Cheated by Sony on weaker processor in my Vaio?

Vaio VGN-NR290/ET is listed as having Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5450.

Basic System Info under the Control Panel says T5450.

But when I look into the Advanced System Settings/ Hardware/ Device Manager/ Processors, it says Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5250!

Or two are listed, one after the other:
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5250
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5250

Have I misunderstood this?

What can I do? I really have no desire to send the laptop back, since I am happy with it otherwise. And I bought it from outside the US. Other problems might come instead with a replacement.
Does it matter much if I have T5450 or T5250?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Download and run this, it will tell you what you have.

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/sb/CS-014921.htm

If it matters or not is all up to you, the 5250 is a slightly slower version, other than that its the same. I'm of the notion that I expect and demand to get what I paid for, I probably would raise a bit of a stink if i got a slower cpu than I bargained for, but honestly it really wont make much of a difference either way.

 

Not sure about YOUR model, but on other models Sony uses a single disk image to populate the hard drive of several different configurations in a single model line. Because of this the processor info that shows up in device manager may not be the actual CPU. This is a COSMETIC issue only. It does not affect performance in any way, If you use a third party tool to see what processor you have and it is the correct one you can just ignore the device manager info. There is an app on Sony support site that will fix this, again for certain models. Look there you may find one for YOUR machine.

Gary

 

Thank you.

I don't have a working connection yet, but I will use that link.

T5450 is 1.66GHz and T5250 is 1.50GHz.

I understand that T5250 will be slightly slower in handling several computor applications at the same time. Will it also be slower at internet surfing? And will DVD movies have slightly more jerky picture-movement?

Now, I lay awake last night thinking, that a processor is a mechanical part and has been put into the laptop on the assembly line of the VAIO model. It is unlikely that a mistake or switch has been made there. And also it probably doesn't register inside the computor, the way software automatically does when installed. So the information in the Device Manager has been put there manually, and so is a human mistake, or as you say, information slipping along from one configuration model to another.

 

@eloidan:

Dont worry, you will not notice ANY difference between the two processors when doing internet browsing or watching DVD movies etc.

 

gopz:

Thanks.

I have tried to read something about different processor speeds, but haven't found anything on the internet. In what way WILL the different speeds make a difference?

 

Really, stop fretting about this. It is a known COSMETIC issue with the way Sony images the hard drives as they leave the factory. They put an application on their support site to correct it. You, in all likelihood, have the correct processor that you paid for.

As for the real difference in the two processors, if the two were sitting side by side in front of you the ONLY way you would ever be able to tell the difference would be to run a benchmark app, a long complex calculation or encoding of a large audio or video file. Only tasks that take a long time to do and are not already bound by the disk read and write speeds would show any difference in processor speed. In everyday use even watching a DVD you are unlikely to notice one whit of difference.

Gary

 

Cosmetic issue, wrong text stored in the registry, happens for all oem's for some models you can just uninstall or update the driver in device manager and it will show the correct name.

 

If you really want to be sure... Use CPUz:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

Check for update, there must be patch on sony support site to fix wrong processor display bug, i too applied for my model in Vista.

 

Or, you can delete one of the cores in your device manager, reboot, and your computer will automatically find the new cpu core at the right speed. Repeat for other core and you're good to go.