Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Even i noticed some jump in disk place but only about 5-6 GB?

 

Quick question for Z owners. I used to have the infineon software to encrypt a partition of my Hard Drive. Lately, I had to restore the laptop to factory settings and I can't find the software anymore. Can anyone point me to where the software is?

I have done a couple of clean installs, so it's possible the software came from alternative sources than the image within the restore partition. If that's the case, does anyone knows where to source the correct install?

Cheers,

 

I just double checked, and yeah, I lost all my system restore points BUT one (the one just before I installed Sp2). Doing some calculations, 15% of my 320GB is approx 40GB or so, so that would make sense both ways.

Also, in regards to the SSD configs being discussed at the moment... Would anyone have a clue what the Japanese Z92 Vaio's have as their SSD configurations? 512GB of SSD (with 2x 256GB in an assumed sandwich style layout as mentioned above) is pretty much unheard of these days in the market, so just curious (might even try doing a RAID upgrade on my Z26 when SSDs decide to get cheaper)... Also, quite curious if anyone knows what brand SSD Sony Japan are using for their 256GB configs (though guessing Samsung for now).

Doing a quick currency change, it costs approx $6000US to get the Z92 fully speced (that is not including the accessories -_-)... I would be happy buying a car with that money.....

I am also thinking about giving my Z26 a bluray drive upgrade. I know a person who imports Sony bits and bobs from the Japanese factories into Korea, and am thinking of asking him how much approx it will cost... Just wondering, if I decided and did swap my optics drive with a bluray one, would I have to install any drivers / firmware (ie, to play bluray movies) to get it up and running, or would it be as painless as upgrading from a CD writer to DVD writer on XP?

Cheers in advance....

 

5ushiMonster, make sure you get SATA version of drive. I know that ASUS, for instance, puts IDE version of BlueRay drive into their 15" laptops. Other than that, you should not need any drivers for drive itself. But you need certified WHQL drivers for video card to be able to play movies in full res.

As for thin 256GB SSD, if you take regular 256GB SSD and pull it out of the case, it should be thin enough to have two put into the Z. From Z service manuals it looks like SSDs used are caseless: just a printed circuit with chips and SATA connector on it.

 

Just wanted to add that Z iz the first laptop where I saw DVD drive not completely encased - if you open up the laptop, the DVD drive is completely exposed inside (you can touch lense). Talk about saving every ounce of weight. Scary...

 

It's 10% now? I remembered it switched to 5% recently. Can anyone please check this out for me ?

 

For interest, there's a review of a current UK Z on PC Pro now:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/253308/sony-vaio-vgnz31vnx.html

Surprising how gushing they are, given the rather lukewarm review they did when the Z first came out, and it's not a huge bump in spec from the previous one.....

S

 

Mine came with a 10% discount. Ordered less than a week ago.

I believe it depends on which college you attend, because different colleges have different agreements with Sony.

 

I installed Vista SP2 and th new 2168 BIOS. I am finding that the power off battery drain rate is unaffected. It's still about 3/4 of a percent of full charge per hour on my machine. If you leave the battery connected and shutdown or hibernate, you will lose a full charge of battery in around 5 days, more or less, your mileage may vary, my math may be bad, etc.

 

Mines unchanged and about a month old and mine does the same. Left it hibernating for a couple days and it wouldnt turn on Love the notebook otherwise though.

 

HDMI to TV issues.

Hi guys, am new and do not have the time to go through the 814 pages of messages! Can't find a search function that works. SO here goes, please help me if you can:


I have plugged an HDMI cord into my VGN-Z31WN and I get nothing from the LG LCD. I have tried the graphics card, nothing. Have tried the "Force detection" nothing. I disabled CEC on the TV HDMI input as the Sony site says to do and it still doesn't work.

What am I missing?

 

By trying the graphics card do you mean in Speed mode? HDMI won't work in Stamina mode.

 

Just wondering where everyone is seeing this 2168 BIOS? I got my Z690 about a month and half ago and it came with version R3054M3, which just seems to have been put on the support site a few days ago.

I enter in vgn-z690 as the model number and thats the only bios that comes up.

 

2168 is for East Asia/Australia region, I believe. Notice that they have different model names too, like Z21.

 

The 2168 BIOS was published on the USA support site this week for my part number (VGN-Z540NBB), so it appears that the BIOS version must vary by specific model number, too.

