Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and saw the EB at the Sony store this
morning. There's no mention of this Vaio in the Canadian Sony site, so when
I first saw this 15" laptop with a keypad, my reaction was, "What the...." The store employee said it had just arrived yesterday, so they should appear shortly where you are. This one had the i3-330, the ATI 5470 GPU, 5400RPM 500GB HD, and 4GB RAM, for $799 Cdn, basically a base model.

 

Anyone else notice this on the Cdn CTO site?

500GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm) [add $460.00]

 

Hey Drambuie,

The CTO EB is available on sonystyle.ca

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...mId=8198552921666105150&IRTrack=HomepageSpot3

You just need to know where to look. When you go to the home page click in the top left corner where the logo says "Sony Style Canada" I find that clicking this brings you to the most "freshest" of the page. Even hitting F5 does not show the E, you need to click the top left logo. You will then see the E under "Featured Models".

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/servlet/HomepageView?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001

Hope this helps.

 

I was just at the Richmond Centre one, less than an hour ago. The sales person did not even know what an EB was. He was like...oh...is that new? Did you see it on the website?

Sheesh...

 

Thanks. I usually go to sony.ca to see the CTO and prebuilt models, and the new E is only shown on the sonystyle.ca entry to the site.

I may have been wrong in the EB price. It may have been $999, but it was definitely less than $1k. I just popped in to see if the other F models had arrived yet. I really didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the EB as it was only an i3. I don't know why the local Sony store seems to just get the base models. Even after the FW refresh last fall, they only carried the base FW510.

The F has the standard US keyboard layout, whereas the E has the bilingual layout.

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input from all so far.

Is anyone aware of whether the CW (gt330m) was underclocked as heavily, as the 3d mark 06 result of 6000 for OtaCons ATI hd5650 seems a fair bit lower than results I have seen for the CW's gt330m (6300 points not OC'd)

Surely the 5650 should be a fair bit quicker than a gt330 full-stop?

Would the 3dmark 06 score be affected by having a core i5 520 instead of 430.

I called Sony Style today to see if I could request my GPU not be underclocked - no luck. Was a looong shot anyway - the guy I spoke to didn't even seem to know what I was talking about, and I'm sure it's nigh on impossible to get a bespoke request anywhere near the desk of an engineer. haha - worth trying I suppose

Anyone know what sort of Overclock might be possible on my HD5650? Would like to be running steadily at about 7300 points in 3d mark 06

Ps. My order is for Core i5 520m, 320 Gb 5400 rpm, ATI Mobility Radeon 5650, Full HD (1920x1080), Blu Ray player.

Cheers all

 

I guess it all depends on whether 3d mark results mean all that much. I am sure there will be a discrepancy between the ATI and NVidia cards, but maybe it is because the Nvidia just runs 3dmarks better? In my reading (notebookcheck) the 5650 is a hell of a lot faster in most results (20% from what I've seen).

 

Hi Guys,

I am from Hong Kong. I tried out the EB17 & the F 117, definately the mouse pad on the EB17 is less sensative and missed some of the double taps. I tried to readjusted it at Sonystyle's show room but in vain. On the contrary, the mouse pad on the F is very smooth and sensative and responsed to each and every double taps I did.

Can someone who bought EB17 say a few words about this mouse pad issue?

PS, one buyer in HK found his 5650 vidcard on the EB17 has 2 G ram!

 

I just got my EB1M1E this monday (i3 330m, 4 gb ram, 5650 1 gb), and found out about the downclocked GPU. So I used AMD GPU Clock Tool to overclock the 5650 from 450 Mhz to 650 Mhgz, then used OCCT to stress test the GPU. After 40 minutes at 99-100% load the temperature was almost exactly the same as before I had clocked, maybe one degree hotter at the most. It never even went above 61 degrees Celsius according to GPUz. I don't know much about overclocking, but does this mean that we can run this card at 650 Mhz without any side effects like shorter life span or possible errors? If heat is the only thing to worry about then it seems overclocking this laptop's graphic card is no problem at all.

 

Did you try the 3Dmark06 with the overclocked settings?

 

Yes I did

6628 points @ 450 Mhz

7583 points @650 Mhz

 

That's great result! I believe you made many ppl happy with that information. Hopefully it'll work well

 

I should add that this is the i3 version and that I removed all the Sony bloatware (except a couple of VAIO things like the hot key controller).

 

Nice! Glad to know we can just bring it up to stock speeds. Thanks for being the guinea pig

 

I believe most 5650s are clocked at 550 Mhz, so 650 Mhz would be a 100 Mhz overclock from the non-underclocked stock speed. I still want to stress that I don't know much about overclocking, I simply raised the clock speed, ran the stress test and checked the temperature. I'm amazed that it doesn't really get any hotter at 44% overclock (450->650), could anyone explain this?

