Sony X Series Official Owners Thread

Can someone explain to me, what is the difference between these two options:

1. XP downgrade installer v4.0 for VAIO notebooks with bundled XP Recovery Disc

2. XP downgrade installer v4.0 for VAIO notebooks without bundled XP Recovery Disc

Which one should I choose if I plan on doing a clean install of my own copy of windows XP?

 

Ok, well I installed a reduced win7, aero disabled. It wores really good. With GMA 2023 drivers and Flash 10.1 beta 3 flash is fluent in 720. 1080 mkv files play with ffdshow also with very few hiccups (mostly in panning shots). So I wont be switching to XP, because of the lack of drivers. Even intel doesnt have fresh GMA drivers for XP...

 

hi all ... I just bought the discontinued model VPCX113KG/B on sale and looking forward to get it ....

can someone tell me please if its possible to upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB ? Im planning on using Windows 7 Ultimate x64

cheers

 

No and you can't run 64-bit OS on this platform.

 

No its not possible...using x64 has no sense...


Steve was faster

 

Even if you could install 64Bit, it would kill performance. The Ram is directly mounted on the motherboard so cant be upgraded. Also if anyone has bought the cheaper model that doesn't have the WWAN, the motherboard is different so if you thought you could just buy a plug in Mini PCI WWAN Card (eg Gobi 2000), you cant because there's no socket on the MB and no Sim slot.
For those asking about a tweaking guide, uninstall all the Sony "Bloatware" you dont need and just go to www.blackviper.com to disable unnecessary services. Also turn off Aero, change settings for Display to "Best Performance", use msconfig to use 2 processors during bootup.

 

thanks for the replies guys ...

ok so 64bit Win 7 wont work, how baout 32bit Win 7 ? can I just do a straight install of that ?

I'll do the other recommended tweaks too...

 

Yeah, you can. It will come with win 7 32bit preinstalled...so in your case I would just remove the bloatware...if you dont feel comfortable installing all the sony drivers/system applications...

 

Yes, it ships with the 32-bit version of Windows 7. It doesn't have much bloatware at all, I didn't bother with a clean install.

 

Just got the unit today .... its amazing little pc I have to say ... very light ...

I uninstalled few bits and pieces of the stock soft it came with so the Win 7 is now pretty bare.

I’m going to get online at home and get all the latest drivers and updates.

Can the SSD be upgraded by any chance? Is it 1.8” sata ?

also, can a battery with longer life be purchased?

Also, is it worthwhile to use a super fast SD card like Sandisk Extreme 3 (which has 30mb/s read/write) for Readyboost since the machine only has 2 GB of RAM ?

 

I assume you did not buy this in the U.S.? There are 3 different battery sizes. The U.S. model comes with both small *AND* extended batteries standard, whereas the European version comes with only the standard battery.

The extended battery is a rather large bolt-on affair, but it will give you full-day (and then some) life.

 

Installing SDRam for readyboost wont make any difference because the data is coming from an SSD drive (so in other words Ram to Ram) anyway. The drive is a 1.8" SSD but it's stripped bare - eg just the board with the Ram chips on it without the casing. Given the price you'll pay for a bigger SSD, if you want the extra storage, you are better off buying a big SDHC card - it's far more economical.

 

Just got this yesterday. I suppose GMA500 is not fit to view youtube videos? Mine jerks after a few seconds. Not to mention full HD which suddently turns into a powerpoint presentation.

 

Have you ran Vaio update? There might be a newer driver available.

 

Hey intel_outside
Read my earlier post about getting onto the Intel site and upating the video driver to version 2023

 

I have set that my X goes to sleep when I close the lid. I want it to wake up when I open the lid. It worked on my previous install ( I installed all tools from sony) but after a reinstall with just the basic software needed it doesnt wake up anymore. I have to press any key. I remember that there was a setting for an action "opening the lid". Do you know where it should be, or which sony utility/driver enables this?

Thanks for any hints!

 

You open Vaio Control Center (in the start menu), go to Power Management => Lid Action Settings.

If there is no Vaio Control Center, or option is missing, you should be able to restore it by installing "Setting Utility Series" and then "Vaio Control Center".

 

Jeez... jd thanks!! I tried all combinations....just forgot about this one! :-D

 

In the U.S. at least, the standard (middle-size) battery can't be purchased separately. Too bad, because it seems it's the best compromise: same size as the small (flush with the rest of the unit), but also decent 6 hour battery life. The only option I found was buying it through this website which apparently imports it direct from Japan...but the cost, at US$280, is very high:
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/vaio-x-series-standard-capacity-battery.html

Anyone know how much the standard battery costs in a store in say, Tokyo or Hong Kong? I might have reason to be there later this year and could pick one up then.

