Sony CW i3/i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Battery life is "average". I got about 3 hours 10 minutes with pretty heavy internet use/adobe acrobat/photoshop use.

Blu Ray movie playback....I barely got through a 90 minute Bruce Wilis Suggogate blu ray movie (blu ray probably kills the battery much faster than DVD). I ended up returning my CW (although I ordered another CW) because the blu ray player was making a weird humming diesel sounding noise. Hopefully my new laptop that arrives next Thursday won't make the same noise.

 

can any one tell me if the cw hard disk can be replaced by an intel x-25 ssd and does its 4gig ram can be upgraded with out going to a tech support?

 

Count me in as an owner of the CW. I ordered the Jet Black model form Best Buy last night. I am so excited! Going to get the extended battery for it to get a little more battery time.

 

yay!!! Our club is growing... i hope you dint pay the $250+ for it. I ordered one (not the extended, just the regular for $49.00 at laptopbatterystore.com .

With my last computer i ordered an extended one and juggling the two different types drove me crazy cuz i am so indecisive...lol

(now go make a signature!!) something like this:

Patiently Awaiting My:
Sony Vaio CW Series
Model: VPCCW26FX
Color: Icy White Frost
Intel Core i5-520M/2.4 GHz
NVIDIA GE FORCE 330M GPU
Display 14" 1600x900
4GB / 500 GB
"If you could wed a computer, i'd marry this one!"

Some ppl say i'm a control freak but i just don't see it...lol
.
.

.

 

Mine just arrived. 2 day delivery from BB in Ohio to NC. Arrived double boxed with air cushions. Have not cracked the seal yet......

 

I checked out the site for a battery. Which Sony model did you look under? I didn't see a CW.

 

Created a sig! am sorry am not adding anything useful, was curtly advised that my laptop would arrive in due course so shut up already(not really, but thats the tone they took..) cant blame 'em, I've called 'em about 5 times in the last 3 days...

 

Yeah it wasn't a CW but it fit every other Sony under the sun (all the blogs said it fits) but just to be sure i called the guy and he said its prolly "too new" but he said (Joe-nice guy) if it doesn't fit just send it back within 309 days. oops 30 days- 309 would be GREAT!

yay for signature... (thank you the ONE person who listened lol

here's a pic of my Recovery Discs (came out great- used the lightscribe feature from my HP laptop - see? its good for something!)




I was wondering if anyone knows how you can make a "Drivers & Utilities" back up, i couldn't find out how. Do you think they are installed in the Recovery Disc, like Acer?

Made a 6 min youtube video but it came out to 649 MB. Isn'tt hat kinda huge? I don't know anything about video editing (shouldn't surprise y'all so if someone can write me back if that's "normal" i'll try to upload it to youtube again. When i tried first time it looked like it was uploading a frame at a time, strange, so i cancelled. The extension is .avi- @ 64kps(whatevatheheckthatmeans

 

yay!!! (now go make your signature lol, u know its funny, ppl may get tired of me bossin' them, buy yet i neva get tired of telling ppl what to do....lol something like this:

YOUR MEMBER NAME HERE
Patiently Awaiting My:
Sony Vaio CW Series-
Model: VPCCW26FX
Color: Icy White Frost
Intel Core i5-520M/2.4 GHz
NVIDIA GE FORCE 330M GPU
Display 14" 1600x900
4GB / 500 GB
If you could wed a computer, i'd marry this one!
.
.
.

 

Yes ma'am.

 

This 330M is a beast!

650/1430/900 at the moment. Temperatures at idle are 38 C in a 70 C room. 51 C running both 3dmark and WoW. Identical to stock temperatures.

Closing on 8k 3dmark06 @ 1280x800 (equivalent to low 7200-7400 @ default).

Jesus it's sooo cool still.

@ Dummbunny - Which battery model is it? Do they have an extended?

 

I have the F series with the same GPU. I'm really interested in trying this (never done before). Is it as simple as using the nvidia tools or is there more to it?

 

I'm using EVGA precision to to overclock. You can get the latest off www.guru3d.com . Just pick whichever one you want. Rivatuner, precision, etc. All the same.

I'm using Realtemperature to monitor gpu/cpu temp's.

Stock clocks on a regular 330m according to notebook check:

565 core/1265 shader/1066 memory. The memory obviously is subject to whatever a vendor decides to use.

That being said, the 330M in our notebooks ships at 475/1080/640. Suffice it to say, it's SEVERELY underclocked out of the box.

