Laptop + FW Expresscard + FW audio interface?

[jcschild]

at present.
since there is no TI firewire (Native) and very few laptops with firewire anyway and of those who do have it most of those dont work either
you have to use a TI Express card.

and adding a TI firewire works about 3% of the time.

the 2 clevo work flawlessly that way. other clevo do not!

Scott

[drjohnny79]

jcschild: Forgive me for being a bit slow here. What are you saying about the 2 clevos I mentioned? What works flawlessly with them?

/Johnny

[Cap'n Spanky]

The other thing is that there's an option that I haven't heard too much about, which I'm about to start doing a lot of research into right away: cardbus interfaces such as the RME Multiface with the cardbus connector. It's way better in terms of latency and throughput than firewire or USB2. Is it also a workaround for all this other raging BS? I hope to find out soon.

Cardbus seems good, Echo has some nice ones if you only need stereo in and out, otherwise you need to go for the RME ones as you said and they're pretty expensive. Don't know if there are any stability issues, would love to know and also if there is data on how the performances compare with USB2.

I'm very curious about the cardbus option. Especially if it can get latency similar to a PCI card in a desktop. Does anyone have any experience with these?

I thought the design of the EMU 1616M cardbus (I think that's the model) was very intriguing. The cardbus had a headphone jack built-in so you could leave the breakout box at home if you didn't need all the ins and outs right then. This would work out great for on the go mixing or editing. Anyway, I think EMU quit making the cardbus option. I have no idea why.

Trying to do a laptop DAW seems very frustrating to me. Makes me wonder if a mini computer might be a possible portable option.

[jcschild]

jcschild: Forgive me for being a bit slow here. What are you saying about the 2 clevos I mentioned? What works flawlessly with them?

/Johnny

you have to use a Express card with TI firewire rather than onboard firewire

[jcschild]

The other thing is that there's an option that I haven't heard too much about, which I'm about to start doing a lot of research into right away: cardbus interfaces such as the RME Multiface with the cardbus connector. It's way better in terms of latency and throughput than firewire or USB2. Is it also a workaround for all this other raging BS? I hope to find out soon.

Cardbus seems good, Echo has some nice ones if you only need stereo in and out, otherwise you need to go for the RME ones as you said and they're pretty expensive. Don't know if there are any stability issues, would love to know and also if there is data on how the performances compare with USB2.

I'm very curious about the cardbus option. Especially if it can get latency similar to a PCI card in a desktop. Does anyone have any experience with these?

I thought the design of the EMU 1616M cardbus (I think that's the model) was very intriguing. The cardbus had a headphone jack built-in so you could leave the breakout box at home if you didn't need all the ins and outs right then. This would work out great for on the go mixing or editing. Anyway, I think EMU quit making the cardbus option. I have no idea why.

Trying to do a laptop DAW seems very frustrating to me. Makes me wonder if a mini computer might be a possible portable option.

cardbus is dead its now Express slot.
same basic idea but different.
PCI= Carbus
PCIe= Express card

Scott
ADK

[Lunatique]

I recently bought a TC Electronic Konnekt Live firewire interface, and I was prepared to be flooded with a bunch of problems (it was gamble on my part, because I wanted the hardware badly and the onboard DSP FX). I was delighted when it worked with the Belkin firewire card (TI Chipset) I got for an old HP Pavilion ze5700 laptop.

From what I understand, if your laptop comes with a firewire chipset and it is one that is incompatible with your interface, even if you add a firewire card it wouldn't help because the chipset in your laptop is still the incompatible one--the firewire card does not override that.

But if your laptop has no firewire whatsoever, then you can just get a TI chipset firewire card (provided your laptop actually has a slot for a card), and you should be fine.

[kazakore]

- Clevo D901C (aka. Sager NP9262) .... 17" with single/dual 9800M GTS/GT/GTX or Quadro 2700M/3700M, uses desktop quad-core CPUs, three internal HDDs, and the best notebook cooling design to date.

That's the laptop I bought recently. (Last one available from Kobalt after it was phased out.) It has just been discontinued as it has been replaced by the i7 based D90xF, which doesn't use TI. Scott (who has been much help in many subjects like this one) has tested it with an TI firewire ExpressCard and got it working well (after disabling how much I don't know though.)

Lunatique: I don't believe that is correct. The reason you still have problems with using a TI expresscard adapter is as the chipset is used for more than just firewire. If you have a lowly chipset running the expresscard slot you are still going to experience problems. There is no definite solution but to test or trust somebody else who says they have done so.

[Yoyek]

It has just been discontinued as it has been replaced by the i7 based D90xF, which doesn't use TI. Scott (who has been much help in many subjects like this one) has tested it with an TI firewire ExpressCard and got it working well (after disabling how much I don't know though.)

Do you mean D90xF has beed tested to work OK or was it D901C? (or both?)

I have a opportunity to buy used D901C, is there something I should know about before purchase? (I have RME fireface 800, and desperetly searching a laptop solution for it for about 2 months now).

Sorry for my ugly english :/

EDIT: my bad, this one is D91E not D901C - does enybody knows if this one will work with my Fireface 800. Thanks!

[bmot]

Chase,
2 things

here's the answers to your questions:

1) is the laptop you are talking about a Motevina? (1066 FSB processor)
if not talking about discontinued laptops is pointless.

* I have the predecessor to the Montevina, the Santa Rosa (T7700 2.66GHz, 800MHz FSB). Not sure if Santa Rosa is discontinued or not.

