Ultra-Portable Notebooks will not Work with Audio Interfaces

[dn83]

And thanks...if nothing else, this has definitely been a learning experience.

[kingfong]

Hi Folks,

I have a dell m1210 that I use for music as well. The only time I experience audio drop-outs are when WiFi is enabled and searching for a connection. When WiFi is connected to a network, no issues are encountered. Try shutting down WiFi (the little slider on the left hand side) and try again. I also use ASIO4ALL.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
KF

[apalomba]

Most likely it has something to do with the motherboard and the traffic that is going across the PCI bus. When you shrink things down in silicon, you have
to consolidate things which leads to less performance. Most likely redrawing
the screen floods the bus with data causing the processor to not be as responsive in task switching to your audio driver. These small laptops are
note really made for high performance audio apps.

[aristoner]

I had an intermittent pop with my eeepc and an audio kontrol interface. I moved it to a usb port on the right side instead of the left and the problem disappeared. weird huh

[dysanfel]

After switching to a MacBook for a while, I decided to go back to PC. I went with a refurbished DELL xps m1210

Why?

[dn83]

a few reasons, some: there are more free plugins/programs available for PC than mac...also, on a mac, why can't you get stats on a folder, including its subfolders on how many total files, folders and the data size exists in that folder? little stuff like that...plus just having to re-learn commands and re-purchase software in mac format.....I know, I know, you can put windows on a mac now, but no thanks.....don't get me wrong...macs are sexy and all..the design is brilliant...but PCs are more...malleable.

[diverdee]

Could it have been a PCI latency issue?
I ask as you mention you noticed the problem when there were graphic redraws etc. - could be that the Graphics card is hogging the PCI bus (but then I thought that mainly caused stuttering & glitching).
Just a thought.

[jonny72]

a few reasons, some: there are more free plugins/programs available for PC than mac...also, on a mac, why can't you get stats on a folder, including its subfolders on how many total files, folders and the data size exists in that folder?

You can get that file / folder info on a Mac, right click the folder and select "get info". Which is pretty much exactly the same way you get that info in Windows, except the option is "properties".

Sure there is more free stuff for Windows, but a big part of the problem is that its harder to find free stuff for the Mac. When you do start finding it I'd say its generally of far higher quality and there is lots of excellent Mac software for very low prices. All in all I much prefer the Mac for free / cheap software over Windows.

[dn83]

that's the problem...the "get info" function doesn't read into subfolders...it only reads one level in. in other words, you're only getting properties for THAT folder, not including all it's subfolders...anyway...

[Harmonic Canon]

As mentioned somewhere earlier I also have a low level ground noise on my sony vaio NR11Z/S laptop which clears when i unplug the mains and run on the battery. Even though i have optimum performance setting this still significantly reduces the processing power and makes the laptop unsuitable for serious work (although the noise does not transfer onto recorded audio but just sounds through the speakers).

I've looked into suggestion about using a DI box but these are more geared towards individual hardware within a set up and not for laptop power supplies. Also i do not wish to fork out for something that does not work.

One suggestion received was to convert to a two pin power supply but knocking out the earth doesn't seem like a safe thing to do.

Clean mains unit used and tried the audio kontrol 1 on differing usb ports but no improvement

[dn83]

yeah..I just ended up going with an Asus brand ultra portable notebook...works fine. I guess it's just some component that many manufacturers use unfortunately...

[aMUSEd]

I'm running a XPS 1210 with NI Kore and a Virus Ti as my interfaces and it runs perfectly fine for me - dualboots into a general use version of XP Pro for work and a really stripped down NLited version of XP pro and BBLean as a shell exclusively for audio work which runs like the clappers.

[globalgoon]

asio4all doesn't work with my asus eee, so i have to lug around a seperate sound box