Sony X Series Official Owners Thread

From what I've read we need to wait for the new WWDM version of the EMGD driver before we get Aero and DXVA2 video accel.

Perhaps the absence of hkcmd.exe is preventing display brightness adjustment. You could try running it manually out of the system32 folder (and maybe igfxext.exe too?)

 

I'll bet you're right. Come on Win7 development! As promised, here is my v_10 driver. I've been trying out a v_11 and 12 but they're not improvements: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32136358/mmmsheen 13x7_attempt10.zip

Also, in searching around I found this file that is supposed to be for the P - also made with EMDG. Give it a try Cowboy: LINK BROKEN B/C DRIVER DOESN't WORK

Finally some notes and workarounds:

Exterior display only seems to work when it's connected before you boot. I haven't been able to get it to recognize a second display once windows is booted. If I'm doing something wrong...let me know.

DX11 (well, 10 - I'm sure it's running in compatibility mode) and OpenGL2.0, this is good, but my windows experience index dropped to 1.0 for 3D graphics. Probably b/c the driver's not signed. Fine with me -I never trusted the thing anyway.

Some strangeness to ext display - I can get it to give all sorts of display options sometimes (like when it ran 1080P on my monitor!) and others it defaults to 1024x768 and won't budge. Some more work here. Also - no way to clone/mirror the display that I've found. Extend desktop only.

Plays Starcraft like a champ - I knew it would. 1080P H.264 is silky, flash and webGL are much improved.

Haven't noticed any difference in battery drain - this might take more testing than 24 hours can afford.

Very stable - haven't crashed at all, no artifacts, wait, I take it back - waking from sleep still an issue. It doesn't wake from sleep. Must restart.

And of course, broken buttons and no (real) software. This driver is definitely worth a look, easy to switch back and forth between this and the 8.x.x.2024/2030 driver.

DL at the link above and follow the install instructions in my previous post. ENJOY!

 

Wow, thanks for all the hard work! I use my X a lot so I'm not ready just yet to start experimenting with homebrew graphics drivers, especially since I use Sleep and the brightness controls a lot, but this is all very promising! Certainly we can't depend on Intel or Sony to make progress on this, so it's great we have some technically minded forum members to help out

 

Ok, I figured out the "strangeness" to the ext display. It reads the EDID of the monitor and then displays only supported modes. Hence - when hooked to my 1080P monitor, 1080P was an option. When hooked to my projector, 1024x768 was the highest. Now that I think of it, that's not strange at all.

 

This driver is not good. I uninstalled GMA 500, rebooted then installed this. When I rebooted again the display was all scrambled up. I could sort of see the buttons, enough to hit restart from the login screen. I rebooted to safe mode and uninstalled it.

I maybe could have gotten into windows and tried to change the resolution... but I didn't because it looked like the output could be damaging to the screen.

 

I'm sorry cowboy! I'll get an EMGD driver to you tonight for your P. Should've just done it yesterday, but I saw that driver and thought someone beat me to the punch.

As for driver v_10 it's still my favorite after 3 more revisions. I must've spoken too soon about a few perceived errors in the driver:

1. the sleep is not broken, it errored on me once. Just a fluke I guess, since then I've put it to sleep and hibernate a dozen times each and it woke - no problem.
2. the external display is not always on, it can be turned off in windows display settings. It does, however still require that the ext display is connected while booting to recognize a 2nd display.

 

New video with Vaio X driver v_10 YouTube - ‪GMA 500 driver for Vaio X with Hardware Acceleration in Chrome and ie9‬‏

And to clarify - ComputerCowboy is using a vaio P - the driver he's referring to is not my work and apparently sux.

 

This driver installs fine and the resolution is good... but, it seems like it is stuck in 256 color mode. I went in the display settings and checked it and it said it was 32bit... clearly it is not, I switched it to 16bit and it looked the same.

 

comment removed, belongs in Vaio P owners thread

 

That one is worse. That one works much like that first one I tried that you didn't make, in fact it might be exactly the same.

 

I'm going to reply on the P-owners thread, to keep this thread relevant. I'm also going to remove references to P-drivers here -let's relocate this discussion cowboy. I'm about to post a 3rd and 4th P driver over there.

