Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and Vaio

Do I buy a new laptop before I know if I need it?

Galt — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:28:01 -0800

LaptopFilter: Do I get a new one tomorrow because I'll have the money and it's a good machine, or do I keep on with my trusty older machine that hasn't given me a touch of trouble yet? Much (maybe too much) I’ve got a HP Pavillion dv1000 – I bought it for cheapz, on sale for around $700 and it’s served me well; it’s small, it’s keyboard is amazing, I rarely run into battery/CPU constraints. I’ve also got a 2.33GhZ iMac – I use it for most of my video/media/fun stuff. The HP has been my windows machine for two years now, and it’s got a lot of stuff installed on it – office, flash, adobe cs, two versions of cygwin, multiple versions of visual studio, eclipse, apache, five versions of java, sdks, plugins, the works. I need to have a windows machine, and I'm not spending more than a thousand dollars on a laptop, so the first person who suggests I get a MacBook and put boot camp on it can defenestrate themselves.

I’m starting grad school next week (a one year masters program), and I’m wondering if I should get a new laptop. Specifically, I’m eyeing the Sony Vaio FW, on sale for a shade over a thousand dollars at Best Buy. A part of me says that my 1.5Ghz, 1GB RAM two year old loss-leader laptop won’t survive constant use in software engineering grad classes. That part says that a 16.4” screen will be better than my 14.1” screen, and a Core 2 duo with 2.26GhZ and 3GB of RAM will be great for any needs (not to mention that I might be able to play team fortress 2 without having to reboot my computer every night, something I haven’t even attempted on the HP). And my parents are here, now, helping me move in. Through reimbursing them later, I could most easily get access to the money to buy it - but only tomorrow (because that much is over the limit of my existing credit cards, my checkbook is back at home and without my own internet, I’m hesitant to manage my money online right now. So I could have the money myself…in a week or two, maybe). Given how much I’m into technology and how much I’ll be working on the laptop, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to resist.

The other part of me looks at how much I’ve already spent moving in and looks at how much is installed on the HP. It’s worked fine so far – virus free, defect free, glitch free for two years. The only problem is that the fan introduces a whine into the audio feed, so it’s hard to watch videos or listen to music on it. I have no pressing need to get a new laptop. This part of me says to wait, see what classes are like and maybe try out team fortress 2 on the HP. Be reasonable, it says. And don’t impuse-buy. It’s important to be able to control yourself. Some stuff (Flash) I wouldn’t be able to install on the new computer, and I’m not sure of other’s compatibility with Vista (Adobe CS2?).

But then the first part kicks in and says that I’ve got some money in savings and what’s it for if not fun stuff? Most of the stuff I should be able to get onto a new machine in a week or two, and it’ll be good to clean house.

But then the second part says, “oh, yes, and you’ll make how much money this year? And can’t you clean house by /cleaning/ instead of, to continue this analogy, buidling a new house next door and wrecking the first one?”

And the first part says, “It’s a great deal, it’s a beautiful laptop, and it’ll last! Think of it as an investment. Or a continuing plan to stay on top of technology. You’ll need to be able to work with Vista. You can’t reasonably expect to build software without even having a machine that runs it. And everyone else will have Vista, too.”

And the second part says that it’s not critical and the first part says “you’ll end up buying it anyway” and the part of me that doesn’t war with its self says, “I wish I had some less biased input!”

So, hive mind, some help? Wait and see, or just get it?

Vaio gives "system timer error"

daksya — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:58:44 -0800

My laptop gives a "system timer error" and so I probably need some guidance in replacing my laptop's CMOS battery I've an 8 yr old Sony Vaio laptop, model PCG-F590 (a.k.a PCG-9201), which for practical purposes, stopped working 3 weeks ago. The computer boots into XP, but during the login screen, or shortly after logging in, freezes altogether, not responding to any input. Occasionally, it gets stuck during POST itself, displaying "KEYBOARD ERROR" and "SYSTEM TIMER ERROR". Some web browsing tells me that it's likely that the CMOS battery has a lifespan of around 10 years and that could be the issue here.

