KVR Audio

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 02, 2023 11:43 pm

The only time I've ever had cooling problems was in 2012, when I had an 11.9" Ultrabook that I had attached to an external monitor and, therefore, ran with the lid closed. Even then, it was only a problem on really hot summer's days, the rest of the time it ran perfectly reliably, as has every other laptop I have owned (and I have owned a lot of them).

These Zenbook Duos expose the guts when you open the lid - the new one even moreso than the older models because the lid isn't actually attached to the chassis - so the they don't heat up at all. I assume they still have fans to move the air around but I've never really checked. It isn't something I have ever thought about.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 09, 2023 12:07 am

The repair people are really dragging their feet. They told me 10 days ago, when I paid for the repair up front, that they would order the parts that day but the f**kers didn't do it for a f**king week! Once they have your money, they are clearly in no hurry to fulfill their end of the contract. c**ts!

lobsterdisk · Post by **lobsterdisk** » Thu Jul 13, 2023 12:27 pm

Good luck actually getting all the way to a happy ending on those repairs. Still probably faster than if the seller had replaced the device.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Jul 13, 2023 11:15 pm

I got notification that it is ready to pick up yesterday so I'll be heading off in an hour or so to get it. Very excited after all this time!!!!

Weasel-Boy · Post by **Weasel-Boy** » Thu Jul 20, 2023 5:14 pm

Gee…there I was waiting to see if the unit got repaired satisfactorily or not and he got himself suspended again.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sat Jul 22, 2023 3:33 am

Hardly. Everything is going swimmingly. The laptop is amazing - the OLED screen is utterly incredible. The way the colours pop against the deepness of the black is nothing short of stunning.

Installation of everything was the usual PITA, not helped by me decided to only install one version of every plugin - v2.x where possible and only VST3 where there was no other option. \it's led to a lot of songs not being able to find instruments and effects, which means when you replace them you lose all the settings. So tonight I'll go through and save out presets from my other machine and load them into the songs on the new machine as required. It's annoying but manageable so far. The biggest problem I've had is that Kontakt 7 Player won't download and where \I've had a couple of support people get back to me within minutes, NI will take days, if they get around to it at all. I think I'll probably end up installing Kontakt 6 and be done with it.

Anyway, here's a quick pic of everything in operation -

IMG_20230722_130107028_HDR.jpg

CrystalWizard · Post by **CrystalWizard** » Sat Jul 22, 2023 5:18 am

Good score! The only laptop i've had that has a heat problem is the Razer Blade gaming one i acquired three years ago. It's a pos.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 12:28 am

One thing worth mentioning is the viewing angle on the OLED screen - it's incredible. Even in the photo, the main screen is at a pretty steep angle but the image is still bright and clear.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 5:24 am

That's what OLED screens are good at. I have a 65" LG OLED TV just because of that...Good IPS LCDs have nice viewing angles, too, though,...
Anyway, I don't understand why you go through the trouble of getting a new machine every couple of months and installing everything from scratch every time. It took me weeks to get everything up and running as I got a new machine, imagining doing that every f* year would definitely be at least stressful, but it seems it is something you actually enjoy doing

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 7:33 am

For me it's a good opportunity to clean out the stuff I've stopped using. I'm pretty much done with this install and I reckon it probably only takes up half the drive-space compared to a couple of years ago. And, if I'm honest, I don't dislike doing it any more than 90% of the shit I do to get an album finished. It's like washing the car - I don't particularly like doing it but I do like having a clean car, so I make the effort.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 9:40 am

There was I time I did that, too. It was up until Windows 10. Don't know how it is with 11, because I only use it in a VM. The need to "format c:" every now & then just to get that "fresh new car" feeling. Have everything decluttered... I didn't have as many plugins as I do now, though....

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 10:34 am

That's the thing, three laptops ago I had about 350 plugins installed but right now I am at about 180. Interestingly, when we were using Orion, only five years or so ago, I only had about 20 plugins installed. It's a vastly different world now.

sQeetz · Post by **sQeetz** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 1:39 pm

It definatelly spares one from having to constantly reinstall Windows in order to have a functioning machine..

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:33 pm

Mate, it's not 2001, I gave that shit up 20 years ago when XP came out. Especially now with SSDs, which have a limit to the number of read/write actions they can perform before they die. It's something I cannot help but be conscious of.

Yort2000 · Post by **Yort2000** » Mon Aug 07, 2023 12:45 pm

EDIT: OOPS I posted this to wrong thread, but I'll leave it here as it still has some relevancy.

The main issue with current windows for audio is the excessive parking of cores. I recently bought a Dell laptop for audio use only and would get huge dropouts every 30 seconds or so. I did all of the power tweaks I could find online even registry entry hacks to turn off core parking. However, the dropouts kept happening. I checked the performance monitor and Windows was still parking the cores even though I did the registry hack. This led me to the great revelation.......

The difference between Power Modes and Power Plans that I believe began in Windows 10. My Dell laptop only had one power plan option - Balanced. So, I was tweaking settings for this Balanced plan. However, there is a hidden setting for power plans that describes them as Balanced, High Performance, etc. So, if your Power Plan (no matter what it is named) is set to Balanced, Windows 10/11 will use the Power Mode settings and not the Power Plan settings that you are able to adjust. After getting a Power Plan set up that was set as High Performance, it shut the Power Mode off. So, now if I go to Settings/System/Power & Battery under power mode it says that my power mode is turned off and not the "Optimize your device based on power use and performance" with the pull down options of recommended, better performance, or best performance that is there by default.

After getting the Power Mode shut off, my adjustments to shut off core parking (and other power settings) worked and my laptop purrs like a kitten now. Smooth audio with low latency.

New Laptop Saga (With a Happy Ending)