Sony Vaio Duo 13 Owners Thread

Duo 13 is great for Bluebeam. If you use Bluebeam Studio sessions, and work offsite or away from wifi, the AT&T LTE or whatever wireless option you may have is worth the extra cost.

 

thank you for your answer.

i solely use bluebeam revue for annotating medical pdf books with 2000 pages or more consequently i need something fast accurate and responsive.

All the other programms that i have used(including one note,draw board,pdf annotation) are slow especially with large pdf files(>300mb)

 

Anyone can tell me where is my battery? Or if this is normal.

i7-4650U, about 60% screen brightness, 1080P 9gb mkv movie, windows 8.1, nothing demanding running. antivirus is avira and it isn't scanning at all.

Every one hour of video I lost about 20% of battery

Then I remember the reviews where sites like engadget said that they got about 10 hours of battery at 65% brightness with wifi and playing a 1080P movie constantly.

So, where are my 5 more hours? Any idea of why this sh¡tty battery life?

Batterybar pro shows a discharge rate of about 10.000mW

 

Nah, is not much, in fact I only see when I have black backgrounds, just didn't expect anything at all as I always read about the superb screen.

 

Are people still having issues with the vaio duo 13 Wi-fi after the April 4th wlan adapter driver update?

I am still having issues with my wi-fi being "Limited" after the vaio duo 13 comes out of a "connected standby" according to the event viewer, some may call this sleep mode. The only way to get it out of limited is to disconnect from the wifi network and reconnect.

Also, I tested my Samsung Galaxy S4 against my vaio duo 13 using speedtest.net and the galaxy s4 received almost double the speeds (of course I made sure my galaxy s4 was using wifi only and not 4G). I have tested them in the same location multiple times, and have used different routers and have received the same results...this is troubling since my Galaxy S4 (which of course is a phone using wi-fi) is an even smaller device, with what should be lesser credentials, so you would think that it would be slightly slower than a laptop or ultrabook.

My vaio duo 13 is model: SVD13223CYB with the latest wlan driver: 5.93.99.204

 

Where to get the latest driver, mine 5.93.99.187?

Sent from my GT-N5100 using Tapatalk

 

Sony eSupport - Drivers & Software Updates - Select a Model

enter your model SVD13...model number

and then go to bottom of page for wireless lan.

I didn't know they had a 5.93.99.187 driver, I thought the last one was 5.93.98.187 before the new 5.93.99.204 update

 

Opp sorry typo mine 5.93.98.187

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

Can you people tell me (the more the best) your battery stats with windows 8.1 and what chip are you using?

Right now I got much more drain battery in suspension mode than the supposed -5% every 16 hours- and playing a 8gb mkv at 60% brightness I only have about 4.5/5 hours before hit 0%.

Whats your discharge rate if you know it in mw (Batterybar) with a movie?
And the recharge rate? How long it takes your battery from 0 to 100?
How many hours and at what brightness percentage you got of work? under tablet mode or laptop mode?

I don't know if its my laptop problem or it is a win 8.1 thing, and I want to be sure before sending it to repair.

 

DrKersh take a look here

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Sony VAIO Duo SVD13213CXB 13.3-Inch Convertible 2 in 1 Touchscreen Ultrabook (Carbon Black)

in the first comment someone talks about a problem with the battery after updating to win 8.1 and how he solved it. maybe it can help...

 

Yes, I saw a lot of people who claims problems with battery and 8.1, but there is little data to compare, that's why I prefer to ask to people who have it and have more references to know if my duo is not performing as I was expecting and I had huge false expectations.

Because right now, reading "8 hours", doesn't give me info to solve anything, I must know the recharge rate, time to recharge, how long is 8 hours with brightness percentage, i5, or i7, etc etc.

I have searched over all google and reviews but not enough info, only vague generalities

 

i suggest you to buy DrawBoard PDF that i frequency to annonate my huge textbook file. it's easy to use and fast as PdfExpert 5 on my ipad. i really love it.

 

How does both fair compared to Adobe acrobat pro?

 

you can write with Duo's pen like draw in a paper, easy to annonate document which no ORC format.
Adobe Acrobat pro XI that i have to use for read document only,but it slowly annoate and bad pen function as i know.

