Official Vaio Pro 13 Owners Lounge (SVP13 2013)

I personally dont, but its everyones own choice

 

Having issues with my non touch Pro 13:

Cicada like noises when PC plugged in and charging driving me insane whenever I scroll down webpages or opening videos etc.

Wifi is terrible when not near the router. I get a download speed of .45mbps compared to my ipod touch which gets 6mbps in the same spot (both using speednet and same server). I've tried all sorts of drivers and boltjames' suggestions a couple of pages back but no luck whatsoever.

Will be calling Sony tomorrow for a replacement/refund.

 

after a week with mine i really like it.

yes, if you give it something proper to do, zipping big files up like i am as i type this the fan starts going some. But to call it loud is imho ridiculous. In normal use it's completely silent. And newsflash, pretty much all laptops make noise and i've seen most of them in my time.

Have had a couple of issues (cured by the tips on this thread) but overall really happy. A complete clean install when 8.1 goes gold will make it all sweet as a nut.

I'm almost completely used to the keyboard now, the ergonomics are good with the thin front and slight tilt. It looks great and is properly quick. Even the trackpad is good. In the past i find i never use them because they are ALL crap, this one i may actually use so as not to carry a mouse about.

I just need to decide if it will completely replace my 17" e series. I like the extra screen size but that thing makes a real racket all the time. I'm enjoying having a quiet room again.

 

Did you have any Wifi issues at all?

Mine isn't fan noise, I have no issue with that at all. It's a high pitched whine that is pretty noticeable when it is plugged in and charging and I'm scrolling pages or opening/closing windows etc. This is my first laptop I've owned but I presume this is not normal?

 

Wow that's a surprise. The faster ram and 3 year newer CPU doesn't make much difference you think? I know these new ones are ULV but I didn't expect it to be in the same class as first gen core CPUs still. Discrete albeit older graphics is still nice but current battery life on my old Z is a quarter of what this machine can get. I'm still debating over the i7 or i5. It doesn't seem like much of a boost in speed but I can't go back if I have regrets lol

 

iono, i think the i7 is worth the upgrade. for light duty stuff, i got like 14 hours of battery life lol constant browsing + word processing + IM + emails. i didn't think it would last that long cause everyone was saying only the i5 did that. though the first day when i got it, it only lasted 8 hours.

i had the same Z that you had. mines just died so i had to get a replacement. to me it feels faster. but the gpu kind of sucks. benchmarks show that the i7 is better across the board. it doesn't look like you will be using anything GPU intensive. just memory/cpu basically. so it would be somewhat of an upgrade.

 

Thinking of getting this SVP1321X9E model, I found it for a good price in UK, what sort of battery life can I expect on average from an i7 model for light duty stuff (web browsing, youtube etc)

 

Just installed the BT driver update. In my case, it just wrecked the BT altogether. Switch still didn't work - and my BT mouse stopped working, too.

Deinstalled the driver update and my BT mouse immediately connected again. Strange.

EDIT:

Re-downloaded both the updated driver and the original BT driver. Did a fresh install of the original BT driver and, after restarting, installed the update directly "on top" of that. Everything works fine now. Thumbs up for Sony.

Only thing left for them to do is to release a BIOS fix addressing the overly aggressive fan-management now ... come on - I know you can do it

 

14h is a pretty bold number with wifi on and web browsing. do you use the sheet battery? I haven't seen anyone get nearly near that on the vaio pro 13. average seems around 5h to 7h. What's your secret?

 

I activated the 80% battery care option on my Pro after finding out that the battery actually lasts about ten hours of regular use for me.

14 hours of battery life (using a 100% charge) seems in line with my experience when just typing in Word at minimum brightness. Doing some heavy photoshop work (1GB file-size) and more intensive web browsing (flash / streaming etc.) at medium brightness, I averaged about 7 hours with 80% charge during the last few days.

 

1. i dont know the benchmarks but i would be willing to bet the i5 in the Z1 is faster then the CPU in the Pro
2. battery life being a 1/4? The Z gets like 4-5 hours of battery life, the Vaio Pro gets like 5-7... id hardly call that 1/4
3. faster ram? i mean like a few % faster ya... i guess.

