Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

Congrats! Can you explain how the indigo card works and what all do we need? What is the diff between Iox and Echo Indigo DJx ExpressCard? I am not impressed with the creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and the wireless Receiver.

 

I have a UK Z with i7. The european models do definately have the GPS module, just the GPS part of it is disabled with the european firmware on the Gobi Module however I have just found a way to get it all running smoothly.

It seems the Verizon software provided on the USA site reflashes the Gobi to enable the GPS and you will see an additional COM port with the NMEA module. However once this has been reflashed the WWAN part of the Gobi no longer recognises SIM cards for GSM networks and changes into CDMA mode for the Verizon network in the US. After much battling with various drivers and software I finally got the lot working correctly. GPS and GSM WWAN.

I'll try and recap but so much trial and error some of these steps may not be necessary.

First remove the Gobi drivers, then Smart Network utility,

Now visit the Sony USA site and download and install in the following order

1. Sony Shared Library
2. Gobi Drivers
3. Verizon Access Manager
4. SmartWI

Reboot whenever prompted.

Now bring up the SmartWI utility and click VZAccess manager.

The firmware will reflash - this takes some time.

Once complete close VZAccess manager and open Device Manager and check you have the NMEA device under Ports.

Now if you open SmartWI you should see the option to switch on location services. Congrats the GPS is now working but your WWAN will be useless.

To fix this you now need to uninstall the VZManager and the Gobi drivers

Download the Gobi drivers from the European site and extract all the files to a folder. Go into the folder and right click and edit the WWAN_setup.bat file and change second line to

setup.exe SS=0 WIN7DRIVER=1 GPS=1 DEFAULTIMAGE=6 /q

Note GPS=1 not 0 as originally in the file.

Save the file and then double click the BAT file and let it do it's thing.

Reboot if necessary.

Next you need to install Web To Go OneClick Internet which was available from Sony Europe website, but now seems to have disappeared. Try to find someone who downloaded it before they removed it. I may have it on my NAS but I've just moved house so it'll take a while to get everything set up again.

Once installed open this up, click settings, firmware, choose Generic UMTS and apply the firmware.

After firmware update you should have both the GPS and GSM WWAN working.

I hope I still have my download of OneClick as I didn't realise until I wrote this Sony had removed it.

Its worth noting in order for the GPS to work you need to have WWAN switched on first. I think SmartWi automatically switches it on for you if you enable location services.

Also the first time I switched on the GPS it took over an hour to get a lock on the satellites. You can download visualGPS to monitor what it is doing and see that it is seeing satellites but it does take a while to get the inital lock.

Since then I've been getting locks within 60 seconds.

Let me know if this works for you, I'm interested to hear if I was too long winded in my installation.

I have Microsoft AutoRoute 2010 and Garmin Mobile PC all working beautifully along with the WWAN connection simultaneously.

I am still peeved that I cannot use WiFi and Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard simultaneously without the bluetooth dropping out periodically. Whats up with that??? Anyone found a solution?

And also streaming video full screen often BSODs my computer which is a known issue with the Intel wireless drivers. Doesn't happen with cabled connection.

I'm having to use my airport express as a client to my wireless network with my Z cabled into that. Absolute garbage. Can't believe my £2400 laptop has these issues upon shipping. I happen to be very literate so can iron out these bugs through trial and error, but to a general end user its unacceptable. Sony clearly do not test things properly.

I also have an issue where if I put the computer to sleep at night plugged in, after a period of time it powers back on, presumably to hibernate?? But the system crashes on a black screen and I wake up to a very hot computer with the fan at full speed but completely unresponsive with black screen.

And a loose battery??? Mine has had a problem where it wouldn't start off battery, I plugged in AC and started it, unplugged AC and it powered off immediately. Removed and reinserted battery and all was well again. Obviously down to the loose battery. Utter rubbish.

Also had a couple of reboots down to the NVidea graphics driver. This thing is so unreliable its unbelievable. My girlfriends Acer Aspire One is more reliable than this and I could buy 12 of them for the price of this.

