Official VAIO Z Core 2 Duo Series Owners Thread

Hooked up via HDMI for the first time to a ~24" 1080p 1920x1080 monitor. If I choose that resolution, it's not filling the whole monitor. If I choose 1600x900 (on 720) it is. Changing the HDMI Resolution Setting to 1080 when on 1920x1080 doesn't make it work.

I was hoping to get the 1920x1080 resolution full screen. Not possible? Or if it is, what am I missing?

 

Open Vaio Control Center.
Go to Display -> HDMI Resolution Setting Configuration.
You may also have to check/uncheck the box under External Display Detection Setting.

On your TV, make sure you have overscan turned off -- you want a native 1920x1080 mode, and not the slightly smaller TV signal scaled up to fit the screen. Depending on your TV, this may be called "monitor mode", "overscan off" or "TV mode off".

 

It's a monitor w/ HDMI, not a TV. I have gone through its menu and see nothing that causes change, and it is on HDMI TV vs the other options such as HDMI AV or DVI, etc.

Checking the box didn't change anything. That's the same place where I'm talking about changing the HDMI resolution setting. (It stays handy in the system tray on the right, you can double click to go from 720 to 768 to 1080 or right click for settings.)

All of the HDMI options leave the 1920x1080 with the black box (1080, 768, 720). Getting it full screen seems to mean using 1600x900 in 720.

It's not so bad, but it's clearly less crisp and a little more blown up than I'm used to on this monitor.

 

Now is a good time to buy the Vaio Z or any other Vaio notebooks. Sony are now giving away a 100 Songs Sony MusicPass Card with purchase of any VAIO computer. Details in the following link:

https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wc...atalogId=10551&langId=-1&cmsId=vaio_musicpass

 

OMG are you sure the cable from Vaio Z to intel X-25M SSD didn't fit properly? I have VGN-Z36GD which is the equivalent asian version. This doesn't sound good. I already ordered 160GB Intel version. This won't sound good. Anyone else can confirm this? Thanks

 

Yes it's about 4 hours for myself with 9cell. It's too bad, it took so long for recharging. I wish it could be done in less than 2hrs.

 

I think the verdict was that he had the 64GBx2 RAID0 version, which uses a special cable and drive mount/bay. If your Z has a "regular" hard drive, you will be fine.

 

4 hours isn't too bad (by Sony standards) for the 9 cell. Does it last you about 8 hours? If so, it seems Sony has improved it's charging time from 1 minute of charging = 1 minute of use, to about 1 minute of charging = 2 minutes of use.

My SZ battery (standard capacity) takes about 3 hours to charge and lasts just under 3 hours.

 

Sony batteries don't die from overcharging though right? I think I read that cause of the type of cells they are that they take longer to charge but its ok to leave it plugged in and it wont kill it.

 

Z comes with Vaio Smart Network software which is sitting in the taskbar. You can click on them anytime to turn off bluetooth or WIFI. Alternatively, there is a switch up front to shut off every Z wireless connection completely.

 

I always leave my Sony Z Charged all night plugged in. So far didn't encounter any problems after months of use.

The battery lasts about 7hours with brightess set to lowest and all wireless connection turned off.

 

Hey guys i got two questions...

first, the new z790 has a 7.5 hours standard battery life and the z690 has a 6 hour standard battery life. how did they increase the battery life?

second, i was about ready to pull the trigger on a new z790CTO with 8gb ram, but when i went online to build it, theres a note saying "This option is temporarily unavailable."....... What gives?

 

Sure... thats the US store again...

 

Today my mainboard will be switched through a sony technician. TPM is disabled in bios, what else do i have to do?

 

They hit backspace and tweaked the numbers when they updated the marketing materials?

 

*rofl*

:laugh:
(testing smilies :wink: )

 

the z690 has a different cpu. the z790 cpu consumes less power.
i think the 8 gb ram needs a different controller but i'm not sure.

 

Even though the Z790 has the newer P8800 and P9700 CPUs, they both have the P8700 CPU, and all of those CPUs consume the same 25W (or 28W on the P9700) of power.

 

No ture. All Intel P series CPU use 25w power, except P9700, which uses 28w.
If the ram controller changed at all, it would draw more power to support the 8 gb ram. It has been proven that the Z5xx and 6xx can also support 8gb micron rams.

