Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Did you set the fonts to 125% what others changes did you do for the fonts to be clear? I have the hd screen too. Thx

 

I don't know how accurate the battery bar is, but sometimes, when I switch from Stamina to Speed, the discharge rate remains the same for around 5 min!

It is really frustrating to see people are getting so many hours of usage while I can't! Suspect tasks I found interesting in my Task Manager are Vmware Authorization Serive, it jumps to 3% from time to time. Daemon-tools Pro Shell Extensions Helper is a constant 1%. Symantec CMC Smc jumps to 3% from time to time.

I guess if I don't install them, I'll get longer battery life.

 

Hey there

please do keep us updated on the whole situation once you hear back from sony technical support...i am to am interested in what your findings are and what sony will do..cause you right to spend so much money on this new vaio z and not have a certain function work as advertised id be angry too..

and your right having your laptop stolen cant be fun and having your sensitive data exposed without being able to secure it would be really bad

anyways keep us updated

 

That's probably normal if you think about it. To calculate the battery time left, it must measure the *average* consumption over a certain period of time. The longer the time, the less the calculated value will fluctuate and will also probably be a more accurate value than if the value hops up and down all the time.

Your first reaction when you find suspects like those should be to google for "VMWare authorization service CPU hog" etc. I have a feeling I've seen that one before. And of course antivirus programs can be very resource hungry.

How about Firefox with your normal tabs open? Doesn't that make it into the top 3-5 processes?

 

The algorithm they use is quite lame, they should weight the most recent usage more like

hn=W*Un+(1-w)*hn-1​

where hn is the usage at time n, hn-1 is the usage at time n-1, W is the current usage weight, and Un is the discharge at time n. This is a recursive algorithm thus it takes all the past usage into account but with less weight. I think Microsoft's battery indicator is more accurate.

Yeah, I'll change VMWare services to manual.

About firefox, I think it is irrelevant as I still want to read those pages even if they are full of flash...

 

I question for all the owners of the new Vaio Z. I currently have an old Z and am looking to upgrade. Would it be advisable for me to jump for this new one?

 

Hi Joseph,

in Firefox, I use AdBlock Plus (to prevent a lot of the annoying ads in the webpages, not sure if it has a Taiwanese subscription), and Flashblock (which prevents Flash from running by default yet still allow me to see all the flash that I REALLY ask for. So I can go to YouTube or Engadget and use it as normal but with much lower power consumption.

Just an FYI

 

Thanks Repeli !

I can also now see the ports ( com3 and a network adaptor) in my device manager after following your instructions.

I've downloaded EarthBridge and I can connect to the device (and start) but I don't seem to get any output - it doesn't pick up any satellites !!

I have a tom tom sat next to the Z and that can get 3 satellites?

any ideas?

 

I'm now a proud owner of the New Z - unexpected, as I wasn't planning on one for another few weeks.

I love the Design. I have the Silver (which Sony should have called Liquid Silver or Metallic Silver - the color is vibrant) and by no means does it resemble a MacBook Pro - the color combination's yes, but as for the design, definitely not - not even at a distance, which is a good thing - pure Sony DNA.

The only thing I've done so far is play around with the "SOUND".
The Sound may be subjective, but I prefer listening to audio (when watching movies) without earphones. In the Taskbar, I right-clicked the Sound Icon and went into "VOLUME CONTROL OPTIONS" and I clicked to"SPEAKER/HP" (which was unchecked) and checked that and increased it to 100% (default was at 60%) and the speakers IMO made a "vast" improvement. I can actually hear the audio across another room and the sound is legible. In fact, I had to lower the volume a tad for the movie and then some for the game that came pre-installed.

The power plug that goes into the Z is just as wobbly as the old Z.

No Screen Flex whatsoever.

As mentioned, I have the Silver and already I can see smudges under a light, so I can only imagine the Prem. Carbon. The Silver will do a good job camouflaging smudges for a brief while.

Programs launches blazingly fast, as many can attest too already.

