Sony X Series Official Owners Thread

Well, the love affair with the X was ended abruptly by an unfortunate incident. While recharging on the window sill, I brushed the cable with my leg, which tipped the compee off the sill.
Although it landed on soft carpet, it landed on the recharger cable end which was inserted into the computer. Now it cannot recharge, meaning the computer is only usable until both its batteries are dead.
A colleague will have a look at it next week.
Should it be irreperable, I will have to flog it on ebay for spares.
How bizzare...I had just five days' use out of the X...

 

It's hard to say for sure without seeing pictures, but the yellow adapter plug is a separate part, so it may repairable for a minimum of expense.

 

anyone need spare parts for vaio x, i.e. ssd, lcd, battery, 3g modem, etc.? email me at [email protected] as i am not so active here now.

 

:hi2: hello veteran X-owners

@arm
sorry for asking yet another question: would you be as kind as to go to device manager, usb controller, sony memory card reader/writer -> rightclick -> properties -> driver, and then post driver date and version?

mine is
22.04.2009
1.0.0.0

this would be really helpful! or anyone else who has sdxc cards running.

I've decided to run daily incremental backups with macrium reflect and I'd like to put them onto an sd card.

 

Hi matthias2468,

I just received a Transcend 64GB SDXC card and it's working very well. FYI it's a Vaio X13 G7E still under warranty withAtom Z550 2Ghz and 256GB SSD.

The driver version is the basic Sony Corporation 22/04/2009 version 1.0.0 which came installed with the machine.

Hope this helps !

 

Thank you! While yours is a newer X version (which according to sony supports SDXC), together with arm's info (who has an older X) I think I will give it a shot and use an xc card in they are not ubiquitous yet (none here for testing), and they usually come in blister packing... I have that suspicion that it will work. Any further success stories welcome. I'll post as soon as I have tested, but it may take till next year.
I really hate it when computer manufacturers make false claims about compatibility...

merci beaucoup, boris!
matthias

 

I can play 720 + 1080 videos flawless on my x with the following setup:

I installed
-Haali media splitter
-ffd show codec pack
& I play back the files in Windows Media player



Cheers and enjoy the most stunning hardware out there
Felix

 

You can also use Media Player Classic Home Cinema for an all-in-one 720p playback experience. Also supports subtitles and is very resource efficient. Highly recommended.

 

As JD says, MPC-HC is the way to go. You can also use XBMC to play HD content on YouTube, Vimeo, BBC iPlayer, etc.

 

Hi there

Looks like for a long time nobody mentioned about graphics drivers for X
Is there anything going on in that direction out there?
Are there any new "home made" versions available?

If anyone knows something please let us know

 

Hi guys. I see some of you have already installed Windows 8. I have done so yesterday and I have some trouble with the graphics driver. I installed official latest ver. 2030 in compatibility Windows 7 mode. The computer works, but it is very slow.Namely Chrome takes a long time to load webpage even with adblock (disabling gpu rendering works, but still it is not very good). Does anyone have any advice regading Windows 8 and VPCX? Thank you in advance and happy new year!

 

Hi everyone, long time no see.

I made a custom EMGD 1.16 for vaio x. download available here (skydrive link)

if you want to install on windows 8, you should run setup.exe in compatible mode for windows 7. ( but it seems not stable on windows 8, do not run windows experience index. you will see BSOD )

 

thanks a lot - just downloaded it.
Now need some time for testing

 

thanks jeonghun for custom EMGD 1.16 but it don't work well with Windows 8

 

Hi everybody,

I have a big probleme.
i make a hhderase on my sony vaio x and now my ssd is not detected...
on the Bios "hard disk = None"

 

Hi jeonghun, thanks for the updated driver. This is noticeably quicker for 2D work. When I switch between Mail and Calendar in Outlook it's basically instant, whereas before I could almost see each component of the window render. Unlike the previous EMGD driver, screen-dimming works too!

I've not tried aero mode or Chrome with hardware accel yet. Anyone tried and seen any Flash fullscreen improvement?

 

Thank you jeonghun for the driver!

This seems to be the first driver that doesn't give me irritating graphics errors (flickering) on the taskbar and on some programs titlebars (W7 Aero is off).

Unfortunately with the new driver, brightness control stops working after standby/resume :-o

Flash seems to be the same as always: no hardware acceleration.

Anyway, for watching flash videos, I'd recommend VLC player which DOES play flash hardware accelerated.

 

For some reason the Windows Media Player on my VPCX128LG performs much better than the VLC player. It plays 720p videos without problems whereas the VLC player struggles with this resolution. I am not sure if this has anything to do with the hardware acceleration. The same goes for playing content in browsers. 720p in IE works just fine, but it is impossible to play even 480p in Chrome. It is more than sad that Sony or Intel still didn't manage to provide proper drivers for intel HD500.

