Vaio FZ Owners Official Owners Thread

From the Sony Support Page:
"The Instant Mode feature is supported on computers that have an Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator video adapter only. On computers equipped with a NVIDIA® GeForce™ video adapter, the Instant Mode feature is not supported and the Instant On software is not listed in the VAIO Recovery Center.

Check the name of the video adapter to determine if Instant Mode is supported on the computer."

That should answer some questions.

 

You don't have to resort to disabling system restore to recover the disk space. Right click on a drive in "My Computer" and select "Properties". There is a disk cleanup option there. In the "More Options" tab, there is a "System Restore" section that will allow you to delete all except the LAST restore point file. (The above are instructions for an XP machine and I think the Vista options are similar, I don't have a Vista machine at hand at the moment to verify.)

Gary

 

hi,
i need to know if i do not choose any Service Plan ,then can i replace my laptop for FREE if i found any problem with it ?

Also is there a difference in the display quality between the VGN-FZ190 CTO & VGN-FZ190 CTO with Blu-ray ?

Mostafa Zaher

 

just to let you know install the hitachi travelstar 7k200 hard dist (apparently much faster and bigger than seagate momentus 7200.2). no extra noise

 

they really should have stated that somewhere on the order page. I would have gone with blu-ray instead

 

Does anyone have this laptop : VGNFZ11S.CEK (UK specs) ie. Processor 1.8, 2 gb RAM, 160 hard, and 128 geforce GM8400 GT (dedicated).

My only question is how well and what kind of games will 128 MB of dedicated Vram? will it run smoothly? (playable FPS)

Appreciated all your answers,

Thank you

 

Hiya,

I have a FZ11S, it's the dutch version, but technical it's identical. It depends on the game you want to play, but although it's more an all rounder then a pure gaming-machine you should be able to play all games that are out there. You might have to tune down the resolution and frame rate a little for the really heavy ones, but to a more then acceptable level. Besides the 128mb dedicated you also have another 895 mb of shared video memory to back it up when unnecessary. I'm not a die-hard gamer myself, but i did try San Andreas and it plays very smooth on the highest settings.

 

Hi , thx for your reply.

I'm not a hard core gamer either just play now and again.

Glad to hear that San Andreas runs perfectly, since it's on my list of games among Heroes V, and a few strategy ones.

Did you run Oblivion by any chance? wondering if it's playable even at medium settings, as i know it's a demanding title.

 

No sorry, i don't have Oblivion. I'm gonna try Blazing Angels and GTR2 soon tho (downloading them right now, but there a bit slow ), but i don't know if those are considered as very demanding games.

 

Does the VGN-FZ190 CTO with Blu-Ray have 256MB dedicated vram? I tried looking at the specs but all it said was:
383 total vram with 1GB memory and
895 total vram with 2GB memory.

 

The one that I ordered from sonystyle, FZ190 CTO with bluray has a 8400M GT with 256mb dedicated vram with up to 1023 mb of total video memory.

 

Thanks to crisismgmt's model.txt hack, I was able to get most of the XP drivers to install but I've still having a problem with the FN key that switches between an external display and the laptop display (F7). I installed the Sony notebook utilities but it still doesn't work. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?

 

anyone can answer ??

 

thanks man, by the way I just ordered a Hitachi 7k200 200Gb 7,200rpm hard drive for my new Vaio! Do I have to make recovery disks before I replace the hard drive and then do a restore on the new hard drive? Oh and it's SATA hard drive correct?

 

I heard some good things about that hard drive. Do you know the power consumption, heat production, and noise? The older model 7k100 model used quite a bit of power and produced more heat and noise. The motherboard is sata so you will need a sata hard drive. I'm not sure if the motherboard uses sata I or II. You should make the two recovery discs before doing anything. Restoring the o/s with the discs on your new hard drive is not difficult.

 

i would just liek to thank spookomon and ScuderiaConchiglia for your sound advice. do any of you or anyone know if Xp has that similar problem or windows backing uprestore points and hence taking up hardisk space? As far as i am concerned this is the only laptop it has happened to. many of my other friends have vista and it doesnt automatically use up HD space by deleting and uninstalling programs.

