sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Hector Lopez <beldog@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everybody,

I've a z-serie09 (Z11VN) and I'm in the same situation as Philipp, I can
use my laptop in battery mode about 4-5h with low brightness and
conservative/ondemand mode. Fan is too noisy compare with my old laptops
(HP zt3000 and Vaio C1Z). And I used to use linux 90% of my time and the
rest 10% on windows vista to play games like fallout or COD modern
warfare 2 with nvidia card and it runs fine.

I'm happy with this laptop, but yes, it could be better.

Best, 
Héctor

El jue, 18-03-2010 a las 23:45 +0100, Philipp Blanke escribió:
> 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
> 
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