Sony VAIO F 3D series owners lounge

Power DVD Ultra 11 does do 2D to 3D up conversion on its own. Of course the the button for 3D on the laptop will not work but the player itself does convert photos, videos, discs from 2D to 3D

 

can we do fresh windows install on this laptop without having problemes? Can we download all softwares and drivers from sony esupport? Thanks

 

My laptop has a fresh install of Win7 64 ultimate. No problems now.

 

I was at the sonystyle store where I live and picked up the new 3D Starter kit.

It comes with "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" 3D Blu-ray and the new TDG-BR250 3D glasses. I can say that these 3D glasses are more comfortable to wear compared to the one that came with the 3D laptop. And it feels lighter.

Check it out.

3D Glasses Narnia | 3D Starter Kit | 3DBNDL/NARNIA | Sony USA

 

Ah, so those are the new glasses I've seen mentioned. I'll have to see if they're at the Sonystyle over here next time I go. I need more pairs now!

 

Installed the Sony update for the graphics driver. For me it seems to have fixed the Hardware acceleration issue with Firefox.

 

Hey, look, new Fs are coming out soon that are not 3D-capable. The tradeoff? More colors.

New Sony Vaio F, S series laptops go upscale | Crave - CNET

Ah, they're also on SonyStyle for preorder, these are basically referred to on there as the F22 as opposed to our F21.

Judging by the pictures from the Cnet link, these look very much like they do not have the glossy surfaces, rather a matte finish. While it probably has a little more utility, to me it just doesn't look right for this model.

 

Thanks for the heads-up. Re-checked the box = ☑ "Use hardware acceleration when available", and Firefox is back to normal / great!

Paul

 

Interesting that the new 2290X 2D version has an optional 512GB solid state drive.

 

Sony's prices on SSD upgrades are very high. Much better off buying separate and upgrading yourself. Very easy to that too.

 

You can also buy a 64gb or 128gb ssd and replace the optical drive by the original HDD using an optical bay caddy, it's what im going to do when i buy this laptop, and for dvd or BD drive you can buy a USB Slim case

 

FYI:
Sony released a new 05/24/2011 Corel® WinDVD® BD Software Update.
Almost could swear it wasn't there yesterday when I checked.
This utility updates the Corel WinDVD BD software to version 10.0.5.803 and provides the following benefits:

Paul

 

I gave up on WinDVD and went with PowerDVD 11

 

When I got tired of Corel not giving a timely update, I went with PowerDVD 11 Ultimate too.

The only reason I'm keeping Corel WinDVD is because it can do the 2D to 3D conversion for all 1080P Blu-ray discs where Power DVD 11 only can do the conversion for the other formats like DVD but not Blu-ray discs.

FYI:
Even though Corel WinDVD fixed the playability of the latest Blu-ray 3D movies, they still didn't fix the irritating bug of changing the color scheme to Windows 7 Basic after the movie starts playing. It stops the movie and then you have to go through all the initial setup details a 2nd time before playing the movie nonstop and then you have to advance to the scene where the VAIO 3D stopped to change the color scheme.

Powere DVD 11 always changes the color scheme before the disc starts, letting the Blu-ray 3D play the movie nonstop.

Paul

 

I actually went to PowerDVD when they were still at 10, like 2 weeks before they released 11 when they were having a sale. Then they gave me a free upgrade to 11 when it was released. Very good experience with them so far.

 

I'm having the same problem with WinDVD. I like using PowerDVD 11 as well.

I'm glad PowerDVD 11 passes Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio through the HDMI. You need WinDVD PRO to do that. The one that came with the laptop can't pass Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio.

Oh....
and the Vaio update is showing the previous WinDVD update now.

 

Thanks for the heads-up. Didn't know that.

Yea, it's confusing why the VAIO Update software wants to " download and install automatically" the old Corel(R) WinDVD(R) BD Software Update 3/28/2011 39718KB , after I just installed the newer 05/24/2011 Corel(R) WinDVD(R) BD Software Update.

5/28/11 EDIT Update:
FYI:

The 03/28/2011 Corel® WinDVD® BD Software Update Version 10.0.5.761 @ 38.78 MB is back.

The 05/24/2011 Corel® WinDVD® BD Software Update is no longer found in the software update page i.e. It has been removed

 

1st post, sorry... Just got the new series F 3D laptop, downloaded the new firmware and update to the Corel software, and the one 3D movie I have - Gnomeo and Juliet (don't ask, I'm so embarrassed) won't play. Garbled picture, actually hung up the pc... Not impressed... Is anyone else having difficulty with the updates?
And what movies ARE PLAYING WELL?
Thanks...
Larry

 

Larry, welcome to the forums! Don't be ashamed, I was actually considering picking the movie up as well. Did you download the May update that has been mentioned on here in the past few posts?

