Vaio FZ Owners Official Owners Thread

I just received my FZ190 a couple of days ago (T7100, 2Gb, 80Gb/5400rpm, 8400M GT). It has seemed sluggish to me and I was thinking it was because of Vista and all the pre-installed junk. I ran the benchmark tests and here are my results:

3dmark06: 1419
pcmark05: 2190

The 3dmark06 number seems to be in the ballpark for my processor, but the pcmark05 number is about half of what I've seen in different posts. I've tried the new 162.18 video driver with not much difference. Am I missing something here? Anybody have any ideas of why my scores are so low?

 

It's the preinstalled junk. It slows EVERYTHING down a ton.

 

The issue with 4gig is NOT with the hardware. The issue is with the SOFTWARE! A 32 bit version of Vista is going to see only about 3 gig. There is another thread here detailing the specifics.

Gary

 

3GB is not a problem at all. As others have already pointed out, the hardware limit lies at 4GB, the software somewhere a little bit above 3GB. (Some say 3.2 to 3.3GB) The debate is still out whether a combination of 1x 1GB + 1x 2GB makes sense.

 

i am planning on getting 2x1gig set of rams. do you think having heat spreader is of any benefit. also will it into the memory bay with the heat spreaders?

 

I have a pretty general question. I'm about to purchase an FZ190CTO, and I can't decide whether I should get the High Color screen or the Eco-Brite (or whatever that one is called). I don't do any gaming, so not having the NVIDIA card would do me no harm. But I can't get the HC screen without the more expensive card. Does anyone have the EEBR screen and have complaints about it? I'd appreciate any input.

 

I've seen both screens side by side and I would definitely go with the hi-color option.

 

there is only norton junk in AUS deliver

unless you categorize the vaio's products as junk?

 

And:
MobiTV
Napster
AOL
Quickbooks
Adobe Acrobat pro
Grouper Screensaver
Spiderman Screen saver
Spiderman movies
SonicStage (except for the Mastering studio part)
SpySweeper
Travelocity Gadget
X1 Desktop Search
Gametap
Vaio Entertainment center (a bunch of offers for other junk)
Vaio Productivity Center (ditto)
Vaio Security Center (ditto)
OpenMG (dreaded DRM crap)
Supportsoft Assisted Service (a ink to Sony's inhouse CRM system)

Yeah other than that there is no junk on the machine at all. <big ol' grin>

Having Norton there is reason enough to do a clean install. That piece of #^$& does not ever do a clean uninstall. Benchmarks have shown it to be the single WORST hog of CPU and DISK I/O time of ANY anti-virus solution.

Gary

 

The hi-color is definitely better than the eco-brite.
Eco-brite would suffice for all normal purposes and it looks good too, but if you plan to watch movies, work a lot with images etc then the hi-color option would be the best

 

I just got my FZ180 and I love it but one thing that bothers me is that when I connect my LCD monitor through the VGA port, the video quality seems to be blurry and not as sharp. I know my LCD is fine since my old GR250 works just fine. Does anyone experience this on their new FZ180.

I found this while researching
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=140729

 

As was stated in the thread you referenced, the key is to setup Vista to support two monitors and then adjust the Vista display settings of the second monitor to match your LCD. I did this with my Dell LCD monitor and it now looks great. The other issue is to be sure you use a good quality cable. Cheap cables can cause nasty ghosting with some combinations of video cards and/or LCD's or CRT's.

Gary

 

I will follow your recommendation. I never thought of that since my Vaio GR250 works just fine so I ruled out the cable. By the way what kind of VGA cable do you recommend ? I am using the stock cable from my Sony 17" LCD Panel SDM-HS73.

On the other note, I didn't experience ghosting. The picture is just flat out blurry. I tweaked all the color and appearance to standard windows, set the monitor to its native resoltuion to 1280 x1024 to no avail. I hooked up another 17" Hitachi and same results.