 

For those of you who have stuck with Vista, there's a SP2 available through Windows Update (in the US at least). This is probably as good as Vista is going to get until Windows 7 final release.

 

Hey guys,

I tried to order my Z today and they were out of stock and I'm really excited to make my purchase and was wondering if you guys knew when they usually get back in stock for order.

Thanks, Ricky

 

From the PC Pro website:

Does my Asian Z36 have crappy speakers, the European Z31 different speakers, or is this just B$?

 

Would you happen to know where I would be able to get this Sony certified driver? Hopefully it will be downloadable somewhere (preferabbly on Sony's site).

Again, cheers in advance

 

Just to let you know, I can take my speakers on my Z26 to full volume with minimal sound crackling / distortion. Though I can't really say too much on the bass effects... As with any laptops (this includes Acer's dolby subs, which I found quite weak actually...), speakers are not really designed for 'audiophile' music listening, meaning they will not be able to produce very good sound. Simply saying, the bass element for me is not too strong.

The Z to me (speaker wise) is quite decent, because it only struggles with the bass elements; I find the mid / high treble frequency response quite pleasant for a laptop, especially when watching dialogue-ridden movies at home - it gets rid of background booming and other sounds and brings out the voice in people better.

 

Hey 5ushimonster,

Remember me? I asked Sony NZ regarding selling spare blu-ray drives. They gave me a contact but upon e-mailing the supplier they have no idea what I was on about. This leads me to think they don't supply spare blu-ray drives for installation into non-blu-ray laptops

 

Hi guys,

I have just got a Sony Vaio Z21WN/B and I absolutely love it. It's beautiful

However, my one concern, and I saw this on one review, is how long it takes to boot up. I'm using Vista Business, and have got the latest service pack 2. All updates have been completed, I have uninstalled all the blurb such as McAffee and installed AVG, but booting up (to seeing the logon screen) still takes way over 1 minute.

Opposed to my less powerful other laptop I got rid of, it's much slower.

Can anyone explain why and what can be done to improve it?

Other than that, it has to get a 10/10!

 

Sup man~~
I tried researching that option in NZ, and it seems that Sony gets their spare parts from a company called TechTrade (or similar), who imports in parts from over the world.

Get this, there is a fine print in the warranty (though I can't precisely remember where I saw it) that says that Sony can (at their discretion) replace parts of your laptop (under warranty or not) with refurbished parts - that's right - 2nd hand/used parts. I queried Sony on this, and they have no idea what I am asking (and told me to bring in my laptop for inspection???). So I actually gave up trying to get a BD drive in NZ, just incase they tried sticking a refurbished BDD into my Z...

A family friend, like I said previously, manages imports of new Sony parts from Sony's Japanese factories into Korea. I am planning on asking him how much a BD drive for the Z will cost (because I am sure Sony Korea will be ordering some BD drives for the Z37s that they sell with warranties - I will be asking whether they get new or refurbised stuff as well). I think that, because he works with the actual Sony company factories, he might be able to source a BD drive. Though I can't guarantee it...

But I can tell you that, as ZugZug mentioned, as long as you have a correctly dimensioned drive (that fits in the chassis of a Z) in the SATA config, then there shouldn't be a problem replacing the drive (minus the problem of the driver/firmware stuff above).



Also, I was wondering if people (not living in New Zealand) can confirm, if I do claim warranty on my VAIO Z (which came with a 2 year one as default, and I had it for 6 months now) for, say, a faulty LCD, would I be able to use the remainder of the 2 year warranty that I had after the repair, or would it change to something ridiculous like 90 days after the repair date (which I believe I saw in a fine print...)?

Cheers in advance

 

5ushiMonster,

Are you serious? The warranty document actually says Sony has the right to replace parts with refurbished stuff? Goodness me! That is shocking to hear from Sony.

Well, I have given up the idea of getting a blu-ray drive as it is just too difficult in NZ, not to mention the risk of opening up the expensive laptop myself. Australia has the Z37 for AU$3999. Add 20% for currency and remove 10% for duty free shopping there, the price comes to around NZ$4400. A saving of NZ$1100 I am saving up hard for that beast!

