[linux-audio-user] More Mandrake 9.2 fine tuning...Dell latitude live fx box

[Chris Pickett]

>  I am still unable to run Jack at anything less than 1024 without having
> Xrun hell. I set the HD to DMA "on" I had apm as opposed to acpi
> running...turned it off and found no difference.

Check that your CPU speed is not getting screwed up by the power 
management (i.e. you have the full 650 MHz).  I don't know if it's even 
a problem for Dell laptops, but it was/is for certain Thinkpads.

> I notice that running Ardour (Beta .9beta 9 RPM from Thacs RPMs), after
> I have fired up Jackstart or Jackd-realtime from Qjackctl with -d alsa
> hw:0 1024 2 as root and then fire up  Ardour and add a track, the pcm
> chain is connected (also visible in Qjackctl "Connect")and I have sound
> but the pc starts running slow and the Hard drive light is constantly
> on. I'm not recording anything...is this Jack writing to disc? I only
> have 128 megs in this machine...

It's worth maxing out the RAM in your laptop.  I have a Thinkpad with 
similar specs, and I found upgrading from 128 to 384 Mb RAM made a huge 
difference in performance.  Make sure you get the right kind, or at 
least a compatible kind.  It seems likely that this is the problem; even 
if it isn't, it's still a very worthwhile (and cheap) upgrade.

Cheers,
Chris