Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Hey guys,

I've had my Z (i7, FHD, 4x64GB, 3G,...) for a few days now and I am thinking about sending it back.
The fan noise ist just so terribly annoying. When I put maxiumum CPU-Usage to 10% and leave it on Stamina Mode the CPU doesnt get warmer than 40°C even if the fan isnt running (to get the fan to not run i dicovered a strange trick: put the fan-control-mode-function on the function key right to the assist-key and then keep switching modes... the fan will stop running while you keep pressing the key) but even on silence-mode the fan is running ALWAYS... WHY?
Does anyone know how you can fix that?
Otherwise this thing is going back. Even though I dont know what the alternative would be. I guess I will have to wait until some thoroughly well designed Notebook hits the Market.
Would love it if anybody said "you just gotta install that and then you can decide how the fan is controlled..." because I love the screen, and the speed of this little thing.

 

So.... I just got back from my local Sony Style showroom (Orlando Mall at Millenia). Got a chance to play with a "Z" and I must say -- I'm uber jealous of y'all Z owners. That is one pimp-azz laptop! If Best Buy, my shop of choice, carried a more desirable configuration than this, I'd get one on order.

 

One man's (or woman's) fan noise is anothers, errr, non-fan-noise...can we get a final ultimate judgement and verdict for once and for all before I jump from this ledge?

 

Well, I didnt wanna say that the fan is loud. But it sounds like a 50Hz interference noice as if you had a stereo with bad capacitors. And I work in a totally quiet room, so I can hear it allways. I wouldnt mind it beeing a bit louder if it was just a breezing sound.

 

Or maybe a even better description is the sound of a refrigerator.

 

Thanks, Zoinks. I have times where I would not use the battery for a month. What I do is keep the juice flowing by performing a charge cycle once per month.

 

I use Kaspersky--very resource-efficient program, unlike Norton. No bugs so far. Is spyware something that security software can not detect or delete?

 

I'm wondering what's the use of GPS on a Laptop? Does it justify the +$100 cost for verizon?

 

Sounds like you already did this, but set your tri-selector to Stamina and go into the Vaio Control Center. In Power Management, select Power Options. From there, put it in silent mode. This should be for the Vaio Maximum Battery power plan. This should stop the fan.

Do the same for Speed. The appropriate power plan for Speed is Vaio Optimized. Be sure you are adjusting each power plan.

It also sounds like you have something running in the background that consumes CPU. Check task manager and see what is throttling the CPU.

 

Indeed. It sounds like that. Probably annoying if you are going to use it at night/in a very quiet place. On any other environment it's perfectly fine.

 

Unfortunately that doesnt stop the fan. Silence Mode, Maximum Power-Saving, The CPU is at 0% but the fan is still running.

 

Speedfan is generally at or near the top of the list for this sort of thing, although I have no idea if it would be useful on the Z or not:

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

Thanks for the advice, but SpeedFan doesnt recognize the fan of the Z.

 

I've had it for a couple of days, now. I agree with many of the things that others have said.
My config is i5, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD (no SSD/DVD), 1920x1080 res.

My initial comments are:

- Speakers are rubbish - very poor quality, and very quiet. My Thinkpad T61's speakers are much better. I know the machine is relatively small, but given Sony has a name for audio and video, you'd think they'd try to put in slightly better speakers.

- The fan noise is irritating. It's not the standard fan noise - it is a low hum. Though it does means that I can't hear the HDD! As martinring said, there doesn't seem to be any way of turning it off even when the temps are low, except by cycling through the power modes. Fortunately, you don't have the high-pitch CPU whine which you had with the old CPUs.

- The high resolution screen is very bright and very nice. I have 100% DPI, and fonts are perfectly readible if you're not standing back from the machine. The colours are a bit too saturated for films - but I've seen comments on that before - it seems to be what you get with the high gamut screen and I think it can tweaked. But note that, while not completely reflective, it is a glossy screen - it's not a matt screen like the previous Z.

- With min brightness and just browsing, it seems to be eating about 12mW, which equates to about 7.5hrs on the high capacity battery.
- Build quality seems fine, and it looks nice even with the standard black cover.

