Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Hi - does someone know if the Vaio VGN-Z Series will support 8GB of ram? The Intel GM45 Chipset which is built in supports 8GB with two double sided ram-modules but maybe Sony limits it (e.g. Bios or something else).

Here is the spec. - click

 

Sorry to sound rude but did you even bother to go to sony's website, find the model, and click on SPECIFICATIONS ?

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...Id=8198552921644570897&parentCategoryId=16154

 

Sorry, can't help with that. I believe some shop for laptop parts will have it later this year...

 

Indeed. It also outputs up to 1920 x 1200 via DVI in the dock, although I remember reading somewhere that this is the maximum resolution.

S

 

It only displays the Z-series and no specific reference to a specific model so yes, I have checked but it's not uncommon for these websites to not be accurate. But, thanks for the answer.

 

You may have a point... Maybe others can chime in, but for now it's safe to assume that is has the Intel 5100.

 

Taken from the above link:



The long writeup at Amazon on the Vaio z670 for sale also lists the same card.

I think we can sleep well at night knowing we are, or would be, using an Intel 5100.

 

VGN-Z690YAD, top specs w/ a 128SSD, on sonystyle.com for preorder. Features a limited edition shadow border design.

While I'm crazy about lids like the Gothic Arabesque (wish it were offered here) and Premium Carbon Fiber, this one looks disappointing in their pictures to me (maybe it'd be better in person). Oh well, I'm not shelling out for a SSD anyway. Just wanted to let people know it is up in case they're interested.

 

In regard to the 300 bundle deal, I think its dead. I tried calling today, my guy put me on hold to talk to an associate, when he came back, he said one or the other (10% or 300 off, not both). I still have to wait though, I applied for the financing online and got the 7-10 days in the mail shiz. He couldnt get me instant approval since I had already applied.

 

awh... I'm in the same boat for the online financing thing.. What's up with Sony not providing instant approval online?.. Dell has it...although I would never buy laptops from them.

I was also thinking about calling then for an instant approval... I guess we just have to wait for it then...

 

i find the marketing in US market so funny, in japan, any of those designs are available to any model (as far as i know)

 

Hello everyone.

After going around looking for a good Macbook Aluminium type of a laptop I finally came across something nice here.

I just have few questions and I can't go through 600+ pages to find it so maybe someone could help me out here:

1. How does 9300m perform in games (is it close in performance to 9400m?)
2. Is there a significant difference between 128MB 9300m in in lower config and 256mb 9300m on more pricey range ?
3. Is WXGA screen good enough to use outside ?
4. Any existing issues with VAIO Z that I should be aware of ?
5. How does it run games like COD4 and HL2 on high ?

I want to go for the cheaper config with WXGA screen 2.4 CPU. Plz help me out in here

 

1. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336958 keep in mind that the 9300 has 128/256 dedicated while the 9400 is not dedicated so it'll be using up ram. in essence, the 9300 and 9400 are pretty much the same in performance
2. no there is not a significant difference, so don't worry about that. in fact, you'll get higher fps with the 128mb model since it is at a lower resolution
3. yes it is very good, it is a matte screen with the colors of a glossy screen, so it's easy to see in sunlight
4. because of the thin lid, a few people have experienced the screen scratching against the keyboard. the silver paint on some people's hinges came off (this is probably not an issue, i have 2 m1210s with silver paint that i'm betting is similar to the paint on the Z, the 1st m1210 paint did not come off even after 2.5 years, but the 2nd m1210 paint came off after a few months, this probably means it only happens to select laptops that didnt go through manufacturing properly). battery drain problem.. meaning if you turn off the laptop, the battery could still drain albeit slowly (i heard that if it's in sleep mode, this doesnt happen, and it might have been fixed in the 6 series--someone with a late 5 series reportedly didnt have the battery drain problem already)
5. refer to link in 1. it probably can't play it on high, but medium is fine. if you check, the macbook can't handle it on high either

 

Thanks a lot for that!

1.I've read that battery drain problem is on US versions of Z is that true?
2.How bad is the drain problem ? Does it require changing the battery ?
3. How big is the problem with screen scratching from keys ?

Also will 9300m give me a good performance in non-game applications like Photoshop, Video editing and others? Thanks!