 

What is the power of the adapter? (hopefully not 70W )
Have you checked the BIOS to see if you can switch to intel IGP?
And I guess it's to much to ask you if the processor is soldered to MB...

thanks

 

As far as I know, 5650's are rated by ATI at between 450Mhz and 650Mhz, so you're right at the top end of 'stock' speeds there. No idea about the heat though! I might test it on my i5 later and see if that gets more toasty..

 

I think the adapter is 90W, it doesn't say on it but I googled the model (vgp-ac19v33) and found a page that said 90W...

 

One question: if I want ot upgrade CPU manually on EB laptops, is that an easy operation or not? Could you post a pic of the bottom?

Thanks in advance

 

I've just received my E Series a couple of days ago. I've noticed the hard drive underneath the right-hand side of the palmrest is constantly making a high-pitched whinning noise, and it's starting to annoy me.

Has anyone else experienced the same?


Here're the specs, in case they're somehow relevant:

Core i5 430M 2.26Ghz
4GB RAM
ATI HD5650 1GB video card
1920x1080 LCD
320GB SATA 5400rpm HDD
Blu-ray Player
Windows 7 Home Premium x64

 

I was considering a UK EB Series with ATi 5650 GPU and 1080 screen. It seemed good value for money.

But now I am unsure after learning that the 5650 is under-clocked. Why would Sony under-clock the GPU? Surely they would do this for a reason like heat etc?

I knew there had to be a catch to the low price tag!

 

Didn't you read the last page? It seems like you can overclock it without problem...

 

No offense, but that doesn't mean a whole lot... there ought to be a reason why Sony chose to underclock the card. Who knows? Through their inhouse tests, the GPU might have became unstable. Besides, it's not summer yet. Who knows you'd be able to run the card all stable at overclocked speeds then?

 

Or they just wanted to make EB weaker than F? Make sense to me...they made model which is a bit too competitive to their higher range model...

 

I'm wondering about this myself. Through this forum, I also discovered that the ATI 4650 card in FW series Sony was also underclocked.

I agree with metsn for E series case, they might not want to make the E series more powerful than the F, as top of the line F is only available with the nvidia 330M cards. Probably also the reason why in markets where you can get the 5650 card, you can't order the Core i7 version (even the Core i5 version is not available here) and in the market where you can get the Core i7 version, you can only get the 5470 card. (tho I might be wrong, who knows you can configure a Core i7 with ATI 5650 somewhere out there)

It's a good thing that the ATI 5650 card can be overclocked to the max spec. clock without issues though. I am waiting for the local stores to receive their batch of Vaio E series, then I will get the EB17FG model. Can't wait!!

 

It is only possible to configure i7 with 5650 in Japan...well as usually

 

Also, just because it is underclocked now, doesn't mean it won't be clocked higher in later firmware. Also, it could be designed to run ultra cool and also last longer. The higher the clock the hotter and faster it will wear. I don't believe it would be bad to overclock a little bit, but that all depends on if you upgrade every 3 years or every 10.

 

But it's not really cooler underclocked. I agree with the view that it might simply be because they don't want a cheap Vaio to be that powerful and dilute their branding strategy.

And cy007, my overclocked temperatures are basically the same as the underclocked ones, so I don't see why that would change in summer. Other 5650s are clocked at 100 Mhz higher and since the temperature obviously can't be the problem, then why are they underclocked? Are the 5650s in the EB series somehow worse than the ones in other laptops and therefore don't function as well at 550 Mhz? I seriously doubt it, and that's why I find the above explanation to be the most likely one.

I'd still like other people to try overclocking their laptops as well, does anyone here own it except me?

 

Yes, I did read the last page. Did you fully read my post?

My point was that I do not understand why Sony have decided to underclock the 5650.

I can just see it now. My GPU dies after 11 months and I call up Sony who tell me my warranty is void as I have overlocked gpu.

 

11 months of over-clocked enjoyment, it's time to buy a new machine

 

Sony cannot possibly know that you have overclocked your GPU temporary using software. Also, as I said I don't know that much about overclocking, but how could the card die if it doesn't get really hot? I played Dawn of War 2 for a few hours today at 650 Mhz and the GPU temperature peaked at 65 degrees, averaging a couple of degrees below that (yes strangely somewhat hotter than when I ran the benchmark). I've heard of laptop GPU temperatures far above that still being considered ok. For example this page states that almost 90 degrees is acceptable for extended use on modern graphics cards. My old laptop almost burned me when I had it in my lap and it's still going after almost 4 years. This laptop is nowhere near that hot, but if you know something I don't about how this could still damage the laptop, please tell me

 

The website you reference is focused on desktop GPU cards. Dont forget desktop cards are usually more reliable than their mobile relatives. Being soldered directly onto the motherboard doesnt help.