 

25w P8800 versus 28w P9700, approx. how much more battery power can you get on the P8800, assuming all settings were the same for both - roughly?

 

it wont make that big of a difference i dont think. its only 3 watts, plus u would rarly be using maximum power on these cpu's unless ur doing some crazy calculations....

 

Well, I think there is a slight complication to this... I believe the p9700 has additional/enhanced power saving features compared to the p8800, meaning the p9700, if not being pushed to run at full speed might actually use less power than a p8800 running in the same way. I'll see if I can find some information to support this (I haven't really found anything definitive).

 

Technically, P9700 has 1.012V-1.175V VID range while P8800 - 1.00V-1.25V. That means P8800 can be undervolted a tiny bit lower but, when not undervolted, runs off a higher voltage typically.

 

Great find, thanks.

 

What program do you guys use for undervolting? I know this varies by people, but how much of a battery difference did you see after undervolting?

Thanks!

 

WOW. i mean really...WOW! i remember last summer when i sony first introduced the FW, SR and Z laptops and i came to this forum...and this topic started. and its still going WOW.

I looked at the Z back then and i thought it was the best laptop ever. Seriously. Just a bit too expensive. Now...i need a new laptop to replace my macbook. Not really looking for anything similar to it...dosent matter really.

however, i will be using it to edit high deff video with after effects, premiere pro...etc. U guys think the Z will b good for it. The hic-up i'm having with purchasing a Z right now is the screen. I'm trying to wonder if that 1600x...resolution on a 13'' screen is gonna bug the crap outta me when i'm editing. But i know if i dont find out and get the cheaper FW with a more than large enough screen, I'll always regret it and wish i went with the Z. I love it just wondering if its a smart choice for me.

 

RMClock. Waiting eagerly for new NHC to come out.
RMClock needs to be told that CPU is mobile and it does not recognize Z's chipset (GM45), so some settings are disabled. I was getting about 3 degrees Celcius cooler temperatures in Win XP with RMClock - not worth running it for me personally.

 

Unfortunately NHC and RMClock Utility seem to be dead for a while now...

 

NHC is not dead. There is beta available for testing on Vista 32:
here on Samsung forums

 

Does this beta support the latest Intel Centrino2 hardware?
And does it support our Vaio Z? (Still waiting for mine to be finally shipped... they did not yesterday - at least I did not get an email that Sony did so... :/)

 

Cool, now I just have to dig up the old undervolting thread. Or anyone has that bookmarked?

 

Here you are

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

Thanks a lot Jorlin!

 

There's a drastic price reduction or 1 week ad-sale on two Z models at Frys.

Z670 - $1499.99
Operating System Windows Vista Business 32 Bit (XP downgrade available)
Processor Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology featuring Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P9600
Processor Speed 2.66 GHz
Processor Cache 6 MB L2 Cache
Bus Speed 1066MHz FSB
Memory 4096 MB DDR2 (PC3-8500) RAM Max - 4GB
Accessible Memory Slots 2
Video Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS with 256MB Dedicated Graphics Memory
Hard Drive 320GB (7200RPM) SATA G-Sensor Shock Protection Hard Drive

Z620 - $1299.00
Operating System Windows Vista Business 32 Bit (XP downgrade available)
Processor Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology featuring Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8600
Processor Speed 2.40 GHz
Processor Cache 3 MB L2 Cache
Bus Speed 1066MHz FSB
Memory 4096 MB DDR2 (PC3-8500) RAM Max - 4GB
Accessible Memory Slots 2
Video Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS with 256MB Dedicated Graphics Memory
Hard Drive 320GB (7200RPM) SATA G-Sensor Shock Protection Hard Drive

I guess they'll be getting their preconfig. Z7's inventory soon.

 

For those who are curious about the build-in GPS on the Z (yea, there's a GPS in the Z for those of you who don't know ), I just figured out how to make mine to work after I've been using it for 5 months.

I've been asking questions regarding the GPS on this forum for a couple times without a definite answer. Here's one for you guys, hope it helps.

I'm not sure about the Z5xx owners since they have the Spring WWAN. However, if you have the Z6xx or 7xx with the Verizon WWAN, you DO NOT need to buy into the Verizon 3G service for the GPS to work. All you need to do it TURN ON the GPS after turning on the Verizon WWAN chip in SmartWi Connection Utility. Then, Microsoft Street & Trips would pick up the signal.