 

Well - it depends on who you're reading.

I've seen a lot worse - although I've also seen better, especially on matte panels. What I find an actual problem with the Duo display is the display angles: They could and should be wider, especially when being used in portrait mode - this is my biggest everyday issue with the Sony.

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Anyone else having *A LOT* of problems installing the new driver updates? Constantly 'please wait and try again', as well as the audio driver being stuck in an update loop?

 

I have the audiotek audio stuck in the loop. Any solutions?

Sent from my GT-N5100 using Tapatalk

 

edit .

 

after some game testing on the vp 13 i7 4500 on windows i figured its throttling to stay closer to the TDP even in performance mode.
Basically it will reach 70C or so and run fine, then throttle until it goes down to 65C or so (during that time massive frame drop occurs)

I suspect its not overridable =/

I would think tho, that if we could cap the turbo on windows that would leave enough room for the hd graphics to run full speed without throttling. Not sure if theres any windows tool that allow that.

 

After a lot of testing I can say that I only managed to get about 5.5/6 hours of battery browsing with wifi and at 50% brightness. Constant discharge rate between 8000 / 10.000 mw just using chrome without streaming and only 3 or 4 tabs.

Anyone get the 10 / 12 hours advertised by doing that?

 

I currently own an Elitebook 2740p (250GB HDD, 4GB RAM), it's HDD could die soon coz it's got bad sectors, I'm planning on getting a new Convertible PC, really like the Slider form factor. My requirements are an Active Pen, SSD, FHD display, I don't wanna have a Laptop that'll keep Bugging me with driver/hardware issues, I've had plans to buy the now-dead Duo11 but didn't, coz I read posts/reviews about it's hardware being faulty.

Gonna be doing all kinds of stuff, programming/dev, designing, audio engineering, 3D modelling/rendering etc. Could use all that extra Battery life. I've been silently following this thread for months, over the time, I've read about a lot of Wifi issues and that's got me worried, coz no laptop comes close to Vaio Duo 13, but I'm just not sure if spending this kinda money on a device that might/might not work is wise. And what's the future of Vaio Duo 13 after VAIO's death?

And are there any Alternatives at all, I'm desperately looking for a solution here, a (minimal) hassle free one. Even considered Surface Pro 2 (but can't live without a physical keyboard)

Thanks and Excuse my poor Englisch

 

I have 0 wifi problems with the latest batch, I don't know if they resolved it but for me there's no problem at all.

As the future of the duo 13, it is a little tricky, specially if you read the difficulties to make for example fresh installs of windows 8.1, wonder what support we will get for W9 or next versions.

As for 3d modelling I don't think will be a good option as the integrated graphics are not very powerful.

The only alternative right now it is the fujitsu T904, but the form factor it is classic tablet-pc and after using the duo going back to that at least for me it is a no-go, so if I need to give you a final advice is to buy it before is too late and the laptop is totally discontinued by sony.

There are some problems but it is simply and by far the most productive laptop on the market right now, a unique piece of hardware.

 

Oh, I think I finally managed to solve my battery problems,

bitlocker on: 5.5 hours
bitlocker off: 9

 

Can anyone point me to the solution for installing the Graphics Profile Update in this image?

I've uninstalled Graphics Driver per instructions, and tried a dozen other ways as well Like some cruel joke, however, this update just keeps reappearing in Vaio Update.

I searched the thread but had no luck finding anything on this.....

 

I use my Duo 13 for some 3D modeling, and it works very well -- actually much better than I expected. My primary computer for modeling is a desktop with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 as the primary card, the Duo 13 matched up very well. I have the HD5000 version.

 

I have the same issue. I started a thread on the Sony Community page: Re: Vaio duo 13 graphics profile update - Sony's Community Site but haven't received any suggestions yet other than what I've already tried a dozen times.

 

Same problem here.

 

Whenever I watch video in full screen mode, regardless of the player, it displays mostly green and static, yet when i change out of full screen, video plays normally. I'm assumed this must be related to the graphics update issue, but who knows. hope they answer you.

thanks.

 

Use the offical Intel-drivers (newest) https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Se...hics+4400&ProdId=3719&LineId=1101&FamilyId=39 and everything will be fine.