If I am the only one experiencing this then it is possible my VGA port may be defective. By the way I spent almost 2 hours on Sony Support but no luck. I just wished they have the actual computer in front of them to support us more efficiently. No offense to Sony Staff. They have been helpfull to me in the past but not today. Can someone confirm this?

 

No specific cable. And my concern with the cable is ONLY with ghosting. That's the only thing I have ever seen using a bad/cheap cable.

Re: the settings, it is not the MONITOR that needs to be set to native mode. It is the display settings in Vista that need to be set. Remember you MUST have Vista set up so it knows there are two monitors, your laptop and the external one. And Vista must be set to the native resolution for both monitors. (The issue I found was that the laptop is wide screen, my monitor was not. With both set to the same resolution it looked bad. When I corrected Vista for the EXTERNAL one, it looked great.)

Gary

 

Just curious about wireless internet connection. Although I do not have a wireless network in my house, my sister was always able to connect to the internet through a wireless connection anywhere in the home using her Dell. She currently moved out and very easily got a connection in her new house, and shes also been in the hospital for 3 weeks where she has been able to use wireless connection. Not to mention, my sister does not know very much about computers at all. Enough with her life story, the point is everywhere she goes she seems to be able to pick up signal for some sort of internet. With my fz, I'm unable to connect to any source of internet even within my house. I have found a wirless network named "linksys" which i can only locate through "manage wireless networks." However when i try to set up a wireless connection, no wireless signal can be detected. By the way my sister does not pay monthly for any internet service, she basically just clicks the internet, and shes on. Any ideas?

 

This is a minor question. I just received my FZ190 today and the left click key seems kind of loose, maybe loose isn't the right word, but it's lower than the right click. The left click one if I just tap it, it'll move down a bit without actually clicking as where if I lightly tap the right one, nothing happens. Is this normal? It just feels kind of shaky and cheap. Does anyone else's key feel like this too? Thanks! **edit* sorry about asking that, I flipped back to previous pages and found this answered.

Oh and mine has the high pitched noise that everyone is talking about I believe. I heard it while I was on my desktop playing music pretty loudly. I heard it because I felt like my ears were starting to hurt like I was listening to something at a very high frequency. I gave it a closer listen and noticed it was coming from my FZ, makes me very very sad. But I doubt I'm going to go through all the trouble people have been mentioning to return it. Just crossing my fingers that maybe I'll get used to it.

 

yeah thats already been brought up in this thread. everyone seems to have that issue. no problems with it though, just a little loose. im use to it now no biggy

 

My left mouse button was like that too, I went back and exchanged for a new one, and it was pretty much the same. Really kind of disappointing, even though I usually just use the tapping on the touchpad.

 

ahh sorry I got another question that might seem silly. For the media keys up top, is there a way to customize it? Or does it automatically work for whatever media player is opened in the window at the time? When I click the next, back, pause, play buttons, they only work if iTunes is actually the window on top. But if I'm browsing on mozilla and want to skip to next song without actually clicking back to iTunes, is that possible? Thanks again.

 

Hey Gary, I appreciate you following up on this problem. Sorry for not being clear on my last post. But yes, I set the resolution on Vista's side. Sony support also walked me through the process. I know what you mean, it does not look good on mirror mode.

 

Can someone please come up with a comprehensive list of the bloatware that should be taken off the FZ upon receiving it? Anything will help me, I just want to make sure I get the start-up time down a little bit. Or even just letting me know what programs are necessary to keep my machine working and in proper order.

 

I am working on clean install instructions, which will include the list of "essentials". I won't be able to post it till next week though.

Gary

 

Thanks Gary! Keep me posted.

 

Can some FZ owner please post a review on this site.
We've even had reviews of Dell Inspirons which were released much later than the FZ. It's a shame.

 

It rocks! <grin>

Gary

 

I had sent them an email a couple of weeks ago stating that I would lke to write a review on the FZ but I haven't heard back from them.

