New to forum, just got Vaio SZ120 =)

Hi guys,
I came to this forum frequently when I was choosing my laptop. I just got my SZ120 in the mail today as a junkout from Best Buy. I paid $113 extra though I lose $299 from the insurance. At least it was almost 3 years before I got a replacement.
I remember seeing a bunch of threads with advice on what bloatware to remove. I removed the basics like norton, aol, etc. Any suggestions on what else to delete manually? I will keep searching the forum for a while. I don't plan on doing a clean restore.
Anywho, glad to finally join the forum and be a part of the gang. ^_^


Peter

 

whats a junkout? i just got my sz120 from bestbuy on sunday. hows their warranty and which one did you get?

 

The junk out was because my old laptop broke and I bought the Best Buy insurance for it. They did a trade based on what I paid previously. That is rare and I had to fight a long time for it. This time around I am going to buy Sony insurance. Did you remove the bloatware from your sz120? Should I keep sonicstage? It's not like I"m going to create music anytime soon. Also what antivirus do you have right now? When I installed norton my computer crashed every 20 seconds. I did a complete system recovery and deleted norton once and for all. Now things are functional and I installed Windows Defender beta 2. That is all I have for now. Did you keep Trend Micro- anti spyware?

 

Which insurance plan DID you have, im trying to decide which to go with Bestbuy's 3 years with accidental or Sony's. I need something that will cover drops, spills and crack lcds.

And yes i did remove all of that **** including sonic stage.

My antivirus is Bit Defender 9. I'd rather use nod32 but it would hang too much and render the notebook useless.

Maybe you should test nod32 on your notebook and see if you have the same problem.

 

I use AVG anti virus cos its free and effective. Be sure to have Zonealarm firewall as well.

Just to cover everything, be sure to download Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D and Spyware Blaster. Defender was a good choice and be sure to keep all those programs updates regularly.

Use Firefox as a browser instead of Internet Explorer. Its safer and has many, many, many more features you can add on according to your taste.

Sorry if ive gone on a bit, I just wanted to make sure you had everything covered.

Dunno what junk to remove from your SZ though....

 

Welcome to a fellow 120 owner!

Some more advice:
- Very very very good topic on starting fresh (also gives you an opportunity to "free" the 13 gig hidden partition for your usage
- I'm using Norton AV Corporate with no problems, as well as Trends micro spysweeper
- If you are looking to upgrade the memory in it, MemoryGiant.com has the right memory and at pretty good prices (although i am having an issue with hibernating the computer since the upgrade)
- If your laptop is going to be your main computer, the docking station is pretty neat

Anyways, enjoy your new laptop

 

Replying to ProphetX's question,
I originally had Best Buy's regular PSP, the service plan that replaces the computer after 4 qualifying repairs. That was almost 3 years ago. My old Toshiba finally died again, in total, replacing the motherboard, ram, hard drive, battery, charger, charging pin, usb, monitor wires, LED, and finally the LCD. With the last LCD being what did it in, I requested for a junkout based on my old insurance. They kept telling me that they would first give me a "compareable" model and give me the price of whatever that was. The first store I went to the manager chose a $1300 HP as a match and gave me $1300 credit towards the new Vaio. I refused and went to another store. I asked the new store manager on what happens if my laptop breaks for the 4th time. He said Best Buy would exchange the old one and give me store credit based on my purchase price. I made him write down his words and he stayed true to them, even signing the statement. I think he may not be giving full store credit in the future. But with my case he was able to give me $1899 credit for my old junked out 17" Toshiba. Since there were no sz120 available in Best Buy stores in Southern California, I requested that they ship one of the remaing 4 (at the time) from the main warehouse somewhere near Kentucky I think....
Anywho, I paid $113 for the different plus recycle fees. It was shipped to me with UPS 3 day select.
The computer is great, though it randomly freezes dead in its tracks and I've had to force it to restarted around 30 times last night. I think it may be overlapping antivirus and antispyware software. This is why I'm asking what most people put on their sz. Now I have AVG free, windows live one care, windows protector, and avast!
Thanks for all the links on where to start. I appreciate it. ^_^

 

Wow, i hope i dont have that problem. But as far as anti virus. DO NOT install all of that stuff which radditz has listed. Sorry radditz............ But it will do nothing but fight with your sz and slow it down.

Find an antivirus thats an all in one solution. Bit Defender is a great choice, as well as the shield pro. Nod32 would be the best, except i cant get it to run correctly without doing a complete reinstallation of windows.

 

Personally i think that is absolutely horrible advice.... reading reviews of AV and Spyware software, it for sure seems that no company "does it all" best... mixing and matching seems to be best, and that's according to mags like PC World and PC Mag....

 

I'm happy with the antivirus protection I have now. I pretty much had to go and try a few of them out.

About the insurance, I did not buy another PSP insurance from Best Buy. There were too many complications that I felt like a laywer fighting the case of the century. Even with all the problems I had I still almost ran past 3 years,which would have voided my insurance in the first place.

