Possible improvements on VPC-Z21

You don't play with OC do you? Reading some guide to overclocking might be helpful

e.g. explain why some i7 920 can reach 4GHz steady with 1.2v, but some cannot be steady at 4GHz unless vcore is increased to 1.4v.

 

Thanks for clarifying your fascination with the temps ;-)

An explosion is quite rare in any notebook computer. As for batteries failing within 2 years...I can't confirm or deny that but a battery is only a couple hundred $$$ on a $1700-4000 machine?

I don't necessarily agree with your 1/2 lifespan theory per 10% temp...it all depends on the design. Either way these pc's spend very little time at high temps so even if it was true you are only talking about a few extra minutes of "wear" per day.

Never seen a sub 15" that can handle a 35W CPU? I could name several sub 15" platforms that handle 35W cpu's just fine. I'm typing on one (the vpc-z). I've seen 14" units running 70+ watt desktops parts just fine. Also, consider the max safe temp on both the cpu's we are comparing (and most 25 watt parts) is 105c. So, in theory, using a low voltage cpu would allow the oem to use a smaller cooling solution to maintain the same temps....which means they cpu may not actually be any cooler (but within spec nonetheless).

BTW the tdp on the 330m is 23W. Our version might be slightly lower.

But remember due to the shared cooling the temps/tdp become additive so to speak.

 

When taken risk into consideration, if from statistics inference it says plane A has a probability of 0.1% to crash, and plane B has a probability of 0.01% to crash, which one would you take? The cost of a crash is your life + damage to your family. When you multiply the cost by the probability you see the difference.

What happened to my SZ was that I was never able to buy another battery from Sonystyle, as it was discontinued sadly (just 2 years after the first launch of SZ1). I do not trust any third party selling batteries so I had to give up my SZ.

This is not my theory. It is empirical model from Chemistry and Material Sciences, and widely used in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. (Ask your friends if any of them study any of these.)

If you mean "fine" by 70C idle and 100C busy then forget about it... (Just kidding ) Not even my 14" ThinkPad T60 can handle 34W T7200 well. The temperature goes above 80C easily. I know according to Intel's specification anything below 105C is called "safe" but I'd rather stay away from that. Reasons have been given already.

 

I don't know if this is a fair comparison. For point #1 has anyone EVER been killed by an exploding laptop? Ever?

For point 2, i disagree still. Point me to a source. All objects have a temp range they are designed to operate in. Saying that absolutely 10 degrees c 1/2's the life of any object sounds very questionable to me. I'm not a scientist or an engineer, so if you can provide a source I'll happily concede. But I doubt that's likely. Besides, the notebook is not hitting 100%, the core inside the cpu is. Much lower temps are on the heatsink, and significantly lower temps as you move away from the cpu.

Do you get upset that your car engine runs at 220 degrees? They could easily change a thermostat to make it to run at 150. Bad analogy I know

 

I thought of one more possible improvement: fix the Vaio Update error. Everytime I check, it says "Could not acquire the information" and opens the browser to Sony. There's a bug since clicking on "Important Info" then going back to "Chec for Updates" gives a more reasonable response ("No automatic update programs are available").

Or maybe just provide better support for old products (I can hear shouts of "Fat hope of that happening!").

 

Huh? Well that's wierd... Okay let's see:

a) Your battery shouldn't be getting hot, that's a sign of bad cooling design or you're draining so much power from your battery pack that it's overheating. I wouldn't recommend gaming heavily on your battery pack because it won't last very long. Considering I'm reading about 8-9 watts idle and well over 40 watts on full load on my Z11

b) That's not very accurate... Each 10c does not mean 1/2 the lifespan. It tends to vary with parts. Some silicon carbide aerospace chips are designed to run so hot they glow for example. Granted running it cooler helps extend life but even then, how much longer? In all the systems I've owned I've never had a CPU failure. Most components will outlast their lifespan unless you're overclocking or pushing way out of specification.

c) I have the Z11 with an i7 CPU that was playing FarCry on ultrahigh settings for an hour. My handy power meter was somewhere in the 40-60 watt mark. The cooler was doing a great job spitting out toasty air out the side and sounding like a video card fan on max. Temperatures peaked at 80C according to HWMonitor. The keyboard got a little warm at worst. So I'm not sure why you're having problems. Do you even have a Z11 with an i7 core?

As far as the T versus the P processor... The T9800 (2.933 Ghz chip) rated for 34 watts. The P9600 (2.667 Ghz chip) rated for 25 watts. Of course the T chip would run hotter. Also if you look at the entire chip family, there's very few that get close to or above 3 Ghz indicating that power use probably goes exponentially out of control at that mark. Also if you look at the next chip up in the P line. P9700 (2.800 Ghz) it's rated for 28 watts. A 4% increase in speed results in 11% increase in power use.

