Official VAIO SR Series Owners Thread

I just wanted to give an update here about battery life:

I was watching a DVD, surfing the internet and using powerpoint all at the same time...power management OFF and screen brightness to fullest. I hit slightly over 4 hours of battery life! I am amazed! 100 dollar upgrade to extended battery is worth it, for me atleast!

Hmm.. wonder how much i would get with VAIO Max and screen dimmed to 1/4 full and NOT watching a DVD! (I think I roughly estimated this a while back and it came out to over 7 hours of battery life)

Specs below:

 

I am amazed at how good the SR can pick up wifi signals...

 

ok guys so i just recieved my SR today.

any tips on the various power settings? and any other settings that i should adjust?

 

how is the battery life for u pxxxx processor ppl? over 3.5 to 4 hours?

 

You can uninstall the sony bloatwares or do a clean install of vista..
turn off unneeded processes, turn off indexing service...
check out this thread for vista tweaks..
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

and what do you mean by power settings??

Probably more than 3.5 hours with the P series processors... I get 3.5hours easily on my SR with T9400 (undervolted) and ATI HD3470... i've heard people with the P8400/P8600 processor and IGP getting around 5 hours of battery life

 

I'm interested in buying a Vaio SR. As its main use will be at home, plugged to an external monitor, I'd like to know if it's possible to turn on the SR with the lid closed and plugged to the external monitor, or you need to get the docking station to be able to do this.

I understand you can make it work closed when its docked.

Thanks in advance.

 

There's a VGA port and a HDMI port on the SR.. so you don't need a docking station to hook it up to a monitor..

 

But can you turn it on with the lid closed when hooked up to the external monitor?

 

Yeah, you can set the laptop to do nothing when you close the lid

 

Guys, 64bit Vista drivers are on Sony's web site now!! anybody wanna try if it works on the SR190's ??

 

so ur laptop battery life lasts 3.5 hour? does it mean using the computer regardless of what the battery life they tell u on vista? how much ram do u have? sounds like ur system is the same as mine... t9400, ati hd, 4gb ram, 120gb hdd.

on another note... has anyone tried to change their cpu on their vaio sr already? i plan on changing the cpu to p9500 one day, and i want to know how to open this sucker up. saw the pictures of a z being disassembled, but not very good explanations.

 

yep the battery life prediction is wrong..
i have t9400 4gb ram 320gb hdd and the hd3470 card

 

dude... u r quick....

 

what can i say... i'm bored at work

 

Does anyone have a red "x" next to the Wi-Fi network connection in the "Network Connections" folder? Thanks

 

If we did, then there is one of two things going on:

A) you are not using wifi

or

B) you have the wifi switch off(left front of notebook) or wifi disabled...same thing

Eitherone will result in this red x next to the network connections folder....

 

Thats why it's weird. I was on wifi at the time. Will get a screen shot at home tonight.

 

I know that if you have 4GB of RAM, Vista 32bit can see them but can't use all of them.
How much RAM can your SR use with Vista?
I have one gadget on my SR's sidebar that says about 3100ΜΒ.
My desktop's sidebar says around 3500ΜΒ. That's why I am asking.

 

This is what i was talking about. I have wifi though.

 

You cannot turn on the SR when the lid is closed. You will have to open it, turn it on, then close the lid again.

 

I didn't think the SR had HDMI yet? I didn't see it on SonyStyle.

 

"ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470 with HDMI™ Output"

 

As a secondary point, i believe with ALL docking stations you can turn on the pc via the docking station and you do not have to open to lid or anything...it automatically routes the display signal to the external monitor

 

which of the VIAO programs can i uninstall?

i was planning on uninstalling "VIAO Entertainment Plaform" and VIAO Event Center.. any other ones that i should take out? or if i should even uninstall these?

 

Could someone explain to me what the "Battery Care Function" does?
I was a little confused.
Thank you.

 

OK, got my SR 190 yesterday, did a total wipe...installed Vista x64...so far i am missing lots of drivers.

Cant dl any off the Sony website...am i missing where the x64 drivers are?

So far was able to get the video driver and wireless driver from Intel.

Those are the only two drivers I was able to find.

So far I am running ok....i have ram on order...as it was cheaper for me to buy it with stock ram config and order some off the net.

 

try if the SR290 drivers work for you??

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGN-SR290&region_id=1

 

I've seen docking stations from HP or Dell that do have buttons to turn them on, but according to the manual of Vaio SR, the optional docking station doesn't have any button for this, just for undocking the laptop, so you have to turn on by using the on/off button on the laptop. But I'm not sure if you can do this with the lid closed or not.

