Vaio FZ Owners Official Owners Thread

It is 256mb at DDR3.

 

Does anyone know if there is a Thread like this for the Vaio SZ?

 

Thanks to this site, I ordered a FZ190 to be shipped on 8/28/07.

 

I got a new FZ today and on the bottom right of the screen, there's a spot that's darker than the rest. This isn't normal, is it?

 

Helo
ad.1 It depends. With BluRay it is 256MB without 128MB. Correct me if I`m wrong. They don`t get you in US info about v-ram only total available graphics. Check this japanese site, there is spec. info about it.

 

Hey guys, I was wondering, is it possible to control VLC media player or iTunes using the AV controls like you can with Windows Media Player? I like being able to pause video with it when I'm in full screen and I want to be able to skip songs on iTunes without having to go back to it while I'm using firefox or something else.

 

How big are we talking? Does it change if you move your head so you are looking at the spot head on?

Gary

 

Well I've had my FZ180E for 4 days now and I am pretty damn pleased. My Inspiron 9100 crapped out a couple of weeks ago and I have been researching laptops since then. I had narrowed it down to the XPS 1330 or the Inspiron 1520. I was actually pretty close to getting a MacBook Pro but backed out at the last second because I could totally see myself constantly booting into Windows instead of the Mac OS and then whats the point of that?

But then on Saturday I decided to go to Frys to see what they had and I saw the Sony FZ180 they had. The guy gave me the specs and I was pretty impressed. Initially, my original needs were for the laptop to be relatively light with a good screen and light gaming ability. The FZ1 seems to have a little bit of everything I needed. Its pretty thin and light for a laptop of its capability and the screen is gorgeous. I actually turn it down a couple of notches cause it can be a little to intense at times (Google Home Page!)

I'm not gonna be a dead horse here but the bloatware was insane. I actually had an interested situation where I set the laptop up Sunday and deleted a bunch of Sony Crap and installed my programs and customized it with my preferences and whatnot. THEN, I decided to try and make the Recovery Discs through the vaio recovery center. Well when I clicked "Start" it gave me some runtime error saying the program needed to be stopped. I called Sony support and long story short they recommended doing a full system refresh or whatever, "Rebuild C: Drive". I was a little worried as this was a brand new laptop and why would it do something like that? The support dude said maybe the first time the OS was installed it didn't configure right or something. I dunno. Well I did a full system refresh and a couple hours later I was back at square one. First thing I did was try the Recovery disc and it worked fine. I then had to go through the whole damn process of cleaning the computer up again.

I think I've gotten everything but there are a couple that I can't seem to find:

1) How the heck do you get rid of that Sony Toolbar at the bottom of screen that loads up when you boot?

2) Where are the Spider Man movies and how do I get rid of them?

3) Anything else I should be aware of or need to get rid of? I don't think I'm going to do a clean vista install at this time as I find the computer to be running pretty quickly right now and I don't really want to deal with the driver headache right now. Plus, I'm still trying to decide if I want to upgrade the hard drive.

4) Is upgrading the ram to 4 gigs worth it? I currently have 2 gigs.

I've pretty much gotten rid of the stuff that you guys have talked about in here. I went into MSCONFIG but there were only 2 or three things I had to check off, Napster, Quickbooks and some other thing.

The heat issue is something that sort of bothers me. If it was just on the underside it would be okay but it can make it pretty uncomfortable at times when the spot right under your left hand is hot.

There are two things I really wish the laptop has which it doesn't. The first is internal bluetooth. I REALLY wanted to simply be able to carry around a small bluetooth mouse/headset and game with that but now I have to carry around some sort of receiver as well. It would also have been nice to be able to use my Sprint EVDO card but unfortunately its the older 54mm size Express Card size not the newer one the Sony uses . A new one is going to cost about $350.

Other then these minor issues I love the damn thing. It is super quiet, thin, light, fast and easy on the eye. I played Battlefield 2 at very high settings and it ran like a champ. And although that game is a little older now, it is still pretty taxing, especially during a 32v32 game. Also, the Wifi card in this thing is pretty nice cause I'm getting great speeds on my home network. I'm only mentioning this cause with my Inspiron and its netgear card, I got nowhere near the speed I do now.

I would totally recommend this laptop.

 

Driver headache? There is no driver headache at all. See the link in my signature below for step by step instructions for a clean Vista install. I have links there to all the drivers and essential apps that implement power management, function keys etc. It's all right there, no need for any Tylenol.

