Post your computer specs

AdamWathan

AdamWathan

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Apr 12, 2002
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Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
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Just curious what everyone here is using for their audio machines... Particularly interested in anyone using laptops for general purpose + recording and how their machines handle even medium sized projects...

Right now I'm using a laptop for general purpose + audio but it has begun to crap out lately and I'm not sure if it's a matter of the quality of the computer or some dumb setup flaw :guh:

HP Pavillion Laptop
2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
4gb ram
320gb HD
Vista 64 Home Premium

Craps out with less than 30 tracks and no CPU intensive plugins :erk:

My desktop that I just ordered is as follows...
Intel Q6700 Core 2 Quad 2.66ghz CPU
4gb OCZ Platinum 1033hmz RAM
2 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm HDs
XP Pro 32 bit (yeah I know I can't use all my ram but what the hell)

I'm worried based on the problems I ran into last night that this new machine is going to give me the same grief, I can't figure out how my laptop could possibly be underpowered for handling like 24 tracks of audio. The CPU was hovering around 90% the whole time and crackling/slowing down/stopping constantly :erk:

My new PC should have no trouble running pretty intense projects right? Everything I've read leads me to believe a Q6600 with 2gb of ram on XP is more than powerful enough for almost any non-completely ridiculous project...
 
My desktop:
Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz ( OC'ed to 2.6Ghz )
4GB RAM
2 x 320GB HDD 7200 rpm
XP Pro 32 bit, optimized for audio

It runs everything great. Never had a hiccup, even with a ton of processing going on. I have issues with PLAY, but that's the only thing really.

My laptop looks like this:
AMD Turion 1.8GHz dual core
2GB RAM
160GB HDD

And it ran fine with the Firepod, as long as I didn't have any amp sims going. Couldn't handle more than one or two of those before it'd start stuttering horribly.
 
Intel Core i7 920
6gb G.skill-nq 1333mhz
Asus P6T
Inno3d GTX275
3 x Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB
Windows 7 RC1 64-bit & 32-bit (dual-boot, with RAID0 audio partition).
 
TheDriller, what rel. version of hackintosh OS X ?


here is mine:
Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows 7 RC1 dual-boot
Processor Name: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6750
Motherboard Model: Giga-Byte GA-EP35-DS3R
RAM Module Size: 4096 MBytes
Firewire Card: Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 1394A
4x Seagate 250 GB
 
NEC MultiSync 2470WNX (24" with S-PVA panel, 1920x1200 native, shoulder-firing, fucking expensive)
Intel Core i7 920
Asus P6T Deluxe
RME Fireface 400
Behringer Truth B2030A
3 x 1 GB Corsair DDR3-10666
Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512 MB
1 TB Western Digital RE3 SATA-II + 500 GB Western Digital Caviar SE SATA-II + 320 GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 SATA-II
Antec P150 + Corsair HX620 620W + Zalman Fan Controller + 1 x Nexus Silent 120mm + 2 x Nexus Silent 92mm
Logitech G11 + Logitech G5
Belkin FW card (PCI express, Texas Instruments chip)
Samsung 18x DVD±RW/DL SATA
Windows XP Pro SP3
 
Amd phenom 9580 processor Quadcore 2.5 ghz
Motherboard : Asus M2N-VM HDMI
4 gigs of Ram
hd 500 gb
external hd 160 gb
graphic card : integrated in motherboard (i dont play games so...) Nvidia geforce 7050PV

Screen : Acer al1916w 19" widescreen
OS: windows xp pro sp3
 
Toshiba X205-9349
Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz w 4GB Ram
2x 120 GB HDD Serial ATA-150 5400
Texas Instruments 1394 Firewire
LaCie Little Big Disk 1TB External 7200 Firewire Drive
Windows Vista Home Premium
Sonar 8PE

For what I do it suits me fine - nothing fancy. I've never had issues with the size of projects I've done, but then again it's only for personal use and none of my projects are what I would consider large.

Jind
 
AdamWathan said:
Right now I'm using a laptop for general purpose + audio but it has begun to crap out lately and I'm not sure if it's a matter of the quality of the computer or some dumb setup flaw :guh:

HP Pavillion Laptop
2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
4gb ram
320gb HD
Vista 64 Home Premium

Craps out with less than 30 tracks and no CPU intensive plugins :erk:
Click to expand...



a few things
it's Vista 64, the OS isn't great, uses a lot of resources unless you disable almost everything.
Manufacturers only half assed (if at all) support Vista 64. So unless you run Sonar 8 with Edirol hardware, there's no point in going with Vista 64. Stick with XP until Windows 7 has been proven to be better.