 

1. i'm actually not sure, i think it is on any Z (including japanese)
2. not bad, i heard if you turn it off and leave it for a week, then it'll drain by ~30% (from what i can remember), so that means that if you turn off the laptop for 6 hours you'll lose ~1% of battery life (and remember, if you just put it to sleep, which is the "new off" for vista, you probably wont encounter this.. i never turn vista off anymore, only when i need to restart the computer)
3. it is a big problem for some people as there's a coating on the screen to protect it from being scratched, and those people have noticed the coating coming off in some areas. but then again, most people have not experienced this problem so in my opinion, you're pretty safe (it has also been reported that someone returned their Z because of this and when he got it returned, the lid seemed stiffer, so this problem might or might not be fixed in the 6 series)-- on a side note, i am pretty sure you won't have this problem, take a look at this: http://b2b.sony.com/vaio/durability/durability_videos.html?vid=3 .. there are more videos if you scroll down, the results say that there was no scratching on the screen

the 9300m is fine for any of the things you listed. those are all simple tasks, even intel integrated gpus can handle those stuff. in fact, it'll only make a difference in photoshop CS4, any of the older photoshops don't support gpu acceleration. the only reason people want faster gpus is so they can play games at higher quality

 

Thx m8 you are really helping me out here. Few more questions:

1.I was going for studio xps 1340 but its too big of a fingerprint magnet, no fingerprint issue with Vaio Z ?

2. Do you know by any chance a 3Dmark06 score for VAIO Z? I just want to know if it performs as good as 9400m on macbook.

3. Have you played any games on it like HL2 or Fallout 3. I'm most interested in COD4 if its playable, I won't be doing much gaming on it, just occasionally.

4. How do you like the looks/design of your VAIO Z? Is back lid brushed aluminum as well ?

 

np at all, i'm happy to help

1. the Z chassis is made entirely from carbon fiber and the palmrest/keyboard part is made of aluminum, you can't put fingerprints on it
2. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html it is a tiny bit slower, in fact, it's right under the 9400 on that huge list of gpus, but what you gain is that it is dedicated versus integrated
3. no i havent received the laptop yet if you check out the link i sent you earlier in my previous post, it will tell you at what settings each gpu is capable of playing for each of those games
4. the Z and the TT are as stylish as laptops get, they don't have any competition as far as looks. and the back lid is carbon fiber, you can opt for "premium carbon fiber" which is just the same carbon fiber.. but they brush it (only for the lid, the rest of it is not brushed)

i hope you know what carbon fiber is.. it's what ferraris are made of

 

Have you considered other laptops such as xps 1340 or LG p310 ? Are you getting one of the Vaio Z ?

1. The link takes me to forum reply
2. Is it possible to upgrade HDD without voiding warranty?

thx

 

hahaha sorry, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336958

yes i considered the 1340, but it's really no comparison to the Z, especially with weight.. screen quality.. design.. materials.. everything, the only thing that i wish was on the Z is the illuminated keyboard

and no.. never considered the LG p310, LG = subpar manufacturer

yes it is possible to upgrade the HDD without voiding warranty.. if you ever have any problems with it and need to send it back, just take out your hdd.. switch it with the hdd they gave you, and send it back. in fact, with dell, they tell me to remove the hdd when i return it. they'd never know you were using another hdd

and yes, my Z is currently shipping, will be here on tuesday

 

So far after doing the semi-clean install ony my new 690 the only problem I am having (and it's a big one) is connecting to the internet. I'm able to connect to my wireless network ok but I've been having trouble getting on the internet. I've called Sony Tech Support 3 times and Linksys once and everytime they are able to get me connected but once it drops, I can't reconnect. After talking to the Linksys rep, it's working. I'll keep my finger crossed. Other than that everything else seems to be working fine.

 

try reinstalling wifi drivers.

 

Good for you! Make sure to share your view about it and some game benchmarks ;P

1.How is 690 Carbon different from normal Vaio Z ? Is it more expensive?
2. How much are you paying for your config. I found quite good offer on ebay for brand new Vaio Z with 2.4 CPU, 3GB ram, 9300, for around 1100pounds .. Is that a good deal ?

3. What will you do with your m1210 when Z knocks on your door ? R u keeping it ;> For me Z is already ultraportable, what is the point of having HP mini 1000 as well like the guy post above me ?

 

It's my wife's if you must know.

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, make sure you've got the latest drivers from the Sony site -- I was having a similar problem with my TT out of the box, & it went away once I updated the drivers.

