Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

I'm with ya... I'm debating between yours, the WD Black Scorpio, and a Fujitsu that PhilFlow suggested (due to the fact that it runs nice and cool).

Teton, if you had to buy again today, would you choose the Hitachi or the WD or ???

 

Is it possible to play a DVD from a different region than the one I have (PAL) on the dvd drive in the FW (Not the blue-ray drive), from US for example?

 

I heard that the AV controls could be used to watch a movie or listening to music without booting the vista OS. So how to make it work?

 

Hello Guys just to say that as soon as I recieved my fw11zu- top most model in the UK, I noticed it was very slow compared to my macbook. My notebook came with the fujitsu 300gb 4200rpm, i felt that was the weak link in an otherwise very powerful system. From following this forum, i proceeded immediately to upgrade my hard drive to WD scorpio black 320gb. After this my system roared to life. I have never seen anything so fast. I have used countless numbers of laptops dating back to 2000 and have never quite seen anything like this. My conclusion is that of all the upgrade you can make to your Laptop, the hard drive is the most important. Encording, ripping dvd to hard drive, moving large data all now happen very quickly. I however noticed that the fan now works more than previously, but I am not really bothered by this as my laptop is more or less a desktop replacement and hardly move for most of the time.

 

Does the WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM run cooler and quieter than the Fujitsu?

Also, did anyone try playing any games on this notebook? What were the settings and fps?

I would really appreciate it if someone posted information on the games they played and how well it worked with the HD3470. Thanks.

 

As far as I can tell, I can't even hear the sound of the scorpio at all. only the fan noise. Boot time much faster etc. temp with hd tune is 42c, similar to the fujitsu. I don't play games on my laptops so cannot really help there!

 

Looking to buy an FW CTO from Sonystyle within the next week and am struggling somewhat with the configuration.

I'm pretty much convinced on the HiColor vs Eco...and this thread is entirely to blame for that.

I'm mostly convinced on the standard battery versus extended battery...the latter is an extra hundred bucks, sticks out "somewhere" (I'm not entirely clear where), and I can frequently plug in somewhere, even if only to the 12V system in my RV.

I'm not entirely convinced on the OS, haven't used Vista before but most things I've read online suggest the Home Premium should suit my needs, and a later upgrade to Ultimate won't cost much more than it would right now.

I'm pretty convinced on the 4G RAM. The special right now has 3G for the same price as 2G, and 4G for only $40 more than that. I'd be silly not to take it, right?

The P8600 (2.4 GHz) is only $50 more than the P8400 (2.26 GHz). Worth it? It sounds like the T9400/9600 wouldn't be worth the extra money ($150 and $450 respectively).

I'll be doing some hi def video editing and blu-ray burning, so the HD3470 is a no-brainer (in addition to the max RAM), right?

The Blu-Ray read/write is a pricey option...$300. Still, that's better than an external blu-ray burner, right? And it should be easy to jack that out to one of my TV's somewhere via the HDMI? But how could I get the sound out of the system and into a home theater? It seems like that'll be impossible to route from the sound card, and can only buried in the HDMI signal to the TV or split into simple stereo through the headphone jack.

Hard drive - it sounds like this has been a source of some serious consternation. I was thinking the 320G/5400 was the way to go...is it one of the poor models? Would I be better off taking the bottom level drive (either 160G or 200G, both 5400 rpm) and buying the 320G/7200 rpm aftermarket drive people have been talking about? Or is the 320G/5400 or 200G/7200 worth the extra $50 over stock?

It's gonna be an expensive week for me at SonyStyle, cuz in addition to my FW, I'm buying my girlfriend a CR, and a 19" Bravia M-series for us to share on a whomever gets there first basis. She'll have a VGA output on her machine, whereas I'll have an HDMI. Presumably I can't run HD through a USB port replicator, but I could run "non" HD video through one, so either one of us could just sit down, USB into the port replicator, and immediately have access to the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, printer, and power source, right? And if I wanted HD on the monitor I could just separately jack in to the HDMI?

With the Vegas Pro 8 I'm going to have installed, my price is nearly $1900 just on my machine (I'll order by phone and try to get the $100 that's been discussed), so I wasn't thinking of buying any extended service package for another few hundred. With good Vaio desktop experience, I think this is ok, but I've never had a Vaio laptop. Am I being foolish?

I already have Office 2003, Professional Edition, which I understand I can install on a Vista OS. One of the "specials" currently on SonyStyle is Office Home/Student edition for free, which would get me Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (plus something called OneNote, whatever that is). If I install that for free, am I gonna be screwed trying to install the 2003 version of Access?

