Official 2012 Sony S Series Owners Thread

[rohandhruva]

To rohandhruva:
Oh, I am not sure if it's been asked, but how are the built in speakers? Sony refers to the speakers on this laptop as follows:

Experience full-impact surround sound anywhere with Dolby® Home Theater® v4 technology on your PC. Whether you listen through headphones, the speakers in your laptop or a connected home theater, a more captivating entertainment experience can be yours anytime. Dolby Home Theater technology offers total control over audio settings, so you can customize the sound for the maximum impact. Plus it makes audio levels more consistent: set the volume once, and that's where it stays.

I know not to expect much but do they have at the least some volume to them or has Sony continued their way of making them barely audible? Thank you.

There are two options for configuring the sound: xLoud and Dolby Home Theatre. I have kept it on the default [xLoud] and the sound is good. It is not going to rock your house but maybe the room.. Again, I compare this to the Vaio CW which had horrible on-board speakers, so ymmv.

Lucky!

Nice to see different voltage RAM is working.

Can you check to see if it is a 7mm or 9mm hard drive. I bought the Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD hoping that it would be ok.

I am not sure how to check -- do I need to open up the laptop? The drive is a Hitachi HTS727564A9E364, if it helps.

@rohandhruva - OCCT's cpu test is a basic utility for stressing the CPU

Software
Core Temp

CoreTemp is good for monitoring temperatures.


For the GPU, GPU-Z is a good tool to monitor the GPU temperatures, and OCCT also has a GPU stress tester built in too

EDIT: Are you planning on installing a SSD? It would be nice to know if the SATA 2 lock is confirmed.

I played TF2 for a solid hour, and the GPU temp was between 58-63C. The CPU temp was around 53-57C. The laptop did not feel hot at all -- only the right palmrest got marginally warm.

I'll try OCCT in a while.

I am not planning to install a SSD for now -- I am not even sure where the additional slot is.

I'm happy to hear that even on a carpeted floor the laptop fan doesn't make much noise.

It's also good to know that the Hard Drive protection feature is working well, haha.

I'm feeling more and more safe about my purchase each day.

Yes, the fan noise was not noticeable even after playing TF2 for ~1 hour. You might hear the noise in a very quiet, small room, but under normal conditions it shouldn't bother you.

One crappy thing -- when I received the backplate (which houses the battery, RAM, and hdd) was half-undone. As if the person putting it on did a shoddy job of it. I had to unscrew and screw it back properly myself.

[rohandhruva]

I have the stock [no-upgrade] Intel Core i5 3210M 2.50 GHz CPU. I am running the OCCT test in infinite mode, and the CPU Utilisation is on 100%. The fan is now noticeable on a carpeted floor with the TV on too.

CPU temp is still at 61C and 58C for the 2 cores respectively.

Even with the test running full fledged, the multi-tasking is top-notch. I don't see any lag.

[Hummingb1rd]

Those are very good temps! It's comparable to the desktop I'm currently using which is awesome. Mobile chips are also spec'd to handle higher temps so that's really good.

Also, the Hitachi HTS727564A9E364 is a 9.5mm drive! It means standard sized drives shall fit, and 7mm drives will need spacers.

About the fan noise, is it unbearable? Or alright? On another forum I read ~43 dB which actually isn't that bad...

[rohandhruva]

The fan noise is noticeable only if you actually sit very much near the laptop [and have OCCT running from 15 minutes, lol].

Under normal circumstances [i.e. even after an hour of gaming], the fan is hardly audible, and definitely not distracting.

BTW, are you referring to installing the SSD in addition to the HDD? Because the BIOS shows 2 drive slots [1 empty], but I don't see it when I open the back plate.

[rohandhruva]

After ~20m of OCCT, the CPU temp reached 69C and 61C for core 0 and core 1 respectively.

[monkeychef]

The fan noise is noticeable only if you actually sit very much near the laptop [and have OCCT running from 15 minutes, lol].

Under normal circumstances [i.e. even after an hour of gaming], the fan is hardly audible, and definitely not distracting.

BTW, are you referring to installing the SSD in addition to the HDD? Because the BIOS shows 2 drive slots [1 empty], but I don't see it when I open the back plate.

So how was gaming? What were your specs in game and what was the average GPS (or was it very playable and you don't want yo find the GPS).

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

[Hummingb1rd]

The fan noise is noticeable only if you actually sit very much near the laptop [and have OCCT running from 15 minutes, lol].

Under normal circumstances [i.e. even after an hour of gaming], the fan is hardly audible, and definitely not distracting.

BTW, are you referring to installing the SSD in addition to the HDD? Because the BIOS shows 2 drive slots [1 empty], but I don't see it when I open the back plate.

Good! You have the S13A right? I hope the S15 is similar.

And I'm referring to replacing the HDD with the SSD. The BIOS shows 2 drive slots open because there are two sata ports on that certain motherboard, i think (?). So that's why there's one drive slot "open". Theoretically, you could fit one drive in the optical drive if you get a caddy, and get two drives, but I think that mod is unnecessary for most of us.

After ~20m of OCCT, the CPU temp reached 69C and 61C for core 0 and core 1 respectively.

That's still reasonable and wonderful! I think the CPU doesn't start throttling until 80C+, but I may be wrong. On the topic of throttling, if you have the CPU maxed out and the GPU also maxed out, is there any throttling happening?

[Theory]

For those who purchased a S13A, how does the default black feel? Does it have a texture like the black S13? Also, could you take a picture of the gold Vaio logo? Thanks!

[jeremyshaw]

Were those tests run with the STAMINA/SPEED switch? Does that switch even do anything, anymore?

Also (for anyone) there really is no silver/white 1600x900 option, is there?

[Theory]

Were those tests run with the STAMINA/SPEED switch? Does that switch even do anything, anymore?

Also (for anyone) there really is no silver/white 1600x900 option, is there?

The Canadian website has the option, I guess the US doesn't...