Sony SE Owners' Thread

is there a point in buying SATA III SSD or does this laptop only support SATA II?

 

The laptop supports SATA III I believe but the BIOS firmware has limited the speed to SATA II speeds. I still went with a SATA III SSD regardless, Sony might release new firmware supporting the full speed of Sata III, another reason I bought it was to also future proof my investment. The drive can be yanked out and installed on another machine down the road.

 

ive had my SE since october and it hasnt given me any problems until recently.

A few days/weeks ago (not sure when) the power button light is no longer showing green when its on or orange when its sleeping. Also i think around the same time but cant be for certain my backlit keyboard is no longer lighting up. I checked the vaio control panel and have it set to always on when plugged in but im getting nothing.

i have the new version of vaio care+ updates and windows updates.

Anyone know whats up?

 

Hi,

I don't know if it just me but I find it very frustrating when the active window I am viewing suddenly becomes inactive so the scroll buttons don't work.

I am not selecting other windows, etc it just changes when it feels like it, not sure if it is just this laptop as my work laptop is Win 7 and it doesn't do this.

Can anyone suggest a solution as it is a pain..

As an example using adobe reader X is just keeps becoming in-active when trying to read a document. Plus IE9 is a right pain, all the messing around with tabs, anyone know where I can get IE8 for Win 7 as not on the Microsoft site anymore.

Thanks

 

Does it happen when you are using typing? I had to adjust the palm detection because it would blink to another window far too often.

If it's just happening without you typing then there is something else wrong with it.

Sidenote: The trackpad can be improved greatly by using these drivers found at the bottom of this page.

Get multitouch on Windows with the latest Synaptics drivers. | dotTech

Add in TwoFingerScroll and it works even better. two-finger-scroll - Two finger gestures for Synaptics TouchPads on Windows - Google Project Hosting

 

just following up on this since no response. Last night for some power saving thing we had no electricity for over an hour in my apt. Because it was completely dark out i could barely see the green power light on. Is it possible that i dimmed the keyboard lighting? does anyone know if there is a function that i could have accidentally modified to dim the brightness of the backlit keyboard/power button lighting?

 

The only settings I'm aware of are found in the Vaio Control Centre but they don't control the levels of brightness, just when and how long the backlight stays activated.

There might be a fault with your computer and since it's still under warranty you should have it checked out by Sony after some google searching for you problem.

 

Does Sony Vaio Care and Sony Vaio Update serve any required purpose? They don't seem to do much. Can I uninstall them?

Also, what's in the 100mb system reserved partition?

 

The new Vaio Care keeps trying to sell you premium tools so I removed it. I think at first it can help you setup recovery media if you need it. It also keeps track of bootup times and errors but it seems to do a poor job with the later.

Vaio Update just seems to save some time hunting around for drivers. It recently told me there was an important Intel Easy Connect security update and a few others for things I wouldn't normally update myself.

You can probably get them off the Sony site but I figure there is no harm in Vaio Update unless it is updating you with older drivers.

I would remove Vaio Care and keep Vaio Update.

 

anyone have experience having warranty work done when not living in country of purchase? I bought my SE while visiting at my home in the u.s but live in mexico for work. They do have sonystyle stores here in mexico city and warranty repair. Just wondering if i can have the work done here since its still under the 1 year manufacturer warranty.

 

I'm just doing a clean install for my new SE1 and I noticed there is no audio equalizer. Is there?

The SA has an equalizer.

Something is wrong with my audio jack. it will not support headphones with microphones unless I insert the jack 2/3rds of the way in, leaving it hanging out and loose. Normal headphones can be plugged in all the way.

My SA has no such problem.

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Is it a problem with my drivers? I've installed the latest audio drivers from Sony. I would assume the problem with the jack connection would be a hardware issue though. Any ideas?

Also, the right speaker has quite a lot of noise or cross talk when ever the cpu or hdd is loaded. is this normal on the SE?

 

Installed another 4GB of ram plus a Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSD I picked up last week in my notebook yesterday. Then I went ahead and clean installed Win 7 and boy does this thing fly.


WEI






Corsair Performance Pro 256

 

That's awesome, care to share your sources for all the drivers etc? I am going to look but if you happen to have a quick link or description of where it would be appreciated. Is there anything that you could not find or install?

