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

Can anyone verify if Sony improved the palmrest on the Z13's. Probably not, but it worth hoping they would be concern as all of us. Thanks.

 

if you mean a fading of the palmrest, then yes, it has been determined that this is a problem. I've personally posted photos of my own fading palmrest before in this thread. However, this has only been reported on the Z's with a gray chassis, do you have the silver one?

 

No... black! *uck ... 4 months of use and already seems old ...

 

Gang:

I got a good deal through Amazon for a refurbished Z11, which has Samsung 256GB SSD, 128+128 in Raid-0

The only thing I'm regretting now is that my original Z1290X came with a 128GB 64+64.

So I was wondering if I can take the 256GB from the Z11, and put it inside my Z12?

My 1290 has the Toshiba SSD, while the Amazon Z11 has the Samsung SSD.

Will there be any difference in connectors? Cables? mSATA interface and whatsnot?

Will it be a straight replace and enjoy move.

I adore the idea of RAID-0, and wouldn't ever replace that for a NON-RAID system, that's why I'm asking, knowing that many users worked on these issues before, like replacing SSDs, etc.

Thx in Advance

____________________________________________

Regarding the palm Wrist (BLACK) worn-out issue:

Here's a Fun story:

I went to car workshop where they cut a Clear protective film and cover the hood and mirrors, and headlights, they use 3M Film, and they have a plotter or huge computer aided cutter, don't know what do they call it.

And said, Hey can you cut me a perfect fit protector for my expensive laptop, and I said I would pay anything to make this happen.

In few minutes, they took the exact dimension of the Palm wrist, input them inside the computer, and Viola, perfectly cut, and they installed it using a squeegee in under 2 minutes.

Will post photos tomorrow for how it looks.

Funny but ended my worries for the damn Z palm wrist
Cost was $10 BTW

 

Can't wait to see the photos, great idea. Got the dimensions by any chance? I haven't experienced fading per se, but the typical shining effect you get from wear on both the palmrest and touchpad. I wonder if the same thing happens on the silver color, but it is less noticeable. To be fair to sony, every laptop I've had has had the same issues - several thinkpads, a dell something, asuses, a powerbook and black macbook.

 

Well, here are the photos as promised:

regarding dimensions, they gave me a spare film for free with the same dimensions, so I'm gonna measure it up for you, and report back.

BUT, as very much expected, it appears kinda glossy, and act as a finger print magnet sometimes as well, but, I just don't care, I want my lappy to sustain its resale value even after 1-2 years of usage and "Gaming" lol.

Photos taken @ 1mb using HTC HD2

regards;

 

@Willy330Ci I bought the Samsung SSD from here: SAMSUNG 256GB SSD 3gb/S SATA FRU 45N7959 MMDPE56G8DXP - eBay (item 220655249404 end time Sep-15-10 05:25:48 PDT)
As far as I know the Z11 has ZIF connectors but you could move the SSD's with cable from the Z11 to the Z12.

 

I called Sony today and went through the registration. Everything applies, the 3 year extended service plan and the accidental damage.
I checked the service plan fine print and they write only that you would get one replacement but they don't mention anything about only one repair.
ESP Registration

 

Thanks for the photos! It looks great. Fingerprints>shiny patches any day. I saw zoink's efforts and they looked great too, but I know for certain I don't have the coordination to cut out a template myself so it's great to know that some places will do it for you.

 

I've read through the extended service plan coverage including ADH. The agreement details of the "older" ($224) plan from the reseller and the one on the sonystyle.com website ($430) seem to be the same.
The ADH seems pretty much useless, here are some things you need to be aware of:
"It does not include protection against normal wear and tear, .... willful or intentional conduct, cosmetic damage,
missing parts and/or other damage that does not affect the unit functionality, and any other limitations listed in Section 12:
One point from section 12:
Screen imperfections in Your Product, including 'burn in' , caused by video games, prolonged display of one or more signal(s), or other abuse. All display products that are used in an application that requires continuous and/or business operation. Repair of minor resolution (pixels) issues that do not affect overall viewing of the screen; issues must match the manufacturer's minimum failure standard before an authorized repair will occur. "

If you really need ADH you should consider buying it from an other company (SageMax etc.) because they'll at least cover wear and tear and maybe other things which the Sony ADH doesn't.

