Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

so the FW490 have ExpressCard 34mm? does it need additional antenna? cable?

 

:rolleyes2:

 

does it work with Media Center in Windows Vista and 7?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5179882&postcount=4471

 

Well I got free overnight shipping and thats all they gave me. I wanted to cancel my order cause of the service but i like the laptop to much...

 

my FW490 can't boot from USB drives...
what Function key should I press?

 

I totally agree. I mean I understand delays with he bank. But the status of my orders has been/is unknown. Everyone else gets emails saying their laptop is in production or shipped. But we(the unlucky ones) get treated with less priority than people who even ordered after us. Shouldn't our orders be a higher priority since we ordered earlier? Whatever, I know I am going to love my FW490CTO to death so I'm done complaning.

 

Just about to order one of these from eBay. Woo How hard is it to upgrade the processor down the line?

 

Guys, my advice is to simply be patient. They're working like crazy trying to fix everyone's orders. Contact Sony, and ask when the authorization to charge the card went through. As soon as this is taken care of, you can expect to get some emails later. Once the authorization goes through, your order DOES get priority over the others.

 

Does anyone have any input on which of these in the FW series is the best bang for the buck? Also any info on battery life/heat management would be great:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...650&SpeTabStoreType=3&ActiveSearchResult=True

 

Just got my Vaio...I was in the same boat as a lot of you guys, with Sony screwing up my order.

Nonetheless, I got the computer and am incredibly pleased so far. It's one of my best buys.

 

There is now X64 support for Vaio FW series.
Please follow the link:

http://www.forum.it-helpline.co.uk/...board&view=postlist&forum=2&topic=10&Itemid=1

 

Sony has screwed up again..........

My order now is to be shipped on the 08/21/2009........tried everything....they say most likely it will be built by 18th but their billing department screwed up so my order was cancelled and they have just reordered it.............

I was reading all these posts with shipping issues......but thought i wont be affected.....wishful thinking did not work......

NOT GOOD!

 

My FW has indeed shipped and I have a working tracking # due home on the 18th. FYI I ordered it on the 4th.

 

I ordered July 26th, and I still have confirmation of a ship date. Shouldn't they focus on fixing orders unfilled orders before fulfilling new ones?

 

So did Sony resubmit the order for you or did you have to place the entire order online again? Because I was told the latter and I think it is just ridiculous!

 

I would agree with you Micro. Not sure why this is happening. I'd be pretty upset too in your shoes.

 

I called them up as soon as I saw the email saying order cancelled......then after speakin to 2 people......the 2nd guy gave me a new order number....telling me most likely it wud get shipped by monday.....but after that I got an email saying expected shipping date 08/21.... so I called them again and tried to make them ship it earlier as that was what the earlier rep told......but they said not possible.....etc.......

he told me that though if it is not shipped by 21st then they would give me expedited shipping

 

I just spent over two hours talking to 4 different agents from customer service and sales department trying to order my laptop again...

They are willing to offer the Educational Discount and the Bundle Discount that I had with the original order, but the shipping date will be pushed back to 8/25 AND I will be charged the full retail price now before they credit the discount to my bank later.

Of course, the most disappointing thing is I was supposed to get a 6% cashback on the purchase via FatWallet and now I won't be able to get that because the order is canceled and Sony refuses to compensate for that (it's almost $80)...

Any ideas?

 

Email [email protected] if you're in the States, describe the situation and ask that a manager get back to you.

Escalation is the solution to frustration....

Good luck!

 

Just got 2 emails, one saying my laptop just started production and one saying it was shipped with a tracking number. Looks like it will be here tomorrow! It's before the Sony Style support people said. I'm happy

 

just installed windows 7 32bit in my FW490 and everything worked!!! although it took me a whole day to figure out

 

Got my FW490-CTO on the 13th, which curiously enough was much earlier than I expected, given that my laptop had a revised 8/18 ship date.

Specs: P8700, 4gb, 320gb 7200rpm, XBrite HD, 4650 1gb video

First impressions and a few surprises:

Beautiful, understated laptop. Much better in person than in the pics. Love the keyboard and the screen resolution.

Two initial surprises:

1) From reading some reviews, I was led to believe that the HD screen was pretty glossy/reflective. But my XBrite-HD has a completely matte finish. No glass cover, no reflections, nada. It's the same slightly soft, matte finish that laptops used to have before glossy, reflective screens came into fashion. Beyond that, the LCD is incredible. Can't say enough good things about it.

2) The palm-rest area just to the right of the touchpad gets pretty warm. This is the only part of the laptop that gets warm, and unfortunately it's right where I rest my right hand. I'm guessing it's the HDD underneath that spot? Seems like a slightly poor design, but it's not a dealbreaker.

That's it for now. Almost all my vista experience scores are between 5.7 and 5.9 except for the processor which is rated 5.4.

 

Lucky! I ordered on the 23rd... I have not received any such e-mails. but I did call yesterday and they said it should ship in 24 hours (and 24 hours later I still haven't received an e-mail with shipping information). All in all I'm pretty upset at Sony for being so slow, and not even trying to make amends (flatly rejecting my request for free one-day shipping). But at least the laptop will be perfect for my demands.

 

Can U share with us what drivers U used and what you had to tweak? Did you use standard drivers for 32bit Vista? How about all the hardrware function key, etc?

 

Matte, eh? Hmmm. You just may have an LED screen. The "normal" FullHD on the American FWs has been glossy but with an anti-reflective coating making it a bit less glossy than many screens out there.