I hear a new 3.0GHz Z with 500GB SDD drive is due out in Japan in the very near future. Hmmm, tempting to wait for that to arrive here but then again it may cost well over $6500 in NZ = insanity, haha, no matter how much I love the Vaio.

 

Yep. The Z92. From memory that should be the 4th Gen VAIO Z.
The Japanese ones are completely different though. Most noticeable is the keyboard layout (which can be customized into a Western format if desired, meaning English tourists can buy a Z92 in Japan), the mouse pad (which seems to have an interactive touch sensor or something), and a HSDPA chip, which is hard-locked onto Japanese networks. That means that for a 4th gen Z to be in NZ (or anywhere else in the world), some big mods have to be made by Sony to make it sellable outside Japan.

That Z92 has a T9900 CPU; not too sure how it will do with the stock battery (will probably guzzle it down in a hour and a half with the Intel GPU I guess -_-)

 

Yeah true that. They might not have the Z92 available outside of Japan - well, maybe not with the maxed-out specs. I don't really think people need 8GB of RAM installed for "real world" use. With Windows 7 due for release later this year, we no longer need such powerful systems to run the OS.

I checked the new Sony catalogue on Sony NZ's website and it doesn't mention the new TTs (1.6GHz version) or any other new Zs (such as the Z92) for this upcoming winter.

 

Check out
http://www.sony.co.nz/vaio/warranties.jsp#vaioterms
That is New Zealand's warranty - I am assuming it is the same in other countries though. Check point 1.3
I answered my own question - it seems that the extended warranty (which the 2 year warranty essientially is, a one year warranty extended by Sony Style) is terminated if I do replace a part... That point also mentions the refurbished thing...

In my case, a 64 bit system with 8GB RAM would be useful because I run 3D-design apps at uni. Rendering an image at full settings takes 20 minutes to do on my current Z26. So... The more RAM, the merrier~~. But then, I ain't your everyday usual lappie user - I didn't buy a VAIO because it is a fashion statement, I bought it because it has a history of great lappies that are easy to carry around (yet don't sacrifice on performance - perfect for a uni student like myself) ^_^

And yeah, as the trend of technology is, it is quite expensive to get a Z37 in NZ. Best you save up and wait till a Christmas sale or something - the best time to get a lappie. I bought this back in Boxing day last year and Sony threw in their Noise-Cancelling Video MP3 for free ^_^

I saw a 2nd gen version of TT out at Sony - it had a 250GB HDD though, compared with the 120GB found on the 1st gen TT. And it came in a white colour (as opposed to grey)

 

Hey, Noel Leeming used to do 20% off all Sony Vaios from time-to-time last year. This year, nada, nothing! Man, a juicy 20% off a Z37 would do me just fine, haha.

Dude, since you upgraded your hard drive (I notice you have the 7200rpm version), does that void your warranty according to Sony's warranty policy?

Sorry dumb question - the new Zs come with 64-bit systems. Does that mean RAM can be upgraded to 6 or even 8GBs?

Gosh I could talk Vaio all night but I need to get some sleep, haha.

 

I have just bought a Z21WN/B which is a UK model and have a Samsung 256GB SSD which i need to fit. Can anyone advise me of how to replace the drive in a Z?

I have changed loads of drives before, just need to know what screws and clips etc are in place.

Thanks in advance

Colin

 

HA~~ All good. My last reply for the night as well.

My one came with a 7200rpm 320GB Hitachi as default. From memory the Z16 came with the 5200rpm (which I didn't choose due to performance issues, and yet it was the same price as the Z26). So no, I made no mods to my lappie so far. The only mods that I am thinking of doing is maybe changing the optical drive and maybe changing the LCD panel with a carbon fibre one (again, through the family friend - he might even be able to write me a waiver so that I can keep using the 2 year warranty...!).

Noel Leeming did a 20% off Sony lappies last week man... You should have seen the prices of VAIOS then!! (they don't have the Z37 ATM though, only the Z26, which was $2350 on sale last week -_-)

Regarding the RAM, Z that are sold in Western countries (so far I've seen) don't go higher than 4GB. 32bit systems support upto 3.5GB RAM max - any higher is useless. 64bit, depending on what version of Vista (and most likely on 7 as well) will support max 8GB RAM on Vista Basic, upto 128GB RAM max I think on Ultimate. There are some forums here of people upgrading sucessfully to 6GB RAM on a 64 bit windows, but not 8GB on VAIO Zs. The fact that Japanese 4th Gen Z supports 8GB leads me to believe that:

a. they have a different motherboard which can cope with the extra juice from the 8GB RAM
b. a Japanese only BIOS firmware?