Gary

 

I have been reading posts on this thread quite regularly and have closely studied features of all FZ series models. One thing im unable to understand... is that why the hell sony didnt include integrated bluetooth in high profile FZ models like 285U/B, 180U/B despite of fact that these models costs over $2000 ?

whereas cheap models of Vaio series (even FZ series) have integrated bluetooth.

is it ignorance or some sort of marketing stunt promoting standalone bluetooth adpaters ??

Secondly I would also like someone to comment and mention difference in speed among 4200-rpm (200GB) hard drive & 5400-rpm(160GB) hard drive ??

 

has anyone completed a full xp install on a FZ 190 CTO? I want to purchase this laptop but i hate vista and if anyone is running XP (not partioned) i would like to know how to find the drivers to run XP. I've read the entire thread and the driver comments are scattered. Could someone post where to get the drivers necessary if it is possible?

(This is for a complete install of XP, with all AV buttons working)

 

I just got my FZ (yay!). I'm trying to put in an extra stick of ram in. But It won't go in. Anyone have any tips?

 

I have the exact same thing. I can notice it big when I view the screen from left to right on a white background. I think something is defective with the pixels there. I saw one in circuit city with a similar dark spot.

 

I have this problem and I had posted it before. The spot is quite obvious when I move from the center to the left. I think something is wrong with the new batch of sony lcd's. They are not dead pixels, but there are a few pixels in that dark spot that get illuminated darker than the rest of the screen. I can also notice that in a full black screen (during start up - bios screen).

 

As of today I am an FZ owner, woot! I am now burning recovery dvds, then its off to the bloatware .

 

CONGRATULATIONS

the FZ190 is definitly my favorite sub $1500 laptop, even with it's minor flaws.

 

Yeah I just installed the 162.18 drivers per the instructions on laptop2go and Windows Vista booted fine. However, once I tried to load up Battlefield 2, the system crashed. I got a blue screen with some error messages. It does a memory dump and then promptly reboots.

I've since rolled back the drivers and got back into Battlefield 2 successfully.

 

Have you tried Dead Pixel Buddy:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/Dead-Pixel-Buddy.shtml

The only dark area on mine is caused by the sidebar background.

 

Has anyone here attempted NinjaNoodles guide for a semi-clean install on the FZ?

 

i had the same problem at first, found out it was because i installed the XP drivers instead of the Vista ones!

 

Does anyone know what is beneath the left palm rest on the FZ? Mine gets considerably warm while gaming.

 

I haven't checked yet so i can't be sure, but i think the GPU is located there.

 

Can you please tell me which drivers you used (link if possible)? People here seemed to be recommending the 162.18 drivers which is what I thought I installed.

Also, what settings are you running BF2 with and did the extra ram help significantly.

Thanks yo!

 

Since I got my FZ with Home Premium, I don't have the program to burn the recovery DVDs, what should I do to get them?

 

didn't notice a difference at all between 2GB and 4GB of RAM.
running the game at the highest possible settings and the 8400M GT doesn't even break a sweat.

i can't remember exactly, but i'm pretty sure i picked up the driver from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13894

 

ALL the FZ series machines come with the program to burn the recovery DVD, even ones with Home Premium. Have you started deleting "bloatware" yet? Maybe you deleted it by accident.

Gary

 

Can someone post a 3dmark 2006 score for the Fz11S , in native rez(1280x80)

Thanks,

 

1785 3DMArk06
4353 PCMark05

are my highest scores.

edit; i assume that's 1280x800

 

Not really, only a couple of things. Where is it?

 

Well since I have done a clean install, it no longer exists on my machine and I don't remember specifically I can't say for sure. I just dug out the big "read me first" type of document that was packaged with the machine. Accoring to that:

Click Start > Help and Support
Click Backup & Recovery
Click VAIO Recovery Center

See if that gets you in the ballpark.

Gary

 

I created my recovery discs immediately after initial boot but I deleted it by accident. I know in case of some fatal error I can restore my computer but is there a way to make the recovery drive visible in the Explorer window? I have seen a Recovery Drive in the Explorer window on someone's Dell Inspiron 1520. It is about 8-10GB.

 

Not readily. You MIGHT be able to do so by playing around with some low level partition manager and twiddling bits. But doing so might very well make the partition unusable as a recovery partition with the reboot/F10 sequence.


But I must ask, why would you want to make it visible?

Gary

 

To get all the drivers for an FZ since I am replacing the hard dive, are they all on the website? Or can I just burn a disk with all the drivers (are they all on the recovery DVD?)

 

If you make the two DVD recovery set they are all there. BUT I must tell you that I had better results using the ones I downloaded from the Sony website.

