Sony Vaio CB Official Owners' Thread

thank you yazzinit.

I should receive my vaio cb next Friday. I am excited but also slightly worried about the the several issues we are discussing here. Hopefully it will be ok.

of course, I will keep you updated.


thank you.

 

Do you have any tips for how i can increase my battery life? These new sandy bridge processors were "supposed" to be so good for battery life but i must say im not so impressed.

I try not to kill the battery so i use battery care to charge it up to 80% and with power saver and only 3 bars up for brightness i only get around 3-3.5 hrs of battery.

Im tempted to possibly sell this model and get the newer S which gives 15 hours of battery life with the battery sheet but if i can get 5 from this one that would be good enough...

And im not even using it for video/music during this time, its mostly just casual web browsing and light usage of MS excel.

 

3.5 hrs is on the higher side of such multimedia laptops (except Macbooks).

You should consider a netbook for light usage. Also the newer Lenovo Thinkpads have exceptional battery life. Another option would be buying the extended battery for you VAIO. That way you'll get 5hrs+ battery life.

 

It sounds like you're already doing a lot to increase battery life. I suppose people would normally suggest buying the high capacity battery, but it sticks out of the laptop's normal dimensions, which would be an annoyance to me.

If you're looking for more in terms of battery life and portability, the S series is definitely the way to go, especially with the sheet battery.

 

My observations of my new VPCCB 17 FG ( would be coming back on more of them, later, as i play along with this beauty ) -



I have been running my VPCCB 17 FG for 12 to 15 per day for the last about 20 days .

Must say, never felt the system got overheated ( overheated is not the right word, it feels slightly warm at some points after 6-8 hours of running ) . Fan is excellent, cannot hear it . It is exceptionally silent .

 

Take a look here.

VPCCB2AFDB | VAIO C Series 15.5" Laptop | Sony Canada

Take a look at "specifications"

It seems this stripped down version of the CB doesnt have the dedicated radeon GPU, but just the internal intel HD 3000 GPU. The battery life is rated at 7 hours for default brightness whereas the CB that has the radeon GPU is only rated for 4.5 hours on default brightness.

Since the GPU is switchable why cant i just set my CB with the radeon GPU to ONLY use the intel GPU when running on battery and therefore also achieve 7 hours of battery life?

These specs also say its with the standard battery (5300mAh).

 

that would be impossible, when it's in switchable Radeon GPU is not off, it's on but in sleep mode... that's why i think GPU-z didn't recognise the core clock and memory clock. and even in its sleep mode, radeon is still drawing power... except you could do fixed mode, but, that's the issue of this laptops.

 

Is there no way then to completely shut it off? Whats this fixed mode your reffering to? If there is any way to shut it off for better battery i would do it as i barely ever use the gpu. I assumed since it was switchable it wouldnt hurt to buy it with the gpu in case i ever needed it. Now im wishing i got the model without the gpu as the extra 2.5 hrs of battery is better for me...

 

Fixed mode would be like the HP dv6qte that just had a BIOS fix released. In the BIOS, you choose dynamic (which sucks), or fixed. In Windows, you'd then choose to run everything off if integrated Intel or everything off of the Radeon card. Simple. However, Sony has not provided such a fix, so this option is out.

The other problem lies in the fact that both Optimus and ATI switchable graphics suck. They both work like crap and have compatability issues across laptops.

 

CRAP! That bios option is EXACTLY what i need. I cannot believe that such a useful option would not be included on these laptops. Jeez, these machines are caapable of providing up to 7 hours of battery life and i need to settle for 4 just because Sony cant give a simple fix in the bios?? Thats ridiculous...

Are you sure theres no way at all to COMPLETELY turn off the radeon card? I dont mean just the drivers, i just want it to go away, not even sleep so my battery doesnt get drained. The bios is really the only way?

I really cant believe this. I had no idea about this when i bought this machine, now im pissed.

 

I could not be more agree!

 

Well according to myself and some of us here, the Radeon card is already off lol. I only get 4 hours max on battery if I dim the brightness and turn a bunch of other stuff off, and that's with using an SSD also. I don't go on battery much anyways, though.

 

It cant be off, the other CB series that dont come with the radeon are rated at 7+ hours of battery life. The radeon in our CB must be sucking alot of juice even in sleep mode which is why it wont go past 4 hours and this is a problem for me.

Look at this version for example.