 

Is anyone thinking of upgrading to 4gb of ram? Even though you don't have access to the entire amount using vista-32bit, ram prices are pretty cheap at the moment. I am wondering what kind of improvements that you can see with 4gb of ram when gaming, or photo & video editing.

 

still lookin for help on this if anyone has any ideas

 

I ordered a 2GB Kingston stick which will take me to 3GB of total RAM. I cannot afford to get 2x2 at the moment, so I decided to go with a well established brand that I trust. The price is not as good as some recent offers by OCZ, Patriot and GEIL, but still well below their MSRP. It's also supposed to be "system specific" memory according to their configuration utility.
For those of you who haven't found it yet, there's an excellent thread on this forum, dedicated to memory deals. I strongly recommend reading through it. The first page shows ongoing deals and is updated daily most of the time.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=121363

Cheers

 

You should be able to easily connect to any available network in range, provided it's not secured (encrypted, password protected). However I do not recommend connecting to such open networks, since you'll be totally exposed to hacker attacks, viruses and such.
If you're willing to take the risk, keep trying and you'll get connected eventually.

 

gosensgo
i have the japanese version of your computer but want to download the drivers from the american site. what is the full model number of your computer the one at the bottom left of your screen.
thanks

ps next month i am going to upgrade the memory to make full use of dual band.
by the way do you use ready boost with your 3gb

 

Well it's not saying I have a wireless network available. If I right click the network icon and go to "connect to network," it doesnt show any available wireless networks. However if i go to the network sharing center and click "manage wireless networks" it shows one available network title "linksys."
I understand this is an nonsecure network however I should still have access. It states an unsecure network, "type: any supported" so I should be able to use it. Not to mention my sister had wireless access throughout my house. I've messed with it for a few hours and no success.

 

I guess you just have to post your review in the following section of the forum:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13

If you don't have enough privileges to start a new thread there, then contact the moderators. If one person doesn't reply, you can contact others.

Also guys, please rate your FZ here.
http://www.notebookreview.com/price...660&productFamilyID=980&display=opinionDetail

There are only 11 comments so far.

 

Okay, I am not gosensgo, but I believe if you type in the model numbers VGN-FZ180 or VGN-FZ190 you should be able to access all drivers for the FZ Series. For graphics drivers some people suggest that laptopvideo2go has better offers.

As far as I know, readyboost only makes a difference with 1GB of RAM or less. Beyond 2GB its effect seems negligible. You can put a memory stick in your computer and see if it influences your boot time. I would think you will see a stronger effect getting rid of all the bloatware that they preinstalled.

 

My model number is vgn-fz190. At the moment, there isn't much useful stuff on the sony us website (all of the drivers is already on your machine). The only useful and recommended driver update is the video driver which can be downloaded from laptopvideo2go. Make sure to download 162.18 driver and the corresponding modified inf file. Replace the inf file in the 162.18 driver with the modified inf file and it will install properly.

 

I agree, with 2gb of ram ready boost doesn't do much. I tried using 4gb memory stick pro duo with negligible differences.

 

Readyboost was designed to boost performance on older machines in order to run Vista more smoothly. It wasn't designed for people with 2gb of ram to slap in a 4gb flash drive and expect a huge difference in performance. Readyboost kicks in when the RAM approaches it's limits to act as a secondary cache.

 

First of all, make sure you have your wireless radio enabled. Make sure your physical slider switch for "wireless" is turned on and "WLAN" is illuminated at the left front edge of the laptop. Next you should verify that wireless radio is enabled at 2.4Ghz in the "Wireless Device Switch" application (little square icon in the taskbar next to the clock).
At this very moment I get 7 networks showing up when I click "Connect to network".
The "manage wireless networks" window shows only your own connections and lets you, well, manage them. It will display something in there, regardless of availability of external connections at the moment.