The VAIOs that come with 64bit default from factory (sold in Western countries), therefore, does seem run to 6GB well, but not 8GB due to the motherboard voltage issues - I maybe wrong there because I remember reading somewhere saying some Japanese VAIO societies managing to get 8GB up and running on 2nd and 3rd gen Z (from Japan) with some firmware mods. But everyday computing won't really need more than 3GB, even on Vista. Despite my design requirements, 3Gb seems suffiecient enough. What you really want to speed up your lappie is a SSD though.... (when they are cheaper, that is)

 

I can't really help (yet) regardng what screws you should be aiming for, but there were some step by step forums here regarding changing the HDD to a SSD for a Vaio Z. From memory, there might be some instructions somewhere within the 800 or so pages in this forum subject...!

Good luck with the transfer - would like to see how your Z performance improves after the mod.

 

Don't make that assumption. Warranties vary quite substantially between countries, due to different levels of consumer protection and mandated warranties and reclamation rights.

The US generally has the worst warranty terms on the planet -- caveat emptor. Other countries have implied warranties at no extra cost to the customer that exceeds what paid warranty covers in the US. New Zealand appears to be somewhere between the extremities.

 

It's worse than that. In XP, it depends on how much of the address space is mapped by other devices (including the graphics card). In Vista 32, it's the same, but in addition, there is a hardcoded limit of 3120 MB, or ~3.05 GB.

 

Colin_S, the second sticky thread in this forum has links to disassembly manuals. The most important part for me was to slide that plank accessible from bottom after you removed battery - you need to really read that manual to understand what's going on. Once you start disassembling laptop, it feels so fragile compared to a dozen or so of other laptops I disassembled.

5ushiMonster, the WHQL driver is not Sony-certified but rather Microsoft-certified. Modded drivers are not certified and Vista will degrade BlueRay quality on laptop screen and (I am not sure here) will either disable HDMI output or degrade quality there as well. The original Z drivers supplied on DVD and from Sony support site are properly certified and should let you enjoy BD movies to full extent. I am talking about Nvidia drivers here, BD drive does not need any special drivers - Vista knows how to handle it.

 

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"
-- Bill Gates, Seattle, 1991


Personally, I'm bumping into all sorts of problems with a mere 3 GB of RAM, and really want to go to 6 GB and Vista64 as soon as possible.

 

a s***load

 

clean install windows 7

 

I know that my US Z690 doesn't do bass. While the speakers are loud, there are sort of tinny sounding.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I will get Windows 7 when it's released.

However, is it a sony issue that they boot so slow opposed to others? My other Vista laptop wasn't the same.

Thanks again!

Edit: Just to add, once it's booted it's absolutely fine - it's just the boot that's slow.

 

Backlight repair update:

Two techs came out today at noon to work on putting my Z590 back together, the same one who took 3 hours to disassemble it, and another one who apparently knows his way around the repair documents a little better, he found the assembly guide and never once said anything like "well, that's as clear as mud."

Even with the attitude improvement, it took them 2.5 hours to get it all back together, figure about 6 man hours total to replace the screen. It all seems to be working well so far (a whole hour now.)

Sony also shipped me a box to pour the parts into, but they estimated 7-10 days turn around, so keeping my PC on-site and losing use of it from Tuesday noon until Friday afternoon turned out to be a much better deal for me.

 

The speakers on my VGN-Z590 are about 1cm in diameter - they are plenty loud, but sound terrible above 1/2 volume. Needless to say, there is no bass.

 

Due to there not being a clear line between speaker membrane and listener, there's not a lot of high treble either.
They do mid-range to upper-midrange pretty well, and that includes most spoken text and popular music of today.
But, yeah, there's absolutely no bass (<250 Hz), and if you turn up the volume much over half, the distortion is going to annoy the heck out of anyone with critical ears.

 

Haha, hilarious quote nearly 20 years later. Well, no one is going to be using the same laptop for the next 20 years so I guess 3-6GB of RAM is sufficient for the next few years.

