Sony SE Owners' Thread

Just added a 4G stick to the open slot.

 

Has anyone tried the newest BIOS from Sony (R 2085h4) yet? I heard it supposedly fixes the SATA3/SATA2 issue, improves battery life and lowers the fan speed. I haven't tried it yet, just on the fence for this.

 

I can't find anything newer then R208 4H4!

Where did u find the 85H4?

 

R2085H4 is available in Canadian Sony VAIO SE drivers page:
Sony eSupport - VPCSE190S - Support

Also, it seems that the related SA series has received the 85 BIOS as well, judging from here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/627313-sb-bios-r2084h4.html#post8103911

 

Oh, okey..

I guess it will come soon then.. (got "VPCSE 1C5E")

 

Thank you for responding to my questions, Big Nerd, and magendim. I remain concerned about the heat and high fan noise issues, but I would think that an SSD drive would not produce as much heat as a standard hard drive, thus also alleviating the issue with the fan noise. Am I correct about this?

Also, I own a Dell U2410 monitor, and want to make sure that the 6630m GPU will allow me to set my monitor at its native resolution of 1920x1200. I believe the 6630m will operate in harmony with the GPU. If I am wrong about this, I would greatly appreciate a comment.

Again, thank you to all for your kindness and terrific guidance.

 

What RAM did you buy?

 

Hi all,

I have a question regarding the audio devices. When I get to the "Device Manager", I see two audio controllers: Intel Display Audio and Realtek High Definition Audio.

Are they two audio boards? Is there a way to swich between then?

Sorry if it's a too stupid question, but I dont understanding why having two audio controllers.

Edit: just adding a comment. The audio of this laptop is a really down point. Also, even if you have good speakers, when you plug it into the audio port, the sound is really bad. A lot of distortions. It means that even the earphones out are not stronger.

Just to compare, I played the same music pluging my speakers on both the laptop and my Samsung Galaxy S2, and I got surprised when my cellphone played better on the speakes than my Vaio S Series hehehehe.

The computer is amazing, just this sucks on the laptop. I totally understand they didn't add good speakers in order to get the low weight, I agree. But the sound card could be a little better in case someone wanted to use external speakers.

 

Hi, as you always say, that yout don't have any problems with your fan,
please let us know, whats your exact configuration.

(i5 / i7; HD 6470M / HD 6630M; Stamina- or Speed-Mode)

 

Regarding the fan noise..

In "VAIO control center", click on "Power managment", and choose "Silent mode" under thermal control strategy!


"Never" heard my fan since!!

 

Nice.

But what does that actually do? Does it throttle down the fan? I don't mind the noise if it's keeping my system from running too hot (for the sake of longevity). The setting says "Processing capability of CPU limited to control fan noise"... so does that mean it throttles the CPU?

Not sure if switching the HDD to an SSD will help with the fan noise... from my "Angry Birds Test"... it seems that it's the GPU/CPU that causes the heat to trigger the fan.

@hardwarefox: I posted my specs many pages ago when I ordered it... i5, 6630m (1g), 6gb ram, 5400 640gb HD, BluRay.

I can get the fan running in either Speed or Stamina mode.

@profcom: I'm sorry... I put 6470 previously... I have the 1g 6630m card like you were asking about.

@felip: Did you enable the Dolby enhancements? It makes a noticeable difference in sound.

 

I removed the DVD drive today and it tore the speaker cable :/ The Sony guys didn't install it correctly. Thus I had to open the SE to solder it.
What can I say - The SE has no CPU socket. The CPU is directly mounted to the mainboard. I also found two DIP code switches. Would like to know what they are good for.

I guess that is the intel sound device integrated into sandy bridge to enable encrypted HDMI playback. The whole chain from the source to the output devices (e.g. your TV) has to be secured for HDMI. AMD/ATI desktop video cards have a realtek sound solution integrated. In case of the SE, it is a separate Realtek IC (ALC275S).
One for HDMI and the other for all other cases.

 

I honestly don't know what it does! But the machine doesn't seem to be to hot gaming in this "silent mode"..

Never checked the temp when gaming, though!

Will check next time..

 

this throttles the CPU down, so it will never reach its maximum clocks and therefore runs cooler. then you will have less fan noise.

 

Any chance you have a photo of the other side?

 

there is no thermal paste on the CPU and the GPU. did you clean it up before taking these pictures?

 

Intel Display Audio drives the audio portion of the HDMI interface. Realtek drives the standard audio i/o (speakers, headphone jack).

 

Sure!

