Official Sony SB/SA/SC/SD Series Owners' Thread

[oozijk]

Hi msq126,

So I have the same laptop as you VPCSB1AGX. Were you able to get SATA 3 speeds without affecting other functionality of the laptop with 1031H4 BIOS ?

Please let me know as I have recently swapped my hard drive for corsair force gt 3 ssd and I am not able to get SATA 3 speeds because I updated my BIOS.

Thanks in advance.

I have a SATA 3 Samsung 830 SSD, I have sata 3 speeds ONLY with older bios (400+ MB).

However if I update my BIOS i receive sata 2 speeds 200 ish. So you should downgrade to older BIOS.

[ptrkhh]

I recently ordered a vaio sa4 (i7 2640m, 6g ram, 6330m, 500gb 7200rpm hd, blu-ray player) (VPCSA490X-LBOM). I just have a few questions:

1) Is the 1600 x 900 resolution true 1080p?
2) What's the best resolution to play high demanding games? (bf3, crysis etc)
3) How hard is it to enable the CPU turbo boost? Is it a simple bios setting?
4) Any tips/tricks I should know about (i.e., maximizing the battery + sheet bat. life etc.)?
5) Does anybody have pics of the black carbon fiber vaio sa laptop they can share?

1. It's 900p
2. Native Resolution
3. You don't need to worry about it, it's all automatically happen
4. Enable the two-finger-scroll by installing the driver here
If the speaker sounds distorted, try installing the latest VAIO SE audio driver.
You can always install AMD graphics driver you get from AMD, but you'll get no difference anyway.
If you have the 5400rpm HDD model, you can give SSD a try, the guide is here, works with SA, SB, SC, and SE. Your system heavily slowed down by your HDD, not your processor nor RAM.
If you want to lower the fan noise, try reducing the Maximum CPU Limit on the Power Options.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview works on our SA/SB/SC/SE, at the exception on the AMD graphics, fingerprint sensor, and some power management that makes the system getting hot & loud.
5. I have the normal black one, if you want to get the premium color, I really recommend getting the glossy brown color, it looks extremely amazing.

[Crotia]

Here's my laptop in carbon black

[darxide_sorcerer]

playing Battlefield 3 or Crysis 2 on native resolution will choke 6630m (even when overclocked); that's why i suggested 1366x768. of course, anything on native resolution looks better, but you won't really notice it when you're being shot at during gameplay.

[Crotia]

playing Battlefield 3 or Crysis 2 on native resolution will choke 6630m (even when overclocked); that's why i suggested 1366x768. of course, anything on native resolution looks better, but you won't really notice it when you're being shot at during gameplay.

Yep, lower resolution = higher FPS generally.

[oozijk]

Hi Guys,

Hope you guys could please help me out. I realize that the new SA4 series is customizable with a Blu-ray Burner. Could someone please provide me with the model #, or a OEM Blu-ray Writer I could use to replace my drive in my SA3 series? I would appreciate any feedback, thanks!

Oozi

[archangel84]

I have a SATA 3 Samsung 830 SSD, I have sata 3 speeds ONLY with older bios (400+ MB).

However if I update my BIOS i receive sata 2 speeds 200 ish. So you should downgrade to older BIOS.

Do you have the same laptop VPCSB1AGX ?

If yes, did you see any problems when you downgraded the BIOS ?

[galloand]

Hi Guys,

Hope you guys could please help me out. I realize that the new SA4 series is customizable with a Blu-ray Burner. Could someone please provide me with the model #, or a OEM Blu-ray Writer I could use to replace my drive in my SA3 series? I would appreciate any feedback, thanks!

Oozi

I just purchased a VPCSA41FX, and I was also interested in upgrading to a factory blu-ray drive. Would love some info on this.

Also, this particular model has the 500gb (5400 rpm) HDD. Any recommendations for upgrading this to something a tad better (Maybe a 750gb 7200rpm)? I don't really want to spend a ton on a SSD.

And finally, which updates do you guys recommend downloading when it arrives?

Thank you!

[ptrkhh]

Anyone get this strange battery behaviour?

There is a slope in the battery behaviour. Already replaced the battery but still happen. Battery life at 5:22 as shown there (expecting 6h+)

I just purchased a VPCSA41FX, and I was also interested in upgrading to a factory blu-ray drive. Would love some info on this.

Also, this particular model has the 500gb (5400 rpm) HDD. Any recommendations for upgrading this to something a tad better (Maybe a 750gb 7200rpm)? I don't really want to spend a ton on a SSD.

And finally, which updates do you guys recommend downloading when it arrives?

Thank you!

7200rpm drive also has disadvantages, such as more heat & more power required to spin the drive.
I think it will be better to upgrade to a less-expensive SATA2 drive, because SA4 also does not support SATA3 anyway. Currently, 120 GB is the most balanced between space vs price. For less than $200 (or even $150) you can get a SATA2 120GB SSD.

[oozijk]

I just purchased a VPCSA41FX, and I was also interested in upgrading to a factory blu-ray drive. Would love some info on this.


Thank you!

Anyone know what type of blu-ray burner fits into SA series?