General Advice on Laptop Cooling

[nick_pan]

I hope users can read this post prior to posting laptop temperature problems cause they keep appearing, though its noones fault..as theres no search facility.

Many users are having problems with their sony vaio's and their inability to cool themselves efficiently..

Laptops should run under intense use at no higher that 70 degrees. The common symptoms of an overheated laptop are

a)the laptop runs slowly
b) the base of the laptop feels extremely hot
c) the laptop may restart of just switch off (An automated function of the motherboard to prevent damage to the laptop)
This program should display your laptops CPU temp and HD temp
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/

If you think you have a temperature problem,

a) clean the laptops vents to make sure they'res no dust obstructing them
b) Go to control pannel --> power options, and u should be able to alter your thermal control settings to performance rather than quiet.
c) a common option is to buy a laptop cooler which reportedly has dropped laptop temps by up to 11 degrees. A huge improvement. Antec makes a good model as seen here..
http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_details_cooling.php?ProdID=75004

If your experiencing extreme temperatures (>85), you should get your laptop checked, though there are reports of users sending their laptops to Sony with responses that nothing is wrong with it. The bottom line is that you may have to accept that your laptop has a temperature problem.

A cooler laptop increases performance as well as the longitivity of your components and therefore is a neccesity.

Please post here for more questions in relation to any Vaio model..

I hope this post is useful as a start to your temperature problems

Shame it cant be made sticky

[wheresmybeaver]

I have an A series (A217M) and I have to say that it never seems to run hot, even when its running serious graphics or DVD rewriting or anything. I suppose its the Centrino. I had a Toshiba Satellite and the thing used to burn up fairly badly. It had the one advantage of keeping the room warm during the winter in my student flat. :smileygrin: I'm freezing now that I have my Vaio!

Well done Sony!

[kee-lo_]

Download MobileMeter and see if the tempretures are high

[camilo]

I have a VGN-195EP.

My CPU temperature is usually around 40º when running at 600Mhz and when it goes up to 1.5Ghz it gets up to 60º in 5 to 10 min. It never goes over 60º. When playing games it never goes over 60º.

The problem is that there is a lot of performance loss between 50º-60º.

Also, some very strange things happen. For example, when using dreamweaver (a website building software from macromedia). If I type text for a long time (for example, 30 seconds typing non stop) temperature gradually increases from 40º to 60º. When I stop typing temperature drops down again.

With applications that constantly write to the hard disk there is a great performance loss. HD temp goes from 30º to 40º and the laptop runs slower.

Is this normal?

Thank you for all the information.

[kee-lo_]

Are you writing in Dreamweaver in Design Mode or Code Mode?

[camilo]

In design mode. I just checked in code mode and this does not happen, but still it should not need 1.5GHz to write some text.

I find the VAIO Power Management tool not too good. I used to have it in adaptive and most of the time it switched from 600Mhz to 1.5Ghz when not needed.

[kee-lo_]

I agree it shouldn't but poor programming by Macromedia makes it do this, god knows why.

It did it on the GRX too.

[camilo]

Ok, but what do you think about the Power Management Tool? Do you think it does a good job y controlling CPU speed and fan speed?

Up to today I used to have "adaptive" but I decided to try "battery life" which fixes my CPU speed at 600Mhz. With this the overall performance is much better. Everything runs smoother. (except games and cpu intensive applications which require constant 1.5Ghz).

CPU temp is at 40º and never goes past 43º. HD temp 39º (max 41º).

When Adaptive was selected each time I wanted to do a simple thing CPU speed went up to 1.5Ghz and then back down again.

I don't know if I have explained myself clearly, do you understand what I am trying to say?

[kee-lo_]

Yes I do understand what you are saying, and I do think the Power Management program does help, specially as it does control the CPU power and keeps the laptop cooler.

[camilo]

No, I think you misunderstood me.

I am trying to say that the Vaio Power Management does not help, it does the opposite when set to "adaptive". It sets the CPU power at 1.5Ghz when there is no need too often and this results in lower performance.

When watching MobileMeter while doing a normal use of the laptop (office applications, surfing the web, etc) there are too many "spikes" going up and down from 600Mhz to 1.5GHz. If the power management tool could be able to archieve a much more steady cpu speed then there would be a big increase in performance.

[kee-lo_]

Ooooh I see, you are right there, it could "manage" it better.