Upgraded to Win7 Sony Vaio Running Nuclear HOT!!!

[Ashma]

Hello!

My Notebook is a Sony Vaio VGN-AR790U/B which shipped with Vista 32-bit. Recently I upgraded it with a clean install of windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Using various drivers, I’ve been able to get nearly everything working.

My problem is that ever since installing Win7, my notebook runs VERY hot, as in far too hot to sit on my lap and even worse is the fact that the wrist pad area gets too hot to even type for more than a few minutes at a time. The fan seems to be operating but at a very slow speed which can’t be heard but it is always on. With Vista the same fan would go on and off and when it was on at full blast it was pretty loud.

I have not made any changes to my Bios and upon entering the Bios; I can’t see any options to make any type of changes to anything other than the boot order and password options. I really don’t want to go back to Vista but the heat problem is too much to live with. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. BTW’ even though the system runs very hot, it has never shutdown even after running it for 48 hours at a time more than once now.

Ash

 

[Frostmourne]

I'd contact Sony if your model hasn't been discontinued and its under warranty. You probably won't find anything in the BIOS for a laptop.

 

[Nikolay]

BTW’ even though the system runs very hot, it has never shutdown even after running it for 48 hours at a time more than once now.

I don't think you should keep it on for over 48 hours..

 

[Barman58]

As you did a clean install the original drivers for the fan control were removed

First place to check is the Sony support website - looks like you need either a win7 system driver or Bios update.

If there is not a specific win7 driver try to install the Vista driver, this should work fine with win7 until a specific driver is available.

Also make sure that you get the correct 64bit driver

 

[Ashma]

Thank you very much for the quick reply guys.

Barman58, I'm not sure I know which driver it is that controls the fan? I have used some of the old drivers for some of the hardware and that has worked out.

Nikolay, I left the system on to transfer 100GB's of data, do a virus scan and to let a few other programs do long tasks.

Frostmourne, no longer under warranty because of the Win7 upgrade. Also I was under the impression that the fan is controlled by the Bios and as far as I know, there have been no changes to my Bios.

 

[Frostmourne]

If you look for the model on Sony's website, you should find a driver for fan, and I meant to say there is no option in a laptop's BIOS, unless its been added.

 

[Barman58]

The fan should be controlled by the motherboard or general system drivers rather than a specific named driver


Think this may be the one ....

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNAR790UB&upd_id=3320&os_id=30

Full driver set is here ...

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNAR790UB#div_pos_66

 

[Ashma]

Thank you Nigel! I had seen that page and downloaded some of the drivers for things that I knew of but I did skip over that Intel driver. So now I have installed it and restarted the PC as it requested. So if this is correct then the fan should start running loud and fast again as it did in Vista?

Ash

 

[mushroomboy]

Also you could see if the cool n' quiet features got messed with? The bios can control fan speeds and they usually have temp options in witch to asses what it needs to do. If you haven't ever changed the factory defaults that the bios started you can always muck around a bit. I know a lot of people are afraid of the bios, but as long as you don't mess with clock speeds or anything you should be just fine. Also a lot of heat gets generated by bad batteries charging.... In fact they can cause a lot of the heat, especially if it gets overcharged... Which brings up another topic, how windows is detecting the battery and charging it. Just another idea.

 

[sergiogarcia9]

Try to clean the fan. It might be dust that causes the problem

 

[Barman58]

Thank you Nigel! I had seen that page and downloaded some of the drivers for things that I knew of but I did skip over that Intel driver. So now I have installed it and restarted the PC as it requested. So if this is correct then the fan should start running loud and fast again as it did in Vista?

Ash

Hi Ash,

please post back the results so others may benefit, (if it worked), or we can try other things, (if it didn't)

 

[mushroomboy]

Try to clean the fan. It might be dust that causes the problem

I used to smoke cigs, cleaning my copper block dropped my cpu 10C =S Though you don't want to know what it was like to clean tar-dust....

 

[Ashma]

Nigel,
I will post my final results here but as of right now I’m not sure what the word is. Since installing the Intel Motherboard driver you pointed out to me, the fan still does not get loud at anytime as it always did with Vista.

However, the hot surface isn’t too hot at the moment but that could possibly have something to do with the fact that the room my PC is sitting in, is much cooler because of the weather, over the last few days. I’m just not sure why the surface is cooler now even though the fan is still humming away at that very low speed it has been since I did the Win7 upgrade. I think I’m going to try and get the system working hard and see what happens.

Mushroomboy, I wish I could access some kind of fan control but my Bios (Phoenix R2090J8, 2/26/2008) seems to be locked down by Sony. In my Bios I only have a few options; passwords, boot order and the clock, seem to be all I can access.

Guys also, my HDMI port got fried 4 months ago and Sony sent out a tech, who replaced the motherboard and said that he went ahead and replaced the fan even though I wasn’t having any problems with it as far as I knew. I normally take my laptops apart every 6 months or so and clean the fan and area around it.

Ash

 

[Ashma]

Nigel and everyone else, I just wanted to let you guys know that the Intel Chipset Driver Nigel directed me to, seems to be working just fine. I wasn't sure because I had yet to hear the fan blazing away with its high sound as it has in the past. So I installed Crysis, which always made this same PC's fan (running Vista 32-bit) run full speed and very loud. After a few minutes of Crysis, the fan kicked up a speed and got louder. Still not max speed but it is very cold (for LA) in my home office so I figure all is good now.
THANK YOU!!!!!!

 

[Barman58]

Glad to hear things are working to plan

Win 7 is better optimised for use with laptops than was Vista and so you may well see the demands placed on your system lower than when using Vista. It may be that the fan is quieter n normal use as it actually has less to do

 

[Ashma]

Nigel,

Thanks again! I never even thought of the possibility that the fan speed difference could have something to do with Win7 vs. Vista the hog. That makes a lot of sense and I'm even more thrilled about my upgrade now. Win7 has turned my year old Vaio into a brand new PC.