 

Both the AMD and Intel GFX can drive external displays up to 2500x1600 and will support the 1920x1200 native resolution of your dell display. Just be sure to use the HDMI port not VGA.

 

Yes, I cleaned CPU and GPU the H67 chipset is not cooled at all.

 

^ thanks. you're very brave, opening your laptop up. and thanks for posting the pictures, they're very helpful. i rep'd you +1.

 

Kreugsch, thank you very much for the photos. I am interested in replacing the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU.

Are there thermal pads for both CPU and GPU? How hard was it to open the case (do you have a video, if possible)?

Did you void your warranty or not?

By the way, in your picture here, is the left one the CPU? I can tell the one with "AMD" on it is the GPU. What is that chip at the bottom of the GPU? +rep to you.



Anyone updated to the 2085 BIOS yet? I have updated; fan seems to be quieter, but it's a little more warm at 47 Celsius idle.

Also an update to my usage temps before the BIOS update: RealTemp shows 38C idle, 80C load on HD3000 when gaming. Not acceptable in my standards, I have heard of the recommended Temp max of 72C from Intel to prolong CPU life.

 

There is no need to replace it. The use thermal paste, too. Kinda high quality, silver oxide or similar (it was gray). Below the GPU you see the core i7 and on the left side the H67 chipset.
It is very simple to open the case. I used a guitar pick for the HDD connector and for the keyboard panel.

1. remove battery + HDD [2+4 screws]
2. loose both broad ribbon cables under the foil of the HDD area. For that, you have to swing open the black locks.
3. remove DVD drive [2 screws]
4. (battery bay faces to you) remove top row of screws. That are three different types! normal, short, thick (normal,normal) thick, short, normal [6 screws]
5. Remove three flat headed short screws from DVD bay entry. [3]
6. all screws now normal screws - Rem from visible bottom [3]
7. five bottom line (under the hood) [5]
8. rem three (under the hood) top line [3]
9. elevate the keyboard panel a bit through the DVD slot. Use something soft to get beween case and keyboard panel. Now shift along all keyboard panel edges to lose the hooks.
10. elevate the panel on the right side. The headphone jack is attached to the panel, the power jack is not.

The rest is very easy. The mainboard has four screws, fan has three ...
BTW: The display connector is a b*tch. I had to reopen it, because the connector was not properly pushed in.

My warranty ... uhm, I guess it is gone . The actually would only notice it by the black tape, that Sony uses for the connectors.

 

Okay, but I'm still worried about the high temperature (80c) when on load. But I'll guess I'll reduce the CPU state to limit temperature for now. I'll open it when the 1 year warranty expires .

Once again, thank you very much. I appreciate the time you did to write the "disassembly" guide. I will use it when the time comes.

 

Just an idea, when we are already talking about disassembling:
Maby it's possible to replace the fan itself?

Have you also got some photos of the rest?
(heat sink ect.)

 

Good idea. Should I enable it on windows or on the player (iTunes) ??

Thanks,
Felipe

 

Hi .. i was a User of Samsung Chronos 7 series laptop and i just returned it today due to the heating issue and i was thinking to buy Sony se but it seems there is not much difference .... this seem to have another issue of Fan noise ...

 

Thin (and light) notebooks are supposedly not as good with cooling than a regular thickness notebook. Less surface area to work with and thus more heat is concentrated.

I will live with the issue for a year, then swap the thermal paste if I can.

 

It's a system wide feature:

Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Select Speaker > Click Properties > Dolby tab > Select a profile (I use Movie)

 

Nice, It was turned off!

I have never had a computer with so many features and options like this. Last one I had was a HP and I used to just install windows, intall drivers and use it hahaha there were no options and customizing options like this hehehe

Nice, sounds better now, thanks!

 

Interesting how there are not any refdes. I wonder where the 3g modem goes? I don't see a spare mini-pcie slot.

 

Could you give us some glimpses about laptop panel ? It's been rumored that laptop panel is in fact LP156WF4-SLB1 as the IPS panel , but no one confirmed it with the actual footages.

 

Nope, I have no photos of it. But I can tell you that it is a Panasonic fan, the cooling solution has two heatpipes (CPU+GPU) and the fan is quite thin - about 5mm.

I marked possible spots for the 3G.

Sorry, I can not confirm it. There was no need to crack the display panel

 

Nope

Still SATA2!

 

Hello,

First, excuse me for my bad english. I'm french and I don't have habit to write english.
I have bought the VAIO SE in October. I'm very happy to use it every days : size and weight are perfect, design is great, the fingerprint reader is a "must have"...

The screen is also amazing : the viewing angles, resolution, colors (even if the white are more yellow than white)...