Matte. Wow. What's in your device manager for monitor hardware ID? (Not that it will provide a definitive answer, but one does wonder....) As I posted elsewhere on the forum, a Chinese site is claiming 100% NTSC for the FW4 screen but "rich colour" in the ad gave the impression of HiColor technology.

Thanks....

P.S. A bunch of pre-configured FW490s (all starting with D or J in the suffix) has just appeared at EPEAT: www.epeat.net. But I believe they all have one lamp screens with low levels of mercury. If the FW490CTO appears we may be able to deduce an LED screen if the rating gives it a score for zero mercury.

 

Matte Finish? Can you take a picture? Thanks a lot!

 

at the bottom of the laptop it says "Lamp contains mercury."

@ Derrida: my FW490CTO is actually a FW490J model.

@ VeEuzUKY: I'll post the order list after everything works in Vista x64...

 

Well, all the FW490J's at the EPEAT site are one-lamps; usually this has meant Eco, not FullHD. What is your resolution?

So, it's not a true CTO, then? I wonder where that "J" is coming from since there were no letters on the FW390CTOs?

 

my screen is XBRITE HD 1080p.
I used System Information in Vista/7 to find the real model number. (FW490J)
but the laptop's stickers only say FW490.

 

Hardware ID for the 'Generic PnP Monitor' is SNY07FA, which I'm led to believe is the normal Xbrite-HD part number. I'll take some photos and post them shortly.

Meanwhile, I've hit my first snag. Creating recovery discs failed on creation of the 2nd of 3 discs. Failed three times with three DVD-R discs until I found this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=332027

I switched to DVD+R's and the remaining discs burned just fine. This doesn't give me the warm fuzzies, but I'm moving on with my life.

Edit: My CTO is also a 490J. I noticed that my custom specs are identical to the off-the-rack 490JEB that they have on the sonystyle web-site. I wonder if they just shipped that instead of a custom laptop, due to the warehouse issues they had in the past week? My laptop went from 'being built' to shipped in a single day or so.

Edit #2: I take it back. My screen is *slightly* reflective. It took turning the screen off and putting a window behind me to see it. With the screen on, it's almost impossible to see any kind of reflection. I hate glossy screens so this is nice to see. But it's not technically a 'matte' finish.

 

I didn't have problems creating the recovery discs using SONY DVD-R discs.

@ Derrida: The monitor IDs aren't that reliable because my XBRITE-HD monitor was SNY07FA under Sony's factory Vista x64, but I did a clean install of Vista x64 and 7 x86 and both report the screen as MS_0000.

 

hi everyone. im matt. im new and there is a problem with my fw series laptop that is really bugging me. its not a technical problem or anything. but the ring that held the charger plug together snapped and i cant find anyplace that has a new one to put in. its in the same place as the glowing green ring to the right, except that its on the left.. XD haha
umm so ya if anyone can help me out and tell me where to find another one, that would be great =]
thanks!

 

Thank you for this information. It confirms what I have been posting in many threads: that these IDs appear more "generic" than "specific", unfortunately. The purchase contract with specs appears to be controlling, as lawyers would say.

 

SR models have a BIOS update to enable VT. When will a BIOS update for FW490 come out?

 

This isn't my place, I just got an AW -- but I wanted to comment on the monitor ID, seeing as it was originally posted in the AW owners thread.

I have that same monitor ID you guys are talking about. But when I go to my color management settings, it's showing me some RGB settings stuff. Would I be seeing this if my display isn't the RGB? My paper specs have no reference to the Adobe RGB tech.

 

Quick question, are CTO FW's from sonystyle.com eligible for the free Windows 7 upgrade? Thanks in advance.

 

Yup. Just make sure it has Windows Vista Home Premium or better, which on a machine like the FW, I don't see why it wouldn't.

 

Good news, ten days late and they finally shipped my laptop. But hopefully it will be worth the wait, especially for the low price I was able to get it for.

 

some screenshots?

 

I finally got my laptop! Well worth the wait I must say.

 

Sony has not submitted the FW490JEB (yet) to EPEAT; only the JAB through JDB, Ecos all, are listed on the www.epeat.net site.

But we should check back there because something might show up, and the EPEAT criteria for screens may give us some new clues as to the nature of this FW490 screen which two members, now, have said resembles a matte screen rather than a glossy with anti-reflective coating (cf. Qaenos' post #52 at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=397678&page=6).

 

I got the extended battery with mine and when fully charge windows only says 4 hours left. What does is say for the standard battery?

 

2 hours and 27 minutes for 100% battery, however, depending on your settings the battery may drain fast or stay at 2:27 for a while.

 

almost 3 hr, depends on the brightness

 

Hi everyone,

just got mine a few days ago and everything is working fine. but a few issues that I'm just curious about:

1) Is anyone getting pop up messages like "Welcome Center" and "Vaio Care" has stopped working? Also is your AV Mode working fine? I probably won't ever use it but it bugs me that it's faulty. The pop up says it has stopped, but it still works.

2) Related to the first question, I can't seem to find *any* (if not most) of the vaio programs on the uninstallation list - is this normal? I've already disabled the program and am not getting anything more pop up, but it's just a curiousity.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

 

well the Welcome Center is part of Vista, but after 3 or 4 reboots there's an option for you to disable it at startup on the lower left corner.

 

i was thinking of getting a sony vaio fw and was wondering if it has any heat problems ... ? since it hass the ati dedicated card would it be like reallly hot??

 

Heat really isn't an issue due to the great build quality. I can play GW for 5 hours with it being slightly warm.

It will obviously get a little hot if you play an intensive game for a few hours or more, but I doubt it'll be a serious problem.

 

ohhh alrighttt thanks .... that takes awayyy some of my worries :OOOO