Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

My Z51 comes with Windows 7 pro.

 

Thanks alot! Really appreciate your help.

 

Cool - thanks.

Usually on these integrated Intel RAID controllers I think it's Ctrl+I on POST to get into the raid controller bios (not the normal bios). Do others know a way to get in?

 

Wait...you are right...I did see an option of CTRL+I.

 

Here is a pic of the RAID BIOS:

 

You scared the crap out of me!

Oh and can you click the option to create RAID array, just check to options it allows you to configure, don't commit to anything you don't want to.

Thank you very much.

PS. How does one know whether their drive is TRIM capable or not. Is there a program/property-page where it tells you that it is capable and enabled in Windows?

 

ota-con: Great to see someone really having the SSD version. What I'm very eager to know, in fact it's the only reason I haven't ordered one yet, is if I will be able to see the the raid array (i.e. the 256GB striped partition) when I boot with an Acronis recovery CD.

Acronis is my backup program of choice, and in case my drive fails, I always do an incremental backup every week. In the case of the raided SSD however, there is some doubt if the Acronis recovery CD will be able to see the whole raid 0 partition, or if it will see the SSDs as 4 individual disks.

I guess it should be interesting for you as well, so perhaps you could muster up the will to download the trial version of Acronis Home edition and install it. During the installation process, you will probably be prompted to burn a recovery CD. This CD is bootable and will let you restore a backup in case of disk corruption. If you're not asked to burn this CD while installing, you can probably do it afterwards from within Acronis or via some Start menu icon.

When you have burnt the CD, reboot the Vaio with the CD in the DVD and see which drive(s) are available to restore *to*. You should of course not restore anything, just see if Acronis sees the whole 256GB Raid 0 partition as one disk, or if it sees 4 64GB disks. If it can see the 256GB partition, I'm buying this baby.

If you have some other bootable live CD you already have, like a live linux CD or some other recovery CD, then you might be able to do the same thing with that instead. Just boot it up and see what disk(s) it sees. What I want to know is if the raid controller sw is active no matter what, and from where, you boot.


Oh, and here's the link to Acronis Home ed if you don't find it: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

 

Does anyone know the official release day of the Z series in Europe/UK

I've just got of the phone to a UK customer rep and he said that my CTO order had completed production and is on its way to Holland where it will be under a "pre sales block" as the laptop has not been officially release yet?

It wont be sent on until the latop is released

I've been given an eta for 14th - 19th March (via an automated email)

Anyone one else have European/UK delivery date?

Mappy

 

I haven't tried this, but AFAIK you have to set your drives to JBOD and then use some program (e.g. CrystalDiskInfo or HWInfo32) to check if TRIM is enabled.
I suppose that you cannot check TRIM support if you use the SSDs in RAID. But I'd be happy if someone could prove me wrong

 

Oh, wow... I thought that the lack of a DVD drive being mentioned in customization options with an HDD configuration just meant that you can ONLY have a DVD drive, so there's no point mentioning it. Skimming through this thread, it looks like the HDD actually replaces the optical drive.

So, first question (and sorry if someone's answered it before, but it's hard to look through 76 pages):
Has anyone opened up their Z to check if the standard SSD can be replaced, whether with a 2.5" or 1.8" drive? I would personally like to do what I did with my Z790 and put in an Intel SSD (X25-M or X18-M), or something like that.

Second question:
Is the extended battery the same as for the previous version of the Z? I have a Z790 right now and would probably sell it with just the standard battery, and keep the extended one for my new Z.

Third question:
I noticed that there's a new docking station. Has anyone found out if the Z now supports 2560x1600 monitors via the DVI port on the new docking station?

 

Sort of. Open a command prompt with administrator privileges, and enter:

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

If the answer is 1, you have an SSD that doesn't support TRIM.
If the answer is 0, the drive is either not recognised as an SSD, or it has TRIM.

 

No, it can't.

