Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

how many gigs does the usb need to be? So I have to do this every night? do I keep noton ghost running and a usb plugged into my system all the time so it will just back up by itself without me having to do anyting?
You think down the road like a year or so their will be a software update of something that would support Raid 0 backing up everything without having to do all this?

 

I had a TZ with a premium carbon fiber lid and it easily got scratched as well. much easier than the regular black lid.

 

Are you using a dual-band or just a 5GHz router? I found that no matter what I did I would get constant drops and insanely high latency when I was operating in a/b/g mode regardless of the band.

When I set the driver to just b/g (+N) everything is smooth as silk @ 300Mbps. I tried several routers and drivers and no matter what, when the "a" is enabled thinks don't work. I even tried a router that only support g (no N) and while the Z connected, I experienced the same issues as above.

With regards to the vents I agree. I am sure the power supply is well designed but the way it plugs in gives me pause... I wonder how long it will be before someone's cable melts or catches on fire.

 

Bugs with windows 7 firewire causing crashes for those who went with the CTO firewire option, i seem to have solved it by changing the 1394 device driver to the legacy one supplied with Windows 7.

 

Can be changed in device manager and selecting update driver, then select don't search and you should be presented with 3 drivers to choose from.

 

.
The fastest is the 512, followed by the 384/192. In last place the 128 and the 256.

I say go for the 192 if you need speed and extra space, but if you can spend a bite more the 384 is nice. The 512 is the fastest and biggest.

 

Has anyone found a solution to the bluetooth drop outs when used in conjunction with Wifi?

 

Should be fine for most uses, if not you could always add USB 3.0 with this: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/blackarmor/blackarmor_ps_110_usb3/

 

The wifi and bluetooth channels can overlap. If it's Bluetooth v2, it should adapt and find a clear channel. But that won't work if the wifi space is about completely filled. It also won't work when the microwave is being used Besides upgrading the Bluetooth driver, shifting wifi channel (if it's your router), I'm not sure what else will work...

 

if it's really an issue, you could try 5Ghz 802.11n (bluetooth is on 2.4Ghz).

 

550-1210-775 which gets a 3dmark06 score of just under 7000marks at 1280X800. these clocks get temp to about 84 85C and i tried upping the core to 575 with shaders linked and memory somewhere in the 800s and it kept crashing. those first clocks are enough to play crysis and bf2 on medium at 1600x900

 

I usually keep the graphics switch on stamina, that way I don't have to deal with a pause when I connect or disconnect from power. Then if, for whatever reason, I need speed mode I just select it.

 

I compared the spacing of the keys on the Z to the external keyboard I use and they are the same.

 

So when are we expecting the second edition of new vaio z

 

Driver 13.1.1.1 fixed some problems with drops but there is still a known issue that "a" works only over channels 36, 40, 44, or 48 (that means "auto" is not a good idea on both Z and router).

 

hello, i have few questions for my new sony z

1. does anyone know how to use the GPS in this sony z?
2. i have 1 stuck pixel shall i exchange it? (i have the limited edtion one)
3. if i do a clean window install for myself how can i get the winDVD install. cant see any download from sony website.
4. how long the battery last for you guys for standard battery?
5. what function does the track pad has, can they do things like apple do?

thx

 

Yes, you should exchange it. It will only bother you more and more with time. You shouldn't put up with such an annoyance with such a beautiful machine!

 

what is the sony dead pixel policy, i couldn't find one on thier website. anyhow if they refuse to exchange it may be i need to use my accidental insurance that i purchase huh?

 

Does anyone knows if there is Airline Power Adapter available for Z i5?

Z119GX i5 540m

 

Sony's dead / bright pixel policy is just as bad as the others. Not sure where you are based but I am sure you have rights as a consumer, especially within the first 7 days of purchase.

Here is the link to Sony's policy:

http://www.sony.com.au/support/resources/en_AU/html/Warranty/Consumer_Product_Warranty-new.html

"Sony will only repair or replace the Product if there are (a) 8 or more dark pixels in the screen (unless 2 or more are adjoining dark pixels) or (b) 2 or more bright pixels in the screen."

 

yes i just got my laptop on the 9th i think i will try to call them tomorrow morning?

3. if i do a clean window install for myself how can i get the winDVD install. cant see any download from sony website.
4. how long the battery last for you guys for standard battery?
5. what function does the track pad has, can they do things like apple do?

 

I have Macbook Pro and Sony Z. The Sony's trackpad has almost same function as my MBP as long as you download the latest driver from Synatics website.

 

I was able to overclock the video card to regular stock settings. 550/1066

 

thx chief

 

You can probably oc it more. I have mine at 660/840/1400 and it's super stable.

I came across this http://code.google.com/p/two-finger-scroll/ and found the two finger scrolling to be much more responsive and fluid compared to the synaptics driver. Two finger scrolling now works just as well as it did on my old mbp.

 

What are you guys overclocking your gpus with?

 

I'm sure there are other programs to use but i'm currently using nvidia system tools to overclock the video card.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.02.html

 

According to a (german) agent there is no refresh planned for the near future.

 

That is likely to be incorrect as Sony Vaios have always been refreshed every 12 weeks, approximately. Don't see why they would stop doing that now.

 

the german agents know nothing

three weeks age and asked one about the dual-ssd/quad-ssd thing. He couldnt tell me anything. He even didnt know what it is.