Before I replace the battery, is there something else I should look into? There was no physical trauma inflicted on the laptop, and I guess the system timer hardware itself hasn't gone kaput. This initially happened all of a sudden while watching a video (the sole purpose of the laptop) 3 weeks ago.

I searched online and this store indicates that the battery is NiMH 2 cells with a mainboard connector. How specific do I have to be with the battery purchase besides the voltage and the connector type?

Most importantly, before I open my laptop, I'd like to know where the battery is located and how I should go on about replacing it? Despite my best efforts, I can't find a motherboard schematic for this laptop. The laptop's way past warranty and besides I'm not the original owner. Repair businesses here charge exorbitantly, so I'd like to do it myself.

Recovery key plz? (again)

T.D. Strange — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:17:14 -0800

What key I need to hold down to access the recovery partition on my Sony Vaio? So my Viao is corrupted and wont boot (again, god how I hate Vista and its shitty sleep/shutdown). I can fix it because this has happen 4 or 5 times now, but I can't for the live of my remember which key you have to hold to enter the recovery partition. I've tried F2 (bios), F8 (Vista recovery console) F10 (nothing), F8, Nothing, F6, Nothing and R, nothing. I need to get this started in the next hour if Im going to be able to take notes in my night class this week - help me hive mind!

Does anyone know what the right key is?

Extremely hot laptop

jonathanbell — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:12:40 -0800

I have a hot laptop. In fact, it's so hot that I can't even touch it. Is this normal? Or has the fan given up? I have an 18 month old Sony Vaio VGN-SZ1XP. Either the fan is incredibly quiet or it's broken. Regardless, if the laptop has been on all day, the temperatures on the underside, around the battery, are so high that it's painful to touch. I usually leave it plugged in with the battery installed, but make a point of not leaving it unattended on beds, carpets, etc. Is this normal? Is there a way of seeing if the fan is functioning normally, or does it need replacing? And can I do that myself?

PC card reader broken - Can anything be done?

likedoomsday — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:51:16 -0800

My (secondhand) Sony Vaio PCG-V505DC2 laptop's PC Card slot isn't recognizing any cards put in it (I've tried three, all of which I know work). I know it's not a driver problem because all of the cards worked until recently, when they started working only intermittently before stopping working at all. Can this be fixed in any kind of cost-effective way, preferably by myself? When they're plugged in, nothing happens; the "power" light on the ones that have them doesn't activate.

I'm not terribly afraid of opening the laptop and doing some very basic fiddling, but I'm not good enough at soldering to do anything really involved. Sony wanted something on the order of $150 just to look at it, which is out of the question. Is there anything that can be done?

The laptop is running Windows XP Professional, has a 2.0 GHz processor, 40 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, though I doubt it's particularly relevant.

How do I get a Vista laptop over its wireless quirk?

Cricket — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 03:04:05 -0800

Why does my laptop disconnect after it wakes up? At tax time, my husband and I bought new laptops. They're Sony Vaio I-don't-know-the-models running Vista and have generally been great for what we've needed (communications, media, and schoolwork). There's one quirk, though. When either of us opens one of the laptops and enters a password, the internet will work for the first thirty seconds to a minute and look like it's been connected either the whole time or for a while (my IM will either show offline messages or messages that came through--and other people have reported me online when I know the computer was shut). After that first minute or so, the wireless loses connection and thinks there's no network at all for a few minutes. It automatically reconnects after that, and I can't manually reconnect any faster. Is there a reason it does this? Any help for the problem? Google only brought up people who were having problems with reconnecting at all after their Vista laptops woke up.

