Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 (VPCZ1) Official Owners Thread Part 2

I've the same prob too with m z13

 

Hi there,

I've bougth my Z13 in Germany from sonystyle...after unpacking my new device and powering on I'm a litte upset because I payed 2500euro for a device which is pretty loud...
I'm running the default installation, use stamina mode, powersaver mode in Windows and enabled silent mode for the fan but theres still the bugging noise...

It's not the default noise of air flowing out of a notebook, it's more like a small propeller or something in the middle of the notebook.

I tried to make a skype call with a friend of mine but it's no fun to skype with someone if he barely can hear you because of the noise the fan produces. It seems like the microphone transfers all these sounds... even if you only touch the touchpad he can hear the noise of my fingers circulate around...

Does anybody else have a problem with the Z series and the fan? Is there a way to get this thing quiet or replace the fan? My Vaio was build in Japan...

If I can't get rid of this noise I've to sell it... My thinkpads were pretty quiet and even my HP Elitebooks 2540p too...

Is your fan always running?

Best regards,

 

Not mine (Z11 I just got yesterday). Dead silent. You might want to down load HWMonitor to check your temps. My cores are running @43C with the gpu @ 44C in auto mode. If I run a heavy duty benchmark or something, it will take off like a jet airplane (both noise and heat), but under normal operation, no a hint of noise at all.

 

Also, check in vaio control, where you can set the thermal profile to Performance, Balanced or Silent. The default is balanced but in Performance mode, the fan will run lots,

Cheers,
T

 

Guys, I think after I run One Click Care in VAIO Care, my Z defrag itself. Is it ok the defragment for SSD?

 

NOOO! Your SDD IS GOING TO BLOW UP! RUN AWAY!

Nah, you won't recieve any gain from it and it's just not needed, but no harm done. Simply refrain from defragmenting it in the future, that's all.

 

I agree. The only reason why I'm selling the Z112 is because I'm selling to a family member whose starting college.

However though, at the rate of Sony's current refreshes, I estimate by Fall 2011, Sony will have redesigned the next generation Z. The previous VGN-Z had only 4 refreshes (Z5, Z6, Z7 and Z8). I would hate to pay for a $2k Z13 and have a new Z introduced in a years time.

 

No, am not dual booting - am running the Win 7 Pro that it came with - so that is not the source.

I also noticed that the freeze occurs if I wake the inactive laptop by touching the touchpad, but if I hit the keyboard it wakes up fine. Strange.

 

Thanks. My power setting is at balanced. my CPU temperature is ~50 celcius, with web browser and wmp on. CPU is 54 celcius and I am not watching any videos. Is this normal? The Z has this constant noise coming out from where the fan is. It's not the noise of the fan, I think. It's more like the noise that an engine makes. It's not loud, in fact quite subtle. Again, is this normal?

 

This is completely abnormal, are you sure that you are not having a scratched cd or DVD inside your dvd tray?

No mechanical parts in the Z, even the SSD is dead Silent.

please go see and compare yours to others in showroom, it might be a manufacture defect.

 

Mine is not dead silent for sure. If it is a manufacture defect, what should be the steps taken?

 

I have the Z1190 i7 620 8GB and 256SSD, The only time I hear the fan is when I played the COD 4 demo and had set my Z to SPEED, then yes I hear what sounds like you are describing, the fan noise is fairly strong for such a small lappy, pretty powerful and constant. but like I said ONLY in SPEED and even then only while playing an intensive game, it throttles down as soon as I exited.

 

Hmm, I think it's the fan then... Even when it's not doing anything, I can feel the warm air constantly coming out from the vent. It's not a lot, just like a small breeze. The CPU temperature is ~45 so I think it's ok.

 

I've had this, I think in Stamina mode. In Speed mode the graphic driver sometimes crashes and recovers when coming out of sleep. No idea why, and would love a fix.

 

Well it's been six months since purchasing my z11x9e and been enjoying it every bit. Just had a couple of questions please. Is there any regular maintenance that needs doing apart from the usual vaio updates, vaio care. What should I do to keep the computer in top condition. I know to not do a defrag but what about a registry clean? Can that be done is that not advised just as the defrag?

Also recently my speakers have sometimes been crackling when they turn on (start of a video, computer sounds, windows startup sound etc) it happens for a second at the start of any sounds played though the speakers and then the speakers are fine throughout the video/song etc. How can I fix this please?

Thanks and looking forward to your replies
GD

 

There are times when I too must use XP, there are some applications that simply require it.

