TX1 fan noise

[McMagnus]

Hi

I upgraded from a T1XP to a TX1XP last week and the new fan is starting to bother me. I've heard (at Tom's hardware I think) that the new Centrino chipset runs a bit hotter than the old, but I thought the BIOS would be able to keep it slow enough at the lowest performance setting to not bother me.

However, when at the lowest possible performance (CPU Control on "Battery Life" and the "System Idle Process" toggles between 98-99% and the My Computer->Properties says the CPU is running at 299MHz), the fan is still spinning up and down every 6 seconds or so. The old T1XP was dead silent until I at least started compiling or something. And then the fan spun up only after running at 100% CPU for almost a minute.

Also, the fan itself has a noise of its own in the new TX1XP. In the old T1XP, all I heard was the sound of the air flowing out, nothing else.

So, the problem is two-fold.

1. The fan spins up and down constantly. It runs *much* more than the old T1XP.

2. The fan sounds more than necessary. The old T1XP proves that it's possible to make them really silent, why isn't the new as silent? Did I get a bad one? Should I switch?

[kee-lo_]

I hate this head in the sand attitude that Sony express some times.

[lantek]

Despite Sony denying there is a problem with the TX1, they have now released a TX2, which is a FANLESS version of the TX1! It seems that Sony do know there is problem with the fan on the TX1.

[McMagnus]

Sounds good so far. Does anybody know how they managed to do that? Does it use the same Centrino as TX1? Did they lower the performance? I haven't been able to find any detailed specs or comparisons with the TX1.

[S.E.M.]

Does anybody know how they managed to do that? Does it use the same Centrino as TX1? Did they lower the performance?

The TX2 uses a heatpipe system for cooling and the same Centrino.
There are only small differences, like a 80 GB HD and up to 7.5 hours battery life.

Apart from technical details I don't know much about the heatpipe system. Does anybody know if there is a chance that it is better than the fan cooling? The TX1XP is getting rather hot most of the time.

[McMagnus]

The TX1 also has up to 7.5 hours of battery (actually 435 min = 7:15). Perhaps it's the fan that uses up the remaining 15 minutes?

About heatpipes, I have a fanless HTPC (TV computer) that uses heatpipes for heat dissipation and it works really well. It has a AMD 3800+ X2 CPU, a pretty fast gfx card, plus a hot nVidia motherboard all having heatpipes leading the heat to large (15 kg) heatsinks on the side.

The heat generation is of course not lower (apart from the energy used to spin the fan), so the TX2 will probably be just as hot as the TX1 but the heat will go upward (from where the heatsink is) instead of out the fan to the left.

[Pagemakers]

my t2 works perfectly, a battery life of 6.5 hours, a completely silent cpu when working at full capacity. 40GB hard disk space (20 reserved for back up, ofcourse you can change that). Everything running smoothly. I can only advice to buy a vaio, best laptop i've ever had

What is a T2? I don't see that model anywhere.

[Pagemakers]

Is the TX2 available yet?

Does it have any extra features that the TX1 does not? Built in mic for example?

I wonder if we TX1 users can get our money back for buying such a DUFF product?

[agoetz]

If you follow this link, you should be happy.
No fan, bigger HD, extremely flat panel.

http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/SonyStyle/b2c/deeplink.do?countryId=DE&languageId=DE&s=external&ss=...

[Pagemakers]

Great thanks for that. Not sure it is available in the UK yet.

So now I've got a 3 month old laptop that has been updated for the version that should have been released in the first place!!!

Anyone want to by my pristine TX1 :smileygrin:

[lantek]

Great thanks for that.  Not sure it is available in the UK yet.

So now I've got a 3 month old laptop that has been updated for the version that should have been released in the first place!!!

Anyone want to by my pristine TX1 :smileygrin:

I am raising this very issue with Sony. It doesnt seem right that a brand new machine like the TX1 should be replaced within 2 months with a version that removes the troublesome fan. It seems that Sony are sugegsting by releasing the new machine that there was a problem with the TX1.