But something's wrong with my screen. A friend of me pointed me out the presence of four spots (like clouds of sub-pixels). Clouds are equidistant and form the four ends of a parallelogram:

It's not visible when i'm in front of the screen. But it's visible on the sides (from a 30° viewing angle).
On a black background (or with other dark colors), the "clouds" are hidden.





What is it?

On a French forum I was given a start a plausible explanation: "You should know that as an LCD panel there are several layers of leaves diffuse, whose role is to evenly distribute the light of the LED / CCFL. They are extremely sensitive to any contact, even a single fingerprint. If one of these leaves was affected by anything in the factory, it can give such a result."

Possible?

Thanks a lot for your help

 

Yes, I think it's absolutly possible.

But I think the main question is not, where it comes from.
It's wether you can live with this very little problem, or not.

If not, I guss the only solution is to return your device.

 

kruegsch,

Thanks for sharing the photos... This is very helpful for those who wanted to do some upgrade or improvement to SE. I have two questions to ask.

1. If I'm going to replace the internal speakers, do I have to disassemble the whole unit? I definitely wanted to upgrade it for a better speaker if it makes a different. When I tested the laptop in Fry's Electronic and Sony Store, the speaker was very poor.

2. Can one replace the 5mm fan with a larger or more powerful fan to improve the heat the issue.

Ken

 

All my experience with laptop components tells me that the only replacement parts that you can find that will fit will be the original part. There is very little standardization.

 

Did you turn on the Dolby?

 

This IPS Panel is categorized as the super slim WLED IPS panel( LP156WF4-SLB1), which you may request for replacement maintenance as soon as possible.

PS: it is advised that additional soft screen cover between screen and keyboard is necessary when you close on your lid.

 

I noticed that this was a problem on my old laptop to the point where the layout of the keyboard was visible on the screen. I can see on the SE it will also be a problem. Hopefully the keyboard skin will fix the problem. It seems rather silly to always put something in your laptop when you close it.

 

Thanks for all your answers.

I think I can live with this problem, because when I am front of the screen, the problem is hidde. After, it's true that now I know there is a problem with my screen, I think only this... !

So the flat panel may be a IPS panel?
Why not, it makes sense (due to the viewing angle).

When I cleen my screen, I can see keyboard's marks.
But sofft screen cover between screen and keyboard, you think about the small plastic sheet supplied?

 

A different subject now:

I think buy a SSD (to replace the HDD of the SE). It's true that since the 2081 and 2084 BIOS Sata port 0 is sadly limited to 3 GB/s? So if I buy a SSD (like the Crucial M4 128 Go) I couldn't enjoy the SATE III ?

 

Even if it's not Sata 3, the SSD should still make a big difference performance wise, especially if you have one of those 5400 RPM hard drives. The SSD is also a little better on power consumption.

 

I totally agree!


Actually I already have a Crucial SSD for quite a long time in my Deskop-PC.
At first I bought a mainboard with a SATA III Controller. But then I realized that this silly controller needs about 5 sec. for initialization at startup.
Afterwards I messured the boot-time and working-speed (opening Office, Mozilla, ect.) with SATA III compared to SATA II.

The result was, that SATA III saved about 2 sec. of boot-time (after the controller has wasted 5) and and approximately between 0,2 and 0,5 sec. at startup of a programm like Word.
So I came to the conclusion that it's more sensible to run the SSD with SATA II instead of using the seperate controller.


Of course with this Notebook it's another situation, as it hopefully dont't need a separate controller that wastes time.
But you can see how small the difference really is.

 

Hey guys!
I decided to make a disassembly video and some photos of the fan



The video Sony Vaio SE disassembly - YouTube

Please report typos and have fun.

 

I almost bought it...... but I'm not into it anymore , the sRGB sucks

 

Thanks for the reply

I have a Crucial M4 64 Go into my desktop PC (with a "old" motherboard who only support SATA II) : it's night and day !

So yes, i'm sure that the SSD should still make a big difference on the SE (even if I have already a 7200 RPM HDD).

But i'm wondering why Sony limited the SATA port to 3 GB/s? Before the new BIOS revision, the SATA port wasn't limited. Really, i don't understand, i'm confused...

 

Ah, theres where the 3G modem probably goes. (Or is this in the docking station?)

 

It's still the SE case. Left of this pcb is the area for the SIM card (see manual). Have you noticed the text "to sim" below the empty foil cable connector. We'll find out where to place a 3G modem

I checked some service manuals. The DIP switch below the LVDS connector is for the display type. I guess the second DIP switch codes the CPU version.