Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Looks like we need a new video driver. The Nvidia driver has crashed twice

HTML:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Display
Date:          3/30/2010 4:31:26 PM
Event ID:      4101
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Zoinks-Z1
Description:
Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

 

This happened to me, but I wasn't watching a video or anything. I don't remember what I was doing, there was no noise or anything though. Just went blank. I thought maybe it overheated or something.

 

Yeah, I just have the regular 1600 by 900 screen, as well. The video I was playing was 1080p though...

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who's experienced this. Hopefully we can get an updated driver soon.

 

I thought perhaps the conflict in resolution would be at play, but Zoinks has pointed out the driver.

 

Anyone have random graphic glitches with BFBC2? It's usually when i'm in the menu and quickly in the game once i get back out of the menu. Doesn't happen in L4D2 :\

 

Just to clarify, both screens are 16:9 aspect ratio. One is 1600x900 resolution, and the other is 1920x1080. So best to use the resolution when describing it, ie. 900 or 1080.

Funny, I've been doing a ton of video tests without issue, but admittedly mostly on battery power, so I'd be using the Intel card.

 

Oh good, I'm not the only one. Sometimes when I close the laptop lid and open it up again, the screen is dead. Like, I'll fall asleep listening to music, then when I open the screen, the music is still playing but I can't see anything. I have to force-restart it to get it to come back on again. It's only happened maybe twice or thrice.

 

Ive read a lot of posts about people wanting to do a clean install after making the Sony recovery DVDs. I remember when I was playing with my custom order before I decided to buy the sig series that you could only choose the fresh start on the machines that had win 7 pro. Fresh start could not be added as an option if u wanted win 7 ultimate. So it would make sense to me that the reinstall screen without bloatware could be SEEN only by those that had win 7 pro. Thats probably how they do it before they send out the machines where folks added fresh start. The folks that got the sig series and have ultimate will not be able to see the screen asking for the reinstall without the bloatware. Someone may have already said this but I figured I would mention again. I am getting mine on Thursday and wish I could do the easier reinstall but as I said I went for the sig series and it has ultimate so the long way for me. LOL

 

I am having the same problem, this is happening at a minimum once a day. The bigger problem is that it sometimes happens in my sleeve in my laptop bag and the computer comes out HOT... maybe when it goes from sleep->hibernate... not sure.

Also having the Nvidia display crash at least twice a day.

This is on a fresh install of windows ultimate.

 

Can someone please tell me from where I can download Intel Rapid Storage (RST) drivers? A link would help! Also, I'm not exactly sure how to do the steps 2 and 3.

 

I only required one DL DVD to create the backup. I have the Fresh Start edition and perhaps that's the difference.

 

To the person who was bothered by the noisy fan....I should have listened to you. I received my z1 today, and took it to my college library....drove me nuts. This may end up going back. Sad really - it's perfect otherwise, but it's hard to study with this thing droning in the background.

 

Download them from here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=15251&lang=eng

You need: STOR_allOS_9.6.0.1014_PV.exe

#2 is enable write-back cache:
Start the Intel Rapid Storage app. Click on Manage | Advanced
There you will see the enable for write-back cache.

#3 is virtualization: This only provides a benefit if you will be running the Windows XP virtualPc option, or else VmWare, Parallels, VirtualBox...
Turn it on in the BIOS. There are only two things you can set there (this is the 2nd one)

 

I have to agree with the fan noise...it's not the fact it's on/pushing air but the way it'll subtly rev up and down depending on load. A better way is to have a threshold system where up to 50 degrees, no fan. Half fan thereafter to 65 degrees, then after that full speed. Going back, full speed would off at 60, half fan would off at 45. This would smooth out the transitions and spikes in load and would also give you time to get used to it (I think almost all other machines do this!).

The second most annoying thing is the motor noise that gives off a low hum, a bit like the macbook moo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPzlIkBnGs but this is much louder. Incidentally, the mooing was solved with a firmware update. If the fan is pulse-width modulated, supplying a different shape of pulse may also solve the issue here.

I think the fan resonates inside the case a bit too, amplifying the motor noise. The way to make it quieter is to put some kind of suspension between the fan and the case like silicone. I did this with some cheap PC fans that resonated in my desktop case and it's much quieter now. Naturally this would void warranty though.
It's a bit of a shock when you come from a reasonably silent dell, lenovo, samsung, hp.....

In the mean time, setting vaio control to performance rather than silent keeps the fan on more so you get used to the noise rather than it revving up as much.

 

Just some findings from my kill a watt, I removed the battery from Z before I did the experiment.

At Stamina, silent mode, the wattage is around 15W-26W, 80% of the time at around 16W-19W. When scrolling web pages, the wattage may boost to 26W at peak, most of the time around 21W-23W.