I know the 3D Blu-Ray is still on sale here until the end of the day, so if I pick it up and try it out, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Hi Larry, welcome to the forum.

Just tried Corel WinDVD for Gnomeo & Juliet 3D. The Corel software is problematic at best. The Blu-ray 3D Gnomeo & Juliet plays flawlessly when I use PowerDVD 11 Ultimate. To date it is the finest Reference CGI quality 3D disc I own, out of 33 Blu-ray 3D's in my collection and counting.

Have to say that the 3D image, when viewed on the VAIO F 3D series laptop, using the Sony 3D glasses, is the best reproduced high definition 3D image I have ever witnessed on any display. Crystal clear, eye popping image, no ghosting/crosstalk that I can notice.


Paul
Link to my movie media collection

 

FYI:

The 03/28/2011 Corel® WinDVD® BD Software Update Version 10.0.5.761 @ 38.78 MB is back.

The 05/24/2011 Corel® WinDVD® BD Software Update is no longer found in the software update page i.e. It has been removed

 

Thank you to you and Paul for the welcome!

I DID download the May update to the NVidia card and to the Corel software-which I notice is no longer there... Hmmm... problem with the update, I suspect.

Anyway, I thought that before I replied I'd try another 3D movie to make sure it wasn't just a Gnome issue, so I bought Alice in Wonderland (which I thought would play because it is one that is offered by Sony as a part of a package with 2 3D glasses... Anyway, Alice plays very nicely, but the Gnomes will still not cooperate. Stubborn little buggers...

Thinking more about the Power DVD 11 software - it's on sale this weekend... but I REALLY don't want to lose functionality with the buttons on the pc. The 3D button goes, I guess, but what about the transport buttons?

With the Power DVD software, do all 3D titles seem to work ok?

Larry

 

From my experience with PowerDVD 11 Ultimate, the 3D button does work on the Vaio F 3D to some extent while I'm playing a Blu-ray 3D, like going from 3D to 2D and back to 3D etc. What I found the button doesn't work for is when you want to convert 2D Blu-ray media to 3D, but I already know that PowerDVD doesn't convert Blu-ray from to 2D to 3D. I realize I would have to use Corel WinDVD for that regardless.

Don't understand what "transport buttons" you're referring to. ??

All the newer Blu-ray 3D titles I've tried that haven't worked with Corel have worked with PowerDVD, but I haven't had the chance to try many of the older titles I own as yet.

Paul

 

Thanks, Paul. I was talking about the hard buttons on the Vaio right in front of the screen that control playback of the disks - stop, play, fast forward/reverse/skip chapters... to the left of the "Sony" logo.

I haven't bought Tron yet - does that work with Corel? Or just PowerDVD?

Larry

 

Interesting. Never noticed them before. Just tried them and they don't work with the PowerDVD software.

Tron didn't work with the 3/28 Corel software. Uninstalled the 5/24 Corel update, so I can't verify it yet. Didn't play Tron all the way through, but it played fine with PowerDVD (no stutter, freeze or pixelation) from the part I tried.

Paul

 

Here is how you pass Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio using PowerDVD 11 Ultra.

Hook your laptop to the receiver using HDMI. Use a regular Blu-ray if your setup is not 3D.

If you are in Cinema mode, start playing the disc. Make sure you are playing something that's in Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio.

Right click on the screen. Go to "Controls" then "settings."

Click on "Audio settings."

For "Speaker environment," choose "Use HDMI." For Output Mode, choose "Non decoded high definition audio to external device." Then click on "apply."

And there you have it.



Just so you know, there is an update patch for PowerDVD 11. Click the link below or switch to classic mode.

The best 3D video, Blu-ray player & DVD player software ? PowerDVD 10

 

So... I did some testing on the May software update (that was removed, I guess):
The Green Hornet works just fine (it's a Sony disk so one would think so!), and
Alice in Wonderland works fiine.
Tron does NOT work (although the Pirates trailer played well, but hung up on Cars and would't play the movie) and
Gnomeo and Juliette doesn't play...

Since Sony took down the update, I'm assuming they found an issue and are fixing it? Hope so - don't really want to buy extra software that does what the pc SHOULD do on its own...

