Vaio question

Pacifico

Hi,

Just got a Sony Vaio laptop, and its full of crap programs i'll never use!

And seeing as sony dont give you restore disks.....could i use a Windows XP CD i have for my regular PC to format it? Would there be any problems do you know?

Tom Dunne

I believe this is against the licensing terms and all that. Technically, it can be done.

A better solution might be to just disable/uninstall the programs you don't use. That was the first thing I did when I purchased my IBM.

Also, go into msconfig and remove anything you don't use (trial and error works here).

WizZard

There are guide on the new Sony (US) support site to help you to do a clean install. Will post the website when I get home - it's in my Favourites/history

TerrorFirmer

You can just uninstall the crap you don't use. But I sympathise - I thought DELL were bad, when I got a Vaio it was crammed to the brink with absolute crap, couldn't believe it.

Vaios usually come with a recovery partition - try hitting f10 a few times when starting it up. Failing that there's prob a recovery manager installed somewhere.

Pacifico

WizZard wrote:

There are guide on the new Sony (US) support site to help you to do a clean install. Will post the website when I get home - it's in my Favourites/history

Nice one, thanks.

I've uninstalled most of the CRAP! but i'd rather do a clean install. Also, that recovery program fails at 10% all the time! (3 disks wasted!)

Havok wrote:

You can just uninstall the crap you don't use. But I sympathise - I thought DELL were bad, when I got a Vaio it was crammed to the brink with absolute crap, couldn't believe it.

Yeah tell me about it, shocking really! At least Dell give you XP disks!

WizZard

http://esupport.sony.com

Put in the model number there for the guide

Pacifico

It Cant find my model number, VGN-FJ3S. Had a look at some other FJ series laptop and i cant find any guides?

deadbloke

Where did you buy the laptop? I've heard of Dixons group stocking Vaio laptops with slightly different spec than standard, and hence get a different model number.

Pacifico

Yeah PC World. But the one available on the sony site is model number VGN-FJ3M/W which is also not listed.....

WizZard

Try this link - it has an auto discover model number active x thingy

Or try European support - http://www.vaio-link.com/index/index.asp?l=en (dunno what this is like)

heggie

glad mine came with disks! pcworld usually have slightly different model numbers for price matching reasons

ednwireland

theres usually a bit of software to create the recovery cd's dvd's all the vaio's i've seen recently have this

Pacifico

Another question for you Vaio owners!

Is it normal for the laptop, while off, to make a slight noise? Its like a electrical whine or something! I'd have to move it if i was trying to sleep!

Any ideas?

JohnK

If its off there should be no sound from it :eek:

CuLT

Mine's silent as a... well it's doesn't make any noise.

Might do if you were running something to make the fans or burner go and if your lappie had something on your desk jamming into it from underneath (piece of dirt, old screw, etc), anything holding it slightly off the table.

Anti

Do you mean off, but still plugged into the mains, or hibernating ?

As mine makes a small high pitched noise too.

As for being loaded to the hilt with **** is a understatement. Yeah its handy to have premier and elements installed, but i didnt want norton/ms office trailers to upcomming films and a shole host of other random ****. i just wiped mine and put on a copy of MCE from the interne...........

Pacifico

Thanks for the replies....

Yes the sound is there when i shut down completly via the start menu (not hibernation) Apart from this sound the laptop is silent when on, as i havn't seen the fan come to life yet!!

You think this is returnable? Is returnable a word?! Who knows.....

Regarding the crap Sony fill it with, yeah its a joke really, but i've decided to leave it for stability reasons. There are by 56 processes running AFTER i got rid of norton and Office!!

Still the it's running very fast atm so.....

Dark Hair

It is unreal the amount of stuff that is installed

Took possesion of my VGN-SZ2XP/C last week and had to do quite a bit of uninstalling. I'd say at some stage a fresh install will have to be done.

3 day NBD warranty FTW!

TerrorFirmer

Mine used to make a wierd and high pitched whine when plugged into the mains, but not on battery power or when switched off...

Pacifico

Upon further investigation, while running on the mains there is no sound. Just when it's using the battery....

Faulty maybe? Or to be expected??

BossArky

My Vaio roasts the hand off me if I happen to move the mouse to close to the right hand side. Also, you could fry eggs on the part where your palms would rest when typing. Apart from that it is a great laptop. I agree that it is full of stuff that I will probably never use. I don't get any weird pop ups about films though. I got mine at a pc world in London about 15 months ago.