 

No no definately NOT! The way all chip manufacturer's work is that that they test a chip by running it at the fastest speed, if it fails, it goes into the slower bins. The faster chip in the same family line has the better quality. This is why we keep hearing when a process matures the chips go faster. They don't have separate process lines for each speed. It just get's too expensive. Keep in mind the 640LM has an Intel graphics chip running at 1/2 the speed of the 620M. I know you don't care about the intel graphics but you can probably tune down it's power use by changing Intel's graphics power management settings. The 640LM also has a base speed of 2.1 Ghz. To reach 2.6 Ghz it would need to Turbo Boost. If your chip overheats you are stuck at 2.1 Ghz. The 620M is designed to run normally at 2.6Ghz, if you use turbo boost it will go above that.

 

You never owned an SZ did you? Of course it is not practical to play games on battery - it is a common sense that a 6-cell battery can only last 100 minutes on a 34W CPU. What I was saying, is that with AC adapter plugged in, if you don't take out the battery while gaming, the battery shares the heat from CPU heatsink.

For desktop computers, explain why graphics cards tend to have higher failure rates within 2 years than other components? From a statistical view, say, the failure rate within 2 years is increased from 5% to 15%, because of temperature increased from 70C to 90C.

I hope Z11 can handle that heat well. At least VGN-Z cannot. As I said, certain keys (e.g. "Q" "W" "E") get too hot to touch when CPU reaches above 80C. I have the same feedback from a user reviewing Z11 with i7. If yours does not have the problem I have to say you've got a well manufactured one perhaps.

 

This is not necessarily true when there are different voltage lines. It may require better quality to run at 2.6GHz with, say, 0.95v, than to run at 3.06GHz with 1.2v. If 640LM runs at 2.6GHz with 1.2v while 620M runs at 3.06GHz at 1.2v, then we can conclude 620M has better quality.

 

I have an improvement request, but not for the Z11...

...How about improved forum members that can read a thread's name and stay within the confines of that thread?

In this case, this thread is called "Possible improvements on VPC-Z21." Is it too much to ask for people to take their benchmarks and CPU throttling conversation "outside?" Go ahead, talk about it if you want to...just don't do it HERE. I mean no offense, but this practice of hijacking a thread makes the thread almost impossible to read.

Seriously, shouldn't a moderator step in an move the extraneous discussion(s) someplace else?

 

Reverend!

We've had tangential conversations before, but this one is epic.

 

I've behaved badly and I'll stop FWIW the OP took it in this direction.

 

Primarily because components running under high temperature gather the most dust. Dust both may cause short-circuit and interfere with airflow. If you clean your computer from dust regularly it will serve you a lot longer. Seeing what gathers inside a typical desktop that is usually standing on the floor (where there is most dust) I often wonder how it still works at all. Laptops tend to be much cleaner but do need periodic dust removal too.

Google reported that in a clean environment higher temperature does not result into higher probability of hard drive failure. Just an interesting fact.

 

Oops yeah probably a bit off-topic here.

I was thinking an OLED display would be awesome too if it wasn't for the fact that they cost more than the whole laptop (judging from Sony's OLED TV) and I'm not sure if they ever resolved the blue burning out issue.

I could be wrong but I believe an ATI graphics accelerator would likely be better than an Nvidia one? Last I recall ATI had more power efficient chips.

5.1 Surround Sound? I'm currently using a Creative USB 5.1 external device to get around this issue but I've come to realize this feature pretty much doesn't exist for almost all laptops. It's also surprising that Creative is pretty much the only company that offers a decent one. While I know the 13 inch probably can't fit that many ports maybe a breakout box of some sort?

Better Speakers would be nice but somehow I doubt that's possible in that space. It's probably a physical limitation.

Slot loading Optical Drive. From what I've read they take more space so it might not be possible. I think they're a little safer to use if you're accident prone as it's harder to snap the tray off.

 

Can you load mini cd's in a slot loader? Maybe the reason sony doesn't.....

 

Dear god don't use ATI cards. The main selling point of the sony laptop line for me is that they use components that play nice with linux.

That's another thing, they should offer models either without windows (no OS) or ubuntu or some other linux variant.

And non-proprietary hard drives. I hate proprietary crap. Is it really that profitable to not let us upgrade the hard drive? That's a huge negative on my sony TZ. I want to put an SSD in but I can't

 

Agreed on the SSD part. Old VGN-Z can be upgraded with 2 x naked Intel X18-M with raid cable.

If you install Linux how do you deal with the driver for fingerprint reader?

 

Can you explain the logic behind that one?

The only thing I can think of is that components running under high temperature tend to have more fans, which suck in more dust.
But without changing the fan, I can't see this being the case at all. If anything, hotter components should gather slightly less dust, as some of the solids and liquids that otherwise stick might evaporate.

 

There are plenty of laptops with far better speakers. Heck, there are phones with better sound, and they are far more cramped for space.