So the following have been put foward as reasons why Sony has under clocked the 5650 card:

- To ensure that the F Series > E Series
- Heat Issues

Another possible reason may be down to the compact case that is used on the EB Series?

 

But even with laptops being more sensitive to heat than desktops, will 65 degrees instead of 60 really affect the computer? Like I said, my old Asus is much hotter for example. I've also read accounts of laptops running much hotter at stock speeds without any problems. Also I got 65 degrees when overclocking to 650 Mhz, if I only did 550 Mhz (the stock speed that we expected Sony to use) it would be even cooler.

 

Good point.

Gupp please can you post the full spec of your machine. I believe you mentioned it was the i3 version. But could you detail ram size and from which country version it is (UK/DE etc)

 

65C is completely fine. GPU in my Z is commonly around 80C while gaming with stock drivers and no overclocking.

 

Hong Kong EB owners beginning to report mousepad failure and other hiccups like: mouse pointer wondering around even finger stands still, 4G RAM only 3.86G usable , when loading Bluray the system hangs...

 

hmm.. this is actually worse news than the underclocked GPU. The touchpad failure and the bluray issue that is. I hope that issue is just random and not affected many units...
About the system memory, maybe it is being shared to the VRAM? Not all EB has ATI card, and even those with ATI card is also capable to share system memory on top of the dedicated memory.

 

The specs are

Sony Vaio EB1M1E (swedish version)
15,5"
Intel Core i3 330m
4 GB DDR3 RAM
500 GB 5400rpm HDD
ATI Radeon 5650 1GB

That should settle it then! Does anyone know if other laptops using 5650 (and similar specs) run as cool as this one?

 

For those who already have their E series, I have a question.. I noticed the "display off" button is appearing in several Vaio models, but the E series doesn't have it. Is it still possible to turn off the display manually?

 

Same question about the RAM was on the Czech board. He has the VPCEB1S1E/WI with 5650...no answer found yet.

 

I actually talked to a supervisor at SonyStyle HK, he was trying to bluff me with some not make sense answer like getting 1814M RAM more the graphic card will run more smoothly, graphic mapping, so on and so forth. Eventually, he admitted there is a bug in the BIOS and later firmware, hopfully, will fix it!

 

Good to know...well, nobody's perfect

 

I came across a thread from another forum about the Acer 5740 series with Core i3-330M/350M processor, and he was asking the same question. It shows 4Gb of RAM and only 3.68Gb usable (not 3.86Gb) but the laptop he mentioned has Intel integrated GPU.
ATI Radeon cards, even those with dedicated VRAM, also have a feature that shares the system RAM with video card (I believe it's called HyperMemory and I read somewhere that ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 in some laptops can use up to 4091Mb).
There are also a lot of discussions online asking how to disable hypermemory feature with no avail. Could it be that?
I don't have any personal experience with ATI HyperMemory or nVidia Turbo cache, so I'm just guessing here.

If this is firmware issue rather than video card using the system RAM, does this mean it happens to every current EB series?
@gupp: Is yours showing 3.86Gb usable RAM too?

 

The SonyStyle man said not only EB series, some other Sony series are also doing the same thing! Could be a commond issue with the i3, i5 & i7 , just guessing

 

that thing about the ram is the same when you use Windows with 32 bits insted of 64 bits to use all the ram available.

 

Hi Guys,

please help me!!! If I order the new E series with the 1920 x 1080 resolution screen, but the icons and documents are too small for my eyes, can I change the screen resolution in Windows Display Properties to 1366 x 768 ?

So in this case, can I change the screen resolution between 1920 x 1080 and 1366 x 768 whenever I want to switch? When watching a movie: change it to 1920 x 1080 and then to 1366 x 768 when eg. writing an e-mail?

If this works, then I think I would order the 1920 x 1080 screen.

Many thanks,
V.

 

vvik: I just use Windows' own setting to scale things up, works perfectly.

In other news, I've just ran a quick overclock test on my i5 + 5650 EB to see if I got the same results as gupp, and I pretty much did. Stressed for 10 mins each with Furmark.

450MHz: max temp 65 degrees
550MHz: max temp 66 degrees

So it seems there's really no thermal issues with reversing Sony's underclock. Other issues - I have no idea. I'm just using 450MHz for now as I don't really need the extra power.

 

Sure, it is possible to lower down the resolution of your screen. However, from my experience, the picture displayed would not be as sharp as when running on it's native resolution.
Like mythdat has mentioned, you can also scale things up in windows and set your browser to increase the font for browsing and writing e-mails

That's good to know, so 2 people has successfully overclocked their card

 

how hot does it get on the underside? I know the dell studios are too hot to put on ones lap now does the e series match up?

 

So are your results better with i5, or the processor doesn't matter in 3DMark06 at all? And did you try 650 Mhz, as well as gupp? That still should be fine.

Three, another person on Czech board got 7633 points in 3DMark06 (1366x768, without AA)