 

All of the necessary drivers are available on Sony's website. I didn't bother installing any of the bloatware like Vaio Gate, etc.



Type in your model # or select it in the drop down menu in the link below, it will re-direct you to where you can download all the drivers for your system.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/select-system.pl?model_type_group_id=10#

 

I just got this laptop today and I have to say I LOVE IT. I got it with the 256GB SSD RAID0 and core i7-2640 @2.8 Ghz, 8GB Ram.

Its wicked fast and the IPS 1080p screen is so vivid. Everything looks so sharp and colors really pop on screen.

Heres a crystaldisk benchmark and check out the RAID config. I can't believe how good this performs in RAID0.




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here's a website that lists all the needed drivers to get you running. used that website after a clean install of windows 7 and works perfectly.
Sony Vaio SE1 Series VPCSE13FX/S drivers for Windows 7 64-bit | laptop,notebook & Printer drivers collections - www.Odrivers.com

 

I took some comparison photos with the SE1 and SA2, along with my HTC Desire. You will need to use a different laptop to see the colors, it won't show on your SE. The reds are orange and violets are dull. There is also a yellowish tint, and green is a bit yellow. I found that if I open up the Intel graphics properties and change the following settings helped a little to reduce the yellow tint and improve the violet:

All Colors: Hue: +8
Blue Gamma: 1.2

Also, I went to the local sony shop and the SE1 on display has the same headphone jack problem that my SE1 has. It won't work with a headset with microphone (4 connector 3.5mm plug). I have to either leave it halfway out or depress the microphone button to get the audio to play correctly through my headset. It's odd because none of the other models in the shop had the same problem.

 

I notice the headphone thing too with my SE1... I think it's because unlike other notebooks, the jack is just a headphone one and not a combo headphone/mic jack.

I'll try that color correction to see how it turns out... thanks.

 

Sorry, forgot to mention that the improvement is just for the yellow tint and a bit of the violet back, but the red is not there at all.

Also, normally a normal headphone jack should simply ground the mic. All I can think of is that sony used the wrong, or inferior jack. I wonder if they fixed this on the SE2?

Do you have a little buzzing on your speakers when the CPU or HDD is loaded?

 

i've installed a new 4gb 1333mhz RAM bank from Corsair (cmso4gx3m1a1333c9) on my SE1E and.. blue screen. :sadface:

what the problem with this kind of ram? any help?

thanks

 

Sounds like you just got unlucky and received a defective stick, it should work perfectly fine in your SE as it meets the correct specs.

 

The red's and violet's are also an issue with the HP ENVY 15, which was another laptop I was seriously considering. I ended up with the Sony SE though and I love it. I can't really tell if the colors or off or not. Maybe I could if I ran it next to another display, but by itself it looks damn good for me. I'm coming from a Dell Inspiron D820 from a few years ago, so needless to say this has been quite an improvement!

Is it possible to set the laptop to wake up when you open the lid? My Dell did that in Windows 7. Its a power setting right? I'm going to look into it but if you know I thank you ahead of time.

 

Well, the Sony SE's 1920x1080 is certainly a downgrade from the Latitude D820's 1920x1200. The Latitude looks prettier too.

 

I was editing photos and it was really hard to get the colors right. I kept thinking I had yellow when I didn't. If you fill the screen with white you'll see that it has a yellowish tint.

The settings I mentioned earlier setting blue gamma to 1.2 made me think I had blue even when I removed blue from my photos.

I spent 2 hours sitting here trying to fiddle with the settings and this is what I got so far. It's not perfect though. red will never come back. green is shifted towards yellow but I cant all the green back without turning everything else green. The correction gives a bit of blue tint. The benefit is the reduction of yellow tint.

All colors hue: +8

RED brightness: -3
RED gamma: 0.9

Green gamma:0.9

Blue brightness: +1
Blue Contrast: 51

 

I accepted that the colours are off but I double check everything on an external calibrated monitor. Usually the SE screen is for the grunt work and the external is for the finesse.

Silly question, anyone know any consequences if you remove the windows, radeon, intel stickers. Not going to void my warranty am I?