Meanwhile... here are screenshots of my passmark benches

Using stock 8...2030 driver: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32136358/passmark official.png
Using mmmsheen v_10: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32136358/passmark v_10.png

I even ran more after these results and the 2d spread between the "official" driver and the EMGD driver gets larger. Latest 2d score was 130! Seems like 3d runs poorly on both.

 

^ sure that is fine with me

 

mmmsheen, can you adjust the brightness in Power Management even though the hotkeys are broken? I'm away from my X at the moment but I'm looking forward to trying your latest driver when I get back on Sunday.

 

Yep, in both power management and the emgdconfig tool in the "utilities" folder that comes packaged with the driver.

 

Hey guys,I am new to this site. Just wondering if anyone could help me? January last year i bought this rare beauty (vaio x. vpcx113kg) from japan. Everything was working fine untill few weeks ago it started to to play up. Now a days I am dealing with constant BSOD, and keeps freezing everytime I pick it up of the table.I have done various scans from AVG to vaio diagnostics which had performed hardware scans and software's. The other thing which I have done,is checked for driver updates using windows 7. I am not sure what to do.I rang sony and they advised me to send it to a sony authorized repairer which will cost 160 AUD just to look at it. Please help.

Kind regards

Rush

 

just restore it to factory settings. Before that, backup all your stuff to an external HDD.

 

Laser21. I will give it a shot. Thanks. BTW could a cheap mini wifi modem I bought from a phone company be the cause to freezing my X ?

 

yes. Win7 creates a dump file .dmp which lets you diagnose your problem. Usually it points you to a driver, that causes the problem.
this is a good guide HOW TO: Debug Memory Dumps (Figure out what is causing a BSOD) - MajorGeeks Support Forums

It can save you the reinstall

 

Thanks mate. I shall to that tonight.

 

Good Job, I have also created a Gaming Driver using IEGD 10.4 for Win XP
By using this modified driver on the Sony Vaio X, you will be able to run the games like Running Red Alert 1, Worms World Party and GTA 2 at native resolution (1366x768 pixels) + gain hardware accleration on VC1, H264 without cyberlink programme.

Link to download: http://www.mediafire.com/?tuag3348dtss310

 

Sorry for the long break, lots of work and family over the weekend - I've just created a v_14 of my EMGD driver that fixes the wake-on-open problem of v_10. Now opening the lid resumes from sleep. I'd still like to fix the backlight/fn button problems, according to linux users it's doable, I'll post a new revision in the next couple of days.

Cheers! Good to know you're having some luck with iegd. I've just loaded your driver - you sure about HW acceleration? I haven't fully explored the options available in iged re: HW acceleration (working mostly with EMGD) but my PassMark 2D score using this driver was pretty bad. Like low 80s. Flash video didn't play well, either. Have you had better luck with it? Could it be that I'm running Win7?

Questions:
1. Did you get the 2nd display detection to work?
2. Are you running XP? If so, do the function buttons work for you? Did the Intel Extreme software install?
3. What backlight settings did you use?

 

For those who want to make their own EMGD driver - this is a really good resource. Too bad I found it today. Could've used it a week ago.

IEGD LVDS Configuration - ToradexWiki

EDIT: EMGD utility available here:

http://edc.intel.com/Software/Downloads/EMGD/

 

Could someone please tell me what is the most current alps pointing device for my X. The current one I have is version 7.5.505.309. this version is causing some distortion on my monitor with some weird sound . It would be a great help.

 

Current version is 7.5.505.405 - check here Sony eSupport - VPCX115KX - Software Updates & Drivers

 

Mmmsheen. Thanks for the link. I am still having problems with my laptop freezing. If I pick it up from a certain way, it starts to crash or freeze. Don't know why. I have done everything from system diagnose to completely reinstalling the system to factory settings. Have you ever had a problem or heard anyone who has had similar to my problem. oSmething's telling me it could be the motherboard. This could be a very expensive repair job.

 

Yeah, I kinda wondered - what made you think it was the alps driver? Sounds like a hardware problem, but too little info to know for sure. How'd you reinstall? I mean, what was your reinstall process? Have you noticed any device problems in Device Manager (like devices disabled or with ! or X next to them)? Any software or hardware changes around the time the freezing/crashing started. This is the info that would help someone troubleshoot your X.