Larry

 

There is 2 other Disney 3D titles that wouldn't play. Tangled 3D is one of them. It freezes up at the Cars 2 trailer. After downloading the update Tangled 3D plays just fine on WinDVD.

The download instructions says to install a Service Event and an Nvidia driver before installing the WinDVD update. The only problem I have now is that the movie stops playing. Once I start it up again, Tangled 3D plays just fine.

 

Can you all detail what happened when you tried playing Gnomeo on WinDVD? I didn't go through it again all the way through as we watched it in 2D last night on my TV, but I made it a good ten minutes in on WinDVD no problem.

 

It never got to the movie on my machine - it hung on the trailer - Cars, I think. Locked up the program, had to force it to close.
Larry

 

I don't have Tangled 3D... I DID download and install the NVIDIA update before I installed the Corel update, but what "service event" is it talking about? I don't remember seeing that.

My Vaio F is so new, it seems like every other time I shut it down it's installing more Windows updates. I wonder if something in those many updates is causing issues (or not there and needed to be).

Larry

 

This service event.
Sony eSupport - VPCF21AFX/BI - Drivers & Software

If you used Vaio Update, it should've installed it for you.

As for Windows updates, there was plenty of them. The only issue I had was IE9 running slow. It's up to speed now.

Edit : Oops, I meant Event service.

 

Hmmm, I don't know what to say. I currently only own two 3D Blu-Rays and both seem to be playing back fine. I ran into an upconversion issue with regular 2D Blu-Rays a while back but found a strange fix to that.

 

Hi folks,

I won't be a regular poster here, however I have been reading these forums and will try to give something back. I purchased a Vaio F21 a few days ago, and removed the bottom cover today to check if the GPU is soldered or socketed.

It's soldered. The CPU appears to sit on a socket (G2).

That hasn't been difficult, but I had to remove 25 screws. Notes of interest:

- remove all visible screws
- pin them to a sheet of paper as you progress, with annotations
- there's a rubber gromet that needs to be lifted next to the SD slot
- you'll need to remove both the hard disk and optical drive
- there are three flat screws under the optical drive
- the motherboard is made by Foxconn
- two heatpipes to the CPU, one to the GPU

GPU overclocking is possible - using the NVidia System Tools 6.06 there's 10-20% overclock margin, with my temps being <= 70°C. Chances are that faster CPUs than my 2630QM mean lower overclocking margins due to heat concerns.

Cheers

 

Now playing with YouTube 3D...

Firefox 4 required, as well as 275.27 GeForce driver:

NVIDIA DRIVERS 275.27 BETA

Unfortunately it does not handle the Vaio F21, so I had to edit things without clearly understanding what I was doing. I believe that only these two sections in nvszc.inf matter:

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]
%NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section024, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_9067104D
%NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.02% = Section024, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_9067104D
%NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.05% = Section024, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_907A104D
%NVIDIA_DEV.0DF0.03% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DF0&SUBSYS_907A104D
%NVIDIA_DEV.0DF4.01% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DF4&SUBSYS_9086104D

...

[Strings]
DiskID1 = "NVIDIA Windows Vista / Windows 7 (64 bit) Driver Library Installation Disk 1"
NVIDIA = "NVIDIA"
NVIDIA_A = "NVIDIA"
NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M "
NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.02 = "NVIDIA GeForce 310M "
NVIDIA_DEV.0A75.05 = "NVIDIA GeForce 310M "
NVIDIA_DEV.0DF0.03 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M "
NVIDIA_DEV.0DF4.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M"

Anyway, once the driver install succeeded, there was another non-obvious required step: go to the stereoscopic preferences panel and enable windowed 3D.

Here is a test video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GcLW0g_c1s

Hope it helps.

 

could someone please tell me what's the aspect ratio for the webcam? 16/9?
thanks in advance.

 

I recently bought my own Sony Vaio F http://www.sony-asia.com/product/vpcf217hg. It's good in every way except for the fact that it comes with a somewhat disappointing gfx card (GT540M). My question is, is there anyway that I could have it upgraded to a faster card? Or is there anyway I could make it faster? Thanks In Advance!

 

Awesome, so I will have to try this out when I finish moving and get a new place (cold be up to a month :-/). So I tried removing the back cover a while back and got the 3 flat screws under the optical drive and the one under the rubber grommet. I was still stuck around the vent area and further towards the front on that side...are there any latches or anything like that in the way? Any pointers would be appreciated.