 

Hehe I knew there was something wrong Hows wifi fixing going on?

 

1. there is no "690 carbon", all Zs are made from carbon fiber, and for all Zs that you custom make, you are able to add an optional "premium carbon fiber", where they use brushed carbon fiber for the lid .. purely for looks, the carbon fiber is the same
2. i dont know about prices in europe.. so sorry i really can't help you there, it depends on if it is the 6 or 5 series and which resolution. europe prices are generally a lot more than in US/CA. i personally wouldnt buy from ebay, but if there is a big difference from the europe Z price, then i say for for it
3. i am going to put it right next to my m1210 and when i am playing games on the Z, i will be able to chat with friends on the m1210.. so many possibilities! (but yeah, there's no point in getting a netbook if you already have the Z, but they are still smaller than the Z, and they're pretty cheap, so why not!, you can play games on the Z and chat with your friends on the netbook!)

 

All -

About to order a z690 CTO. I think it's ridiculous to spend $100 on a 2 GB DDR3 module (as Sony's 4 GB RAM option is +$100, but 2 GB is included).

Would there be any issues with CAS latency or RAM timings if I were to get an inexpensive 2 GB stick of DDR3-1066 off of Newegg and pair that with whatever Sony is using as stock? The sticks wouldn't match -- and that does bother me -- but is there any technical reason why I should not do that?

 

i dont know how it works, but even if a stick is the same.. if they're from diff manufacturers, they won't function as well

just get the Z, open it up.. find out who the manufacturer is.. what the exact model is.. then order it yourself

personally, i just got the 50$ extra 1gb ddr3 because i dont need 4gb, hell.. i don't even go close to using 2gb on my m1210.. getting a 2gb stick from elsewhere is around 56$, but i dont want to bother figuring out what brand.. and then ordering it and placing it in

 

Nice

1. Is 9300m dedicated GPU with sli with Intel GMA 4500MHD ? Can they work together? Does that mean that it will have a slightly better performance than integrated 9400m on macbook? And is that option included in cheaper configs of Vaio Z.

2. How does the Stamina switch work under Linux? I know there are always driver issues under linux and I assume it wont work, so how will I be able to choose if lets say I need a bit more GPU power for Compiz and such.

3. Hows the battery life, different soures say that it ranges from 2.5 to 3/hrs under load and some that up to 9hrs??

I think it's about it from my questions about Z Sorry for so many, but you are really helping me out and wanting me to get the ZZZZZ

 

1. no, they are separate, i'm not sure but i don't think you can connect 2 different gpus with sli. the macbook will perform better in tests, but the difference is ridiculously tiny, and to play games on macbook.. you have to use bootcamp, otherwise.. if you use parallel (virtual machine), you're just going to have worse performance. also, you can tweak the 9300 in the Z, you cannot tweak geforce cards in 9400 unless you do some hacking. so if you set the 9300 to performance it'll be better than the 9400 in the macbook. needless to say, the Z is MUCH cooler than the macbook and the fan will make much less noise
2. i dont know about linux, i have a feeling the switch wont work in linux.. unless someone made a driver for it, which i doubt
3. it could get to 2.5-3 if you go nuts on it, like watching blu-ray. otherwise, it should be around 5 hours on stamina, if you get the extended battery, it can go up to 9. if you tweak some settings, you can get the extended to go to 12 and the standard to go to 9 (or around there) .. but you'll have to search for the instructions.. it's somewhere in this part of the forum

 

Not good. I can connect to my neighbors network and surf no problem. The connection to my network is just extremely unstable with this new laptop. My 590 worked perfectly. I don't get it. Only real difference I'm aware of is the 32-bit vs. 64-bit OS. Oh well, I'm not too worried about it.

edit: then again I've been surfing for about 45 min now no problem. maybe it healed itself!

 

Hm... Someone who can answer my question?

 

No, it doesn't becouse of BIOS limitation.

 

Is there a chance of getting rid of this limitation by a possible BIOS-update?