 

I'm a little bit confused.
As I've finally ordered a SE (hopefully it will arrive next week) I'm now also searching for additional RAM.
But here in Germany I can't find PC3-10600 most dealers state: PC3-10667S.


Has someone a clue, what this code stands for?
Is this the correct type?

 

n o p e !

 

Checking the Crucial Uk site for an extra 4gb of memory comes up with both 1.35V and 1.5v modules.
Which is correct?

 

I got the 1.35V crucial 4GB RAM - it's working fine...

 

Looks like thomash2 has gotten the SE orangegate affair on the front of theverge.com

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/6/2931113/sony-vaio-se-screen-also-suffers-from-red-orange-color-inaccuracy

 

I changed my settings again, changing the gamma affects mid's too much. It's the highs that seem to be the most off, so here are my new settings:

All colors Hue +8

Red brightness -3
Red contrast 47

Green brightness -3
Green contrast 47

Blue brightness +1
Blue contrast 51

It's really hard to save and use profiles in the intel graphics properties because everytime I try changing profiles to compare, the settings somehow change. And I have to enter them again.

 

Are you talking about ICC profiles? There was a bug mentioned way back in the early days of this thread that some Intel program running in the background causes the VAIO to lose the profile. I think it was igfxtray.exe and igfxpers.exe.

Disabling that in msconfig fixed it I believe.

If it's another kind of profile, not sure.

 

I read somewhere, and I forgot where, that someone calibrated the screen with a color sensor. Ir you have a profile which greatly improves the color, could you please share it?
I tried manually calibrating in Intel graphics properties, but its difficult.

The settings above I mentioned are a bit too blue on the highs. I've got another setting now but it usually looks too blue or too yellow, and the green won't come black.

 

Sorry I don't have it, there were some colour profiles posted here though. Maybe that's what you were talking about?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony-owners-lounge-forum/614822-sony-se-owners-thread-29.html#post7995251


Good luck.

 

Eww no way. The Dell D820 is such a tank and slow. The screen is something weird like 1650x1050 and its not even nearly as bright. Its actually HARDER to read text.






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The Sony is such an improvement and its way faster.


Also I put in the 1.5v corsair 4gb ram chip to make it 8 and it works just fine.

 

Notebook check had a profile on their review.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/uploads/tx_nbc2/SonyVaio_VPCSE1Z9EB_matt_1920x1080__Unknown_.icc

I compared the two profiles on my vpcse13fx and the one from notebook check is pretty good. moralar's is a bit red on my screen. although, the one from notebook check still has a bit of a yellow tint. I can't get rid of it, but I did reduce it a little by using these settings in intel graphics properties on top of the notebook check ICC color profile:

Blue brightness +4

going any higher and things start to look blue.

instructions on how to install the ICC color profile
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/584506-review-sony-vaio-sa-51.html#post7656502

 

I installed the exact same 4GB Corsair DDR3-1333 ram and experienced random shutdowns and restarts. I dug a little deeper and apparently the onboard ram runs at a command rate of 1.0T, which most ram on the market are not able to run at reliably.

I spoke to a Corsair support rep about that and he concurred with my conclusion that a CR of 1.0T would cause the crashes and that a CR of 2.0T would solve it. Unfortunately, the Command Rate cannot be changed on the Vaio SE without some bios hacks. I will guess that those who've upgraded their ram just got lucky with sticks that can run 1.0T reliably. As of now, I'm just waiting to see if I can find some ram guaranteed to run at 1.0T

 

The only thing I notice with the screen is sometimes on stamina and battery the screen flickers. I went into the Intel properties and saw the refresh rate was set at 40 Hz! I didn't even think 40 Hz was possible for a computer display.

Changing it to 60 Hz fixes the display flicker in white area's issues for while until the system changes it back to 40 (maybe next boot?)

 

Right click the desktop and choose Graphic Properties.
Go to the Intel Graphics Control Panel and select the "Power" tab.

Change the power source to "on battery" and un-check "Display Power Saving Technology".

This should solve the flickering if I'm not mistaken.

 

the fan noise is crazy, I played BF3 on all settings low because it couldn't handle anything higher, I thought the 6630M was good enough to play most games on medium. I even added 4GB ram and a 128GB SSD, only thing that's fast right now is the boot-up time. Vaio control center doesn't have the back-lit keyboard setup or anything.... something is kind of messed up...