 

Hello everyone,

I just got my VAIO Z over the weekend. It's an AMAZING little thing - packed with performance. I'm very impressed that it has all that I need in a small 3 lb laptop! I highly recommend it (after returning by Dell Studio that sounded like an industrial fan - but that's neither here nor there).

Everything has gone well with the exception of 1 thing. I am not sure if this has already been addressed (sorry if it has).

I've been getting the following error/popup every time I start my computer. It's for "Media Gallery MergeModules x64" and it's trying to install something. After I click "OK" I get another error that it cannot find it. If I try cancelling it, I have to cancel it about 10 times before it goes away. I tried searching online for a fix, but not sure what to do. Thoughts?

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WrnU1leiz3y_rpDOmYPDkg?feat=directlink


http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/d9KWwwvPZdwyMInofaVtpg?feat=directlink

 

z13? the hell! my z12 hasnt even got here yet!
seems theyve updated the sheet to support the newer i-series, i5-580 et all.
still wud have stuck with the 520 neways so no bugger ... unless someone here has more information and wants to make me miserable.

 

Enny:

thanks for the link

But I just need to verify 1 thing:

I want to do the swap between the Z11 and Z12, but can't leave the Z11 w/o an SSD, I want to be able to sell it, even for a little price, how do you suggest to go about that?

regards;

 

If you need a clear protection, there's still the Wrapsol: Wrapsol | strongest, easiest and fastest-to-apply protection for Sony Vaio Z Series

No love yet for ZAGG (Invisibleshield)

 

I think someone was saying that they ordered that and it was for the old Z model, unfortunately.

 

But, for people like me who has now ruined the palmrest ... What can we do?

 

see if you can source the part and get a new one, call in to sony to see if they'll replace under warranty(most likely not since this is "wear and tear"), suck it up and realize this is just a problem with the aesthetics. It used to bother me a bit, but i figured, hell it's going to happen sooner or later, either i get used to it now, or i'll be in for a long fight with Sony over it.

If you do however manage to source the part, could you give us a heads up?

 

Enny02: You're right about ADH and they will try to find a reason not to pay/repair your laptop, but still there is a chance if you drop it on the floor and the screen is broken it will be repaired at no cost.

I purchased a ADH plan from squaretrade ($320 after 30% discount coupon) + tax (so it came about $340 total) and then this evening went ahead and ordered one you got from datavision, but I bought it from the same seller via buy.com because I found some comments online that there is a marketplace purchase protection up to $700.

Now I am going to read both contracts and will decide which one to keep (I have between 2 weeks (as per datavision) and 1 month (squaretrade) to cancel it for full refund. I spoke with datavision twice (clueless sales reps, don't know what they're selling and what the terms of contract are, suggested to call Sony), then with Sony (can't find any information about their plans except the latest and expensive ones in their database and suggested to purchase a plan from them), then with squaretrade twice clarifying some inconsistency in their agreement (like $50 deductible for all ADH claims, but on their web site is clearly printed that there is no deductibles) and also I was curious to find how long the repair may take and how they will react if, say, they can't find the part they need within 1-2 weeks... Still waiting for answers in written as they told me too many unrealistic things over the phone... Never heard anything bad about squaretrade and they got 100s positive reviews in Internet, however.

I got extended service plan for my old Vaio from CPS back in 2008, and it was PITA to get my laptop serviced (was a faulty NIC that wasn't working if the signal from the switch was not strong enough so link light wasn't coming up). I found them in Brooklyn so drove there and returned the laptop 3 times until they finally sent it to Sony for repair and replaced whole mainboard. Not going to use their services in the future, and there are many complaints about CPS in Internet. Just check resellerratings.com and BBB..


