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Clear up some issues on Fs550

post #1 of 22
2/18/05 at 1:46pm
Thread Starter 
Observations:
My batt life is fine on my FS550.

My HD was partitioned and I am wondering if the people who say that their HD are looking at the HD correctly. You have to view the HD under the MMC-disk management to see the partition.

It is a dual layer DVD Rw. However, when writing single layer dvd's it appears to only use DVD-R.

I am very pleased with my new FS. Put a gb of ram and it rocks. Alter the power mode and the battery is fine.
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post #2 of 22
2/18/05 at 3:08pm

Define the word "fine" please

Please define the word fine because the battery life is probably the only thing stopping me from buying another laptop or just waiting for more Sonoma based lappies to come out. Thanks.

Full throttle - No power saving features= battery life?
Watching DVD's the whole time=battery life?
Using Photoshop (if you use it)=battery life?
CHatting and browsing the internet-battery life?

Thank you.
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post #3 of 22
2/18/05 at 7:11pm
can you tell me what type of ram the sony fs series use please

and where and how much it cost you to upgrade to a gig
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post #4 of 22
2/20/05 at 4:01pm
Thread Starter 
best buy was running a special last week on Ram. It was 3300 Ram that automatically clocked down to 2700.

It was on sale for 89.99 per 512 chip. Plus a 25 dollar rebate. so all in all it will end up costing me about 120 bucks. Very worth it.
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post #5 of 22
2/20/05 at 5:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by matt19hsc
best buy was running a special last week on Ram. It was 3300 Ram that automatically clocked down to 2700.

It was on sale for 89.99 per 512 chip. Plus a 25 dollar rebate. so all in all it will end up costing me about 120 bucks. Very worth it.
hmmm....ignoring or just haven't gotten to me yet?hmmm.....
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post #6 of 22
2/20/05 at 8:38pm
Spent some time with this machine at the local COMPUSA and I was pretty impressed. The build quality and design are quite good. As many have mentioned, the low res screen and shared video memory hold it back for some. But it feels quite sturdy. Almost no flex through the palmrest. No LCD distortion when you press against the back of it. Keyboard feels very firm although the key travel isn't all that deep. Screen, though only WXGA is quite bright and vivid.

One issue I'd like clarified on these new Sony's - is it still a pain to reformat and reinstall the OS on the new VAIOs? I know many in the past have complained about difficulty in finding and even loading the drivers that are laptop model specific. Is this still the case?
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post #7 of 22
2/20/05 at 10:25pm
Is it a pain? Not if you remember to make backups and driver disks. Then it's only a moderate ache. If you forget to do so first, you're going to have a bad day.
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post #8 of 22
2/21/05 at 11:55am
Thread Starter 
I turned my computer on this morning at 8:25. I am using the max vaio power save setting.

I am have been using photoshop and excel for the entire time. (oh and surfing this forum).

Currently it is at 71% battery at 9:54. The photoshop actions I am running are fairly intensive so i would imagine for just everyday office apps the battery would be better.

I have yet to watch a movie on it.
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post #9 of 22
2/21/05 at 12:23pm
I have my Fs500 for a week now.. The battery is only like less than 2 hours on "sony optimized mode". Kind of sad for Centrino platform.. My Dell 8600 is 5 hours+.. I think it is the new Sonoma chipset that drain most of the power, Since other Sony Xbrite screen will less longer, and the Dell has 9700 ATI graphic card. Or it is the sony?
I don't think alter the powersaving mode will bring < 2 hours battery life closer to 5 hours.
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post #10 of 22
2/21/05 at 12:45pm
Thread Starter 
it is now 10:45 and I am at 33%
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post #11 of 22
2/21/05 at 2:52pm
So your screen brightness is turned all the way down and the optical drive is off and you get shortly over three hours?
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post #12 of 22
2/21/05 at 4:06pm
Thread Starter 
yes. I had to plug in around 11:40.

the screen brightness did not reallu affect me. After a few minutes I was used to it.

I use my laptop plugged in most of the time and ferry it back and forth to work.

I am pleased with this laptop overall. I guess battery life could be better but for me it is perfect.
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post #13 of 22
2/21/05 at 5:10pm
How are you getting 3 hours when others are getting 1.5 max, using the same power settings? Are those units somehow defective? Or do you have a higher capacity battery?
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post #14 of 22
2/21/05 at 5:38pm
Thread Starter 
Can't answer that question as we weren't beside each other. However, I was not playing a movie or using the optical drive at all. I was strictly using photoshop and excel, outlook etc.
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post #15 of 22
2/21/05 at 8:37pm
Were you also turning things off and lowering the brightness to minimum? The XBrite display takes a lot of power.
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post #16 of 22
2/21/05 at 10:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RIT
Were you also turning things off and lowering the brightness to minimum? The XBrite display takes a lot of power.

Were you matt19hsc? and thanks for replying.
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post #17 of 22
2/21/05 at 10:17pm
spent my time with two Units, not one, but two,

and even my cousins right now, jumped the gun and bought it as well because of the design etc

the battery life, even after conditioning the battery is approx 1.5-2 even with everything throttled down, Brightness off, did test with wifi on and off and the battery life did not improve whatsoever.

2 units mine, one my cousin. total three units with the same battery time. but he doesn't care as he uses the plug in all the time, but i cared and did the best thigna nd returned it, the nice screen doesn't make up for the battery life..
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post #18 of 22
2/22/05 at 11:57am
Thread Starter 
I was using the setting "Vaio Max Battery Life". It turns down the brightness yes, but it doesn't make it completely dark like some are saying. Remember this is an xbrite screen, so anything compared is going to be a stark difference. Yesterday when I posted my battery times, I had the wi-fi off.

Right now I have mine plugged in on my desk next to my desktop with a 21 inch crt monitor. The xbrite screen is much brighter than my crt. So of course without any power management settings the Vaio will drain the battery.
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post #19 of 22
2/22/05 at 2:33pm
Turning down the screen to save battery power for normal use (i.e. not on the plane) is ridiculous. Max Power also turns everything off within minutes, a huge drag IMHO. Like Lastdon I had two units, both with the same 1:50 max battery life.

And the HD was not partitioned in either unit. (Having owned five Sonys I should know!)
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post #20 of 22
2/22/05 at 5:10pm
Thread Starter 

paritioned HD

The partition does not show when you are looking at the HD properties.

Did you look the C: under the disk management settings?
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