Later, I'm going to hook HDMI to a Hi-Def TV just to see how it all syncs.

As for Battery Drain, which I don't think anyone has reported. At about 2:15am, battery was charged at 100% and at 9:45am, it went down to 95% with the battery attached, the Z completely shut down, and not plugged of course.

I haven't done anything intense, so the fan noise is very faint and hasn't been an annoyance - can barely hear anything.

I popped in a DVD and coming from an old Z with 1366x768 res., I can tell the difference. What's disappointing though is, I have it at Max. Brightness, It should be Bright-er. There really should be one more level of. Brightness. Someone pointed this out too when they received their Z.

Unfortunately, I had to change DPI to 150%. I don't have issues with sight, but I felt 125% was slightly uncomfortable and would cause eye strain for extended periods. There's a program in "DISPLAY" called "Adjust ClearType Text" - tried it, but not sure if it helped any.

My battery does wobble a little side-to-side, but not front to back.

Overall, I really love the design, built, and quality of the New Z. This Z is so sexy. It's very professional looking and fashion forward -I guess cause it looks more or less like an accessory than a workhorse. It's like a Supermodel with hidden intelligence. The palmrest works for me - not cheap looking. I do have to admit, the Z looks way better in person that in any photos I've seen. The silver, which originally was not the color I would have chosen, really stands out - you can see every detail even the curvature of the hinge area. I'm glad I ended up with this color.

Lastly, I'm concern that this only has 128. Out of the box, it has 88.1GB Space left. I would have opted for 193, but not available in stores, yet. I'm hoping they get one in as I am able to do an exchange without any fees.

I do see a little nick at the edge of the lid - not too noticeable. I wonder if I should exchange it.

 

I do have TPM but I also paid for it. Do you have a CTO or a pre-configured? Should the USA model even have the function standard configured?

 

Yeah, these are the addons I use in FireFox, I think my major problem are Side Bar, VMware, Symantec and screen brightness. If I live with these limitations, I can have long battery life.

Let's move on, don't spend time on these my personal issues.

 

Ok looking into this a bit more I could at first only see the Diagnostics port 9225 on COM4 ( see Image )

I reinstalled the drivers but before I did I changed the file WWAN_setup.bat which starts the driver install to have GPS=1
I can now see an NMEA 9225 port as well

WWAN_setup.bat
...
setup.exe SS=0 WIN7DRIVER=1 GPS=0 DEFAULTIMAGE=9 /q
..

Change GPS to 1

...
setup.exe SS=0 WIN7DRIVER=1 GPS=0 DEFAULTIMAGE=9 /q
..



But I still cant get earthbridge to pick up anything?

This GPS lark is a bit new for me !

 

hello,
digressing a little, if anybody who uses old gen vaio "Z" wants to sell it i would be grateful for contact
([email protected] or pm)

best regards and thanks for replys

 

3 satellites on the tom tom indicates that you are indoors. Go outside and try it.

 

ummm..., no?

 

This is VERY important as bitlocker is about the only true reason to get Win 7 ultimate.

 

Or you can just do it the easy way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHhtgWajPMk

 

Any of the experts here have some insight into killing an amazingly high battery expenditure without a full re-install? 30,000-39,000mW according to battery bar!! So I'm get just over an hour now!!

I'm not too sure what I did, but I'm leaning towards doing a fresh install. Originally with the factory config I managed to get about 3:30/4:00 hours without really activating any major power saving features. I see by actually taking down the refresh, disabling aero etc that it can be increased up to 7 hours, especially with undervolting.

However, after just installing ms office, adobe cs4, and a powerfolder sync client, I now get this massive battery drain--even when these tasks aren't running! The fan also seems to be running on its highest speed, even when I try turning down the thermal mode to silent.

Any ideas how I can rectify this without necessarily going for a full reinstall? I tried creating a separate account without all the startup tasks etc and the battery expenditure is still high at 27,000mW.