You don't mention an external firewire drive, it's essential for working off a laptop.

You usually need to tweak the BIOS settings a bit to get the best performance.
Disabling speedstepping and trying out different RAM timings can make a HUGE difference.

Good luck with your new PC. Should be a dream to use compared to what you're used to.

My specs
Windows XP Pro 32 bit (3GB switch enabled)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 cooled with Thermaltake Ultima
4GB OCZ 800MHz RAM (timing tweaked in BIOS)
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT
Siig 2port firewire (PCI-E TI chip)
Antec P182 case
Enermax Modu+82 PSU
 
AudioGeekZine said:
a few things
it's Vista 64, the OS isn't great, uses a lot of resources unless you disable almost everything.
Manufacturers only half assed (if at all) support Vista 64. So unless you run Sonar 8 with Edirol hardware, there's no point in going with Vista 64. Stick with XP until Windows 7 has been proven to be better.

You don't mention an external firewire drive, it's essential for working off a laptop.

You usually need to tweak the BIOS settings a bit to get the best performance.
Disabling speedstepping and trying out different RAM timings can make a HUGE difference.

Good luck with your new PC. Should be a dream to use compared to what you're used to.
Click to expand...

Cheers man, I will have to do some research on some of that stuff as it's a bit foreign to me!

Do you mean an external firewire HD or an external firewire card since the chipset in the laptop is most likely shit?

I'm guessing I should probably throw XP on the laptop then, I feel like it has the potential at least to be a somewhat reliable machine for mixing less intensive projects at least...
 
haha Adam-I'm using a HP Pavillion, too (got it pretty cheap because my girlfriend's mother works at HP)!
But I just installed Win7 on it, just need a new Firewire Expresscard-but that's no problem.

My former "workingstation" was a Fujitsu Siemens with 512Mb Ram, 1,6ghz, 20gb and that's it...
 
One of the slower ones here but oh well:

Core 2 Duo - 2.2ghz
2 gig Ram
500 gig hard drive
Radeon HD 2600 Pro
XP 32bit
 
Ha! I can beat you in slowness!! :)

Compaq Presario V2030
Pentium M 1.5Ghz
1GB RAM
WinXP
80GB drive

The biggest project I have running right now is around 30 tracks, each track running 1-2 plugs (usually stock Reaper comp & EQ). I can track drums with all 8 FP10 inputs going with no problem, and I'm tracking individual tracks (gtr, vox) at 6.5ms latency. That usually puts the CPU at around 65% usage.

Granted, I've got pretty much EVERYTHING disabled in XP - no sounds, no background, and I've tweaked things using TweakUI.

Thankfully, when it comes to final mixing, I can just slide everything over to my wife's Duo Core 2.66Ghz laptop with 4GB ram and Vista. That doesn't have a Firewire port, though, so I'm stuck tracking on the old laptop unless I wanted to trade the FP10 for a USB2.0 interface (which I don't want to do).
 
macbook pro, 2.16ghz, 2gb of ram

was hoping to get a mac pro this summer, but my lack of job says otherwise, i might still be able to build a new PC.. might go down the i920 route!
 
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83ghz,
4gb ram6 800mhz ddr2
500gb hdd
nvidia gt9500

running XP Pro 32bit SP3

tis a monster. got it super cheap last month on ebay - just 422 GBP. i'm NOWHERE near utilising its capabilities, and as my bandmate PC geek mate has told me i can overclock it massively with negligible risk if i ever do start to max it out.
 
AdamWathan said:
Cheers man, I will have to do some research on some of that stuff as it's a bit foreign to me!

Do you mean an external firewire HD or an external firewire card since the chipset in the laptop is most likely shit?

I'm guessing I should probably throw XP on the laptop then, I feel like it has the potential at least to be a somewhat reliable machine for mixing less intensive projects at least...
Click to expand...

Firewire HD.

Unless the laptop no longer boots, has a dead battery or has missing parts, keep using for a mobile rig.
 
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