---

Oh, and by the way, I think I overstated the case for Flash 10.1 beta 3 in an earlier post. It works wonders, that is, when it works, but I'm finding it does cause crashes more than I'd like. I don't watch streaming video that often, but when I do, I'm averse to browser crashes, so I'm *this* close to uninstalling the beta for now and going back to Flash 10. Hopefully by the next beta/release, Adobe will have resolved all the bugs.

 

Even in France it's cheaper 129 euros = 175 USD

 

So no one's had any new discoveries regarding power adapters lately?

 

Thanks Steve78 and mt1964. Will try updating the drivers. IIRC mine was updated quite a while ago.

 

Does this model suffer from the classic battery drain issue ?

Any plans to upgrade to a more powerfull processor ?


there is a 4 cell battery with 33 Whr

How much Whr offer the 2 other batteries (standard and extended) ?

 

Laptopaddict, here you go...


2050mAh VGP-BPS19 - 16Wh




[L] 4100mAh VGP-BPL19 - 31Wh



[X] 8200mAh VGP-BPX19 - 61Wh

 

Only 61 Whr for the largest ? Come on...

Battery drain issue for this model ?

 

Talking about batteries, do you guys disconnect it when working at home for long hours? I am afraid that leaving it connected may shorten its lifespan. What do you think?

 

I've been having a consistent issue with the newest 2023 GMA500 driver where after a length of time all video in Windows Media Player, MPCHC, Flash Player (both IE and Firefox) etc becomes solid green, and in the case of Flash, causes a browser crash. Fixed by a reboot, but will come back again after an hour or so of use. Affects HD video to begin with, but eventually affects standard def stuff too. Have gone back to 2020 and no problems since. Flash 10.1 beta 3 still works fine however, so I'm happy that it is not the source of the green video issue. It's far more stable than the previous betas. Hope that helps.

 

Nah. It probably will affect the lifespan in the long run but every battery will go crappy after a few years anyway. At that stage you'll be able to get a cheap knockoff off ebay to keep you going. My routine is just to run the thing off the battery all the time, even if there's a power plug nearby, and once it's almost empty I'll plug it back in. It's fairly quick to recharge anyway. For me, it's the kind of laptop that is supposed to be handy and convenient, so connecting and disconnecting the battery constantly would only make it less so. That's my attitude towards the X anyway!

 

Thanks. Sounds reasonable to me. I am wondering if the computer is smart enough to "bypass" the battery is the charge is full.

 

I agree. These batteries are Lithium Ion and they start naturally deteriorating from the day they are made, regardless of use. Having a "new" battery tucked away in the cupboard waiting to use it may result in you having a new dead battery, so the message is just use it, don't try to preserve it and don't buy spares too far in advance of when you need them.
Lithium Ion are only good for about 3 years maximum and in my history as a service engineer, typically they are good for about 1 year before they will have a significant reduced charge holding capacity. I have a couple of 4 yr old laptops anf their batteries only hang on for about 15 minutes.
The Sony has a power management setting that restricts charging to 80% if you have it constantly hooked up to the mains power - use that setting as keeping Lithium Ion at 100% charge for prolonged times will shorten it's life. It's also good to cycle the battery - eg use it till it goes flat or close to flat and then charge it up.

 

A Hong Kong eBay seller has got a X travel charger for US$12 plus $5.50 shipping.

"Travel Charger for 11.1" Sony VAIO X
Input : 110V -240V
Output : 10.5V 2.9A
Type available: EUR 2 round pin"

Two pin europlug though, so us lot with UK plug sockets will need a convertor.

Only 61Wh? Well if the 4 cell [L] battery is 31Wh then you would expect the 8 cell [X] battery would have roughly double the capacity. If you want an even higher capacity battery then it'll need 16 cells - it has to done like that to keep the voltage the same as the others. But imagine the size, weight and the cost of a 16 cell [XL] battery...

mt1964, since your an IT engineer I hope you can shed some light on what components are causing the most 'battery drain'. My theory is the major cause of the drain is the actual battery management and charging circuits. To allow that 80% charge function to work, it needs to constantly communicate with battery to determine what voltage it's at. I guess this needs to take place whether or not the 80/50% charge function is switched on in software or not. Also, do you know what is the typical current draw for the power switch, lid switch, "AV mode" buttons when the laptop is shutdown? Are we talking around 10mA per circuit?

 

Does anyone know when/if a new version of the X-Series will be released? Specifically, I am interested in buying a version with more RAM.