 

I bought my VAIO FZ11S and the fun does never stop! It is so annoying...If you are listening to loud music you cannot hear it, but if the room is quite, it gets on my nerves. If I download things I have to take it to another room because sometimes you hear it even watching TV. Does anybody know whether this is normal?

 

sorry, i meant the 'fan'

 

Thanks. I finally got it working. For some reason I had the wireless radio enabled at 5.0Ghz in the "wireless device switch." I don't really know a lot about WLAN. Whats the difference between 5.0 and 2.4? Does the network have to be working at 5Ghz to connect using those settings?

 

thanks for the input. just to clarify all i have to do is copy the driver s and do a fresh install and paste the old drivers and everything will work. it cant be that easy.
i ve had problems with vaios before doing fresh installs.

ps unless you are bat that fan sounds like it is deffective

 

As far as I know only 802.11a standard uses the 5Ghz band, which gives you less to none interference, but lesser range and penetration (walls, etc). Of course, they do require 5Ghz equipment on both ends, and were quite expensive the last time I checked.
I think you could safely enable both frequencies, as they do not interfere.

 

Two Questions:

1. I will be hooking up a Lynksys WRT54G router to a home DSL PC. Anyone do this, and any advice before I start on what you wish you'd have known before you started. Especially, what security settings if any need set up before connecting.


2. I am set as the Administrator, no problems. But, when I add my wife as a standard user, I get spyware wanting to run. Even though it ran two days ago. A Logitech dialog box, stating a problem. (At work now, forget exactly what it says.) Also, the Wireless Switch device box came up on the task bar flashing. And box above taskbar stating some programs have been blocked from running. I read a lot about user controls, and saw a lot of comments on different sites. No specific answer. None of this happened when I set myself up. Should I set her as an Administrator? Do I need to be logged off when she is logged on. I assume these problems are just settings that need changed. Seems like a lot of problems for such a simple set-up. I know this sounds confusing and hopefully there is a simple answer.

Thanks in advance,

Ken

 

I'm on the verge of buying either the "Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB" or the "Hitachi 7k200 200GB".
I know you've been through the process of replacing your HDD already, so I have some questions.
I don't anticipate problems with physical installation, since I've done it before on a different VAIO. What I've not clarified yet is how to approach the system installation. Ideally, I'd like to do a clean install in order to avoid the painful cleanup process. Were you able to do it yourself, or you just used the System Restore DVDs?

 

the hd replacement is a doddle. i installed the 7k200 due to its superiority and everything is perfect. i am waiting until i can afford to upgrade vista before i do a clean install.
although i have to say the performance gains might not justify the hd replacement. it is noticeable but i cant say it is significant. though the extra space is certainly a bonus.

 

Have you noticed excessive heat with the 7k200, or anything worth mentioning?
I'm leaning towards it, but I'm afraid of possible additional heat, since the FZ is not exactly running very cool as it is.

 

check out the review of the hd on the web no heat issues said to be comparable to that of a 5400rpm.

 

Hi

I have just pruchased a FZ140 from BestBuy and find it just amazing!

But the thing is that I want to use XP more than the Vista.... Can any of you guys tell me if I can partition the disk without disturbing the Vista and then installl XP on another drive? Also, if I do it, will my warranty stand?

Moreover, as there are loads of crap programs loaded which need to be uninstalled, and as I have all the softwares, including XP, with me, do you suggest that I completely format the new laptop and install my own XP, Office and whatever else I require? Will I get all the display & sound drivers on the net/from Sony? Will my warranty stand?

 

If you look back in this thread, you'll see several posts about installing XP. It seems to work overall with small quirks, such as losing the Fn and Media buttons. I think someone started a thread on clean system installation on the FZ. As far as I know, Office XP and Office 2003 work alright in Vista, except for a few superfluous error messages. I don't think installing XP will have an effect on the warranty. You could still reset the system with the recovery partition or disks.