Why I stopped using the Sony Vaio VPCZ13M9E/B

Now I have a MSI GT73VR. These are the reasons why I stopped using my beloved Sony Vaio VPCZ13M9E/B. It's a terrible computer as a current daily driver for

• Very low battery duration, less than 1 hour
• Very bad performance for nowadays requirements, specially if you have lots of software installed. Playing 1080p 60FPS youtube videos in Google Chrome is not smooth, only feasible if you download the video and play it with VLC or SMPlayer.
• Does not have UEFI, only BIOS.
• Doesn't have USB 3.0 or USB-C ports, the fastest ones with ease of access are USB 2.0. Sure, it has a ExpressCard port, but it's very delicate and prone to physical disconnects, and if you connect Buffalo adapters for USB 3.0 ports it requires external power source to drive external hard drives.
• Due to worn out thermal paste or bad thermal design or both, it currently gets too hot and shuts off when the CPU uses the highest power for a couple of minutes, specially in the summer. That forces me to set the Maximum Processor State or Frequency way below 100%: it works for normal use, except during Windows 10 updates, where the profile does not apply and forces me to put the notebook in the fridge so doesn't shut down every few seconds.
• Only allows up to 8GB or RAM
• Internal port is SATA II and not SATA III so can't take advantage of the Sandisk 2.5'' SSD which I have instead of the OEM DVD+RW drive.
• Sony didn't update the proper hybrid graphic drivers for years, having to use the INF patcher to use the latest NVidia drivers, and even that way a reboot it's required to switch between intel/nvidia cards.
• Some USB ports got loose and you need to move around the male connector to make it work.

 

Ah, the Vaio Z of your vintage is what interested me in subcompact notebooks in the first place! I worked with a coworker who had one, and it was very impressive to my younger eyes. Such a compact notebook with a screen beyond comparison, GPU, and an optical drive. To boot, it had an user controlled switch that allowed the user to choose between the GPU, IGP, or Auto. By the time I got back to the US, the Vaio Z had disappeared, and was about to be replaced by the joyless ultrabook (though it still had the somewhat impressive dGPU docking addon), forcing me to settle with a Vaio S instead.

Thanks for the report and memories.


EDIT: the MSI you chose is a huge laptop! What motivated this massive change; how do you like the MSI?

 

The video part can be fixed using the h264ify extension, its due to youtube using VP9 encoding that relies on CPU decoding, using h264ify requests the video in mp4 that your GPU can decode in hardware.

The battery can be replaced.

Laptops NEED to be properly maintained and cleaned yearly, that is for all and any laptop.

ODD drives are always SATA2, even in your new MSI laptop, SSD's always go in the internal HDD slot, use the ODD for HDD's.

8GB of RAM is enough for an internet machine.

The USB ports can be replaced with new ones that will be thigh and well fitting again.

All in all, its a pretty old laptop, the fact that its still working today is a statement to the old build quality of laptops.

With a good cleanup, a repaste, swap the SSD over to the HDD slot, using h264ify extension and a new battery its still a decent portable internet machine, sure, its no workhorse, but its what, almost 10 years by now?

If you dont need anything Windows specific, using ubuntu would be even better, less RAM usage for the OS, drivers might be easier to work on.

 

Yay! We even got microcode fixes for the Spectre vulnerabilities (haven't applied them yet, though - still researching the performance hit). I was kind of worried that Intel won't release microcodes for CPUs that are this old. 8 years for the i5-540M in my VPCZ115, and I still love it. Have to buy a new battery, though.

Does anyone know how to update the TPM firmware? Windows 10 1803 is nagging me about it. I'm seeing firmware update utilities from different manufacturers, even stuff to change the mode from 1.2 to 2.0, but, naturally, nothing from VAIO. Will TPM update utility from, say, Dell, work?

 

VPC Z13 uses 1.8" uSATA. Hard to find that form factor today. It also further makes things odder by using two SSDs in RAID0 (factory setup - top end models had 4 SSDs in RAID0). Then to make it all more fun - they are installed without the normal 1.8" drive case.

 

The OP was talking about a 2.5" SATA SSD. senso was replying to that - that it should replace the HDD, not put in place of the optical drive using a caddy.

 

Try fitting a 2.5" SSD in the Z13's 1.8" SSD slot. The way Sony set it up, it's like asking to install a 2.5" SATA SSD in a M.2 Nvme slot (which is a closer visual analogy than you may think).

 

Yes I removed the dvd writer and replaced it with a caddy and 2.5" ssd 1TB

 

I had the HDD to begin with, installed at the shop when purchased. So for me it was a simple swap out - 2.5" HDD out, 2.5" SSD in. It is SATA II, sure, but the performance gain going from HDD to SSD is truly awesome. Even now, my old VPCZ115 (with the 2.5" SSD) outperforms modern entry level laptops with HDDs.

