Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

1. Boot time seems to be about 25 sec for me
2. I know the computer is 3 lbs with standard battery. A quick glance at Sonystyle indicates the std battery is 11oz, the extended is 16oz. Therefore the extended would appear to add about 5oz to the weight.
3. The fan is what it is. It is always on. I don't really notice it or hear it. Others seem to feel it is very obtrusive. I guess it depends on your sensitivity to these things. But no. Not silent.
4. Not really. not on a subjective basis (i.e. actually using it). On a purely benchmarking basis: The i7 is 5% faster clock and 1MB larger cache, the quad ssd streams twice as fast as the dual. Trade-off to battery is about equal to the performance gain.

The trackpad is multi-touch

 

Never said it was cheaper.

Swapping the DVD for a 2.5" has the tangible benefit of being possible with parts available now.

Also, Sony is notorious for not reselling parts. Your best bet is usually ebay. Not the most reliable thing you can do.

I would hate for people buy the machine with a notion that they can later upgrade/retrofit to the Sony RAID SSD's. Simple fact of the matter is that you can't. At least not yet.

 

1. I stay away from SetPoint as far as possible.
2. The switch on scroll-wheel is mechanical (can't be remapped).
3. Search button (above scroll-wheel) can be remapped but it is very inconvenient.

I would move to Microsoft mouse if not for them not having step-by-step scroll, i.e. when you are pushing middle button (scroll-wheel) you're likely to accidentally scroll what you were going to click on from under the pointer. Really annoying.

Yes, I'm very picky about mice.

 

I have this exact model (VPCZ11Z9E). I bought it here in Germany. So I might be able to answer your questions

If you get rid of all the junk that sony puts on your Windows then you can expect a booting time of around 30 seconds or even less. It really is very quick. And the best of all is, that when you logged in you can immediately use the system unlike on a hdd-laptop where you have to wait for all the hdd-activity to settle.

Cant help you with that one. I got the normal battery and the battery life is about 4 hours in stamina mode if you put everything on powersaving. You can actually run the CPU very slow and still get enough performance for surfing the web and doing office stuff.

Have to disapoint you on that one. I am still really thinking about sending my Z back because I allways work in a absolute quiet room and the fan noise is very irritating to me (sounds like a refrigerator). That seems to be very subjective as many in this forum dont seem to have a problem with the fan noise. If you work with some ambient sound around you then you probably wont notice the fan as its not very loud. I still find it annoying that the fan is running ALWAYS... even on silence mode and powersaving mode. Another thing is the stressing fan-control which constantly adjusts the fan noise when the cpu is working. That is even more annoying than a louder but constant noise. But as mentioned: that is just my opinion.

Dont know that. As said I have the i7/QuadSSD config and I can just say its really fricking fast!!! But I cant compare it to an i5

There is some basic multitouch capabilities (as allmost every synaptics touchpad has with the new drivers)

 

Thanks for this feedback!
Well, it looks very nice, except for the fan.
I used to be sensitive to this but the place where I live now is less quiet, so that it doesn't matter as much.
Still, this is definitely an issue...given that I come from a Mac that is very quiet...

 

Hmm, I'm looking at your avatar and this statement, and I really want to say something that relates them

 

Not sure what to tell you about the fan. I don't notice it that much, but then again I have a Dell next to me that is twice as noisy as this one So I think it is all what you are used to. I never had a Mac, so I ahve no clue if this is more or less quiet.

 

It is under Vaio Control, Power Management->Power Options

 

Anyone having occasional ssd stuttering w/their Z? I haven't noticed it normal operation or when playing LFD2 / BFBC2 but when playing Plants vs Zombies of all things it get a random stall that takes about a second or 2 to clear. All the plants/zombies freeze and i can move the mouse cursor but nothing happens until it comes back in. :\

 

Ok, I get your point that you dislike SetPoint but actually you CAN remap the middle button. I have a MX Revolution and I use the middle button as usual.

 

Well, I guess I will have to try for myself then!

Oh, by the way, I know Sony is in the habit of filling its laptops with a lot of junk.
Do you advise me to do a clean install of Windows 7 when I receive it?
I see that there is no Windows 7 DVD attached. Is there a recovery partition or something like that???
Thanks!

