Official VAIO SR Series Owners Thread

lol. i love vista too much now, sorry man. no issues compared to the orginal vista w/o SP1. Everything is smooth sailing. i already have my files on here too, sorry! Just get Vista..its so smooth and fast now.

 

errr my batt hasnt gone down 1 percent in 20 minutes with wifi on on vaio ultimate batt.. wth? lol

Holy smokes.. On Ultimate Battery with the DVD drive disabled but brightness up to half, it dropped from 28% to 25% in 35 minutes. really good.

 

Can you post some more pictures ? The box does look better than the one from Newegg. BTW...does yours come with a centrino 2 sticker or a core 2 duo sticker ? Also, does it come with a recovery disc ?

 

I just got one from Harvey Norrman here in Australia. They have an offer for the SR 16GN with 3GB ram - that's right 3GB. I got mine for $1915 au !!! Thats nearly $300 off the Sony online store price.

It is an amazing piece of hardware. Runs super quick almost at desktop speeds and the battery life is excellent - i am getting about 2 hrs 35 mins with a modified Vaio power plan. Brightnesss is at 75% and the option to turn the DVD drive off is selected.

It runs silently with no heat at the bottom so you can easily have it sitting on your lap. This is the first laptop i hae bought in years that you can really call a laptop. All of the others have been too hot.

One gripe i have about it so far is the positioning of the USB ports. They are a little too close together. If you put a memory stick in the access to the other port is limited. Space i tight on that side though as they have the USB, network/modem and DVD drive all on the one side.

I will post some pics later today.

 

Wow, I wish that I would get mine before the 7th or after. Meh, I think it's supposed to come that day, but I have to go to a bigger town for school shopping... I suppose if you will. xD

But it says order shipped. So Hello everyone, I guess I'm joining the ranks of the SR owners. @_@

 

Great work, cost price at HN is $1911. Did you get a quote over the phone?

 

Yeh, I rang up first and asked for their best price. I have bought alot of stuff from them. HN always takes care of my needs.

aussie_geek

 

Now you know then that HN quotes cost price over the phone

 

FEDEX is delivering mine tmw! one day earlier than the estimated date! fedex > ups

hehe

 

so if the SR doesn't come with Vista reinstallation disks, is there anyway to do a clean install?

 

thats a fantastic price, i called a few stores and they are quoting $2099. which store / state did you buy it from??

do you suffer from the battery drain issue ie. does the battery lose charge even if it is turned off.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=146033

This thread tells you how to make a recovery disc for Vista, though it's not entirely clean. It still copies some of the files from certain folders that are necessary for it to run properly.

I think that'll help.


Noki- I think someone had said that sometimes the SR does. Someone had turned off their SR and went back to it a while later and it was down a few percent. Like, to 97% I think. I can't remember where they said that though.

 

Call harvey norman and get a quote. If they dont quote $1911 they are breaking store policy

 

Yes my SR from sonystyle came with the centrino 2 sticker since it has the Intel wifi card.

You cannot clean install from the recovery discs YOU make (they dont provide CDs)

My question: Does anybody know if you get a Vista CD from a friend, could you use their install CD then your own serial number from bottom of the VAIO to do a clean install?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=195197

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=120228

i think you can still do the clean install from these guides in these links? Is this possible?

Btw Duke, could you check and see if you have the WAU folder mentioned in the link?

 

I dunno.... Well, Sony certainly didn't make it easy for the SR people from Newegg. But I guess that was to be expected, as it is the "cheap" version without the intel wifi chip lol. xD

 

Unfortunately, this is standard operating procedure for Sony for the past couple of years. Not only do you have to burn your own backup, but the backup is a carbon copy of the bloat the machine ships with. For those with an adventurous side you can try a clean install. That's where the true fun begins. Sony seems to take great pleasure in providing almost everything you need to get the system running. Almost.

BTW, the WiFi card that Duke keeps mentioning (5100) is actually a neutured WiFi card. Intel introduced it to reduce costs to OEMs. The WiFi Link 5300 is actually the better card, but you won't find that in Duke's machine. That's OK, because it's still better than the Atheros which in the past has much better reception and range than Intel solutions.