I really am regretting spilling that glass of wine on my Macbook Pro and opting for this Sony as a replacment.

 

What a crap review ..

they take the i7 HD version and run it at full whack and then try to complain about it not running for the same time on batt as a Acer Timeline ULV !!!

The acer cant even start the games they were testing on it ... so that means 0mins battery time for mobile gaming for the Acer...

not to mention that the screens are completely different..or that the Sony has $ real and 8 virtual Cores !!!

Half life 2 on my Z gets nearly 2.5 hours... office and Surfing 6 !! and thats with the HDD (500GB) ...

 

I think you are getting the Arrandale and Clarksdale Core i7 mobile chips confused. The 620m is a dual core, four thread CPU, and its only difference from the Core i5 Arrandales is that it has 4MB L3 instead of 3MB (and maybe needs a slightly higher boost voltage).

 

I use Indigo IOx for work with Sony ACID Pro for mixing recorded solo acoustic guitar with some loops thrown in. Indigo is absolutely unfit for gaming. It does not have fancy EAX etc. It is designed to provide high quality, low latency audio recording and playback.

Indigo DJ has two outputs for DJing and no inputs, so no recording with it. Indigo IO has one output and one input.

I still prefer recording guitar with Line 6 UX1 but don't want to haul it around for mixing.

 

On my Metal Mosaic US Signature -- Under the battery I see the black flip door which I assume is for a SIM Card -- is this functional, will this accept a SIM or is that just there because the Europe models accept a SIM card. Thanks

 

Thanks! I am looking at a wireless express card option to play the music on my computer to my home stereo. Any options you know of other than creative?

 

I know there a few reviews out there, but when do you suspect more reviews
/analysis will surface?

Do you think it has to do people just finally getting their hands on the hardware now and also just how popular the Z is (equaling harder to get) ?

 

Even in joy, there is frustration.

My Signature Z shipped today. HOWEVER, even with the two-day shipping, I'll get it on Monday, according to the FedEx website.

I know that can obviously move up; personally, I'm hoping that it gets here tomorrow night, and I can go to the sort facility and pick it up on Saturday. That said, I doubt it'd be able to happen.

This same exact thing happened to me when I got the Envy. Oh, that ticked me off then. It ticks me off now...but nothing I can do about it. I'm just thrilled the Sig Z has shipped...especially when there was no hope two days as recent as yesterday.

 

Anyone order their Z with XP downgrade? Whats the highest resolution you are getting on the display?

 

A) I had some initial instability with the computer when I first got it. Not sure what was wrong, but a reinstall back to factory state using the recovery tools has given me a rock solid OS. Maybe something is wrong with how they install the factory image.

I also had a number of crashes when I first got mine. It turned out to be a problem with the USB DisplayLink LCD monitor I had hooked up. You might want to check for updated drivers for any equipment you have hooked up to the computer, especially anything to do with graphics. Updating to beta DisplayLink drivers solved the problem for me.


B) Vaio update does not work for me either. I actually managed to download the initial two updates that it detects, but now it gives me "Cannot acquire the configuration settings for VAIO Update" whenever I try to run it.

Sony support has been absolutely useless for this issue. They referred me to this page: http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/documentLink.do?externalId=C1015656 and then stated that the problem requires extensive troubleshooting and could not help me through email.

Like the computer, very disappointed with support.

 

Is it possible to get Japanese model without WWAN and then get WWAN separately on eBay?

 

I have used this laptop heavily for a month now, and have had precisely three instability problems, two of which occured within the first 2 days of ownership. Once, the laptop froze in suspend (I don't know what the cause of this was, but it never happened again). Once, the Z blue screened when I plugged in my Fujitsu scanner. This was obviously a driver issue with the scanner, and I've had it on other laptops as well. And, once it blue screened when I was trying to read files from a 16GB SD card, so again, a peripheral driver issue. I don't know what the cause of this was, but I know that the new Z has a different SD card reader module than the old one, and their drivers are probably not sorted out yet.