VPCCB2AFDB | VAIO C Series 15.5" Laptop | Sony Canada


I really do hope Sony provides a bios fix to only use the intel card as that simple fix should provide alot more battery life. I dont see why they wouldnt do it...


Are you sure there is no other way to take the radeon off sleep mode? I heard with ubuntu theres something called like vga_switcheroo that allows for this but windows seems to be a bigger problem because i cant find any other way besides the bios...

 

That's true. Unlike NVIDIA Optimus, in which the dedicated GPU completely shuts off, in AMD Dynamic switching, it doesn't.

In order to compete with NVIDIA, AMD hurriedly brought a buggy implementation of Muxless GPU switching. Both the problems of OpenGL & battery life can be associated with it.

I am thinking about sending a harsh mail to AMD. That's the best thing I can do. Hope someone sues AMD for cheating customers with such inferior product.

 

Or there should at least be an option in the bios to turn off the radeon completely. Its more sony to blame than amd imo. I wonder if amd can make updated drivers to totally shut off the card when its on intel?

 

Feel free to read pages and pages of backstory if you're bored, Red . AMD claims it's a Sony issue, which I have to believe, seeing as how HP released a BIOS update to their dv6 line and this allowed for fixed switching. Sony is claiming ignorance of the issue completely. I've filed with the BBB and my local Attorney General's Office of Consumer Frauds against Sony. Haven't heard anything back this week yet. Someone else here had success, as they filed with the BBB against Sony and within a few days, Sony offered a full refund. No such luck here yet. It's a sad day when HP is providing more support for their computers than Sony.

 

I have recently purchased Vaio CB and in near future i plan to add some ram (currently have 4gb), buy ssd for windows and some games (probably only 64gb) and if it is possible, update/upgrade bios to uefi/efi.
The bios/uefi thing does not matter that much (i dont want to screw a new lap), I just want to know whether it would be possible...
When it comes to ssd, i am in doubt if i can add ssd or i have to replace my hdd with ssd. I dont want to replace it, then id rather kept my hdd...
I had no luck when i was searching answers for these question on net, so any help will be appreciated

 

What HP has done is provided a workaround to the problem.

You need to understand that AMD Dynamic switching is what AMD wants to push forward as a newer technology & not the old manual switching.

There is no restrictions in dynamic GPU switching which prevents OpenGL programs to run on DGPU. NVIDIA Optimus already supports that. It is just that AMD did not venture into adding proper support & hastily launched its half-baked product into the market since it was losing competition to NVIDIA.

HP recognized user's difficulties & provided a workaround. But dynamic switching is the technology of the future & we cannot keep using the workaround for long.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony did the same mistake as us - not reading the fine-print before implementing AMD's hardware. Nobody would've thought that such weird GPU restrictions would've existed in the year of 2011.

I agree that Sony (like HP) should acknowledge the problem of their customers & provide a workaround. But as I said, the workaround won't last for long.

Upgrading BIOS to EFI - never heard if that is possible. And definitely not in a laptop in which almost everything in the BIOS is locked.

 

AMD Catalyst Drivers 11.8

AMD Graphics Drivers & Software ? Download the latest drivers for your graphics products

 

11.8 doesn't help

 

It doesnt say anywhere that it completely shuts off the card in the new drivers. For me, the bios fix hp has is long lasting. Its very simple, when im on battery i will simply go into the bios and select intel and if im going to play games with it plugged i will choose amd. Thats all i care to have.

What about just uninstalling the card altogether? Im ready to go that far if i have to then reinstall it each time i need it. I dont usually use it for gaming...

 

Is there an option for fan that enables automatic speed change????

 

As an update to anyone that may care, Sony finally contacted me today regarding my BBB claim. They're giving me a full refund for the laptop, the 2 year warranty, and the laptop sleeve. FedEx box will be here Monday or Tuesday and a check will be in hand within 3-4 weeks. So persistence does pay off. If anyone else here is completely fed up and dissatisfied as I am/was and needs help or advice on how to go about doing this, let me know.

 

Yazznit, did you look at my last post? Do you think uninstalling the card would help?

Are we sure that Sony for sure will not be releasing a bios fix for this?

Is it possible for AMD to make its dynamic swithcing the same as Nvidia optimus with a driver update eventually?