 

This is not true, at least not for everyone. The 256 might be 2 x 128 or 4 x 64, where it will be as fast as the 512, which is always 4 x 128.

So if you are lucky and get a 4 x 64 (e.g. usually all european models) your order will be 512 / 256 (4 x n), 384 / 192 (3 x n), 128 (2 x n).

 

1 more question, on the laptop do i have to do 12hr first charge like on my cellphone? and did the 80% battery cap in vaio setting really work?

 

There might be a refresh in terms of new CTO options, a slightly increased standard build (resulting in lower prices) or something similar, but i won't expect something really new, like a CPU / GPU upgrade, USB3, and so on. The new Z sells pretty good and even with the refreshed MBP there is still no competition (not even close).

 

I've barely installed a few apps, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, VLC, haven't even started installing productivity apps, let alone CS5, yet my drive shows 77.5 GB available of 110 GB. I assume it says "of 110 GB" instead of 128 GB because there is some hidden partition, correct, for recovery? I believe that is about 9 GB. My data, programs, and Windows is less than 23 GB. Yet, the system reports 110 - 77.5 = 32.5 GB used, just about 50% more than actual usage. Is there some piece to this puzzle I am missing? Weird. At this rate I will run out of space in no time.

 

what is the external keyboard you use? did you also compare the gap to the other vaios I mentioned?

 

Yes, there might be some kind of recovery partition.

You could try using some kind of 'disk visualizer' like WinDirStat, DiskSize or something similar to find out what is really wasting your space. Just adding up some directories is usually not a good idea.

 

Yes, there is a hidden partition of roughly 9-10GB...

I blew away all partitions on my 128GB drive, and was left with 119GB (which is normal, since 1 real GB = 1024x1024x1024 bytes, whereas disk manufacturers only give you 1000x1000x1000 bytes that they pretend is a gigabyte..!! My rule of thumb is just divide the manufacturer's size by 1.074 to give a close estimate as to how much space is really on the disk... )

Anyhow, after removing the hidden partition and performing a clean install of Win7, I was left with 105GB free...

 

Yes, WinDirStat is a nice little utility. I've found my pagefile and hiberfil took just short of 7 GB. Stil doesn't quite add up, but it's closer.

 

Won't removing the hidden partition mess up the ability to recover? Win 7 is black magic to me, hence the question.

I should have done the clean install in the first place, but I wanted to start working on it asap, so I didn't. I've disabled junk, but of course that did not remove it from the disk. I guess I will need to uninstall it by hand or using something like ccleaner. I've installed too many things now to throw away hours of work.

Boy, I hate changing OS.

Added: Well, ccleaner didn't help a whole lot, 0.4 GB. There wasn't that much nonsense installed.

 

Sorry, I should have also mentioned that I burned the recovery DVDs first. There's a reminder that keeps popping up from time to time about that...

Only after you have burned the recovery DVDs are you then free to reclaim the space taken by the recovery partition, should you wish to. The DVDs can then be used to restore factory settings at a later date, including the re-creation of the recovery partition.

 

I was accessory shopping this morning and looked at the VPCZ11FHX/XQ, which is in stock again.

I may have missed this before, but it looks like the 512GB option now uses 2x256GB drives.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1#specifications

I'm not sure how I feel about this other than I'm glad I have the 4x128GB flavor.

 

^ But isn't that a case of 2x256GB, whereby each of the 256s is in fact 2x128GB, so it is still 4x128 in total..??

 

I'm considering to upgrade the 8Gb stock RAM from this new Z. but I don't know what is the maximum capacity and frequency this laptop can handle.

Anybody care to clear this for me please?

 

Please see the right-hand link in my signature.

 

So you already have 8GB of 1066MHz RAM...?

As far as I'm aware, the maximum capacity is 8GB, and although I have read about people thinking about using 1333 or 1600MHZ RAM, the FSB on the CPU is only 1066MHz, so I think you are already at the maximum spec you can have...

 

Apparently I need more coffee

 

When you look at the frequency of the RAM which number do you match with the FSB? The Z stock RAM is the PC3 - 10600, memory clock 166 MHz and I/O bus clock 667 MHz. So how do you come up with 1066MHz?

I'm sorry for sounding really stupid with this RAM thing, because I also want to upgrade my old SZ RAM but I don't know the RAM I should use. The old SZ is using Intel C2D T7700, FSB 800MHz, so in RAM language, what RAM should I use?

 

...though you may be able to slightly decrease the latencies with higher MHz spec'ed memory. If you have too much money on your hands, why not

 

I truly despise upgrades. From the brand new Z I can no longer launch the configurator on Sony Style website. As soon as I click on shop and customize, it goes to the next page, flashes white, closes same, that's it. I have the latest Java and Flash. What is happening on that page that my Firefox (3.6.3) would choke on it?

 

When you are referring to 1066MHz, 1333MHz and so on, what number are you referring to?

All I know is
DDR3 1066 - pc3 8500
DDR3 1333 - pc3 10600
DDR3 1600 - pc3 12800

and according to the program speccy, my Z is equipped with the stock 2 x 4Gb PC3 10600 which is the 1333MHz one and I cant seem to find any 1066MHz specified anywhere.

Edit*: then again, speccy has wrongly analyzed that I'm using I5 when I'm actually using I7, so where can I check the details of my RAM?

Edit**: I just updated my speccy, and it now detects the i7 and it still identifies my RAM as PC10700 (667MHz) does that mean Sony gave me the 1333MHz ram ?