Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

I generally use Scotch Tape or a lighter packaging tape for exactly this technique. You're absolutely right, this is the cleanest/neatest way possible.

 

I just use packaging tape. Stick on; peel off. No more residues =]

 

goof-off goo gone... those all work pretty good at removing things like that.

 

Well I ordered my Z tonight from Best Buy. We will see how long it takes to get to me. They say it should ship out tomorrow, so this will be a good test to see whether their website lies or not. I did it through bing.com/rewards too, so I will see if that actually works or not too.

I got free shipping and used my reward zone cert, so it was $1730 with Tax. If Bing works I should get $81 back. Plus I should eventually get another $35 in reward zone certs from this purchase. So if all works out it will really only cost me $1614. Not bad, plus I used x-mas gift cards to pay for $128 of it.

I just couldn't pass that deal up vs. customizing one on the SonyStyle site. If some paint wears off, oh well. I am not that picky, I would rather have a functioning machine than care about some paint wearing off. Plus I have a cheap Dell Latitude and the only thing I have managed to wear off on that is the one mouse button. And I use this thing every day for at least 10 hours. Most days 14 hours since I don't have a personal PC right now that works very well. I have some scratches on the cover, but I am never looking at the cover - lol

 

I just read an article on the latest Intel RST drivers and the news isn't good
here's the link to the article:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18653

 

Hope this is what you're looking for.

As I got closer to the city the frame rates dropped to an average about 44 with lows around 37 and highs around 50.

 

Thanks rmcx for posting the screenshots of FSX. Service Pack 1 sure did increase the performance! Average of 44FPS is excellent! I am totally amazed on how well the Nvidia 330m can handle the game. This is exactly what I was looking for.

I was thinking that while you are running FSX on these settings, does your vaio z make a loud noise? Also how hot does it get?

 

Not sure I buy it.

The changes I saw after 9.6 makes it look like TRIM is working.

There's also reference to the functionality in the RST help file.

 

I don't buy it either. It wouldn't be the first time that PR and Development wasn't on the same page.

That readme specifically mentions that it works for all volume types except RAID 5. If they were excluding RAID in general, they would never exclude just one type of RAID when they meant all types. Intel isn't some rinky dink outfit where documentation mistakes like that would be expected.

I'd hazard to guess that RAID 5 would be a lot more complicated to implement Trim support on without some significant speed penalties (as it would have to create new parity files every time a file was deleted as well as well as those written), than a simple mirror or RAID 0, thus the exclusion.

 

i bet we'll find that fakeraid is supported for TRIM, but controller-level true-raid is not, yet. which would explain why the new driver appears to give the z's raid TRIM-support.

sure is an annoyingly difficult thing to pin down, but i'm betting zoink's results are showing us TRIM in action

 

Thank you so much! Goodness me it performs well - did you manage to get SP2 installed with this one?

The settings are relatively high and it still managed 44fps.

If you could do one last test that would be great - taxiing at any major NYC airport on the ground, especially while looking at the terminals, other planes, etc. This usually grinds my system to a halt, haha, hoping the Z has the muscle to pull it off

Thanks again, you are a great contributor!

PS - dare you to fly a jet this time

 

In RAID 0 the same file is striped on multiple drives. This means that if one of the drive malfunctions the entire file is lost.

To avoid this we can use JBOD.

I read earlier in this thread that even after JBOD intel drivers were in use.

Can someone confirm (with experiment or otherwise) that if one wants to minimize the risk of losing data one can configure the drives in JBOD and still use TRIM using the latest intel drivers ?

 

(I made it to SP2)

The machine itself doesn't feel much warmer, but the outgoing air sure is! But you can't hear the fan above the noise of the plane.

(BTW, the cars on the ground are really cute!)

 

Yes, SP2. It was a known registry error, possibly because I had the demo version installed originally.

Will try NY and eventually a jet. I used to do FS several years ago but ran out of time...damn job!

Edit: Is this what you're looking for?

 

If a drive fails in JBOD all files on that particular drive are lost anyways. And of course the second drive on the SSD module is going to have to be replaced as well. A better option for the Z is to backup your system on a regular basis. There are fully automated methods of doing this so you don't have to "remember to do it".

