Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

You've bought another?

 

I thought new movies support WXGA / WSXGA?

 

Ah, I see. thanks!

 

Well, kinda. They're very high resolution. Just not exactly 1920*1080.

 

Hi, pulled the trigger and purchased a Z540CTO. My 540 should arrive in a few days, but I'm having massive buyers regret. I know I wanted the z590 for the resolution ><, but I choose the 540 because of price.
Does anyone else regret buying the 540 instead of the 590 because of resolution? And after receiving your 540 did you find it adequate? P.S. Any ideas for an easy way to switch. I imagine contacting Sony to a be impossible chore. I see ebay as my only option, but selling and ordering a new 590 is a pain too.

 

Can't you quickly call and cancel it now? Or reject the package when it arrives.

 

You can hit "return order" on SonyStyle.com or call them to cancel it and dont hang up until they give you cancellation confirmation (thats what I did!)

Ofcourse the Z540's massive price advantage against the Z590 is what made you buy it, just wait it out and see if that res works for you

 

nah, At first i wanted 590 because of res. but the price was crazy.

then i heard ppl complaining because everything is too small in 590.

then again i will use external monitor at home anyway. So I would save $400 and get 540 instead.

plus u have to CTO carbon fiber (extra $50) if u want the 2.53Ghz processor. I want black and 2.53 Ghz. So I get the 540 instead.

 

Thanks for the photos. just to clarify though, the Premium Lid looks much much darker in real life and to see the kind of pattern highlighted in these photos you need to shine a light (e.g. Flash) on it at just the right angle. Otherwise, it looks very subtly different than the regular lid, which I do like (the difference, not the regular lid ).

Daemonkore, Sony's return process is rather painless.

I would be careful in not taking delivery through, because as soon as the package leaves SonyStyle it is the responsibility of FedEx and the customer, even if it gets lost. Furthermore, Sony takes no responsibility for returned products without an RMA#.

I think the best way would be to:

1. Accept the package
2. Not open the package
3. Call Customer Service or click "Return Order" Online at SOnyStyle.
4. When you receive your RMA# (Return Merchandise Authorization #)
5. Put that Number all over the package.
6. Print a copy and see if you can slide it into the package where there is no packing tape.
7. Ship it back!

You should receive full refund like that.

Except that I would suggest using FedEx (w/ insurance) to ship the item back, and Sony will not reimburse you for this, unless they made an ordering mistake.

 

It's more or less what I've been saying for some time...

 

quick question if anyone knows the answer. is there a difference between the premium and the regular carbon fiber casing other than cosmetic difference?

if its only cosmetic does anyone know why premium carbon fiber is required on CTO configuraions where p9500 cpu is selected? is it just to bilk 50 dollars extra out of the consumer?

is the difference just on the back of the screen or is it also the entire case, under-chassi and keyboard area too?

 

No difference in the material of the lid. The only difference is cosmetic.

 

I went to SonyStyle and it doesn't give me a lower price than amazon for a similar config. Did you do anything special? It isn't giving me any discounts other than a few free upgrades. The base price is still $1650.

What did you do and how?

Thanks!

 

I think he got it with 10% Campus discount?

 

Where do I find this campus discount or is it Uni specific?

 

Don't forget the $250 coupon for the 540. It supposedly expired on Nov. 27th but it still works.

"ZEDTZEDW"

 

Thanks for the heads-up, but I think I will just order it on Amazon.com because i can opt for a 1-Day Shipping and only cost $30, plus I can send in my "Rebate" and get some more goodies for the laptop.

I think I will go for the extra battery, carrying case, and stick adapter.

 

Does anyone know if the Z-550N/B has two slots for a HD?

I was thinking of buying a SSD and using the stock HD as a storage disk.

 

Thanks for posting your photos. 2 of your photos give the impression that the lid is the same color tone as the aluminum keyboard. Is it darker or was that due to using a flash?

Link: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...151&langId=-1&identifier=epp_SonyStyle_Campus

 

Cosmetic only, and just the back i.e. the frame around the LCD is the same material in both I believe.

I do have to mention though that ht epremium lid feels a bit different to my touch. It feels smoother, but it coudl just be my perception.

 

On the "lightness" of the lid - Note that I didn't use any flash. It's just the angle of light falling on the laptop.

 

They do however, still show the 64GB x 2 in other places e.g. specs, PDFs, etc.

I am livid with anger that I got stuck with a SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW 128 MLC. I cannot wait to return this one and get the 64GB x 2.

I had a regular 7200 rpm on the previous Z590 and it was as fast as this one if not faster in saving large files.

