Official VAIO E Series Owners Thread

Speaking for the E B...

I can't say I've encountered any fan noise issues, although I think someone was dealing with that just a few posts upstream of this one, so you may want to check. Battery life is not horrible, but not as good as my old Lenovo either, mainly (I think) due to the fact that the superb graphics are not switchable. I knew the mediocre battery performance and lack of switchable graphics issues going in, but at this price point one must pick and choose the compromises they will accept, and those were the ones I was willing to deal with.

Aside from those issues, I had a very pesky problem that ultimately turned out to be the wrong driver for my wireless card. Once I resolved that issue, the notebook has been top-notch.

Would I buy this again? If you asked me a month ago I would have said no. But having repaired the driver problem completely (it was a question of finding the correct driver), I would definitely vote FOR the EB series.

Pro's:

• the numeric keyboard
• the excellent screen (definitely go HD!)
• the HDMI out (nice with the blu-ray player option - you can play bu-ray on the laptop and output to the TV)
• the rather cool styling and color choices (go surfer blue!)
• the portability (a factor against the F series, and the EB was right at the outer edge of portability for me)

Con's:

• the mediocre battery life (lifestyle choice here...)
• questionable configuration issues out of the box (buggy wireless driver in my case that Sony tech support made much worse until I figured it out - and the full solution is in this thread, by the way)
• the incredible bloatware
• +/- fan noise issues? Not on mine - quiet as a mouse...

"Must have's" in configuring:

• HD screen - can't emphasize it enough, it's that good, and the dedicated ATI graphics card that drives it
• blu-Ray optical drive (mine reads Blu-Ray/DVD/CD but only writes to DVD/CD)
• color choice - hey, in 6 months you won't miss the $50 extra bucks, but you'll still be living with the color choice

Hope that helps. Good alternatives to the EB line are the Lenovo T-410/510 series, and Lenovo has MUCH better online driver support. In fact my choices came down to Lenovo or VAIO - both at almost identical price points with an educational discount. I ultimately went with the VAIO because it was more multimedia-oriented (HDMI out, etc) while the Lenovo T's were more business-oriented. Lenovo wins hands-down in ruggedness/durability - perhaps second only to the Panasonic Toughbooks. But Lenovo T's are still old, black, square stodgy designs - VAIO in that sense was a bold departure and appealed to that side of me that is shallow and materialistic. I don't deny it. Unless, of course, I'm interviewing.

 

Have anyone tried the new AR9285 Wlan driver? (ver. 9.2.0.310)
And is there any differences between the AR9285 and AR928x driver found on opendrivers.com?

 

Kidziti, thanks for that Sterling reply. This is the laptop in mind -
Sony Vaio EB4X0E - Intel Core i5-480M 2.66Ghz 4Gb DDR3 Ram 500GB SATA HDD Blu-ray Drive 15.5" 1920 x - Laptops Direct

What you think guys?

 

Looks sweet! That one certainly has the HD screen and ATI graphics, so it's a good choice. I wonder if the processor is upgradable (i5-560). If it's not, I don't think that's a deal-breaker by any stretch, but I was curious. I assume you are committed to LaptopsDirect? If not, you might want to compare it (price-wise) to an identically-configured unit on the Sony site. Does it have a full Sony warranty (ie. are they "authorized" Sony dealers)? I'm assuming it probably does, since they offer the extended Sony warranties as add-on "extras" to consider.

 

Sony currently have an offer for a free bd disc upgrade, so I might go for that. Thanks for that! Thanks for the advice, any chance of real photos of the e series to show the niceness?

 

Are there any EA3S1E owners here that could help me out? I'm looking to buy one but have heard it can run a little hot - anyone with first hand experience?

 

There are a series of images further down in this article. I couldn't do any better taking pictures of my own blue VAIO. Of course, if you are not getting a blue one, use your imagination to substitute the color of your choice, since an EB is an EB.

 

I got black

 

Hi, I've bought a Vaio VPC-EB4S1E as a gift for my mother but I would like to do a clean re-install of Windows 7 on it in order to get rid of the bloatware.

I understand that this may be difficult to do with the recovery discs but I have a retail Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Sve (64-bit OEM) disc and I wonder if I could do a re-install with that disc and the Windows serial key listed on the laptop.

From what I can tell all of the necessary drivers are available here: VAIO : Sony Europe and I should just be able to install them after all of the Windows updates are done.

Will doing this work or am I just asking for trouble?

 

Thanks,but i figured out the problem...i had too many programs installed with services running in the background coupled with the fact that its starting to get really hot here AND because my vaio's black.

 

it's a stellar laptop, and a few times at university chicks (and 2 gents so far ) have passed a macbook pro or two to tell me the black/purple stands out (pic is without keyboard cover). Not even joking

that's what I did and it works like a charm

 

Nice kitchen. Is that a urine sample next to the VAIO?