 

hey bob loblaw, can you do me a favor and see what playback devices you have listed ? u can get that by right clicking on the sound tray and then "playback devices".
if you have any device with an "HDMI" tag, can you hit the "configuration" button ? if not, can you check the properties of that device to see how many channels it supports, or whether DTS and Digital Dolby are ticked ?

or i suppose if you could just name the devices that you see, i'd really appreciate that.


the reason i'm asking is because i owned a dell m1330, and it was outputting 5.1 surround through my HDMI port. recently got a dell 1340 and am returning it because they upgraded their audio chipset and it no longer supports 5.1 output (only stereo). just want to make sure the Z won't have that problem.

 

No problem. However I am at work now and my computer is home. I'll do it tonight and pm you what I find.

 

Whether you're able to output 5.1 over HDMI is more of a driver issue than something physical, and i think that you could have made that dell 1340 work as well.

Dolby Digital and DTS are compressed 5.1 which are equivalent to a stereo audio transmission. (SPDIF over HDMI) It is still technically stereo.

Even if windows audio panel shows Stereo only, if the tests for Dolby Digital and DTS play fine and output to all 5 speakers, then you are getting a 5.1 output.

As far as I know only ATI 4xxxx series desktop and notebook video cards, support real discrete 5.1/7.1 multichannel output. This is only a biggie for Bluray really, which has high quality audio tracks. Regular DVD movies are usually Dolby Digital which will play fine.

 

The limited edition "Shadow Border" Design on the Z - is that just skin or is it permanently etched onto the carbon fiber?

 

it's etched onto the carbon fiber, just like premium carbon

 

Any update with battery drain issues on the Z600 series refresh?

 

So far I know Sony update policy, I'd say no.

 

Seconded. Anything?

I just ordered a z690 myself.

 

Oh, and what's the consensus these days on 5,400 RPM vs. 7,200 RPM drives for everyday usage (maybe a minimum amount of gaming)? My understanding is that areal densities on modern notebook drives are getting to such a point where the 1,800 RPM spindle speed difference is getting undercut more and more.

I ask because I have a 250 GB, 5,400 RPM drive-equipped z690 in processing, and I'm wondering if I should cancel the order and spec out a different notebook with a speedier drive (or maybe get one from Newegg if the laptop works out for me).

 

Does 128/256 VRAM on 9300 makes a difference? I know they are on different resolution models of VAIO Z but ASUS N10J has 256mb and 1024x600 res so I was wondering if 128mb 9300 would handle games the same as N10J ?

 

Well, I would say the performance would be better on the N10J due to the extra 128MB memory for graphics.

Then again, the 9300 series were never created to play hardout 3D games.

 

It won't make a difference really. Higher resolution gaming does benefit from the extra Vram. However, Sony made it proportional that 13xx gets 128 while 1600x900 gets 256.

 

in the 1340, when you hit "test" to test out the DTS and Digital Dolby signals, it gives you an error telling you that these modes will be disabled. I initially thought it was a drivers problem. Except that when i googled it, it seemed like it was a common problem in the chipset they upgraded to. "Nvidia High definition audio 2.0". nobody found a solution to it online and even the dell representative (after 2 hours of troubleshooting) told me that it was a hardware limitation. Would newer drivers surface someday and solve that problem ? sure, but am not willing to wait specially that my current M1330 already outputs HDMI in 5.1 channels. the 1340 felt more like a downgrade than an upgrade to me.

I'm interested in the new sony Z690. I just couldn't find out what exact HDMI audio chipset they're using. so i'm waiting for bob's reply

 

Man, im still waiting for GE to give me my approval by mail! DARN THEM!! I want my Z.

 

Ok I'm debating between 2, Vaio Z and Vaio SR. I'm more for SR cause its way cheaper that Z but got some questions:

1. How does Vaio's ATI HD 3740 256mb on 1280x800 screen perform in comparison to Nvidia 9300m GPU on 13xx screen? I know that it gets around 2k on 3Dmark06 but I've read on Vaio SR gaming thread that a guy got 2900 with new drivers but on VAIO FW laptop which has the same Ati HD 3740 video card.

2. Why when I look into specs of SR I find new CPU on 1066Mhz and Ram is still 800Mhz insted of 1066Mhz (as far as I'm conerned of new Centrino) , is there a big difference between those 2 in terms of performance ?

3. Wrong forum but.. when taking 256MB Ati HD option on SR it does come with HDMI ?

4. Where can I find normal black SR cause i think they are discontiuing them.

Thank you very much

 

It's gonna be another 3 hrs or so b4 I can check this for you. Anyone out there w/ a 690 able to help madmack out on this?