You did a good job The light must be hitting it at the optimal angle

 

Your startup times probably improved though?

thanks

Of my team in work (6 of us) - 3 just bought Vaios (2 TZs and a Z). We're trying to get more adherents.

 

btw - larger versions of photos available at: http://www.symplification.com/...1_laptop_impressions

Didn't think it was really necessary to post thoughts on the Z here

 

Can anyone confirm that the Z series does indeed have TWO HD slots?

I've heard / read from some review that it does but some of them do not.

Which is it?

 

As far as I know, the Z does NOT have 2 HDD slots - maybe youre thinking of tZ / TT ?

 

Thanks for the heads up. I'm sure there are a bunch of us who were debating the SSD option after the price drop, but not after you enlightened us with the reason for the pricing change.

For those reconsidering the DIY option, Samsung has just come out with a new and relatively cheap 64GB MLC SSD that looks to be a good competitor to Intel's expensive X-25. Samsung uses its own controller chip -- not the under performing JMicron chip found on other cheap MLCs. It performed well during testing at hardware.fr ( translation), including acceptable write performance. Only concern is the low erase/write life cycle inherent in MLC.

 

absolutely no need for any type of cooler...the Z has the best thermal management I've ever experienced. You could use this on your lap all day

 

+1 Completely agree, my Z never felt hot on the underside (yes left side hand area due to hot air out the vent) no need for a cooler, and in all reality I only heard the fan once or twice due to windows SP 1 install)

 

I can't agree. I just got my new Z590, and already it has overheated and shut down on me twice when doing some heavy compiling stuff. It's the 2.53 GHz one, with a 7200 rpm drive, both of which might make a big difference.
The exhaust is scorching hot -- to the point of melting the cap on the ethernet cable which goes in right next to the exhaust. If you keep this on your lap, make sure you don't blow the exhaust on your thigh.

So far, I'm not exactly thrilled with the purchase, for various reasons:

1: Overheating when both CPU and HD runs hard.

2: No real Vista or XP DVDs, only "restore DVDs". Which means that there's no Sony approved way to install the system on a partition. If you have a 320 GB drive, it will use all of it for C:\ -- no choice.
I'm going to have to buy a new copy of Windows in order to be able to install it on only part of the drive. For a $2600 machine, that's not good enough, Sony.

3: "Fresh Start" is misleading. The install is chock full of unwanted extras, and you're not given a choice to exclude them. Particularly irritating was java update, which you can't close down without first accepting the java license. And the setting of the homepage to aol.com. And Roxio CD burning software that won't uninstall. And a crippled version of WinDVD that conflicts with my full WinDVD recorder. And a version of Adobe Acrobat that's incompatible with what I need. And dozens of different Microsoft viewers and other to me useless stuff. Whether it's useful for the majority is besides the question -- when you choose "fresh start", you should get just the Windows install and hardware drivers, so you can choose for yourself what else to install.

4: The touchpad works badly. When the system is busy, it is unresponsive or jumping all over the place. And if your fingers are cold and dry, it doesn't work at all. I have experience with at least a dozen laptop touchpads, and this is by far the worst one I've used.

5: The fingerprint reader doesn't. 9 out of 10 times it returns "bad read", and for the rest it returns "skewed" most of the time. This is a toy, and a bad one at that, designed for children's dainty fingers. Even my pinky is too big to fit between the bars.

6: Something slows down the system, at least in Vista Business. Download and double-click a setup file, and it takes up to minutes before it actually opens. The initial "optimizing system for performance" took about 10 minutes to complete.
I have an old PIII laptop that's much more responsive.

7: 32-bit Vista. This laptop should have come with 64-bit.

All in all, my first impressions aren't all that good. Hopefully it will improve after I buy a new version of Windows and reinstall with a real fresh start.

 

It sounds like your touchpad issue is the same one I had with the SZ I bought -- I returned mine for specifically that reason.

One "fix" I temporarily used was to wet my finger in my mouth and apply it to the touchpad -- that seems to "reset" the pad. Others have talked about placing their palm over the entire pad.

Of course, it's ridiculous that users should have to go through such stop-gaps to correct an inherently simple and generic techology...

 

I suspect I haven't really make the system work hard.

hmm.

time to try a game! lol.

 

What...

#1. ... glad I got me a P8400 and am planning to manually upgrade the HDD, so I bought a cheap one to start. I just ran Team Fortress 2 on max settings in speed mode, and the fan wasn't even that loud, nor was there any excessive heat.

#2. Just buy an anytime upgrade disc. Those things are like 10 bucks or something, and that'll let you clean install without a problem... Why go and spend 100+ for an upgrade disc with a license you don't need?