Thanks in advance!

 

I'm having a little buyers remorse too. Would of loved to get the upgraded brighter screen. Is it the same resolution, 1600x900? If it's 1920x1080 to support the full 1080p experience, I may switch.

 

they have the same resolution

 

http://www.sony.co.th/support/faq/270604/productcategory/it+personal+computer/modelfirst?site=hp_en_TH_i

In case link doesn't work, it just directs to adobe.com for latest Flash plugin upgrade.
With version 9.0.124.0 mine is fine.

VGN-FW190 CTO, 2.80ghz, 4GB, BD-RE

 

I've seen this laptop at a retail store in white and I didn't find that it looked too good as the top was two shades of white (two pieces - one was yellowish). Are they all like that? How about the speakers? Do they go loud and sound good?

 

Should suit your needs. Ultimate has better networking options, but if you're a standard use guy it should be okay. I swear by Vista, love it to death. I do a lot of intra-house networking and streaming so I went with the full shebang, but once you cut the fat out its a great OS at any level.

You'll never use or feel the performance that extra stick of ram unless you're doing a lot of video editing....either way, for $40 you could potentially buy more aftermarket if you want. I went with 3gigs, my desktop has 4 only because I game on it, but for anything close to standard usage, 2 gigs even is fine let alone 3 (or 4).

For the extra $50, you'll never feel the difference. I got one in mine only because Newegg was throwing them in for the same price as without on Sonystyle.

The T94/9600 are fast but also use more battery life....definitely NOT worth it for the money they want extra.

Right.

Yep! If you know you'll get miles out of it, why not?

Absolutely.

Yeah, to utilize surround its HDMI or bust, unless you have a receiver that can accept HDMI signal - play that sound through the speakers - and then have HDMI out into the TV

You could go either way. Aftermarket models sure are cheaper, especially on ebay. If its a difference of a couple hundred, you could always get the cheapest and upgrade aftermarket to a WD or something. In my experience, stay away from the Seagate Momentus, as they run hot as hell!

I've never had a problem with computer hardware (ie. dying off on me), period. So I'm also going sans-warranty.

 

Just got FW CTO listed in signature today and right now trying to run Recovery DVD creater 2 DVD set and every time I get to the second one about 75% through it ejects the disk and says disk cannot be created. i am trying several different DVDs but no luck so far. have not done anything to the laptop except turn it on and give my user name and password. Don't know why this is happening but your help greatly apprecaited and thanks.

Gary

 

That is a really close call. I think I would still go Hitachi just because I have been buying Hitachi notebook drives for years based on their reputation for reliability and engineering. WD has been making hard drives since many of us were in diapers but they are a relative newcomer to the notebook market. For desktop drives, I go WD. For notebook drives, I go Hitachi. Kind of a habit. Of course, if they were slow and/or hot that would break my habit real quick.

 

Take out that piece of cr*p RAM stick that those bozos at the store put in there. Run with just the Sony 2GB stick. You should never have allowed them to upgrade your RAM because that is what is causing all the failures. Guaranteed.

 

Right. 4GB enables synchronous dual channel memory access which is about 10% faster.

If you are serious about HD video editing with Vegas, you should go for the T9400 at a minimum. Vegas will use both cores to render and the 6MB L2 cache in the T CPUs will give each core plenty of dedicated cache and it will spend less time going to shared main memory which always results in degraded performance. If you are really serious, you will want the fastest clock you can get (T9600 2.8Ghz) so you can rip through the rendering.

ATI puts some neat HD encoding technology in their new cards...whether Vegas will take advantage of it is another thing (I suppose DirectX 10.1 encompasses encoding features so it should help). Anyway, you definitely want the discrete ATI graphics for HD playback at a minimum.

$300 for a BD burner is a bargain. Most BD readers are $200. HDMI carries video and sound...you need to plug into an A/V receiver with HDMI in/out to split the audio and video.

Definitely get the cheapest harddrive and upgrade to 7200rpm 320GB...either an Hitachi 7K320 or Western Digital Scorpion Black.

You can save $200 by purchasing 2 cheap accesories and the 3 year warranty. I would do it. You can also wait and buy the warranty later right online at Sonystyle...just enter your serial number and presto.

I would not try to mix Office 2003 and Office 2007. If you can do it, upgrade to Office 2007 as it fully supports Vista.

 

Could you elaborate, I had them put 4 gigs of ram in and they're both Qimonda. Am i boned? Just got my FW from fedex today after returning to Eco screen one to Best Buy and I have to say that the HiColor screen kicks so much ***. Thanks for the ati settings you posted!