 

does anyone know how to do this?? I need help

 

Check your thermal control strategy located in the vaio control center. Change it to either balanced or high performance if it isn't already. I had the exact same problem and it turns out that the gpu was getting throttled so that the temperature would not get past 80 degrees C.

*Edit*: Are you sure the whole computer freezes for a few secs or is there a sudden dip in frame rate?

 

what is the junk that you recommend removing??

 

Well I did a clean install of w7 and just installed the drivers from the sony site. The clean windows defenetely boots much quicker. Cant remember what was installed originally but as I dont miss anything it seems to be pretty useless.

 

Anyone finds out how to rotate screen? I can't rotate my external screen to vertical...

 

Also, does anyone has any problems with your USB port? I found my USB ports all have loose contact problems. Initially I thought it is because of Stamina mode, but this afternoon I found during my removing my USB connection, the USB drive will show up for a blink of time then prompt for format! I then carefully reinsert it to the port, and it shows up normally. However, if I insert it all the way in, Z cannot see my USB drive! The USB drive works fine on my other three computers.

 

I tried changing the thermal modes. Unfortunately, the "silent" thermal mode is not silent.

Maybe that's why they bundle noise-cancelling headphones, to cancel out the noise of the fan

 

Not sure what the OP had in mind but I would take stuff like Vaio Care, Vaio update, Vaio content folder watcher, Vaio Entertainment Database Service, etc...

Anybody else has an exhaustive list with corresponding programs maybe?

 

What configuration is your Z? i5-520, i5-540 or i7?

 

I wonder if this has to do with the USB Selective Suspend setting. I believe it is enabled by default? You could also try going into Device Manager and disabling the setting that lets Windows power the device down.

There are actually only 3 Windows power schemes, as they are shared between modes. So if you assign "Balanced" to both Auto and Stamina, the settings will be identical between the two modes as they're sharing the same profile (except for the unconfigurable Sony setting that selects video cards).

Also, the Thermal Strategy setting is NOT saved on a per-mode basis; it is an overall setting like backlit keyboard and auto screen brightness. So if you're in Auto Speed and have the Thermal Strategy on Balanced, and then switch to Stamina and set the Strategy to Silent, when you go back to Auto Speed the strategy will still be set to Silent.

I'm fairly certain that the headphones are a stock items on all models. Unless maybe if you have the HDD model and this was another cost cutting method. But in North America, all models include the headphones plus 2 alternative sets of rubber cups.

In response to the noisy fan comments, I have an i7 CTO and find the fan very quiet. It's true the fan has more of a "whirring" sound than most laptops, but it's nonetheless a lot quieter than my SZ when idling (and a lot noisier when being pushed to the limits).

 

Haven't seen anybody ask this. It seems obvious, but: On the Signature, does it say anywhere on the box or the laptop itself that it's the Signature series?
Usually limited stuff like that have some kind of engraving, does this?

 

Responded to you in the other thread but, in short, no, you get the same box as the CTOs (at least in the US)

 

The mouse stops working while I'm using it, not during periods of inactivity. It's happened 3-4 times already.

 

Hi all

Here's a short clip that shows the Option GlobeTrotter Express 442 on my vaio Z.
This card (and the 441) are the first 3G Express cards that you can truly plug & forget in your laptop

Sorry for posting this on the New Z lounge, but i got this new 3G Data card to be used with my New Z, which is taking forever to arrive, so I demoed it with my soon to be old Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ARUrtcFa0E

 

sorry mate , but lets not assume... before I bought the lappie, i went to the local Official Sony repair and asked about the ability... they told me 4 weeks after order and the cost was 60% of the premium that the "retailer" was charging people because SSD was in the description

you see here there is no "Retail Price" they make it all up, all sony enforces is "Should not be sold below this price XX", when Laptops have the latest "Bits" , then the retailers charge more than the minimum, based on how new it is and what Buzz words it contains...

So Buying it with the HDD and the carrier + "Spare parts (SSD+Cable) from repair center) was cheaper than teh other way around !!. I even checked what a new top cover (Black) and a new touch-pad (Black) would cost and availability.

As i already also changed a English/Arabic keyboard for a German one on an SR via the "European" repair center 2 years ago (4 weeks after the SR became available), I already know that the RETAILER and the REPAIR centers are not linked and that if the retailer states "No Not Possible"... then it is in deed possible and easy..