 

Interesting and somewhat worrisome.

The folks in the Lenovo forum as also complaining of high-pitched whines from the capacitors. They can apparently make the noise go away when by using the hot USB 2.0 port (powered when off).

I didn't hear this with the i5 model.

 

How hard you think it is to change the 2*2 to 3*3 intel 6300?

 

Kaspersky is good, but I now like ESET NOD32 better.

 

I posted on this a while back. The card will be easily replaced but the 6300 uses 3 antennae while the 6200/6250 uses 2. Japanese models have the 6300 and the 3 wires, so it is doable.

The 6200 works very well, so I'm probably going to leave well enough alone.

 

I think it would be interesting if someone posted a video of noise comparisons. Comparing the noise the Z makes to another notebook/stuff that makes recognizable noise around the house to help you decide... If anyone has the time to do that!!!

 

microsoft security essentials has been a revelation for me.

free, fast, regular updates and low resource use. a perfect companion for windows 7!

 

Eset NOD32 Antivirus or Eset Smart Security - All my research has shown this to be the best package available in terms of efficiency and safety, I use Smart Security personally and have had 0 problems during the past few years.

 

Ok, I've got to ask since I don't see mentioned anywhere: anybody using the standard Microsoft Security Essentials? It does the spy-ware and virus protection, has proven to me to be the most unobtrusive (compared to Norton which I loath nowadays from previous bad experience) and it is completely free, only a download away for all genuine Windows 7 installs.

Am I missing something? Is it really not that good?

Looking forward to the insight!

 

Thank you... looks like I posted too early I was many pages back and nobody seemed to mention it!

let's just say +1

 

I got my Z yesterday, have been testing it since then.

My finding of the constant fan blowing is that it is required to make CPU cool. You can try the following to know why fan has to be on...

Put Z to Stamina, Silent mode, maximum power-saving then use CoreTemp 64 to monitor the temperature of CPU. You will notice notice the temperature will starting to raise from around 40 - 50 then settled at around 65(mine is i7-620). Now if you put your fingers around the exhaust of the fan, you will notice very little heat coming out but the temperature is raising(it will gradually raise not immediately).

Once you put back to Auto mode, maximum performance, the fan will put out a lot of heat, and you will starting to notice the CPU temp. becomes lower, until around 40!

Consider if you turn off the fan, the CPU will overheat almost immediately!

I am a little bit regretting of getting i7, I am thinking of switching to i5-520M instead as it will give me lower temp. and longer battery life. My current battery life using a large battery is around 5:00 hours for regular working condition and reasonable brightness. Of course if you lower the brightness to the lowest, it will last longer but that is not my "regular" working condition, it hurts my eyes.

About the multitouch track pad(stock driver), I found it to be very useful, pinch zoom allows me to browse the web comfortably in firefox, when the content is too small, enlarge and it will remember the zoom setting next time you visit the same website.

About the size? I found the Z's size to be very samll, much smaller than my Lenovo X200 Tablet which is a 12" tablet! I ordered 13" notebook sleeves from Amazon one day before my Z came, I tried the X200's sleeve and it is "Too Large"! When Z is in the sleeve, the sleeve's width and length both are 1 inch longer and wider...Got to return them and order the 11" one.

About the large battery, it makes Z a little bit wobbling when you put your weight down on the two sides of palm rests. I think they can redesign the battery to extend to both sides instead of staying in the middle of the bottom.

The keyboard, although is very easy to type on, not as good as X200's keyboard, I am spoiled by it. But the backlighted keys are very convenient.

The screen, after calibrating using i1, I found the color to be consistent with my Dell's 24inch, when put them side by side showing the same picture, they both will show the exact same color except Sony's color is a little bit deeper, the contrast is also a little bit better, I would encourage everyone to re-calibrate the screen as the one comes with is a bit at the warm side.

The SSD is amazing, immediately after I clean re-installed Windows 7, I tested the speed using HDtune Pro, it showed a constant 600Mbps throughout the whole 512GB! However, after using it for whole day today, installing software, tonight I tested it again, it drops down to 550Mbps.

