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?

[McMagnus]

I guess the reasoning at Sony goes something like:

The new Centrino chipset is considerably hotter than the old one used in the older T1. Sony must have been aware about this when they selected it and probably thought they could get away with it by reducing the power settings to minimum. Also, the new Centrino can use a memory bus speed of 400 or 533MHz when the old could use 333 or 400 if I remember correctly. The old T1 let the user select the memory bus speed, but the new TX1 does not. My guess is it's locked at the lower speed in order to limit the heat problem, but it turned out to be insufficient.

What I fail to understand is how Sony could miscalculate the heat generation vs. heat dissipation at low performance settings. The goal *must* be to be able to cool the system passively when the CPU is idle. The T1 does it with ease, but the TX1 simply can't do it, and that's just not acceptable for a $2000+ laptop.

Sony also fails to make good on their promise to fix it for "production units" as stated on http://laptop-notebook.blogspot.com/2005/10/sony-vaio-tx1xp.html

Sony should:

1. Pay Intel to implement a low enough performance mode so the heat generation becomes lower than the passive heat dissipation. *At least* when the CPU is 98% *IDLE*!

2. Make a BIOS patch to prevent the fan from toggling on/off every 6 seconds! The best would be to run it at lower speeds to make it less audible. If they can't, they should replace the fan with a better one that *can* be run in lower speeds.

We require a better answer than the one given to Pagemakers and lantek. That's not an answer. It's an insult given what we paid for it.

[Pagemakers]

Absolutely spot on!

I will keep on to Sony until I receive a satisfactory answer.

There it's noisy because it's size does not wash with me. My TR5MP is the same size and it's virtually silent.

[Pagemakers]

Just received this poorly written response from Sony this morning:

The noise and stopping and starting of the fan is normal for thsi model.

You may not be happy with this but this is the soecifucation for this model.

There is no later BIOS version available at tis time. Any BIOS updates that do become available will be posted on the download section of our website.

We do not have an ETA yet for any new BIOS releases for this model.

We are very sorry but we cannot give you a more satisfactory answer at this time.

[Pagemakers]

Look like they don't give a shi!.

Just received this.

Thank you for contacting us,

We have received your attachment today

The response you received from Fergus still stands

The above response that we have provded is from our Engineering Department.
This pertains to this model and not the TR5MP which is a different model with different hardware.

The noise and stopping and starting of the fan is normal for thsi model.

You may not be happy with this but this is the specification for this model.

There is no later BIOS version available at tis time. Any BIOS updates that do become available will be posted on the download section of our website.

We do not have an ETA yet for any new BIOS releases for this model.

We are very sorry but we cannot give you a more satisfactory answer at this time.

[Pagemakers]

The fan noise is only part of it. The fact that the fan turns on and off 10 times a minute and speeds up and slows down is also a huge pain.

[jpat]

have u guys ever compared tx1xp's fan noise with other notebooks? i hapen to own a couple of others too, and the tx1xp's fan is the quitest.....dunno why r u all so disapointed with that fan noise....looks normal to me.

greets,

jpat

[lantek]

have u guys ever compared tx1xp's fan noise with other notebooks? i hapen to own a couple of others too, and the tx1xp's fan is the quitest.....dunno why r u all so disapointed with that fan noise....looks normal to me.

greets,

jpat

Yeah I have compared it to a Sony TR1MP, and the entire lineup of Dell Latitude notebooks. The TX1 is the most annoying fan implementation I have ever heard on a notebook. It sounds more like a 1U server than a notebook.

[Pagemakers]

Lantek are you having any more joy with Sony than I am or have you given up!

[McMagnus]

I'm comparing (as I stated in the initial post) with the predecessor of the TX1XP, i.e. the T1XP. A fairly logical comparison methinks.

[lantek]

Lantek are you having any more joy with Sony than I am or have you given up!

I am having no joy from Sony at all. They take about 2 weeks to reply to an Esupport ticket, and then their response is generally a waste of time. I will pursue it though. It is a real shame, as the laptop is a great machine, apart from this fan issue.