If you are installing a new hard drive, how are you going to get the operating system on it? Are you going to use the recovery DVD and restore back to the "out of box" image with all the bloatware? Or are you going to use a Vista install DVD and do a clean install? If the latter (and with your question about needing the drivers it sounds like you are) you should review my instructions on a clean install of Vista. It spells out where to find EVERYTHING you need. It even details how to install the Intel SATA disk driver AS you install Vista thus speeding up the disk access immediately from the word go. See my signature below for a link to these instructions. They are long but they take you though every step in detail.

Read it FIRST there is one set of files (the afore mentioned Intel SATA drivers) you want to get from your old disk before you remove it. And you will NEED the two DVD recovery set too. If you don't have another machine at hand, you'll want to download the drivers and utilities from the Sony website mentioned in the doc and the one file you'll need from the Sony FTP site.

Good luck post questions you have about the process.

Gary

 

Thanks, I saved those docs to my hard drive. I'm installing Vista Ultimate (among other OSes) on it.

 

Thanks Storm.

 

Well I dont really care to see it or not, but I was just curious as to why it shows up on my friend's Dell Inspiron 1520 and it does not on my FZ.

 

Just ran 3dmark06 on my FZ11S, got 1685 with default drivers. Was wondering why the CPU tests are soo slow, like 0-1 fps!! had norton running in background, is stuff like this suppose to be turned off?

 

Remove Norton and install AVG or avast! Norton is a resource hog.

 

Do you have integrated graphics?

 

no, got 128mb 8400GT. Can get sophos installed for free, is that better than norton?

 

@ m4tt; yes, turn of all active programs before running your benchmarks. 1685 with original drivers is not bad though, i only got around 1475 or so. I'm using the 162.18 now.


Does anyone know if and where i can get some additional frames for the webcam window?


edit, don't know sophos, but avg is good and it is free to

 

storm, what benchmark score are u getting with the updated drivers?
will try out sophos as its used in my office and seems unintrusive, otherwise will use AVG. thanks!

 

This thread is way too long and should be closed. 90 entries are enough. No one with questions about an FZ model would know where to start, and reading every entry is very confusing. Please forgive a person who starts a fresh thread to raise an issue or question.

Best wishes.

 

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone here would be able to help with a little dilemma I've been experiencing. I've scoured various other notebook forums, but no one has been able to shed any light thus far.

I recently purchased a VGN FZ17G, and the machine was returned the next day due to terrible backlight bleeding and a flaky video card. The unit was replaced with a second one of the same model, which was then returned due to more horrible backlight bleed, a loose screen bezel, and a faulty battery (tested against another battery from the store I purchased from). I am now considering whether to try a third FZ..

I really like this model. It has great specs across the board, looks sleek and pretty cool in my opinion... And I've looked at other brands/models, though there isn't anything else that really strikes me.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar with this model? I've compared it to the VGN FZ18G (blue-ray version), and can very safely say that the screen on the FZ18 was FLAWLESS.. Both of the FZ17's that I've returned had a charcoal/blue/green haze to the screen most evident on black backgrounds, alongside the bad backlight bleed. Whereas, the FZ18 was just outstanding in all respects- 'Black' appeared sharp and 'black', not charcoal/blue/green..

Help! I am at extreme odds with this situation.. I now need to decide on my replacement machine.. I'd REALLY REALLY like the FZ17, but without the poor screen quality and other various problems I've experienced with it... Are there any FZ17G owners out there with similar experiences? Should I just go for the blu-ray version? Is the FZ17 model notorious for having such issues? Is there a similar laptop I could also look at?...What to do??? ** **.

Any advice/info that could help me reach a conclusion would really be very much appreciated..

Thank you in advance.

alias22

 

Search is your friend. It will help you locate specific messages in this thread.

Gary

 

lol, i just posted them yesterday, 1785 in 3DMark06 and 4353 in PCMark05.

 

Anyone..???

 

Sorry dude, but the model you refer to isn't that well known around the world i guess. I looked around a bit and found some spec's, but what screen does it have, the high color lamp or the eco bright?

I think that you just got unlucky though. I've read virtually everything there is on the net about the FZ series, and i never heard of any of the problems you've had before. As a fan i would say; go ahead and give it one more try. The blue ray drive shouldn't affect any of the things you mention positive or negative so only buy that one if you want a blue ray drive.

 

Don't talk about closing down this wonderful little thread man. If it's this long people obviously benefit from it and/or like it, i know i do. Like the man says; use the search (or learn how to).