At Speed, silent mode, the wattage is around 21W-41W. 80% of the time around 21W-23W. When scrolling web pages, the wattage may boost to 41W or higher at peak, most of the time around 35W-36W.

Notice, during these experiments, I was just doing regular activities like browsing using wireless, screen brightness set the three, typing and listening to music.

My battery is 85W (large), so if in average I use 20W, the battery will last 4 hours or so, just like my experience!

Mine is i7.

 

That's good data. Thanks for that.

 

when i click on vaio update, it says "cannot acquire the config settings for vaio update" and it fails to show any updates. Any way to make it work ? Thx

 

Everyone has this. However I think I'm so far the only person to report that, this weekend, it automatically downloaded and applied 2 updates (without me manually checking).

 

Cool. Yes mine is working now also. Clicking on Vaio update showed:
Event Service Update
Peripherals Update

 

One funny note: This thing boots so quickly, that a cold boot is almost faster that resuming from hibernation on my 8GB unit. Cold boot is just under 30secs, system resume from hibernation is about 25.

 

crossposting to see on How to switch off auto brightness in the FULL HD screen? I want to increase brightness further. do i have to change all the power plans to do that? Thx

Edit: found it in vaio control center. Guess time to sleep

 

I wonder if anyone would mind making a similar video for the z? I just ordered mine 2 days ago, and now I am kind of worried seeing how my main use of this laptop will be in quiet study areas for the next few years.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post it.

I was just looking at the "Unboxing" of your Silver Z Thread, and it dawn on me, it reminded me of my first Vaio - The Z1. It was also Silver with Black and had that same Green Power Light - I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden 'till now I was drawn to the Silver, even after I had made a decision on the Prem. C. Black.

Thanks. Can't wait to try it.

I noticed from your signature that you have the base Z. Others, that have the same model, claim it to be very quiet. Confusing ???

 

Same thing has happened to me also 3 times now. Was watching The Pacific episodes 720p with VLC player and suddenly the screen turns in totally black and fan starts to make loud noise. Nothing helped except pushing power button for some seconds to turn laptop off.

e: I have FHD screen.

 

Weird. I tried to trigger some video problems tonight and couldn't.

 

Zoinks,

What is the driver version that is installed on your laptop? I have a slight suspicion that we might have a newer version in Europe.

Btw, what does pressing the Vaio button do on your machine? Mine mutes, I have to figure out how to change this.

Also, nitpicking perhaps, but looking at your sig it says 128GB quad-raid - how is that possible? Mine is 256, which makes way more sense. A typo I guess?

 

What is the fan noise like on the new Z series?

 

According to some, quieter than a dead mouse in a vacuum. Others say it is akin to rampaging elephants on coke.

 

It's the full model with 512GB comprised of 4x128.

 

I'm not sure I get the fan noise variations I've seen reported. I have a nearly fully loaded i7 Z and it seems to be getting quieter as I go. Right now I've been surfing the web for a couple of hours with it in Auto Speed mode on my lap, and the buzzing of the 42" LCD TV's power supply across the room is about four times noisier than the fan on this (of course the TV is muted).

Turn the TV off and all I can hear is the furnace blower running. It's not that I'm deaf or something - I have an SZ and it produces a noticeable amount of fan noise doing the same sort of task... but this is a small fraction of that.

 

I can confirm that they've quietly put different drivers up for download. My UK Z11 came with 188.80 drivers, and the latest ones on the UK site under "Preinstalled Drivers and Utilities" are 188.81... not that it helps me at all with what I want (CUDA 3.0 support) but they're later than what I have, so thanks

 

I'm not the best person to give Nvidia driver versions. I'm working on getting Optimus functional.

The Vaio button mutes the speakers.

My sig is a bit misleading, it is 4x128GB drives equaling 512GB. I'll change it.

 

These nvidia driver crashes... Is it only when doing HD playback..? (Is DivX playback still ok..?)

 

Mine crashed twice with the error posted previously.

I was just browsing the interwebs with Chrome both times.

 

I watched the New Moon last night in 1080P, no hiccups, no problems. The only problem I found is the heat generated by the machine, it is hot! No matter what mode you are at. In Stamina, the CPU load is a constant 80%, so I think Intel HD works for 1080P, the power consumption is 28W. While playing video, I switched to Speed mode, the CPU usage drops to around 5% but the fan and heat is almost unbearable. It also consumes a lot more power - 35W. If you are thinking of using Z on airplane for a long trip watching video, it won't last long even if you have a large battery.

 

Or rather, if you plan to watch movies on a long trip, you'd better re-encode them to a lower quality to extend battery time.

 

Firstly, I apologize for you having to endure New Moon. We thank you for your test, but cannot return the 2 hours of your life you spent testing.

This sounds on par with behavior on the old Z. I watch movies when flying and put my hand next to the exhaust to diffuse the hot air being ejected. Nothing worse than having some strange man's laptop blowing on you.

