Official Sony Vaio CW Core 2 Duo Series Owner's Thread

[MikeB4]

corteen - I have to agree with MB77. Something is wrong with your external display. The CW can output Blu Ray over HDMI at 1080p to a TV.

If you have a LCD or Plasma TV with HDMI, I would try connecting the CW to that and see if you can play a Blu Ray movie.

[SSJ]

Are there already any reviews of this notebook on the net ?

[corteen]

A) Check if your external 24" supports HDCP! It seems as if it does not...
B) Make sure you did not expand your desktop over two screens, since BluRay playback is allowed only on one single screen.

If A) is your problem, you have to buy a newer TFT which supports HDCP handshake with external devices like Sony CW or standalone BR player

Either or I think it is not the CW's fault :-)

HMMM - the monitor is supposedly HDCP compliant.

I had the desktop extended so I will try it without and see what happens - strange - my previous laptop with BR a Dell XPS1640 used to display the BluRay movies on one screen while allowing me to work on the other. Is this restriction only on SONY machines ?

[MB77]

HMMM - the monitor is supposedly HDCP compliant.

I had the desktop extended so I will try it without and see what happens - strange - my previous laptop with BR a Dell XPS1640 used to display the BluRay movies on one screen while allowing me to work on the other. Is this restriction only on SONY machines ?

Look here:

http://www.sony-asia.com/subtype/use...sonal+computer

[Fapuse]

Maybe it's a driver problem in the GPU. Try downloading the latest drivers with that. It's odd that a good card would stutter in games. Oh, do post once you got Oblivion up and running. Currently considering the CW for my next purchase and would really want to see how the game performs on it. Thanks!

Done some more tests:
Oblivion: fluent on all details maxed (HDR, no AA)
CS Source/HL2: same, but it isn't really demanding

No shutters in those two, so maybe it was game related after all?

3D mark tests, this is for CW with 230M, P4750 CPU (2.13 GHz, 1066mhz), 4GB DDR3 RAM

3D mark 2006 (standard set of tests in free version):
3D mark score: 5669
SM 2.0 score: 2391
SM3.0 score: 2334
CPU score: 1847

Vantage:
3D mark V score: N/A (test resolution of 1280x800 not supported by the screen )
GFX score:2092

In 3D mark tests, results for 2006 were OK (framerate 10-33fps and 3D mark is demanding), so 2-3 year old games should run fine with most/all settings. Vantage tests were really bad (3-10fps), and Physx test was disaster. New games should be less demanding than 3D M but I wouldnt think that you can turn on all the candies and still enjoy fluent game. Unfortunately Oblivion was the most recent game on my hdd, so I can't test anything more recent

What I really love about this laptop is that it really doesn't get hot or laud. When playing games or running 3D mark it only gets warm on the bottom left side near the vent and the central right area under the palm rest (well, that shiny part near arount touchpad) - but it never gets any warmer on the top/keyboard side. Just the bottom. Vent is very quiet and only under serious load it increases speed a bit, but still stays really quiet.

Someone asked about glare screen, is it usable outdoors. Well, at least european version isn't. It IS glare, no "antireflective" anything, period.

Keyboard was another question - I like it, was used to DELL's or Acer's and the Sony's one certainly isnt worse. I don't touch type but my wife does and she likes the keyboard more then on our other laptops. Arrow keys are a bit small, even for me and I have small hands, so it may be a problem for some people.

Build quality: feels ok. I've seen much worse but also seen better Vaios (Z for instance). Yes, battery moves a little bit but I wouldn't have noticed if I haven't read about it in one of the posts here. Overall, there is no piece of this laptop that I could point to and say "this should be done better". Could, but not should, if you know what i mean.

BIOS: in my CW it is the basic "don't change anything but the date" version.

Touchpad: Yes, it is multitouch, but implementation just sux. Sometimes it works quick, sometimes slow, sometimes when you don't want it to work. Not whether the problem is hardware or software, but as it is it's best to just disable it. That's my subjective feeling.

[SSJ]

@Fapuse:
Too bad i am from Europe....what the heck is Sony thinking of us?!
This makes me really mad.

[electrobuzz]

electrobuzz,

Since you have a CTO version with P8700, could you please check the BIOS and see if you have an advanced option to enable VT ?

I was told by a sonystyle.com agent via online chat that if you custom order with P8700 or T9600 you should get the advanced option in the BIOS.

Appreciate your help. I hope to try an get an in store discount also.

Thanks

Yes, you can enable VT in the BIOS. It is disabled by default.

[darkmage]

hey all, thinking of picking up one of the bb cw's as the price seems better than what I can get locally. Anyone know if the best buy cw's display is inferior in any way? Seems like BB is offering a very good deal on the base configuration.

[MB77]

Done some more tests:

3D mark 2006 (standard set of tests in free version):
3D mark score: 5669
SM 2.0 score: 2391
SM3.0 score: 2334
CPU score: 1847

This is for CW with 230M, P4750 CPU (2.13 GHz, 1066mhz), 4GB DDR3 RAM

Did you run these benchmarks on the Sony-factory config of Windows 7 or did you modify performance (by removing bloatware and unnecessary Sony software)?

[electrobuzz]

Not neccessarily related, DPC latency test:

Not sure what it means for normal usage, but maybe some people will be interested. Can someone else check it, want to know if it is just my CW or some general problem (or feature? )

I ran the DPC latency test on mine (P8700/230 GPU/4mb). I'm not familiar with this test, but I did notice something. When I first run this, my system registers mostly green, with an occasional yellow bar, maybe 10-12% yellow. If I stop and the restart the test (without exiting), the results immediately become worse, not as bad as your result, but still with about 50% of the bars being red/yellow. The reds peak at about 2700us. I can exit the program and restart and the exact same phenomenom occurs. I am running this with factory default settings intact.