Sony CW i3/i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

seriously, just have a microfiber towel nearby to wipe the fingerprints off the laptop. it's really not a big deal.

 

Has anyone found any way to get a respectable volume out of this laptop? I have set the Loudness Equaliztion setting right now, which , btw, does make the speakers seem a bit louder, but is actually just flattening out the dynamic range of the sound. So will seem louder, but also kinda tinny like an am radio.
I am not expecting miracles from the little speakers but whats killing me, is this is overall the BEST laptop I have ever owned, yet has the WORST sound volume and sound quality of any laptop I've owned. Please tell me there is a driver that will "fix" it.

 

any other people want to try this out?

 

I'm going to do it today!

 

ok lmk how it works =)

 

Thanks for you feedback. I want the invisible shield mainly to keep the fingerprints at bay. Scratches aren't that serious, it's not like I bang it on the wall or anything, lol.

Doesn't it come with like some solution thingy to make it easier to install? I'm just gonna go ahead and take the plunge, if anything there's a 45 day money back guarantee.

Wish me luck applying it!!

 

Yea I'm curious too about what you guys are doing to get the speakers to sound louder. Thanks!

 

Try using the Jazz (equalizer) with no other box checked. I find it good for both laptop speakers and external speakers.

 

question: did anyone try to replace the hdd by the solid state drive? i'm thinking of getting a 128GB... though that means i wont be able to put much into the drive.....
thanks

 

2.5" SSD will fit no problem.

Which SSD are you getting?

 

i dont know. busy right now so thinking of getting one in early june
what do you guys recommend? cheap + stable hehe

 

Cheap - no comment

Stable - Intel G2, Samsung and Vertex LE

 

SSD drive?

From what Ive been reading there are only 2 great options now.

Intel - superb reliability, fast reads, high i/o capabilities, not so fast writes

OCZ Vertex 2 and Agility 2 (or any other ssd powered by a SandForce controller) - blazing unmatched read and write performance(writes 2-2.5x faster than intel), new to market so no long term reliability figures yet.

Either of those would be an ssd I would go with. I cant wait until the price per gb gets down to say $1 because most likely Ill be getting an ssd with the sandforce controller. Currently the price per gb for ssds are anywhere from $3-4.

 

last question before i purchase this. how is the gaming on this machine. can it run everything out there well.

 

To all the CW owners out there?
Have you ever experienced a lock up? like when your screen freezes and if you click on anything, nothing responds? Had to take out the battery just to have t restarted. It just happened to me 2 days straight now. It used to happen too in my Acer netbook. Is it just me or I have a bad laptop (motherboard? it was the culprit in my netbook & Acer replaced it)
Can you shed light on this? Thanks!

 

Nope, never had to remove the battery. My CW has been pretty flawless except for the battery meter problem we all have. I would try restoring it to the factory installation before calling for help. Anybody else have a "lock up"?

 

I've had a lockup once or twice, pretty sure it was from me multitasking too much (tons of firefox tabs /browsers open, starcraft 2 beta open during a match, outlook open, evernote open, etc.) but holding the power button to shut it down worked, never had to take out the battery...

To the guy asking about gaming, I can play sc2 beta on High settings np, Ultra is choppy...I usually play medium though just so it is absolutely seamless and since I keep things open in the background. This is on a 330M with 4gb ram core i5.

 

Something like soft windows sounds .. For example, i use Navigational Sounds add on for Firefox. Makes the little click sound when you click web links or shortcuts. Unless you set the "Loudness Equaliztion" setting in sound properties, you can barely hear these sounds. Even then, volume needs to be way up. Kind of pointless as that is supposed to be a subtle background noise as it is but the overall range of volume should be much higher.

 

pls help i just did a clean install of my cw27 and i downloaded the new driver from nvidia 330m
(197.16) but when i try to install the driver an error msg shows their are no compatible hardware driver can not install pls help

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/450641-windows-7-clean-install-instructions-cw-series.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/464730-sony-vaio-cw-i5-driver-thread.html


look at these two threads if you're doing a clean install.

and, you can only use the nvidia drivers from sony's website. unless you want to do the laptopvideo2go workaround which IMO isn't worth the hassle. (driver on sony's site is relatively up to date as of today)

 

Finally got my CW!!!

Can someone please tell me why it's so awesome???