Apart from these issues, the Z has been rock solid for me. For those of you with stability problems, check your peripheral devices.

 

I feel like such a tool - it never occured to me that the Hybrid graphics switching wouldnt work in XP (I know, probably a known issue). I tried working on this for an hour, until it finally hit me to set the switch to Stamina and reboot. does anyone know why the Nvidia card doesnt display at 1600x900 in XP, only using the Intel card could I get that resolution. Or am I just losing my mind?

 

Can you tell us more about yout USB displaylink? I would like to hook up in portrait mode, will it do it? Does it really slow?

 

I received my Sony z1190 today, I really love it ! Very light, beautiful, good quality, superb screen ! Very better than my last 3 notebooks (but more expansive of course hehe)

Only 1 one problem, when I plug my usb wireless Logitech mouse, it doesn't work (installed, but mouse pointer doesnt' move, only with touchpad) Usually the both work but maybe with Sony is different, I have something to do ?

 

Same here.

 

Anyone purchased a sleeve yet for the new Z?

 

I was over at Sonystyle looking at sleeves. They mentioned, Sony will be coming out with a neoprene sleeve customized to fit the Z very soon. It looks like a manila envelope with a flap that you slide the Z in sideways - Same as the one made for the current CW Series that's sold in Sony Stores now.

 

First, because it was essentially the very first i5/i7 review ever published, and was done using an early whitebox laptop that may have had buggy support for the CPUs tested.

Second, because not a single review from any other site - even further reviews from notebookcheck if you read through all of their individual i5/i7 reviews and compare numbers - has shown disproportionate power consumption or heat production for systems using the i7-620M versus the i5-540M or i5-520M.

Third, when you analyze the differences between the 620 and 540 processors, you realize they are essentially identical, just that the 620 is slightly faster and has 1mb more cache enabled. This means the results SHOULD be quite close, perhaps slightly more than the difference between the 520M and 540M.

Since notebookcheck's results on the i7 were so wildly off-expectation, this should have triggered them to confirm their findings using an alternate system, so as to rule out the system itself as a cause of the higher power consumption. If they were unable to do this, they should have discussed the issue, but they barely mentioned anything and instead treated their numbers as double-blind confirmed results, resulting is MUCH misinformation on the web. For example, now that I know with a certainty that their idle power consumption numbers are anomalous, I suspect the early BIOS on that system was not allowing the i7 to downclock correctly when idle.

Finally, because there are now numerous examples of i5 and i7 notebooks in the wild, and many owners of the new Z here in this forum, and no one is reporting any significant battery life differences for i7 versus i5 systems. I have an i7 system, and I can get 4 hours playing HD video over WiFi with the standard battery, which seems perfectly in line. (Idling at the Windows desktop, the system once told me I had more than 7.5 hours battery life remaining).

 

and you missed the point ... they are comparing a 1.3 SU7300 (of Core Solo!!) with an i7, and saying that the timeline runs longer on battery ...

therefore for mobility you should use a timeline

 

Hi Everyone,

I just got my new Vaio Z. It is my first Sony. I need someone to help me to install latest Intel RST driver. Can you provide me information for:

1. The correct link of the intel RAID driver for support TRIM. I google the following download link:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/detail_desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=&DwnldID=15251

The webpage's RST looks like use for Desktop board driver only. If the driver is corrected, do I have to use the floppy drive to install it? I don't have floppy drive. Is there any other media can be use?

2. The instruction to install the software.
3. How do I know the Win 7 is automatically schedule the Defrag. command? How do I turn it off?
4. Do you have the service manu for the new Z? I try to upgrade the RAM to 8GB.
5. I have ordered the Lenovo SATA Adapter III for installing the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB. There are a lot of screws on the bottom, what screws do I need to take them out in order to open the machine? I want to use the C300 as my primary drive.

Please Help. Thank you!

