welcome to the club
1. Try check at VAIO Control Center, then navigate to Power Management. click at  the Battery Care , make sure you disable it to have it full charge 100%.
2. There another option for it , which select different dpi size. ive read about this, but people said its looks bad. i dont change it on mine, i live with it. already get used to it. about the way how to do, im kinda forgotten wheres the option.
3. Yes, theres an option for this to restore to factory setup, or just restore to factore setup on C drive. but i suggest better create the DVD Recovery just in case the restore process failed via EISA storage (Recovery hidden partition) on the half way.
4. To restore to factory setting, the system on your first boot up upon purchaing from Sony. the recovery disc hold the license keys including those Adobe software which absolutely useful.

^ should be. 3d games need GPU.

btw confirm the FW 43 uses Radeon 3470. dissapointed. i am not buying.

http://www.sony.com.my/product/vgn-fw43g

Z series not for gaming. 9300m gs is just tiny upgrade from 8400 failure card. should have no problem.
you need to lower down the setting to play smoothly. i just complete playing cod4 with no problem (dont know which cod you are playing), but with low setting of course. check your total processes and running program on background. tweak your pc if possible so it would faster
hi, not a vaio peeps, just someone who admire of japan's made product
not sure, but absolutely late to arrive for Asia market. or maybe none at all, just like the G series.

weird, ive no such problem for cod4 both in stamina (yes i do play them in this mode too ROFL) and speed mode, srsly..
maybe you can try all low in graphic setting and set to no AA and use the lowest available reso. if problem still persist, really slightly no clue whats up with your Z

about warcraft, dota i assume, maybe its something related to Vista compatibility?. best if you just using stamina mode only since Intel usually support oldies stuff and less hassle, or maybe try running it in directx 9? liek -dx9 in the shortcut trick?. i dont play this game..so no much comment.

btw to conclude out there, if you guys thinking buying Z just solely for gaming, you guys are wrong. 9300m gs is weak gpu  to handle current game, and heat management on nvidia gpu/cooling system in Z not really good. if you want opt for gaming yet maintaining the portability i would recommend SR4 series in a heartbeat.

cheers
ps: i still love Z anyway.

really weird... it should be way smooth using nvidia than intel, just it runs hotter of course. but both playable. i really dont know whats wrong with your Z. sorry i have no clue. did you try what i said? if possible check the temps too. you can use gpu-z and enable the logging. post it here. possibly the card heats up and downclock thus affecting the performance.

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Added on June 27, 2009, 10:02 pm

the new one seems a good buy, but if you can hold up the purchase, i would say wait until the Windows 7 release , and replacing the Vista in P.

after you click the gpu-z, right after "Graphic Card" tab.