 

Backup Disks finally worked but I will keep an eye out for offending 1GB memory stick and thanks Jay for that. So far, I am thrown by Vista since I have never used it so it is going to take me a while to get this laptop going for my needs but I like it so far. Screen seems very good and machine runs pretty cool, just warm to the right of touchpad but very managable to me. Love the form factor of this machine - very light, even with extended battery which I recommend to all - raises notebook up a little in the back but the battery life should be much better.

Will concentrate now on partitioning drive, uninstalling bloatware, tweaking Vista and installing my own stuff.BTW this notebook is one of the quietest machines I have ever had so far. Thanks again to all.

Gary

 

Bestbuy is knocking $250 off in their ad for the sale starting tomorrow. I'm still within my 30 days so I'm going back to get the difference from what I paid. $899 is a decent price.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8907061&type=product&id=1213046783513

 

I thought they took out a Sony 1GB stick and replaced it with their 2GB stick. Right? If so, take out the one that they put in. You can run with just the 1 original Sony stick (i.e. 2GB). Also, before you yank their RAM out, run system memory diagnostics. Go to menu Administrative Tools->Memory Diagnostics Tool and follow instructions. This should tell you if the problem is memory related.

You're welcome for ATI settings.

 

I think I got you mixed up with huntnyc...sorry man.

 

Does anybody know what are the potential benefits of doing a clean install on your FW ? Vs. just un-installing any unwanted programs you don’t want, then just de-frag to get the drive clean again!, not that this shouldn’t be done every week anyway.

The point is that what is the difference between doing a clean install, and just uninstalling the unwanted programs "bloatware" manually?

 

That's a GREAT price. I originally paid $1119, since then Amazon has lowered the price to $1016, which I got credited for. I will check often until the 30 days have gone by, I hope I can get it down to a price at least under the $1k mark, hopefully around $900.

 

There's usually a lot left over (i.e. registry entries, etc) from manual uninstalls. A clean install will leave no chance for unwanted "residue" thus making your laptop perform better.

 

Do you think this will be a noticeable effect on the system ? ! When u mean clean, u mean clean clean!, so absolutely nothing extra, surely this will just accumulate over time anyway

And have you done a clean install on your comp?

 

I'm OK with some crap leftover.

In my "to do" list when the comp arrives, first thing I'll do is download the "Revo Uninstaller" ( http://www.revouninstaller.com/) and clean the bloatware using it. It's supposed to be better than a manual uninstall but still no comparison to a clean install of the OS. So I've read.

 

Does anyone know how to do a clean install on an FW? I managed to format it it fine with my stand alone Vista disk, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to install the Sony software for things like the Fn buttons. Any ideas?

 

Hi..wel i am having the same problem, so i am trying to install the utils of the US version of my FW11.
Now i am going to sleep, and i get all "special" keys working, execpt for th FN+F5/6/7 and 12, those are really giving me a headahce.

 

hmmm I’m tempted by the clean install, but just don’t know how to do it for the FW as there is no guide from start to finish! As in where do you get the clean operating system from in the first place. The recovery copy of vista from you comp is still full of bloatware! So I don’t really know much about clean installs at all

 

Thinking of getting the VGN-FW139E/H for someone who lives in Europe. Never owned a Sony before, will it be possible to swap out just the plug cord with a Western Euro plug from the two/three prong USA one? Hopefully not having to replace the transformer. Of course, since the transformer should do 110-240W it should be possible just to attached a plug convention but thats not very elegant.

 

For ppl who want to know what you need inorder to get FN + brightness keys and sleep key + some others working.:

It the Sony Vaio Event Service utilty/app you need to have installed and running in the background. This solved it for me.

 

One thing bothering on my FW I seem to notice a lot of leakage on my screen on bootup but picture seems fine I think. My eyes are very poor and I would love to know if any of you are noticing a lot of leakage in your screen. Would this be worth returning it to SonyStyle or not? I would like to get the notebook up and running. Wish I had someone's eyes here in NYC I could trust who are familiar with the FW that could help me out and tell me what you think. Anyway, thanks for your input on this and all.

Gary

 

Which one of these retailers have the Hi-color screen?

 

Yo, Gary, I'm seeing the same leakage, which is actually quite normal for laptop LCDs larger than 14." The FW's isn't particularly bad in this regard. On all larger TN panels, the top will be darker than the bottom no matter what angle you are viewing the screen. Some other spots are clearly leaking on my FW's LCD, though, as some of the corners are a bit darker, while the center bottom lights up like a Xenon headlamp.

