Question for S users…

Sony has S260 refurbs for $999, which is appealing to me, need a second notebook…I want a TX, but probably will wait for a few real-world reviews before I buy one…

Anyway…the question…the S260 is XP Home, I need Pro…has anyone done a successful clean XP Pro install on any S model and gotten it working and super stable ? ? ?

Reason I ask…I’m a long-time VAIO owner and I’ve had mixed results w/ clean installs on Sony machines…my old N505VE worked w/o a hitch on XP Pro, probably b/c of the age and older hardware already being part of the base OS drivers/etc…but on my newer R505GCP, I never did get a clean install of XP Pro to work completely stable, even though it came w/ XP Pro, after installing all of Sony’s drivers, I’d occasionally get it crapping out (BSOD)...which has never happened w/ the Sony installed XP Pro OS and recovered system (from recovery CDs).

Anyway, anybody care to comment before I make a decision ?

Thanks,
chris

[quote author=“hylton”]Question for S users…

Sony has S260 refurbs for $999, which is appealing to me, need a second notebook…I want a TX, but probably will wait for a few real-world reviews before I buy one…

Anyway…the question…the S260 is XP Home, I need Pro…has anyone done a successful clean XP Pro install on any S model and gotten it working and super stable ? ? ?

Reason I ask…I’m a long-time VAIO owner and I’ve had mixed results w/ clean installs on Sony machines…my old N505VE worked w/o a hitch on XP Pro, probably b/c of the age and older hardware already being part of the base OS drivers/etc…but on my newer R505GCP, I never did get a clean install of XP Pro to work completely stable, even though it came w/ XP Pro, after installing all of Sony’s drivers, I’d occasionally get it crapping out (BSOD)...which has never happened w/ the Sony installed XP Pro OS and recovered system (from recovery CDs).

Anyway, anybody care to comment before I make a decision ?

Thanks,
chris

Chris,

The fresh install on a S is a piece of cake compared to the TR/T, especially the T350 with the WWAN. It took me two days to come up with something really stable. On a S you have to follow the order sony recommends, when installing the drivers, upgrade with all the service packs and patches and install the newest chipset, video, wireless drivers from intel.com.

Gilbert,

Thanks a TON for the advice…this seems to be a pretty good deal…I’d like to have more video memory, but about the most graphic intensive thing I may do w/ this notebook is watch a DVD every now and then…this will probably just serve as my development notebook…I’ll probably stick a 5400rpm drive in it and up to 1gb of RAM…

For $999, it’s hard to pass up.

Chris

[quote author=“hylton”]Gilbert,

Thanks a TON for the advice…this seems to be a pretty good deal…I’d like to have more video memory, but about the most graphic intensive thing I may do w/ this notebook is watch a DVD every now and then…this will probably just serve as my development notebook…I’ll probably stick a 5400rpm drive in it and up to 1gb of RAM…

For $999, it’s hard to pass up.

Chris

Chris,

I don’t want to disappoint you, but the S3xx series were around $1700 last year with $1200 worth of rebates. Most of the posters on anandtech got all four rebates and ended up with a laptop for $500 + tax on $1700.

I recommend that you go with the 7200RPM drive. We’ve replaced all our S’es with 7200RPM and there is a huge difference. Whenever you chose to upgrade to a 7200RPM drive, make sure you get the 24/7 version, since it lasts longer and runs at 38C.

yea, that would have been nice…a S3XX for $500…anybody want to sell theirs for $600…hehehe…

yea, i have also considered 7200rpm, i haven’t really looked at heat/battery/noise consumption w/ a 7200rpm, if it isn’t significant, I’ll check on that as well…but the 5400rpm I added to my R505 is pretty peppy and will serve my purpose…the Seagate Momentus 5400rpm drives are pretty affordable and they have a longer (5 yr) warranty than most that I’ve found…but I think they have a 7200rpm now as well, so I’ll have to check that out…

Also…crap…SonyStyle pops up ‘out of stock’ when I try and add this to my cart…so they either don’t have it working yet, or they sold out already today…either way, can’t buy one for $999 right now either…

Chris

I think you can get 360 off eBay for a decent price. The 24/7 7200RPM has 5 years warranty and drains 10% more battery since it is on all the time, but believe me, it is faster than the regular model and its been working on my work computer for the last 339 days nonstop

how’s the noise on your 7200rpm…that’s the one thing that annoys me about my travelstar 5400rpm drive…it’s fairly noisy compared to the Seagate and Samsung equivalents…and the palm-rest gets kinda warm, I expect the Seagate and Samsung run a bit cooler…but that’s just a guess…

yea, i usually try to avoid ebay, having a sony warranty (US) is a must-have…there is a 360P for sale here, which I’m also considering, but still going back-n-forth on the overall purchase…

chris