 

I received my Vaio Z last friday and I'm loving it! I was going to wait for the newer Quad SSD models, but I really wanted to run JBOD with trim support and I didn't want the full 1080 screen resolution in a 13" screen... squinty!

I went with the i7 with 8G ram since I do a lot of vmware testing, and 256G SSD (2x128, which I broke the Raid0 to 2 separate drives).

Question: can anyone in this thread recommend a good computer case for the Vaio Z? Here's my basic criteria:

1. high quality construction, fits vaio Z well with regular and extended battery
2. Messenger bag or backpack...either are fine with me
3. Overall, a smaller bag than one that would fit a standard laptop... with most things moving digital (ebooks, music, etc) I need less and less room to carry things.

 

Sorry to tell you this, but TRIM's function in JBOD is the same as with a RAID0 volume.

Whether or not TRIM is working with 9.6 is still debatable, but breaking the RAID volume doesn't change the fact that the BIOS is set to RAID. You will use the RAID driver regardless. Currently, this cannot be changed.

 

By the by, I watched Star Trek on bluray last night. No video issues what so ever.

 

Wow, what a revelation! I just turned the DPI setting to 100 % on my 1080P screen, you know, just for testing purposes... and I love it! Finally the supersized Office 2007 ribbon is of manageable size. Everything is so nice and small. No longer those stupid big icons take the whole screen estate in every program.

On the downside, yes, in some programs some fonts are quite diminutive. But I think I may actually leave the DPI at 100 %. I encourage everyone with the 1080P screen to at least try it! If you don't like it, you can always go back...

 

Totally agree aBE-One, 100% is what I will be using.

I've been using a Z with the 1600x900 screen for a long time. The FHD makes the laptop feel bigger than it is. The smaller text makes the keyboard appear bigger and the extra real estate makes apps like Outlook much more usable.

IMO, the FHD screen is the best feature of the Z1 and this comes from a storage junky. I'm really loving it.

 

Urghh..
I ordered 1600x900, but now I regret, if 1080P is usable, I would prefer that (photo editing). But I was unpatient and ordered the CTO from US (well actually I thought it was full HD).

I should have waited, and rather bought it at from/in Sweden (and also get a scandinavian keyboard). Sadly I got no/poore response from som internet shops in Sweden (regarding shipping to Norway), so I ordered from US. (I live i Norway, where Sony doesn't sell computers). This would also have been cheaper, due to the specs (i7, 6GB, 256GB, FullHD,CD/DVD. I ordered CTO: i7, 8GB, 384GB, CD/DVD, 1600x900). I could have lived with full HD, 6GB and less SSD space..

I would also consider canseling the CTO and get a signatur collection full spec computer, if they would allow that. But I see the shipping date is now 4/15 (bakcorder). So I guess perhaps not.. (My order says 4/2).

Still can't wait though, and I just got a 22" 1920x1200 Eizo S2243W monitor for photo-work. Hope this works fine (with HDMI/DVI via docking station).

 

You can cancel the order up until it is being built.

As for font size, it took me a little to get used to 1600x900 because I was not used to that small of print. Now I love it and when I go back to my work PC everything looks HUGE. But I think going straight to 1080 would have been too much.

My fan also went really loud when this happened, which is why I thought it was a heat issue. I haven't been using speed much since then, I will play around with it more.

I have Driver 8.16.11.8880

 

Received my new Z Sig Series last evening. The fonts are definitely squinty....but I just hit Ctrl and the + key to make the webpage bigger and more readable if it is too small.

I am curious about the fan noise that everyone has discussed.....I am not joking about this but I have held my ear close to the keyboard and cannot hear a thing. It is VERY quiet. I wonder why there are so many different reports. I have both batteries...the standard and the Large capacity. I will find out about the lasting times of each today.

All in all this is one great laptop....I still need to install some programs to judge performance....but it seems to be very fast.

I have not installed the HP touchpad software.....the touchpad software in the system isn't all that smooth. Two finger scrolling is not smooth...you have to swipe your fingers to get it to work and it is difficult to scroll.

Is the HP software closer to the smoothness of the MacBook Pro two finger scrolling?

 

There are times when mine gets real loud, but for the most part I'm seeing (er, hearing) the same thing you are: nothing.

I have it sitting on one of those stands with little fans built in and they are the problem, not the Z.

 

I thought someone posted an e-mail from an Intel rep in the other thread that said pass-through TRIM is supported (i.e. JBOD mode).

And also from http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18653:

 

those notebook coolers are typically not level, ie slanted with the front lower than the back.
Isn't this bad for the notebook fan as the ball bearing may wear out unevenly?

 

btw, was a cleaning cloth supplied as part of the accessory for the new z?

 

I didn't get one.