 

A service plan only means that for the duration of the contrast Sony will fix your computer at no charge.
Accidental coverage means that if your computer gets damaged on accident, such as falling from your desk or you spilling soup over it (a feat one of my coworkers managed with his Thinkpad), then they will repair or replace the computer.
For the first 30 days of your order you have the right to return the computer for no reason and get a full refund. After that you will not be able to return your computer, but only get it repaired within the warranty period.

The FZ190 is available with two displays. Either ECO or XBRITE. As long as you don't get the ECO model which is not as well lit, the computer should have the same (sharp and goodlooking) display, no matter whether you ordered it with Blueray or just the DVD burner.

 

thanks a lot going to order my Vaio tonight. I have no idea about the power consumption or anything.
here is where I ordered it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145160&Tpk=hitachi+7k200

 

I'm also very curious about the 7K200 and how it stacks up against the Momentus 7200.2. I'm still not convinced that the 25% gain in storage space and the 16Mb cashe (vs 8Mb on the Seagate) justifies the 50% price premium.
I wasn't able to find any extensive reviews for the Hitachi, I guess it's still quite new.

 

I'll let you all know how it goes, I just ordered my FZ with Blu Ray from Sonystyle.com and I am expecting it next week. When I get it I will install the Hitachi 7k200 and do some tests for yall.

Oh by the way it comes with an HDMI port correct?

 

here is a comparison of the two drives.

www.barefeats.com/rosa05.html

actually i have noticed a lot more fan noise since i installed the 7k200.

 

I do not live in the US and my Vaio FZ 190 CTO was ordered at Sony's website and sent to an US address from where it was just shipped to my country. It is now on the way and prior its arrival I need to register the number (similar to a serial nr.) that is printed in a label fixed at the bottom of the notebook. Because of local bureaucracy it is mandatory to inform this number prior its arrival.

They sent me 5 (five) numbers that are printed at Sony's label attached to the external surface of the box where everything is packed in (actually the 3rd. and 5th. of these numbers are the same). I guess that one of this numbers is the one printed under the notebook. It is imperative to know which one.

Can somebody PLEASE clarify which of this numbers is the one printed in the label fixed at the bottom of the unit?

Thanks

 

All FZ models with 8400M GT gpu comes with HDMI ports.

 

I guess that means it produces more heat. How about power usage?

 

I'm not sure if someone had already posted this or not, but wanted to include it as I know many were asking for it. It would seem that on July 3, Sony posted the NVIDIA video display drivers on their website. These are not updated drivers from what came originally, but it is stand alone so that if you were to do a clean Vista install, you would have the correct video driver to use. http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNFZ190&upd_id=2822&os_id=28

 

I know a few of you have mentioned upgrading the RAM, but has anyone actually done it? I'm curious about how many pins they are, so I can weigh my price options

 

This Kingston 1GB module will work on the FZ.
You can see the specs, to give you an idea of what you'll be looking for, but this is actually a very good price.
I opted to configure my system with 1x1GB at SonyStyle in order to save money and also have the option of adding either 1 or 2GB module later. The laptop was pretty slow out of the box. Adding one more GB of RAM and some extensive cleanup did wonders, so now I'm finally satisfied. I'd recommend getting as much RAM as you could afford. I've found that Vista in its current release is very taxing on all resources.

 

Has anyone got the power mangement working under XP? My company doesn't support Vista, so my brand new laptop is really more like a small desktop if I can't get it to work.

Tim

 

It's the standard 200pin SoDimm PC5300 667MHz DDR2 memory that pretty much everyone uses. It's pretty easy to install, too.

 

Just out of curiosity, what Vista experience index does your RAM get? When I upgraded from 1GB to 3GB by adding one more stick, the index went up from 4.5 to 4.8. This seems not too impressive in terms of numbers, but my computer runs pretty fast and smooth with it. (I checked both chips are recognized as DDR2 dual channel RAM and clocked at 667Mhz.)