Anyway, good thing is that my Vaio Z12 finally came in today from Japan so now I am cleaning all bloatware Sony put on it Mine is with 2x128GB Toshiba's. Another thing I noticed is that the power adapter is running very hot - that's the hottest one I ever had - measured 55c on the surface.

 

@inseek
I could buy the protection plan (SageMax) from B&H PhotoVideo where I bought my Vaio, but I don't know if it makes sense to spend additional $399 for the 3year protection to get a better ADH coverage. For me it was important to have more than only 1 year warranty, a little bit of ADH coverage was I nice to have.
As you've said, the insurance companies will always try to find a way not to pay.

 

For me ADH is not worth it. I only need the warranty in the beginning to make sure that any defects are covered. After I am sure that the product works as it should I will begin to mod it. After a year or so I'm gonna be bored with it and want something new.

As far as the palm rest issue goes there is a way to reduce your wear a lot. When I have the Z docked at my desk I use a bluetooth keyboard. Most of the time it is docked, so most of the wear is on a replaceable peripheral.

I don't like the clear sticker, I think it looks crappy. If I end up wearing out my palm rest I'll probably just buy a new palm rest or try painting the one on the Z. I love painting stuff and some good lacquer always seems to make anything new again.

 

I think I am going to do this as well, just got a brand new Z12, dont want to ruin the palmrest was it easy to apply? If you got the dimensions I can get one cut and I am going to try to apply it well myself.

Is this the material they used?

Bulk 3M paint protection film by the foot

 

If you are going to apply it yourself, you might check out what Zoinks did, though his process seemed pretty intense: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/478061-how-protective-film-application-z11.html.

I've been fine with just putting two pieces of clear boxing tape down. Tacky maybe, but extremely easily applied and removed.

 

Yep, that's it, and it was extremely easy to apply, BUT:

After they cut it with my dimensions, they used the yellow squeegee to apply it on the whole palm wrist including the touch pad.

After that, they used a cutter, and ran it on the circumference of the touch pad, this way, they eliminated the air on the edges of the touch pad using the squeegee.

Now its perfectly flushed like in my photo shots.

And Hey! don't worry if its not 3M, a clear film will do the job either ways, just try not to lose time and cover the damn thing asap, the sooner is the better. Just get it covered, and forget worrying.

There are some plp that don't care about the wear, Well, I'm NOT, I'm paranoid to wear the wrist and then later get robbed for a piece of plastic through ZONY

 

Fun part is:

When I first talked with the workshop man, he laughed at me for wanting such a thing through a car workshop, I gave him that 5 seconds look, then told him, I paid $4000 for my laptop, he then said Damn it dude, its more expensive than my car, let's do it for you

 

Just got a Vaio update for my Z11.
ICH8M-E/1ch9m-E/5 series/6 Series SATA Raid Controller driver.
Again, since I uninstalled and re-installed Vaio Update it seems to work. Hope the update is related to the crashes I experience while watching Hulu movies in Speed mode.

Anyone else get this update?

 

That are probably the SATA registry settings. There is no newer driver for the controller yet

 

Has anyone received the Vaio update though? Just curious if others were notified thru Vaio Update.

 

Fiexed the video test one problem..... full factory reset various tests with sony over the phone, and in the end reset it and start again.

Be very careful with driver update sites like driver max..I think my problem started with updating the video driver, then finding it not to work rolling back and hay presto f@@@ed graphic card. well all is well now and lovin it.

Any firther tweeks and good driver updates please advise, intel 13.125... wifi driver a good one connects like adream now.

 

I was playing with recovery disks today after unsuccessful attempt to delete a RAID from the BIOS in a hope that RAID1 option will appear in RAID BIOS menu... Well, there is only one option and it is RAID0, the only thing I can change is a block size...