 

Possible solution to the intermittent cut out of the Sony bluetooth mouse VGP-BMS77 and maybe some other brands.
Go to services - Bluetooth support service - Right click – properties - Click log on tab - Change Log on as “this account” to “local system account” I also checked the box- allow services to interact with desktop (not sure what that will do) and changed from manual to automatic setting. So far (45 minutes) my bluetooth mouse has not disconnected from the Z.

 

Gone are ...

Media Gallery
PMB VAIO Edition
Adobe® Premiere® Elements 8
Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8
VAIO Media plus
60-Day Trial Version of Microsoft® Office Professional 2007
VAIO Gate
WebCam Companion
Magic-i™ Visual Effects,
McAfee PC SecurityCenter 30-day Free Trial
Webroot® Spy Sweeper® 90-day Free Trial
Norton™ Online Backup 60-day Free Trial

+ all Windo$ Live crap-ware

Remains

VAIO Control Center
VAIO Battery Care Function
VAIO Care
VAIO Recovery Center
VAIO Update
VAIO Transfer Support,
Protector Suite 2009
Infineon TPM Professional Package

+ VAIO "Drivers"

Added

Office Pro 2007
Google App Sync for Outlook
Microsoft Security
FireFox
Thunderbird
SyncToy
Safari
iTunes
MobileMe
DropBox
EPM Pro
Battery Bar (Floating)

(Killed auto load @ startup of any of the above little helpers via MsConfig)

After removing the "Bloat" and even after loading the above... now cool and quite and "Lost" around 20 Services running in the background...

Battery now at idle 6:45 (BatteryB) 5:30 (Win 7) real time Office + Outlook + web (CPU set at max 75% on Batt)... real 6:30... longer as I "put" it to sleep when not needed ~15min during the day

so quite happy actually can be "on the road" around the office all day without charging, come home and put on charge ready for the next day.

I hate having to keep unplugging the charger from the wall in my office and taking it back and forth to home, so have one in office just in case , but its in the drawer!!

all in all a worthy replacement for my old Z (first gen), as keyboard better, cooler, now multi touch + two finger scroll (use mainly mac's out of work) and "haptic" feel nicer.. and any way after ~2 years needed a change.

Read some where here that its the "Macbook" of the windows world... after a week I agree... it even makes using windo$ a "nearly" painless endeavor...

To help stretch the Batt I loaded 'Adblock Plus" + "No Script" as ad-dons in firefox to stop Ads and reduce Flash... as these eat the battery !!!


Kept VAIO Gate for the moment but will probably drop for "Rocket Dock" as it gives me the best near MAC experience ... that is as soon as they are x64 compatible

 

Very interesting. Which mobile operator do you use it with? It supports AWS2100 which suggests it should work with T-Mobile USA. How much did you pay?

 

Yes there is a recovery partition. If you make a recover CD, thenyou can do a reinstall. During that reinstall, they ask if you want all the bloatware or not. Just say no and it goes away. That is what I did, th Sony stuff is still on there (Sony Care, Drivers, etc.), but it is a lot less. Plus I personally want the sony control center, makes it easier to do the settings.

 

Your approach is a much easier method of doing a clean install. Thanks. Did you have to reload any drivers beyond this stage from the Sony Site? Or was this it - just simply reinstalling from the recovery discs. Will it specifically ask you if you want the " Bloatware" or not? I've just never seen this in any of my Vaio Recovery Discs.

 

will do

I actually held a Z in my hands today, beautiful!

Same price as the HK one but lower specs
i5
4Gb RAM
1600x900
256GB SSD (64x4)

Tempted ... but I can wait a little longer for the higher specs at the same price

 

Yes it also happened to me while working with the mouse.

However, yesterday I repaired and reinstalled the mouse and it has been working fine since then with no disconnects....knock on wood.

 

What affect will having my screen setting on 40hz have and how much will this help my battery life? also when looking for a sleeve wouldnt it be better to buy a bigger sleeve (not to big, maybe a 13.3 non mac sleeve) so when the z is inside there isnt to much pressure on the screen?

 

Hey Izzy,

I saw the same thing from a post from Zoink before (can't find it anymore unfortunately) and I'm trying this right now on my new Z. I burned the recovery disks and was trying a system restore from it but I never saw the screen asking me if I wanted all the "extra software" off... and in fact, it's been actively reinstalling it for the last 20 minutes (Office Trial, Norton, etc...)