 

Hi,
i am searching for a german keyboard in gold for a vpcx11 maybe someone has a hint for me where i can get one.
The vpcx11 has a heat problem, does it help if i change the thermally conductive paste (wärmeleitpaste). (example Gelid GC-Extreme)

Best wishes Makaber

 

Sony Parts Direct may well have them for sale, but not cheap. I bet it would be less expensive to sell your X and rebuy one with the the keyboard you want.

 

Maybe I should not be posting directly in this thread but I have a few extra aftermarket compact power adapters for the X including a car charger. I'm about to sell my X as well as the Z2 I moved on to from X soon and will not need these power adapters. I moved on to Samsung Series 9 from the X and Z2.

 

I have problem with this emgd 1.16 it gives me blue screen when using DXVA2 video hardware acceleration, problem in igdkmd32.sys. Can anyone suggest something? Thanks all

 

Windows media Player uses hardware acceleration whereas VLC does not. On Atom, you want to stick with WMP and some special codec for MKVs. DO NOT install an all purpose codec pack as you'll lose hardware acceleration on multiple video types. Here you go from the prior page...

 

our vaio x is getting old My battery degradation is now 12.1% and very often some strange colored pixels are showing in top left corner of the screen - at first they disappeared after few days but now they've been there for 5 months already

i'm ready to buy a "substitute" but i'm having problems to choose any.
If some of you have some suggestion i'll be glad to listen.
What I like is acer aspire s7- 11 inches but maybe there are nicer notebooks out there

 

My mother in law had been using my X for the last 18 months or so as a travel / office laptop, and the same things have happened - the battery life is now only about an hour at most, and some dead pixels have begun to amass at the bottom left corner. "Massaging" them with my thumb reduces it a bit, but most are now permanent.

We replaced her X with a Microsoft Surface RT with touch keyboard. She is very happy with it as she had been thinking about getting an iPad but it is not necessary anymore. It is a similar size and weight, but has an excellent battery life and Windows 8 with a touchscreen is very enjoyable to use (IMHO). She realistically only uses Word, Excel, and everything else in a browser, so Windows RT is adequate. The touch keyboard with touchpad is actually quite good. If she required some custom software or similar then I would have recommended an Atom-based Windows 8 tablet such as the Asus VivoTab ME400 or the HP Envy X2. But from my point of view, as the resident IT consultant / fixer, an RT laptop is fantastic as she can't install any malware, toolbars, virus or anything like that. Because RT is more like an iPad than an Android or regular Windows laptop it means it is very low maintenance.

That's my recommendation anyway!

 

Inspite of you guys want suggest to get rid of vaioX, i'm making some progress.
I still have no guess about how to get DXVA2 hw video accel to work without bsod, but other thing appeared to be solvable.
The flickering on the low brightness levels distracted my eyes really hard, but not anymore!
I've made a small change to driver, so there's no more flickering on low brightness levels - my and your eyes are safe from now on.
The collateral effect of that change - now the lowest brughtness level is really low, probably what you need in a really dark night. Contrast on such low brightness is not so great, but LOWERING brightness in Graphical params (right click on desktop) helps a bit. (all this you might need when in a really dark night). All other brightness levels are the same and no flickering, almost like on mac. Check for yourself.

Download graphics driver for VaioX without LCD backlight flickering on low brightness.
emgd 1.16 without flickering

 

i have the driver from post 1312 installed right now. the problem is that i can not change brightness after hibernation. does your driver solve this problem? does it have opengl support?

thanks for your work!

 

guys, I cant play minecraft on this vaio......opengl error says.How can I fix it?
Is it possible to overclock the laptop?

 

try the driver from post 1312, this one has opengl support.

 

is it safe right? no sideeffects?

 

Driver in my post 1326 is the very same as in 1312, just with little modified config. It only influences the display hardware flicker frequency, in all other ways it's the same intel emgd 1.16.0 build 3228.

For the opengl problem try completely uninstalling emgd driver (click right button in device manager and select uninstall) , and before you do that rename C:\Windows\inf\oem6.inf to oem6.inf.old or any other name. This would prevent windows to install standart GMA 500 driver after you uninstall emgd. then reboot without internet connection and make sure that windows installed standart VGA driver for the video adapter. then you can run setup.exe from emgd package and it would install everything smoothly.

it could probably be overclocked, but with such poor cooling system probably we won't get much. Making custom copper heatsink may help. For the overclock apps could someone check the similar hardware pcs from other brands, we need Z5xx cpu and US15 chipset.
For me the only performance problem was with heavy videos, so i've installed broadcom crystal hd bcm70015 instead of atheros wifi card and now everything runs smoothly. Installation of broadcom had no issues. for wifi now it's possible to use usb micro-adapter or, better some 3g+wifi card like huawei EM772 or option gtm671wfs (or (not sure) huawei em820).

brightness after hybernation - yes it won't change with emgd unfortunately. It needs to be fixed somehow, haven't looked into it.

