Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

I have the large battery and seems like I'm getting 5-6+ hours without any particular battery saving tweaks.

 

Hmm could you or anyone with a large battery possibly do all the tweaks that i have listed such as Stamina mode, 40hz, battery saver background, power saver power plan, 16bit, 2 bars brightness, auto off on dvd drive, no external devices plugged in and tell me how much battery life you can get? It will give me a better idea on the average time and if i should have my battery replaced or not, thanks!

 

Actually, there's no dimensional change in the motherboard.

the shorter side of the bare 1.8" intel drives were still slightly larger than the toshiba's ssd; however, it was still possible for him get them in the place.

 

So... I originally posted about the "click" that would eminate from the right side hinge upon closing the lid. I read about the various solutions people were using to fix the problme, and after much internal debate (with myself, obviously), I decided to TRY to disassemble the Z11 to fix the screws, although I had no idea if this was in fact the real problem.

Everything was going fine as I was removing all 24 or so screws, BUT, as soon as I removed the keyboard, a small circuitboard and plastic piece along the TOP part of the keyboard (near the light sensor, number lock, assist, vaio buttons, etc) FELL OUT OF THE UNIT!! I yelled "Oh F***!"

After several minutes of trying to put humpty dumpty back together again, I finally suceeded, and said to myself 'what they heck, I'm going to leave well enough alone, and put it back together.' So what if the click isn't fixed, at least I will have a computer!!!

As it turns out, once I succeeded in putting everything back together, screwing in all the screws, and guess what--the "click" was gone!! I have no idea what I did, and I don't care...but the problem is fixed.

So, I stared over the abyss, and stepped back from the edge. I don't know if I'm EVER going to try that again!!

Until the click comes back.

Time for a cocktail.

Carry on everyone!

 

I'm getting one of these soon, but I have a few questions:

Can the CD/DVD drive be replaced with a bluray reader (I'm not paying $500 for the burner I will never use)?
How much can/should I overclock the GPU?

 

Good for you at least you tried (and somehow even managed to succeed). And just think, next time will be easier.

 

Also, don't forget there is one more variable. Some folks have the Vaio battery care function turned on which only charges the battery to 80% of capacity (I just remembered that I have it enabled on mine). So this also will affect people's stated results.

 

Fair play to Sony (Europe). They collected the laptop on Thursday, and sent it back today (Monday) with a new screen. All perfectly clean, a nice VAIO screen cloth, a very polite/apologetic letter, and no charge.

 

Thanks... Did he post any pictures? Do you still have the link? I'm wondering if it's for the old Z...

 

what is that battery care?

 

Windows was reporting about 6-7 hrs for the standard battery at 98% remaining (LCD brightness at the 2nd dot.) After about an hour of reading a PDF document the estimate dropped to 4hr 40min @ 88% battery. I'd estimate that if I was browsing websites with Flash content, etc, I'd probably only get about 4 hours.

 

I haven't tried a max battery test. I have the large battery and I get 5 + hours on max brightness, WiFi, bluetooth, etc. Basically all systems go normal/heavy use = at least 5 hours with extended battery. I think that is pretty good.

I have the i7 and 1080P screen.

 

I am on the phone now with Sony Style but they are saying I can only get 10% off. What should I say to get 15% I really need 15% or else my specs get cut down significantly

 

You could say you heard others have gotten 15%, you could say that you are on a budget and that you really want these specs and see if they could work with you, or you could just hang up and call again to get another rep. I live in CA so with my 9.75% sales tax... if I only get 10% off... that's like not paying tax which, if i'm getting a basic pre-config model, would be cheaper to go through tigerdirect.com or elsewhere. So maybe you could use that excuse with Sony. In any case, all indication says that people have been getting 15% off, so there's no reason they shouldn't offer it to you. Try anything and everything, it doesn't hurt =). Oh! Say another rep that you called before offered you 15% but you were on the fence and decided not to jump. And if they ask who, make up a name, there are tons of call centers and I think they make up names anyways. Good Luck!

 

Thanks all for your responses, everything seems to be okay now i managed to get 8 hours on minimal usage and low settings and now my battery care is functioning stopping charge at 80 or 50 percent I guess it takes time for the battery to work in.

 

I haven't seen a reader slim enough to fit, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there. I have seen reader/burners on ebay, but they're selling for $500, so might as well get one from Sony at that price. I don't think you're paying a premium for the burner, but for the size. A reader that will fit in the Z will still likely be prohibitively expensive.

Yes you can overclock the GPU. Do a search in this thread, as their are multiple examples of overclocks. I usually go 622 on the core and 822 on the memory.