Your avatar is awesome! Hacksaw Jim Duggan ftw!

 

What is the key for selecting boot device on these? F12 didn't work, Fn+F12 didn't work. I want to boot from CD to run Acronis to grab a factory image in additional to the restore disks the system will make.

 

Hmm, that's really interesting. I wonder then if 'overclocking' this to the original specs is safer than normal overclocking, since it's underclocked out of the box. Thoughts?

 

You'll see artifacts if you're pushing it too far. We're not touching the voltages so it should be fine.

If you have concerns, clocking it to original specs is almost certainly safe, at least with the core/shader speeds. As far as the memory, I'm not really sure what the memory speed is being used on our GPU. It's obviously faster than 640 but whether it's 800 or 1066...no clue.

 

I would about 80% sure say we have memory at 800mhz since according to nvidia's specs of the 330M it says with DDR3(up to 1066mhz) and with GDDR3(up to 800mhz).
And I thought we came to a conclusion that Sony is using GDDR3.
Also it says up to, so we could actually have lower clocked memory or hopefully its just under clocked 800mhz memory

 

Well done! yayyyy!!! But you left off your name... (i know, i know, its up on the right but i'm nothing if not easily confused.

Once i look away to see WHO the post is from, i lose WHAT MODEL they have - welcome to my nightmare Makes it soooooo much easier when reading the posts if all the info is in ONE SPOT - sorry i'm so picky but that's what makes me so endearing... lol

(i guess i wouldn't care either way but i have begun to "live in this room lately reading every post! i love my CW THAT much!)

 

70 C room (158 F) is a pretty impressively hot room...you doing the tests in a sauna?

 

the reason why the memory shows 640 and not 1066 when you test it is because it's DDR memory meaning that it's 2x the clock speed that you see.

if you see 700 MHz clock speed it's Data transfer rate is 1400 MHz.

 

Odd, I wonder why the memory clock is downclocked on this generation. The previous CWs had their memory clocks at nVidia's default 800 MHz.

For the record guys, the GT 330M in your notebooks utilizes dedicated video memory, which is GDDR3 operating at 640 MHz. The 1066 MHz is reference to manufacturers that are making their GT 330M use system RAM (DDR3-1066).

 

CREATING "GOD MODE" FOLDER
(Its a utility program ALREADY in Windows 7 that allows you access to all of Windows all in one place (even includes a few things that are buried that you might like to change)


1. Make New Folder on your desktop
2. Copy this:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
3. Paste it as the "new name" for the New Desktop folder you just created
4. Hit Enter
5. Done!

Now just click it and see the hundreds of apps in there- Pretty cool

(Anyone suspicious about doing this (as i was) Google "GodMode" and it'll come up and show you what it does before you try it for yourself

(But a dummbunny wouldn't steer y'all wrong

 

How did you do those? Is it a lightscribe drive in these CW laptops?

 

Dell just lowered the Adamo down to $999. I haven't seen one in person, but they sure do look nice. What do you think about the Adamo as compared to the CW?

 

your CW came with lightscribe?

I have that on my PC but I only used it a few times.

 

Lol. I meant F for room temperature.

 

It's apples and oranges imo.

While fairly portable, the CW is a bigger notebook with a MUCH more powerful graphic and cpu solution.

I've seen the Adamo and it's VERY well built and gorgeous. It just "feels" high-end. It's specced with a low-voltage processor too.

If you want a do-it all notebook with a robust cpu/gpu in a relatively "small" form factor, nothing beats the CW at the moment. If you only web surf, word docs, listen to music and other mundane stuff and you want tons of battery life, portability in an upscale looking package, then the Adamo is your laptop.

 

no :( i had to use my old laptop (i wrote that so no one would think our CW's did that)

 

Adamo is not the same class as the CW rather closer to a macbook air. The reason Adamo has price so low is it is using last gen processor and Dell is trying to get rid of stock before a refresh.

Id say the Adamo is going to have better build quality(metals and composites), thinner, lighter, and much longer battery life, and a solid state hard drive (much much faster than traditional drive)

BUT

It will have greatly reduced performance(slower ulv last generation processor), no dvd/blueray drive, gimped integrated graphics, and half the RAM.

Id say its no contest for the CW and if your in the market for a thin and light laptop with long battery life then there are much better choices than the Adamo that cost less. Most notably is the Asus UL30vt-x1 for $799 with ability to overclock with press of a button, switchable integrated and dedicated graphics, double the ram, and longer battery life than the Adamo.

So unless your a Dell follower and buy them regardless of what the market has available Id say dont go with the Adamo.

