Heat and fan issues with the Sony VAIO S Series?

Ok, so university is fast approaching for me, and I've decided to get a laptop. There were a few choices in my mind, but after much deliberation, I have come to realise that the VAIO S460 is what I'm going to get.

I have read many reviews from this wonderful site, along with many others, and a lot of them describe terrible heat issues with these notebooks. First off, I am wondering, If I bought this notebook, would I still be able to work on a word document, or surf the net with the laptop on my legs, or would it be too hot for even that?

Also, I have heard the the fan comes on at unpredictable times. Could someone clarify this please?

Thanks

 

Check out the other thread in this forum titled "Overheat problems solved by Sony China!!?? "

 

Linky for the message in question. The S5xx series is a big improvement over the previous machines and is the best of the bunch. IMHO.

 

No it is not improved. I just bought sony s-560 2 days ago. I bought it with someone said it is improved. but It still hot..I can't even put on my legs for 5minutes. If I put it on my leg my whole body get hot and sweat. And fan noise is terrible too.

 

I would argue that it is cooler. I'm typing this from an S580. BTW, a resourceful individual just dug up a new BIOS for the S series. I installed it today and the machine runs quite a bit cooler than before (harddrive and CPU are about 5C cooler). The bottom is cooler as well. The new BIOS also runs the fan slower so the fan noise is reduced. If you think the fan noise is terrible you've never heard any of the previous S machines. If you still have your S you may want to try the new BIOS.

 

i've felt a s460 cool before at frys, i think this was a returned item so i think whoever owned it must have figured it out, so there is a way.

 

duffy comparing the w3v fan to the s580 fan? are they about the same?

 

Heck no! The W3V is much more annoying and the S's fan shuts off.

 

Hmm, sounds good. The heat issue with this laptop is basically the only thing that is preventing me from buying it. A question though.

Would the new bios work on any of the S series of the VAIOs? I'm thinking of buying the S460 from the Datavision website, because I can't find any of them locally (I live in Queensland, Australia).

The price seems quite reasonable for a laptop with this kind of setup, and if I can get through this heat issure, then there surely won't be much to complain about.

 

According to post #4 in the link below the BIOS upgrade does work on S4xx models. Dunno if that means it will work on machines outside the US (though the BIOS is from the Sony China website).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=30288