 

Hi,

I noticed yesterday that the the keyboard backlight works quite sporadically, most times not working at all. I'm assuming that it used to work a few days ago else I would have noticed it long back.

Switching to "always on" in Vaio control centre brings it on. Then switching back to "Turn on in low light" switches it off, even if the surroundings are pitch dark (I tried it in a wardrobe!!). Then restarting the computer makes it work well. If you leave the computer on for some time without working on it, it stops working again.

I saw on this forum that some people had similar problems but that was last year. Anyone experiencing this?

Thanks.

 

hi, I'm a photographer and I'm intrigued about this device

but, after sony vaio division is now sold, will it be a problem with support in case of problem?

I always found problematic to upgrade sony vaio notebooks to newer windows versions, always hard to find the right drivers and right sequence of installation to get everything working

now that sony vaio isn't anymore? when microsoft will release windows 9?

I have to decide between this vaio duo 13 and lenovo yoga thinkpad with wacom

 

Before I upgraded to Win 8.1, my backlight worked sporadically similar to what you described. I only upgraded a couple of days ago but it seems to be ok so far. As soon as the lights go off, the backlight turns on without even touching the keyboard, and turns on each time when I type. It was probably one of the driver updates via Vaio Update before or after my 8.1 upgrade that fixed it.

Regarding Intel drivers, If you want to see if you have their latest, below is a neat tool they have on the web. It checks graphics, wifi (broadcom is not recognised of course) and others. However, I was surprised it didn't look at their WiDi driver.
Intel® Driver Update Utility

Regarding my upgrade to Win 8.1, I must say that Sony (and Microsoft) have sunk to a new low on my bad list. I was quite set on doing a clean install and manual driver updates. I wasn't expecting a smooth ride as I had already gone through the torture of updating and upgrading my old Z790. However, I didn't think it would be nearly as bad on the SVD given it's a current model. Boy was I wrong. Downloading the drivers and figuring out the installation order was torture all over again. Sony's website stinks to no end. Then came the Windows install -- the install iso I downloaded would not accept my OEM product key, so I just used a generic key and would worry about activation later. When it came time to install the drivers, I quickly ran into problems when a couple of important drivers failed to install. At that point I just gave up. I spent a lot of time researching the installation order and other details as there's not much out there, but I guess it wasn't enough. (This includes gorecki's post on page 209 regarding the upgrade of his Vaio Pro 13, btw).

I ended up doing the upgrade through the App Store after a factory re-install. I created a recovery drive (copied from the recovery partition) and then deleted the recovery partition and repartitioned the drive to my liking. Then I re-installed 8.0 using the recovery drive. After running Vaio Update 2 or 3 times, and then Windows Update 2 or 3 times, I went to the App Store to get the 8.1 upgrade. Not quite a clean install, but it's as close I can get. I'm sure there are knowledgeable people out there who were able to do it from scratch, just wish they'd share it.

 

Anyone having problems creating recovery media? im on windows 8.1 and when i go through the recovery media process i get to the "select detected usb flash drive" bit and nothing shows up. I just bought a brand new 32gb sandisk cruzer edge from currys, that wont show up although it does on windows explorer. Ive tried a 16gb sd card, no joy. any ideas? Id be happy to just delete the recovery partition but cant without creating the media.
thanks.

 

Guys, I have a few problems that have developed over time and I don't know what to do.

First, in a lot of programs utilizing the digitizer, I'm starting to experience what I think is called "vectoring." If I try to draw a little more quickly, with smooth circles, a straight line will be drawn more than occasionally and it severally inhibits the pleasure of using art programs, especially ArtRage. I'm not sure what to do.

Second, my battery is definitely not lasting as long. I've always used the 80% option and my battery health is still excellent, so what gives? Is there any way I can figure out what might be draining my battery?

Lastly, I get a lot of "vcsystemtray" stopped responding errors. I've uninstalled Vaio Care several times and updated it but it hasn't helped.

Any help or advice would be appreciated, thanks guys.

 

Does the Duo 13 keep playing music when you send it to the activesleep mode? Can someone please test this feature for me?

