Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

[Joe Bleau]

Originally Posted by nizmoz

Like I said, real world experience. 3 hours max on the extended battery. Even reviews on the machine out there say the same thing. You don't have it, so YOU have no experience.

Are you telling me that if I get 3:07 hours with a regular battery on my F, I will get only 3 hours with a larger one with 1.5 times more capacity?

[lrudyk]

UNIFICATION POST SONY VAIO F11 SERIES – ISSUES, FIXES, TWEAKS, REVIEWS.
(Extensive Editing will Follow, sorry for delay, law classes and work and little kids delay my posting life).


Reviews of the Sony Vaio F11 series:
My First Review: Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge
I kept my Best Buy purchased Sony Vaio F11, and I am loving it more and more. This unification post was written on my Vaio F11, and as a result, it is at least 4 cores better than a post written on a computer using an i5 cpu!

EURO REVIEW (European model F11 seems to have premium matte screen option, unlit keyboard): http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.25724.0.html
Video Euro Review: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...aio+f11+screen +++ on this review. If you are considering buying, watch these, and you will RUN and not walk to buy your Vaio F.

Best Buy Purchasers in North America (Click on Customer Reviews tab in the page after searching for this SKU 9705382 at Best Buy's website).

Newegg Reviews on this page: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834127050

Amazon Reviews on this page (310M gpu): http://www.amazon.com/Sony-VPC-F114F...7593169&sr=1-5


Please recommend some reviews I can add to this post.


Known Issues and Fixes:
Fanboy disclaimer: Many Sony Vaio F11 series do not have these issues, these are issues reported by users in this thread - users who appear to be predominantly happy with their purchases and are working to resolve these problems if they exist on their laptop. The most cited complaint is the screen quality in the North American version of the Sony Vaio F11.

Screen viewing angle (the glossy/semi-glossy US Screen).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...77#post5914377 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLees4K9z6E
My fix to viewing angle (not much of a fix, but I love the laptop, so … whatever.)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ex#post5921446

Screen dimness and appearance. Also see calibration below under tweaks.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...nt#post5779246 and Steps 1-3 on this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...nt#post5784440

Microphone “tweating” or "noises" or "morse code". Usually very quiet. Fixed by Sony in current builds by changing the laptop construction. User fixes in links below.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...postcount=2461
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...29#post5748529

Squeeky Space Bar.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ar#post5934889

Loud cooling system (Fan Noise). If this is your first i7 laptop, they seem to be a little bit louder, and take some getting used to – there is a lot of computing power.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...an#post5901628

Fan Noises at certain speeds (a few users have reported this - has anyone who has this issue tried a laptop cooling base to mitigate the issue?)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...33#post5964733

Bluetooth Reinstall (Software issue).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...th#post5959118

Speaker Distortion (speakers turned up, bass crackle on CPU speakers). Cheap fix = get headphones.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...on#post5929956

CPU Throttledown on Battery Power (BIOS appears to be the culprit, and appears to require a Sony Firmware fix).
Long explanation: http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...le#post5754499
Relatively Short Explanation and Exact Throttle: http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...le#post5835822

Tweaks:
Clean Install. Joe Bleau’s unification:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ll#post5924807

Getting FN keys to work after clean install:
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-...o-fn-keys.html

Semi-Clean Install. Thanks Ninjanoodles. This seems to be a very good route to take for some users.
How to Optimize Any Sony VAIO With a Semi-Clean Install

Screen Color Calibration.
Srosenfeld’s calibration: Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge (Used this myself. Very helpful. Obviously the best calibration would be to buy a calibrator and make custom adjustments to YOUR laptop.)
Euro Screen Calibration : http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...33#post5862633

Overclocking the GPU.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...75#post5749575
Settings others have used (including myself):
Can I overclock nvidia gt 330m? Pros/Cons?


Second HDD using optical drive bay. (Do your research please)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...dd#post5911349 http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...19#post5884419 http://forum.notebookreview.com/show....php?p=5106978

Audio Tweaks. Read this page:
Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge

Others have done some of this in a variety of posts, I wanted to provide a comprehensive stopping point for others. I have stolen liberally from many other contributors in this and other threads. I hope this helps newcomers and other Sony Vaio F11 owners. Please provide feedback, and I will edit this post accordingly. I do NOT take credit for the hard work and research of others. If you notice I have stolen your work and want more credit, please send me a PM, and I’ll add your name to the bottom of the post as a contributor.

[nizmoz]

I didn't turn off bluetooth or WIFI like some of the users did. I left it in standard mode and the laptop would only get around 3 hours of battery life period. If you read, they had to turn off features to get 3 hours off the standard battery. The Standard battery only gets 2 hours with nothing turned off. 3 hours on the extended.