 

Hello,

I am still wondering if it is possible to "hack" fan control. Today I found a program called NHC (Notebook Hardware Control, Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) - Homepage, Downloads, Help, Docu, FAQ, News - www.NotebookHardwareControl.net ). I have only spent half an hour and cannot yet tell if this will get us somewhere. One seems to need an ACPI file. I can't even tell if it will work if such a file had been made. It would be great if someone would comment on this...
Thanks,
Matthias

 

What's the general consensus on non-oem replacement batteries? Last time I bought a non-oem battery was for a camcorder and it was pretty good. Maybe wore out sooner than the oem battery it replaced, but was well worth the price. Are they making non-oem batteries better or worse for laptops?

The reason I ask is I'm pretty set on buying a "L" battery for my X. I could get an oem on ebay for $140 or this one for $66 (both prices pre-shipping):

New Laptop Battery for Sony Vaio Vpc-X113Kg Vgp-Bps19 5100mah

 

General consensus for non OEM batteries for SONY Vaio computers is to NOT buy them. They require BIOS updates which may or may not harm your computer in order to bypass Sony's handshake between the battery and the mobo. You're better off not bricking your system and spend the extra few $$$ on a legit battery.

 

I got a replacement non-original battery for my Vaio SZ3 about 2 years ago and it was a hell of a lot cheaper than buying from Sony and it continues to work well. However that laptop was made in 2006, probably before Sony started blocking these types of batteries. Honestly I wouldn't go anywhere near the bios just in order to install a cheaper battery...

 

Hello,
has anyone taken apart the X to remove dust from the fan? If so, how was the "dust situation"? Thanks! I will try to do it myself perhaps some day, but I am a bit anxious.
matthias

 

AFAIK all you have to do is halt the Sony Battery Manager process. I don't think it needs any BIOS hacking but I stand to be corrected. Personally I would go for the OEM version due to concerns about heat and longevity with non-OEM.

 

OK, don't stick anything in there to halt the fan. Strange things happen. Even thought I closely monitored CPU temp and acpi temp and they were much below the temperatures that are reached when the X is under full load, the system shut down itself after some 10 minutes. I have no idea how it manages to find out that the fan has been halted, or if there is some software that detects that the fan is not working, or whatever. I have no idea.
I am thinking of buying a vaio P just to get rid of the fan. Or using ear plugs. damn, summer is back.
matthias

PS. !!! If anyone has empirical (not just your gut feeling ) data that the 2024 GMA driver may contribute to heat issues as oppesed to 2015, please do post! =) thanks

 

Thanks for the battery advice, forum. I'll let you know what I do. Turns out I have one "S" battery (which I constantly use), two "X" batteries (which I never use) and really just need one "L" battery - that'd let me work without taking the AC adapter everywhere.

Interesting thought. I'd like to compare my driver (available in sig) to the 2024/2030 driver to see which runs hotter. I'll guess that mine does - but that's not "empirical". I'll let you know. Loading everest.

 

I always thought the design of the L battery is so odd for the X series. It makes it so the front part of the computer is taller than the rear. I know there's the little legs you can extend on the back of the computer, but it seems like an afterthought IMHO. It's too bad the X battery defeats the purpose of the X's slim form factor and it's too bad the S holds so little charge! /endrant

 

You mean the X battery, right xxGenericSNxx? The L battery has the same dimensions as the S. It's a shame Sony shipped the X in the US with two useless batteries! We were luckier in Europe.

Something that might help the forum: if you've taken an extreme approach to killing all background processes and disabled indexing, the outstanding UltraSearch is a great replacement for Windows Search functions:

UltraSearch - Freeware for Ultra-Fast File Search

 

I will now be installing the GMA 2015 driver back again to see if the 2024 has had heat issues.
I find it strange that the 2015 installation exe has >100MB, whilst the 2024 version has just 10MB.

 

Ok, here's some semi-scientific heat data I collected:

mmmsheen's EMGD -- resting 111 degrees F -- full load cpu 135 degrees F -- full load cpu+video 138 degrees F
GMA 2024 -- resting 110 degrees F -- full load cpu 133 degrees F -- full load cpu+video 137 degrees F
GMA 2030 -- resting 112 degrees F -- full load cpu 135 degrees F -- full load cpu+video 142 degrees F

Not enough difference to call one a winner/loser. What I don't get is why the fan kicks on at 120 degrees F?? This CPU is made for up to 190 degrees before it shuts down due to heat (saw that in notebook hardware control). I feel like the fan should kick in around 130 degrees, when the notebook is doing moderate amounts of work. The way it is it seems like a waste of battery, plus it's noisy.