As far as the processor goes...the 2820QM's should use the least energy and generate the least heat (higher clocking on the same voltage from higher binned parts; they have the same TDP, too). I'm all for getting a stable overclock at the current voltage levels; while it may suck up power faster, the processing will be over quicker...TomsHardware has a nice write up on this when they experimented with a 980X proc, and it pretty much can be applied to other CPU's as well as GPU's. What tools are you using to monitor the temps and what temps are you sampling?

 

I'm pretty sure it's 4/3 and resolution is 1280x1024. A quick check on the web yields this:

Specifications  |  VAIO F Series

 

No hidden screw, but yes there are some plastic latches that offer moderate resistance. You have to lift the plastic starting on the side opposite to the VGA port while pushing it slightly towards the side where the VGA and power connectors are. I suggest counting the screws: I had to remove 25 of them before the plastic (and metal) cover would detach. You have to remove the RAM cover too.

Regarding processors, the 2630QM is crippled in a few ways (no AES, limited max turbo) but otherwise I think it's fine for gaming. I used the NVidia System Tools monitor to keep an eye on the temps, and 3DMark 06 for quick benching (probably not the most stressful program out there). I hear that others program (CoreTemp?) exist to record the maximum CPU temperature but did not try them.

 

Since I noticed that the GPU is soldered to the motherboard, I keep trying to convince myself that the GT 540M is powerful enough
As I mentioned a few post earliers, some overclocking is possible, but you're responsible for whatever you attempt.

 

Not only that, the Nvidia driver update has also been removed.

 

Had to check that for myself. It's back to the 02/02/2011 version. Wish someone would explain what is going on.

Paul

 

If you reinstall the 02/02/2011 version they have now, the acceleration issue will be back.

 

I'm currently running this:

NVIDIA DRIVERS 275.33 WHQL

Had to add two lines to nvszc.inf (see my previous posts), then uncheck/check video acceleration in the Firefox preferences.

 

Had the same problems with that driver as I have had with other non-sony releases. The primary issue being that windowed applications with 3 hardware acceleration get choppy. If I maximize the window to full screen, everything goes fine.

Additionally, when an install over didn't work I tried to do a clean install (option to check for NVIDIA drivers) and it ended up corrupting something in my windows installation (hung on the Starting Windows screen with the HD cranking, trying to start in safemode results in classpnp.sys being the last thing displayed on screen while it hangs. Then a bunch of drivers don't load according to the boot log. Some research led to this being a common problem with Windows 7 with no sure fire solution. After none of the suggested fixes work I finally just restored from an image.

 

I think you can find your answer at the bottom of this thread.

https://forum.sel.sony.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=8639&p=25002&hilit=VPCF2190X

It says.......

I noticed you posted in that thread, Paul. Unless that's another Paul.





It seems "Vaio Update" is not picking up all of the updates. I found 2 new updates. One was not needed when I tried to install it.

Not needed.
Sony eSupport - VPCF2190X - Drivers & Software

This one is a Vaio care update.
Sony eSupport - VPCF2190X - Drivers & Software

 

Yea, I posted my frustrations there.

Thanks for the FYI's. Because of the recent software & driver removals from the Sony site, I'm not going to be so quick at installing their new updates. My guess on the Vaio care update is that it may be a patch for those who installed the 5/22/2011 Sony NVIDVIA driver 267.80, giving the program instructions on what it finds in the Windows 7 - VAIO files. Who know's for sure?
Since then I've reinstalled a mirror copy of the system before the updates were offered and carefully taking a wait and see attitude.

Paul

 

I don't think the Vaio Care update has anything to do with the Nvidia driver. Otherwise, they wouldn't have released it.

I did have an issue with "Self heal" inside "Vaio Care." The Vaio Care program froze up. After installing the update, the Self heal now works and I was able to install a patch.

They might release the Nvidia driver before releasing the WinDVD update. Before they removed the WinDVD update, it says to make sure you install an Event service and the Nvidia driver before updating the WinDVD. It might be the same way once they re-release it.

 

I replaced the 640GB HDD with an OCZ 240GB Vertex 3 SATA 3 SSD. I get 7.9 in the Windows Experience Index (Primary HDD).
I can only say one thing. The beast is now complete and the only thing that's letting it down, is the GPU. Since I lost most of the space I had before, I also bought a Seagate USB 3.0 1.5GB FreeAgent drive. I believe that this system is the best I have ever had (and I've had plenty). I only have to treat it with extra care (scratches etc.).
Oh, boot time (fully loaded with lots of software) is less than 30"!

P.S.: After replacing the HDD, I managed to install everything back, apart from the VAIO Update software. I can find it in the recovery disk, but it won't install. Where can I find and download it?