unless you're using it for really heavy duty things. So I went for reliability and proven technology, which intel are tops for. There are 3rd generation Intel drives due at the end of the year though, if you want to wait.

The only differences between retail and OEM is that the retail comes in a fancy retail box and has a bracket needed to install the drive in desktop computers. OEM is just the drive in a plain brown box.

Installation is very easy - just open the panel, unscrew the old drive, slot the SSD in and screw it in. Then update firmware and install Windows.. done!

 

Thanks so much for the answer.. BTW, i just need to burn the firmware update, before i remove the HDD, right?

 

Yeah, just burn it now ready for when you install the SSD. And backup your Windows activation if you're going to be using the key that came with your laptop, it's easier than the hassle of phone activation. Oh and make a copy of your "VAIO Recovery" folder so you can install drivers and software from the recovery DVDs.. unless you're going to install VAIO Care, in which case it doesn't matter.

 

Cool.. thanks for the advices..

Cheers

 

So yeah, got my laptop Wednesday morning, the date it was meant to arrive so it took 2 weeks & 1 day to get here, which is actually pretty good considering. Haven't really played with it properly but so far I am lovin' it!

Just to remind you guys, I got the EA 14" one, with 1600x900 screen res - & I'm actually struggling to get used to it coz everything is SO tiny lol, so I'm having to use the 1280x something one, it doesn't look as sharp of course but I can live with that. I'm thinking maybe I should have gotten the 1300x something one instead & saved the £20, but like I said it's not that much of a problem since you can change it to being lower.

But another issue that is annoying me is the RSS feed thing that appears on the vaio gate - does anyone know how to get rid of that? It's bugging me so much coz it will constantly change messages & my eyes do not appreciate it

Other than that, I am really pleased with it so far, no fan noises apart from VERY slight hums, but to me I can hardly notice it comparing with my old laptop which sounds like an engine running!

 

Could someone please tell me what make/model of wireless network card is installed in the e series vaio?

Thanks!

 

Click the circle on the top right hand side of the vaio gate, then change "RSS and notification display time" slider to 0 sec(off).

 

Omg, thanks so much for that! Such an obvious thing for me to have missed, I have checked there a dozen times & never even spotted that properly, probably misread it for something else. My bad, but thanks

 

Depends where you are. In the UK it's an Atheros AR9285, don't know about anywhere else

 

What's the display on this thing? whats the highest resolution..