Suggestions for cheap laptop for touring backup machine

[Neutrality]

Hello Live gurus.

Need a backup machine for a touring live show.

Only needs to run Live 7
No third party software need be installed. (except MIDI Yoke driver and RME sound interface driver)

Must be a laptop, 15" or smaller is best.
Must have Firewire OR PCMCIA slot for firewire card.

Our set is about 500mb worth and uses only Ableton native plugins but has quite a lot of midi controller action.

I think any modern machine could handle it but that is a guess really.

PLEASE ANY SUGGESTIONS for a very cheap laptop that can be our fail safe machine.

Thank you!!

[McQ714]

seems like most consumer laptop makers have dropped firewire..
look into the sony vaio or hp business laptops unless you wanna go mac.

[nuxvomo]

I have an HP Compaq 6910p and it runs Ableton fine. I am running XP with 4 gigs of ram. I want to get an SSD soon as well. I've heard they really improve the battery live and can take the strain off the processor and RAM. It has 3 USB and 1 Firewire. I aslo have a dock for it that makes it nice for going back and forth from practice or shows with my band and home to work on my own. Hope this is helpfull.

[Neutrality]

Hey thanks guys.

You both recommend HP's which is reassuring because I was heavily leaning toward a reconditioned HP 6910p. They are really quite cheap now.

I think I am convinced.

Time to spend some cash.

Cheers!