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advice on a sony vaio s5m (aka s580) (I'm considering buying one)

post #1 of 4
1/31/06 at 12:21pm
Thread Starter 
Hallo,
as I mentioned in another post I am looking for a new laptop.

One of my best option is a Sony vaio s5m (aka s580 in the USA ) (I found it for ~1500E in Italy)

But I'm very scared by the forum reports of overheating and loud fan issues. Plus a lot of other rumors about giggling batteries and ultra-short battery life and sub-standar screen (you can only see it point blank)

Do you have an s5? Can you tell me how loud|hot is this laptop (after the bios updates, maybe)? Would you reccomend it?

Extra questions:
Would you buy and extende warranty?
How do you like the screen? (Is it clear? can you look at it from a wide angle? is it good to work a lot, watch dvds?)
Can I install an internal bluetooth card without voiding the warranty?
Did you get linux working on it?

Thanks a lot in advance,

Emme
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post #2 of 4
1/31/06 at 12:55pm
Thread Starter 
A quick question I forgot:
Does the fan start up when you are doning nothing for a long time?
I will sometimes leave the laptop on for a long while (acting as a server) with minimum or no load at all. I would really appreciate if it made no noise at all in this state (with power managment set to "max batt life").
Could any of you try a quick test and see if the laptop makes any noise in, say, 15 minutes of idleness?
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post #3 of 4
2/1/06 at 7:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimdellacanapa
Do you have an s5? Can you tell me how loud|hot is this laptop (after the bios updates, maybe)? Would you reccomend it?
The laptop isnt that bad, with some undervolting you can get the cpu to idle at 46 / 47 degrees celcius. My old ibm t41p idled about 41C and a friends dell 8600 idles about 38C. Its all about how much space you have in the case. As the sony is so small, there is practically no air to circulate inside, so considering its only at 46/47 and not hotter is a minor miracle. With the newest bios ('030) your fan comes on at 47celcius - its very quiet. It gets louder when your running a game say, but NOTHING like a toshiba tecra M3 which sounded like it was blowing a gale. The right palm rest gets a little warm because of the closeness of the hard disk, but you could open the notebook and put some insulating material there. Its not hot though. We are working on trying to get the older bios which turns on the fan at about 53C i think - so you would have a quieter laptop. See http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=128059


Quote:
Originally Posted by jimdellacanapa
Extra questions:
Would you buy and extende warranty?
How do you like the screen? (Is it clear? can you look at it from a wide angle? is it good to work a lot, watch dvds?)
Can I install an internal bluetooth card without voiding the warranty?
Did you get linux working on it?
Emme
Warranty? I didnt. But i bought my sony in the usa and im in the uk now - if i have any issues I need to send it back to the usa lol. It seems all right so far. You will probably upgrade in a year and a half anyway, why get a 3 year warranty?
Screen? Absolutely gorgeous. My old ibm cant hold a candle to the screen - colours bright, vivid, very very clear. You have 1280x800 pixels on a 13.3" screen, so quite high for the small screen. Angles? Well, I can see it from an angle, but I dont know how extreme though. Good to work with, great for dvds - you get proper widescreen.
Internal bluetooth without voiding the warranty? Im not sure. I put internal bluetooth in mine, but I have no idea about the warranty. I will probably remove it before sending it back for repair, should it need it lol.
Linux? Man, pain in the arse. I tried several distros, in the end i believe fedora core 4 is your best bet. Debian testing works too, but I cant seem to get as much from it as I can fedora. I only wish YUM was as fast as APT-GET!

Hope that helps!
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post #4 of 4
2/1/06 at 8:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimdellacanapa
A quick question I forgot:
Does the fan start up when you are doning nothing for a long time?
I will sometimes leave the laptop on for a long while (acting as a server) with minimum or no load at all. I would really appreciate if it made no noise at all in this state (with power managment set to "max batt life").
Could any of you try a quick test and see if the laptop makes any noise in, say, 15 minutes of idleness?
The fan does start up, but thats only because the fan is set to come on (at a slow rpm) at 47C. The cpu idles at 46/47.
The only way to get it to make absolutely no noise, if being used as a server, is to wait and see if we can get the older bios from the thread above ;-)

I did try an older cpu in the vaio, a 400mhz fsb dothan, and that was a little cooler, butonly like 1 or 2 degrees.
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