After thorough research and experiment, I'm fairly sure that the GPS chip in the Z is a real GPS, not the fake aGPS in most cellphones (which rely on the cellphone towers as opposed to satellites). Since I'm not signup for Verizon 3G data plan, the chip can only talk to the satellites and not the towers. The GPS finds my current location fairly quickly, and provides accurate position as I would expected from a satellite based GPS.

Realizing that I can use a real GPS in my Z without having to pay for the Verizon 3G data plan pretty much made my day. I think this is the first definitely answer to whether or not we need to pay Verizon for it to work and whether or not the GPS is satellite based or cellphone tower based.

Hope this helps. I love the Z, it's got everything. Just have to figure out how to use them.

 

Cool. Thanks for the info. Appreciate it.

 

That's awesome! Thanks for the info. Can't wait to try it out once I get my Z

 

a friggen GPS ? no way!!

so like can u track this laptop, say if someone steals it or something? how would u find the location of it without physically having the z with you? is there a soft(free) ware that can do that? anyone know?

 

LOL - I read about built in GPS somewhere and thought it would not be true, because I never read about it here... XD. I hope it is in the Z45x series as well.
I already have a data plan for my sim card and I will soon get a second one to be used in my Z
So I am very curious how the GPS reception is... Is there a Google Maps application for the desktop that works with GPS (not browser based)?


There is actually a thread about this:
GPS on V a i o Z

 

hi, guys

any way to reduce the C drive to 50G? try to add data partition, but C drive must be more than 90GB
any way to do so?

 

Dam that $1299 at fry's sounds absolutely amazing! Although i was set to purchase the 7 series with literally the same config... and i would be getting the older palmrest... but then again i guess fry's wont give student discounts and after taxes and such i guess i'd rather go for the newer model... any opinions?

 

Run a defgramenter. Then use Vista's disk manager to shrink the partition, and to create a new one.
If you intend to keep your rescue partition, do not use a linux live CD to repartition, unless you really know what you do. Many linux live/boot/rescue CD partition programs don't understand the new bootblock type and partition scheme that newer PCs use, and will screw EFI boot up, irreversibly. The partitioning program in Vista is far better for this use.

If you have problems getting as low as you need, use a better defragmenter than the one in Windows, and run a boot time defragmentation (which can move the files that are otherwise in use, including the swap file). Raxco Perfectdisk and Execsoft Diskeeper are the only two I would recommend -- they can reduce the size of the MFT zone, and move the MFT to a different place on the disk to free up more contiguous space.

 

Hi guys, I'm almost all set to get a Z from Japan (through PriceJapan), just got a quick question: is there any reason to get the WWAN module? Seems like a waste of 22k yen (~240usd). I don't think it can be added later on, but if I ever use 3G on my laptop, that would be through tethering from my mobile. Does the Japanese version also come with GPS (also kinda pointless, but you never know).

Another question: does Z give you access to both memory slots? I've seen it on video of Z90 somewhere; that is, you could replace both memory modules. I think I'll get 2GB initially and then buy extra 4GB once I get it. And after a while, I'd replace the 2GB with 4GB. Is that doable?

 

If you have tethering on your cell, I don't see the point of getting the WWAN chip, the GPS is a nice little extra feature, but it doesn't justify the cost. You can add it later on if you can find the chip. The WWAN chip use a internal PCI slot under the right side of the keyboard if I remember correctly. Depending on how comfortable you are with taking your Z apart, it certainly is doable.

As for the ram placement, you do have access to both ram slots, they somewhat over lap, if you want to get access to the lower ram, you would have to take out the one on top of that.

 

quick question. if i buy a Z from asia, the preconfig OS is Vista Business in Chinese. Could I burn the restore disk and reinstall the OS in English using the COA Key? Or is there a simpler way of changing the whole OS to Eng without reformating?

I know for XP I would need a new COA Key for English XP. Don't know if it's the same for Vista

 

You are very welcome. I guess the reason why most people couldn't get theirs to work is because they haven't installed the SmartWi update from Sony Support site.

Not sure about it. I would say maybe if you set power on to the WWAN chip along with the GPS as default. They are off in default. The reason to why you need to power on the WWAN chip also is because the GPS chip is build into the WWAN chip, so there's no way to turn on the GPS without supplying power to the WWAN chip.