 

Hi,

I have had a Vaio Pro for a few weeks now. It is a really great machine, but there is one problem that is making me consider returning it. When using headphones, I notice a hiss or white noise in the background. This hiss starts as soon as I start listening to music, and then stops a few minutes after I stop listening to music. Currently, I have the most recent Realtek drivers and the most recent audio patch from the Sony esupport website. I have also tried uninstalling the Realtek drivers-this fixes the hiss but then I hear pops from time to time. Has anyone else experienced problems with the headphone jack? Does anyone know of a possible solution? On a side note, I have contacted Sony and they have offered to repair the computer. Do you think their technicians could fix this problem?

Thank you very much for your help,

Ovid297

 

I looked into it a bit more. To your comments:

1. Benchmark shows an average score of 2705 for the old i5 and 3579 on the newer. So a bit more power.
2. I said 'current' battery life. After 3 years my battery doesn't hold a full charge anymore unfortunately. I believe the max I ever got on it was approx 4 hours before. I had an i7 in mine though so it may have been more power hungry. The old CPU take 35W and this one is 15W but the battery is much smaller as well.
3. 1066 MHz vs 1600 in the new model. On paper it should make a difference, not sure in reality.

The SSD speed seems to be quite different as well, benchmarked the old one around 220 MBps in Raid and this one some benchmarks are showing 1200 MBps. 3DMark on the old dedicated GPU score is 6437 vs 5691 for the new integrated graphics. Not as bad as I expected.

So better is some ways.

 

I got mine yesterday. Two problems.

The fan noise is definitely irritating when it's silent like it is in my apartment, but with any background noise (f.ex at a lecture at uni) the noise that comes from the fan when the cpu is about 50-55 celsius (ie. when watching in 1080p from youtube) is just quiet enough not to disturb anyone. Dunno. I probably wouldn't return the laptop because of this


But, the other thing, I thought this would be capable of some very light gaming, like for example L4D2 with everything at low settings. But it appears it isn't going to happen.

The processor and gpu in theory (aka. in benchmarks) should beat my old laptop (U31SD "ultrabook" with i3-3230m and 520m) which runs the game just fine, so I thought it would be fine with the vaio too, but when actually trying out playing games, after 10 minutes or so the fps suddenly dropped to about 1/4. I'm guessing this was because the cpu started underclocking or something after hitting some sort of temperature threshold...

I had windows's battery plan at high performance and vaio control center's cpu and fan setting at performance.

Is there anything I could do, or is it just that I shouldn't have expected any gaming capability from the laptop? And if so, I'm guessing the same will apply to all other haswell ultrabooks as well?

 

Hi all,

I've got a problem...

I received an excel file from a colleague, and I thought it didn't look quite right.

I asked my colleague to check his copy and send again, and again it was the same.

I opened the exact same file on my SV13 (W7 64, office 2010), and the data looks right, but on the Pro 13, its all zero'ed out.

I thought maybe it was my office 2013 on the pro, so I uninstalled, and installed office 2010...same as the SV13, and guess what, its STILL all zeroes...

??? ANy ideas?

 

is the file like something sensitive? if not, try sending it to me so i can see if it shows up fine.

 

Does anyone else notice a HISS noise when they plug in the headphones?

I am thinking about buying this, but want to know if this a problem, because I have had other laptops in the past which had this problem and it was very annoying.

 

Noticed that too. I thought it was part of the program I was watching but I thought it was a bit weird. Never tried listening to music, already returned my machine (actually waiting for pick up, but still) so I can't test it.

I would advice you to take into account that they might charge you if there is no problem according to them (so it's a feature, not a problem ). I asked about the loud fan that was driving me crazy, the answer was that they can try to repair it but if there's no mechanical problem, I would be charged €100.

 

I've only uninstalled most of the bloatware, installed all updates from windows update, and updated the graphics driver, and there are no hissing or any other unwanted sounds whatsoever even with the computer's volume maxed, with headphones or without. Nothing when scrolling nor when doing anything else.

