Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Thanks a lot! I'm going to order one tonight.

 

A fairly straightforward and obvious solution -- gah, my brain fails me sometimes

Thanks for setting me straight again!

 

Has anyone tried the Vaio Z with 8GB ram? I have installed 2x4GB memory modules and windows claims 8,316,872KB physical RAM. But how to be sure it is really able to use it under Windows? Page File appears to have doubled in size and harddisk access is still as constant as ever.

 

I don't know what you're trying to accomplish but putting 8GB of RAM isn't going to show any miracles or hocus-pocus. More than likely, it will make 0 difference for you. The only way it might make a difference is if you run 2-3 intensive instances of operating systems in a VM environment, but since Virtualization is disabled on our system, you'll likely not profit too much from that either.

If you're running 64-bit Vista, which i assume you are since it recognized the memory, you're all set.

 

I wonder why it's taking so long for the Z640 CTO to become available?

 

My z690 CTO just shipped yesterday. Ordered it the 25th of Feb, estimated ship was march 10th

 

I ordered mine on Monday and it also shipped on Wednesday.

 

I must say I'm really liking the Z--miles ahead of the Dell 1340. I do have that issue where when I'm typing my cursor jumps to text I wrote earlier and I start writing there accidentally. I think it's because my finger accidentally hits the touchpad, but still, it can be annoying =).

I recommend everyone upgrade to the Intel SSD, even though with Vista and nothing else installed, there is only 34 GB left (with 74.5 GB starting). Vista is a beast!

 

I was worried about Intel's "wear leveling" so I chose Samsung one and I'm quite happy with that...what more after installing Vista and all my programs I still have more than 80GB disc space...what makes me calmer

 

+1

If you're running 64-bit Vista or XP, you'll see the full amount. If it's 32-bit, you wasted money. And the only purpose is if you are doing a lot of stuff that consumes memory.

You can run many 32-bit guests in VMWare, but not any 64-bit as stated above.

 

The 7200 rpm is much faster ? Then I think I have to go with it

 

With the same platter density and number of platters, a 7200 rpm drive will be exactly 7200/5400, or 33% faster than a 5400 rpm drive for continuous transfers.
For access time, that's a function of both the head moving to the right track followed by the track spinning into the correct position. The former won't improve, while the latter will, so generally you can see a small improvement, but not nearly as much as for transfer speed.

One thing is generally slower, though -- spinning up from having been turned off. Stabilizing at a 7200 rpm speed can easily take an extra second.

 

One way to increase speed of a HD is to only use a small part of the drive. Hard drives start reading on the outside, and progress toward the inside, just like an old LP. * This means that for each rotation, the head passes over a lot more disk area on the outer tracks than the inner tracks, and this is -- unlike on an LP -- used to store more information. The net effect is that a drive is up to three times as fast on the outer tracks as on the inner ones.
By buying a much larger drive than you need, and then "short stroking" it, by only allocating space that's on the outermost few tracks, you both keep read/write speed at a maximum, as well as reduce access time quite a bit, because the head won't have to move more than a couple of steps, and not across the entire drive.
For a single platter drive, just allocating the first partition small will work as short stroking. For a multi-platter drive, the answer is a little more complex, but usually the same approach will work well if you don't have HD stroking tools.

A more honest way to compare a 64 GB SSD with a 320 GB HD would be to only use the first 64 GB on the HD. That will radically improve the speed and access time of the HD, and the difference to the SSD is then smaller.

Yeah, the Intel SSD will still be faster, but not by such a big margin. And at a much higher price.


*: Incidentally, for CDs and DVDs, it's the other way around -- they start reading at the hub and proceed towards the rim. If you want to maximize the read speed of a CD or single-layer DVD that you burn, start by placing a dummy file close to the size of the unused space, burn it without closing, and only then start to add the real files.

 

I wanted to follow up on the question I posed for fellow Z owners in my review of my Z590: How loud is your Z at idle in the balanced profile on Vista? My P9500 idles at about 40 degrees C (measured via the latest release of HWMonitor) and the 9300M at 62 degrees C when sitting on my lap or a table. At these temps the fan is a little louder than I had anticipated it would be.

I wanted to see if that idle temp was unusually high, as I could possibly knock it down a bit by replacing the current thermal paste with some Arctic Silver 5.

Also, does anyone know what Sony's "Silent" profile does to the processor's performance? I saw my temperatures drop, but couldn't identify what was different, and if the trade-off was worth it.