[Joe Bleau]

Originally Posted by nixt3r

meloover, The same sound is driving me insane as well. It sounds almost like a truck is backing up "BEEP BEEP BEEP" outside, it's very faint/random.

Let me know if you find a solution. I've been using the laptop heavily (Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc...) for 3-4 days now and this "whistling" thing is all that is bothering me. I can live with the occasional backspace "squeak" :|.

My BB F also had the whining/whistling/Morse code mic syndrome & I shot a video today using a Sennheiser mic to record before & after the easy fix that removes that sound.

You have to be patient, editing & uploading to Youtube should take 1-2 hours. I will post a link when done.

Meanwhile, try this: STP12's easy fix and Fix #2.

3 F users fixed their spacebar squeak in this forum, you can do it too!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...=1#post5921716

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ar#post5852864

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ar#post5851955

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...ar#post5856291

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...postcount=4571

[jacksjw]

Originally Posted by lrudyk

UNIFICATION POST – ISSUES, FIXES, TWEAKS, REVIEWS.Known Issues and Fixes:

Loud cooling system (Fan Noise). If this is your first i7 laptop, they seem to be a little bit louder, and take some getting used to – there is a lot of computing power.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...an#post5901628

The issue is not the air movement sound equivalent to a form of pink noise but with the fan blade created variable pitch tones that seem to resonate outside the laptop at speeds above the minimum idle speed. Besides myself, there are several others on this thread that have reported the problem. I don't mind the usual air rushing noise (I have been living with fans in computers and electronics since 1967) but the variable pitch and its resonating harmonics are most anoying.

Also missing from your unicfication is the distortion in the speaker system. It is my understanding from a Sony tech that Sony Engineering has a firmware upgrade for the Realtek chip to fix this issue.

I have also found out from insiders that Sony is aware of the Throttle Down issue of the I7 and are working on this. Probably due to their battery subroutines that have added to the Aptio BIOS. Just another software bug.

Thanks for pulling this together. I hope you maintain it and periodically publish it on this thread.

[jacksjw]

Originally Posted by Joe Bleau

My BB F also had the whining/whistling/Morse code mic syndrome & I shot a video today using a Sennheiser mic to record before & after the easy fix that removes that sound.

You're confusing the mic issue with the fan issue that nixt3r is describing. It is the same as the audio recording of the fan problem uploaded earlier.

[zebra3]

Originally Posted by jacksjw

I have also found out from insiders that Sony is aware of the Throttle Down issue of the I7 and are working on this. Probably due to their battery subroutines that have added to the Aptio BIOS. Just another software bug.

I'm not asking you to name names, but how sure are you on these sources and what do they plan to do about it?

[jacksjw]

Originally Posted by zebra3

I'm not asking you to name names, but how sure are you on these sources and what do they plan to do about it?

I received this info from a trusted source who discussed the issue with a US Sony management person. No dates on a fix but I do know that American Megatrends announced a new release of the Aptio base code in early February which incorporates supports for the latest I3, I5 and I7 processors. Whether Sony releases this is questionable. There also appears to be an issue in the BIOS with respect to ACPI_PSD definitions. Run "powercfg /energy" from the command line at administrator level and examine the report that is created.

It appears that they do not publish the BIOS on the esupport website. I have been checking other models on the sight and cannot find any BIOS upgrades for their VAIOs. I must admit I have not made a thorough search of the entire download section for EVERY model so I could be incorrect.

We do know from a previous post regarding the 100% fan issue that Sony techs are the only ones who can correct the issue by reloading the BIOS (according to Sony TS).

[Jay-Biz]

Originally Posted by jacksjw

You're confusing the mic issue with the fan issue that nixt3r is describing. It is the same as the audio recording of the fan problem uploaded earlier.

jacksjw: you are correct. It's as if Joe is unaware of the fan issue that we are experiencing.

Joe: It's not the whining/whistling/morse code syndrome. Please listen to that audio file which was posted to hear what it is we are complaining about.

It is a variable high-pitch noise that comes out from around the fan in the laptop.

There seems to be no fix for this yet.

[MelodyMaster]

Originally Posted by kihokang

Well...I think it worked for me because I just received my laptop.
Sony put it this way...Since I can return the laptop for full refund within 30 days...then reorder...it would be better to just give credit.... :-)
The customer service gave me credit without any issue...
Too bad...my laptop died completely the next morning.
I was jumping over joy...then so upset the next morning.

I just ordered the new one today...last day for free BD-ROM... :-)

ATTN: Joe Bleau, this is the fourth discrete mention of power supply failure on an F11, so it IS an issue affecting a lot of F11s.