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Google for superfetch and you find techgeek - he has the list of recommended services to turn off. I can buy a computer with that exorbitant $390.This computer is too large to lug around and I wish the keys are white. Hi,my aw120j battery runs out in one and half hour. When I try to buy a backup battery, I found out that they are out of stock and are proprietary - so it will cost me more - about $390 to buy the larger capacity (with 50% more juice). There are too many Vista software running which churns the hard drive, so I turned of superfetch, windows defender, and other services not needed.
My only suggestion if you purchase this unit and plan to be overseas is to take out the international warranty (I was not told that this was available, but it is - so ask) Sony wanted me to send the unit back to the States for repair under warranty. Then all worked well.But last week my optical drive went out. I called Sony Europe, but because I purchased it in the States the warranty was invalid and I would have to pay shipping and repair -$881. It most aspects it is a wonderful computer.
A HUGE cost. I purchased the unit in Denver but I am now in Europe. Previously the only problem I had was that the unit locked up, but as the one reviewer stated all you have to do is unplug the unit and then remove the battery. I purchased my Sony VIAO VGN-AW120J ten months ago. Wait a minute and then reinstall the battery and plug it in.
The cost of shipping was prohibitive.
Sony tech support was responsive but the tools provided did not help. But Sony tech and an iTOK tech assured me that data can still be recovered.
And sometimes, IE browser freezes forever. Lost 3 months worth of files, including time and money dealing with both Sony and iTOK tech support.
Paid $230 to an iTOK tech support to come and recover my data but unfortunately, he could not at all recover anything from the hard drive. I think I should buy the extended warranty and also plan on backing up my files to an external hard drive every week.Some other observations: Sometimes, hibernate does not work.
I was liking this laptop very much, until the hard drive failed without any notice. While the diagnostics of the hard drive indicated no failure on the hard drive, I was not able to 'rescue data' due to the internal hard drive undetected error.
Sony now promises to send a technician to replace my hard drive with a brandnew one.
It means that frequently when the computer comes out of hybernate, sleep, or even screen saver mode, the fingerprint scanner, USB, and bluetooth do NOT work. What does this mean. Even turning off hibernate and sleep modes completely does not help, it will do it coming out of the screen saver.The solution is to unplug the power cord, unplug the battery and then plug everything back in and start it up.Go here if you are interested in the issue:http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php.t=3418282. I even ran checkdisk and system file checker to be sure there weren't file issues in Windows.When they replied the first time, they told me to run disk cleanup and defrag. I replied asking for a supervisor or 2nd level tech. If you can buy a service contract where you don't have to deal with Sony, do it.So why did I return it.
Sony's lack of support department stinks. I have been doing technical support in a call center for over 13 years. If I treated my customers the way they treated me, I would either be in my supervisor's office or fired.I contacted them through email. If you get in to this state, the computer has trouble shutting down and if you restart it, it will freeze up at a black screen and never finish loading Windows.They have a registry patch for this issue on their driver site, but it does not work. I even reloaded the laptop from the recovery disks and then applied the patch and it still didn't help.
It runs World of Warcraft nicely, I never had issues with surfing the internet, streaming music online and gaming at the same time. I had run several scans of my computer to be sure there wasn't some kind of file issue, cleaned up the hard drive with disk cleanup and ccleaner, run every update imaginable, ran a full defrag (even though it was scheduled to run automatically) and it still had the issue. The fingerprint scanner, USB ports, Bluetooth and camera all apparently run off the same bus. I told them that I had already done what they asked but it was rediculous to think disk clean up or defrag would help this issue.The second Sony reply asked me to apply the patch I had already applied before I sent the first email.
I told them up front that I applied their patch and it didn't help the issue. Otherwise, do what I did and get an Hewlett Packard HDX 18t instead. In response I got an email asking me to call them to resolve the issue with the laptop.even though I told them in the first few sentences that I had already returned it.On the plus side, for what it is, this laptop is very nice. This one has 512MB of dedicated video memory which works well with a game like WoW.
This laptop has some great features, but it also has some really big downsides.As an up front warning, I hope you never ever have to deal with Sony's Support center. I uninstalled almost every Vaio program to see if it was some rogue program from Sony. The USB bus inside the PC is underpowered for everything they have running off of it. I begged them to read people's emails in the future and not treat their customers like they treated me. The dual core processor and 4GB of RAM are helpful. The screen is very bright and has beautiful color.If you don't mind having to pull out the power plug and battery every day or so OR you don't hook up any USB or bluetooth devices and don't use the fingerprint scanner, you might have a nice laptop. I would recommend the 7200 rpm hard drives if you game at all and be sure the laptop has dedicated memory on the video card. I have two major reasons.1.
In my case, I had a USB keyboard, bluetooth mouse and I used the fingerprint scanner to log back in, so I pretty much had to start over using the laptop keyboard and glidepad. Apparently they only read the first sentence or two each time I contacted them. The first techs email started with "I'm sorry the registry patch did not work for you."At this point I was disgusted and told them through email that I had returned the laptop to Costco. If you don't have to EVER contact Sony, you may like this laptop. I bought this laptop on a sale from Costco online. I applied it and then looked over the changed registry settings just to be sure they had actually changed because I was still having the issue. If the 2nd tech had read the original email at the bottom, or the first line of the first techs email, they would have known I had already done that.
Just getting introduced to Vista. and after all the bad press (considering I love XP), I'm not ready to dump it yet. now THAT'S user friendly.As of now, I'm delighted with this computer. Seems fast enough, with plenty of HD room for my needs. Extra benefit: When I'm at my alternate (studio) location, I hook it up with my 42" HDTV and watch my Netflix 'Watch Instantly' movies thru the laptop. It instantly obtained my home WiFi signal, and jumped on the web without any prep from me. no lockups, no errors.
Runs at least as fast as my Systemax desktop, which is a quad-core. It is indeed NOT a 'laptop'. Very cool. It has a feature that turns off the display as soon as you plug in the HDMI cable. quite heavy. Very powerful. Actually, waiting for Windows 7.
However, I'm a graphic designer, and with the 18.4" display, it's perfect as a portable desktop. Thank you, Amazon.-steveUPDATE 8/09: Still very pleased. Works terrific with Blu-ray movies, also. So far, terrific 'portable' computer. 'Not more 'bloatware' than can be easily dealt with. 'Have had this for almost 6 months with no problems at all.
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