Best Laptops for Pro Tools LE

[thopman]

Hilliard,

I myself just installed the Outpost 1 GB in my M6809 last weekend, and so far I think it is helping PTLE a great deal. I use a lot of virtual plug ins, such as BFD, Atmosphere, Trilogy, Amplitube, etc. and things were bogging down pretty bad. Now that the RAM is in, things are going very smoothly and I haven't been getting the "buffer error" messages (OK, once in a great while, but that's it).

It's too early to completely say it solves "everything" for me, but I will say that expanding RAM was a great investment, and the Outpost one in particular works just fine.

Installation was a breeze. I hadn't ever replaced RAM on a laptop before, but it literally took all of 60 seconds. Complete plug-and-play (I literally pulled out the old chip and plugged in the new one). When I booted up, the RAM was recognized, and I haven't had one problem since.

Go for it!

--Terry

[hilliard]

Sa-weet! Thanx for the quick feedback.

So maybe i'll give it a try, eh? I don't (yet) do much as far as huge plugin/virtual instrument stuff, yet, and like I said I haven't really had any issues with PTLE yet, either....but...

...I have been thinking about maybe trying the Arturia (sp?) Moog modular or the OsCar impOscar....maybe even the CS-80...dunno.

I imagine once I get deeper in to the whole PTLE thang, I will be going gonzo with plugins and vurtual synths...so maybe the RAM upgrade is a good idea. That seems like a pretty cheap deal anyway for the amount of memory.

Again, thanx for the feedback. I was hoping that someone had good results. I thought I read somewhere else that someone's machine started bogging down and locked up once in a while after they installed some more mem....maybe it wasn't the right type or something else....dunno.



On another tip (sorry, but I haven't even searched here yet on this one): what about additional (spare) internal hard drives for the emachines? I am thinking that it is a pretty big waste to only use this killer machine for PTLE. I DO NOT want to do anything else on THIS particular drive though, as I know how important it is to keep the PTLE drive clean and clear (and of course the obvious system tweaks that were required/suggested). So, I thought for a sec about getting another drive that I could swap whenever I wanted to do some gaming, etc. I have a few games that I just haven't been able to play on my other (old/slow/etc) laptops. On those, I do also swap internal drives when I need to do different apps (one for work, one for home, etc...as the work folks don't like to see internet stuff and games, etc on the work machine....that way I just swap drives and it doesn't affect their stuff/drive).

Where do I get another drive for my emachines m6810? I searched their website but couldn't find any there. Any ideas? Do I need their specific drive or is there a compatible/equivalent that would work for me?

[Allen Hallada]

Hi everyone!
Just wanted to ask if somebody knows is Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo A1630 compatible with 002r?
To me the specs of this machine looks fine otherwise, but it has AMD 64 pros with SIS(?) chipset.
here is the URL to the specs http://www.fujitsu-siemens.fi/kotipc...N141200017.pdf
Thanks.

Stay away from this one!

Allen

[Allen Hallada]

Thanks to everyone's input here on laptop recommendations. I got the M6811 (by default, it's the only one I could find left!). I'm noticing some issues that started either when I added the administrator password (in safe mode, not just an admin account) or when I installed Service Pack 2 and I'm wondering if anyone else has the same:

1) When logging into a LIMITED (not admin) account, I get an error from FlashIcon: "Can not find ini". Anyone else getting this? (By the way, FlashIcon seems to have something to do with the media card readers.)

2) In the Documents and Settings folders of EACH account (limited and admin), there's an identical file called "results.txt", which has the following:
log=AEGIS Protocol (network component): Uninstalled.
message=Driver Uninstall was successful
log=AEGIS Protocol (device driver): Stopped.
log=AEGIS Protocol (C:\WINDOWS\inf\mdc8021x.PNF): Deleted.
log=AEGIS Protocol (C:\WINDOWS\inf\mdc8021x.inf): Deleted.
log=AEGIS Protocol (C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\mdc8021x.sys): Deleted.
code=0

I'm concerned because AEGIS has something to do with wireless security. I haven't been able to find anything further on this, and the eMachines folks are being pretty useless. Now, I'm also noticing that these files all have modified dates of 6/31/04, which is BEFORE I had this PC. Also, the created dates are October 31st, which MAY have been the day I first activated the PC.

So, I'm thinking maybe this has nothing to do with SP2. Does anyone else have this file in the user folders under "Documents and Settings"? Any further information on this? Anyone else get that "can not find ini" error?

Thanks, I know this is not ProTools related, but I couldn't get info anywhere else and I know there's a lot of users here.

Do a fresh install of XP and don't install SP2. Protools is not compatible with it yet.