Another thought I had, anyone consider under-volting the cpu? The program notebook hardware control has the ability to do it. I messed with a few settings and was able to under-volt by 8-10% (didn't dare go lower) without error. It runs about an hour of tests to be sure your safe at the under-volt level you chose before it applies the change, so I feel pretty safe about the change. Now I need to collect heat and battery life data for my under-volted X. Anyone else doing this?

 

I always thought the L battery is twice as thick as the S battery hence why Sony needed to add these moveable feet at the back of the computer to make it level: http://www.blogcdn.com/chinese.engadget.com/media/2009/10/sony_vaio_x_hk_dsc_0052.jpg

Isn't the L battery double the thickness? I don't see how/ why they would make two batteries have different capacities in the same size.

 

Nope that's exactly what they did, the L and S battery packs have identical dimensions, but the actual battery component in the S is smaller and therefore the whole thing is lighter. It makes the whole laptop impressively light, but at the same time the VAIO X with an L battery isn't exactly a brick either!

I bought mine in the EU. I get 4 to 5 hours from my X when I'm on the road using the WWAN, I often wonder if I could put up with the extra bulk and weight of the X battery in order to get, what, another 3 hours? @mmmsheen how much actual battery life do you get from your X battery?

The fold out legs are just to give you extra breathing space for the vents on the bottom of the case as far as I know. I never use them and it's never caused any problems.

 

With regard your results; are these on a flat surface, such as a table? Do you have the flip-out legs extended?

I mostly use "Balanced Mode" in the Vaio Control Center (found under Power Options => Thermal Control Strategy) and I find the fan noise practically unnoticeable during the working day. In the evening or when in bed I would change it to Quiet mode, and it makes a pretty good difference. I've noticed you can control the MAX CPU % in Windows 7 power options too, which would prevent the X from hitting high CPU speeds even more, potentially preventing the fan from kicking in. Never tried this though.

 

I used to use NHC to undervolt my old Vaio S2XP to eke out a bit more battery life. Great to hear it works for the X! Looking forward to hearing about your results.

 

Good call, should've include the factors:

Arizona summer - 78 degrees F inside (feels cold to me), Flat wood coffee table, legs extended, AC power

Waited about 10 minutes between tests to let it cool

I'm still figuring out the undervolting. It seems to disable dynamic CPU clocking - locks it at 800mhz. Certainly not ideal, but think of the power-savings! hah- I'll do a writeup if I get it working.

 

Well if anybody has been paying attention to the VAIO Z speculation thread on the main forum, Sony have officially released details of their new Z, and essentially it's a souped-up version of the X in a 13.3inch format. You can see some of the same design cues with the video below:

YouTube - ‪New Sony Vaio Z Series 2011 - VPCZ2x 28/6/11‬‏

The big differentiator here of course is that the new Z has a real processor, 4 to 8GB of memory, HDMI, fingerprint reader etc compared to the more simple X, and it's therefore not quite as thin as the X, but it's close. The X's big brother if you like. And the big new feature is an external bluray drive / GPU combo docking station.

The most basic model is £1434 (or €1753 if shopping from German Sonystyle) which I suppose ain't too bad for a premium 13.3 inch super thin VAIO. Any other VAIO X owners slightly intrigued / enamoured?

 

just wow - looks really like something I wanted for ever! 1,2kg is ok.