I was hoping to optimize the Z like you guys, trying to squeeze out the extra 15 min...but it looks like I have gone the wrong way!

 

Use task manager to see what process is hogging up the cpu (go to processes and sort by cpu)

 

I Agree. This would be a big Negative.

 

Thanks! I can now see the NMEA in device manager, we'll see if it actually works in any programs

The WWAN connection manager is called "WebToGo OneClick Internet".

 

What's the version of HDMI output on the new Z? Does it support TrueHD and DTS-HD?

 

I am definately interested in your z11, how should we proceed?

 

I cant seem to do step 1 either.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 448.109 MB/s
Sequential Write : 414.048 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 428.773 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 405.822 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 22.175 MB/s [ 5413.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 62.850 MB/s [ 15344.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 240.915 MB/s [ 58817.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 345.727 MB/s [ 84405.9 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [C: 10.0% (46.8/467.1 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/04/03 15:34:27
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

My seq read speed seems kinda low. Its been stuck here.. I'm thinking it should be close to 600. Haven't really installed anything. Turned on write back cache also.

 

I've ordered some DVD-Rs for burning the recovery disks, but they won't be here for a bit. If i uninstall some bloatware before making the disks will I still be able to recover it from the recovery disks eventually? All these task bar notification icons probably aren't helping battery life.

 

dorifto88 - if you could send me an e-mail, for unknown reasons, not allowed to send me a pm: (

[email protected]

thanks

 

The reason you can't send a PM, if it works the same as the vBulletin forum I run, is that you need to have ten posts to gain the ability to respond to PMs.

 

The USA CTO models lack several options compared to European and Asian models. From the RAID configuration and screen are just examples of things that can not be chosen in a USA CTO. TPM + Fingerprint reader, something commonly found on other countries CTO pages is not at options at all.

Mine is a preconfigured USA model with "maxed out specs (as quoted by Sony)". I was under the impression that yes it should be standard given the information I read and have presented.

.dj

 

100% agree with you on that. Yet another misleading reason.

+1

.dj

 

Vaio Z community,

I have been trying to keep up with this thread for a few days now in my attempt to come to an ultimatum on the Z. You guys have already answered a lot of my questions, but at the same time I have been unable to keep up with a lot of the terminology and other issues that have come up:

1. SSD - RAID 0 vs. TRIM
So from my understanding from the above posts, these are two contradicting ideas. So is there no possible way in order to gain the advantages of both? If not, would anyone recommend the best way to configure the SSDs? With Sony's default RAID 0, or to break the RAID array and somehow manage to use TRIM?

And just for clarification, I also though that Intel RST 9.6 added TRIM support for all RAID arrays except RAID 5. This does include RAID 0, yes? Can anyone clarify what I would need to do in order to be able to enjoy the benefits of both TRIM and RAID 0?

2. Premium Carbon Fiber
Surprisingly, I haven't been able to find an answer to this question. What advantages do I gain with the premium carbon fiber? Aren't all the Vaio Z's made with carbon fiber? Is the "premium" just to look pretty with different designs, or is it actually made out of better materials and worth the $50 upgrade?

3. GPS
Can anyone confirm that GPS is included with the CTO option, and explain the software that is powering it?

4. Sony Vaio Bloatware
Is there a possible way to clean install Windows 7 Home Premium on the Vaio and remove all the Bloatware without having to buy a clean install disc? For example, is there a way to make recovery discs for the notebook, wipe the SSD, and reinstall Windows 7 without the bloatware?

5. Synaptics Multi-Touch
Can anyone confirm that they got this to work and how they were able to?

6. Is there any word on when Sony will be refreshing the current Z's?
I am looking to buy one coming out in the summer, assuming that there will be a Full HD options and also that Sony will provide a discount of some sort on performance upgrades (ie $100 off on Core i7 upgrade or a free blu-ray player upgrade). Sony usually does this for their F-series laptops, but I never knew if they planned on doing such a thing for this premium flagship laptop.