 

Was the actual removal of the decals difficult? How did you prevent fingernail scratches to the palmrest? Any advice?

 

Simple: don't scratch with your fingernail, use it as a prying tool where the sharp edge of the nail only ever contacts the sticker.

Once you get a tiny corner up you can work more of your nail under, once again only sliding the flat part against the case. And then when there's enough to grip between two fingers, keep the sticker bent at a sharp angle and peel it very very slowly. If you peel too fast, you're more likely to leave residue behind. This isn't like a band-aid, where the faster the better, you have to wait for the glue to release.

If it's a paper sticker and a part starts to separate and stay behind (like a little tag that ends up growing bigger and leaving just the glue with a thin layer of paper), before it goes too far like that, re-work the part that's staying behind until you can once again peel the entire sticker as a single piece.

Once you're done, if there are any glue pieces left behind, you can use the sticky part of the just-removed sticker to "blot" them up. This should get most of it. For the rest, I've always had excellent success with my thumb rubbing towards the edge of the case (although this is probably an aquired talent, due to the comments I read earlier from some others that have tried this - I have a fairly strong fingerprint and use a LOT of pressure). Failing that, I use a bit of varsol to dissolve the glue, but always wash that stuff off when you're done.

I've done this many many times on many different things.

 

Thanks Sunfox.

______________________________

I knew it would happen eventually, MicroCenter just slashed the price of their base Z from 1899.99 to 1699.99 just like Best Buys. Plus you get 5% instant rewards discount. Now, for the rebates - its just a matter of time.

By the way, if you know someone who lives in a State without a MicroCenter, you save on sales tax, however, you pay for shipping which is less than CALIF. sales tax, I think its around $35-$45 for S/H.

 

I won't remove this set of decals until the returns period is up...just in case.

But when I have removed these things in the past, I'm just very careful to get my fingernail on the very edge of the decal itself rather than trying to go under. I don't try to get it up the first time, but rather use several "scooping" motions with my fingernail until the edge begins to rise. Then I can go under it without gouging the plastic.

Edit: I see @Sunfox beat me to it, but his advice is spot-on. 'Great minds' and all that...

 

Thanks. So the trick is not to go underneath the decal, and to lift from the very edge. I have a few decals on my old Vaio now, and it doesn't look like there's much depth/thickness, so your force to peel from underneath. I trust you guys. I'll test my efforts on this Vaio slowly.

 

The theory behind scratching something is based on the hardness scale (Mohs scale). I'm sure there is an engineer on the forum somewhere who will tell you a material you can use, that will not scratch the plastic at all. Nails are relatively hard, so probably not a good idea. Maybe something like a plastic straw squashed flat or something? Maybe something like dental slow pulled under it??

 

There's almost always enough thickness to work with. Don't think in terms of coming up from the bottom, but rather getting your fingernail vertical to and just -barely- touching the palmrest. Then pull upwards and inwards somewhat lightly. Repeat multiple times until the decal starts to give. Do this on one of the corners.

 

Hello!
I've FullHD version with i7.
Sometimes Bluetooth and WiMax just dissapear. After rebooting all devices are OK.
Do you have such problem?

Thanks in advance.

Update. Went into hibernate mode then woke up. Bluetooth now works fine. Till next occasion.

 

Hi everyone,

So do we have TRIM on RAID with the latest RST 9.6?

Anyway to confirm this?

I just updated mine and when I do "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" it returned 0 which indicates TRIM is enabled?

oh btw my setup is 2x64GB RAID

 

The fsutil trick does NOT indicate that TRIM is actually working, it just indicates that the drive has reported trim support so the OS will send trim commands. But there is another third required layer, the driver between the two, and up until now Intel has not passed trim commands from the OS to the drive.

The expectation now is that 9.6 does, but there still some minor disagreement on the point.

For what it's worth there is no way to tell if Trim is actually working, beyond laborious benchmarking.

 

Is this the same settings as before?

Yes this is what I am looking for, however, if you park your plane at the terminal, press S and circle around the view, what fps do you get?

So far it seems pretty impressive that the Z can run such a demanding game You are the man!

 

Just out of curiosity, what resolution are you running FSX at..? Native on a 1600x900 display..?