 

Sony isn't even acknowledging that it's a problem. Their solution is to reformat and reinstall drivers, which obviously does nothing. I don't know about uninstalling the card, honestly. Never tried it, as I was trying to get the card to work the entire time, not remove it.

Optimus has it's own problems as well. Both companies basically rushed this stuff out. I've spoken with AMD and contacted them via email. You need the manufacturer to release updated video drivers for this, and Sony has not. It's a Sony issue and they're not even acknowledging that it's a problem, so they don't even have step 1 down.

 

Doesnt optimus at least work to completely shut off the card? If amd can release drivers that do that at least that should be solved. Are you saying it needs to be sony amd drivers to work? I think im just going to uninstall my card and see what happens. What i did try was disabling the amd card from device manager but that resulted in the screen going to full brightness and not allowing for changing the brightness at all. My battery life went down to only 2 hrs.

I guess the last thing i can try is uninstalling. I still need to find the sony drivers so i can reinstall it again later...

 

uninstalling means you uninstall both of intel and amd drivers.... it is muxless...

 

That sounds like a very roundabout way of trying to increase battery life. If anything, uninstalling the device would lead to inefficiency and hence worse battery life.

To my understanding, all graphics, even the integrated graphics end up piped through the discrete graphics card. While this doesn't lead to as much power usage by the graphics card, it does use some and unfortunately means you can't truly shut it off entirely.

Best,
Cassy

 

hi all,

finally i got my vaio cb. I did not have time to explore the machine completely but it seems ok so far. I feel that the fans are a little bit loud. Also, when it is very quite in the room, I hear a sound (like electric charge!) from the machine. This sounds come from the lower part of keyborad (below the space button to the right side of touchpad). it isn ot very loud and you need quite room to hear it. what do you guys think?

also, I would like to see if my vaio has the problem with graphics? how can I test this? I do not have games but I got unreal tournament and it was ok.

thanks.

 

Darn it, I have a vaio currently being custom built for me with the i7 and hybrid graphics, why did I not stumble across this site before? D: Does switching the battery mode to high performance sort out some of the problems I've read? And will it run minecraft properly with the whole opengl switching thing?

 

hmm, most of these laptops do not have that kind of switch, only dynamic switch, and to answer your question, if you have fixed mode,m minecraft will run properly. if not, well, god help you

 

if i'm notg mistaken, the right side of touchpad is a hard drive compartment.. and it's natural for hard disk sometime has that kind of sound... you should try explore the machine more on the graphic issue

 

So is Sony or AMD going to release drivers that will allow us to put the laptop in fixed mode?

Is it even possible for AMD to offer this with a driver update?

Im considering just selling my CB series and getting a new one that comes with the full HD display and only the intel card. That one is rated at 7 hours of battery and this radeon is useless to me anyway so i might as well just get that model.

Unless this problem is something that can be fixed with newer drivers from AMD??

 

Fix From AMD? not a chance... it's OEM laptops. everything being passed on sony

fix from sony? Sony, hardly recognise this issue... some of high techical services knew this issue about months but, still no word and announcement...

 

Sony has no acknowledgment of the problem, which is why I ended up filing with the BBB and why they're giving me a full refund of laptop, warranty, and sleeve without putting up any fight at all. They know what's up.

 

Ok ill be buying a new cb with just the intel card. I didnt need it for gaming and never knew getting it would use extra juice when it wasnt set to run it.


Im actually wondering if i should go for the white this time instead of black...

 

Hi guys,

i am trying to test for the graphics issues on my laptop, can you please let me know how to check this? i do not play games but I thought it is good to know if my vaio has this problem. I play unreal tounrament + call of duty which I downloaded. I tried to play minecraft classic online but it failed saying:
org.lwjgl.LWJGLException: Pixel format not accelerated

any ideas?

thank you.

 

I rather believe differently.

I AMD ever releases the fix & pass over to Sony, Sony would definitely provide us the update.

The problem is that I don't think AMD would ever invest (read: waste) money on adding OpenGL support.

 

This is related to the matter of discussion in this whole thread. Read few pages back.

 

ok..i now changed the switchable graphics method to select the graphics processer manually (choosed high-performance GPU), the minecraft now can be played but there is a lag in movement ?