 

Good point! Although I have to admit it's very rare to see mini CD's or DVD's. I have yet to see games or applications come on that format. Occasionally maybe a driver install CD.

I heard ATI's support for Linux has improved in recent years. ATI is using more modern chip processes so their chips do run cooler than Nvidia's. I have to admit it's been years since I've used Linux. Linux to me is still the best server OS I ever worked with but as a desktop it still has it's issues especially if you do a tremendous amount of video work. As far as linux support, I think it'd be a tough sell. That's part of the problem. A manufacturer can't be bothered if there arn't enough numbers. Why not Windows XP 64 for example? Considering how fast these machines are, I'll probably end up using virtualbox for Linux.

True, but your laptop speakers put out a LOT more sound than your headphones. Generally speaking the best speaker for a particular sound is also a speaker with matching size. How else would you explain why a subwoofer and different sized elements are found in high end speakers. You can sort of pull off good sound on a smaller speaker by using a huge amount of power (some good bookshelf speakers can match a larger speaker set but at the price effeciency loss) but there's no way you can get any laptop to match even a moderately priced 2.1 system. Sony could get slightly better quality speakers but realistically, for the size that's available for them you really can't get that much better. If I were you invest in some external speakers. I have a 5.1 gigaworks set from ages ago. There's no laptop soundsystem that can hold a candle to it.

 

They use them in a lot of video cameras still.....

Sony eSupport - DCR-DVD300 - Model Home

 

"Phone" is short for "telephone", not "headphone" (which are "cans"). In other words, there are mobile telephones with far better speakers than the Z, and they are far more cramped for space than the Z is.

But people tend to look strangely at me when I pull out my M-Audio studio monitors and power inverter on the plane...

The minute you hook up external units, a notebook ceases to be mobile, and the moment you start depending on those connections, all you have is a stationary PC with bad specs.

 

Might I add that using laptop speakers instead of headphones in public places is simply rude. I think, when talking about laptop speakers we should keep the proper environment in mind: home or friend's place or (business) meeting room. These places will do just fine with external devices.

 

I think you have a point there. Since it is a laptop the only time you'll likely be using speakers and not headphones is in public and it's not very considerate to be blasting music... At home I just use a 5.1 Creative Sound USB card hooked up to a 5.1 set of speakers.

 

Um, no. Some of us carry the laptop around. I use mine in a variety of places that aren't public. Including my own garden.
And speakers are for more than music, including videoconferencing, where you definitely don't want to wear headphones. Or the wife and me watching a TV program together.
And when I'm out in the kitchen making myself a sandwich, I'd still like to hear if I get an alert e-mail or someone IMs me.
Should I buy a 50 ft headphone cord?

 

Oh, and any situation where your head is not in the cone of laptop speakers is even worse. Considering that few laptops have speakers facing forward (and these laptops should be fairly thick), usefulness of speakers in laptops in general is extremely limited.
A workaround is to tilt screen forward so that it bounces sound waves in horizontal direction.

 

I think we rarely use built in speakers , most of the time I plug my laptop to external 5.1 card from creative and headphone when at school

 

I'm with Arth1, I purchased the Z to be portable. It ceases to be portable when you have to bring an entire AV kit along with you.

Sony should upgrade the speakers in any refresh. It is a serious design deficiency in an otherwise superior system.

 

According to an official Sony dealer in France, a new version of Vaio Z will be announced on June 1st. This is why mot of Vaio Z are out of stock in Europe. No more information. I hope it will include most of the improvement discussed here.

Wait and see...

 

i hope they will improve the design

 

I would ask for new versions VAIO Z:

Important:

-Best quality speakers
-G-Sensor
-Standard connector/bahia SSD
-E-Sata
-Right headset connector
-USB 3.0

Selective ATI or NVIDIA graphics card configs

New Graphics card:

A: ATI Radeon HD5650 DX11

or,

B: NVIDIA 335M

--
Others interesting features:

-ISP Panel
-Multi Touch Panel
-Extended Batery best design optimized space
-3D

dreams? xD

 

What would a G-sensor accomplish?

 

-OLED (even if it is a $1000 option)
-Less noise from the fan.
Only need that to convince me to buy another Z.

USB 3.0 would also be a nice addition. BTW, isn't the front left USB in a daughterboard? Hmm...

 

OLED would indeed be sweet, but it would likely be more than $1k.

The USB ports on the left side are indeed on a sub-board. For power and the new chip placement, this is the logical part they would upgrade to add USB 3.0.

Unfortunately, it also houses the SD/Memory stick and Express Card circuitry (I think). The part would probably be expensive, so retrofitting might be painful.

 

The subboard on the left contains 2 USB ports (or 1 USB and 1 Firewire), 1 HDMI port and SD/MS card slots. Express card is connected to the motherboard separately.