 

My lord you guys weren't kidding about the speakers being "meh". Thankfully I primarily use headphones but wow - I was Skyping with my Dad on the weekend and I could barely hear him even at 80% volume, which at that level caused echoing for him and a bit of distortion for me. As I said, I didn't really expect that much from them but they are certainly underwhelming. Good enough for development work though.

One thing I did notice while using the headphones is that Windows sounds cause a little muffled "pop" just before playing. Continuous audio is fine. I tried turning off noise cancellation but that didn't help things. It's not a big deal - just curious if anyone else has heard this.

So far, no issues with my Z; no wifi or bluetooth drop outs, no lockups, system runs surpisingly cool @ moderate usage levels, etc. The only strange issue I had was having MSE catch three trojans that must have been pushed to my system through a Flash-based website and attempted to execute. The strange part is that it happened while I was looking for 1920x1080 desktop pics on Google - must have come from one of the sites hosting the pics. Updated to the latest version of Flash so hopefully that won't happen again.

 

So, I'm placing my CTO order this week. I'm gonna push for 20% (lol). My only concern is, do any of you think in the 2nd refresh this fall that maybe, with enough palmrest complaints, Sony will revise the material used on the current palmrest? I'm was hoping for new lid colors.

 

One can hope, but personally I wouldn't count on it.

Regarding the palm rests, I'll share a solution that will make some of you laugh and make others cringe at the tackiness. But I think it works pretty good so far. I took some packaging tape (the thick clear stuff you can use to wrap boxes and whatnot) and just taped some strips on to the palm rests. By cutting the edges and making it just the right size, it fits right along the palm rest on the two sides of the mouse pad. If you're careful as you put it on and work to push all of the air pockets out, it makes a nice clean clear fit. It just adds a bit of shine to the top of the palm rest, and is really pretty inconspicuous unless you're looking up close.

It is tape though, so yes, it's tacky. But it doesn't look bad, and I'm fine with a little tackiness if it keeps the palm rests protected. The most noticeable spot is around the stickers (if you don't remove those), as their tends to be a bit of the white distortion that you expect with tape just around the stickers.

 

You're on 13.2.1.5 right now? I had this problem but if I remember correctly updating to 13.2.1.5 fixed it for me.

 

Guys, I am considering picking up the Z12 series laptop. And wanted some advice. Any know discounts that I can get with Sony Style? Also, when I wanted to build the machine, I noticed I couldn't select fresh start, but also it had a $400 adobe package I didn't want that I couldn't remove without selecting fresh start. Any advice on that?

Ps, any issues I should know about before I get this? I have a Dell 16 XPS and love it, but it gets way to hot and a bit big. I had the Sony F series for a very short period before returning it due to the LCD had poor viewing angles. Does this laptop have that issue? Is it LED or TFT? Thanks ahead of time!

 

what is battery care?

 

Yeah, it's fixed.

 

About discounts, 15% off at SonyStyleUSA if you call in to order for adding a warranty and 2 accessories. This seems to be harder to get as I just helped someone get it this morning and they had to call in two times before finally getting the deal on the 3rd try(they wanted him to get 3 $20+ accessories and a warranty vs. just 2 accessories)

issues:
- GPU drivers out of date, but there are people working on an unofficial driver pack
- SSDs are a proprietary solution, only way to replace so far is to use Sony replacement parts, but this could change, allegedly someone in Korea managed to strip down two intel 1.8" drives and made it fit, but we'll see
- SSDs in RAID0 = no TRIM, but Sony has some OS independent garbage collecting going on in the background so you don't need TRIM.
- Fading palmrests(so far only on black/carbon fiber models), I have this problem and i've posted pics a while back, but not EVERYONE has this problem, i've got sweaty palms so... ymmv.
- The screen's a TFT screen. Poor viewing angles, but it's a 13" lappy, who are you going to share it with?
- Black Screen Of Death... uhh when running 1080p vids on speed(using the dedicated GPU), the Z might freeze, however, it might've been solved by an update as i havent seen many complaints recently.
- Price. It's good, it's expensive. what did you expect to pay for a 13" beast with multiple hard drives, optical drive, dedicated gpu, a mainstream cpu, full HD screen that weighs just over 3 lbs?

 

Fresh start is only available if you select Win 7 professional.

 

Viewing angles aren't great on the 1080p screen, especially on anything less than full brightness, but with such a small high density screen, that's to be expected. The quality of the display makes up for it though.

 

I have a question about the power management features. I'm using the "balanced" feature, which has different settings for when the laptop is on battery power, and when it is on AC power. One of those settings is for the screen brightness. The problem is, if I adjust the brightness manually (i.e., Fn + F5 or F6), Windows "thinks" I'm changing the setting on a permanent basis. Has anyone figured out how to keep the saved settings, even if you manually change the brightness?