That is my mini-review, hope it can help you decide if you need a 512GB, i7 Z.

 

If you had to exchange your Z, will you really opt for the i5-520 or the i5-540 based on your experience with the i7?

 

Are you guys doing a clean install of Win7? Any performance increase on that?

Actually I had remove all the crapware and I'm feeling great about the speed of this SSD Raids

 

I am sure Core i7 will be faster, but consider this is a "portable" notebook, the main function is portability. I don't want to carry a power brick all the time, if I can get around 7-8 hours of usage per day, then I'll be very happy. I found I constantly switching to Stamina mode trying to make the last bit of juice out of the battery, so why not just settle at i5-520M? I want a Z because it is very light and comparably faster than most of the notebook, if I need to carry a power brick with me, I'll just purchase a HP i7-820Q machine with 18" screen! That is my thought process, which one will you choose depends on your application.

I have a Quad core desktop with 20TB storage at home, if I need to process things quicker, I'll use my quad core machine. Z is just my on the go, on demand machine to process some light works quicker.

 

Yes, it did speed up the system a bit. When I first got it, I can only get 450MBps, now I am getting 550MBps after installing all the software I need.

I think the throughput above 400MBps are all fast enough, the difference between 550MBps and 450MBps is not significant at all. I need to clean install to upgrade my home premium to Enterprise.

By the way, the fan is really noisy especially when compared to my X200 tablet which is almost always dead silent, it is very annoying.

 

Anyone have the docking station? Can you do say dual monitors, 1920x1200 off of the DVI-D and something lower off of the VGA?

 

I having issues with the bluetooth mouse staying connected. I'm using the Sony VGP-BMS77 and it will just stop after a couple of hours then after a few minutes it reconnects.

Not a good thing while working. I'm having to go back to my usb mouse for reliability.

 

What tool are you using for HD tests?

I'm wishing I did some sound recordings on the i5 before I returned it. It was very quiet, would have been interesting to compare with the i7. I imagine the heat sink and fan are the same, but I'll tear down my new machine tomorrow night to confirm.

 

Great, Thank you for the information!

 

I hope this isn't going to get worse.. did you install the latest intel driver 9.6?

 

Unfortunantly the Thermal Control Strategy isn't maintained for different modes; it's an overall setting that stays the same for Speed/Stamina/Auto.

Interestingly my Fresh Start doesn't have a "VAIO Optimized" power plan. There's just the basic Performance, Balanced and Power Saver.

Weird. I've noticed that my Z is nearly silent when idling, and very soft when doing basic stuff like web and email. And I'm very picky on fan noise. It's certainly a lot quieter than my SZ.

Now do something intensive and it'll really crank up the fan... but that's to be expected.

Yeah, I've noticed this. A lot of people are complaining about the volume... i don't think the volume is much different than my SZ, but there's almost no mid-range response and zero bass. It's just tinny, tinny, tinny. Also can be overloaded fairly easily if you play anything *with* bass and crank up the volume.

As I mentioned above, I'm OK with the fan noise for general productivity work. I swear it's actually a bit quiter now after a few days than it was when I first got it.

 

haha, no worries!

it's a great piece of software, i reckon everyone should use it. a nice, elegant solution! never used a better antivirus program.

 

with the clean install, it's probably been mentioned before, but how do you rebuild the RAID array?

i've never used RAID before, but have done plenty of clean windows installs.

 

Another bonus - it is free for use for business as well as personal use. Can't say that about almost every other "free" AV software out there.

-Peter

 

I was using a Vaio mouse: VGP-BMS30 which was having problems of timing out after 1 minute. I played with all the power settings to no avail. After 1 minute of non-use it would require moving the mouse for a second or so before it would start registering again. Note that this mouse has always worked perfectly on my Vaio TX.

So I bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000. Works perfectly, no issues. Therefore the vaio mouse has been relegated back to the TX.

Your case seems a little different though. Have you played with the power settings? If not, right click on the battery bar, choose Power Options. Then look at Plan settings | Advanced Power settings. Then see what the Wireless Adapter Settings | Power Saver Mode is set to. The values range from Max power saving to Max performance.