 

no hissing here. i tested that the first day i got it. i don't use the stock media player though, if that even does anything.

 

What a nightmare with the Bluetooth update ...even though it was I who posted it on here!

Basically like above with another user, the update kills the bluetooth setup. Yes you can now turn the bluetooth switch under "Wireless" on and off but try and search for a device and nothing comes up. Worst yet, the bluetooth mouse that has been connected for 2 weeks with no issues stopped working.

Try deleting the device : Remove Failed. Remove from device manager only for it to come back when you reboot even though the mouse won't work with it.

It turned out after an hour of digging that the Bluetooth Support Service cannot start. This is the key service to allow bluetooth to work. If you start manually, it has a 1079 error message.

To resolve it:
go to the service, Click on Log On tab, click on "This Account" and then Browse.
Type in Local and click on Check Names. It should automatically fill it in with Local Service.
Press ok and clear the dots under both Password and Confirm Password boxes.

You should get a confirmation to state the service has been set for
local service status.

And now you should be able to start the service. Once started, you can then find your devices etc.

 

This happens with a lot of notebooks to different degrees, and also to a different extent depending on the impedance of your headphones. It's quite bad with Apple notebooks for example, but few people mention it - other makers must grind their teeth they don't have Apple's zombified-tolerant userbase.

I doubt a repair will provide any kind of solution. You do have three solutions available:
- Get a different notebook which has either no or less hiss. This can be quite a crap-shoot.
- Buy a USB sound stick, like the Creative X-Fi Go! Pro.
- Use headphones with higher input impedance.

 

I have a pair of HA-S600 JVC over-ear headphones which were comparable to some of the higher end ones at the time ... I use them primarily with the Vaio but no hiss

 

As a lurker of this thread, thx for all the tips regarding Wifi.

Got my Pro 13 2 days ago. Everything was amazing on it. Except the freaking wifi.

The average speed I got on the wifi was 3-4 Mbps, while my other computers got 50-60. Installed the Intel update first and afterwards the Sony update. That didn't helped regarding the speed. But when I removed everything from Mcafee from the computer it worked perfectly. Now i'm reaching normal speeds of 40-50 mbps. Don't know what Sony did that gave so much trouble but they should really look at all the sh*t they pre-installed. Anyway thx for helping.

 

English translation is now live: Review Sony Vaio Pro 13 - notebookcheck.net

 

Please could you tell me how you removed everything from Mcafee? I removed all of it via control panel, services and programs but I think some of it still remained. I've had wireless issues and had to send mine back due to another issue and will receive another one soon. You have no wifi problems from a longer distance from the router? That was my issue. 0.50mbps vs my ipod touch 6mbps in exactly the same spot.

 

Does anyone else have specks of dust under the glass screen on your Vaio Pro?

 

I found two tiny grains of dust underneath the glass when doing a really close examination of the screen right after unboxing. Not really a problem, though. Actually forgot they are there until you reminded me with your post

 

for clean installs, do the drivers need to be installed in any order?

 

So it looks like notebook check thinks the i7 upgrade is pointless then. :confused2:

Don't know if its just me but Skype makes the fan go into overdrive on the i5 version of the pro 13. It's so loud that the person on the other side of the call found it annoying. Its loud in silent mode and very loud in performance. I was planning to order my own with an i7 but this makes me reconsider.

 

Hi everyone, I'm new here

I have bought my Pro 13 (non touch) week ago, I was sad that the Windows 8 + crapware used more than 30gb, plus recovery partitions about 20gb...

I had an amazing idea to install clean W8 PRO from my university, then I had even better idea to install Windows 8.1 Preview. I did "recovery copy" from Vaio Care on my USB stick, and install W8.1 (without changing recovery partitions!) but laptop was crashing after 1-3 minutes- screen was blinking, random color pixels on all screen surface... (I was even more sad, because I really liked this W8.1) So i decided to come back to Sony's Windows 8.