 

I still cannot figure out if I should pay the restocking fee and return this computer back to best buy...I feel like everyone has the 139 e/h or the 190..I have the 170 p/w and no one seems to to have it...
I had the 139 e/h and returned it defective-paid the difference for the 170 j/w..
Plus I do not see anywhere on the link for the best buy where you can save $200 this weekend?

 

Circuit City is having a sale and right now this notebook costs $999.99. Does this particular model come with the Hi-color screen?

I'd really appreciate it if someone helped me figure this out. I checked their website, and they mention nothing about the type of screen this notebook comes with.

 

Wizo, I'm not aware that Bestbuy charges a restocking fee.

Elite, I do not believe that non Sony resellers have Hi-color models available. They have to be CTO on Sony's website, or perhaps a Sony store might have them.

 

I think it depends on the item, for headphones I returned there was no restocking fee, but I am in canada, could be different in the US, I know there was an article about a person who returned a unit for a car and there was a restocking fee.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/restock.asp

here we go
http://www.bestbuy.com/olspage.jsp?type=page&contentId=1043363607042&id=cat12098

so there will be a fee, unless you can make it look as if it wasn't opened

also depending how you paid for it

so it might be 10 days before you get the money back.

 

Anyone seen discoloration on the white model (back of the screen)? At the store I was, it seemed like one of the pieces that makes the cover was turning yellow. I wouldn't want my laptop to change color in a few years... Thats the only thing preventing me on buying this.. please reply.

 

Not being picky but just curious. Does anyone know if drive letters for the SD reader and Memory stick reader can be changed from how Sony installed them. I know the BD-ROM drive letter can be changed but I would like to change the other two also if possible and thanks.

Gary

 

You can change the letters assigned to any of the drives here:

Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management

 

Hey guys, questions about the VAIO Content Analyzer:

1. What is it, exactly?

2. Why does it run all the time?

3. Does it NEED to run?

4. How can it be stopped??


I think this Content Analyzer may be the reason why my FW's palmrest is so hot.

 

Make a decision and run with it!

The 170 is a great machine, lots of stuff over the 139 (Blu-ray, 4gb, 320hdd, etc) only thing the 139 has over the 170 is the graphic card, and it seems you won't notice any difference with the use you'll give to it. Stick with the 170.

 

Newegg has the Hicolor option, Amazon does not.

 

Those in the U.S. that want to buy an FW would be crazy not to jump on this deal.

 

It's for media sharing so you can view your photos or videos that are on your FW on your PS3 and your big beautiful HDTV. And you can listen to music on your FW through your PS3 and big old surround system. I use my laptop and PS3 for this all the time. I had the content analyzer run for awhile but eventually it finishes and won't run anymore. If you really want to shut it off, go to control panel and there is a Vaio utility to control it. Deselect all the media types. Also, go into Vaio Media Plus to Connectivity menu and turn off Sharing. Then reboot.

 

Ahh... well, as long as I know it eventually shuts off, I'm good. Thanks. I'll just let it run its course.

By the way, I tried running media from my FW to my PS3, but I got a DNS error so it did not work. The strange thing is that it does work on my old laptop using plain ol' Windows Media Player. Any idea what might be wroong?

 

For the CTO folks who ordered the standard battery and got the extended battery instead, has anyone received the standard battery separately?

 

Hmmm, actually I haven't tried it yet using Vaio Media plus...thanks for the heads up. I'll happily use Media Player again if need be.

 

So Everyone call me crazy!

I returned the 170 j/w today at BestBuy. Thats 2 computers I have returned in 2 weeks...They were really cool and I explained my reasons and I simply wanted my money back. Not to mention they had a sale where they were taking $200.00 off so with some amunition in my corner they took it back and were very helpful!

I called sony style today. I configured exactly what I wanted and I got it engraved as well. From all the feedback and post on this thread I was able to choose exactly what I think is the best set up for the computer and me. --Man I am excited.
Here is the list of goodies...

Intel® Core 2™ Duo Processor T9400 (2.53GHz)

Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1
White(32 bit operating system)--I liked it better than the 64 bit one.

4 GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 2GBx2)

200 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm]--Check out the speed!

Blu-ray Disc™ Read and Write Drive

ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 with 256MB vRAM

LCD 16.4" (XBRITE-HiColor™ I got the Hicolor!!!

WLAN (802.11a/b/g/n) with integrated Bluetooth® technology
Standard Battery


Now I have to wait for it....2 weeks because they are building the bad boy for me..