 

hahahaa!!!! hahhaa!!!LOL!!!! :hahahaa!!!! hahhaa!!!LOL!!!! :hahahaa!!!! hahhaa!!!LOL!!! !:hahahaa!! !!hahhaa!! !LOL!!! !:hahahaa!!! !hahhaa!!!LOL!!!!

dude.,,,what phone is that? and dude, the Vaio EB seriously is kinda like a chick magnet, I never realized it and ignored it but come to think of it, I've had like a good couple of dorm room chicks complementing the EB and asking what laptop it was(uh...it says "VAIO" on it blondie....), I thought they were weird or something, until you mentioned it. Allright EB! (ps, is yours glossy black, cause I aint ever seen one)

 

hi
i bought vpcEA35(core i3..hdd320gb..memory 4gb..7home edition) and my problem is LAN port
when i use vaio transfer for transfer files between my old pc and notebook,note book hangging
or when i used wireless my laptop hangging
i updated lan and wireless driver by useing device manager
but problem not solved!!!
i searched lots of web-site but i cant found anything
please help me..............

 

AMD Mobile Catalyst 11.3

 

Heya,
I just registered here, and have a question. Are there any rumors about any further fan speed BIOS fixes for E series? Because my fan is making me go crazy, its more than audible all of the time...
Regards

 

Did you try changing in the VAIO control center and changing the thermal control srategy to silent?

 

Um, let me see. Nope. And I have not seen a thermal control strategy in the Vaio Control Center...
Can it be due to my E being the AMD P820 version?

 

It should be under power options.

 

I'm afraid my VAIO came with some stripped off software then, because all I can see is:




Just went to the Sony support and will download a Sony Control Centre for EB, will see if anything changes then.

EDIT:

Funny, that according to the support download website, my laptop comes with VAIO Control Center 4.2.0.15020, and EB has VAIO Control Center 4.1.1.07160 (which came out later). So what's up with these revision numbers? Is it safe to install the EB one on my laptop?

 

has anyone cleaned the fan/heatsinks on their eb yet? in the last couple of weeks my fan has been running noticeably more (and is rather annoying lately) and the computer has been running a bit hotter then usual. i'm thinking the fan/heatsink may need a clean?

my room temp right now is a bit warm - 23c
core temps are around 70c - all i'm doing is browsing the internet currently (these are too high for not being under load)
hdd temp is 38c - not bad considering the room is 23c

thoughts? i'm thinking the heatsink needs cleaned, temps have only shot up recently.

 

weird.... i think i figured out my problem. photoshop (cs5) was keeping a process open after closing it and using about 15% cpu usage, all in the background. closed the process, cpu usage dropped 15+% and the fan is back to normal.

cpu temps dropped 20c so they are idling at 50c which i can live with.

 

Good for you. My fan is still way too audible, even when I'm on power saver and just browsing the internet.

Does anyone know if installing the software not designed for my series of E will do no harm to the notebooks functionality? (Regarding my previous post)

 

My VAIO control center offers the same choices as yours - and I have a relatively new Intel EB direct from Sony. So I don't think you have a stripped down version. Can't answer if using software not designed for the AMD version will be a problem, but I suspect not. You can go on Sony's site and check the latest drivers specifically for your notebook by following the prompts in the VAIO support area.

 

Medal of Honor on the EB at 1920x1080 looks soooo cool, Need for Speed Shift works fine on 1080p with low quality, but honestly, its like the worst NFS game I have played (ATI HD5470)

Oh yeah and, I tested both IE9 and Firefox 4 and I have to say GPU acceleration on IE9 is far better on my EB's 5470 so you guyz may consider switching.

 

I've had my EB about a year now, and have a problem with the audio crackling when using the HDMI output, anyone had similar problems?

It's only over HDMI, onboard speakers and headphone socket is ok. Tried both ports on my TV but no other TV/Cable to test with. Video is great, just crackling/static audio, intermittently too, it's not a big problem, I've only started using HDMI out for movies recently and have only just noticed it.

Drivers? Hardware?

This is mostly using VLC player, but other players do it to, 50% volume on notebook, 50% on TV, so neither are 'maxed' out

Google has very few answers, but another guy with a different (still vaio) has a simialr problem here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...duo-series-owners-thread-192.html#post5241485

 

^^ I had the same problem. Updating the AMD-drivers solved the problem, now running 11.3 / 8.831.

 

Aha, nice one.

I tried to download the drivers through amd.com, after cleaning the old ones with driversweeper but they don't want to install properly.

/edit, aha got it! http://www.hardwareheaven.com/mobil...obility-catalyst-11-3-notebooks-get-here.html

 

Hey does anyone have the service manual for a Vaio EB series? I really really need it ASAP!