Z1190GX/S: i5 540m, 4GB RAM Window 7 Professional, Fresh Start

 

Check this thread out it's great there's alot of options
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=291748

 

Joy: Hi there! Thank you for using the Intel Customer Support chat service. We are glad to be of service. How can I help you today?
you: Hi Joy! ...
you: I have a question regarding power consumption of i5 540M and i7 620M processors.
Joy: Ok.
you: There is a lot of confusion about power consumption of these two CPUs. One of the most cited benchmarks ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Core-i3-i5-i7-Processors-Arrandale.25085.0.html) states that there is a huge difference in power consumption between the i5 540 M and the i7 620 M. They speak of "considerably higher energy requirement" and the benchmark states a difference of up to 30% more power.
you: This is rather strange because the i5 and the i7 are almost identical.
you: Can you confirm (or deny) that there is actually such a huge difference in power consumption between those two CPUs?
Joy: Let me check the specifications of these unit so we can identify.
Joy: Kindly hold for 3-5 minutes.
you: Take your time. A reliable answer is much more useful to me then a quick one!
Joy: All right then.
Joy: Thank you for waiting.
Joy: Here's my analogy why the benchmarking noted a considerably higher energy,
Joy: I am thinking that they are pertaining to the Core i5 processor to have a higher requirement of the energy since this type of processor have it own graphics control while the Core i7 don't have.
Joy: That is the only thing seperating the two processors.
Joy: You are right that they are closely identical regarding the chip's specification.
you: Hmm...
Joy: Click on this link ( http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLBPF#) for the specification of the Core i5-540M
you: What does 'graphics control' mean? They both have an integrated graphics core - and the benchmark states the i7 620 M uses a lot more power, not the i5 540 M. The only difference between the i5 540 M and the i7 620 M is that the latter one has a slightly higher speed and 1 MB additional cache (according to Intel's spec sheets).
Joy: Click on this link ( http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLBPE) for the specification of Core i7-620M
you: see http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=43560,43544,
Joy: Looking on it now. The one I have provided is the sspecfinder site.
you: There are a lot of rumors (regarding that notebookcheck tested a pre-series 620M which had some thermal problems, an inappropriate chosen benchmark and so on) and it would be nice to squash them once and for all. If you need time to confer with some engineer take your time - i would need an exact answers, not just more rumors again
Joy: I understand. I am looking if I can provide our own benchmarkings but I need to dig in for this one. Kindly hold for a couple of minutes again.
you: Take as long time as you need. I'll be here.
Joy: Ok.
Joy: Thank you again for waiting. I verified the inquiry, we agree with you. There musn't be much of a difference between power consumption for the two units. They may have slight difference between the specification but they both have same level of consumption. The two units also share the same datasheets making it a good proof they these two units have the same consumptions.
you: Ok, this sounds pretty good. So there should be no (noticable) difference in power consumption - and if there is one, this might indicate a hardware problem specific to the related processor / bios.
Joy: Yes, you have a point. Also, the system components might privide a edge about it. So not just the process could cause the difference.
Joy: Here's the link ( http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/322812.pdf) for the said Intel® Core™ i7-600, i5-500, i5-400 and i3-300 Mobile Processor Series Datasheet
you: Ok, at least this conincides with the observations we've made with 'real life' performance of some of the 540 M / 620 M notebook models already available. Thank you!
Joy: No worries.
Joy: Thank you for using chat. Have a good night!
you: Bye!
Joy: Cheers!

 

Lets face it. I have been testing my vaio z wiith the i7 for about 2 weeks now and I am very impressed by the quality and speed. The only thing that keeps me bugging is the fan noise. I have a Macbook Air as well in its deadly quiet. I wonder if I can get used to it though I realize that powerful components lead to dealing with a lot more waste heat. The thing I like most about the my z is the brilliant screen. Colors and sharpness are superb and almost as good as on my 24" Eizo. I use the VGP-CP24 softcase and it fits well. Another thing I noticed is even though I handle it with care I already have some scratches on the top. So beware, the surface is extremely sensitive.

