Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

[gr-fan]

Are all of the FWs USB ports 2.0 standard? I connectet a device once to one of the ports, and Windows said they could be driven faster when connected to a 2.0 port. Might have been a mistake, that message, though.

I got a DAC/Headphone amp, and it pops and cracks when I use some other applications besides.

The even more interesting question: Is one of the three ports preferred in terms of bus power?

[smokie36]

Hi all!

I have an FW21M which was freezing constantly after 10 mins of use so I reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium on my laptop.

Obviously I have lost use of many of the drivers and functions of a Vaio.

I have been to the Sony website and saved the drivers for Win 7.

I tried running those with mixed success but to be honest I'm well out of my depth with this.

I have the Vaio recovery disks and am wondering if it is possible to use those, which would restore Vista of course, and then run the Windows 7 disk afterwards?

Any help or other suggestions would be most welcome!

[cert323]

Hello everyone,

I have a FW180 and gonna reapply thermal paste and pad soon. Does anyone know how thick of a thermal pad I should be picking up for this laptop.

Thanks

[raincity]

Duplicate.

[DaRonRon]

Hi guys, long time Sony Vaio FW21E owner here. Had mine since 2008 and this laptop has served me well.

But onto my questions. Im really getting into high quality audio and bought myself a really expensive and nice pair for IEMs (in ear monitors/headphones). I was just wondering if there's any other audiophile here? What do you make of the DAC/Amp on this laptop? As far as i can listen, with the Sennheiser IE80 sound quality is superb, better than my Desire HD for sure. But then again, i havent compared it to much.

How would the sound from the laptop compare to sound from the FiiO E17 with the Wolfson DAC?

[gr-fan]

Hi guys, long time Sony Vaio FW21E owner here. Had mine since 2008 and this laptop has served me well.

But onto my questions. Im really getting into high quality audio and bought myself a really expensive and nice pair for IEMs (in ear monitors/headphones). I was just wondering if there's any other audiophile here? What do you make of the DAC/Amp on this laptop? As far as i can listen, with the Sennheiser IE80 sound quality is superb, better than my Desire HD for sure. But then again, i havent compared it to much.

How would the sound from the laptop compare to sound from the FiiO E17 with the Wolfson DAC?

The sound quality is really fine on the FW onboard, everything sounds clear, and most important there isn't any background noises. You can drive it up to 192 khz, so it's true HD. I had a Sennheiser 595 plugged in the headphone jack and it sounded alright. I'm quite demanding, but I'm not yet an audiophile with regards to any big references... (Btw, no comparison to the bad sound of earlier VAIOs... but the later F12 got a digital optical output as well, that's one of the few advantages of this newer model...)

However, for more demanding headphones, the FW sound card isn't strong enough, so, a DAC/Amp device gets necessary. I bought a Matrix mini-i DAC USB for my AKG headphone, works fine without any additional drivers, on an active USB hub to ensure best data flow. (Although the crackling I reported earlier was maybe also caused by a bad hard disk sector, Scandisc deactivated it.)

So it depends on how the headphones perform... if it's loud enough on the headphone jack, there is not too much to gain at all, in my opinion. Don't know anything about in ear plugs.
I haven't been able to test my new setup much recently, so I might even discover some more advantage.

[DaRonRon]

The sound quality is really fine on the FW onboard, everything sounds clear, and most important there isn't any background noises. You can drive it up to 192 khz, so it's true HD. I had a Sennheiser 595 plugged in the headphone jack and it sounded alright. I'm quite demanding, but I'm not yet an audiophile with regards to any big references... (Btw, no comparison to the bad sound of earlier VAIOs... but the later F12 got a digital optical output as well, that's one of the few advantages of this newer model...)

However, for more demanding headphones, the FW sound card isn't strong enough, so, a DAC/Amp device gets necessary. I bought a Matrix mini-i DAC USB for my AKG headphone, works fine without any additional drivers, on an active USB hub to ensure best data flow. (Although the crackling I reported earlier was maybe also caused by a bad hard disk sector, Scandisc deactivated it.)

So it depends on how the headphones perform... if it's loud enough on the headphone jack, there is not too much to gain at all, in my opinion. Don't know anything about in ear plugs.
I haven't been able to test my new setup much recently, so I might even discover some more advantage.

Thanks for the reply. Yep I agree that the sound is very clear with no background noise. About my IEMs, they're very power efficient sennheisers, only 16 ohms so I guess they don't need an external amp, but I'm very curious what the Wolfson dac will sound as compared to the onboard sound card. I'll find out soon enough since my FiiO E17 arrived today. I won't be able to test it until Friday though..can't wait!

[mobytoby]

Anyone has a FW assembly/dissassembly guide? tried google already, so far no luck.

[J&SinKTO]

Anyone has a FW assembly/dissassembly guide? tried google already, so far no luck.

As requested.
Official VAIO FW Series Owners Thread

[SoundsGood]

HELP! No Power to Unit ???

Hey guys, I just went to turn on my trusty FW and it didn't turn on (no sounds, no lights, nothing). After looking it over I realized that the Charging indicator light on the front-left corner was also not on. Uh-oh.

The light on the AC Adapter is on, so it's not the adapter. Also I tried a spare battery, but that didn't do anything.

Anyone know what might be wrong or what to check?

Thanks in advance!