Sony VAIO PCG-FXA47 Notebook (1-GHz Athlon, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive)Platform: Windows XP Home Edition
Brand: Sony
Binding: Personal Computers
Worst computer ever [Posted on 2004-02-02]
If your are looking for a good used laptop..........look elsehwere. The FXA47 is loaded with software and problems and VERY POOR customer support. In the 2 years we have had it, it has stayed in the case most of the time because of lockups. I have restored it several times to original configurations with no help. Sony is clueless and wants to charge for phone supoport and has only responded to 1 of my e-mails. It seems that everytime we install software the computer wants to lock up. My Compaq 2715US works great with out any problems. I will never by another Sony product.
It's not very good [Posted on 2004-03-07]
I bought it thinking that Sony was a good brand, but they clearly have no clue when it comes to making computers. The first problem is the battery life. At first, it could last 20 minutes of websurfing, but now it doesn't last five minutes of sitting still with nothing going on. It immediately powers down without shutting down of hibernating. The second problem is the default hard drive configuration. Basically, they split it up which causes more problems since so many programs install to the C: drive by default anyway, plus Windows XP is bloated and takes up the majority of the space anyway, then PC-Cillin tries to take up a lot of space too and you've almost lost all of your C: drive space from these two programs alone. The third problem is the graphics card. It's integrated with the normal memory and has horrible performance. While I don't expect to be playing the latest games on this machine, it's not even capable of playing games that are ten years old with a decent speed. The fourth problem that I have is the LCD itself. It's not very bright, and with any sunlight at all it's unreadable. Other than those, it's a pretty standard machine. I managed to avoid some of the software problems others have by uninstalling one of the hotfixes of XP and upgrading the mouse drivers.
Lock-up central!! [Posted on 2004-07-27]
Cons:
a)Bad Hard Drive Partition,which makes the hard drive feel even smaller.
b)Bad Battery Life.
c)Locks-up frequently.
d)A lot of useless software.
e)So so customer service.
f)Modem problems.
Pros:
a)When it works, is a pretty decent, basic computer.
Next time I will go with pentium or centrino, with a bigger hard drive and DVD-R.
Sony VAIO PCG-FXA47 Notebook (1-GHz Athlon, 256 MB RAM, 20 G [Posted on 2004-10-11]
I will agree on HD space & battery. The lockup issue can be fixed by a BIOS update, I had the same problem. It took to 18 months before I updated the BIOS, I did not know there a fix.
Great Debian Linux box! [Posted on 2008-02-28]
Old computers never die. They become Linux boxes. Debian 4.0 (etch) installed right out of the box and everything ran except the touchpad was slow; all you have to do is edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf by adding the line: [Option "AccelFactor" "2.5"] to the synaptics touchpad section and it's fixed. Most wireless cardbus adapters work; just Google how to install them. The thing just plain works with Debian, much faster (even with only 256K!) and more stable than with anything Microsoft sells. Best part is, the OS and all the software are free! Wipe both of the Windows partitions from your hard drive, install Debian by taking over the whole disk, and you'll have a machine with room to spare. You'll never look back.
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