 

so is it safer to do a semi-clean or a clean install with the SR?

 

Yeah, I know that. My aunt has her NR that I don't like. I hate the keyboard on that thing. I offered to get rid of all the crapware on it, and she refused because she thought she was going to resell it. (She was expecting too much for something that was already used and taken out of the box. It was like $850 retail, she wanted $750+ lol.) She won't even use a firewall/antivirus, and she insists she doesn't have any viruses. She also won't use firefox either. (Uses IE)

Not my fault when her machine slows to a crawl. I tried a bunch to help her and she would insist to not. =D

But oh Sony. You love to torture us... Especially with that whole CD Debacle a few years ago... But that's another thing entirely. xD

 

I used to waste so much time trying to do a clean install. The amount of time and frustration involved outweighs any benefit. On my SR I did a complete reinstall without third party software (it's an option when reinstalling). Don't get too excited since it still installed all of the Sony bloat as well as a bunch of other junk. After uninstalling most of bloat I went thru and cleaned out the startup programs and defragged. Overall, the system has been running very smoothly over the past couple of weeks...no crashes or BSODS.

 

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I can care less what's in my machine..a wifi card is a wifi card as long as it works, does it really matter? It's an intel card..and If it works it works... if i had atheros and it worked also, then wtf do I care?

P.S. You won't find the Intel 5300 in your machine either (unless you install it yourself), *******.

P.S.S. If you weren't being sarcastic and implying some kind of joke or what not, then disregard the above <3

 

how did you reinstall without a cd? is that what sony vaio recovery center is? also whats the third party software if that isn't the bloat?

 

There is a recovery partition installed by default. I believe you press F10 during boot up to activate it, but I am not 100% sure on the steps to use it.

 

Dude, it's all in good fun. You have been very enthusiastic the past couple of weeks and that's great. Some people here have been only catching bits and pierces of your posts (and others as well) and then running with them. I've read a couple posts already from people saying that the Atheros card in the "Newegg" SR is subpar. It's not your fault, but it's irritating to see some of these guys spreading misinformation. I don't think the Centrino 2 sticker on the palmrest is going to make the machine magically work better as some seem to think. I just about fell out of my chair when I saw a different post about how the "Newegg" SR was packaged poorly in comparison to non "Newegg" machines. I see these posts and just roll my eyes. Anyone, that has purchased a Sony in the past would know that CTO machines ship differently than pre-configured machines. It isn't a matter of the retailer just how Sony ships their different models. Oh well...

So how do you like the machine? Is it everything that I and others here said it was? I'm pretty pleased myself.

 

I burned a set of discs from the Recovery Center. I opted not to install the recovery partition.

 

so both the recovery partition and the recovery discs are still gonna have all the bloatware?

 

LoL looks like you got to it before I edited that. Anyway, yes i understand, but i also repeatedly told people the atheros was not bad and that it was even better than intel in the past. I must have posted that at least 3 times.

And whether or not CTO and pre-built are packaged differently, the CTO one just seems better, simple as that. Does it really matter? No. But a nice black VAIO box looks neat on display Regardless, if you had to roll your eyes over something like that, then maybe listen to your own advice..its just a forum and its all in fun.

Anyhow, I love the machine. It's not 100% like WOW amazing and revolutionary (i've seen the Z and it still isn't revolutionary, IMO), but its a really nice machine. Perhaps because this isn't my first notebook, but for first timers it may seem like the best thing ever. None the less, it blows the competition out of the water, IMO.

 

Don't Newegg just sell the regular pre-configured SR's?
Sorry I missed some pages in this thread. But what's the big deal about "Newegg SR"? Are they build differently or what? also, what's wrong with their packaging? I have brought some stuff from them. They don't have the best packaging I've seen, but they are not terribly bad either.

Thanks!

 

Yep. The only way to get a totally bloat free system is to reinstall using a standard Vista/XP disc.