However, there weren't any recovery options (vaio care in "assist mode"), the USB recovery was also not working...
So in the end I installed clean W8 PRO, and deleted the 17gb recovery partition, but Windows Disk Management shows that there is 1,69GB unalocated space, and 260mb for EFI System Partition (and it is 100% free- wierd?) I still can access Assist mode, and do "windows recovery"- there is no "Vaio Care" option now.

So now i have 2 questions:
-Did I lose my warranty?
-Did someone managed to instal Windows 8.1, I really liked it... ;-)

Sorry if similar question

 

Sorry i can't really help. But could you please let me know where you downloaded these realtek drivers from? I'm getting that popping sound and its driving me mad!

 

Can anyone suggest a good screen protector for vaio pro 13?

ALso, are there any sleeve type covers for the laptop (like speck for MBA)?

 

does anyone have pictures of the viewguard matte screen protector installed? i've seen it talked about on here. but no pictures. i want to know if it only covers the screen area, or the entire glass surface

 

I think you only lose warranty when you open the device, although this could vary from country to country. As for win 8.1, from what people earlier posted in this thread and duo 13 one, 8.1 is not entirely stable and quite a few functions are not working.

 

I have put on the Vikuiti DQCM30 Screen Protector for the touch-screen Pro 13:

Screen Protectors for Sony Vaio SVP1321C5E Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook | protectionfilms24.com

Perfect fit for the whole glass surface and it has two little holes for the camera and the LED indicator.

DCQM30 is a matte screen protector and the reflection is reduced significantly without losing the touch screen sensitivity.

Note ADQC27 has a glass-like finish. Also, I think ARMR220 is not suitable for capacitive touch screen.

 

Got the Pro 13 (i7 / Win 8 Pro / 8Gb Ram / 512Gb SSD, UK) yesterday. Did all the windows update but suffered the Bluetooth disconnection and slow Wifi issue. But the problem was solved by doing the following:

1. Complete all necessary Win 8 Pro updates
2. Install the updated Bluetooth driver from Sony site
3. Disable the power saving options for the Bluetooth devices
4. Install the updated WLAN driver from Sony site

Wifi back to normal speed and no disconnections at all!!

No fan noise issue here but it depends on what the acceptable level is to each person.

 

Can someone confirm- in 2-3 years time will it be possible to purchase a new battery and replace the current battery ourselves?

 

yes, should be poss to change the battery. see the teardown video and the pics on the recently posted notebook review link.

Just looks a bit of a pita to open the thing.

 

but where would we get the battery

 

ebay, like you do for that sort of thing nowadays.

 

Just scored the i7, 8gb, 256gb version with No Bloatware for $1619 from the Microsoft Store. If you call them they will give you free next day air too.

 

How did you get it for that price? Student discount maybe? It still shows $1799.00 on their site.

 

Sony Canada is discounting the model heavily, 8 gig ram is free upgrade, and so is the 256gb drive.

 

do you have any pictures of it installed by any chance? does it make things a little blurrier?

 

yes it's the student discount. i already posted that when i got my laptop. the 2 year ADH warranty for it is pretty cheap as well.

 

yea I guess its the student discount but apparently you don't need to be a student for the discount. Careful though. They tryed to add on office 365 then they refunded me $86 for that since I had it already.

 

yeah for me, they asked if i wanted office or not. i just told them no, and it was all fine. but i did go in person though.

 

I would just call to sony and ask how much would the battery change cost?

It should last for the next couple of years anyway.

I wouldn't want to open it myself... and the quality of some copy battery would still be a question mark regarding whether it would be as good as sony's original , unless it would be a battery provided by sony.

 

I bought a Pro13 about a week ago, non-touch, 128gb, 4gig ram, i5. Beautiful and powerful ultrabook, however - the wifi is driving me crazy. I tried everything, from disabling Bluetooth to changing the adapter frequencies but nothing helped. It's definitely the laptop, because right to the computer there is always my smartphone (also from Sony) and the internet works just fine in it.

I'm considering to return it and buy a Pro with 8gigs of ram directly from Sony website. Anyone had wifi issues with the 8gb ram model? Will the fan be louder because of that? (currenlty the fan works perfectly quiet in balanced and power saver modes).