Allen

[Allen Hallada]

Sa-weet! Thanx for the quick feedback.

So maybe i'll give it a try, eh? I don't (yet) do much as far as huge plugin/virtual instrument stuff, yet, and like I said I haven't really had any issues with PTLE yet, either....but...

...I have been thinking about maybe trying the Arturia (sp?) Moog modular or the OsCar impOscar....maybe even the CS-80...dunno.

I imagine once I get deeper in to the whole PTLE thang, I will be going gonzo with plugins and vurtual synths...so maybe the RAM upgrade is a good idea. That seems like a pretty cheap deal anyway for the amount of memory.

Again, thanx for the feedback. I was hoping that someone had good results. I thought I read somewhere else that someone's machine started bogging down and locked up once in a while after they installed some more mem....maybe it wasn't the right type or something else....dunno.



On another tip (sorry, but I haven't even searched here yet on this one): what about additional (spare) internal hard drives for the emachines? I am thinking that it is a pretty big waste to only use this killer machine for PTLE. I DO NOT want to do anything else on THIS particular drive though, as I know how important it is to keep the PTLE drive clean and clear (and of course the obvious system tweaks that were required/suggested). So, I thought for a sec about getting another drive that I could swap whenever I wanted to do some gaming, etc. I have a few games that I just haven't been able to play on my other (old/slow/etc) laptops. On those, I do also swap internal drives when I need to do different apps (one for work, one for home, etc...as the work folks don't like to see internet stuff and games, etc on the work machine....that way I just swap drives and it doesn't affect their stuff/drive).

Where do I get another drive for my emachines m6810? I searched their website but couldn't find any there. Any ideas? Do I need their specific drive or is there a compatible/equivalent that would work for me?

You bring up a great point that I've never thought about before. Just swapping out the internal drives as needed. It would be great if these drives came with firewire connections to them so that you could just hook it up to the desktop for transfering files. Great idea though for using the laptop for gaming, internet etc.
You should be able to call Gateway and find your answer on the hard drive issue.

Allen

[wohl]

Hello all,

this is my first post on this board, but I think you guys can help me out. I am looking very seriously into buying an Mbox for recording with my laptop. My issue is: I want to know if it is going to be worth it, so here is my laptop configuration (it is a couple years old)

Toshiba Satellite 2400
512 Mb DDR ram
P4 1.6 ghz
30 gig 4200 rpm system hard drive
160 gig 7200 rpm USB 2.0 external hard drive (this is plugged into my PCMCIA card slot)

so is this going to do the job? (although I am not going to need more than 32 tracks honestly).

will the USB 2.0 connection suffice to use instead of the system 4200 drive?

are there any known issues with this set up? please let me know so I can make an informed decision.

[Allen Hallada]

Hello all,

this is my first post on this board, but I think you guys can help me out. I am looking very seriously into buying an Mbox for recording with my laptop. My issue is: I want to know if it is going to be worth it, so here is my laptop configuration (it is a couple years old)

Toshiba Satellite 2400
512 Mb DDR ram
P4 1.6 ghz
30 gig 4200 rpm system hard drive
160 gig 7200 rpm USB 2.0 external hard drive (this is plugged into my PCMCIA card slot)

so is this going to do the job? (although I am not going to need more than 32 tracks honestly).

will the USB 2.0 connection suffice to use instead of the system 4200 drive?

are there any known issues with this set up? please let me know so I can make an informed decision.

I highly recommend staying away from P4 processors for PTLE. Stick with AMD and Centrino processors for best performance. I'm not a big Toshiba fan after buying one this year. I'd go with the E-Machines laptops with the AMD 64 processors for first choice.

Allen

[wohl]

Thanks for the response, do you know if the mbox will function with my setup? or should I definatley wait and buy a whole new machine....Also do you know what the problem is with the P4 processors?

Thanks again.

[Allen Hallada]

Thanks for the response, do you know if the mbox will function with my setup? or should I definatley wait and buy a whole new machine....Also do you know what the problem is with the P4 processors?

Thanks again.

Not sure if it will work. Some people are using P4s and are happy with them. Others have major problems. No one knows what the issue is with the P4s. I suspect it is the motherboard chipsets and not the processors.

Allen

[Allen Hallada]

Just found a reputable online maker of the AMD 64 line of laptops that has the fastest notebook on the market now utilizing the newest AMD 64 3700+ processor. It's called the Mayhem G3. Check out www.abspc.com for more info under the gaming section. Could this be our next winner with PTLE? Comes with 7200 rpm hard drive option and new ATI Radeon 9700 video card. This thing looks good too. Someone buy one!

Enjoy,
Allen