Going to Stamina mode and shutting off the 9300M also seems to yield a 4-5 degree drop in the C2D temp after a few mins.

Thanks.

 

I noticed this, too. Go to power setting and set Hard Disk / Turn off / 5 minutes or more. By default it's something like 1 min.

 

theguac: do you have pics of your SSD install?

 

That (1 minute) is way too often -- you will reduce the life of your HD by spinning it up and down too much, plus, of course, being irritated at how often you have to wait for it to spin back up again.

 

Quick question.

Do you guys use the battery saving function at all? Or is it better to fully charge and discharge the battery?

Thanks a lot!

 

I fully charge the battery and let it drain out,otherwise at a certain point it
will have the tendency in memorizing a certain level of charge and consequently
will not work as it is supposed to.

 

As it's not NiMH battery, the memorizing factor is quite low and the battery saver profile is there, as these batteries doesn't like to be fully charged...in fact it said that the best for battery is to charge it up to 40%. On the other hand I need maximum battery life, so I'm not using the battery saver as well. I prefer to buy new battery in 2-3 years, if this one will turn bad than...

 

There's no issue of memory effect with Li Ion cells. So you don't need to drain it.

 

something to clarify: http://www.resrchintl.com/memory_effects.html

 

In a unusual turn of events, I convinced my job to purchase me a laptop since I was long due for one. The annoying thing is that instead of reimbursing me for the one i just purchased, they HAVE to purchase it through the company and give it to me.

Very annoying, and it looks like I will have to sell my Z soon. Luckily I'm getting another Z as replacement, so I'm not too worried.

If anyone is considering the Z690, mine will be up for sale soon. (2.4ghz, 1600x900, carbon fiber lid, 4gb ddr3, 320gb 7200rpm, 3 year sony warranty)

 

Not only do you not need to do it, you damage the battery every time you drain it, reducing the life. The wear you put on the battery every second is MUCH higher at 5% battery life than at 50% battery life, even if you draw the same power.

Two things kill Li-Ion batteries: (1) Heat, and (2) being drained too much.

There is protection circuitry in the battery that prevents you from draining it too much, but if you drain it as much as you can ("empty"), and then wait before charging it again, you can cause irreparable damage, and will reduce battery life considerably.

With Li-Ion, charge often, but avoid overcharging it, because that leads to heat, the other big battery killer.

 

What would you recommend for a power scheme for someone who keeps it plugged in 90% of the time?

 

I got my z! yay! love it!

BUT

I decided to wipe it and install a fresh os (unltimate 64bit) and spent about 6 hours bluescreening and reinstalling and trying to figure out was wrong. I still have no clue and tried everything I could think of.

Have gone back to the reg system through the restore disks (thank god I made em)

What was I doing wrong? I would like to know what the proper procedure is cause I know that at some point I will want to do a fresh install.

Also, I dont see the deal with people complaining about the high resolution and text being too small. I think its glorious and beautiful and I have no issue reading even from a couple of feet away.

 

I picked up the Z610 from Bestbuy yesterday after much deliberation. Got a decent deal on it with warranty from the worker so I guess I would say it's fine.

You can hear a buzzing sound on the 7200 RPM drive if you put your ear on top of the keyboard (literally). Any distance away, even a few inches, and I can't hear anything from it. The culprit of course is the fan. I think undervolting made it a bit quieter than it was previously, but it's still audible. Not loud but not-silent. It's not silent, so the fan is audible a meter away in a dead silent room, any further and you can't hear it (on idle to medium activity that is, not heavy cpu processing.) There is also a small vibration if you push down on the left side of the laptop. On my lap I don't feel any vibrations.

Did a clean install and basic service tweaks that I always do. The battery life is projecting 8:30 with wifi off at half brightness 96% only doing tasks such as MS word continuous typing.

With wifi on it stays at around 7:40 with half brightness only continuous typing.

Continuous web surfing brings it down to a bit over 6 hours.

Getting about 4 hours of continuous web surfing with Speed mode.

Everything else is as I expected, since I've seen this unit oh so many times before buying it.

Power drain is there of course. One thing that concerns me is that when I left it plugged in at 100% before turning it off, in the morning, it still came off at 96% after bootup. Is there something in the power brick that shuts off recharge to the laptop? If there is, then I would find that I would almost never see 100% on the laptop, which may annoy me.

