12 Sep
2009
12 Sep
'09
7:38 p.m.
Ray Rashif wrote:
7200RPM is absolutely necessary to be rid of that
bottleneck, first and
foremost. A 5400RPM imposes a practical limit to the minimum size of the
buffer, and from experience this can be as big as 256 (meaning anything
lower you get xruns regardless of how good your audio interface is).
Interesting, will have to try that on the synthesizer laptop. It's got a
5400RPM drive ...
WD has a 320GB 7200 mobile disk going for around 100
bucks.
Just make sure it has the right interface for your old laptop!
Secondly, the CPU. This is important because the lower
the latency, the
harder the CPU works. As such, if the headroom is not big enough, you
find that even a little bit more CPU usage deals a heavy blow. I'd
recommend at least a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo, which is pretty standard these days.
Overheating is an inherent hardware problem that comes with age. I bet
your battery capacity has decreased as well. And a 7200RPM disk will
output more heat, so get a flatbed cooler if the laptop's underside
design isn't good enough to compensate.
Might also find it worthwhile to open the laptop up and see about
cleaning anything that might be obstructing airflow. Just in case stuff
has built up over the years.
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community