 

Guys is anyone interested in plugs like this:


I think the Italian one would be great, if you cut off the middle pin...it would be really compact. The minimum order is 10 pieces...thats why Im asking

The original sony power-adapter is nice and small, but carrying the AC cable makes it pretty big.

 

Hi,
I looked at this in the Sony Store, really nice. Anyone know if I can I uninstall Win7 and install Win XP on it? I searched but couldn't find any information. I can only use WinXP for our VPN Checkpoint software. Thanks.

Edit:
Searched this thread and came up empty but reading a few pages back I read the responses with the XP driver link. Anyone actually running XP on it and can provide some feedback on how well it runs?

 

You would be crazy to go back to XP from Win7. Win7 has an "XP Mode" function to run older software and anyway a lot of xp software runs natively in 7

 

I'm in! I'd take two. Would prefer the standard-plug, but would also go for the italian one (just have no idea with what to cut it)

 

Hmm... somehow I don't really feel safe about using this.

 

Talking about CPU potential, which software (besides Photoshop) can really stretch its capabilities? Not talking about games of course.

 

I don't think more RAM will make much difference on a 32-BIT OS. As I have said many times before, the X is all about stamina and portability. Those people who need more horsepower should look at another machine.

 

I agree 100% with these comments. I must say whilst I like to squeeze every ounce out of a machine to "tune it" for the best it's capable of, I am getting a bit frustrated with people wanting to make it more than it actually is or more than what it was designed for. Sony deliberately made a super small portable machine with "good" battery life - there is absolutely nothing else on the market quite like this machine. Perhaps an analogy would be the difference between a Mercedes C Class and an E Class - both quality cars but built for different purposes and different target markets. If I want a grunty machine, I will grab the bigger, heavier Laptop but if I want the slim "put it in my Notepad Compendium" laptop then I will grab the X Series.

At the end of the day, before choosing any laptop, decide what your functional requirements are and then buy to that spec and be happy with it. In summary, as I said in an earlier post, I have "tuned" Windows 7 to the max so now I have a quite fast machine that also boots quickly - it runs my Office Apps, sends mail, browses the web quite adequately (2Gb RAM is more than enough), all while sitting in my car on the side of the road, but it isn't going to be my machine of choice if I want to start creating CAD drawings ! If Sony made this thing with a 3Ghz Dual Core Processor and a faster drive, everyone would be whinging about poor battery life !

 

Exactly.

And one thing I'm surprised X users don't make better use of is Remote Desktop; whenever I need to do some "grunt" work (video recodes, MS Expression Web, Photoshop CS) on my SZ, I don't even bother getting the machine out of its corner anymore. I just remote desktop in there and work away; the X's CPU and memory don't matter a bit at that stage, and our network is good and fast so you still get Aero and all those features. After a while you usually forget you're actually using Remote Desktop. Occasionally I'll need the bigger screen and keyboard of the SZ but to be honest I'm happy to let the X be my little window on most of the PCs on our network!

 

Hmmm... this is a great idea! Thanks for the reminder!

 

I would get this if only it got HDMI.

 

HDMI would be pointless on a machine like this because then everyone would complain about the poor speed of the Video chip & processor not coping with HD video ! VGA is more than adequate for 99% of things. I'm using my 46" Samsung LED TV connected to my Apple MacMini via VGA for watching movies and I don't have anything to complain about.

 

UK 3 pin version of the Yung Li cloverleaf adaptors that laser21 posted earlier. Works best when the power supply is plugged vertically in a trailing socket. You could also plug it into a wall socket horizontally as the Vaio X power supply is so light. However, you won't be able to see the power LED as it'll be upside down.






The white 2 pin US plug adaptor is from an Apple iPod power supply. It has a figure of eight connector, so that Maplin cloverleaf adaptor mentioned earlier needs to be used.

The cloverleaf to figure of eight adaptor also allows the use of the Slimplug power cord, with folding 3 pin UK power plug.

 

Thats really cool! You have some options there...

Where did you buy the cloverleaf to figure 8 adapter?

 

And with Windows 7 you can pin the Remote Desktop app to the taskbar too so you only need to right-click and pick your connection.. nice!

 

From Maplin - UK based electronics store. Some details in my previous post here

 

problem with vaio x vpcx11z1e

some days ago I found that my wwan doesn't work any more, and going in device manager I can see that many devices were duplicated and in other devices were three bluetooth devices with yellow esclamation dot, how can I resolve the problem?

i tried every upgrade, bios, driver ecc... nothing works

I downloaded from vaio support the fix for bluetooth, but it says only "file copied" end nothing changes

 

Re-install the original Smart Networking driver, the update kills WWAN!