Anyway, after deleting RAID set and creating new one I had to do a recovery from recovery disks I've burned upon initial system setup. I booted up from first one and found an option to restore the system by setting up my own partitions sizes, dumping a recovery partition (which was about 14GB and now it is 1.5GB) and greatly reducing number of bloatware programs by choosing the option to install just minimum things (the default option was to install all available software). After almost 1.5 hours I got the system recovered and was happy to see only 86 running processes, no Norton Antivirus, no Microsoft Office, no Vaio PMB, no ArcSoft Effects and some other software I don't remember. And now I have two partitions - 100GB for OS and 136GB for data and Acronis backup images I can use to restore my system partition if something goes wrong. I may even delete this 1.5GB recovery partition I don't need anymore as previous time when I was restoring the system from hidden recovery partition (not DVD) it took almost the same amount of time. The only reason somebody may keep this recovery partition is if your DVD was replaced with HDD and you don't have USB DVD around...

Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop & Premiere along with Windows Live is still there :-(. The only thing I need is Acrobat...

Hope this will help somebody who wants cleaner system and more than one partition.

EDIT: I was able to delete completely the recovery partition and hidden 100MB system partition using Paragon partition Manager. Then I set my OS partition as Active and used Windows 7 Repair CD to fix the error about missing NTLDR. Now I have only two partitions on my RAID volume - 90GB for OS and programs and 147GB for data: VMs, archives and disk images. Now I can restore system partition from image stored on second partition in few minutes and don't need external drive to store it (although I keep one copy of disk image on my file server).

 

What Vaio Z model do you have? Because I don't have any RAID options in the BIOS on mine.

 

I installed the update yesterday, hardly looked at what it was for. My computer has given me the black screen (while on Speed) twice since then, the first two times I've ever gotten it. Not sure if it's related or just coincidence.

 

It is VPCZ1290X CTO purchased at sonystyle.com

You have to enable "RAID configuration: Show" option in Advanced BIOS options of the laptop. The you'll see Intel RAID BIOS screen upon boot and will need to press CTRL+I to enter the utility.

 

I have a z12 and want to fit the lid with one of those pre-cut designer 'skins' you buy over the internet.

The skin is advertised as being for a z11. Can anyone confirm whether or not the lid to the z12s is identical to the z11s - with the Vaio symbol and the indenteted line a cm or so from the hinge? Need a categorical answer please (referably by someone who has two to compare side-by-side) as the skin is reletavely expensive and needs to be imported, thanks.

 

Thanks. It is now in there. This RAID show option in the BIOS does not exist when you have only one HDD/SSD drive connected.

 

Quick qs before I buy the film to cover my palmrest...

1. Does the trackpad area fade as well?
2. If it does, does covering it with the film impair the performance of it at all?

 

Mine went 'shiny' (as it has for all other non-white laptops I've owned) within a month. By comparison, the palmrest has not gone shiny after several months daily use. I'd definitely cover it with film if that sort of thing is going to bother you.

 

yes, they have the same chassis. no external differences.

 

like Soul said, externally, the Vaios all have the same chassis/body, it's the internals that got changed(not really, but hey if Sony comes out with the Gen 2... it could generate a little more interest like the Gen 3 we're about to see)

 

Has anyone had an improvement with the battery after bios upgrades on Z12?

Just noticed "84%" immediately upon a AC power outage - this after a full nights charge.

Or just accept the sour fact of having to remove battery every night?

*Edit: Just noticed "Wake up on events" was ON, just disabled it now to see how that goes.

 

I have just updated to the latest BIOS but dont expect it will fix and battey drain. The fix says it resolves "WIMAX Function driver may disappear from Device Manager"
My previous z11 was worst at about 12% loss per day, my new z12 is about 4%, better but not great....

\ps,
I noticed a number of other updates to RAID & Registry fixes etc - anyone seen the performance improvements mentioned ?

 

I notice Sony posted the following update on their support page:

VAIO Smart Network - 3.3.1.08110

This application manages your wireless networks.

