Best Laptops for Pro Tools LE

[pickerdd]

Hello, I'm new here and new to ProTools. I just bought a Digi 003 Rack+ and I'd like to use it with my Dell M4400 Workstation (laptop). Has anyone used this combination of laptop and Digi interface successfully?

Thanks,
David

[pickerdd]

Just in case anyone out there wants to use a Dell M4400 workstation with the Digi 003 Rack+ and ProTools LE 7.4...

As a followup to my original post I was able to get ProTools LE 7.4 to work correctly with my Dell M4400 laptop using the internal Firewire 4-pin connector. The operating system is Windows XP Pro with service pack 3. PT LE is installed on an internal Seagate 250GB 7400 rpm SATA drive using an external Glyph 500 GB drive (using the eSATA connection) for audio files.

I haven't tried Windows XP Pro with PT LE 8 yet, but I'll do that soon... maybe...

However, I was not able to get PT LE 7.4 or PT LE 8 to communicate with the Digi 003 Rack+ using the internal Firewire 4-pin connector when using Vista with service pack 1. I tried several Firewire 400 cards using the laptop's internal cardbus and express card slots and it did not work.

David

[gracejames]

thanks for sharing that David.
I would like to hear how your Dell will work with PT8 when you have it
all running. I am looking at laptops. It would be nice for it to work with PT. I am not completely relying on this as my main machine but it would be very nice if it did. Most of the newer Dells don't have XP as a custom option. I'm also looking at Toshibas which are also nice and have more available to customize for XP. I imagine most of the issues are from the OS itself.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Draulym

Does anyone from Digidesign know when the compatible laptop list will be updated in the Digidesign support pages?? (for windows)

I posted this question to the digidesign technical support and got this answer:

"I'm afraid, that I can not give you any other list, than the one we provide on our website. As thee are constantly new computers (especially PC's) on the market, it takes a times to test these.
If you need to have more information about what to buy, you can contact our presales department in Germany or one of our dealers."

So I contacted the german presales department and asked the same question. That was two weeks ago... and no answer until this day.

What the hell are they doing at digidesign??? It is hard to believe that they do not test the new software on some PC/laptop setups. They work with this software every day and do not know what systems they are running??? What are these guys there for??

I am so close to uninstall PTLE and change to CUBASE or any other recording tool. Of course, they may have the same difficulties. But may they have a real support. Not only a department for getting rid of all this plebs who use PTLE only at home and do not spend thousands of dollars for a PTHD unit.

I would not be so annoyed if this has been the only problem, in which the technical support denied to help. To analyse my ground-lift problem I should ask my local distributor. Thanks to the faboulus support of "Musikhaus Thoman" in Germany I know where the problem is.

So sorry for this eruption, but I am really fed up with PT and digidesign!!

[pickerdd]

okee dokee. I have an update on my travels with PT and my Dell M4400.

I built a clean partition on a new WD (not my favorite hard drives) 500 GB 5400 RPM SATA drive and installed Win XP Pro with Service Pack 3 and the latest XP updates including the .net framework, etc... After all the OS updates were installed I installed ProTools LE 8 and the update from the Digi site. I ignored the update for the firmware and I was able to record for an hour or so with no issues using one mic with phantom power. I rebooted then ran PT and updated my 003 Rack+ and the update completed successfully and was once again work in PT 8 with no issues for a couple of hours. I'm using the built in firewire connector and chip set (probably RICOH, but definitely not TI). Pretty darn cool.

My needs are pretty simple IMO. I'm not looking for a zillion tracks with lots of plug-ins and effects. I'm looking for the best clarity and presence I can find from my setup. I plan on recording mostly my acoustic string band (guitar, bass, banjo, fiddle and mandolin) as well as a solo album of my own work with two or three tracks of guitar and maybe two or three tracks of vocals. It seems that would be relatively simple, right?

At this point I'd say that PT 7.4 and PT 8 like my M4400 when it's using Windows XP Pro, but not Vista.