Also, I apologize for my ignorance on these questions if they have already been answered. I have been searching the thread rigorously for answers, but have been unable to go through all 290+ pages of it. If anyone explicitly answer my questions or point out any specific posts in this thread that have already answered them, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

A pre-computer engineering student

 

Hi mate, welcome to Notebookreview.com I have been wondering about the next Z refresh too despite this current generation only being a month or so old. From what I understand, and please correct me if I am wrong, Sony Vaios are refreshed quarterly. So I expect a refresh of the Z in May/June 2010.

What would be refreshed? Well it's anyone's guess but I can't really see the base model having 512GB SSD - it would just to way too costly to manufacture. I believe it will have the same SSD capacity, RAM and OS version.

I can only see a minor bump in processor speed (few extra GHz) and maybe a blu-ray drive as standard. I hope Sony brings back the blu-ray drive (read or write, not too bothered).

 

No problem Joseph, I'm still setting up mine so I'm looking for all those things as well. I will run VMWare soon and I think my screen brightness level is the same as yours. I replaced Symantec a while ago by Microsoft Security Essentials (because it was a CPU hog to me) but Zoinks mentioned that the latest version is pretty smooth so it's not necessarily that.

Anyway, thanks for starting the battery discussion, I gained Battery Bar out of it among other insights

Good luck !

 

Joseph,

What are the resource statistics on Norton? I typically go with AVG or Avast...take up considerably fewer resources, do a superb job of coverage, and they're free.

There's another program I use for tightening up my computer's performance, called TuneUp Utilities. I swear by this program now...there's a 30-day Free Trial available, and frequent deals. This thing does it all, and I notice performance gains after running it.

I like the Battery Bar, and will be using that once the Z arrives.

 

ABOUT THE SCREEN BRIGHTNESS ISSUE:

Go to "VAIO Control Center" -> Display -> Automatic Brightness Settings

and simply uncheck "Adjust Brightness Automatically"


You're now free to set the brightness as you wish.

 

I say, July is the target month for the first refresh. Maybe, a new design lid which is always possible. Also, a price decrease at the slightest. As far as anything else, your guess is as good as mine.

The synaptics, pinch to zoom on this Z, is terrible. Only works if you dig hard on the mouse pad. Not as smooth as the Macs.

 

I would really appreciate it if you can keep us updated on what you find out. I just upgraded to Ultimate and had the same errors regarding Bitlocker with no TPM found. There is apparently a way to use Bitlocker without TPM but it sounds like it is rather inconvenient.

 

It is not that much, constant 1% load. On the other hand, VMWare is the major power hog, I went to VMWare forum and found people are complaining about VMWare authentication service that reads the key 30 times a second!

In theory, Symantec will affect 1% of battery life thus, 6Hours translates to 3.6 minutes more battery life to me. (if the power consumption is linear).

That is ok, I care about convenience more than spending any more time on finding out why it consumes more than other people or further fine tuning it. I just ordered another pack of Tekkeon battery for travel, now I have 100Wh of backup battery that should allow me to fly for 12 hours before seeking power plugs.

 

I saw the Z today.

Those top 3 button on the right are pretty useless. I wish they are like the 5 buttons on the SR.

Can they be remap?

 

Answering my own question here.
I found in Vaio care, under Recover and Restore, there is a tool to reinstall the original drivers and applications. So, feel free to remove Bloatware without worrying about deleting something important, just don't delete Vaio Care .

 

Good to know. Anything to make life easier.
_______________________________

Well, I downloaded the Intel:Raid Driver to support TRIM - pretty simple. So now what, just pray and hope it works.

