Just bought the Sony VAIO TZ90!!

Same here! I used to have a desktop replacement laptop (15" Acer TM8106), and I decided to switch to a powerful desktop/ultraportable combo when it was time to replace the Acer. I'm happy with the decision, especially as it means I don't have to rely anymore on the emminently unreliable Acer, backed by the worst technical support in the entire industry...

 

Hi everyone, I bought this computer about a month ago. But I was wondering if anyone has had this issue yet. I was watching dvds on it and about 10 minutes into it the background screen would become visible during the movie as flashes every 5-10 seconds. If a program was minimized in the background then the desktop picture was visible through the movie. I was using the Sony Vaio intervideo windvd program. Any thoughts as to why this is happening?

Also how does one clean a LED screen. What are you using?

 

Can't answer why you are having this problem, however I would recommend using VLC media player instead of the the Vaio player. I find it far superior, and it's a free download. A lot of flexibility the Vaio windvd program doesn't have.

 

Does this mean it´s better to use a wireless USB mouse than a bluetooth mouse? or maybe even better to use a wired mouse?

I have no DVD, i have SDD and HDD and external HDD that i hardly use.

 

This will only affect you if you connect a device that needs as much USB bandwidth as possible (USB HD, USB DVD burner, etc...). So if you connect your external USB HD and need the best possible performance, then yes switching BT off and use the integrated trackpad should give better performance than using a BT mouse (around 4MB/s more). Using a USB wireless or wired mouse would eat up a bit of bandwidth, but if it's like my wired mouse it's not really significant (much less than switching the BT radio on or the internal DVD on). If you're doing a backup and don't care about the speed of your HD, don't worry and use whichever device is comfortable.

 

Ah very interesting.

So it seems wiser for me to buy a USB wireless mouse, for bandwith, and I would also save power by switching off bluetooth. right?

 

i'm just going to use the trackpad =D

 

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

 

Is the ssd drive and the .14 ghz difference between the tz170 and tz190 worth 500 dollars? I promise this will be my last question

 

If you don't intend on getting more than 1 years warranty, then I would say to save yourself the extra cost of buying from the U.S. and import it with the 1.2 GHz, SSD, and VOS.

 

the only problem is that im in mexico...

im gonna try to get help from that dude in youtube that installed xp on his tz190. i need the drivers from xp and maybe ill just install xp and be happy.

3000 dollars is a lot for a computer.

and i dont know how big is the difference between the normal hard drive and ssd i guess ill end up buying the tz170

 

DHL and EMS also deliver to Mexico.

 

but i think if i import i have to pay 15% tax in my country... that really really sucks. even at the airport i have to bring the laptop open, i cannot bring the box cause they will charge me 15% :S

 

You could undervalue, but you run the risk of not being able to claim the full cost of the notebook if it is stolen.

 

You could just get the TZ170, and then if you would not be satisfied with performance, install XP.

 

yeah i thought of undervaluing. but its not worth it. im gonna get it from the houston galleria sony style. not the best price, but its safer for me. houston is just 1.5 hours away by plane and only costs like 300-400 dollars for a round trip. the ssd drive is very tempting. but the research ive done shows its not worth an extra 500 dollars. and that life time might be A LOT shorter than the regular hdd. i dont do heavy multitasking, 4-5 browser windows would be the most multitasking ill do, so i guess the tz170 wont be that bad.

i was thinking about the sz650 but all the light leakage and dying problems ive read about, got me afraid, what if it broke down? id have to spend 600-700 hundred dollars to go to houston and get it fixed, i dont think sony mexico would care about me, and the tz170 here is like 4500 usdollars, yeah i know stupid difference.

but thanks, ill let you know how it goes

 

I am now using NHC 2.0 to completly power down my hdd. I can feel the difference while i'm touching the tz. there's completly no vibration now. nice.

Edit: I celebrated to early. The harddrive does powerup occasionally, for no reason it seems. Any suggestions welcome.

 

Do you think using a FireWire external DVD Drive or HDD would help with the band width issue?

I have ordered a TZ with internal SSD and HDD and want to buy a DVD Drive. I'm looking at these:
1. Sony DRXS50U (USB 2.0 XP compatible - $100)
2. Panasonic LF-P968C (USB 2.0 Vista compatible -$200)
3. Sony VGP-DDRW4 (FireWire Vista compatible -$300).

Does any one have one of these drives?

1. I am looking for one that will run from bus power (USB or FW).
2. I also want to be able boot the TZ from the DVD drive
3. What am I loosing and what are the consequences of using an XP only compatible drive?

Thanks

 

Eh... how did you want to connect that to your TZ?

Is that a portable drive, witout external adapter?

I bought a non portable LG drive with external adapter. 60 euros. works well.

Maybe you prefer a portable drive that gets its juice solely from usb.

 

I believe the TZ (mine hasn't arrived yet) has a i.Link. Thats Sony's name for a FireWire port.
I'm no expert, but if you were to use an external device connected to this you may be able to solve some of the band with issues associated with the internal DVD using USB band width when it is on. (What architecture is used to connect the i.Link to the mother board???) Perhaps some one could try it?

PhilFlow thanks for the info about your LG drive. Yes - I am hoping to find one that works without an adaptor.

