Sony Vaio NW Review

I have yet to see my touchpad die but every once in awhile, the touchpad will freeze up for a couple seconds where moving your finger around doesn't translate to the correct motion of the cursor - it moves but weirdly. It goes away after a few seconds, after plugging in a mouse, or beginning some task on the computer. I see it happen much more often on Ubuntu than Windows.

 

umm I'm puzzled - where'e the card reader? I think I know where it is but it's pushed inside the casing, I cannot recall if it's been like this from day one or... is it broken?

 

Good review

 

has anyone found new gfx drivers for the rig??

 

Bought this machine about a week ago configured from eBay (P8700, 500GB 7200RPM, 4GB DDR2, Blu-Ray) and I really like it. Only thing that is bugging the hell out of me is the fan is ALWAYS on. From the moment a turn the power on, the fan starts and it doesn't stop, even when the computer is completely cool. Is this normal? If not, anyone know how I can fix it?

 

The card reader is in the front of the laptop, slightly left of the touchpad. I've tried multiple cards and they've all worked fine for me. The "flap" on the top one is pushed inside the case but that shouldn't affect the functionality.

Don't think so. I've only had a few issues with the graphics driver but I don't think ATI has released any new ones. I have heard that updating drivers for ATI cards is a nightmare compared to nVidia cards.

Do you have the ATI graphics card? That's a pretty powerful card and naturally it'll need the fan to run pretty much always to keep the computer cool. For me, it's really quiet most of the time and there is enough ambient noise that I don't hear it at all.

 

Yes I do. I just thought that while surfing the web and doing light tasks on the machine it wouldn't need to run all the time. The fan comes on as soon as I bring the computer out of sleep mode and it is completely cool. Oh well, I can live with it, just didn't think it was necessary.

 

Pretty little thing.

 

I do wish that the ATI graphics card could be turned off or almost off sometimes. The different power settings don't really seem to do much. At the very least, turn off half the processing cores. Then again I don't know much about graphics cards...

 

Anyone here know how I can reinstall the Splashtop (Quick Web Boot) functionality on this machine? Does it reside on the hard drive or motherboard? I bought mine from eBay and had the hard drive upgraded which was then re-imaged with the Sony image but the Splashtop does not work. When I press the 'web' button I get a black screen that says 'Sony Vaio' and it just sits there, nothing happens. Can't seem to find anywhere to download this or instructions on how to get it working again. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I swapped out my hard drive for a new one as well but I imaged the original hard drive so I had exactly the same thing on both, and that worked fine for me. Do you still have the old hard drive? Try reimaging that with what came with the laptop.

However, my understanding is that these instant-on OSes reside in somewhere in the motherboard and not the HDD.

 

bounci.rabbit.123, I am grateful for the replies to my previous posts, mate!

now... which application is responsible for FN button?
I wanted to play with the settings a bit and uninstalled almost everything that comes with my preinstalled system and loving it ecept my Fn button doesn't work

 

Just read about CW clean install... I'm so for it.
Do we have similar guide for NW?

 

That is part of the keyboard drivers, I believe. Again, I had a Sony Recovery disc included as part of my Windows 7 upgrade so that my Fn keys worked. I would advise you to look on the Sony download pages for the relevant driver. If not, I can try to upload the disc contents I received, although I don't know how legal that is.

Not specifically at the moment, but the Application Manager program gave me plenty of programs to get rid of, and there are many great uninstallers like Revo that should get the job done. Note that Revo sometimes doesn't pick up large programs (it didn't detect MATLAB on my computer for instance) or sometimes things that get preinstalled.

 

Anyone know of a good laptop sleeve and/or backpack that fits the NW nicely?

 

b.r., thanks a lot for the zeal mate!
I found out on my own using the popular method called by trial n error and the app responsible for Fn is: Vaio Event Service

 

I can highly recommend the Swiss Gear Synergy backpack. It's around $60 but it is really really good. There's a separate compartment for the laptop and it's big but slim, so the laptop doesn't move around at all. And its extremely roomy with plenty of pockets to store everything you need. You could get a sleeve but it'll move around a lot more in your backpack, which could get annoying.

Thanks! I didn't know that. =)

 

Hey bounci, have you had any issues with the trackpad? I remember reading in these forums somewhere that people with the NW series were having issues and I've started to notice some myself. Most notably when I'm moving the cursor around the screen it seems to freeze and jump around a bit. It only lasts for a couple seconds and then is fine but it's starting to get annoying and if it keeps getting worse I won't be able to deal with it. Any suggestions?

 

Yeah I've had some similar issues and honestly I don't know what's causing it, so I really can't help you much.

Also, something a bit more worrisome is that just recently, it crashes often, usually when its in sleep mode. I don't know why. I'll close the lid and make sure that it goes to sleep, and then sometimes when I come back the computer is completely turned off. And on reboot the boot manager tells me that Windows didn't shut down properly. now THAT'S rather annoying. I haven't lost any data thankfully, but I need to pin down this issue.

 

You know what...I've just inserted the battery [normally it's out] and I can't see any indication of its level [full vs recharging]

anything else needs to be installed to make it visible?

cause it's def not Vaio Event Service this time

 

You know, I'm really not sure. I uninstalled a lot of the preinstalled crap when I got my Vaio and I haven't had any issue with things....I left the Event Services and stuff that I wasn't sure about alone though.

 

Is there a BIOS driver available for NW21MF?