ONLY the HDD version without SSDs and DVD has a 2.5" drive bay. The SSD version has a custom drive bay for sandwiched 1.6" drives which are slightly shorter than normal. And non-standard drive connectors too.

No, it's not the same. Sony has made the fit slightly different.

 

Correct, these are smaller than 1.8" drives so you cannot fit one in there.

Confirmed, the design and latch are not the same, not even in the same position in relation to the laptop. So old batteries DO NOT fit.

 

Thanks for the quick and knowledgeable replies!

I have one other question, other than the 2560x1600 one (which I doubt anyone can answer too quickly)... It's bound to get shot down, too, but I was just curious:
What is the socket type in the new Z's? I noticed on wiki that i5's/i7's come in two varieties - µPGA-989 and BGA-1288. The former socket also theoretically supports the quad-core mobile i7's.

So, assuming that the socket is 989, and that the BIOS supports quad-core i7's, I could do something like what nutman did and get a custom, more efficient heatsink and a quad-core CPU. This is more out of curiosity than something that I'd definitely want to do.

EDIT: Oh, and I just noticed that those use 1333MHz RAM, making the likelihood of this being possible lower than I expected (not that 1333 RAM is a lot more expensive or anything, but I know that the Z's just use 1066, and I bet that's for a reason).

 

I asked russian Vaio Link this exact question and they said no it can't (docking station has Single Link DVI only). I'm still not 100% sure about this.
BTW, GT 330M supports 2560x1600 (just like 9300M does) via single link HDMI only (1.3+ version) at almost doubled frequency (340Mhz as opposed to 165Mhz) hence no passive HDMI-DVI adapter is able to support dual-link DVI (2 x 165Mhz links) and therefore WQXGA resolution. I'm pretty sure that Sony skipped this feature as well allowing HDMI to only work at lower frequency. That means we can't connect it to 2560x1600 display with proper HDMI 1.3 input.

However, I'm still waiting for answer to my special request directly to Vaio Marketing CEO in Russia

 

Sadly the CPU on the new Z appears to have a BGA design (soldered on the mainboard)
Intel screwed up everyone of us who'd've wanted to upgrade as the PGA processors are square whereas the BGAs are wider than they are long.
As for the Quad processors I do not think they will be used in the Z as they do not have a built in GPU and that would negate the whole "hybrid graphics" idea that sony is pushing with the Z...

 

When installing the trial version, are you selecting Typical, Custom, or Complete in the setup type ? I'm downloading this on my Z820 to learn about this program and too am concerned about the SSD issue. If what you say and are asking ota-con to do works, then I'll be more likely to pull the trigger on the 256GB model, but would wait for the first refresh and hope for the Full HD version.

 

This comparison is pretty cool.
They compare a host of processors, including the i3-530 as well as various i5's and others ranging from 3.8GHz Pentium 4 of 5 years ago to i7-975 extreme as well as Athlon and core 2 chips

It gives one a good appreciation for what the new core processors can do and how they relate to other options from past and present.

In addition to speed/power tests and benchmarks they also do gaming, photo editing, encoding , even Folding@home!

They also played with overclocking. The i3-530 was running fine at 4.4GHz!
5.5GHz on the i5-661

Edit: oops! forgot the link:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18448

 

Ehum... not sure actually. Have never installed that particular version. But as a rule of thumb, I almost always select custom when installing programs and then see what can be selected on the next screens. If you can't see anything about a recovery CD, then it's probably not even possible to de-select it. It *is* a rather crucial part of a backup program.

 

Thank you. I'm trying it out now and selected Typical setup. Will see how it goes.

 

Thanks for this. I checked the SSD of the F-series and it does return a
"Disabledeletenotify = 0".

I knew it has TRIM but this is just an added confirmation. I would have added a rep but it did not allow me to.

 

Hmmmm. I was under the impression that this meant the controller supports TRIM, but the drive itself still might not. That is, Windows will send the TRIM command, but the drive itself may still not support TRIM and so will ignore the command.

Hmmm....trying to find where I read that....