I've heard of other similar programs works in the similar way to protect your laptop, but they are certainly not free.

The reception is quite good IMO. I haven't tried it with Google Earth, I'm not sure if there's an option in Google Earth that allows you retrieve signal from the GPS. Microsoft Streets & Trips is not browser based also, and it also offers voice road guidance.

 

Well, I don't have a Z, nor have I used Price Japan, but one thing that jumps out at me about your post is the mention of a WWAN module. I'm pretty sure that a Japanese model's WWAN will be different to a US model's WWAN. You may want to double check that it will work in the US - as far as I am aware, Japan uses different frequencies/technologies for cell phones, so by extension, configuring a Japanese model with what they would use in Japan for mobile broadband may not work in the US...

 

From what I have heard you cannot use the same key.

If you purchase Vista Ultimate you can switch between languages by logging in and out.

 

looks like i will have to ask them to install me a english version, or else i'll have to do it myself

 

Vista Ultimate has the option of allowing the user to download optional language updates (changes most of the Windows gui language over to the update pack). You can get into Windows Update and click 'check for updates' and it should show up with about 3 dozen updates, each having different language 'changers'. That said though, even if you change the Windows GUI (or most of it at least) over to english, you still have to deal with the fact that the sony loaded software will still be in Chinese - the updates only change the windows gui language and not the software that is unrelated to windows.

Hope that helps.

My questions for the day is...

1. I run my Z on SPEED with the battery while doing CAD on the move. However, when I decide to have a rest and go browsing on the net, I notice that the CPU, by itself, 'down-clocks' itself, that is, slows itself down. I know by doing a quick test with the WINDOWS BUTTON + TAB, that transition gets laggy in the 'down-clock' but fast and smooth in the 'usual-clock' speeds.
I understand that it does this to save power, but the power plan I always use is POWER MANANGEMENT OFF (and I tweaked the PROCESSOR POWER MANAGEMENT area of this plan; all 100% for min and max processor state). I was wondering if it is possible to prevent the CPU from 'down-clocking' itself, even though it is on battery with the power management off plan?
If it is supposed to down-clock despite these settings, then I guess I will have to live with it. It is just that when I come back to the CAD from browsing, the CAD software is quite unstable for the first 20 seconds or so, until the fan picks up (and apparently the cpu gets back upto speed)...

2. Another question; hopefully you guys don't mind; I always keep my battery OFF the lappie when I use it at home (which is 90% of the time). I use the 80% batterycare setting, incase that matters. Anyway, I was wondering if you think I should leave the battery connected to the laptop when using with AC power (even though the batt is fully charged to 80%), or should I leave it off? I know (after numerous chemistry lessons last year at college) that lithium batteries don't like high (and low) charge levels, but Sony always insists that we should use the batt. attached to the lappie when using with AC power. I recently restarted doing CAD, and noticed that I lost 3% batt the first 5 minutes I was using the battery (booted into Windows with AC and battery attached, and got into battery only mode after that, then started up CAD and set my save environment and preferences only). I haven't used the battery (been detached from Z in lappie bag) for the past two weeks or so, and it hadn't lost any charge during that time, remaining at 80%).
So far (while doing CAD), the battery life / time readings seem accurate from Vista - I am at 40% now after 45 minutes of CAD and 10 minutes of web-surfing - the time remaining seems to be accurate more-or-less for now. But I just want to make sure, what is the best solution to ensuring my batt lasts a long time into the future...?

Thanks in advance

-------------------------------------------------
EDIT
I had hell getting Windows 7 RC1 to work on the Z. I installed all the drivers and got everything working perfectly (minus the brightness buttons). I did everything as the driver installations told me to (restart after every bloody driver installation, which was 25 installations). After my final driver and restarting, it seems that ALL the drivers, EVERY BLOODY DRIVER THAT I INSTALLED, are missing. They don't exist in the directory, and Windows begin to crap out, beginning with the graphics... When I go to Control Panel and Uninstall Programmes, it says that the drivers 'don't exist'. In the end, I gave up and reinstalled the factory Vista Business. Apart from that, Windows 7 seemed to run quite smoothly, though I couldn't really see too much difference in performance with x86 Vista Business (taking into account that the OEM Vista has over 90 processes running from factory new, whereas the clean Windows 7 installation I did after every driver installation was 66).