#3. This is useful info.

#4. driver issue maybe? Mine seems to work fine.

#5. ...lol... I totally disabled that thing. I'm never going to use it ever. I don't know why people care so much about biometrics. I wish I could have not had it installed at all, but meh. Just because I have it doesn't mean I'll use it.

#6. again... ... better get to that clean install ASAP.

#7. Probably... however, switching from 32-bit to 64-bit only requires a 64-bit installer disc as the key is still fully compatible. Not really a huge issue, just a matter of convinience. It would have been nice for Sony to offer the option... but then they'd also charge you extra for it too.

 

Most games don't tax the system hard. They put a huge load on the graphics card, and some load on one CPU core, but most games are single-threaded (meaning they'll at most max out half the CPU capacity) and use the HD as little as possible while playing.

Try copying a large folder or running a disk defrag at the same time as you run jobs that max out both cores, like some compression tasks. (And make sure the switch on the top is set to "speed", else the default config will limit the CPU speed too.)

 

Of course it is going to overheat, given your description of what you're putting it through! I would bet most people in this forum do not ever work their Z like you did to your Z. I can assure you that most other laptops would also "overheat" (especially with the size & thinness of the Z) if you work their CPU real hard (max out stressing both CPU cores) like you did to your Z....

 

Thanks for posting your negative feedback. It's good to know and be aware of these issues. Your the first to post so many problems on the Z.
I had no idea Sony's "Fresh Start" still included junkware. That is misleading.

 

i have 2,53ghz cpu in Z and everything is ok! its not even hot

 

I had the same.. No fan or overheating problem.. or anything freezing..

And for the above user with a list of "problems" after reading what you just did with your Z, I am speechless.... not worth the debate... the Z is a PORTABLE power machine NOT intended as a desktop replacement.... enough said.

 

Does the 9300M in the Z use shared memory or dedicated?

The specs on Sonystyle say the following :

NVIDIA® GeForce® 9300M GS GPU with 860-1500MB total available graphics memory
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD with Intel® Clear Video
128 - 256MB of dedicated video RAM
Hybrid Graphics System

But I think they have it reversed..

 

The Z590 has 256mb dedicated vram

The Z540 has 128mb dedicated vram

The other 4500HD is integrated and shared.

 

Actually, as long as they sell docking stations for it, they're meant to be able to be used as desktop replacements. These days, what companies do is buying their employees laptops with docking stations, not stationary PCs. And they're intended to be used for everything, including large compiles and other heavy tasks.

But that's irrelevant -- if it heats up too much, it should start throttling and not crash. A crash due to overheating under heavy use is never acceptable, no matter what kind of laptop it is. Even a $500 laptop normally handles this gracefully, and it should be expected of a $2500 one.

If it works for you without overheating, that's great, but you can't assume that everybody else uses the machine the same way you do, nor require it.
Remember that Sony had to recall close to half a million TX/TZ laptops due to the overheat protection not working properly. Seven people needed medical treatment for burns due to this, which are seven too many. Add thousands who just had their machines crashing. Saying that they used their machine for too heavy tasks just doesn't cut it.

The specs for the Z say 100W +- 10%, which means it also should be able to get rid of 110W of heat. The tiny vent probably can't, and the internal heat builds while heavy loads persist. Since the vent can't be increased on the fly, the solution is to decrease the load. I.e. throttle the load.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great little machine, but I think it might have been rushed out the door without enough QA. There are many flaws that just should not be there, and would not be cost-prohibitive to fix for future versions:

- More agressive throttling based on temperature. Yeah, it might mean jerky blu-ray movies if the machine gets too hot, but rather that than crashes or burns. And it can be done in software, and "light" users shouldn't notice a difference.

- Ditch the biometrics. It's not ready yet, and the implementation you chose is only suitable for six year old girls with dainty fingers, whom I would guess aren't the primary buyers of this product.

- Use the money saved to get a better touchpad. Neither Lenovo, Dell or HP have touchpads that require warm or slightly moist fingers (although the HPs have a different problem -- users rub a hole in them within a year or two).

- Stop selling "fresh start" unless you really mean fresh start. Just removing a handful out of dozens of unwanted add-ons and misconfigurations isn't particularly helpful. At the very least, give "fresh start" users a Windows DVD they can install from, not just restore a drive image (including OEM bloat) from.

 

wats the difference b/w the 128 and 256? I kinda noob about gpu. tq

 

With twice the amount of dedicated video RAM, the graphics system can store more textures (simplified: paint jobs on the objects) locally, for immediate use.
This increases speed when there are lots of textures, sometimes quite radically.

