Does anyone know what kind of SSD drive Sony ships with their SR and Z series laptops?
I've been doing some research on SSD drives and it seems like a bunch of them slow down considerably after prolonged use (albeit still faster than HDD)
Really looking forward to those. I think that's when I'll upgrade my SZ680. I was really not happy with it until I installed Windows 7. Now, it's good enough until the Core i7's come out.
Anyone have any luck being able to enable their Nvidia card within Linux? I could care less about trying to switch... But I have spent some serious time trying to do it and unfortunately you cannot just turn off the intel graphics card in the BIOS..
I realise Intel is releasing their new processors in Q4. Sony Vaios would of course get the new processors.
My question is, are the benefits / advantages worth waiting for or is the current line of Vaios good enough to last for the next 5 years? I am looking specifically at the Z and the TT.
My SZ was destroyed but the insurance is paying for it (hooray!), now I have to decide what notebook to get. I loved my SZ, it was thin (especially the screen), lightweight, fast, and well built. Makes me sad that they got rid of it. It appears that the next closest model is the Z, which seems nice but isn't quite the same. It looks as though the keys are smaller are further spaced apart (why??) and it looks a bit chunkier (especially the screen), although the other features seem nice.
if there will be a debut of any new business class premium notebooks at CES in a few weeks? Should I wait or just buckle down and get the Z?
I have a TT190 with a factory-installed SSD. As many of you are probably aware, Windows 7 support for TRIM greatly improves the performance of an SSD that is used over time. But the drive must support it.
Recently Intel, Samsung, Corsair and some other manufacturers have released new firmware for their SSDs that supports TRIM.
My TT190 contains a Samsung MMCQE28GFMUP-MVA SSD drive. I suspect that Sony uses that same drive (or drives from the same series) in other Vaio models.
I wanted to understand if there is any TRIM firmware already released or planned for this drive, so I sent an email to the relevant support group in Samsung. After two weeks I received the following reply:
Quote:
Thank you for your inquiry to Samsung Semiconductor.
At the end of this month or, if delayed, next month, we will open a web site on which all FW updates (including the VBM19C1Q, with ATA-TRIM) and tools will be available for easy update all devices PM800.
Unfortunately, the SSD model MMCQE28GFMUP-MVA is not supported in this FW update (it is not PM800 series) and there will be no support for TRIM in the future.
We do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience using our products
I just came across a disturbing photo in the big Z series thread of a so-called "Canadian" keyboard littered with far too many labels and colors, all in the name of being bilingual.
[url]
My question is, is this really what Sony Canada is sending out on any notebook listed with a bilingual keyboard? It's horrible! Not only is it far more confusing to figure out what's where, but it has the European L-shaped Enter key and repositioned backslash which I simply cannot live with (20 years using keyboards the "other way" have pretty much conditioned me).
I guess they got tired of making a custom model for 23% of the population, and would rather annoy the other 77%.
My Canadian SZ160P I bought 3 years ago came with a "normal" keyboard, I was completely surprised to find this out now. And just after I had talked myself out of the Dell Studio XPS 13.
Is there ANY WAY to get a English keyboard in Canada? CTO maybe?
Or am I simply going to have to buy from the US and deal with having no warranty, because there is no sale with that keyboard...
I have trouble with my FW 590 FEB, I did the Vaio care and used system tune up, however, I noticed several problem, the power option icon does not give me any option when I click the image (usually there is option such as balanced or power saver). Moreover, the option used to be High performance, Balanced, power saver, however, now it left with High performance, power saver, and power saver.
I'm an old TR and now a TZ owner, and my TZ is awesome in the fact that it could be spec'd with a 2nd HDD, replacing the DVD drive (which i used once in a blue moon, and have an external for that)
I have the 64GB SSD and now a 500GB HDD, so it's perfect, fast SSD for the OS and shed-loads of space for all my photos and films n stuff.
So since i now want to upgrade to something with more power, and the new Z looking so awesome(!), I'm hoping they'll offer the same 2nd HDD option.
I really can't express how useful and sensible this option is (especially for my usage)
Is there any word on possibly upgrading the Vaio F series GPU to something better than the 330M in the future? It is the only thing stopping me from getting a Vaio F , since it won't be too great for gaming.