-Peter

 

Seems like this command basically means that Windows 7 is sending down the TRIM command to the disk.

But there seems to be a free utility that provides a boatload of information on the SSD drive (including availability of TRIM etc), and is indicated within the below link (screenshot in the link shows some of the things that the utility shows):

http://ssdtechnologyforum.com/Thread-CrystalDiskInfo-3-3-0-A-Must-Have-Free-Tool-For-SSD-Owners

 

so which do you like? glossy or matte?

 

Found it. On the MS blog talking about SSD support in Win7

The following quote is from the comments from Craig Barkhouse who is on the NTFS team:

It's apparently pretty hard to see if TRIM is actually being processed by the drive or not. But it sounds like CrystalDiskInfo will report whether your drive supports TRIM, and there's an interesting method to see if TRIM is actually being sent down to the drive or not using procmon (see posts 2 and 3 in the thread).

Edit: roweraay, you beat me with the CrystalDiskInfo link.

-Peter

 

AFAICT, when the driver supports TRIM but the drive doesn't is when it gets set to 1.

It's a negative test -- it can only indicate whether the drive doesn't support TRIM; a 0 does not necessarily mean that you DO have TRIM. It could also be caused by the drive not being identified as an SSD, e.g. by failing the speed tests, or using other drivers than Microsoft's. In which case TRIM commands aren't sent anyhow.

 

I did read someone's account who got a value of 0 on his wife's laptop, which doesn't have an SSD, but a standard HDD. Found it! See the 8th post by peterste in this thread. By no means conclusive - he could have enabled it...

-Peter

 

Might a RAM disk be a work-around if (when) non-TRIM RAID0 SSDs start to suffer from degradation?
If the main SSD issue is likely to be programs such as Firefox caching lots of web-page elements or Windows writing image thumbnails, then if these programs could be set up to write temporary files to the RAM disk they would not stall when trying to write lots of small files?

Admittedly this would not help at all when installing programs with lots of files, but I imagine stalling during everyday writes would be a bigger and more regular annoyance.

Does anyone know if a RAM disk is written to the SSD/HDD when hibernating Windows? This would allow the Firefox cache to remain available through hibernates.

 

Using RAM Disk might help alleviate the stalling, but it is still going to stall no matter what once the SSD is degraded. I know this from first hand experience.

I disable hibernate when I use SSD so I can't help you on that. However, you can force save RAM Disk to the SSD/HDD before you go into hibernation. Not sure how it will all work out once it comes out of hibernation though, since I've never used SSD's with hibernation enabled.

 

Thank you ota-con for the raid screen shot

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the Samsung mmcre28g drive the newer 220/200 data rate drive with trim enabled firmware? Doesn't this guarantee our ability to destroy the raid array and use the native trim function on the drive, or am I getting over excited?

 

I also have a 14-19 March ETA (from an automated email).

 

Ota-con, if ya have the time you should download Crystal Disk Info 3.3.0! It gives you alot of info about your SSD including your SSDs estimated remaining life etc. and even if your SSD supports the TRIM command.





EDIT: Oh nvm, it doesnt recognize RAID arrays. Shoulda guessed! I guess thats not very helpful to you if you plan to keep RAID 0 ! Sorry ota-con, ignore this. Dont fret forumers, once I get mine in a week, Ill reset to JBOD and solve it. Totally downloading this program though. How lovely! Thanks ehosey and gang.

 

Somebody should seriously make a guide about all this SSD stuff once the Z's secrets are discovered. And how to make an image backup and all that so that it's in tip-top shape again.

 

Anyone have an update on whether the 1920x1080 version is available in the US yet?

 

Agreed. I know I sure as hell aint gonna be messin with all that stuff unless I get very very precise instructions from a forum mate. Im scared of destroying my drives or something !


If all else fails, I can go to my computer guy. But then that means more waiting for you fellas that wish to find out if the individual drives themselves support TRIM in JBOD.

