Best Laptops for Pro Tools LE

[terryd]

My Dell 9200 just came in and I'm Jonesing to go set it up tonight with my new 002rack.
It looks to be a similar machine that you have: pentium m755 2.0ghz and it sounds like you were "good to go"... "out of the box". THAT makes me feel good!

Is/was there anything special that you needed to do other than what's in the PT manual?

Answer soon... I'm crazed with anticipation

thanks
t

[q0rban]

hi guys
i'm expecting my laptop to come in this week and will be doing a 1st install of my new 002rack and was wondering what the "davec test" is and is it something that needs to get done prior to install?

thanks
allen... you're great!
t

The davec test is basically just a benchmark test to see how well your system performs with protools... It isn't anything you need to do before.. and I'd be really impressed if you did the test before you installed protools! ...look at the DUC FAQ for tips on what you need to do to get ready to record...

[guitardom]

hey good luck, it comes with service pack 2, so i just unstalled mcaffee right away because of the way the firewall is tied in with sp2, and put my own program in for that. adjusted the display settings for scrn svr and such, and a handful of other settings i am just used to running through and doing on computers. i got a great count right away. i still havent had time to really dig in. right now i am out of town in l.a. so i gotta use it for the internet to so probably wait till i get home. any questions on optimizing it let me know. not sure how much ram you got, but this 1.5 gig is great, loads ffaasstt. but good luck

[Billy R]

This setup looks good to me. There just isn't alot of research out there in regards to these laptops and PTLE.
Allen

Hi Allen,

Thanks for this post... I'm going to give this a shot... worst case I'll have to sell the MBox (most places that sell the Mbox have said that once you open the software you can't return it)...

Will try and wing it I guess and post my results here.

Thanks again,
Billy

[terryd]

hey guitardom
i just went thru the config steps listed at: www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php and hopefully this will be a good start. there was 1 step however that i wasn't sure of... #10 - do not map thru soundcard(i'm not sure what kind of soundcard i have - i'm new at this and nothing is actually labeled "soundcard" - i skipped it.

is this a problem?
is there anything else that you think i need to do?

thanks so much... all you guys(?) are great!!!!!

[guitardom]

congrats on the new computer. that list seemed pretty complete. make sure you take care of your firewall and antivirus stuff. #10 that you asked about should not affect you any. also in your run menu type diskperf -n this logs unnecessary data. also type runmsconfig go to the startup tab. i shut off almost everything that was not necessary to the computer. you can look at what folders there in lots of times to get an idea of what it is. if it is just a program of sort, quicktime, cd burning software, antivirus, media players, disable them all. if your not to sure leave it but this can make a huge difference in performance. good luck and hope to here about your performance soon. i am very impressed with this laptop...

[phervort]

hey guitardom
i just went thru the config steps listed at: www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php and hopefully this will be a good start. there was 1 step however that i wasn't sure of... #10 - do not map thru soundcard(i'm not sure what kind of soundcard i have - i'm new at this and nothing is actually labeled "soundcard" - i skipped it.

is this a problem?
is there anything else that you think i need to do?

thanks so much... all you guys(?) are great!!!!!

hey thanks for the link...always good to know some extra tweaks... basically, that one you were confused about is asking you to disable the other audio drivers to prevent conflicts. just make sure you disable it for optimum performance..

[Allen Hallada]

Way to progress here guys. Anyone got some Davec results yet on the Dell 9200? Also how about some results and updates on the new Gateway AMD 64 3400+ laptops?

Keep them coming guys.

Allen

[phervort]

Allen,

whatzup...The gateway 7422gx got a davec of 32-18 with the stock 4200 rpm drive on AC and 32-17 on batteries @ 1hr life for stock battery. Not a bad deal for only 1300$!! I wonder what that guy that got the hp 3700+ got with his if he even did it and it worked. I did a lot of tweaks and got this to go even on batteries (cpu does not throttle when I set some settings). After a lot of research it looks like I am on my way of bringing a huge studio anywhere I go.. Good fun.

On a side note, I was looking at the Disk usage and saw how it doesn't even get over 25% when doing this... Is the hard drive that essential to performance or is it mainly cpu? I don't think a 7200rpm will do anything more on the davec.

also, what is this dverb test?

Drew

[Allen Hallada]

Allen,

whatzup...The gateway 7422gx got a davec of 32-18 with the stock 4200 rpm drive on AC and 32-17 on batteries @ 1hr life for stock battery. Not a bad deal for only 1300$!! I wonder what that guy that got the hp 3700+ got with his if he even did it and it worked. I did a lot of tweaks and got this to go even on batteries (cpu does not throttle when I set some settings). After a lot of research it looks like I am on my way of bringing a huge studio anywhere I go.. Good fun.

On a side note, I was looking at the Disk usage and saw how it doesn't even get over 25% when doing this... Is the hard drive that essential to performance or is it mainly cpu? I don't think a 7200rpm will do anything more on the davec.

also, what is this dverb test?

Drew

Drew,
That just kicks butt. Way to go. I don't think you are going to get any more out of that with a different drive setup. Others have tried external firewire drives and results haven't changed much in the past, but you never know.
DVerb test is just a test where you load up as many DVERBs as you can and try to record for 1 min. You put 5 DVerbs on each channel instead of the Davec listed plugins.
Allen