 

-It's bloody sexy (compared to the other notebooks on I see on campus)
-Great performance in a small, lightweight and unassuming package
-Great battery life
-Keyboard and touchpad are just fantastic (I now prefer the touchpad over my Logitech G5)
-Screen is great (vertical angles and reflective coating, not so much)
-Whenever I see a Macbook/Macbook Pro, I can't help but feel a but smug that I didn't pay an arm and a leg for a superior specced machine. Or maybe I'm just jealous because I don't have a Mac

I've read some posts here relating to the battery drain problem. Whilst I think there maybe some nominal drain occurring, I believe that it is more a case of a wonky battery meter - there have been many occasions where it said there was only 25 mins left, but 30 mins later, it still says 25 mins left.

 

yep it's a pretty awesome machine, the battery meter is fugging annoying though! i've learned to live with it because it's about $600 cheaper than the macbook pro!

 

im really frustrated i cant install the moded inf file can someone help because i realy would want to install a full nvidia driver rather than the sony version because there are lots of option that sony did not include in their version i love my cw27 but im realy frustrated for a very powerful notebook sony made it underpowered its like they dont want us to fully utilize the cw full potential

 

I must say i agree with everyting you say! The screen is definitely the best thing for me. Blows the S series which is what I was thinking about getting out oft he water!

I think I agree with you in that the battery meter is just a little wacko and gives inaccurate readings, which is really unfortuante and annoying as hell. On my second charge I charged it up to 80% (using the power meter) and when I woke up the next morning it was at 65%. What the heezy!?

What have other people done to fix this problem? I would really like to know some things you guys have tried. Has anyone called Sony or anything like that?


On a side note my Invisible Shield came in today! Wish me luck guys and I'll be sure to post some pictures of the final product!

 

Hi all! Just got a question about this, and the Sony style store in general, you see I'm going on a road trip in the US this summer (I'm from Sweden) and because the price and upgrades are way better in the US, I’m considering buying a cw while I’m there. But It struck me while looking at different stores online that have a physical store (Bestbuy for example) that the i5-version is pretty much only available if you order it , I really would like to just go in to a store and buy it. So to my question, is the i5 model (or rather the higher resolution version) available in the Sony style stores? And how is the pricing compared to their online store?
Really appreciate any kind of answer!
Thanks

 

hey Nvy, i guess you should still order it and ask them to get it to any of the bestbuy stores you can access while on your trip. They have stuff in stock but also incidences have been reported of it being sold out as it is a much sought after machine too...........All the best and cheers

 

I'm from the US and had this similar problem and had to do a lot of research to learn that the Sony Style store does not offer the CW series in America with the high res screen or the Nvidia GT330m GPU. The only place you can get the I5, Gt330 and the high res screen are in online retailers such as newegg.com or from Bestbuy, in which it is available online only.

My suggestion is buy it online from BestBuy because by far they have the most competitive price at 979.99. Your only problem would be were to get it shipped. Do you have a friend you can ship it too or perhaps obtaining a PO box at the post office.

Hope this helps!

 

For those who lives around Fry's Electronics, the basic model: i3,500GB,4GB Ram is on sell for $699 (all colors). I bought the black one.

 

I don't know why but the whole battery monitor issue is keeping me from buying the CW. It seems like the best laptop for my needs but I'll also need it to take it to school to possibly take notes on lectures in class.. It will most likely be replacing a desktop that I'm giving to my dad

How is this laptop's portability? I'm looking at the CW27 right now. Any other people take it to school etc or do you guys have any problems estimating how long the battery will last since the monitor is defective..

Thx..

 

Hi guys,

I just got my CW last week and I replaced Windows 7 home premium with Windows 7 Professional. It's been working well.

Then, I have this problem about wireless LAN. The speed of the wireless seems to be drop and become limited for a period of time and then it is good again. (Download speed down to 10 KB/s while the other laptop in the same location can do like 500 KB/s) I only noticed this after a while, because it is not obvious if I am just browsing around.

I updated the driver and it seems to help a little, the limit is like 80-90KB/s now. Did anyone have the same problem?

Thanks.

 

looks like theres a new bios updated listed as 4/17.

 

For us new(er) to windows, (used to mac) how do you update the bios?

 

4/17?
I see 4/13/2010

 

Just install it like other drivers. Download the file and double click on it to run.

 

Any info on what the BIOS update's fixes are?

