sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Philipp Blanke <philipp.blanke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi.

My 2 cents, to give another perspective than Alexei's:

I own a Z11MN from the first series. I run only Linux as OS, using Raphael's
Janitor script for the cold start switching between graphics cards. When
running only the Intel card with powered down Bluetooth, activated WLAN and
just surfing the internet, the laptop runs about 4.5 hours, which is
acceptable considering that the battery has degraded in the last 2 years.
And the nvidia card does neither show up on the PCI bus here, nor does it
drain power.
With nvidia card on, power consumption is of course higher, but I use this
mostly on AC. Fan volume is o.k., regarding the size of the laptop. I still
have to see a device that is as small as the z-series, has the same
computational power and is quieter.

Everything else works nicely thanks to the many hints from this list. And
with VirtualBox running Win7 with 3d support, I have everything I need.

I absolutely like the quality of the keyboard, the phenomenal screen and the
chassis. I completely dislike Sony's customer service, the policy of
disabling hardware features (VT support) and their closed source bios
hacking, because this makes life for linux users awfully hard.

So, I'm quite happy at the moment, but would also refrain from buying a Sony
laptop again.

Cheers,
Philipp


2010/3/18 Patrick Valdellon <valworx@xxxxxxxxx>

> The first Z was actually released 2008. Another aproach would be
> "VGNZ" and "VPCZ", although they might keep the VPC structure for
> coming generations.
> br,
>     Patrick
>
> On 18 March 2010 21:00, Albert Vilella <avilella@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Just to clarify about the z-series naming, I would call "z-series09":
> > the first generation z-series, and "z-series10" to the second
> > generation.
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 6:54 PM, Alexei Pashkovsky <alexei@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> >> Hi Jason,
> >>
> >> the cold-boot gfx switching procedure works for switching between
> >> Nvidia-only and "both enabled" mode.
> >> So far I did not find a way to boot into Linux with Intel card only, and
> >> Nvidia disabled.
> >> You can use Intel card, but Nvidia is still in lspci list and it still
> >> drains the battery, even not in use.
> >> One of the really fun-killing problems is the fan noise, you can't stop
> >> the fan completely, it always works, and I prefer silent laptops like
> >> all the new CULV series ..
> >> The only way I see Z-series being fixed is Sony to release EFI-based
> >> opensource bios for it so someone smarter than sony monkeys will hack it
> >> to work.
> >> The current implementation of dual gfx cards in Z is very "custom made"
> >> and has nothing to do with other solutions like ATI+Intel that is well
> >> supported by linux..
> >> Alexei.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 14:43 -0400, ravenskrag@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Alexei Pashkovsky <
> alexei@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>> > So far I did not see a single operating system that would run on this
> >>> > laptop 100%, every OS has its "issues" :
> >>> > Linux can't switch gfx cards and Nvidia card drains the battery.
> >>> > WinXP won't switch gfx neither, and also brightness controls are not
> >>> > working.
> >>> > WinVista - not going to even start the list of problems.
> >>> > Win7 - gfx switch, battery issues, random crashes and reboots.
> >>> > In addition, the built-in webcam is a really bad one, with shady
> colors
> >>> > and no focus at all.
> >>> >
> >>> > Alexei.
> >>> Hey there,
> >>>
> >>> Little bit of nit picking here, but you can switch graphics cards on
> >>> Linux, but you need to shut down, there is no hot switching support.
> >>> I believe the same case is true for XP.  I also believe that there is
> >>> something to get the brightness to work on XP.  Correct me if I am
> >>> wrong.  Also, the NVidia card takes more power as it is a dedicated
> >>> card, and thus, of course, will drain the battery more than the
> >>> integrated card.
> >>>
> >>> I agree though that the 185 NVidia linux drivers sap more power than
> >>> is sometimes necessary, as there is no power saving mode, only a
> >>> performance mode.  The newer drivers seem to solve this problem, but
> >>> the janitor does not install the 32-bit libs on a 64-bit system, which
> >>> is only a problem if you use WINE.  I assume that other 32 programs
> >>> may also be affected.  If that is not a problem for you (and if you
> >>> don't know what I'm talking about then you are most likely in that
> >>> category) then go ahead and use the janitor and pick the FTP download
> >>> - that's what I would do if I could let go of my desire to play
> >>> commercial games without windows.
> >>>
> >>> Vista just has problems in general.  That's what you get when you
> >>> sacrifice backwards compatibility.  That's my view on it anyway.  I
> >>> don't want to go there, and yes, I do use vista myself.
> >>>
> >>> Another note, as of yet I believe you still can not use W7 and Linux
> >>> on the same computer.
> >>>
> >>> Jason
> >>
> >>
> >>
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-- 
Philipp Blanke