 

It's only available on the $4000ish signature collection model right now. Otherwise, it probably will not become available until at least the next refresh, which is in summer. I don't think it's really too big of a deal anyways - it's 900p vs. 1080p and the higher-rez screen is supposed to be a little bit brighter and more vibrant, but meh, I doubt it'll be that drastic of a difference. At least that's what I've been telling myself to feel better.

 

Great idea, if anybody would read the darn thing. This thread is 90% repeat.

I'll be spending time doing this and will likely post in a dedicated or more focused thread. I've ordered the 512GB option.

 

I've read every single post of every single Z thread, but I don't understand half of what people are talking about when it comes to things like the SSDs, RAID, RAM, etc. I art stupid.

Maybe the thread could be named: "So you just got your Z? Read this." Then we could talk about what you should immediately do - like what programs to remove (for those who didn't get Fresh Start), what to configure, how to do an image backup, the RAID options, etc.

 

RAID isn't all that complicated once you get around to working with it and it is significantly difficult to cause permanent damage.

The thing about having RAID controlled via the Intel Storage ROM is that you won't really notice a difference, other than the speed, in Windows.

Windows sees the RAID set as one big hard drive. As long as you have drivers, it's pretty simple. I can't verify yet, but they are likely included with Windows 7 so install may be seamless.

I'm pretty confident that ways to service the SSD will come to light at some point as well.

 

I started the first Windows 7 clean install thread way back in early beta. The community support is good once a foundation is there. This will happen when these start shipping in volume next week (hopefully).

 

+100000000000000000000000000000000000

 

Can someone please weigh in on the wear leveling question. This was thrown out there a couple of days ago. I have not been able to confirm this, but if its true, I believe it completely negates any question about whether trim is an issue or whether we should or should not be able to get 1080, or what color looks best...

No wear leveling == No purchase of this product as far as I'm concerned.

Does anyone have any knowledgeable feedback on this question?

 

I currently run a 3-drive HDD RAID 0 in Windows 7 with an Intel chipset. The array is recognized by Windows as a single drive automatically at all points, from installation to boot. No extra software is required.

 

Does anyone know if this Intel raid controller supports RAID 1?

 

*sigh* Just as we mention it..

Nobody can say conclusively that there is no garbage collection on the new machines. Additionally, we doubt, but have hope that TRIM commands will be able to be passed through the Intel RAID controller.

All this said, there are ways of servicing these drives even if the worse case comes to being.

THIS HASN'T BEEN TESTED BECAUSE ONLY ONE PERSON HAS SHOWN THAT THEY HAVE A Z WITH THE SSD.

I'm probably going to punch myself for posting this now, but you can restore most of the overall performance by following the steps in this thread. OCZ did this to address the same concern with their early generation SSD's.

Excellent news. The ICH8/9M-E has been out for a while, so I was hoping this was the case.

Yes

 

My question has absolutely nothing to do with trim. Trim is a subject we have discussed at great length. I am not talking about trim.

I am asking about wear leveling vs writing to the same spot over and over again (from which there is NO recovery). I never imagined that wear leveling would even be a question until it was brought up a couple of days ago. If there is actually no wear leveling then this ssd setup is truly a non-starter.

 

Pregunta: Do the CTO's come with those cool headphones or is that only the Signature Collections?

 

Oscar, you are right. My apologies.

If we can get a view of the Samsung NAND modules and controller, we will know conclusively.

I can't find reference to the the Samsung part # MMCCRE28G in ota-con's RAID BIOS screen snapshot. If it uses current Samsung controllers, it is extremely likely.

 

I'd be more shocked that the drive doesn't support wear-leveling than if the drive didn't support TRIM. Wear-leveling has been talked about by Samsung for at least two years while TRIM was added late last year. I suspect the user Joseph was quoting when he wrote there was no wear-leveling made the same mistake ZoinksS2k did - confused wear-leveling with TRIM. Just a guess.

-Peter

 

I find it very hard to believe that samsung would use old controllers without wear-leveling and/or trim on custom SSDs made in 2009-2010...