Yeah I saw that but they only had a 5% discount off the top-end models. I might as well get it when I go overseas and score myself a 12.5% discount. Hey if you see anything in terms of a good deal please do tell me

Have you checked whether your Z can take SSD drives? Does it fit snug or would it wobble around?

 

Like I said, I haven't done any mods to my Z yet. I don't really plan on sticking a SSD for now.

@ZugZug
So that means, I'd be better off with bluray movie files rather than getting a bluray drive? I have some bluray movie files on my Z now, and they are excellent - I want a bluray drive now so that I can do some big-time backup to bluray discs (~50GB worth) - don't tell me to get a USB hard-drive because I have had a bad experience with them in the past.....

@arth
Yeah. My QuadCore desktop (Q9300) with a nVidia 9600GT (GD3) which I custom built registers 3.5GB on a 32bit XP Pro. I personally thought that Vista (on the Z especially, with a dedicated GPU and all) would take 3.5GB max on a 32 bit system -_- My bad.
And yes. I read that the American warranty ain't the prettiest sounding/looking when compared to other countries. The best service / warranty countries I'd say would be Korea and Japan. The only downside in those countries are that the customer service will call you back 4-5 times after the repair to see how everything is (gets annoying after a while...) But honestly, their service quality and manner of professionalism is 1st to none from my personal experience.

Despite me doing heavy 3d CAD design, I am actually quite happy with 3GB. Plus, Vista starts up and is ready to use in a minute or so (after pressing power button), but fully finishes loading after 4 or so minutes. I haven't had too many lags with 3Gb so I can't really see me needing any more than 3GB (though if I did have more with a 64 bit system, I may be able to cut down my CAD rendering time somewhat, which I see as an upside but not enough to warrant me to spend extra for expensive DDR3 modules)

The speakers in my case attempt to create some bass - but manage to create some sort of half-assed slapping sound instead (which I guess counts as NO bass). Though I would actually have to say that the mid-high freq response on my Z is quite pleasant compared to the other lappies I've had in the past.

 

The new Z refresh is here! Well... in Japan, Hong Kong and China Sony sites at present:

http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Special/Computer/Vaio/Z/index.html

Someone stop me from salavating! Hehe.

 

You could consider going for an eSATA PC Express card. If you go for 2.5" drives, I think the USB port should provide enough power. So yes, you need eSATA for the data port and USB for power. But it's a hell of a lot faster than USB. Even FW400 is faster than USB2 BTW.

I don't know if anyone here experimented with PAE? It should make it possible to use the full 4GB on a 32 bit system, but I heard some stories some drivers choke on it.

 

No, I have it in Speed mode and in the Graphics card settings it just doesn't seem to get it- I have tried all I can see. What are the steps to get it working?

 

If CAD rendering speed matters, you really should get a laptop with a graphics card labeled "Quadro" instead of "Geforce". The difference is a single bit burned into a chip, but that bit decides whether you can run the nVidia workstation drivers or not. The Quadro drivers have special optimizations for CAD and modeling programs, and are extremely much faster for these purposes. 2-4 times the rendering speed with identical hardware is common.

Unfortunately, Sony doesn't appear to sell models with a Quadro option. Other notebook manufacturers do, though.

 

Done it this morning, not sure what improvement it made as only got the laptop yesterday and downgraded to XP pro at the same time. It is lightning fast though, so i'm well pleased with it.

ps Only drawback with XP is the Stamina/Speed switch does not work on the fly with XP.

 

@5ushiMonster: Using BD for backup would be a pain. I consider burning DL DVDs a pain - takes too long. It's a bit less annoying on desktop. For backup get yourself an external USB enclosure with 500GB drive - it's cheaper than BD, much faster, portable. In fact, if I need to long-term store something, I do exactly that: copy it to 2.5" drive in enclosure and stow it away. It's easier to find and retrieve things too and takes less space in the box. For more immediate things I have NAS (Network-Attached Storage) with RAIDed drives in it. Cheaper Buffalo one with 2 drives in RAID 1 at home, and expensive Netgear with 4 drives in X-RAID at work. Both double as media streaming servers.

@arth1: laptopvideo2go.com had modded drivers in the past that turned on Quadro features on the GeForce cards. One of the tweaker applications also is capable to modify card BIOS and turn it into Quadro, AFAIK (more dangerous though). And you can forget about automatic stamina/speed with either method.