 

sorry, i can't read. that's what i meant. I just installed it. we'll see if battery does any better. i doubt it though.

 

Was hoping its for the ACHI/IDE mode

Damn Sony, can't understand why they don't include that option

 

Do these BIOS updates get installed automatically with either Windows or Sony updates or is it something I have to do manually?

 

Hey bro I was having this same dilemma in my head before I chose to buy this laptop. I ended up buying it and I must say I have no regrets whatsoever. The dollar value on this laptop is unbelievable. This much power is a lot more expensive on any other laptop.

As far as the battery drain issue goes. Yes it is freakin annoying as hell....But the fact of the matter is on a full charge the laptop lasts about 3hrs on a 80% charge, drain or no drain. I think the meter is just stupid. you should have no problem at school or anything like that.

Hope this helps.

 

man, please sony, let me turn em ACHI on please...the snow leopard is mocking me in the corner...

 

It's light and small enough to stick with my notes in my satchel bag. I have to admit it's not the slimmest notebook, but it is compact enough and I take it with me every time I go to the library which brings me nicely along to my next point. I managed to get about 2.75 hours out of the battery yesterday - on 50% charge Brightness was at 40% (dropped it all the way down when I got to 10% of the battery), WLAN on except for the last 30 mins and running Chrome, Adobe Reader and iTunes. Almost 3 hours on half a charge! That's timed using the clock and not the battery metre.

On a less rosy note, my wireless connection doesn't seem be that great recently. On the same connection and on the same website, a video being played on the BBC website works just fine on my friend's notebook but was really struggling to buffer on mine. Also, when I'm playing Counter-Strike: Source, the game will randomly freeze for about 5 secs and I can't even begin to tell you how infuriating that is. Websites occasionally don't load straight away too. Would love to know how I can sort this out. Cheers.

 

I replaced my wifi card with an intel 6300 instead of the atheros that comes with it...my wifi strength and speeds have gone up exponentially and have been much more reliable. Just my 2 cents.

That's great news about the battery life though, I spend most of my time with mine plugged into an outlet (there are plenty at my library) so it is less of an issue, but it is really good to know that I could bump down the brightness and work outdoors for a few hours as well!

edit: just occurred to me based on your signature you have a different model CW than I do, but hopefully my battery won't be too far off from yours.

 

I am having issues with the track pad on my vpccw21fx i3.

The lower left corner seems to be "popping up" or "working its way up".
The left side of the left button is in a more depressed position than where it was new, but I can push down on the corner of the track pad and it moves down noticeably.

Anyone else see this?

 

Has anyone looked into ways of making the cw run better by making use of the available ports? I don't know about you guys, but I can't afford to bust out two 4gb sticks of ram to replace the two 2gb sticks already in the cpu, but buying flash memory is much easier. I currently have a dedicated usb flash drive for the readyboost win7 utility, and it helps a lot. The only thing is that it is a huge drive sticking out the side of the cpu. Does anyone have any experience with the multiple other ports on the laptop? I am new to the world of laptops (my first) so I'm not sure what the magic gate, sd card, or the pcmcia slot (i think that's what it's called). Could these be used as extra ram instead of the usb slot? Seems like it would be a lot less invasive, I constantly worry that I'm going to move the laptop the wrong way and rip the port out of the motherboard.

Sorry for the giant wall of text

 

Hi Mrnelson, I'm not sure what exactly you want for your laptop. Are you just trying to optimize the ports or you want to have it snappier?

 

did u already get snow leopard on the system or are you planning to?

 

Both! I really have no use for the ports so I feel like it's wasted space...I don't have a fancy camera or anything yet for the media storage, so trying to optimize the cpu itself (use the ports for something that will give me more performance, or if it can't do that, then more storage or something)

 

Readyboost will give you only a little improvement and upgrading your memory from 4GB to 8GB you most likely wont notice any difference unless you are heavy on memory usage.

Now if you want your laptop to be snappier, I suggest go for Solid State Drive upgrade. Its like day and night.
Worth for the buck if you are a speedy enthusiast

 

I thought about that, but my current monetary situation doesn't allow me to get one that is big enough to suit my comfort. I would hate to drop my storage capability too far below the stock 500 gb, and the bigger ssd's are so expensive I might as well buy a second laptop, lol

edit: Also, I use the laptop to game (starcraft 2 beta) so anything to improve performance in that regard is another welcome addition.