What does it fix?
This update contains several improvements to profile functions.

However - anyone know specifically what these improvements are?

Cheers,
T

 

*shrug* :/

 

Guys, How can I check/Change the (Wake up on events) Settings?

Where can I find it Exactly?

thx

*EDIT: Found it.

To all searchers for this particular thing its:

Power Options | Change Plan Settings | Change Advanced Power settings | Sleep | Allow Wake Timers

Disable

 

Thanks for that two of mine were still on, don't need any mishaps!

 

I bought this plan from the same seller via buy.com and was able to register it over the phone (my attempt to register it online failed as there is no VPCZ1290X listed in their database). Anyway, a day later I received cetrificate of coverage by email and called them again to confirm that everything is OK with this plan. It is, so now I can cancel my original Sony extended warranty plan I purchased along with laptop and 3 accessories in order to get 15% discount, and extended warranty plan with ADH I go from squaretrade while I was waiting to clarify the situation about the plan Enny02 suggested.

I am happy to report that the above plan is the cheapest 3-year extended warranty plan with ADH you can get for Sony Vaio Z, and it is OEM Sony warranty. The cost - about $240 with NY sales tax included.

There is no problem to cancel a plan you've purchased from Sony directly along with laptop, I just did it and returned neoprene sleeve (too big for Z12) and 8GB USB stick (2-3 times slower than my OCZ Rally 2).

 

Great that it worked out. I found the plan/item by accident. It was originally listed on bhphotovideo but as not in stock. So I looked around and found it on buy.com. I couldn't believe how cheap it was, I had doubts but I ordered anyway because the partnumber was correct.

 

Very strange behavior from my Z in the past few days...

The other day when I was in class, I couldn't connect to the university's wifi network. Others could, so I assumed it was a problem with my Z. When I got home I did a system restore, because I've been in class before with no problems. I have not installed any updates, but I figured if Windows did an update that I missed, maybe that would have something to do with it. So I figured a restore couldn't hurt.

Since I've done the restore, some strange things have been happening. First, the cursor blinks that I get on boot up have reduced from 19 to 5. So my boot up time is much quicker. Not complaining there. But my fan now runs noticeably louder, even when the computer is idle. To hear my fan, I used to have to put my ear right up to the exhaust. I can hear it easily now as I type. I have always kept the thermal control strategy on performance, even before the restore. But the fan was not this loud.

I can't say for certain that the restore is the cause of these things, but all of this seemed to happen at the same time. With the fan now running the way it is, I am starting to see why some people have complained so much about it. It's not loud, but it is just noticeable. It was not this way a week ago. I wonder what could have happened?

 

How far back did you go with System Restore? The system restore is not very reliable, I use it only when I installed something to got back to the state before. On my computer I have disabled it. Since M$ came up with System Restore only 2 times it helped, the other times I still had tio fix the actual issue.
What also helps, when something was installed, is Last Known Good Configuration (that feature is available since Windows NT) and it works without having System Restore enabled.

 

Totally agree with what you have said, since I migrated to SSD Mania, I disabled System Restore, and even before that, I wasn't a fan of it at all, the good news is that:

Last Known good configuration is my first and best Line of defense, it never let me down before.

 

Maybe a bunch of reasons?

Maybe your system restore has been caused the ssd raid to gc a lot (i.e. while shadow copies are rebuilt/rearranged etc.), the overall workload is higher for some reason, performance powerplans have been changed to higher values. Maybe some registry values restored don't fit any longer to the installed software. By mischance your Z is polluted just now by dust under the hood in a way that is causing the loud fan. What about the environment (air condition switched off, higher temperatures)? Take a look into the taskmanager / services / process monitor / performance monitor as admininistrator to check if there is a change in used resources. Look out for "heavy users" of cpu/gpu. Check your energy plans. Get a tool for monitoring fan speed and temperatures. Run Windows Update/Vaio Update. Clean the fan with pressure air or open the device if the latter doesn't help.