SZ6 owners come in to help - Are these normal?

Well, just got this SZ650N/C last night and have these problems listed below, please help to see if these are normal:

1. Fan sound. I don't know if it's normal to hear the sound ALL THE TIME from somewhere underneath the left-part keyboard (I think that's CPU fan? Btw, it's not the fan under the screen). It's not that noisy, but I mean, is the laptop supposed to be "dead silent" most of the time when we are using it (like my old powerbook).

2. I spent almost 6 hours to install 25 updates for Vista, I don't know if that's right since I have a pretty fast internet speed and I didn't expect to take that long to just download and install 25 updates.

3. After 6 hours' waiting for updating, I had another problem with "CPU usage" - it was just kept at 100% without running any programs I could see from task manager. Yeh, the computer was like running some huge program and I could do nothing else but watching the screen (even opening a Control Panel window would get you a "Not Responding").

I guess I only have these problems so far and please give me some help. Thanks

 

With modern notebooks, "dead silent" is literal. I would be terrified of any notebook, no matter how heat-efficient or cool running, that did not have at least one fan blowing constantly.

There may have been a problem with one or more of the updates, which may have also caused your CPU usage problem. I would advise doing a system restore to undo the Windows Updates, then redownload the updates. Microsoft generally fixes buggy updates pretty quickly.

 

None of your above problems are normal so if a clean System Recovery still results in the same problem its probably a BIOS or hardware related problem in which case you should appeal to your warranty or so..

 

Appreciate your answer...

Any other suggestions?

 

Btw what hard driver are you using inside your laptop, some tend to heat up a little more than others and are a little noisier too...maybe that's causing the fan to turn a little harder? Though I'd be surprised if this would be so audible. I remember my old FS with its 4200rpm you could not even hear it was on, my SZ680 with its 7200rpm HD inside I guess you can hear that its on but it'd have to be pretty quiet in the room.

Ah yea and the Vista downloading & updating here took max. 30 mins I think, maybe only 15-20mins, can't quite remember (28-29 updates).

 

I forgot to mention, CPU usage went down when I restarted the computer this morning.

For the fan noise, I'm gonna call SONY to ask about that since I've heard too many compliants about SZ's fan noise issue, and I assume that would be told normal from their support.

I will just go clean up those bloatware first and see if I'll keep having the problem 2, 3.

 

um...I don't have an idea which kind of hard drive they put on SZ650N. I guess it'd be same as 680?

My roommate has a VAIO AR - a huge 17 screen one, it runs just silently.

 

Updates normally don't take any time on mine and my 680 is always quiet.

 

Do you feel (or hear) your CPU fan is constantly on altho it's not that noisy.

 

I put my ear to it and I can feel a slow breeze and as it is on but very quiet even right from boot on max battery.

 

oh and my cpu usage is 2 to 10% on boot up

 

I have to say this is quite amazing.

Obviously, I don't even need to get my ear closer to hear the sound, so that means I have the problem with CPU fan or something?

CPU usage is normally at 50% when I'm turning the IE and using some software like Excel, etc. Boot up usage is never below 10% so far.

Dude, I don't know if you are just the lucky guy or I'm a poor man here.

 

besides, I think your 680's setup should be very identical to 650...but why such a difference....

 

When I startup IE it spikes to 60% and drops back to 5% a maybe 5 seconds later..

Excel is the same, it only spikes when starting it or doing some operation.

It does sound like something may be wrong with your fan but also you have to have something driving your usage up at idle.
I have drive indexing off but system restore on.
I also use AVG free anti-virus and AVG free Anti Spyware so if you are using something like Norton that NEVER stops scanning that can cause issues too.

Even when I put the system into Performance mode and play Unreal Tournament 2004 online it starts to warm up and the fan speeds up but is never loud and I still have to try to hear it... I have pretty good hearing too.

 

know what, just called SONY and a guy there said CPU usage would go down after a few days of new purchasing.

And for the fan sound, he said it's totally normal to have that sound, and said I was just over worried.

Well, I fee like they are totally unprofessional and they are not there to help customers solve problems but try to hide problems.

 

Give is a few days and maybe with drive indexing and such it will drop usage. Maybe when Vista is done doing what it does it will get better.

We see.

As for the fan its prob not right if it bugs you. Ask around. See if it would bug other people.

I used chat support to Sony a few days ago and got nowhere so I know what you mean about that.

 

LET'S PUT IT INTO THIS WAY....

First, let's put the "fan" noise aside, do you hear anything (i mean "any sound" constantly) from your lappy? I mean, is it running totally silently?

Damn, I think I've been driven crazy....

 

I really don't hear anything else, Not even my HDD which I hardly ever hear but then again we do have different HDD's. I have the 200Gig 7200rpm drive.

I guess you could hear your DVD drive, your HDD, your fan, or you could have some sort of CPU whine that many on the Dell side complain about.

I really never hear the computer when it is on if I don't put my head closer to the left rear of system.

 

My SZ680 is not completely silent.

A way to turn down the fan would be to go to your power plans, and then advanced power settings, and changing the fan speeds there. The default speed appears to be on the performance settings. Going from 5 to 1 makes an audible difference.

 

I tried that already but it didn't really make any significant difference/improvement on the sound.

Frankly, I kinda beleive what SONY tech support told me that it's not possible to get an absolute silence on your laptop, especially for those compact model like SZ.

Bottom line, I don't think any running SZ can be sounded like a truned off computer, altho most Apple notebooks can really make it.

I will go to a local SonyStyle store tomorrow to get a check on my laptop, but for a big chance they will tell me it is normal, so I'm kinda ready to pay 15% restocking fee and return the machine.

 

If I put my ear on the keyboard around the "ASDF" keys I can hear a fan but I have to have my ear right on the keyboard to hear it, my power plan is "Vaio Optimised"

Running the initial updates took me around half an hour with a 2mb connection.

My CPU will only run at 2.2 all the time when I set it to "High Power" or when I run a CPU intensive app like attempting to get Bioshock working (still unsucsessfully).

 

I start to wonder if all those SZs SONY sent to NY or distributed by NY dealers are defective? I bought two SZs from stores in NY and all have problems.

Shoot, I have to return it!!!