 

Ok, let's give this a quick try:

Check the thread on SSD RAID long term performance. No, Intel acknowledge that there's a mistake in the help file and TRIM is NOT supported in RAID. I personally thing they mean 'YET' but I have nothing to back it up but a gut feel. You might want to research also Zoinks amazing thread on how to setup your RAID as JBOD and I believe he announced that he was doing more testing in this mode to validate TRIM. The expects in this area would be Zoinks and Arth1

Yes, it looks pretty.
Prettier is a matter of taste and opinion

No software is bundled AFAIK. In the SmartWii utility, in the US, you get the option to turn on the GPS (from the WWAN Gobi chip) and then do a lookup for some stuff (banks, restaurants, coffee shops) and it will open Google maps with that search performed around the location found by the GPS.

If you create the recovery disks and you DON'T have Windows 7 Ultimate as part of your install, you get the option during recovery to re-install with limited bloatware (basically, you still get the VAIO stuff but not the trial stuff.) In the hand, it seems to de-install pretty well in my experience but your mileage may vary.

You get limited multitouch functions from the driver included out of the box. Just go to the Mouse section of the control panel, select the [Device Settings] tab, select the device [Synaptics] and click the [Settings] button. You can enabled things like [Pinch to Zoom] with the Out of the box version. Some people have installed newer/different version of the driver to support two fingers scroll and other features...

Hope this helps,

Cheers

 

Has anyone used WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER to record a future TV Program?

Apparently, I need to purchase a TV Tuner to connect the Z to a TV. Once that's done, I was reading the instructions, and it seems fairly easy, however, it doesn't mention if the Z can be completely SHUT DOWN to record a program via the TV Guide in Windows Media Center.

In other words, if I was recording an episode of Amazing Race on Sunday CBS2, and I was out for the evening, can the Z be SHUT DOWN or is it required to be on HIBERNATE, SLEEP or ON?

Does it function like a VCR or a DVD-Recorder where the unit itself is OFF, but somehow able to record a show/program based on a TIMER/TV Guide within Windows Media Center?

THANKS!

With this feature, I can see how 128SSD is not going to last me.

 

What TV Tuner are you buying? Does the Z have an ExpressCard slot?

 

The question i have here is that regarding the refresh for the vaio z do you anticipate a substancial price decrease ? would it be better to hold off on purchasing the vaio z until the refresh comes out? i already have a cto on the new vaio z but wont be recieving it until april 20 . was wondering if i should cancel now and wait for the refresh

also seeing as how the new vaio z only came out in feburary...wouldnt it be too soon to already refresh a model that is already selling quite well so far? why fix or add anything when nothing is wrong with the vaio z ?

 

Yes, there's an express card slot. WDTV Tuner by Western Digital or Hauppauge. They sell both at Best Buys. Has anyone used Windows Media Center? I'm assuming it works like a VCR or DVD-Recorder. The unit is off, but the timer activates some internal component to allow recording. I just can't seem to visualize how this works if the Z is on SHUT DOWN.

When I first got my Z550 in Aug. 07, it was priced at 2099.99. Later, in Dec. 09, I purchased a z720 for 1599.99, basically the same specs. just larger HHD capacity, which I returned based on speculation of this new Z. As you can see the prices do decrease a "slight" bit for each refresh phase, as you get better specs. for your money too.

Waiting for the first refresh is up to you - it will most likely be called vpc-z2xxxx. If you can do without a new computer, I would definitely wait. I have never seen Sony not do a refresh just because a notebook is perfect. There will be a refresh this summer.

 

How much of an upgrade do you expect the next revision will be? Will it be just a small processor speed bump or something more drastic like a new video card with perhaps optimus support?

 

So, I tried the EarthBridge (+Google Earth) thing, but while I didn't get any error messages, it didn't manage to find (or get a lock on) any satellites. I was inside, but my HTC HD2 that was besides me could get a lock on 9-11 satellites.

Now, has anyone else managed to get a lock on any GPS satellites (I mean, anyone outside the US)?

 

I know I posted this maybe a week ago, but no one seem to reply me. Here I go again. How to set the functions button on my logitech keyboard to adjust the brightness? basically i want to adjust some of my external keyboard FN buttons to do the same thing as the Z's FN buttoins

 

I would bet that there will be a minor bump in processor speed and a blu-ray player