 

Yeah, I've uploaded it to MediaFire here:

VPCE USER GUIDE

This is for the VPCE series but I think it should be generally applicable. DUDE WAIT, WHAT SERVICE MANUAL? DO YOU MEAN REPAIR MANUAL?

 

Yes, the repair manual :S
I've been hunting for it all over for hours!

 

dude I seriusly doubt you gonna find that, look, take it to repair like at walmart or geek squad or something, whats wrong with it?

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Its just that i love ripping apart hardware and putting them back together. I just wanted to see the inside of the laptop
I'm sure many of the hardware freaks here would agree.

 

wacha need the manual for, I did that within the first hour I got my EB! Just guess where everything goes back, I do that all the time with any gadget I get, its good brainwork, plus its easier to understand what goes. Heres the video before I got down and dirty, (the actual insides are boring to watch so I only took pictures of the intitial stuff)

VAIO EB TEARDOWN

and dude heres some I made a long time ago

SAMSUNG LIGHTSCRIBE DVD-RW
USELESS HARD DRIVES

 

Whee! Thanks a bunch. I'll open it first thing tomorrow morning

 

No probs, post if you forget where something goes...

AHEM....CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME OUT??? WHY THE HELL DOES THE KEYBOARD NOT WORK WHEN YOU USE THE BOOTABLE WEB BROWSER??? I ASKED BEFORE BUT NO ONE SEEMED TO KNOW ANYTHING, I'M USING SPLASHTOP NOW....GOD DAMMET!!!

 

Thank You for the link.

I was wondering if someone here could answer a question for me. I have an EC series laptop and I would like to add a second hard drive in the empty hard drive bay, would this be possible? If so, where could I acquire the necessary hardware to connect a second hard drive?

Thanks

 

empty hard drive bay? man i thought the E series came with space only for one HDD, but if you mean replacing the optical drive, and installing a HDD in that place using other tools, I suggest you search for vaio e chassis for HDD on google or ebay or something.

 

When I replaced the original hard drive w/ a Seagate drive I noticed there was an additional hard drive bay but no interface to connect a second hard drive to the motherboard. Sine I've been doing alot of photo editing lately I'd like to throw in a 1TB drive in addition to the system drive. I already have an external drive and NAS box for redundant back-ups and I still use my BR player from time to time.
I'm pretty sure there was an extra bay

 

you know what, I think I've heard this before, or read it somewhere, on another review site, it said something like there being space for another hard drive but unusable because no connectors were present....

 

So I take it that this "connector" can't be sourced from somewhere? I did find what you spoke of earlier but having to shell out more money and eliminate my BD player is just plain annoying. E-SATA via the express card slot is also not an option since I'm using it for a card reader for my camera since USB is so slow when dealing with RAW files.

 

Look what I made when I got really bored today! And no I strongly doubt this connector is available TouGeSkyIte.

 

Does anyone from the UK have a keyboard skin on their 15.5'? I cannot find a EU one anywhere :/

 

Sorry for double post, but does anyone know how to change sound settings so that it plays from a 2.1 speaker set?

 

you dont have to change anything, for normal audio, do you mean for the HDMI port?

 

Hi all,

I'm looking for a new laptop, and the EB series seems really nice.
As the owner of the E series, I'd like some inputs regarding my choice (SONY Vaio VPCEB37FG - Black) :

Intel® Core™ i5-460M Processor (2.53 GHz, Cache 3 MB)
4 GB (2x2GB) DDR3 SODIMM PC-8500
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 1GB
15.5" WXGA LED (1920 x 1080)
LED backlight
Intel® High Definition Audio
500 GB Serial ATA 5400 RPM
Blu-ray Combo
IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
Bluetooth® standard Ver. 2.1 + EDR
19.05 mm key pitch/2.0 mm keystroke, 103 keys
Touch Pad (Gesture supported)
ExpressCard/ 34
Card Reader (SD, SDHC, Memory Stick/ Stick PRO)
3x USB 2.0, eSATA, VGA, HDMI, LAN, Audio
Webcamera
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
369.8 x 36.7 x 248.2 mm

It's around $1300.
So, is it any good?
Thx

 

hai , i'm using vpcea33en vaio laptop. I didn't find enable gestures in media gallery, can you suggest me something regarding it.

regards

 

When trying to install the 11.3 catalyst drivers linked in this thread on my 14" EA (5650HD) the screen turns black and the only way to revert it is to install the original drivers in safe mode. I've tried doing a completely clean install of the drivers and the same thing occurs. Any ideas?

 

try this one

http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/mobile/11-3_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

http://www2.ati.com/DRIVERS/mobile/11-3_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe

 

Unfortunately that one didn't work either. Same blank black screen.