Just Bought SZ460; Two Questions

Just bought an SZ460 last night, and it's been great so far. Beautiful screen, no dead pixels, etc. It's my first Vaio since owning an S360.

I've noticed a couple of things though. First, it seemed to get pretty hot on the bottom after using it for about an hour (I had it on my desk). I started off running in speed mode, and then switched to stamina mode. It definitely seemed hot enough that it would potentially be uncomfortable to use it on my lap (i.e., not just warm, but actually hot). How normal is this? I was thinking this might just require a bit of a burn-in period, but I figured I'd ask here, since I haven't seen too many posts here complaining about it running very hot. Any suggestions on ways I might be able to resolve this if it is a problem?

My other question is about the SmartWi stuff. It seems like the SmartWi gadget (and SmartWi itself) is having trouble recognizing when my wireless lan is actually active and connected. I set up the wireless lan to connect to my home network, and it is working just fine. But even when it is connected, the SmartWi stuff is indicating it is off and Disconnected, which doesn't seem right. This is something I was chalking up maybe just to maybe some conflict with Vista, but I figured I'd ask here if anyone has any suggestions. This is more just a curiosity if anything (why SmartWi doesn't seem to recognize the actual status of my wireless connection).

 

What CPU temps have you got when it is idle, you're doing just internet surfing, and under heavy load?

 

Only spent about an hour with it so far, so don't have anything to compare by yet. I would say my general use of it was light stuff though (getting Vista set up, configuring wireless, a little browsing, and installing Office 2007 from CD).

I did a fair amount of this on AC power, and then switched to integrated graphics and battery to see how hot it ran.

Can you recommend a good utility for monitor CPU temps, etc.? I don't have anything installed on it yet.

 

Notebook Hardware Control (NHC):

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm#anchor_download

 

Cool, thanks, I'll install that tonight.

-Zadillo

 

NHC is pretty bloated. Just download SpeedFan..it's small, free and will give you temps of not just your motherboard/CPU but each core of your Core 2 Duo!

Works great in Vista too... http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

 

Cool, I'll check that out too..... I think I remember having SpeedFan on my old S360 actually.

 

Installing Office would not be considered "light use." Give it some time.

 

And keep us posted, I for one am interested in buying one of these :O)

 

K, I installed SpeedFan, and it looks like things are just fine actually. When it's idling or just doing light stuff like web browsing, etc. it looks the two cores are staying pretty steady at around 36-37 degrees C, which seems pretty nice to me. The bottom still seems a little warm, but not too bad at all. When I am doing more intensive stuff it looks like the cores seem to fluctuate between around 42-47, and the highest I've seen them get is 50-52.

This has been on AC power. In a bit I'll experiment with running just on battery power and what temps are like then.

 

My cousin has a SZ330, which is basically an older version of the 460 that you have (is that the black Premium edition that you have?) She says that its also somewhat warm on the bottom too, but she also uses a cooling pad to fight against it. You also have to remember though that the SZ series is high end with a very powerful CPU and all that technology packed into a slim laptop, that heat is one issue that cannot be avoided.

 

Yeah, it's the premium version.

Yeah, honestly, I'm pretty impressed with the idle temps around 36-37 frankly.

I am looking forward to seeing what sort of temps it runs at on battery though (i'm kind of thinking that since it would be running at a slower speed on battery, it should still run pretty cool all around).

 

how are you liking the machine overall? does it fire up your apps quickly? hang? how are boot times? :O)

 

The machine overall seems great; I also stuck in a 1GB memory stick pro duo I had lying around (which is nice because it fits flush inside the slot, as opposed to having a flash drive sticking out) to use with ReadyBoost, although I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes.

Boot times themselves seem pretty fast (going from turning the laptop on to the "welcome" login screen). The only thing that seems slow is waiting for some of the various apps and processes to load up (in particular the Vista Sidebar, which seems to take quite a while to load up); I would probably blame this on Vista and the bloatware rather than the hardware itself though. I probably need to go through and clear out some of the bloat, etc.

But yeah, definitely seems like a nice machine overall. I definitely think that the extra money for the premium model is worth it; the screen definitely is beautiful.

This machine definitely reminds me of what I liked about my old Vaio S360; I still think it's one of the best combinations of power and form factor out there right now.

 

My cousin says that she often finds the left side of the SZ330 to be warm, if that means anything

 

Ya the top left corner gets a bit hot after long term usage.

I notice the heat went away after 2 months, donno why.

 

Zadillo
I'm experiencing the same problems. I got the SZ491 a week ago. As you indicated the SmartWi would pop up and the pc seems to hang for 20 sec or more. I found out that it happens everytime that nasty Norton pop up is about to show up and asks to activate the service. I want to get rid of it but the control panel doesn't have the "remove software" icon anymore.

One time my Sz was idling running no application but I heard the fan blowing out loud. Turned out the bottom of the pc was extremely hot that I couldn't even touch it for 5 seconds.

I wonder if the clean Vista install would be the cure. I also notice that Sony has new driver updates available for my model. I can't wait to get rid of Norton, AOL and all the junk applications. Any suggestion?

 

Well, I've managed to make "half-clean" install using recovery disks.

Half-clean means that all the drivers and neccessary Sony utilities got installed and just one piece of junk managed to slip through (Napster), but it's easiliy removable.

Look here ====> http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=109719

 

Great Thanks Matta

 

Just thought I'd update this thread. I just finished using the SZ460 on battery power, with integrated graphics.... just doing word processing, the CPU temps were around 26-27 degrees for each core, which I'm really happy with. Turning wifi on resulted in a slight increase to around 31-33 degrees for each core. Still seems very good though.

I did all this at a brightness level of 6.

After about half an hour, with wifi off, brightness at 6, and on integrated graphics, the battery meter read 86% left, with 3.5 hours of battery life left to go, which I am also really pretty happy with.

Also seemed to be whisper quiet (I know I've read about fan complaints, etc....... although I did hear the fan while gaming on AC power, it's quiet on battery and doing stuff like web browsing and word processing.

I bought the extended battery from a fellow NBR forum member, so I'm going to be curious to see how that goes. It definitely seems like I should be able to get a lot of battery life, especially if I carry the extra battery with me.

Overall, I'm definitely really happy with this machine. I may still eventually sell it in a few months (have to see what things shake out with Santa Rosa-based systems), but so far I think it's really nice, and I'd definitely recommend it.

 

About SmartWi, it sucks. But seriously do not uninstall it!! I just did because it was eating my CPU power and thought I could work around it. Well now I can't seem to toggle BT and WWAN on or off and there is nowhere to download it and re-install it.

My SmartWi did not recognize my connections either.

 

The weird thing is that SmartWi consistently says I am disconnected from WLAN when I first boot up, even though the wifi connection is active and working properly. When I doubleclick on the wlan settings and click on the Settings link to open up SmartWi, at that point it does finally recognize the WLAN connection.

So yeah, it's more just an annoyance I guess. I might just remove the SmartWi gadget, perhaps, I don't know. Hope that Sony can fix it.

 

thanks for sharing your opinion. I saw an SZ in the flesh for the first time on saturday and was very impressed with the weight and feel of the machine, I am very tempted.

 

I agree smartwi really sux; and to the contrary is not very smart. I have the cingular activated on a trial and it is ridiculous how long it takes you to switch from wlan to wwan vice versa and sometimes it swictches over but most of the time it's just easier to reboot especially if you close the lid and open it again.