Official Sony VAIO F Series Owners lounge *PART 2*

I've been lurking in this thread for awhile now and made a few post. On Wednesday I took the plunge and bought the VPC-F11LFX/B. So far, all is good. My first step was to replace the 500 gig (5400 rpm) drive with an Intel SSD G2 160 gig. Then I did a fresh install with Ultimate. Man this machine smokes! It's quieter than my old Pavilion DV6000T Laptop. The screen is ok to once I figured out how to turn the auto bright adjust off. Next step is to move up from 4 to 8 gig ram. I did some rendering with Adobe Premiere and man what a difference. I thought my old T9300 cpu was quick. One negative is there's only 3 usb ports, but that's really no show stopper. The third usb (eSata) is a bit difficult to plug a usb device into. To sum it up, NO REGRETS. This for all who are on the brink of buying.

 

You find it annoying when typing or when looking at it from the side?

If when working, cheap, low tech & fast fix: sticker or piece of black electrical tape.

On the side? Happy face sticker.

There is an other way but I'll wait for some feedback contribution.

******

Additional eSATA/USB two-in-one Port

@jjthenovice: "One negative is there's only 3 usb ports... The third usb (eSata) is a bit difficult to plug a usb device into" - No if you plug the USB connector with the USB symbol facing up. BTW you can get a cheap Expresscard 34 to add an extra USB port. I got one on Fleabay that duplicates the VPCF's eSATA/USB two-in-one port for $13 including shipping worldwide by searching for: expresscard 34 esata usb & it works with my Power Over eSATA external HDD enclosure. It can also work as eSATA only or as a regular USB 2.0 port (max power output: 5v @ 500mA). It was necessary to install the included driver as w/o the F recognize the drive @ the slow IDE speed only.

Now it does not show in the Intel Matrix but in: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Devices and Printers as a SCSI Disk Drive:



The only caveat: be careful not to disconnect it by accident as the card does not lock securely in the F, it's just a pressure eject thing like the SD card reader but may freeze the computer or corrupt data if the external HDD is reading or writing & not properly stopped & ejected. I found that out by first installing the card & then when plugging in the eSATA/USB two-in-one cable, the card ejected & froze the F.

Now I plug first the cable in the card > then card in the F > let the F recognize the card > then connect the cable in the external HDD.



If you want to plug additional USB devices that consumes only low power that together won't require more than 500mA then you can get Expresscards 34 with 2 or 3 USB ports or simply use a USB hub, powered or not.

Thanks for the feedback about your F!

*****

Edit: Expresscard Benchmark

Now what's interesting is that the average read speed is twice as fast for the exact same HDD enclosure connected to the Vaio_VPCF when comparing connecting via eSATA/USB two-in-one Expresscard 34 vs. USB 2.0 port & cable:

 

I find USB connectors are a tight fit in the power-over-Sata socket also. In fact a couple of devices won't go in at all. (yes, they're oriented correctly..)

 

Yeah definitely the first option!

 

Great tip about adding a fourth usb port, thanks. As for the symbol facing up, I'm aware of that (this isn't my first rodeo ) and it's still a difficult fit. The other two are fine. Again, great tip about adding fourth usb....
Regards

jj

 

Uh...calling a single-lamp CCFL screen "Premium" wasn't at all misleading given the manifold Sony F ads out in English across the globe about "Premium'' screens being RGB LED, right? Including at the major tech fair which launched the F, held right in the U.S., if memory serves correctly.

What Sony will rely on is its site disclaimers all over the world -- the ones that say they don't guarantee a word they say.

Relax, MelodyMaster and Joe Bleau. No problem. No need to get all worked up. I'm not doing any more posting for y'all on the real deal on screens. It's all there under my name in the search function, anyway.

Au revoir, Tscheuss, etc.

 

I recently upgraded my VPCF115FM with Intel X-25m ver.G2 80GB. So while reading this huge thread I saw that some F users swap BD for HDD caddy. Then I thought I'm not using my BD drive at all, I got 500GB original drive, so why not use it. I found SATA 12.7mm caddy on the ebay sent from HK.

The whole caddy is made out of aluminium. Every single necessary hole is pre-drilled and the most important part front panel is swappable. Everything is perfect fit. No wiggling no forcing. Once you're done laptop looks still OEM.

See pics below







and caddy cost me less than $30 shipped.

 

Later this year?More likely later this few months for the refresh lol.

Agreed, some of the reason why I like ATI card better. Its not all about raw performance for me and having a DX11 capable card is a huge plus. DX10 has been there for a long time, with DX11 capable cards, I know I can keep this computers for several years, maybe around 5 years and its still can run programs that is created at that time just fine.

+1

 

That's great! Why not provide a link to your HDD caddy so I may add it to the How-to HDD in ODD bay post?

So I saved $15 by drilling the holes but still did not install the OEM bezel which I'm not sure I will do as it's great for cooling as it is. OTOH yours looks better.

Did you try a HD Tune transfer speed benchmark with it? Is there a HDD activity LED? What is the HDD's temperature since the OEM ODD bezel does not have breathing holes?

 

Hello Friends,

All is well in Vaio Land.

I have a small request and I hope it is not too cheesy to ask. I just formatted my Vaio and did a clean install of Windows 7 x64 Ultimate to get rid of excess and trim down for speed. Well, I forgot to save my Vaio themes. The ones where you right click your desktop and select personalize. Well, if somebody wouldn't mind, could you please zip theme up and post them so I could I could download them, please? Or, private message me where they are? I really liked them as I thought they looked real tasty.

Thanks.

E