Decide what laptop is best for me!

tomcosgrave — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:29:33 -0800

I am seriously considering getting a laptop. Basic requirements are that it have a 15-inch screen, 2GBs of RAM and Windows Vista Home Premium. I've done a fair bit of research, but am finding it hard to come to a final decision. So now I turn to you, wise MeFi'ites. Can you help? For various reasons, Apple machines aren't an option. I've decided to take the Vista plunge as it has some nice photo editing options I'd like - I'm a current XP user and I want to move on from it. Budget is under €1500.

I am extremely tempted by either the VGN-N31Z/W or the more expensive, slightly less pretty, but better featured VGN-FZ11L. Can anyone give me their thoughts on these two models?

Also, has anyone got any non Sony suggestions?

Acer are my second choice of machine...but I've not been able to play with the ones I'm interested in, only read about them online. I have played with a large 20-inch screen Acer, which was lovely, but are far too large for my liking and beyond my budget. What are the smaller ones like?

I'm not that interested in Dell, I have used some of their newer machines and I'm not all that impressed - they feel sort of clunky when I sit down and use them. The one XPS model I do like has a smaller screen than I want.

Help me make my mind up!

Laptops: Apple MacBook Pro versus Sony Vaio/Dell/Toshiba. Please help me choose.

davidinmanhattan — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:32:43 -0800

It's time for a new laptop. I have very strong thoughts on this subject, but I need your help, suggestions, and guidance. I am using a three-year-old Apple PowerBook G4. Previously, I had a Dell Inspiron (home) and an IBM ThinkPad (work.) Truth be told, I found the Windows machines' interface more precise (easier to highlight a portion of a web page or text,) and, well, I could run MS Outlook. (I love Outlook, and miss the drag & drop, email to appointment functions.)

I love the ease of use, everything just works Apple "lifestyle," but I also love formatting my harddrive, and even switching the Windows GUI to Litestep.

And, I have to admit, I am shallow enough to allow my self esteem to be improved when I am working on my shiny, elegant Mac in public. Also, I live in Manhattan, and have 2 Apple stores closeby (one is open 24 hours a day,) and "TekServe," a full-service repair shop that does a great job. Makes repairs and emergencies much easier and faster.

So, I can get the new MacBook Pro (with the Santa Rosa chip!) and run Windows and Outlook, or get a Sony Vaio, or Dell, etc., and run Windows and Outlook.

Do you have any suggestions? Is there a great Windows laptop you would recommend? For something this important (I am a writer, and could not function without a laptop) money is a non-issue.

Or, should I get the new Apple MacBook Pro? I love the idea of an imbedded webcam, and I plan on getting the new iPhone. There are some Mac-based OS X programs (BluePhone Elite, iSync, AcidSearch, iPhoto, LaunchBar, OmniOutliner, etc.) that I love and might miss.

Is the MacBook Pro faster than a similar Windows laptop? How fast, via Parallels, is Windows? I work extremely fast, am a whiz with shortcuts and key-combos. Even with a gig of RAM now, I find myself waiting for my laptop to catch up. Speed is of the utmost importance, and I would install as much RAM as possible.

Thanks for your help and advice!

"A screen",the pittiful cry they heard. Then more wailing and gnashing of teeth.

mu~ha~ha~ha~har — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:52:41 -0800

What is it? Is it possible to repair? Or where on Gods green earth can I get a replacement? Slowly increasing white strip with sporadic coloured lines throughout on my notebook screen. Funnily enough it is more frustrating to look for the answer than it is to just try to ignore it. Ok it was picked up by the screen and too firmly it appears. It started as just a few coloured lines and proceeded to spread inwards then turning white and getting larger slowly but surely.

It is a Sony Vaio VGN-B88GP (PCG-5B3P).

What gives me reason to think it's repairable is that I left it sitting close to the air con. When I came back and the screen flicked back on it was ok. Well I can't be sure completely but from when I was paying attention a good 3/4 of it was back to normal and then began to fade left to right back to white. So there must be hope... perhaps.

