Sony Vaio Z i5/i7 Official Owners Thread

I am not trying to replace them specifically, i need/want the ability to run alternate operating systems on dedicated drives. Apparently, not as much as i thought tho, i just ordered a second one after returning the first one =)

zoinks, Are you sure the warranty would even cover a SSD?

 

SiSoft Sandra. At least for the old Z, it shows up on the same bus as the MS and SD card readers, which definitely are on the USB bus.

 

I really like my silver one

 

And I, my premium carbon fiber. ; )

 

I second u Silver's too ostentatious; i prefer something subtle yet classy. And premium carbon fiber accentuates the Power LED

 

Yes that's what i prefer, premium fiber carbon! How is the i7 620 compared to the i5 540? Battery life again? Also can someone take pics of their 1080P screen and what screen make or company the 1080P screen?

 

Since u asked, I happened to have had both a Sony Vaio Z11 i5 and i7. Cuz I 1st bought the i5 but regretted. Hence I bought another i7 one. Then I sold off the i5 one. So at 1 point in time I had both.

I did a Windows Experience Index on both then and here's the screenies. Interesting results I would say (only 0.1 increment for CPU, but -0.1 for graphics, +0.1 of 8GB RAM over 6 GB RAM and +0.4 increment of the 256GB SSD over the 128 GB SSD), but I never regretted getting the i7 one

i5 screenie


i7 screenie

 

Someone mentioned they were using the ViDock2 with an external graphics card and it was very fast. If that was true it would be impossible for it to be USB2 as the bandwidth would be ultraslow and it would be much more CPU intensive....

 

Do you have more info on the models to be released mid June ? Are they improved specs or the same ? (graphics, SSD size etc).

The info on this link indicates the new models were due late May and would be the same as current for the VPCZ117GG;

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1416453&p=5#r91

 

Yeah, what's the situation with the upcoming Refresh?

 

USB taxes the CPU more, true.
As for bandwidth, sure, with only 480 Mbps it would be slow for some operations, but most gfx work doesn't involve large data transfers, so unless running actual tests, it might still speed things up. After all, a Voodoo 5 4500 PCI did an admirable job for its time, running on a slow shared PCI-bus, and with a fraction of the on-card memory of today's offerings. It still beat quite a few AGP cards with twice or four times the bandwidth, because it had the raw processing power.

But yeah, 2500 Mbps > 480 Mbps, no questions about that. So if someone can verify (by looking at which bus it uses, or measure transfer speeds higher than what USB can deliver) that it actually uses a PCIe (or PCI) bus, it would be welcome.

 

An ExpressCard device shouldn't care about how the ExpressCard talks to the north bridge, as long as it gets its bandwidth without too high latency.
And it doesn't require as much bandwidth as you might think:
Two in plus two out of 24/96 audio is 2*2*24*96000 bps, or 9.2 Mbps. Add control data and overhead for a total of 10 Mbps. That's no sweat for a 480 Mbps USB bus.
(I run a 10in/10out + 2xMIDI MOTU on a Firewire 400.)

 

It's indeed a USB bus driven express card (checked with Sandra and Everest)

 

That is kind of disappointment.... I guess upgrading the graphics will be mostly out of the question.

 

Not necessarily. If the bottleneck is the processing power of the card, or operating on data already stored in the card's own video RAM, it woud still win out. It's only large transfers to/from the card that would be slower.
Some people run 16x cards in 1x slots (by using a dremel on the slot -- only do this on your desktop PC if you know the card can run at 1x), and sure, games are slower than at 16x. Perhaps 15-20% slower. But the speed of the actual card still matters more. It'd be fairly similar for running a 1x card on an USB bus instead of a PCIe bus -- a very fast card could still be faster than onboard video.

 

Did I say otherwise? All I said is that card uses PCI-e, not USB, hence Z ExpressCard slot is fully functioning in both modes.

 

Large bandwidth is needed for high resolution textures. If you play games that heavily utilize programmable shaders (many latest games do), you are fine. Also, you may lower texture quality and turn on AA and still get decent picture while using the external card to the maximum.

 

That mostly affects initial load and zoning times, since the textures are otherwise stored in RAM on the card. (Which is one reason why newer cards have such a humongous amount of memory -- even if a game doesn't use it all at once, it can still use it to speed up re-zoning.)

 

I gave the EVGA Precision tool (got it from guru3d) a go and the card OCed to 600 core 1000 memory without much fuss, I got about 25% performance boost. Not sure what the safe temp range is but it was hovering around 60 idle and 80-90 load.

 

Works well. Thanks alamone.

 

So will their be a gpu refresh, nvidia optimus!? A nice gt 335 would of been better than the 330, its rebranded be crazy to put in an ATI 5870 lol

 

When I change the core/mem clock speeds, i hit "apply" and it resets back to defaults, what am i doing wrong?

