Official Y series 11.6 Owners' Thread

[ajnauron]

@dmk2 You are correct about the SSD MLC vs SLC, but my point about CPU limited laptops and SSDs still stands. Even if you have the old Vaio Y series, your system is graphics limited not CPU limited. Look here:


Sony Vaio Y 13.3" Windows Experience Index scores

We're not talking about the 13.3" Y, we're talking about the 11" YB. Not the same laptop. So in your situation as your system is not CPU limited, I would expect you to experience a good increase in boot times, which you did. You proved my point.

[dmk2]

The WEI scores are just relative rankings to compare your system with others. Performance limits are totally task dependent so you can't just look at the WEI scores and say that one thing is holding your whole system back. For example, you say my system is graphics limited, but that's only true when playing games. When not playing games, it's not limited at all by the Intel graphics. When editing large photos or transcoding videos, it's CPU limited. When booting, launching programs, or searching files, it's disk limited.

In my experience, your suggestion that you need a fast CPU to get the benefit of an SSD is generally false. I've found SSDs to be great performance equalizers. For general productivity use, they make slow ULV laptops with SSD storage more responsive than fast i7 models with HDD storage. For example, the VAIO X has an Atom CPU and SSD. Despite the limitations of the Atom, it boots and loads programs faster than my VAIO F did with an HDD.

It's likely true that you won't get the YB with SSD to boot as fast as the Y or YA does with the same SSD, but it should be close. Search the forums for posts by owners of previous generation AMD ULVs who switched to SSDs; the results have been overwhelmingly positive.

[chong67]

Since I have my YB for few days now on a 500gb 5200 rpm hard drive, I will let you all know when I get a SSD this week.

I see no difference going from a i7920 to a i7950 processor.

Will my fan come on less when I put in a SSD in the YB?

[dmk2]

The heat output from the drive is related to its power consumption, so the SSD would have to consume significantly less power to make a difference. As you already know, some SSDs are less power efficient than HDDs. I've used OCZ Vertex 2 drives and an Intel X25. The OCZ drives ran cool, but the Intel ran as warm as a 5400 rpm HDD.

Also, the HDD is stuck in its own cavity and doesn't get much cooling air. I suspect most of the heat from the HDD is actually dissipated through the keyboard and not removed by the fan. It may have some small effect on the ambient temperature in the chassis, but probably not enough to change the fan behavior significantly.

I think the fan issue is just a natural result of putting the equivalent of a dedicated GPU in a small chassis. Unless there are options for throttling the GPU, I don't know what you can do about it.

[chong67]

dmk2, I am getting the OCZ Agility 2.

You notice nothing special by using a SSD on this laptop?

[chong67]

I just did this test all at the same time.

Extended to a 1920x1200 monitor and playing at 1080p movie and the Frame rate is hovering around 13 fps. That is jerky and not smooth. At least 24 fps is need for smooth movie playback.

Playing a 1080p youtube show on the YB screen AT THE SAME TIME. It is jerky and not smooth. Right click on this video says it is 10 stage fps and 2 video fps and it is jerky! CPU hover around 45% busy. Fan is running like a jet about to take off.

All in all, this YB cant do the job.

[dmk2]

dmk2, I am getting the OCZ Agility 2.

You notice nothing special by using a SSD on this laptop?

Sorry, I'm not sure what your question is asking. BTW, I don't have the YB. I think you are the only person so far who has got one and posted about it.

I just did this test all at the same time.

Extended to a 1920x1200 monitor and playing at 1080p movie and the Frame rate is hovering around 13 fps. That is jerky and not smooth. At least 24 fps is need for smooth movie playback.

Playing a 1080p youtube show on the YB screen AT THE SAME TIME. It is jerky and not smooth. Right click on this video says it is 10 stage fps and 2 video fps and it is jerky! CPU hover around 45% busy. Fan is running like a jet about to take off.

All in all, this YB cant do the job.

As a test, can you try running 1920x1080 resolution on just the external monitor (laptop screen off)? If that plays smooth, try 1920x1200 on just the external monitor. That could pinpoint whether simple upscaling or dual screen display is causing the slowdown. At a minimum, I think it should handle 1920x1080 (full HD) playback on an external monitor otherwise the video acceleration is not working as it should. But two screens simultaneously might be too much because it has to scale it differently for the different resolutions.

[chong67]

Sorry, I'm not sure what your question is asking. BTW, I don't have the YB. I think you are the only person so far who has got one and posted about it.



As a test, can you try running 1920x1080 resolution on just the external monitor (laptop screen off)? If that plays smooth, try 1920x1200 on just the external monitor. That could pinpoint whether simple upscaling or dual screen display is causing the slowdown. At a minimum, I think it should handle 1920x1080 (full HD) playback on an external monitor otherwise the video acceleration is not working as it should. But two screens simultaneously might be too much because it has to scale it differently for the different resolutions.

dmk2,

Running with only one screen will have no problem. The HDMI output is running at 1920x1200 by itself with the laptop monitor off and it is running at 24 fps constant! It is able to do the job. Likewise the same if running only the laptop screen itself only.

I am just doing an impossible test and not whats it ment for. :-)

[chong67]

Do you people want to know more ???

I just put in a new SSD. It has this sandforce controller.

I did bench test with HD Tune.

Guess what? The results are horrible. About the same speed as a 7200 rpm drive!

I already done the SSD tweaking.

My other SSD on my desktop runs 2x faster than a 7200rpm hd, but not on this Sony Vaio Y.

Something got to be wrong !!!

[dmk2]

The HD Tune result is highly dependent on block size. Are you sure you ran with the same block size in both cases? I think the default is 64k.

For comparison, here are a couple of HD Tune results I got for my VAIO Y and VAIO F last year when I put in the Vertex 2 drives.

First the VAIO F:



Next the VAIO Y:



The speed of a Sandforce drive depends on the compressibility of the data it's reading & writing. That's why the HD Tune results are only flat when reading unused portions of the logical disk.