 

I ordered a CTO SR, estimated ship date is Aug. 11th. Anyone know if Sony tends to be accurate with their dates? When I got my desktop from Dell, they were 3 or 4 days late in shipping it.

 

You owe it to yourself to read some of the older posts. Suffice to say there isn't anything wrong with the SR that Newegg is selling. There is a difference in packaging between CTO (config to order) machines and pre-configured machines. The CTO machines ship in a flashier box and are contained in the box better, but this isn't any different than what Sony has been doing for some time. The other difference is the Newegg machine has an Atheros card while the CTO machines as well as pre-config from Sony have an Intel WiFi solution. The difference is that the Intel card was delayed and so Sony chose to ship the early batch of machines with Atheros cards. Sony did the same with the FW models as well. As far as we can tell there isn't a performance difference between the two cards. Neither are spectacular since they are both two antenna as opposed to three antenna designs so they can't take full advantage of "N" MIMO.

 

i calling from wa. tried 3 different stores and best is $2099 AUS. which state do you work in?

 

Thanks for your time and effort!

Are you saying that you can get CTO's from Newegg? How does that work?

 

No you have to go thru Sony to get CTO. It's usually cheaper to get a pre-config from a third party than it is to go thru Sony. The Newegg SR was a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the same model config'd thru Sony. You also save on sales tax in most states.

 

Maybe its different in WA because theres less competition. I work in NSW. Still, at least you know what cost price is, now you just gotta bargain

 

I wanted to thank ascariss for finding the CTO SR page on the Sony Canada website. It's great to know that CTO SRs are coming out in Canada soon, the website doesn't look like it's up to 100% operation yet. I had a few questions though:

1) Does Fresh Start just decrease the bloatware? Why is it only an option available with Windows Vista business in the US CTO SRs?

2) Where's the so called "XP downgrade" option that's available? If it's not available with the CTOs, is it only going to be a retail exclusive option?

3) Just in case I decide to actually buy the SR in the states, does anybody know if Sony warranties are exclusive to the country which you bought the machine in? (ie. Sony USA laptops in Canada have to be sent back to the states to be fixed) A Sony Store rep told me that, but I'm wondering if he said that just to make the sale. I told him I could get it cheaper on newegg.com for at least a $300 difference.

If anybody can offer some help, that'd be great!

 

Yes, it gets rid of the trial software and such.

So Sony can make money.

 

I got mine from Bondi NSW.

As for the battery issue, I haven't checked that...

 

thanks mate. let us know about the battery drain cos that is a potential dealbreaker for me.

 

Woot, glad to see CTO Sony SRs will be making their way to Canada. I'm still debating between the SR and FW (I know they're totally different) and it sucks to see that the ATI HD3470 card in the SR has only 128 MB of vRAM, whereas in the States they have versions with 128 and 256 MB of vRAM.

 

Mine is "Out for delivery" but the hard drive i bought for it will arrive tomorrow, i wanted to put that in and format it right away

 

QQ moar

By the way what harddrive did you get? Let us know how easy it was to install.

 

hey

do any of you guys with the SR have the WAU (windows anytime ugprade) folder?

 

I don't see it anywhere, but I wiped the system and reinstalled the OS (Vista).

 

With ECKS PEE?

 

you reinstalled using vaio recovery center?

 

TT_TT
:wank:

 

I burned off a set of recovery discs from the Recovery Center.

 

hey after a long search i finally chose this as my laptop for college. i know the price may seem steep for a college student but i really want a good laptop since my dv5000 is pretty much crap compared to todays standards. anyways im going to wait until sonystyle canada put up the cto back up and ill order it. im going to trade in my hp (the online quote said id get 350 dollars) and ill also get 50 dollars credit for trade in so thats 400 dollars off. i dont know if anyone has previous experience with the trade in program is it accurate? also ive heard that vaios arent that durable do you think it could handle me carrying it around on campus everyday?

 

Is there a way to reduce/change the fan speed manually ? My Sony's fan has been so active lately and I was only surfing internet.