For those times, from Win 7 I use XP mode (formerly Microsoft Virtual PC).

It's a free download if you have Windows Professional. Using it means you don't have to be rebooting just to switch (its just a window in Win 7), and you can easily interchange files between the two environments.

Windows Virtual PC: Home Page

 

I created a thread of interest to us Z owners:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ox-memory-cache-instead-disk.html#post6886198

Because:
-Web browsers do lots of small block disk writes.
-Small block disk writes are the Achilles heal of Solid State Drives
-Setting Firefox to use memory cache instead of disk, solves this and makes web surfing on an already zippy computer, even zippier

 

hey oscar, how do you set this option in firefox? thnx

 

did you click the link?

 

Ummm if anyone could help, would be great.
Thanks

 

Anyone? Do they have this online chat thing where they can remotely access my computer?

 

Defragging SSD's vs the registry are two different things. There are no SSD specific suggestions related to the registry (just do whatever you would normally do on that one).

btw, if you want to do an occasional disk defrag, say once every 6 mo. or once a year, that's fine. It doesn't have as much benefit as on a spinny disk but it does have some benefit. Its just that you just don't want to be increasing the wear level on your SSD by doing it daily or weekly.

With regards to your speaker crackle. Does it do it even when plugged into an external speaker? How about with a usb based sound source?
If it does it coming out of the internal speakers but not when you plug something into the mini-phone jack, that points to your speakers themselves being physically damaged.

 

Yes it's normal. A core i5/i7, even when running at its minimum (2.5GHz or whatever) still makes quite a bit of heat. Laptops that are physically larger and heavier can have a large enough heatsink that a fan need not be running all the time.

But, one of the compromises to make such a light small laptop is that instead of having such a large heatsink to be able to dissipate the heat through normal conduction, instead Sony runs the fan constantly (at different speeds) to take away the heat (convection).

 

Been away from the forums for awhile..good to be back.

In the last month or so, my Z11 has been starting to experience "the stutter." For a second or two the mouse cursor will just stop responding. I know that there was a lengthy conversation about this issue in another thread several months ago. Does that ring a bell for anyone? Any chance you could point me in that direction? I'm having trouble finding that thread.

Anyone else experience the stutter? I remember when another NBR member was describing it, it sounded an awfully lot like a saturated SSD. My drive isn't even close to full, but I suppose it's possible that all the of pages have now been written to and I'm experiencing the lengthy read-modify-write operation. I do allow my Z to idle for several hours during nights thinking that this may give the garbage collection time to do its thing, but for the past month I've been regularly experiencing the stutter (about once or twice in every two-four hour work session). Thoughts?

 

I have a Sony Z12X9E/X. The dynamic graphics switching between Speed and Stamina without reboot was an important reason for buy.

I have the speed switch to Auto and have a display connected via HDMI.
Then I disconnect the HDMI display and disconnect power (to run on battery only) but still the mode does not switch to Stamina.
Even when I switch to Stamina manually, nothing happens.
I switch to any position ... no change and no message on the screen why it is not switching.

Any ideas how I can switch from Speed to Stamina?

 

You can't go to stamina when using hdmi. You would have to use the vga port instead.

 

I have not experienced stuttering. But I do recall the conversations in the original Z11 thread.

The theory was: Every time there is a write (on an SSD), even if writing to the same logical disk location, the underlying controller writes that location, as well as the entire physical 4K block that it's in, to a different actual spot (for wear leveling). And that furthermore the physical block that the new one logically replaces can now be reclaimed since it has been written in its entirety, by the low level controller (this is one way that garbage collection can work without the cooperation of the o/s).
So given all that, initially all writes are always to a nice clean, pristine, never been written to before, block.
But over time, chances increase that at any time a write is required, there may or may not be an available "pristine" block.

At that time in order to do even the smallest of writes, an entire block needs to be copied off, wiped, then written back with the new, updated, info (and always to a new physical spot). If a lot of that were to go on, then the thinking was, this would result in stuttering under heavy duty writing of many small blocks. Note: none of this affects large block writes or reads of any sort, only small block writes.

So do you get the stuttering when doing anything in particular? like say web surfing or what?

 

For the past few months I've really only been doing office work (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote) and a bit of web browsing. Always on Stamina. It happens when doing these activities. It's not enough to the point where it's annoying, but generally about once or twice every time I sit down and work for a long period. It did not happen in the first few months of having the machine (I got mine in June of this year).

