Questions for a Sony Vaio SA: VPCSA4MFY/BI

I picked this model up recently, because it was on sale at the Microsoft store.
After tinkering around with it today, I had a few questions:

1. MY 2.5" Sandisk SSD won't fit properly (snugly) into the hard drive bay. Not sure if this is an issue with the drive bay or the SSD size? Have others faced this?

2. All research indicates the RAM type is DDR3-PC3-10600. Is that correct?

3. I find it very weird that i have swipes/multitouch available, but no two finger scrolling. Am I missing some settings or do i need to update drivers?

I tried to search on the forum, but it always shows an "invalid search query" result.

 

1. it should fit just fine. this is a stupid question, but are you using the HDD bracket that came with the original hard disk? my Crucial M4 is fitted very tightly and securely using that bracket.

2. yes

3. there is no two-finger scrolling on the SONY-provided Alps touchpad drivers. there are drivers (from HP or DELL) that have that functionality enabled. see the SA Owners' thread for the link.

the search is broken here. you could, however, use Google to search; the trick is to add site:forum.notebookreview.com at the end of search query, for example, type this in Google:

 

@ck1109

hey, even i m planning to buy this laptop, can please give me ur pros and cons about this .

 

Thanks, are there any specific posts you can recommend or link to? There's many drivers listed in the owner's thread and installing one of them (the torrent link) caused my laptop to stop recognizing the touchpad as an alps touchpad. I had to system restore.

It's very good for a $699 laptop. It looks good, it's light and I like the 1600x900 resolution and a dedicated video card. Feels like an upgrade from my macbook. Build quality is also solid, but note that the screen itself is very slim and light and doesn't look like it will take abuse too well.

The main issues I have are:
1. Gets too hot under load. You cannot put this on your lap when playing games without buying a laptop cooling fan unit.
2. battery life is only ~3 hours.
3. be very careful when upgrading. The screws start to strip quite easily.
4. Multi-touch scrolling - but there are 3rd party drivers for it.

 

i'm still using the SONY Alps drivers, so i don't have two-finger scrolling. i'm afraid i can't be of much help. maybe you should post your question in the owners' thread, and someone with a working touchpad driver could help.

 

hey I also bought this notebook from the MS Store last week! haha. But yea it seems to run pretty well for an ultraportable.

Right I am considering upgrading the HDD to SSD and the RAM to 8GB.

The spec sheet I found online says it has 4GB of RAM (onboard), but would you know if it has 1 slot, or 2 slots?

 

it has one empty slot. you can put an 8GB memory stick there for a total of 12GB. (of course, a 4GB upgrade also works.)

 

huh..you sure?

everywhere I read it said the lappy maxes out to 8GB. so with a 4GB onboard.. I need to buy one more 4GB stick?

 

yes, i'm sure. 12GB is tested and working.

 

also got same laptop, bought caddy for HDD instead of DVD.
replaced , win7 see D: drive, no problem here, but once in a while HDD is beeping
did you anybody got some problem?
not sure if HDD is beeping
but sound coming from HDD location (where use to be DVD drive)
thanks

 

Thanks! Purchased Corsair Value Select 8GB and have 12GB appearing in my lappy!

 

ck1109,

were you able to fix your issue? I take it you are not using caddy?

 

Yes, I was able to fit the 2.5" ssd. All i had to do was to flex one of the sides (by 1mm).

No luck on multitouch though.

 

FYI ...Wds 7 will show all mem installed but Sony MB only uses 8GB max

[as last time I checked]

But it works fine for you ... just saying ,,,you better off to use another identicall 4GB stick to make it dual channel ..

It's all good though .

 

^ no. all 12GB is available to use, and it will be dual-channel.

 

Just out of curiosity, do you guys see any improvement in ram score under windows experience index? I get only 5.9

 

Anyone have any teardown pictures or service manuals for this model?

 

this video is for VAIO SE, but it's very very similar to SA. use it as a guide.

 

Fantastic. Thanks Darxide

 

Hi,

I am wanting to upgrade to 12gb of RAM in my machine as well, but I am wondering, is there a particular type of RAM i need to get? As in, do I need a cas latency of 9 with timings of 9-9-9-24 at 1.5V or something else? I don't know how to determine what the timings are on the built in 4gb and I am thinking they should match, Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

^ this is the one i have in my SA.

 

I am having lots of issues with BSOD. The Kingston SSD that I installed has reported issues with running in SATA II mode. Unfortunately the replacement that Kingston sent still has the same issues. Has anyone come across a way to get SATA3 mode working after the last bios update?

Current bios
Release Date 6/29/2012 Version R2087H4 File Size 5.55 MB

 

I think the BSOD issues were related to the SSD running in SATAII mode. I was able to find a hacked bios that has completely solved the BSOD issues. My 1yr warranty hasnt expired on the laptop yet. I am wondering if I should log a support ticket about the BIOS issues so the issue is logged with Sony. Anyone have any thoughts?

If anyone else is having these bsod issues, I can provide the link for the BIOS that completely resolved this issue for me. The drive still appears to be running SATAII mode (per intel storage software)