 

It was done at 1024x768. 1080p would have single frames / sec

 

Is 30 seconds considered fast for SSD boot time or about average?

I ask because I had an iMac (Snow Leopard) with a standard 7200rpm HDD and the boot time was about 25 seconds. Does Windows just boot slower? Thanks.

 

Oh yes, my Z11 is on its way to me, I should have it tomorrow (if the delivery's super-quick, maybe even tonight)!

Specs are: i7, 6GB, 256GB (listed as 128x2), FullHD, WWAN.

One of the first things I'll do is head to http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ and see how that 1080P display fares. I also have a Spyder3Pro color calibrator, but I won't probably have time to calibrate it until maybe next week. But I'll give my impressions on the performance of the screen based on the Lagom-test tomorrow or the day after.

 

Sorry for not reading all 193 pages of this thread to check, but I'm considering getting a Z with the 1600 x 900 display resolution and I was just wondering what the glare is like on this type of screen? I was hoping to get a matte display but this looks like a really nice machine and there just aren't that many options with matte screens to choose from anyway. Thanks

 

This one is a matte display...glare is not a problem from my usage so far

 

For those early adopters who own our Z's, I have a memory upgrade question.

Because I needed my PC for a trip tomorrow, I could not CTO and purchased from a Sony Style Brick and Mortar. I purchased the System Model: VPCZ11CGX, which come with Currently Installed Memory: 4096 MB and that is a 2X2 array.

What is the RAM that you all are purchasing to increase this? The computer is too new to show up on Crucial or even Amazon for memory updates.

 

Oh-oh

VPCZ11FHX/XQ
In Stock
Estimated ship date: 03/24/2010

I've got to return the VPCZ112GX/S soon, so this would be fantastic.

 

Yes, same setup as before, as shown on the last set of tab images that I sent, including 1024x768x32.

Will try to get to your terminal view test sometime today.

 

Yeah, Windows typically boot up longer out of box. It can be optimized, though, but it would be very hard to match a clean OSX.

 

FYI, in this video the engineers mention that because of the higher transistor count in the Full HD display they had to use a backlight approximately 30% brighter than the 1600x900 screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEOd8hbYf0E

Also, you can google-translate this page for lots of info (8 bit, ICC profile etc):
http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/pcuser/articles/1002/17/news045.html

Here's a machine translated excerpt:

 

Did you buy the 112 at SonyStyle retail location? The reason I ask is I might want to exchange it for the 11 (hard drive is a little small 110 gb after all the bloat etc) but they want 15% restock bacuse its an open box according to the store.

 

Zoinks, how are you avoiding the restock? I love my Z, but am looking at upgrading within the Z range. Just curious.

 

Since there're a lot of questions regarding screen quality from notebookreview members, I prepared a test chart. All we need is to find a volunteers with 1080p or 900p on hands You (volunteers) have to download this test picture and make 4 photos under different angles.

Here's mine chart:


Here're test results for mine 2008 MBPro 15" (MB134):

As you can see it doesn't perform well


Tips:

0. Dark room!
1. Max screen brightness
2. Turn off Auto White Balance. It's better to set WB using white screen.
3. Use autoexposure

 

I'm not. I knew this going into it.

 

There's a lot of misunderstanding about this, so I'll explain a little for those that are interested. Also, this is my profession, so I'm not a "Wikipedia Expert".

Continuous fiber reinforced plastics are composed of both long fibers and some kind of matrix material such as a polymer plastic, which is why we call them "composite materials". Carbon fiber itself is a textile, and just like any other fabric it is a floppy material that is made up of fibers. Carbon fibers, however, are extremely strong and rigid in tension in comparison to, say, wool fibers or cotton fibers, and significantly more rigid even in comparison to glass fibers (fiberglass). Just like bending a phone book, the fibrous fabric does not become rigid in bending until it is laminated (preventing shear deformation)

When we say "Carbon Fiber" we are usually referring to continuous carbon fiber, though the term more generally refers to the graphene isotope of carbon (rather than graphite in your pencil, or diamond on your jewelery). This is usually in the form of very thin fibers (filaments) that are bunded together in the thousands to make 'tows', just like a strand of wool, but not twisted. The tows can be woven like a basket to make a fabric that has that pretty looking pattern you see used on the surface of some aftermarket car bonnet (hood), or on the top of an 'Ferrari' branded laptop.