 

TDP is based on max power draw. For i3 and i5 cpu's that includes the integrated GPU. The thing that isn't spelled out in TDP is that that i3 always runs at its stock speed. The i5 has turbo mode, so may be drawing less than the 35W TDP most of the time. I would expect a equivalent clock i3 to draw more power on average than an i5. I'd also check out the Mah rating for both batteries if you're really worried about life unplugged.

 

i almost went with the ul30vt, but it was out of stock at the time. I'm so glad i waited and discovered the sony cw.

 

Can someone check this out? While on battery power does the CW i5 lock the CPU to run at a low frequency? I searched/scrolled through this post but could not find anything.

I've got an Envy 15 in transit but as I understand, the Envy locks the CPU to 1.2 GHz while on battery. This is rather lame IMO, I may return it and order a CW if it doesn't lock the CPU.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

Grrr. delivery man came 45 minutes after I had to leave the house. going to pick it up in 2 hours.

I was thinking of buying this,
https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wc...productId=8198552921666036651&tab=featuresTab
to change the color of the keyboard. what do you guys think? white body and black keyboard.

 

im watching a dvd rip on battery now and its staying at 1.3ghz, but i don't if that would even make the cpu clock higher

 

Just a heads up for anyone planning on buying this laptop, I ordered mine via BB like everyone else today AND was also able to get $95 cash back through Bing. What I did was search for "sony vaio" and you should see Best Buy 4th link down from the top. Go through that link and the $95 should show up in your Bing account within 30 minutes. So basically you're getting this sucker for $854 (assuming $949 version) + tax & S/H. Pretty sweet deal

 

Oh that's pretty cool! But if you have backlit keyboard, that will cover it up.

 

wow. just got mine with the 1600x900 screen and all i can say is wow. this lcd panel is horrible. you can literally see see pixels like dots! am i the only one that seeing this???

 

Jeff, Did you check "God Mode"? Every single utility is IN THERE... (i know i'm like a "dog with a bone" but when i think somethin' is great, i gotta make EVERYBODY think so too or i can't rest!! lol

 

The only bing link I can find for sony and best buy are for sony tvs... So, idk. :-\

 

are u serious? you're hating it? have you tried changing the DPI to 125% or tried adjusting the resolution? I changed the bigger 16in model in the store (that had a whopping 1920x1080 res) to a 125% DPI and everything looked great!

so far everyone on here has had only good things to say about it. i was worried to bits BEFORE i got mine, but everyone said it looked pretty amazing. I still wasn't convinced because i thought 14" would be too low for such a high res but i LOVE it.

Sorry you don't love your new computer, will you be returning it?

 

Yup, it doesn't matter. That's what I saw too but I figured, it can't hurt to try. So I just went through with my order using that link and within 30 minutes of ordering, the $95 was in my Bing account.

January 28, 2010
Best Buy
$95.00 Pending
Date of purchase:January 28, 2010
Purchase ID:11048123001xxxx
Go to store
You can request your cashback reward in 59 days.

Best Buy
Unit price:$949.99
cashback (%):10.00 %
Quantity:1
$95.00

 

I think he means to say it is very grainy. I had an ASUS desktop monitor with that problem. I got used it..

 

good thing you didn't get the ul30Vt. There is a better model of that coming out later this year, UL80JT. i7 chipset, 640 GB HDD, Weighs 4.1 lb, 12 hour battery life (prolly 7 or 8 but STILL....) 1GB VRAM 310M (might be 330M and its a typo- we'll see) BACKLIT KEYBOARD - (i love THAT) can't remember the rest but trust me, its loaded!

(Are y'all gettin' sick of all my comments? Hope not cuz i'm outta work so y'all are stuck with meeeeeeee for now... lol)

 

anyone else with the 1600x900 panel? im really hoping its just this one so i can exchange it. the only cw they have in store is the lower res one.

this one is in native resolution and the pixels are an eye sore.

 

So when you said earlier that your CW series laptop resolution (1600x900) looked great, you meant that it looked great w/o increasing the DPi right?

 

I went through Bing and got half of that. Which is what others got also. How many did you buy? The Bing reward is 5%, not 10%.

 

Just one. I pasted my transaction that was posted to my Bing account a couple posts up.

I double checked my Bing account right now and it still says 10% / $95 cash back.

 

Something is wrong with yours then because my panel is beautiful and not grainy. Maybe your resolution isnt set to 1600x900? LCD panels tend to look like crap outside of their native resolution.