 

I'm wondering whether it would be useful to leave Resource Monitor displayed on the screen and you could see if your delays are due to something hogging the cpu, or the disk or what is using up enough resources to make you feel a hesitation. You could also leave Task Manager up, in the processes tab, sorted by cpu. Maybe you could see who's a messin' up your stuff.

 

Pretty sure that won't do any good. SSDs are causing this and the only thing to do is to wipe them clean (individually, if necessary) and restore everything from a full backup. That should fix the stutter, for a while at least.

 

How can you be so sure. You know nothing about his computer. I've had a Z11 since March (longer than JP). I use it constantly, at any one time I usually am running a couple of virtual machines, matlab, eclipse, firefox, etc...

Yet I am not seeing this problem. I also don't see a lot of others saying they have it. But here you are ready to reformat the guys disk and yet you know next to nothing about it.

 

Thanks guys for the advice. I am not yet certain that it is the SSD, so Oscar2's suggestion to see if it is a program hogging resources is a good start. I keep the CPU and RAM analog "speedometer" tool active in the corner of my screen and I don't recall seeing CPU spikes during those flutters. But your idea of keeping the task manager open sorted by CPU usage may show something. I'll give it a try.

@Anzial, assuming it is the SSD, when you say "wipe them clean," you're talking about a "secure erase" right? Simply wiping the data wouldn't do any good, because the blocks would still show as having been written to and the thus the expensive read-modify-write cycle. I'd have to start from pure scratch, reinstalling Windows 7 and everything after a secure erase, right?

 

i am thinking about getting a Z.

What sort of battery does everyone experience when on Stamina, wireless on, screen about 60%, and only surfing the net?

Cheers...

 

Most people report between 3-4 hours... I get ~3 hours average

 

If you're willing to sacrifice some screen brightness (say going to 30%), I frequently get around 5 hours of battery life, and I only keep my battery charged to 80%. There are some tweaks you can make to your power plan (like turning off the optical drive and lowering the refresh rate and colors) to save battery.

 

I get about about 4 hrs on the normal battery. I too only go to 80% charge (Vaiocare setting), so I guess with 100% it would probably go ~5.

There's also the extended battery, which adds 50% more capacity.

 

i'm getting 3h 55min at 100% screen, wireless on srfing the net and using Word

 

I have noticed this problem, seems to happen for me (or noticably so) in Stamina mode, its a bit irratating but I dont see it being an SSD problem myself. I suspect the driver for touchpad needs an update & Sony has not released one yet.....
Cheers,
T

 

I agree, 3-4hrs with standard battery & normal usage (but if watching a DVD, tends to be a tad <3hr,

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
T

 

I too have noticed it only in Stamina, but that could be because I have the thing in Stamina 99% of the time. I don't think it's a touchpad driver deal though, because I usually use a USB mouse when I have my computer on the desk.

 

mmm; this is curious, I will take a closer look, I have a bluetooth mouse, I will see if the problems is same for me & reprt back in due course...

Cheers,
T

 

How are the LED's of the Speed and Stamina switches? When I'm on auto or speed, the stamina LED still lights up a little. Same for the Speed LED when I'm on stamina.

 

Care to take a picture so we can see if it looks normal? When the stamina night is on... i can see of the light at the top of the F1 key, is that what you mean?

 

When brand new I was getting 5 hours with:
- switch in stamina mode
- Windows 7 "balanced" power profile
- surfing with web wi-fi
- screen on medium to low brightness

Mind you the screen on this thing is pretty damn bright - in fact it burns my eyes at the last couple steps on the rungs, so turning it brightness "down" does not mean looking at a dim screen!

 

Same here. When working in a dark environment the LED which is not lit, looks slightly illuminated due to the other LED light spreading through. Not a problem, whatsoever!

 

Ya, that's what i meant! But thanks. I'm so paranoid.

Here's another question:
Do you keep your battery inserted at all times while you are using the AC adapter?

 

I don't, but then I've got a pile of UPS's

BTW, wouldn't it be cool if the next gen Z had OLED keyboard a-la Optimus Maximus

 

It's advised if you're going to be using the Adapter for a while, take out the battery. If you're going to keep the battery outside the laptop for a while, decharge it to about 70-80%.

 

Or you can just set VaioCare up for 80% charge. That does the exact same thing but with two big plusses:

1. Less hassle
2. When the power goes out or the plug gets kicked out of the wall, you have no problems if the battery was in place, -OR- you lose everything you were working on if it wasn't.

 

Why is that? How does the battery benefit by decharging it by 70-80%?