 

I'm looking for alternate uses for it. My VGN-Z is still working well, just too slow for daily use and photo processing, so I replaced it with a Lenovo MIIX 720 ideapad.
One idea is to install Ubuntu on the VAIO and configure it as a media server / player.

Any experiences, or other suggestions?

 

Wow, I had no idea people were still talking about this vintage model! I have a 2011 VPC-Z13 with original:
core i7-640
8GB RAM
384GB original quad SSDs in RAID-0
WWAN (3G but easily modded to LTE)
900p screen (with mod featured by the legendary "Beaups" in these pages in 2009 that increased the brightness to 400 nit!
2 large, 2 std batteries, all register over 85%

This computer has had less than 6 mos active use - it mostly lived in a box! It looks brand new. It has no shiny marks, no dents, just perfect!
It plays 1080p Youtube videos perfectly. I'm typing this post on it!

I'm about to sell it in an estate sale for about $100.

Anyone interested, for parts or daily use - with all these ports, the excellent keyboard and still competitive screen (sure, 900p and TN, but still great), it performs as well as most Haswell ultrabooks but it is such a joy to see and use. What an amazing piece of engineering! I've kept it all these years because it seemed like such a classic, such a shame to give up. But clearly I have no use for it.

Anyone interested? I'm not sure I still get PMs sent to my email but I do get posts to this thread so tell me if you're interested.

If I wasn't so lazy I would update wifi and WWAN card and this would be a wonderful machine to use every day. When you compare cpu/gpu to more recent ones on notebookcheck.net it's amazing how close it comes - from 60% to 90% on benchmarks compated to Skylake i5. Even closer to m-series.

 

this thing is ROCK stable and I would NEVER give it away.

My not even one year old Lenovo ideapad has it's fan broken and is now at Lenovo for repair!
How lucky I am to still have my VAIO readily available and fully up to most of 2018's tasks, to fill the gap until it comes back.

 

I have to say, after prepping mine to sell I was blown away by how magnificently it performs! If I didn't know it's age I would guess it was a flagship ultrabook with Haswell cpu. I'm not sure I can bring myself to sell it at estate sale for $100. I checked on ebay and there was only one sold in past 9 mos (they don't go back farther) and it had lower specs and sold for $318!

Anybody interested? I'll even let you return it if it's not as good as I say. (Will have to post in Marketplace if Mods send me a nastygram!)

 

I agree that was a great notebook back in the day, but the cpu is very old, lacks usb 3.0, battery life is horrible, power consumption very high for the performance, etc. Just buy a MSI computer or something alike, times passes quickly on hardware.

 

Well, you're not wrong technically, but I would say that you are stretching the negatives and failing to acknowledge the positives, No cheap MSI (or alternative under $200) has the awesome keyboard, multitude of ports (and mine does have USB3 via the Express Card slot, as well as gigabit ethernet, HDMI, VGA - yeah, I know, lol - I know I'm missing a few more), WWAN, 400 nit screen, 3 lb weight carbon fiber/magnesium case. The power consumption is 35 watts but check out the cpu benchmarks vs. even 2016 m3/m7 -series cpus - they measure 80%-110% on main cpu benchmarks because as old as it is, truth is Intel did very little improvement of cpu performance from Sandy Bridge through Skylake and with much lower power consumption the newer ones aren't much stronger. Integrated GPUs and even the joke of a d-gpu are no comparison but for Netflix, Youtube and the like there is no lag or lack of crispness @1080p. Battery life, well, 3.5 hrs for std battery and 6.5 for high cap and they are hot-swappable and I happen to have 2 of each; so you have to lug 3 extra batteries but you truly have, conservatively, 15+ hrs off the grid.

I'm really not selling even though I made a sorry pitch for it; I'm making these comments because in playing around with this to set up for my estate sale I became increasingly blown away by how great a machine it is and how well it stacks up to today's ultrabooks for what 75% of people do (email, web, videos) and that VAIO logo and case design gives it the flair of today's VAIOs. I use a Surface Book (1) for my daily driver and as much as I enjoy that device immensely I actually found it equally enjoyable and "luxurious" to do pedestrian laptop tasks on the Z13 as on my SB even though the SB is 5 years newer and is also an engineering marvel for it's time, which is 5 years newer (so much so that they changed very little in the SB2 other than cpu/gpu - huge difference but, again, only if you're doing things that tax the resources.

It was hard for me to "pull the plug" by doing a factory restore on it, but this is no time for sentimentality - we're downsizing and "everything must go!"