It is very difficult to tell if the 3 drive examples above will really work in this way with the TZ. My research suggest the Panasonic will do it, but I don’t think you can boot from that drive if necessary? Conics offer the Panasonic DVD and I am waiting to hear back from them. The more expensive Sony VGP-DDRW4 drive is intended for the Vaio UX so some info on how that works with the TZ would be great.

 

@ Moonraker, there is a thread about dvd players for TZ. I believe someone mentioned a plextor as a very nice portable and affordable drive.

 

I think that you can boot off any DVD drive, as long as you change your BIOS settings. I myself want to try that $100 LightScribe DVD player available on eBay. In fact, I will order it now and try to boot off it first before upgrading to a non-DVD-equipped TZ.

 

Ubercool,

You will not loose money on this operation? Selling the SSD/DVD ang buying a new one

 

I got a reply from Conics today (on more or less the question above) and they say:
Sony DRXS50U = best for price (should work)
Panasonic drive = best for portability
iLink = not a good idea

I did some research on the iLink/FireWire and discovered the conectors come in three flavours:
9 pin - New high bandwidth, Powered
6 pin - Apple style FireWire, Powered
4 pin - Sony style iLink, NOT powered (as on the TZ)

My understandin is that a FireWire DVD or HDD will help the USB band width issue above but in both cases you will need an external power supply when used with an iLink port.

Phil thanks for the DVD info. I'm going to wait to see how ubercool gets on with booting from his new LightScribe DVD

 

Yes, I will lose money, welcome to the notebook money pit!

I also value my productivity, and since I live and die by notebooks (I publish 10 blogs), anything that reduces my productivity by 1 minute a day, costs me much more than the price differential: 365 minutes = 6 hours x $$$/hr = $$$$$$

 

What do you need the extra space for?

I plan on using nLite and vLite to make myself two stripped down versions of XP and Vista, in order to increase performance and save on HDD space.

 

Ihave SSD.160gb combo, and also the vSony VGP-DDRW4 (FireWire Vista compatible -$300

The DVD works perfectly via firewire

 

Is the firewire port powering it? I think that was the concern.

 

i'm verying interested in it too because I just ordered it from amazon.com, I guess I'll find out and let y'all know if he doesnt respond back.

 

I'm about to order the Panasonic LF-P968C USB bus powered DVD-RW but the firewire would be a better option IF it is bus powered. I doubt it, unfortunately, but I'll wait to hear what you guys have to say. I'm pretty sure the TZ will boot from a USB DVD but jjahshik32 could you let us know about booting from firewire DVDs as well.
Thanks

 

I can confirm.

Haven't tried it, but I think it does. I have tried USB harddisk and USB key. Both work.

 

That's a good idea, I would like to hear someone's experience with vLite.

My Samsung arrives tomorrow, so I will try creating a boot disk with Acronis True Image and boot off that.

 

btw vista flies with sp1!!!!!!! There really is a big difference, my tz90 loads in under 40 seconds now (from 1m10s).............

 

Sony Vaio DVD external firewire drive needs an external power adapter unfortunately

 

Just posted this on another thread so dont wanna get shot for double-posting but LG just launched a usb host power dvd burner for €100 inc vat.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/lg-launches-ultrathin-usb-powered-external-dvd-burner/

http://www.pcpop.com/doc/0/208/208094.shtml

Hope this might help with the drive purchase.

 

great laptop - just got it from pricejapan.com

question to the other owners: did anyone manage to get rid of the EISA partition on the solid state drive? there's 7.45 GB i can't use there :-(

even when i boot from a winpe environment (network) i can't access this partition - this is very painful - with the price of the 32GB drive, hard to understand why such a large share cannot be accessed

 

Yes you can use Acronis Disk Director to delete it (or any other partition program like PQ Partition magic)

It's a hidden recovery partition, I consider it to be quite normal.

 

Hi,

please could anyone tell me if i can instal the DVD/RW optical drive seperatley as i chose the 160GB and NO DVD/RW?

Help needed urgently guys.

Cheers

 

The 160gb hard drive is a 2.5" drive that takes place of the DVD drive, so you can't install a DVD drive in addition. You can install a 1.8" hard drive however.

 

And what kind of HD you have? Classic HDD (4200/5400rpm) or SSD? Isnt the SP1 still Beta or someting?

EDIt: is it possible to switch the 2,5" HD for DVDRW in the future?

 

It would be possible, if you ordered the replacement parts from Sony. But, it would cost an arm and a leg, knowing how much they charge.

 

Youre right, i forgot how high prices sony parts have.. I am still not decided about drives option. SSD is really expensive today, i dont use dvdrw so often to carry it wherever I am, but i am pretty sure, that if i order non-dvdrw version I will need to burn or play something soon. I dont care about 4.2 or 5.4k rpm, because i want to use XP..

 

hi guys,
i just got my tz90 today, and was trying to figure out how to prolong the battery life.

the wifi switch below the keyboard seems to turn both the bluetooth and wifi on, is there any way to make the switch just turn wifi ONLY on, and not the bluetooth capability

 

During bootup, both the wifi and bluetooth will light up regardless if they're on or off. To turn either the bluetooth or wifi on or off individually, there's a small program in the task tray call LAN, right click on it to open and you have the option of turning on or off the 2.4GHz (AGB wifi), 5.0GHz (AGN wifi), or bluetooth.