My opinion is that even though the Firewire hardware chip set is the same, the drivers are different for Vista and XP Pro and this is the issue. I could be wrong, but that's what my testing has determined so far.

Any thoughts?

David
Atlanta, GA

[beats1]

no dell. what about 2.10GHz , and 4.00GB its a xps 1330 second to best

[Shan]

Someone get this Q6600 Quadzilla laptop and report back.

• 17” Widescreen Display
• Intel Core2Quad Q6600 (quad core)
• 4 GB DDR2
• nNidia 9800GT (512MB)
• 200 GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
• 8x DVD/RW
• Texas Instruments Firewire

Since they mention PT on their website, it should work.

Shane

[axisbold]

Hi. I am considering buying a new laptop (I would prefer PC over Mac), and after 2 frustrating years of the dreaded "interrupts held off too long" error with my Dell, I'm looking to make sure my system will be compatible after shelling out $$.

I am considering the HP 8510w Mobile workstation. According to digi, only the (discontinued) nw9440 and nw8440 models are qualified. The 8510w is very close in specs, but with pro tools you never know. I am concerned with the chipset, which is PM965 Express, versus PM945 on the older models.

Full specs:
HP 8510w Mobile Workstation
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300
Intel Mobile PM965 Express Chipset
2.4 GHz
800 MHz bus speed
3 MB L2 Cache
2 GB installed RAM
Windows Vista (downgradable to XP)
Firewire IEEE 1394a 4-pin

I would be using this with MBox 2 and would presumably upgrade to pro tools 7.4.

Does anybody have direct experience using pro tools with these newer HPs? Any known bugs or problems? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[Draulym]

It's Alive!!! Went out on a limb (thanks to their return policy) & get myself a Dell M2400 - 4G RAM 320G 7200rpm harddrive, Win XP.... using the onboard 4-pin firewire, PT8 & the 003 Factory I was able to track 8 tracks simultaneously while playing back 10!! (was past midnight by the time I got to this stage so I didn't get to max it out).... so far the Dell M2400 is suweeett!!!

[soundtech]

Hi everyone
Thanks for making the DUC a leading Pro Tools community on the internet. I've really learnt a lot from the various threads over the years, haven't been actively participating, but I would like to share my recent experience with the HP 8510w laptop.

I recently started recording live 16 channel Christian worship services with the HP 8510w, OWC 160gb external hard drive, digi 002r, & behringer ADA8000 with PTLE 7.4cs8 on WinXP SP3.
This setup has been rock solid since December 2008, no crashes.
I use the channel inserts on a Mackie 32 channel 8 bus mixer to feed the 002r connected via ADAT to the ADA8000.
I don't record with any plugins and use the onboard 4-pin firewire connector.
I'm yet to do the famed D-Verb test but would try it sometime soon.

The specs on the laptop are:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300
6mb L2 Cache / 2.50GHz / 800MHz FSB
4gb RAM installed
160gb (7200 rpm) HDD
Windows XP Professional with SP3 (downgraded from Vista)

I was initially running PTLE 8.0cs2 with no glitches during live recording, but went to 7.4 because when I stopped the recording after the first service, the system went into "Calculating overviews" for too long a time before I could save the session.
With 7.4 there's a very short delay, after which I save the session, exit and open my recording template again to start recording the second service.
Not sure why this happens in 8.0, but 7.4 has really been solid for the live recordings.

I open the saved sessions on an HP nw9440 laptop at home with the mbox2 micro & various plugins, running with 7.4 on WinXP SP3.
I use this setup for mixing with not much plugins, 24 tracks on average, all buses used, CPU meter less than half.

The one thing that's really annoying is the "static, hum like noise" I get from the stage monitors. I saw someone in another thread was mentioning a related if not same issue with the laptop power supply. If anyone has a possible solution please let me know how it can be corrected.

Also, please let me know if there's a workaround the "calculating overviews" message when recording live with 8.0

Thanks again to the DUC for helping to make Pro Tools a joy to use.