• tomek
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Topic: FF400 --> looking for good windows laptop

Being that laptops with express card slots are getting rare these days,

I wanna snap up a powerful one, so I can get some good portable use

out of my FF400 for a few years to come.  smile


Please let me know if you have a quadcore laptop which works well with your FF400/800. 
(With 3rd party 1394 card or built in, don't care.) 

Just want to know laptop models which provide you a good experience.
(and 1394 card model if that's what you're using)

I have no problems doing 100 tweaks if that's what it took.


Looking at Lenovo W, X, or T series at the moment. 


Thanks in advance,
Tomek

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2015-08-04 06:29:46)

  • ramses
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Re: FF400 --> looking for good windows laptop

Lenovo has the advantage, that Win7 drivers are available and that you can get non-glare screens.
And they offer real docking stations.

The W541 looks good, you can get offers around €1700 (not cheap I know) with some reasonable fitting.

The T540P is also not to bad but the mouse pad is big and laggy and missing the usual 2-4 mouse buttons completely.
If you intend to work without mouse then better go for the W541 where they fixed it.

In terms of dpc latencies. I have a T540p and 50µs kernel latency is a very good value. Look for a model that has a real GPU built in like the P and W models. Using the Intel HD Graphics alone leads to audio drops when doing simply music playbac even if using ASIO driver (music bee). Audio starts to drop if you scroll webpages with graphic content up and down a little with mouse wheel. You can fix this issue by configuring the extra nvidia gpu to execute/render firefox. This saves you raising the ASIO buffer size from 48 to 256 (!). So do not rely on the Intel HD graphics alone.

The alternative would be to invest into an UC or UCX. If you have a computer with a good chipset then the USB driver is on par with firewire and it saves you the work to look for a good working firewire card. With express cards it might become even more difficult.

Regarding express cards ... look that you get a laptop where the express card has a tight seating. I remember a Dell Laptop, where the express slot was also for an even older standard and there the expresscard had no good seating and the card was too much towards the front, so you had the cable in an area where you would have liked to have free hand movement ... its really disturbing to have a thick and robust cable with a small bending radius near the hands. You can place the hand besides the laptop, you cant place a paper there .. nohting ! I didnt look in terms of Lenovo but I would eventually consider to upgrade the 400 ... ideally to UCX, then you have Fw and USB and the ability to choose what runs better on a particular computer, as all depends on chipset / BIOS / drivers.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • tomek
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Re: FF400 --> looking for good windows laptop

Thanks for the advice ramses.  Good info re separate GFX chip.
Glad to hear I was looking in the right direction with Lenovo.
Considering a used W520 at this point in time.
Love my FF400, been working solid since I bought it when it came out.
Would hate to have to sell it, and loose all that money.  Would be nice
if RME had a trade up option for dying tech!  wink  (hint hint, nugde, wink)
Laptop and new RME, is allot more to spend (which I'm trying to avoid)
than just getting a laptop.   

If anyone can suggest a good (TI or VIA) firewire card (6 pin) that would be great.


Much obliged,
Tomek

  • ramses
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Re: FF400 --> looking for good windows laptop

Avoid the TI 2200A Fw chip, look more for something like 2213B ... the other one is problematic.
If USB works I wouldnt look into Fw anymore.
On my machine with C612 Chipset the input/output latencies reported by Cubase 8 Pro are very low and nearly equal.
Firewire is for some machines no must anymore IMHO, depends on system (Design, BIOS, chipset).

I would invest into a desktop if possible, more performance. In terms of reliability: Xeon based, registered ECC RAM, etc
If mobility is a must, then Laptop.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13