 

Is the software sony use with their hybrid graphics the same for all of their laptops? I know somebody who has the SA series with the hybrid intel + radeon 6630m but they haven't mentioned any problems. They have their laptop set to high performance, does that set the 6630m to default? A list of games they have tested without problems includeL crysis on high settings, oblvion, fallout, brink, minecraft and assassins creeds.
Is this problem isolated only to the CB series and by CB is that only the 15" one? Sorry, sony naming conventions are awfully confusing :/
I am deciding whether to stick with the 14" C series or getting the cheapest F series laptop currently sold on the sony website with the nvidia 540m. It would be a downgrade in terms of CPU (i7 to i5) to save money and it is significantly bigger :O
Thanks in advance
Ooh, and is this problem for all CB vaios or is it just bad luck to get a buggy one?

 

Unfortunately, AMD/ATI says the issue is Sony's problem entirely. I've been contacting them for months. They said it's not their issue, hence they're never going to take initiative and provide a fix for something they don't believe is their fault. It's Sony's and they're completely clueless, hence why they're giving CB owners who complain full refunds without a fight whatsoever. I mean, I had the laptop for 4 months, what company is going to refund an $1100+ purchase unless they know they can't win?

The softward, Catalyst COntrol Center, is AMD/ATI, not Sony. Sony just provides the hardware. CA 14" has problems justl ike the CB.

 

so you do have switchable graphic option... when we don't.. what type of CB do you buy? europe version? US or asia?

 

The problem exists with all laptops with AMD muxless graphics switching, irrespective of the manufacturer.

It is entirely their fault,. They have themselves mentioned on their site that OpenGL programs will run on integrated GPU only when Dynamic switching is enabled.

Sony did not provide us a way to disable dynamic switching.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/note...00m-6600m/Pages/amd-radeon-6700m-6600m.aspx#4

 

So there are two types of CB..The old one,where there is no option to switch the GPU,and the new model with updated bios,where there is an option for switching the GPU in CCC..right?

TloMay says the SA series with the hybrid intel + radeon 6630m can play Brink.How is that possible when CB cant play that game? Me and some other guy in this forum have tried it and failed with an opelGL error...

thanks
bipin

 

i reinstalled OS in my laptop...Do i have to install hotfix 11.5..or should i install 11.8...?

thanks
bipin

 

We cannot confirm that yet. Only two persons have reported that they can switch to AMD permanently. While we haven't heard of any newer version of BIOS in those machines.

It might be because the SA series has muxed GPU switching.

 

BTW, is there a way by which we can extract the BIOS from their machines & install in our's ?

Also I found the folder which contains the CCC config files. It is located under C:\Users\<Your Username>\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE.

The XML files there have settings on what options to display in CCC. Can someone who has the "Switchable Graphics Method" in CCC zip & upload his this folder for inspection ?

 

Hi guys,
I bought my vaio cb from UK. If I did not read this thread, I would not even notice or try to change graphics as I do not generally play games. But I wanted to explore and test if there is a problem.

Is watching a movie using high performance GPU would be the same (quality) as watching it using power saving GPU? I noticed intel logo beside the power saving option while for high performance, I do not know the name of the logo.
I guess movie works fine with both types (high performance- or power saving- GPU), is using the high performance GPU makes the quality better? Playing call of duty is fine with both types of GPU, would using high performance makes graphics better?Or is it just some programs (like minecraft) require high performance GPU while others work fine with power saving GPU?

By the way, do you know why there is a lag when I play the free classic minecraft online? I mean moving right, left,front,back is ok but when I use the mouse to change/move view there is a bit of lag! Any idea? I have 6 GRAM memory. Is it something wrong with the graphic card or internet speed, or mouse..?

Sorry for the long message. May you please let know what do you think.

Thank you.

 

NAME--BIOS--DATE

BIPIN ----- R0240V2 Jun-11
Elektrobix---R0230V2 12th April
accel ----- R0230V2 05-May-11
Dendy----- R0230V2 April 2011.
TT193----- R0240V2
pauldmps---R0240V2 Jun-11
valrond-----R1101v2 June
ibee_review R0230V2 Feb-17

Dont think i am weird...i copied it from this forum to crosscheck whose laps are working fine and whose not...

Except Elecrobix nobody with R0230V2 BIOS can play angry birds rio..All R0240V2 BIOS can play Rio...

In my last post what i meant by old lap is the one with R0230V2 bios..I thought there is no option to switch graphics card from power saving to high performance like this.
Laptop Forums and Notebook Computer Discussion

So SA is muxed GPU and CB is Muxless..?