 

I think You took the high route to do this. Only SmartWi is needed to turn on GPS. You dont need change Gobi driver or anything else. And If you search thru my later posts you can find link where you can DL oneclick internet. And with that you can change firmware of Gobi if you want to.

EDIT: You were right about Sony removing OneClick Internet from their support site. I do have it anyways.

 

I just realized yeasterday evening that the Intel HD graphics card also has power management features the user can control. You just have to set the Hybrid Graphics switch to Stamina, then right click on desktop and select Graphics properties, or something to that effect. That should open the Intel graphics control service, where you can select power saving features for plugged in as well as battery modes. Changing the settings from default values to most power saving (also changed refresh rate 60 Hz --> 40 Hz), increased the Windows estimated battery life by 50 mins, in my case.

 

You can find that Intel control board also from start up menu. If you change to 16bit color you can save even more power. Alternatively you can do these from advanced power options, there is VAIO Power management tab where you can choose screen settings for each power scheme.

Only draw back with different screen setting are the longer wait when changing between power plans.

 

Has anyone else heard about the i7 version being discontinued due to Intel overselling the processor??

 

I hadn't noticed that VAIO Power management section before. A great find, thanks!

 

Well, there we go. Intel agrees with my logic as well (if you search back I've been trying to provide context and cautions on that notebookcheck review ever since it came out). There will of course be increased power consumption, but on an order appropriate to the speed increase, and nothing like the massive differences shown by that review.

Also nice to see some confirmation that even Intel considers the 3 CPUs essentially identical.

 

They, in all likelihood, are. Possibly manufactured on the same silicon wafer too.

Due to fabrication defects, some chips are "more perfect" than others. Some are clocked higher and have more cache, or even cores, enabled than others. This is pretty standard practice with CPU's and GPU's. It keeps the chip yields high.

I don't know this as an absolute fact, but it's likely.

 

I also got my Z11 now. It arrived 2 days ago but I haven't had that much time to play with it. I haven't even installed my work environment, compiler, eclipse, android etc. yet so I can't really tell how much faster it will be for me personally, (than my old 1.2GHz TX1).

Anyway, the text in 100% DPI on the FHD screen might be juuust a tad too small for me in the long run. But I will give it a try for a few weeks and see what my eyes say. And my neck for that matter. I tend to lean a bit more forward now to compensate for the high DPI.

The fan noise is ok to me. My TX1 was louder under load, but the older T1 was best. It could be completely silent when idle. It just turned on when working, like a gentle reminder that it was hard at work, and when it spun down I knew it was my turn to work.

Perhaps I could sample the sound somehow, and also drop a paperclip or something for comparison.

I've also done some SSD testing. First I made a "baseline" run to have something to compare to. After that, I have filled it up completely and actually seen some degradation. But as Zoinks has seen, it recovers very quickly. Just after I have filled the disk (and I mean, within seconds), the small random writes decreased from just over 20 to 7MB/s (without write cache). But when I run the same test again after just a minute, it had recovered again. I'll post some pics in the SSD thread later, but so far I can only confirm Zoinks findings that it doesn't seem to be a problem, not in the short run anyway. It *might* turn out to be a problem later on *if* more and more blocks fail and have to be abandoned as spare blocks. However, we won't know anything about that for at least a couple of months.

Overall, a very nice acquaintance. But I do feel a little bad for the Danish and Norwegians. When the Nordic keyboard lights up, only the Swedish versions of the Nordic characters are actually lit. The Danish and Norwegian chars are just grey and very dim. I tried to change keyboard layout to Danish, but that didn't change the lightning.

 

Thanks for the reply, not sure whats going on here then as I first tried removing the Smart Network and Installing SmartWI and location services didn't show up, and in device manager I didn't have the NMEA Com Port. This only appeared once I had flashed with the Verizon firmware. Perhaps the UK version is configured differently to other european models.