Everything else is perfect, really no flaws or atleast I can't notice any.

 

Wow, the battery life you're getting from that Z610 is much better than what I'm getting from my Z590. What kind of temps does HWMonitor give you when your CPU is idling (that is, presumably, at the 6.0x multiplier)?

With mine regularly at 40 degrees I feel like the fan is kinda loud.

 

Between 20-30. The battery is also brand new, of course.

 

Oh wow, that's the measurement from hwmonitor?

Mine is running WAY too hot then.

 

Just ordered my Sony Z690 CTO! Yay! I was also able to get the $300 bundle deal stacked with the 10% student discount over the phone! Now hopefully I can get the rebate deal also! The dude was so nice! Anyhow, I ordered everything standard but upgraded the cpu to P9600. Got my own hdd and memory for upgrades. Anyhow, can't wait for it to come!!!

 

Fresh install?

 

Hey mark, are you using the stock 7200RPM HDD? The toshiba one or did you put one in yourself? I am going to put a seagate 7200.3 in my z when it comes.

 

No -- I'm about to, but I'm going to switch the default HDD out with a 7200rpm 320GB one that I just bought, and if I thought the cooling wasn't working properly, I was also prepared to do a little more work and replace the current thermal paste with Arctic Silver 5.

I should install the new HDD and do the fresh install and then compare. Thanks for the info. Was that with speed mode or stamina?

 

Stock, Hitachi

 

Stamina hehe. All that bloatware is probably weighing the laptop down, unless you did a comprehensive cleanup -- and there is a looot of bloatware -- I get nauseated at the thought of uninstalling and cleaning all of it.

 

Hm, how much did you pay? I couldn't really negotiate with them and only got it for $100 off.

By the way, if you get the SSD, vibrations go away completely, the computer responds MUCH faster, and the fan doesn't make as much noise. You should try it!

 

Oh, and I don't know if anyone else will find this amazing or not. But I put an empty recordable DVD-RW disc in the drive and dragged and dropped a 700 MB file onto it, as if dragging and dropping into a secondary hard drive. The "copying file..." came up, as if you were copying it to a flash drive, and it was done.

lol I found that cool, you don't need any software, just drag and drop. I don't know if anyone else does though.

 

Do you know how to get to the CPU on the computer? I think I've found it but there's this big silver thing on top of it that I can't get off!

 

I got $250 off but I knew someone who worked there. Plus tax is a lot here.

 

Wow!! No fair =(. I feel jipped!

 

They basically just gave me 2 years of warranty.

 

Now all you need is the SSD to cut back on the vibrations and the loud fan. That battery level is nowhere near what I get on my new 610. I can squeeze out about 5 hours with Word writing and light internet activity.

I'd really like to switch out the CPU for the P9500 in the future if I can get the P8600 out though!

 

I don't feel any vibrations on normal use or on my lap. I need to exert pressure (purposely push down) on the left side to feel a slight vibration which I would otherwise never notice.

The fan stays on even on idle so nothing will stop it from blowing. Have you undervolted? Maybe that will help a bit.

I pointed out only slightly above 6 hours of use with continuous web surfing, so your numbers sound about right with some tweaks and little improvements.

 

Hm, I actually didn't. Just follow the guides posted in this forum or in the service manual and you'll be fine. It wasn't very hard at all. They had rubber feet on the HDD that I took off. I put one on one corner of the SSD so it wouldn't move and that's about it.

 

The same thing happened to me when I tried to install Win7 64-bit on my Z690 CTO. It BSOD'd each time I tried to install it. I ended up just using the recovery disks to reinstall Vista 64-bit, but forced the Sony "bloatware" process to quit when it came to that part.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else had the same troubles, and if they were able to rectify the issue.

 

same issues, make sure you delete all partitions, reboot and start fresh. Also you have to use vista sp1+ else you'll have problems with the partitions (google GTP etc).

 

A few pages back, I had a post about my experience installing Vista on my 610 and 690. It was a clean install. I had no BSOD or anything. Follow the steps there and you'll be fine.

 

Congrats! Glad to hear people are still getting hooked up w/ the deal. Just goes to show it all depends on the rep you get, or is the deal officially back on? Anyway, good luck w/ the rebate, should be getting my goods any day now.

 

Just want to say a big TY for the link. I can live with a little slower setup.

Went down the next day and bought it. Great deal and loving the Z.

Paul