 

You must connect your ac adapter to your Vaio Z before you overclock your Nvidia gpu. See if this works

 

I can only speak for the german market. It seems that different configurations will be distributed in other countries. Its all NDA. I will get into a lot of trouble for any leaked information.

 

Be sure to check out RivaTuner and the much-awesome sidebar gadget. You can do tons of really cool stuff with it.

Rivatuner GPU Monitor Vista Sidebar Gadget 2.3 download from Guru3D.com

 

sweet, that worked, thanks

 

As cool as that sidebar gadget is (and it is very cool) -- be careful. Depending on how/how often it is polling, it could have a serious impact on battery life (though if you are overclocking your GPU, batterlife may not be a significant concern )

 

Why can't I reconnect my bluetooth mouse every time I return on BLuetooth on the Z and then turn on the mouse and hit the connect button?
I seem to have to delete the mouse as a device and refind it in initalization mode.

 

How is the i7 620 compared to the i5 540 concerning
battery life and
fan noise?

 

i don't have that problem with my Razer Orochi

 

Did you try installing the Bluetooth firmware update? It should show up in Vaio Update.

 

I spose my question is, the top end VPCZ117GG is almost out of stock in my country - I've tracked 1 down.. it has the i7-620M, GT 330M, 1920x1080, 8GB Ram, 256GB SSD, DVD Burner

If the refresh high end model is not going to be an improvement (better graphics or bigger SSD etc), then I would prefer to buy now, rather than wait.

Appreciate you can't give specifics under the NDA, but would you suggest getting the current one if I can, or waiting

 

Sony Korea officially announced that they will be stopping importing Z117, so only Z116 and Z115 are available. (i think it is due to shortage in i7 mobile cpu)

I strongly suggest u to get it.

 

how do i get the rivatuner to work b/c unlikely to the old Z, the rivatuner doesn't show the temperature reading.

 

nice!! however I'm sure it cost you more than that since you booked a flight to Hong Kong just to get it!! (although any excuse to get to HK for a few days is worth it ! )

 

Damn its so much cheaper to get it in Hong Kong!! lol

 

I have negative interest in overclocking my Z's GPU or CPU, so I haven't tried.

Rivatuner is updated with some frequency to add support for new cards. Alternatively, you can use a Everest for data feeds. I haven't tried it either.

Everest does have a sidebar gadget of its own


If you have a LCD based keyboard, like a Logitech G19, you can also do some cool stuff with Everest.

 

You´re fine with the current one. No need to wait.

 

Thanks

 

hehe, not a lot more as I live on the Chinese mainland. Took a flight to Shenzhen and walked across the border to the MTR. One night in HK's always good fun though

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/477806-sony-z11-frequently-asked-questions.html

@ SurferJon .... I thank you

 

i got the last piece in HK...
SONY VAIO Z - VPCZ117GG (Premium Carbon)
Intel® Core™ i7-620M processor 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.33GHz
8GB DDR3 SDRAM
3xUSB
256GB (64GB x 4, Serial ATA, RAID 0 support)
13.1" wide (Full HD: 1920 x 1080) TFT colour display
Noise cancelling earphones
Windows XP SP3 recovery disc

anyone interested? USD2500
buyer should shoulder the shipping cost. I'm from the Philippines.. thanks
just PM me or email me at [email protected]

 

I have not installed any Vaio updates. It may have gotten better, but I need to wait a day or so before declaring it fixed.

 

Hi guys!

I have just received my VPCZ1 and I LOVE It!! However, one thing is bugging me.

When I was first installing everything, the keyboard blacklit came on automatically when it was dark, and adjusted the brightness too.

This has suddenly stopped happening, and my google searches said I can enable 'auto brightness' in VAIO Control Centre, but I have no vaio control centre!?

Thanks for any help.

 

Hey Daniel,

Try the Sony Support page, download Notebook Utilities:

 

Hi there, thanks for that. I regot that file and installed it, rebooted, but still no VAIO Control Centre.

My model no is VPC-Z11C5E.

When the laptop first boots the laptop lights come on, but even in a dark room they don't come on once it's booted up :/

thanks for any help.

 

you have to hit a key for the backlight to turn on.

Also there is a setting for always on when it's dark, as well as one for always off.

Perhaps yours is set to always off.

 

I'm wondering if it's not showing up because it didn't get installed correctly due to dependency issues (some other program needs to be installed before notebook utilities). From ozbimmer's post ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/6155868-post96.html), are you missing any of the stuff before the Control Center?

 

Hi there. Thanks, do you know what button it is? I can't see one...? And where do you find that setting?

 

It seems I have all of those except the Control Centre This was a default install too (as it arrived), I haven't done anything to it. Thanks!