 

Hi
I'm a big fan of old vaio's. I have 3 of then: VGN-Z591U, VGN-SZ61XN and SVS13A290X (with IPS MOD). They all looks like new. I was using my VGN-Z since December 2009 till last year and it was best thing i have ever bought (It was used, because laptop is from 2008). It even had BD Writer in 2008!!!. My wife is still using my old VGN-SZ with SSD (AHCI Bios MOD) and Windows 10 and she doesn't want any other laptop (she always tell me: "best keyboard she ever used"). I would love to buy your VPC-Z13 since it is something I wanted to have after my VGN-Z591U. I already have really nice SVS13 but still i would like to have newer Z in my collection Maybe my wife will use it
If you still want to sell it just write me.
P.S. Sorry for my english but I'm from Poland. I still have a friend in Florida who I visit once a year so it can be shipped there.
B.R. for all VAIO lovers from all over the wolrd
Christopher from Poland

 

Christopher from Poland,

So great to hear from you! I sent you a PM. I take it you can access it, even though your are a new member? If not, just post here again. By the way, your English is excellent!

Best,
Jeff Bellin

Edit: By the way, are you aware of the BIOS Hack for which the Z1 is famous? If not, just search for it in the Z1 threads. There was a legendary member named "Computer Cowboy" who developed a way to enable you to incorporate the nVidia d-gpu in the hack and his link is no longer working but someone had a copy and uploaded it so it is still available if you're into that kind of stuff. I played around with it a little - it is amazing how much you can alter in this computer, much like rooting an Android phone, but like no other computer that I've seen, before or since! I don't believe you could do it with the VGN-Z nor with the VPC-Z2x series, just the Z1.

I'm so glad to hear someone is still getting great use out of these truly classic pieces of kit. That they were so well engineered and built and used such advanced hardware for the time makes them entirely adaptable to vast majority of work most people do on laptops, even these days, short of modern gaming, video editing, CAD and some other computationally intensive applications.

Don't forget to check my PM to you. It has one important piece of information! Jeff

 

I was actually surprised that I was able to do the bios hack (about two weeks ago. Finally had the courage). I was already hopeless since the thread was so old and all the links were dead, but I was so stoked to find out that these beautiful people uploaded mirrors! Freaking saviors, I tell you. From now on, I'll upload the mirrors too in case there are people like me out there Seriously, I can't be any more thankful for those who do this.

I hope my vaio lasts at least 5 more years. I have the optical drive caddy + 256 Samsung SSD on the way right now, heh! Vaio Canvas died on me so this is the only laptop I have now, and quite honestly, no other laptops in the market interests me right now.

 

Thank you Jeff for your good words
I could read you PM so I will respond you separately.

I actually use hacked bios for my VGN-Z because it is only way to bypass all this crazy stuff with hybrid graphics drivers (which I hate). In hacked bios you can change behavior of dGPU to work like in VGN-SZ (Static switching) and it is much easier to get everything working in Windows 10. My VGN-Z spec: Core 2 Duo P9500 (still using RMClock in Windows 10 to undervolting ), 500GB Samsung 850 PRO SSD, 2x 4GB DDR3, HD+ 1600x900 Screen. Best thing is battery...... I have 2 of them: Original from the beginning (10 Years old!!!) has 45% of capacity and second one which is 5 or 6 years old and has 80% capacity now!!! How it is possible??? I don' know.... ask SONY but I can still get 4 to 5 hour of working on it (using RMClock helps a little.... or maybe a lot)

In VGN-SZ I had to use "symcmos" to enable AHCI (it has support but sony unfortunately didn't put this into bios). Hard thing to do was to get screen brightness to work on nvidia GPU. Everything works still good on it. It has T7500 (RMClock too), 2x 2GB DDR2 and 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. Screen has only 1280x800 which is low nowdays but it has nice bright led backlight.

Now my "daily driver" is SVS13A290X. I really like this one from the moment i did screen mod to IPS panel (new from china, 45$ shipped ). Now it is really nice machine. 256GB SSD in RAID, Core-i5, 8GB RAM, Blu-Ray slot and 2xUSB 3.0 (important these days)

I love those machines.... I really do. Sony did great job building all top models but failed when you think about support. They was thinking like Apple.... build laptop for 2-4k $ and force users to change it in 2 max 3 years. But that didn't happened. Lack of support only motivated people to use this stuff for years and find the way to resolve all problems. Only dissatisfaction of sony support remained. I still don't understand why they didn't update drivers for this machines (Dell od Lenovo update drivers for top models for more then 5 years). Such expensive business machines should get at least 5 years support (at least drivers support)

P.S. I forgot about one..... I still use my VGN-S5HP from 2005 as my car diagnostic computer (2 x 10year old battery with more then 60% capacity each). In has nVidia GeForce Go 6400 Pentium M 2Ghz and 2x 1GB DDR2. And guess what... I have Windows 10 on it.

I post pictures of all 4 VAIO's if You would like to