 

and while playing I checked the temps, they were around 90 degrees C, is that normal?

 

Here's my biggest problem I am having with this Sony...

I am trying to copy a bunch of stuff off my old laptop and it seems that I lose my Wifi connection when doing so. The old laptop is not dropping its wifi card and it is also plugged into a GigE port. The Sony is connected to a Cisco 3500 series LAP connected via GigE to a Cisco 5500 Wireless LAN Controller with 4 GigE trunk ports, and it is managing 6 APs at this office, 4 from 2 other offices.

The backbone is Cisco 3750G in a large switch stack via the stacking cables (32gbps). This is the only laptop experiencing this network connectivity issue. For example I am trying to copy 7.18 GB of data from the old machine and 2/3 of the way through it will lose the connection and in the systray a yellow exclamation mark goes over the 5 bars of wifi signal. Wifi appears connected but I just cannot ping anything on the network. If I switch the wireless switch off then on, were back in business. This does not seem to be a problem during normal usage, web browsing or daily work. Just when copying multiple gigabytes of data at a time.

The laptop is plugged in too, so I don't think any power management should be shutting down the card. I've resulted in connecting via LAN just to get this transfer done, but do you know if there's any driver issues with the wifi and if theres any tweaks or updates that would fix this kind of problem?

Thanks!

 

Hi Everyone, i just got the 13FX from amazon. So far, i am pleased with the vaio, except one problem, one big problem...I can't charge the battery, since the first time i plug the vaio.

The battery indicator LED keeps blinking, and it says that the battery is incompatible or i've put the battery in improper way. So, to use the vaio, i've got two options:

1. Take the battery off (and ruin the whole essence of a laptop)

2. when i reseat the battery, there's 30 seconds moment where the led doesnt blink. If i press the power button at that moment, the vaio will boot, but the battery will be considered as "plugged in, not charging" afterwards (and then the led still blinks). IF i missed that 30 seconds moment where the led doesn't blink. The vaio won't turn on.

Anybody suffer from this issue? or it's just me?

Methods i've tried :

1. Disabling ISBMgr

2. Deleting the battery driver

Thanks before,

PS : It's impossible for me to return the unit and get it replaced

 

i got another strange problem.. if i push on the keyboard: W+A+Space. The space doesn't work...

i tried a lot of combo and all works perfectly. Any ideas?

 

I would call Sony or take a look a their download page. There are some problems with a BIOS that are fixed with an update if you are comfortable doing that. It may not be your exact problem though, call Sony and see if you get lucky with their tech support. It can be hit or miss.

Sony eSupport Page Downloads

 

uhm.. thanks for the info. I try with other ram. But where in the spec i can find the CR value?

 

yes, Battlefield 3 pushes the hardware like no other. the CPU and GPU will get very hot and the fan has to run at 100%. that's normal. i suggest buying a notebook cooler and using it when you're playing games like Battlefield 3. also, in my case, disabling Intel TurboBoost helped reduce the temperature by some good amount.

6630m is powerful enough to run this game at 1366x768, but you have to overclock it. if you want to do that, use Sapphire TRiXX. also, make a file named user.cfg in the same directory where bf3.exe is and put the following line in it
WorldRender.DXDeferredCSPathEnable 0
this command increases your fps by about 7-10fps with no hit on graphics.

 

Hi Red, i have upgraded the BIOS but, still, it wont work ... i have two sessions with sony technician regarding this issue, and they asked me to get all the updates for this vaio, and i'm currently working on that (due to my slow internet speed). Anyway, thx for your concern.

 

Wish I could help more, hopefully someone on their support team can point you in the right direction.

Good luck!

 

Currently enjoying my SE, but there's a problem connecting over HDMI. With my old laptop(also AMD GPU), in CCC there was an option to change pixel format to something that would cause the picture over HDMI to not wash out. However I've tried the default drivers, 12.2, 12.3, installing only the display driver, CCC, and while some installation configurations unlock a few extra options for dealing with an external display, none of them have the pixel format option even appearing. Anybody know which driver version/method's you can use to unlock it?