I've got the HDD option, which replaces the optical drive with a normal HDD, and doesn't come with proprietary Sony SSDs. I've been thinking about and testing RAID configurations, and this thread is meant to gather some thoughts on that. At some level it's probably easier to go the Sony SSD route, but... I prefer something else
There are two parts: (1) external RAID, (2) internal RAID.
Part 1: External RAID
I went down this path because I believed that there's only one SATA port offered by the HDD-option. From Intel [url], it appears that the port multiplier functionality is not implemented in the ICH8, which is what the Z1 comes with. This means we can't get two or more drives to logically share the same SATA port, which means that they have to appear as one logical device, which in turn means that some sort of external RAID/BIG hardware is needed.
I tried a number of hardware RAID solutions. The first was the Silicon Image SiI 4726, in a mini-board with a form between the 2.5" and 1.8" drives. Unfortunately, after configuration on a (old) desktop, the chip offers only its admin drive ("Config") to the bios and Windows, rendering it impossible to boot off of...........
Just over a week ago there there was an option for WXGA+ display (1440x900) WLED. I was on the verge of buying but I held out for a coupon which I got next day. Problem was the next day the WXGA+ was no longer an option.
I am left with the choice of base WXGA WLED (1280 x 800), the CCFL version of that or WUXGA+ CCFL (1920x1200) @ £100 more. That is too high for me (resolution & maybe price). I really wanted the WXGA+ WLED and am pissed off it has gone
Anyone with knowledge of how dell works have any ideas why they would not be offering it any more or any ideas if it might come back?
Is this the same technology and amazing screen as the XPS Studio 16? Anyone have this screen care to comment? I'm looking for a very bright and high quality screen and the Studio 17 seems like a perfect replacement for my Asus W2V.
After considering the sxps 16 I am just about to order a 1530 but am not sure what is the best screen option here in the UK (UK does not offer LED). These are my options:
15.4" Widescreen™ WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display (220nits) with TrueLife™ [Included in Price]15.4" UltraSharp™ Widescreen WSXGA+ (1680x1050) TFT Display with TrueLife™ [add £90.00 or £3/month1]15.4" Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™ [add £130.00 or £4/month1]
I will be using the laptop for design and occasional video editing & games.
I think the 1920*1200 will cause eye strain but what do you guys think?
I am purchasing a dell m4400 and want to know what is the "intel vpro" option. After a little googling and searching these forums I understand it allows an IT dept to troubleshoot problems remotely.
Now I dont have an IT dept (with the exception of myself) so does anyone know if this option would allow a dell take control (from there side) and fix any software problem I may have?
I recently purchased an hp 6930p with a 64-bit version of windows vista business. The laptop has a fingerprint reader but it doesn't seem to work. Is it because there's nothing on the sc slot? I've downloaded all necessary drivers but it still doesn't seem to work. is there a download or something im missing?
E1-510 No Option for Additional RAM - I have currently 2GB RAM, I bought additional 2GB DDR3 to install it with current one. Once I opened the RAM compartment - its heart-breaking. I do have two slots for additional RAM, but clip (which holds RAM) is not there in second slot.
So far, the leather-trimmed Studio XPS notebook only comes in black. But that could change very soon.
Dell's designers are considering a red (or according to them, "Bordeaux") plastic/leather lid combo, pictured here. It is not, however, part of the (Product) Red line.
So after installing the new 185 drivers a couple of weeks ago, I turned on SLI, restarted, and forgot about it.
Now I just checked the nvidia panel and there is no option to turn on SLI. I went to device manager and only one 8800m gtx is listed there when there used to be 2... seems like the computer doesn't even see the second GPU.
tried reinstalling the drivers but still only one gpu is showing up...
I'm going to buy a Dell Latitude E6400 to replace my old TP T42. I only have a doubt about what HD option to choose.
I'm pretty interested in having a encrypted hard disk option (80GB 5400rpm Encrypted Hard Drive) but I don't really know how does it work. On my thinkpad notebook you can choose if you want the hard drive protected with a master password or not. You configure this in the BIOS.
Could anyone say me if on the Dell Latitude E Series notebooks it works in the same way? Or maybe the disk is encrypted by a windows software or anything? I'm worried about this because I'm going to use more than one OS in the notebook and if I'm going to pay for a encrypted hard drive I want it to be OS independent.
Where do you configure this feature? Also in the BIOS or maybe in a hard drive controller?
If the encrypted hard drive is more expensive than other options, I suppose that if I one day I change the disk for another, this one must has encrypted data support? I can't simply change it for any kind of notebook HD?