Any chance you could email me the One Click Internet, I have deleted it from my NAS and if I need to reinstall will be stuck without it.

Thanks.

 

Yes. We all got THAT point. The problem is the confusion that your post could generate, he was simply correcting your statement. You were saying the Z dual core processor was quad core.

 

guys, how do i make the sound play on TV thru HDMI cable? I had it... but then playing with sound setting I disabled some device and I cant figure out how to enable it again...

 

It only works on the Speed setting.

 

But then in Sound Devices I should be able to choose between 'speakers/headphones' or Sony NVIDIA - the latter one I dont remember because I disabled it and now I only have speakers/headphones option ...

 

Location services came alive for me after reboot.

I'll PM you (EDIT: ) later. You need I believe 5 post to have PM's

 

It's not discontinued, probably just not being offered right now.

It's funny because while the US site no longer has a 620M option on the CTO, the UK site started offering it for free because they were running out of 540M...

 

I have spent over an hour trying to make HDMI sound work on TV but without success, re-installing all drivers... I somehow disabled the NVIDIA playback function in playback devices and cant re-enable it. Can anyone check what you have under audio devices in NVIDIA card when plugged to TV with HDMI? Does anyone know how to enable the NVIDIA audio driver?

EDIT: Problem solved! Strangely enough, reinstalling all drivers from Sony Recovery Disks didnt help, so I downloaded HDMI audio driver from NVIDIA website and now it works again!

 

I'm almost afraid to ask this question given the 3 gazillion pages written on the SSD's, but is it possible to partition the drive? I have the signature Z with 512GB (4x128gb).

Normally, I'd just use Acronis Disk Director and create a partition for my user data. Can I do that with the SSD's

My Z currently just shows a single c: drive of @470GB free

thanks in advance (and yes I did a search on 'partition' before posting this message)

 

Yes, SSD/RAID doesn't prevent anything. It just shows up as one large drive to the OS. You can cut it up however you like.

I tested Acronis with a boot CD. It works with the FakeRAID in the Z, no extra drivers necessary.

I have my system configured thusly:

 

In addition to the Gobi 2000 chip, I think there could be (missing) adapter board that connects the chip to the motherboard. The antenna issue can be easily solved by using one of the three to the WLAN chip (if you get the 3 antenna option, 6300).

 

Zoinks tested with an Acronis 10 boot CD which worked, i.e. Acronis 10 has the necessary drivers included. However, I tried booting with an Acronis 9 boot CD yesterday, and it didn't find the drive. So Acronis 10 is required.

 

Thanks for the info...greatly appreciated

 

I bought a new Z today (delivery tomorrow). It was an impulse purchase but I don't regret making it. I look forward to receiving my new Z tomorrow and comparing it to my older one.

I've ordered VPCZ11X9E/B.

 

Actually the UK site removed the free upgrade to i7-620 within 1 day so I think it was a mistake, and although they are allowing you to select the i7-620 the Sony Style rep I've been dealing with assures me she's contacted the factory and that they still don't have any i7-620 in stock and so they won't be delivering within 2-3 as the website says.

Sony is so shambolic I don't know what to believe so I've made a CTO order just in case and I've still got an order on hold with the Sony rep.

They were offering a deal on accessories - buy two and get the cheapest free, might be worthwhile if anyone want something expensive like an extra battery so you get get two for one or a docking station etc.

 

I have just placed order today for a Z11 trough Sonystyle store: i7, 6GB ram, 192 GB SSD, Full HD screen, 3G modem (may be with GPS ?), Silver (too appealing for me, I hate dark colors), extended battery, no service plan.

I will wait the needed 2-3 weeks with impatience and reading all this Forum in order to learn as much as possible about this new beast.

 

so ive been out of the sony z forums for awhile and i was just wondering is there a newer graphics driver available for the z than 8.16.11.8880. thats what device manager says im running and i know that the 330m got a driver update but us z owners need the hybrid driver update or something. thx