However, it is increasingly common now to use unidirectional carbon and laminate layers in differing directions depending on the loading, rather than to laminate a 0/90 woven fabric. The woven fabric is not quite as stiff as the unidirectional because of the waviness required to go over and under the perpendicular fibers. The dry fabric unidirectional fibers are held together by a stitch or a scrim bonded to the back prior to manufacture. Indeed, the faint glue-striped scrim on the back of the carbon used for the VAIOs I've seen is what causes the ripples you see perpendicular to the fiber direction. I haven't seen the newest Z up close, so they may be using a scrimless fabric these days, definitely had it on my old SZ. A picture of the glossy finish was posted a few days ago and it looks to me that they now use a scrimless fabric. Here is an example of a double diagonal scrim (diamond shapes instead of stripes) on a roll of dry continuous fiber carbon:


We can also get carbon as short fiber (chopped to a few mm) or milled fiber (around 100 microns in length). You can see all the types I've mentioned on this page (a roll of tow then scrimless prepreg, chopped, milled, stitched unidirectional then woven:
http://www.zoltek.com/products/panex35productinformation.php

Now, carbon fiber has to be laminated with a resin (a polymer plastic like epoxy is common), but it is crucial to get the fiber to resin ratio correct for optimum performance (about 70:30 fibers:resin). This is one of the major benefits of vacuum bagging manufacture, as a perforated peel ply can be used with wadding to absorb excess resin under vacuum pressure. There is a better way, however, which involves the resin being pre-impregrated (pre-pregs) into the cloth in an industrial rolling process. This resin does not need a reduced viscosity for the aid of lamination, so is also better in that respect. The secret to prepregs is to stop them from curing when first made - they have a curing retardant and are stored frozen to stop them hardening (it's a thermoset plastic). They are cured in an autoclave (pressurized oven), and are often vacuum bagged as well to create lamination pressure and to conform to a mold.

Milled fiber can be injection molded, and most of the parts on a "carbon fiber" VAIO are made from this process due to their complex shapes. However, the lid is a simple flat surface, and can be made with long fiber cloth like in the picture you see above. This is the real deal. We know this is the case for three reasons: 1) you can see the fiber in the premium models and you can also just see the scrim pushing up the perpendicular ripples on the ones I've seen 2) Sony tell us it's laminated either side of a thin core material, this is not done with injection molding, and 3) Sony tell us the lid is made of "carbon fiber prepreg" and milled fiber is not prepreg. Prepreg is what you see if you follow the link before. Notice that the prepreg there looks exactly like the surface of your premium carbon fiber lid?

People will tell you hearsay like that the lid is just injection molded milled fiber and that the pattern you see on the premium models is just a brushing of the plastic surface. While the other parts are indeed injection molded milled fiber, this is not the case for the outer lid. As the lid is the only part made of long fiber composite it is also the only part of the laptop that is available in the "premium finish".

Hope that helps. Apologies for the heinously long post.

 

J/k Thanks for the info... I know it's used in top end cars so the material must be really good...

 

So you rented the 112 for 255.00 to give us all that great info regarding the SSD tech in the new Z thx.

 

Zoinks, you should charge us. I'll gladly paypal $10 if you post an address.

 

Like I've been saying, I'm impatient

EDIT: I'm going to stop Nvidia Optimus testing, so somebody either needs to take up the cause or it will wait until the VPCZ11FHX/XQ ships.

BTW, the SonyStyle site now says it is back ordered with NO estimated ship date.

 

Like I said, only if you're interested.

 

ooooh! I ordered my VPCZ11FHX/XQ on the weekend. Originally the ship date was 03/31/10 but they've just updated it to 03/23/10

Woo hoo!! hopefully they won't change this on me again

 

I wonder why it takes so long to ship your order, I ordered my Z two days ago when I saw the new driver from Intel. Today it says that it is in production...

 

On the Swedish SonyStyle.se, they have changed the status to "no longer available"??? What does that mean? Anyone seen it before?

I've ordered mine via another retailer, and last I heard the ship date was 25/3.