 

hi mmmsheen & forum,
yesterday I was s angry about the constant fan whining despite low temps that I google a Vaio X developer and sent him a msg on facebook =) (I was nice. No answer though =) ).
What I find strange is that temperature seems to be *partly* independent on actual cpu/... load. Sometimes Coretemp's cpu temp drops to 32°C (BTW, NHC seems to shopw +10°C, i.e. 42°, for the core), and everything is silent and fine, yet on identical occasions temp is much higher. I did check and rule out many if not all causes (antivirus, windows search, etc.pp.). I sometimes wonder if iit might be the SSD doing some maintenance activity (this is novice speculation!! don't trust me on this!). or if has to do with power supply/battery loading. I am still using yawffer (not freeware) to keep certain programs under control (freezing them). the supend issues bug in yawffer seems to be fixed.
I am very interested in undervolting but I'm a bit lazy to investigate as I am quite an anxious person and will do much research as I don't want to risk anything. (That's why I stick wires into the fan. )
Please do post all your undervolting experiments and experiences. Much appreciated.
Matthias

##EDIT: re NHC, for a start, I messed with the multipliers (not the voltages), and speed step indeed stops working. It remained at 800MHz, however after a hibernate, it remained fixed at 2000. After a reboot, everything worked again.

 

The fan seems almost random doesn't it. Some evenings whilst I'm browsing the web it's completely silent. But if I was to watch a YouTube video it would come on and stay on throughout an hour long session, long after the video has been closed. It would be amazing if we could just notch the temperature threshold up a couple of degrees. Sony seem to have been overly aggressive because the laptop doesn't really get hot to the touch, at least compared with other models and brands.

Incidentally I've observed that my CPU stays at max (1.86) for about a minute after waking from sleep or hibernate. It then reverts to normal scaling.

The new Vaio Z looks amazing, quite frankly and that price is quite attractive. I do wonder how such a thin carbon fibre latop will feel in a much larger footprint though. There's just something about the X's construction that seems befitting for a very small computer.

I bought the X as my travel machine so I was in the market for an 11" only. But it looks like anyone who wants a larger multi-purpose machine has just been served up a treat.

By the way, have you had any joy fixing the brightness keys mmmsheen? I really can't do without those so it's all that's holding me back from using your driver! Also something to bear in mind for your A/B testing: I've noticed that over the last few days YouTube seem to have enabled accelerated hardware decoding and rendering on their player, perhaps in combination with the new version of Flash. Just a few days ago 'View Player Info' was reporting software rendering. Not sure whether it's made a radical difference on 2024 conventional, but CPU use for 360p is certainly very low.

 

I started replying to each of you individually but then I realized I was saying the same thing over and over - keep up the good work, all of our tinkering together is making me LOVE MY X!

Matthias - getting in touch with a dev is genius - let us know if it gets you anywhere
50sQuiff - no luck with the fn buttons - there's really no option for it, and since I'm no dev, it might be best to wait till win7 EMGD is out. When the win7 software is available it'll be easy. The Intel website says it's coming Q2 2011 (right now).


Oh- and I'll be purchasing a Z for certain. Promo videos get me every time. The Z key attaching itself to the keyboard at the end... yes, I'll own one of these.

 

Hey mate,thank you kindly for responding.My reinstalation process was a basic one. I just went to the vaio recovery and did a complete system retore. This problem started when I purchased a portable mine wifi modem(Huawei modem E583C) and had that connected to the usb hub-which the X started to automatically install the driver.The portable wifi was working fine till one day it started to freeze,and occasionally the BSOD screen appeared with a message saying a pool header problem, and the other time it said driver_irql_not_less_or_equal.....LOL I have no idea what those message mean.One other thing that you suggested to do is check the device manager,which I did and found an exclamation point beside a message saying Microsoft virtual wifi mini port adapter has a driver problem and the x couldnt fix.All this seem very complicated to me as My knowledge of computers are average.Your advice would be a HUGE appreciation. Thanks mate.

 

well, i did a "medium" effort to find more devs' fb profiles other than Yujin Morisawa who unfortunalety didn't reply, but couldn't identify any further devs in this attempt. if anyone has an idea how to get in contact with one or two more, let me know. I already have the email template =) see the vaio x youtube developers interviews, but also any articles on the web with perhaps further, not youtube-interviewed, devs...
so long.
we just need to find the guy who wrote the bios =)

###EDIT: please help: I am trying to re-install the 2015 gma driver, using EP0000209085.exe, from sony website. however upon launching the file, nothing happens. it starts to extract, but then simply aborts the prozess after a few seconds. perhaps because it detects I have 2024 installed? but there is no msg window that would inform me. do i have to uninstall the 2024 first? i did not do so upon installing the 2024 on top of the 2015.
thanks for your help.