 

Ok, I don't get it: what is everybody doing with their Z to have such a noisy fan all the time???

Is everybody working in super silent environments, or have the DareDevil ultra sensitive hearing? I mean, yes, if I do some heavy video conversion from AVCHD to FLV (which actually was so great to watch with 4 files converting at once and the CPU at 100%, the thing humming quickly thanks to the amazing CPU and the quad raid SSD speed.... ), then the fan kicks it in overdrive and I can definitely hear it... but the rest of the time, unless I get my ear close to the exhaust, I can't hear it. There's always some background noise in the room I am (everything from the hard drive noise from my DirecTV, the air conditioning, birds chirping outside, , etc...) that seems to be noisier than the fan of my Z!

I guess not all the fan settle at the same frequency and maybe I've been super lucky but mine is extremely quiet.

Am I alone there?

 

The fan is audible if you work in a completely silent room. As a matter of fact, the noise can be quite annoying. But as long as their is some ambient noise than the fan is inaudible.

 

What fan ISN'T audible in a completely silent room?

As I mentioned somewhere else today, I swear my Z is quieter today than it was when I first got it on Friday. Perhaps the heatsink compound has had a chance to settle, or the fan has broken itself in and worn off the rough spots. But it's *way* quieter than my SZ when idling.

 

No, mine is like yours. Sometimes I turn on the desktop that sits next to the Z. The fan of the Desktop is about 100 times louder, as is its hard drive. In addition, I have some Iomega backup drives that sit further away from me than the Z does. I hear them spinning as well as there little cooling fans (which are whisper quiet) but I don't hear the laptop unless I get very close to it.

 

You returned the Z112GX/S, which is the i520 and you reported it as being very quiet.

Do you have the Z112GX/S too?

I'd be interesting to find out who here has the i5-520, i5-540, and i7's and report each one's experience with the fan noise. Maybe, it can be determined if there's consistencies among the three.

 

Hey guys,

Finally unpacked my Z. I'm still taking it all in, so I don't have much new to add other than this thing is FAST but one of the first things I did was run Crystal Disk Mark, fresh-out-of-the-box as well as after installing the new Intel RST 9.6 drivers. Results are below. Any reason that could explain why most of the pre-RST benchmarks would be faster than post-RST? Keep in mind that this is a 128x2 configuration, not a quad. In addition, post-RST benchmarks were done after installing the full Adobe CS4 suite, so the available space was slightly less than before.

EDIT: OK, added a 3rd image showing benchmarks with RST write-back cache enabled. Some numbers better, some numbers worse, and still equally perplexing.

 

The fan noise on the vaio z is quiet but it also has a constant buzzing sound that can be very irritating in a quiet room. Most of my previous laptop's fan made more of a whooshing noise rather than a buzzing sound like on the vaio z, which is unfortunate because that's the only thing I don't like about this laptop.

 

I'm having the exact same problem with the exact same mouse. I thought my experience was just a fluke, but it seems that there is a design problem here. You'd think Sony would test their own matching mouse with the Z.

 

No - CTO, i7-620M, 8GB, 512GB.

 

An observation I just made: an external monitor can only be used through the HDMI in SPEED or AUTO mode, not in STAMINA mode (monitor is not discovered if STAMINA mode is active, this applies even if the switch is set to AUTO and battery is not plugged in). VGA should be good to go in every mode, but I haven't confirmed this. It is also stated in the manual that one must set the hybrid graphics swithch to speed/auto if the HDMI is used.

A shame.

 

I also have the exact same problem but with a VGP-BMS10/B.

I also noticed that my keyboard keys get dirty pretty easily...is that normal?

 

@ all Users with mouse-trouble:

I like the Logitec devices, they work on bad underground too!

The VX Nano is the best mouse i ever had, love the additional buttons they have.



You will never hit the extra Buttons, when you dont want to hit..

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/f...ce_presentation_devices/devices/4900&cl=de,de

The newest Model work on Glas too, but the buttons are on the Side, i`m affraid that the User will hit the buttons when he doenst want to do that.