Which mini-laptop should I buy?

cashman — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:38:20 -0800

Help me pick between a Sony VAIO TX series laptop and a Dell D420. Like some others before me, I'm going nuts looking at laptop specs. I've read a lot of the information here and I've narrowed it down to a couple of models.

Main draw - portability/weight. I'll be carrying it around and using it for document construction mostly (MS Word), powerpoint editing/construction and some surfing here and there.

Mac is unfortunately not an option right now.

Which would you buy with Vista on it - a Sony VAIO TX series (I really like the look of the 11-inch TXN25N) or a Dell Latitude D420 (12.1 inch screen)?

I keep getting told 42,000 rpm (presumably hard drive disk spin) is a problem, but I don't know.

Which one of these laptops should I purchase? If there is some other reasonable alternative that is as light (2-3lbs) and as small (11-12 inch screen) that's worth purchasing, that would be great to know as well.

Display problems with a Sony Vaio PCG-C1VE

tomcosgrave — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:58:47 -0800

My girlfriend has acquired a second-hand Sony Vaio PCG-C1VE laptop. The OS is Windows XP. Her problem is that she can't get the display out of 640x480. She's looking for display drivers, specifically video drivers and monitor drivers if such things exist - she can't find them anywhere. Has anyone got any ideas?

How can I shut off the auto-click feature of the touchpad on my Sony Vaio?

DyRE — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:39:01 -0800

How can I shut off the auto-click feature of the touchpad on my Sony Vaio (model PCG-GRT170, if that helps)? I'm assuming this is called auto-click. It's not tapping (which is where tapping on the touchpad acts the same as clicking the left button). I can turn tapping off and it still does this. It's a function where if I move the cursor somewhere, the computer reacts as though I've also clicked there, even though I haven't. I can't seem to find a way to disable this in the mouse options. Google turns up some people with similar problems but no real solutions.

Computer Trouble; Like a Valentine's Gift from a Bitter Ex Named Nemesis

Firas — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:40:18 -0800

Dear crafty gnomes of Mefi, riddle me this: my laptop (Vaio PCG-FRV27) just had a fit and died. What may the problem be? Basically, I cleared cache and pressed ctrl+t in Firefox, and everything just froze—even the cursor was unresponsive. Upon turning it off and on, I saw a Sony/Vaio intro animation, then it got stuck on a blank black screen. So I tried with an Ubuntu LiveCD; same thing—animation (so not a graphics chip problem?), the optical drive spins, and we're stuck at blank screen. Which leads me to wonder:

a) What could be wrong?
b) If, as intuition suggests, the hard drive died, will my precious years of documents, email, and other stuff ever be recoverable?
c) What kind of maintainance costs may I be looking at? I suspect they'll be obnoxious enough that getting a low end hand-me-down from ebay might be better (I just browse/write essays/use email/write php & html+css).
d) Are there web based ftp/sftp/ssh (just for file transfer) clients, because I'm apparently indefinitely relegated to locked-down public computers?
e) More existentially, where does one go to shriek at The Fates that a particular mischief of theirs is absurdly untimely, ridiculously unfair, upsets many plans, and shall absolutely not be countenanced?

Thanks. And yes, I'll be backing up religiously in the future :(

Laptop repair in NYC?

Vidiot — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 08:00:47 -0800

Laptop repair in NYC? The fan on my Vaio died last night. Anyone have experience with a decent notebook repair shop in NYC?

Adding more RAM to a Sony Vaio.

ChrisR — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:33:43 -0800

I've been thinking of upgrading the memory in my Sony Vaio PCG-GR370 laptop for some time now, but recently it came to my attention that there may be issues with some vaios that do not recognize memory above 256Mb (which is what I currently have in it). I attempted a google for issues with it, but, well... Just try search for "sony vaio memory 512" on google and you'll see how useful it is.

Which brings me to my question: Does anyone know anything about said issues with vaios? If so, do they apply to me?