 

wow that is strange. i have 7700 cpu, 256gpu with 1gb ram and my reading was 4.4. Where the hell did my .1 go?

i am no expert but i read for increased ram performance and index scoring you should install 2 memory modules that are identical in terms of size and specs. for example if you wanted to have 3gb. then instead of getting one module that is 1gb and another which is 2gb. you should get 2 x 2gb. even though you cant access the whole 4gb. your rating should go up

 

Our portuguese design agency bought 2 FZ series notebook. FZ11S and FZ11Z.
I'm the lucky user of the FZ11Z and I'm loving it
It's faster than my P4 HT 3.0Ghz 2GB DDR RAM GeForce 6600 256MB DDR RAM desktop even with the 4200 r.p.m. harddrive.

 

So I installed Oblivion and it looks really great! It runs at about 60fps (on medium settings & 720x480 w/bloom) consistently i.e. indoors, outside, during battles. I haven't tried maxing out all the settings or anything yet, but it works much better than my desktop (GeForce 5900XT).

Does anyone have an opinion on whether the extended service plans are worth the money for this computer?

 

My Vista experience index for my RAM is also 4.8 after installing an additional 2gb of RAM for a total of 3gb. Both of my chips are also clocked at 667 mhz. I have the T7300 2.0 ghz chip.

 

I wouldn't take the windows experience index too seriously. Try running some benchmarks and games and see what kind of performance differences you get. I would be interested in seeing if the differences are signifcant as I am thinking about upgrading to 4gb of memory.

 

Very true, the machine runs fast and smooth, no matter what Windows thinks.

 

in Sony AU site FZ series screen is listed as:
15.4" Clear Bright High Colour LCD 90

while the older FE series is listed as :
15.4" Clear Bright High Colour LCD
without 90

I asked the sales man and he just said it means 90% pure color or something, which translates to better screen than the FE. Is it true?
I am afraid it means ECO friendly version rather than the Bright version.

http://www.sony.com.au/vaio/catalog/product.jsp?categoryId=30605

 

I'm getting 4.8 score for RAM too. That's weird, one would think that there should be significant improvement from 2 to 3GB.

 

The Hi-Color technology is said to be able to produce up to 90% of the color gamma, a significant improvement compared to the other laptop displays in the same class (40-50%).

 

What's your HDD score, after upgrading to the Momentus? I'm getting 4.5 with the 5400 Toshiba.

 

Almost correct:

The 1 lamp ECO screen (and most other new screens out there i believe) gives you about 70% of the color gamma, and the X-brite-dual-lamp screen should give you 90%, according to Sony.

 

cooool. i almost creamed my pant

 

I stand corrected, I guess. I still believe that I read these numbers somewhere recently, but you're probably right. The most important thing is that the Hi-Color screen is totally amazing, I've never set my sight at anything like that on a notebook before.

Cheers mate!

 

@ Giggs11; i'm not an expert on screens, but this is what i found on the Sony Vaio FZ pages. But from what i heared both screens look really good (i've never seen the ECO version in rl myself).


Does anyone know why it says that i have a T7300 in my device manager btw, while i'm certain i have a T7100? I'd like it to be a T7300 of course, but i doubt if i could be so lucky that i've accidentally got on

 

Lol, i've got the 160Gb/5.400rpm Toshiba and it gets a 4.7. But on the Vista webpage they claim an overall performance score of 3 should be more then sufficient for gaming and heavy 3D applications, so if anyone does trust that index you should be well in the clear with any FZ with a 8400GT

 

Before running the Vista experience or any other benchmarks, check your power options and make sure you computer is running in high performance mode.

 

It does. (It also performs well) No change in the Experience Index, though.

 

Download CPU-Z and it will show your cpu and memory specs.

 

For those who have windows mobility center on their FZ, is there a way for you to see the time remaining as well as the %battery remaining? My computer only shows the %battery remaining, but according to the micrsoft website, it can show both.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/mobilitycenter.mspx