Some programs, like ES: Oblivion and FSX, won't run well without at least 512 MB, unless you reduce the texture quality. With 128 MB, you probably have to turn it way down to get playable frame rates in high resolutions.
Some games (most noticeably most newer driving games) cheat by making everything dark. With only dark shades, textures compress a heck of a lot more, and you can use more of them even without a lot of dedicated texture memory.

 

arth1,

Don't get me wrong, and I do agree with you on the "fresh start" not that helpful, but I think I agree with the others that you are asking a little too much of your Z590. Now, you are entitled to your opinions and feelings and you can certainly keep disliking your Z590, but I think I want to say something that I think is fair here.

Yes, companies like mine (and maybe yours) give out crappy Dell D630 and a docking station and expect us to part the Red Sea with it. But even the corporate bean counters that can't tell unobtainium from uranium recognize sometimes small laptops have their limitations and can be persuaded to give us a M6300 behemoth for some heavy duty work.

The law of physics is not going to change for me, you, Sony or Steve Jobs (although some would disagree about Steve Jobs being on the list ). Pushing any computer to its limit is going to get you a lot of heat (and sometimes errors -- being it a crashed system or incorrect results) that is outside the numbers on the back that only contains "normal operating conditions" -- no, that plus/minus 10% is the variation in normal operating conditions, not the max. you can generate if you are really pushing your machine.

The fact of the matter is there are not that many applications that can push CPU and HDD at the same time and I doubt that there are even one or two that their original designers would ever dream of it to be run on a sub-4lb, 13" laptop.

Obviously, you can achieve high load on both by doing multiple different tasks at the same time, but why? Can't you use something like task scheduler to do them serially? I mean, you said you can accept throttling down, taking a bit longer to get the job done, and keeping the system running, but you don't want the system to crash altogether. Wouldn't you achieve the same thing by running multiple jobs serially in batch, taking longer, and generating a constant heat instead of maximum heat at the same time?

Anyway, you can do whatever on your laptop but I think your experience is a little extreme for anyone else. I still hope you can enjoy your Z better. Personally, I have not stressed my laptop enough to make it hot. Only time it really got hot was when I was watching DVD on bed, fell asleep and the laptop tilted enough that the sheets completely blocked the vent. It probably lasted about 30-40 minutes. Still, it didn't crashed and it was still not as hot as my old S170 after an hour of gaming.

 

Here here. Wall of text + logical statements.

+rep

 

Hit the nail on the HEAD! Thank you +100000000000000 - I read his long and hard reply to my quote but decided against answering it but you DID IT! thank you!

 

ah. but it doesnt mean 256 is twice better than 128 rite?

 

This is correct, but frankly, given the maximum potential performance of the 9300 (which is rather low), I would say there's no difference - i.e. don't choose based on this.

 

Man,

This is my second Z590, and the only differences between this and the first one are:

1. 128 GB SSD instead of 7200 rpm 250 GB HDD
2. Premium Carbon-Fiber Lid instead of regular
3. Windows Vista Home Premium instead of Business w/ Fresh-Start

I got the home OS, because I figured with all of the Business and Ultimate licenses we own, I can just easily upgrade to one or the other, and here are my misadventures which make me so mad that I paid over $3K with everything.

1. At first, I decide to format the SSD and install 64 BIT Vista Ultimate.
   After installation, I would not even get a driver for the Wireless card, let alone other hardware.
2. Then I formatted the SSD and installed Windows Vista Business 32-but.
   However, after installation, and downloading all of the proper drivers/utils from esupport.sony.com--just like every time I have tried this on a sony Vaio in the past decade--some of the installation applets would disappear after a bit of progress, without an error or message: I would not see the "finish" screen.
   This meant that some drivers/utils installed incompletely even when installed in the exact order recommended.
3. Then I decided to recover the system using the hidden partition, but after the "VAIO Software Phase I" I got errors that it did not finish correctly.
4. The previous one happened again after another recovery. But I figured out that the system works as expected even after that, so I kept going.
5. Then I decided to upgrade to Vista Ultimate using the upgrade option instead of a clean install. BUT after Windows installed and restarted I started getting "BLUE SCREEN" errors. Yes you saw ti right: "BLUE SCREEN".
6. Anyway, I discovered that even after the blue screen, if I restarted and set to "last known good config" the system works as if Vista Ultimate 320bit installed correctly, except that I do not see the GPS option under SmartWi so far.

Can anyone tell me if this is abnormal or not?

Should I not be able to clean install Vista Business 32-bit and install all applicable drivers/utils without a problem?

 

Where do you get one of these?