2) Express cards come in both 34 and 54.

* You're right. The thing I found confusing is that the Express Card 54 is the same size as the older PCMCIA card, but they're not the same thing.


3) you fix is the only fix at this point and as i have been saying wotks about 3% of the time. its not a "just do this and all is well"

* from what others have said it seems that because I had no FW port already the problem wasn't going to occur. But I didn't know that at the time so yes, I was lucky I suppose. All I knew was that the FW Express Card must have TI chipset.

if your system is a Montevina you got dang lucky.
* i wish! maybe next year...of course it'll be out of date again by then :lol:

of course my next question would be how low a buffer with a heavy project?

* currently I have it at 320, but it can go lower it's just that this works fine for me, doesn't crash or glitch. I have 6 in 2 out audio, frequently work with double figures number of channels.

Scott
ADK

I hope all that makes sense. Charles

[des]

Wish this thread had been going on before I bought my laptop... ah well.

I was looking for a laptop to use live for minimal audio processing of live audio input and also using Stylus RMX and a couple of soft synths. I looked at specs and decided to buy an MSI GT725-074US.

When I first got it and tried to install my sound card drivers (MOTU Traveler and M-Audio FW-1814) they wouldn't work at all - I even have a TI based ExpressCard firewire interface...didn't make a difference. I thought I had bought a paper-weight. This was using Vista 32, so I installed XP Pro - still no joy. I decided to try the on-board firewire, which I honestly figured would not work, but it did - at least with the FW-1814. Still kept getting glitches. I don't know what brand chipset it is...I'll have to look into it.

To shorten the story - I found an updated bios for the laptop and updated video drivers. After updating, both the MOTU and M-Audio units worked and I can now run my apps using the on-board firewire interface. The ExpressCard firewire card still will not work which leads me to believe that the card or the port may be bad. I have to test the card on another laptop.

So my advice would be that if you're having issues - check the bios version and video card bios/driver versions...it may not help, but it might.

[jcschild]

or in my case a bios/firmware changed hosed its use.

the 15" we were selling that worked with everything (TI express card) no onboard. no longer works for anything audio.

by the way your card is good the laptop just wont work with the express slot.

[des]

Really? Did you restore the previous bios/firmware? What about bios settings? That's a shame. I don't know if you mentioned it earlier but what make was the laptop?

Regarding the express card...I've entered into dialog with MSI about this. They said that certain cards are not compatible with the express card slot - they have to be 'certified' (I think I got the dance-around with that answer ). When I was looking at system resources I thought I saw that the slot was sharing one IRQ with 4 or 5 items including the video card - which is a dumb design.

I'm hoping that I can at least get the slot to at least work with a Sold state hard drive to put samples and my Stylus RMX files on. I'm concerned that it might not perform good enough. I still have the eSATA port which is working ok but I have to lug the drive around with me...would be nice not to have to use it all the time.

[bimbo]

Wish this thread had been going on before I bought my laptop... ah well.

I was looking for a laptop to use live for minimal audio processing of live audio input and also using Stylus RMX and a couple of soft synths. I looked at specs and decided to buy an MSI GT725-074US.

When I first got it and tried to install my sound card drivers (MOTU Traveler and M-Audio FW-1814) they wouldn't work at all - I even have a TI based ExpressCard firewire interface...didn't make a difference. I thought I had bought a paper-weight. This was using Vista 32, so I installed XP Pro - still no joy. I decided to try the on-board firewire, which I honestly figured would not work, but it did - at least with the FW-1814. Still kept getting glitches. I don't know what brand chipset it is...I'll have to look into it.

To shorten the story - I found an updated bios for the laptop and updated video drivers. After updating, both the MOTU and M-Audio units worked and I can now run my apps using the on-board firewire interface. The ExpressCard firewire card still will not work which leads me to believe that the card or the port may be bad. I have to test the card on another laptop.

So my advice would be that if you're having issues - check the bios version and video card bios/driver versions...it may not help, but it might.

Hello, I think that this is just like my situation. I bought an MSI GT627-216US - a nice laptop but when I try my Presonus Firestudio2626 there was a problem. So I look at Presonus's web for recommended Express Card and take ADS Pyro1394a. Unfortunately no smile on my face, just a rude awakening.

Presonus recommended me to uninstall and install all drivers. I try this time an time again with no success. Format my hard drive and start again. Pain, pain, pain.... I have try on Vista 32, XP32, XP64 OS.

I don't know what to do yet. Presonus still lose a sync and Universal Console is always stop responding.

May be it's time to update BIOS ?

[des]

Definately look into updating your bios. You can always back-date it if you want to. I still have not been able to get my ExpressCard slot to work - but I've basically given up on it till someone from MSI can confirm a couple of firewire cards that actually work in the machine. The one make I saw recommended by MSI was no longer available... I've also thought about trying to use the ExpressCard slot for a SS Hard drive - but not till I can confirm that they will work well enough in MSI's ExpressCard architecture....

I ended up not being able to use the MOTU Traveler interface because I would get a pop every 5 to 10 minutes or so. The M-Audio FW1814 has worked well though, so it is in my rack now.

[bimbo]

Hi, des!
I check the last BIOS update for my laptop. Is this have an attitude to my problem?

BIOS 1.0Z
1. Fix XP brightness issuse.
2. Fix XP system can't support PCI-E Lan Card hot plug.

Thanks...