Thanks

 

Run the Sony Control Center and you will see an entry for battery
Click on battery and there is a checkbox for battery care
click on it, to turn it on, then you can select advanced, to change the battery care settings.

Purpose is to limit the max charge of the battery so it gives a longer lifetime.

 

I'll be getting one shortly so I'll be able to respond on whether it fits the Z12 if the original poster has not replied.

 

Cheers, appreciated.

 

Just got a Z12, and played some Starcraft 2. This thing gets toasty! Using hwmonitor, max temps for the Core i5-520M were 87/86, and the Nvidia 330 got to 85 degrees celsius.

Normal?

Edit: Never mind, searched this thread with keyword "temps" and read some posts with similar (if not higher) temps than mine. I am loving this laptop!

 

Maybe a dumb question, but what is the button to get into the bios? During bootup, there's no line that says "press F2 to enter setup" like every other computer I've ever used before.

Also, I was using prime95 and cpuz showed the clock speed go up to 2660mhz. I guess the advertised 2.93ghz turbo boost amount for the i5-520m is for single core usage, eh?

 

Just try F2 anyways. That's what Sony's been using since the first time I bought one.

On a different topic all together, CTO options are dissapearing!!!
Stock CTO is now $2249 with 192ssd (back-ordered), no screen or cpu options(i5-540 and 900p i assume) and no drive as the regular cd burner is now unavailable.

Refresh or major sell-out?

 

What program do you guys use to OC the GPU?
I tried Ntune but when I pressed the user agreement button it crashes, it's strange I've used it in the past with no problems at all.

 

I just order two P-Series laptops from SonyStyle on the phone yesterday and they gave me a 10% discount. They said if I added Extended Service plans I could get 15%.

When I ordered my Z1290X-CTO they gave me 5%.

I think you can get at least 10% if not 15%!

 

NBR member mfpreach pointed me to EVGA Precision and I really like that. Super simple to use and seems to work really well on the Z. I like it better than what I used to overcock my Dell Inspiron (RivaTuner), which also didn't work on the Z.

 

Thanks!
What clocks do you set it at?

 

Does EVGA Precision make the changes permanently, or will the GPU revert to the factory settings after rebooting? Nvidia Inspector can't make permanent changes...

 

Changes are only in effect when Precision is running. It'll autoload on bootup if check off the boot at startup box, but if you boot with integrated it gives you an error.

 

Thanks! I think I shall give it a try...

 

Mr.Turkey how is Nvidia inspector OCing the GPU?
in all honesty I've never heard of it.

 

I'm just blindly following what some folks did Here's a screenshot:



Unfortunately the 'Create Clocks Shortcut' causes the app to crash, otherwise I can probably click the shortcut to set the clocks every time I reboot.

 

I had my hinge on my old Z replaced 4 times, I was hoping the new Z had an improvment ..I guess not


It seems the same shody build quality

 

I had the clicking on my Z11. I opened the laptop by removing the screws on the bottom (as described by Stonehinge and raczkri), gave the right hinge a little tightening, and I was good to go. No more clicking.

I would not say shoddy, I think that would be a definite overstatement, but Sony could do well to invest in a bit of loctite to apply to those screws.

 

Well I set mine at 622 for the core clock and 822 for the memory clock. Temperatures don't seem to be affected by the overclock at all. I've kept mine here because any program I've tried to run (GTA IV is the most intensive) seem to run just fine at those clocks, so why keep going?

I get about 7500 in 3DMark06 with those clocks versus around 6000 with the standard clock. So a nice boost. I think you might be fine to try to go higher on both the core and memory clocks than I have. Others have tried it (search for "overclock" in this thread). But I have seen some complain about crashing, etc.

 

Which version and which site are you referring to? The same CTO options are available on the US site as when I ordered by VPCZ1290XCTO on August 4th.

 

Do you think if you remove and later replaced the tape that you would peel-off some of the paint off of the palmrest? I guess it determines how strong the adhesive is on the tape your using.

 

I am thinking of trying gaffer tape ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaffer_tape), I need it anyway to hide my speaker wires. They supposedly will not rip off the paint, nor leave any residue. Supposedly

 

I am not bashing Sony I really think their technology and speed of their units are great.

But after spending the big bucks on these machines I don't think glue and tape should have to be used to keep your machines together.

I mean their service support and build quality should be much better

 

The tape's not for holding the unit together, its for covering the palmrest. It's cosmetic, I may not even do it (because a faded palmrest does indicate that I'm very hardworking after all )