there is nice oneclickinternet app from fujitsu that also has GPS on/off switch for build in 3g modem. also works with other 3g as well. http://ppl.ug/unw-j4yPypo/

 

Hello, I am looking for an extension cable on the LOW voltage side of the adaptor (VGP-AC10V5).
I don't like the adaptor inbetween the two cables. instead, I am currently using a 220V plug that has NO cable but goes right into the adaptor (great to save space also!). however, I want more radius, so hence my need for an extrension.
my questions:
-> how many centimeters in addition to the current length do you think is OK as a maximum for such a caple on the low voltage side?
-> does anyone have knowledge what the exact specification of the plug is? (talking about the yellow plug)

thank you!

matthias

 

these:
DC Power Supply Extension Cable Cord 4 8mmx1 7mm 1 5M | eBay
DC 4 8x1 7mm Female to Male Power Plug Extension Cable Cord 4 8mm 1 7mm 1 Meter | eBay
DC 18V 12V 9V 6V Barrel Plug Power Cable 6ft AC Adapter Extender Extension Cord | eBay (this ships from US)

length more then 2meters would need thicker wire, the longer the thicker. But you can probably solder it yourself if you get connectors on ebay. hope this helps

 

Seems we finally have an option to replace our X's with the Pro 11 (?)
But just holding the (approx same weight) MS Surface Pro, I don't know, it's just too heavy.
Will there ever be something comparable with the X series again or will we have to settle for these new Pro models?
Anyone switching to Duo 13 or something else entirely?

 

Indeed, I'm tempted with the pro 11....but I think I'm going to stick with the x, I just don't like the 1.8 Ghz of the processor.
However by watching the reviews so far the pro 13 is far more tempting.....still where is the Z? My next laptop needs to be more powerful than a simple replacement...so I was wondering if there is no new Z on getting the Z2 ....and hold this for travel or light ms word stuff

 

@avore : THANK YOU!


@Pro 11
Problem is Sony doesn't care
1. ... about noise. The fan is said to be too loud even at low load. How I hate the Vaio X fan. I suppose the Pro 11 fan will be even worse. They managed to make a fanless notebook with the x505. Idiots.
2. ... about RAM: The Pro 11 is said to have an annoying fan and has just 4 GB RAM which presumably will not be enough in short time.

After the demise of Opera, the X will be getting more and more unusable for me. Difficult situation. (timeline Win 8.1/9 / Haswell ULV / Broadwell). Btw I liked the Asus Zenbook Infinity (13").

 

My X13 is still completely silent under normal web/Office loads. I wonder why yours is so noisy? Sony have been known to change fan/temperature levels throughout a model's history I guess.

Although I've not seen one in person yet, the Pro looks absolutely stunning. That said, I'll be sticking with my X until it breaks. It can be sluggish but it still has everything I need. The Pro doesn't have 3G, which is a big miss for me. I just love using the X in my local park or while travelling without the need for a USB modem.

Is the Pro's screen matte for the non-touch version?

 

I just installed the Windows 8.1 Preview and the SmartWi issues are gone. GPS is working great.



The VZAccess uitility doesn't behave but I think the built-in Windows settings log-in panel would give you EVDO access.

 

Mr. B, could you share what graphics driver did you use for your WIN8 installation? Thx

 

Mr.B, does the default graphics driver that comes with 8.1 support sleep/resume on the X?

 

Sleep mode and brightness control do not work with the default graphics driver out the box, but those functions do work with emgd 1.16. Brightness control still works after returning from sleep or hibernation.

 

hallo

by the way what is the difference between vaio VPCX11 and vaio VPCX13...?

is any difference in hardware..?

 

With Opera 12 becoming abandoned (and incompatible with Gmail), as well as Opera Next being all but unusable on the X -- have you guys realized that of all things, Firefox has made a quantum leap regarding speed/CPU load ratio recently?

It never has, but does now, run beautifully on the little Vaio in complete silence.

 

Hi, anyone looking to buy a backup X? I have one thats just sitting here. Also have a couple extra chargers and a car charger.

 

New Alps Touch Pad driver!

Station-Drivers - Alps TouchPad Controller

This is the one:
Version 8.10.2020.204 Windows 7/8/8.1, 06/09/2013

Features:

• Momentum pointing
• Multitouch
• Two-finger scrolling
• Momentum scrolling
• Circular scrolling

It takes a while to adjust everything to one's liking, but I think this is by far the best driver so far by Alps.

Cheers David.P

 

Anyone interested in buying the Large Capacity Battery - Up to 14.0 hours ? I used it only a handful of times and selling my X notebook now.

 

Hi how much are you looking at to sell it then?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Is the large capacity battery still available? How much are you selling it for?

 

Sorry missed your post. Yes, still have it, I will PM you, thanks

 

looks like you do not have PM available yet due to too many posts. Can you email me at darius +at- cybermash +dot- c o m

Thanks