 

x64 Vista Drivers

something in the install routine is preventing these drivers from installing, i never get past the .."this update is not intended for your model"

 

check out this post

try that and see if it works..

 

tried that also, extracted the exe files...still would not install...gonna try the drivers off of the vcl.vaio.sony.co.jp/download/unofficial/64/001.html

 

ok all drivers installed except for a base system device and a unknown device @ Intel(R) ICH9M LPC Interface Controller - 2919

 

do us a favor and keep us updated on the 64 bit install. I am interested in doing it on my SR190, but sony says that i cant b/c dirvers arent intended for my model.

thanks!

 

Same here!
please keep us updated

 

does anyone know where to download the intel PM 45 drivers for the integrated graphics on the SR. I tried the one on the sony site, but it didnt quite work when i was doing a fresh install.

I tried this website,
http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-029319.htm , but when i select my OS, it ays download not available. Any ideas?

 

Update on the x64 Vista Install on the SR190

Everything was working great till I got bored and installed the Sony Notebook Utilities (like a dumbass i installed the one for the 32bit SR190 )- not good...forced me to instant hibernate mode because of Sony Battery incompatibility

So I wiped and re-installed the x64 drivers I have collected and so far so good...I dont see me using this mode and settings buttons any way...but like i said i got bored...i do that alot.

Ram will be delivered tomorrow, so i will report back one i have it installed.

 

I have an SR-190 with a 10/08 build date..2 questions

1. Mouse Pad MFG - ? still just using the stock vista drive which is fine (i assume its synaptics, but want to make sure)
2. Fingerprint Swipe - I have the uptek driver installed fine, but no software to manage the features of the finger swiper..i did a total wipe of the backup partition before i remembered i did not pay the 50 bucks for fresh start..(rip-off)

Thanks,

Cip

 

Do the Fn keys and the web cam work?

 

web cam is fine...just skyped with it...

the fn keys - just tried, mute works (fn f2) vol up and down works (fn f3, f4) but the brightness(fn f5 and f6) does not seem to work

is that to be expected or is that a surprise?

like i said, i have zero of the sony notebook utilities installed, but may have to find a workaround for this, because i will need the brighness adjustment to function.

 

1. yeah it is synaptics
2. the software.. http://www.sendspace.com/file/awcwve

well that is expected if you don't have the sony utilities installed.
hopefully sony will release 64bit drivers for SR190..

 

thanks for the file, i really dont want to re-install the sony stuff because they load it with a battery checker that probably is due to the bad battery issues they dealt with in the recent past...

knowing me i will keep screwing with it till i screw it up again..

 

which of the sony stuff/utilities can be uninstalled? anyone know? i want to get rid of as much bloatware as possible without doing a clean install

 

I uninstalled everything except VAIO Power Management (this is the only way I've found to control the auto-off on the optical drive), VAIO Original Function Setting (sounded pretty important), VAIO Mode Switch (could be useful, although I don't use it), WinDVD for VAIO (could be useful), and Sony Video Shared Library (contains codecs?). The worse stuff is all the trialware, like Napster, Microsoft Office trial, and AOL "features." That stuff should be deleted right away.

 

also keep VAIO Control Center, VAIO Event Service, Settings Utilities Series

These three are also very important (HDD protections settings, silent/performance mode, Fn keys funtions, etc...)

 

ok, got the ram today from New Egg, easy install....vista sees all 4gb...

I may go back to 32bit at some point, as i have run into a couple of pains in the ***...but all in all the 64bit Vista Ultimate is running just fine.

Any tweaks i should do now that I have the 4gb ram?

 

The Fn keys don't work in Vista 64bit... and I think the power management options don't work either... those are the only things holding me back form upgrading..

Umm.. Check out the Vista Tweak Guide
and turn off virtual memory.. i turned mine off, and the system is noticeably faster

 

Thanks. I will take a look at that stuff right now.

 

Would you recommend me buying a SR with this spec and price?(I'm not in a country that can customize so Ia limited choice)
CPU 2.5 core2duo
Cash 6144 KB
Ram 3072 MB
HDD 320 GB
Drive DVD-RW
VGA 1.5 GB ATI
OS Vista B
Assemble USA

for 2,475,000 $

 

my SR has basically the same spec as your's.. but mine has 4GB of ram instead of 3GB..everything else are the same, and mine cost around $1800..
$2475 is a little too expansive...

 

I guess thats the benefit of living in USA.
As I said I don't have any direct access to valid sony retailers here except one that sells low end middle east vaio and it sells SR with 2.26Ghz CPU and no better.
So I want to buy an USA model. They are way cheaper and higher in spec.

Guess I will wait for price to settle down a little more.