I have decided to buy the $400 insurance, 4 years, including "accidental damage" from Sony directly. This is for 4 years too. Best Buy's so called new " accidental damage" for $425 seems too tricky to figure out again. Plus it is only for 3 years.
After talking to sony on the phone one of them told me that the accidental damage even covers liquid damage over the keyboard. Haha. I don't know how true this is, but at least it's not as bad as Best Buy.

 

When you mix and match, they tend to fight with eachother. Tell me something...why does it make sense that norton would make their stuff compatible with any other company?

ps: never trust a mag. They are only for marketing and they get paid to say what they do. its all about money my friend. Besides Bit defender and and the shield 2006 are rated #2 #1 respectively for do it alls.

 

Sorry to disagree (i am allowed to do so, am i not?), i don't buy that "its all for the money"... someone out there is doing unbiased reviews, and if it was "all for the money", then every single thing in the magazines ever reviewed would be like "run out and buy this!!!", that is not the case....

As said, i feel that's bad advice to get an all in one, that's simply my 2 cents.....

and for the record, Trend Micro and Norton AV co-exist happily on my very laptop, as do Spysweeper and Nortan AV on both my desktop upstairs and my office computer

 

Just got my 120 from Amazon yesterday as well. First thing out went Norton, in came Avast. Have used that AV on several of my computers and always been happy with it. How are you liking yours so far, Pete? Checking on some of the comments I had read here in the forum and Liar's review of the 110B I have noticed the following things (at least on what I assume is a newer 120):

Strange keyboard - True. It's different, but not bad. Just different. I find I'm getting on with very well.

Space bar issue - False. At least that I have noticed. I strike it from any postion and it seems to respond fine.

Bottom light leak - True. But not to the extent I had feared, and not enough to send it back.

"Shocking" palm rests - False. At least on mine I have felt no type of electrical discharge coming from it whether plugged or unplugged.

Flimsy screen - Undecided. It is thin indeed, but not so much so that it really worries me. It's a little sturdier than I imagined, but I still don't think I'll be stacking any text books on top of it.

Overall so far it seems to be pretty much be a winner. The amount of features seem to outweigh the little niggles I might have about it. I am especially fascinated by the Biometric Fingerprint Reader. Quite the nifty little toy.

 

Of course your free to give you opinion. Tell me this, go to task manager and see how much resources all of those apps are taking up

 

I think we are all entitled to our favorite antiviruses. I just wanted to see what works and what doesn't play well with each other.

My sz so far: I love it. I named it Nersinia. It's a combination of Yersinia pestis the bacteria for the Black Plague and Narsissist, which I can be, now that I have the elite SZ while sitting next to my Inspiron 700m welding friends in lecture. muaha~

I was scared of the shocking problem, but my computer is fine. The spacebar is perfect too. I guess they fixed the newer builds. This laptop is surprising in that its so small and thin compared to my old 17" Toshiba. The keyboard is different, yah, but I just tell myself I paid extra for them to build me a special keyboard that's flatter so it doesn't hit the monitor and lighter so the overall laptop can be light. ^_^

I posted a few pics on my xanga if anyone wants a good laugh.

www.xanga.com/petecustom

 

Glad you're liking it, Pete. I just noticed something else that is a little annoying, but easily fixed I think. Now that I've carried it around more the battery is kind of loose and driving me a bit crazy. I think I can get some self adhesive felt and make it sit it there a little more securely though. So far everything else is peachy.

 

Nice to hear ya'll are happy with your machines !

I was a little worried about the electric tingle thing too, until I found out it was just the choice of not adding a ground wire to the power supply and that MacBook Pros "suffer" from the same thing. You can juts go and get a three-pronged plug if you want.

I use BitDefender like Prophet, and am quite happy so far. No problems as of yet.

 

Sorry but you are wrong. With 192MB RAM on my machine theres no way im going to install things that will slow it down. And for the record, im running all of the software I said WITHOUT any conflicts thank you.

Ad-aware and Spybot are scaners with no real time protection, therefore they have no compenents when active when my computer starts up. They are only active when scanning.

Spyware blaster has no real time protection either therefore again its got no components loaded into RAM on startup. It adds a blocked website/cookie/active x list and thats it.

Defender, AVG and Zonealarm are the only "active" programs and they each cover different functions i.e. anti-spyware, anti-virus and firewall.

gladly...

Defender ~20MB of memory, AVG is taking up ~7MB and Zonealarm is taking up ~21MB.

If you cant spare 48MB of memory on your laptop for security because it will slow it down then fair enough. But its generally accepted that you need more than 1 program to cover your back as they scan and look for things in different ways.

 

,
Glad to hear your happy

I sure am... seeing that i paid for one program that does the same job as all of your programs. And at only 28mb, it gives me realtime protection. (stops **** from even getting on to my computer...isnt that the point?)

 

I, too, just purchased a SZ110 and am extremely happy with it. I read all the reviews about the spacebar and palmrest shock and was a bit worried, but I'm happy to say I don't have any of those "symtoms".