Do you have hands on experience with this? Do you know how to get there? I booted my system with the recovery disks and went into recovery: is this the correct method?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

UPDATE: ok, I found the post. It is # 2100
I know need to figure out how to get it, I guess the full recovery option (number 3, deletes all other partition) vs just the Disk C: restore...

UPDATE 2: but that screen is not present on my recovery center!!!! It looks like you have a different version of the software than the one that came on the signature model! I don't have an option to *not* reinstall the bloatware! If I select 'Restore Complete System', it offers to delete the recovery partition thus only allowing re-install from the DVDs. BUT it will STILL re-install all of the bloatware !!! Nice Sony

 

To Treofred,

Did you made recovery dvd with sonys program? I believe it is needed to do with their program to get option to skip the crapware in recovery.

 

I don't have a Z yet, but I may get one in the next few days so that I am interested in this issue as well.
So, the first thing to do once I get one is to burn a recovery dvd with a special program by Sony right? Which program?
Then, I can delete the recovery partition right?

 

You burn the recovery CD's through VAIO recovery center which comes preinstalled on the laptop.

 

Sure did. What's interesting is that Zoinks mentioned that creating the recovery disks only took one DVD-DL for him. In my case, the disks took TWO DVD-DL (or would have taken three DVD single layer...)

Something is definitely different

I'll take a snapshot of the screen next time to show the differences. I'll also check the version of the VAIO Recovery Center that came with my machine (can't check it right now, it is recovering and I'm using my old VAIO.)

 

digging through the system (and my registry), I've found a lot of things. Most of them are disabled but I'll share it with you anyway. Let me know if you find anything of value here or something else to investigate.

- Disable the windows Prefetcher:
* Start > Run > Regedit
* Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
* Set the "EnablePrefetcher" value to 0.
* Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
* Set the "EnableSuperfetch" value to 0.

- Disable Readyboot:
Launch the "Performance and information tools" program (from the Control Panel). On the left side, click 'Advanced tools'. In the next screen, click 'Open performance monitor' Then on the lefthand side of your screen click "Data Collector Sets", and underneath that heading click "Startup Event Trace Sessions". Now on your righthand side you'll see a list that includes ReadyBoot, and you'll see the word 'enabled' beside the word 'Readyboot'. Double clicking the list item brings up the ReadyBoot Properties dialog. This dialog has a number of tabs. Pick the "Trace Session" tab. Finally, uncheck the "Enabled" checkbox on that tab.

NOTE: This was already 'Disabled' on my system

- Disable the Disk defragmenter in services

In Control Panel, go to Administrative tools then Services. Find the 'Disk Defragmenter Service' and set the Startup Type to 'Disabled'.

Now, you'll probably notice that a lot of this is either already off or manual in your current system. And after some research, I actually found this engineering blog document from the guys that developed Windows 7 at Microsoft. It is pretty re-assuring and explains a lot of things imho.

Take a look and let me know what you think:

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/200...rives-and.aspx

 

That's interesting, mine took FOUR DVD single layer... VPC-Z116GG

I can't find my recovery center version...

 

Ok, so now that my restore has completed (and brought me back a new VAIO Z exactly as it was at purchase, with all the bloatware ), I went back to look in the various section of the recovery center to see what it looked like. And the screen that Zoinks showed from the Z he bought at a Sony Style store is nowhere to be found.

Here's a step by step from booting the system of the Recovery disks:

Windows boot manager on the disk


Loading the mini-windows 7 environment to run the Recovery center


The main screen and various options of the recovery center:


TAKE 1:

if we click the first option (C: Driver recovery), we get the following screen. Note the sentence 'reinstalls ALL preloaded software'


If we go ahead with this option, we get a transition screen asking us to try to the diagnostic first to fix our PC. The 'Skip' option at the bottom is checked


And the last screen (before we can click start) warns us that the C: drive will be reformated, everything will be deleted and ALL preloaded software will be re-installed


TAKE 2:
Ok, this time we go for the option to Restore the complete system. Note that once again, all factory installed software will be restored


Once again, we get a transition screen suggestion we try diagnostic first or just the C: Drive recovery (since both are faster normally)