 

Yes, that's why it's called "connected standby"

 

People have reported problems using Sandisk thumb drives for creating recovery drives because Sandisk does not follow the same standard as other manufacturers. It seems the OS only accepts standard thumb drives for this purpose. And it must be a thumb drive.

I had a heck of a problem at first because I was trying to use a USB card reader. Then I got a 16GB Kingston DataTraveler and it worked without a hitch. That was on my Duo in 8.0. Funny thing is I was able to create a recovery drive on my desktop in 8.1 using a regular card reader. Maybe it was because it wasn't copying a recovery partition.

 

Activesleep is working with the screen off? Will that work with torrents or downloading for example?

 

I've never got this to work on desktop applications on ANY windows machine. Metro apps on the other hand, no issues.

 

Honestly, that's what you get for trying to be smarter than you are. If you're that set on a clean install and you're that determined to do it some cockamamie way you've determined is the route, then you should expect problems. Whinging about them just makes you look like an entitled, incompetent geekwannabe.

Apart from a couple of hiccups I've not had any serious issues driver wise when sticking to the mechanism they've provided.

 

Gosh I'm so sorry I'm not as smart as you. Judging from your brilliantly useful response you must be intelligent beyond imagination. I also apologise for trying to do something in my own preferred way, and for sharing my experience. It must offend the likes of you.

 

lol flatulator... respect the cat. Clean install on Vaio is a pain in the , I agree.

 

Can anyone confirm that when the Duo 13 with Win 8.1 goes into hibernation due to battery running out, the touchpad stops working fluidly after wakeup? There is Synaptics driver problem that Sony doesn't want to admit.

 

LOL. I've upgraded an SZ, Z and SB. It wasn't the least bit fun but at least they were doable. This Duo seems to be quite another beast.

I should mention though, when I did a factory reinstall of 8.0 on the Duo, I was impressed with how smoothly it went -- OS, drivers and all. It got me thinking that the best way to do a clean install of 8.1 would be to find a recovery image from a more recent Duo with 8.1 pre-installed. Not sure if the Sony repair centre can help in this regard. Anyway by the time we get to 8.2 or whatever, I imagine that some people will head to their local dealer with thumb drive in hand to run some "diagnostics" on that Duo on display. Just saying.

 

Rule #1 - When using an ssd, always disable hibernation. Use shutdown or sleep at critical battery life of 5%

 

This is not a solution. SSD wear down is a myth + I need to gracefully save my data while its on critical battery. Could anyone check this for me please?

 

The problem with the Yoga is that it's >300g more than the Duo. Which is why I'm never going to buy the Yoga in its present state. I really hope they have a rethink and even maybe bring out a 'consumer' Duo like equivalent. But yeah - if the weight disparity is not a problem, I can't help but think going for the Lenovo is a better idea at this stage.

Your concerns are right on the money as well - anyone who does a bit of research into a VAIO should be aware of a) crappy software support and b) crappy support, period when they buy one. Come Windows 9, if there are actual driver compatibility issues you're almost certainly SOL. I think 8.1 works for me for a couple of years and I'll keep he Duos up to date only as long as drivers work, and continue to use them beyond that "as is".

For me, the Duo has been a return to <2007 when I actually liked buying Sony's despite the crappy support because the hardware is so good. Just a shame it's the last VAIO I'm able to buy.

 

Also - Mods, could we have a sticky for this thread or on the main subforum?

If stuff - especially wireless - isn't working as intended, reset the BIOS before doing anything else. It can solve all sorts of issues.

 

One other question, is anyone using a skin yet? If so which one? My 'primary' Duo looks like crap now, and the second is looking pretty bad too.

 

I have to ask, coz I'm primarily using Ubuntu 14.04 (recently added a lil better touch support), has anyone tried it on the Duo 13 or any other Linux flavour at all, I know the driver support won't be anywhere near Windows 8.1, but can anyone please try it, maybe using Live Ubuntu USB drive?
I'd really like to know how dual booting works on the Duo 13.

And I'm buying a used Duo 13, the seller says it was only used for a week or so.

 

Switched my vaio duo 13 on this morning and it says a new version of vaio update is available, i click update and nothing happens, im a bit fed up of this broken piece of software, anyone else got it to download or can post it on here?
thanks