Forging ahead, we get a new screen asking if we want to keep the VAIO Added Value Content. But really, it's asking if we want to keep the hidden partition with that stuff or get more space by just leaving this on our DVD, which means we'll need them for any future restore. Note that either way, everything is restored. Note also the confusing lingo that seems to imply that the Windows Operating System is in the VAIO Value Added Components (Whaaaat??? )


Since we're repartitioning the whole thing, the system wants to know if we want to increase the C: Drive size by taking over the recovery partition space


And finally we're ready to go and get everything back as it was at the factory, including ALL pre-installed software


So, Zoinks and everybody else that has been through those screens, where should the one with the option NOT to reinstall all the bloatware be? I checked the version of Recovery Center included on my machine and it is the latest one (marked 5.0.3.1130, released 3/5/2010). What version do you have on your machines?

And BTW, as I mentioned and contrary to what I've read in other thread, you need 3 DVD or 2 DVD Dual Layer to create the Recovery Disks. Now, I don't doubt everybody else, but what has been added to make it that much bigger? Is it only for the Full HD Signature model???


Looking forward to everybody's insight on this.

Thanks

Update: and while I was posting this, duck13 mentioned he needed 4 DVDs for his recovery disks... I can imagine a few differences (Verizon Manager for people with WWAN card in the US, Corel WinDVD BD for the BluRay Drive, etc..) but that's not that many gigs really...

 

Me too, I should receive my Z tomorrow, and this is what I was intended to do first. But if it doesnt help to remove unnecessary progs, I have to find some other way...

 

I have an option of burning 4 dvds or 2 DL dvd in the recovery center.

 

If I was to take a guess... Perhaps you only get the don't-reinstall-bloatware option if you paid for 'fresh start' (and thus you get that option enabled in Vaio recovery center)...???

 

My Canadian CTO with Fresh Start took 1 DL DVD. And it's not full either.

Switching subjects, I had initially commented that the battery on my Z11 felt pretty solid... but now that I've started carrying it around, I've realized that it's actually rather... rattly. Just in different directions than my SZ; it's more of an up-and-down motion. So, as with my SZ, I've strategically placed 4 sticky felt pads and now it fits securely without any unwanted movement.

 

I find it odd that you wouldn't have mentioned this in the first few messages, but if you can get the Sony SSD's at 60% off, then this is a great deal. Not sure I buy it, but do post when you get it.

 

Whether you get pre-installed "trial" versions of things like Microsoft Office and Norton Speedkiller does make a difference, I would think.
Personally, I don't see how anyone puts up with OEM bloat like that -- it's not like any of those apps will uninstall cleanly and completely.

 

My Z1 came in yesterday.

Apparently the recovery media is different between Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate.

Ultimate takes three DVD's while Pro took two. The "cleaner" option isn't available with Ultimate. Also, you can't burn the recovery media to BluRay, which I find silly.

Initial impressions:

1. I love the glossy finish, smooth and beautiful. I may just opt to put a few coats of car wax on it instead of covering it with 3M clear protective film.
2. The FHD screen is glorious. Might sound strange, but it makes the machine feel larger than it is. The extra real estate is fantastic. Colors and viewing angles are about the same as with the 1600x900. The FHD might be a bit dimmer at max brightness as well, but I expected this.
3. I think the i7 is a bit louder than the i5 under load. I don't have an opinion whether or not it is a problem yet.
4. The grey anodized aluminium has a slight purple hue under some lighting, kind of like it.
5. The machine takes longer to post than the Z11. I'm attributing this to the 4x128GB drives taking longer to initialize than 2x64GB's.
6. Wholly crap, the SSD's are FAST. Unbelievable

 

By the by, the new version of NIS 2010 is MUCH faster than previous versions. I haven't noticed any performance degradation by running it. I am running it on my desktop and the Sony.

I also use Office, so I simply uninstall the eval and reinstall the Enterprise bits I own along with Visio 2007 and Project 2007.

I'm still a fan of clean installs, but keep in mind that these laptops are horribly, mind-numbingly fast. Don't worry about it too much.

Lastly, did anybody see the note to turn the wireless switch off when reinstalling from the recovery disks? Says that the GOBI adapter might not be recognized if you don't. I read this after reinstalling last night with the switch turned on. No problems with the WWAN, but I haven't activated it yet. I'm about ready to make a decision about canceling my Sprint service to go with Verizon.