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Warning!!! Stay away from Dell Core 2 Duo Laptops for Audio and Video

post #1 of 20
2/17/07 at 3:34am
Thread Starter 
I just spent 2 weeks trying to get my Dell latitude D820 to work properly with my presonus firewire interface.
No luck. And I knowmy way around PC's abit.
Further investigation showed that it is a known problem, and that Dell has no plans to do anything about it. Neither the internal firewire or the Siig 2-port firewire Expresscard (which uses the TI chipset) would work properly. Dell offers the Siig for sale on their website.
A USB VS Firewire test showed them underperforming using a HD, quite significantly too.

This simply shows me that it is badly implemented hardware via the BIOS.

I have read a ton of reports with people having the same issues form various other Dell laptop lines, and strongly suggest to stay away from them for any kind of Pro-Audio or multimedia type applicationswhere high firewire throughput is needed.

I really like the laptop, and the features it has. Especially the media bay option.
But I need this to work now. Not in a month or 2.

Maybe the mod can sticky this so no one else wastes their time like I did.
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post #2 of 20
2/17/07 at 6:36am
The only time that it's better to use FW is if you have to capture from a video camera. Other than that, USB is superior.
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post #3 of 20
2/17/07 at 3:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MSFT
The only time that it's better to use FW is if you have to capture from a video camera. Other than that, USB is superior.

No it's not.

All proffessonal Auido-Interfaces are firewire, becasue of the higher sustained throughput.
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post #4 of 20
2/17/07 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MSFT
The only time that it's better to use FW is if you have to capture from a video camera. Other than that, USB is superior.


UH do you have ANY clue what you are talking about?

USB requires using CPU cycles for one thing, which is bad enough when you might be doing any type of multimedia work. Firewire spec requires a controller built into it to handle much of the load offloaded onto the CPU for USB.

On top of that for anything stream related Firewire is a better choice.

And of course you have FW800, blows anything USB out of the water.

And you have the option to power off the firewire bus, very usseful especially with portable interfaces with Phantom Power.

And as mentioned, sustained throughput is typically better on Firewire.

Seablade
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post #5 of 20
2/17/07 at 4:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henchman
No it's not.

All proffessonal Auido-Interfaces are firewire, becasue of the higher sustained throughput.

For the record there are some prosumer interfaces that are USB. Digidesign/MAudio, Edirol, EMU, Tascam, all make interfaces off of usb.

But you are correct, most serious interfaces are firewire. Take a look at almost anything with a decent I/O count on it and you are typically firmly in the realm of FW. I know Edirol I believe has some 10x10 interfaces in USB, but the vast majority of USB interfaces are 2x2 or at most 4x4 usually.

Also you get decent PCMCIA interfaces as well. The RME HDSP series may be something you may want to take a look at if you are planning on staying with this laptop.

Seablade
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post #6 of 20
2/17/07 at 4:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by seablade
Also you get decent PCMCIA interfaces as well. The RME HDSP series may be something you may want to take a look at if you are planning on staying with this laptop.

Seablade

I'm not sticking with it. It's going back. I already picked up an HP NC8430. Worked great right out of the box with my Firebox, and 4 UAD-1 cards that are in a cutdown magma chassis. Which I connect via a PCMCIA cardbus adapter.
I've also undervolted it, so it runs cooler. 0.9625 volts at 2ghz. Neve gets hotter than 67c on a full 100% load, and the fans don't go above 35%.
Running fulltime, and not speedstepping, is must wih audio applicatiosn to prevent cpu spikes.
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post #7 of 20
3/23/07 at 4:03pm
dont understand exactly why that means to stay away from dell core2duo laptops??
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post #8 of 20
3/23/07 at 5:40pm
I'm not happy with Dell's Vista x64 driver support for the bluetooth 350 and the nvidia 7800 go hardware. Granted, I upgraded my 32 bit CPU to a 64 bit CPU, and installed Vista x64 from XP 32 bit. The Dell precision M90 seems to have a similar configuration to my computer now, but the drivers posted by Dell for the E1705/I9400 do not support Vista x64.
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post #9 of 20
3/23/07 at 6:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by GB Packers Fan
dont understand exactly why that means to stay away from dell core2duo laptops??
Reading is hard, isn't it.
I said stay away from them for auido and video becaseu of their crappy firewire implementation.
Most pro Audio and Video folks use firewire.
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post #10 of 20
3/23/07 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henchman
Reading is hard, isn't it. I said stay away from them for auido and video becaseu of their crappy firewire implementation. Most pro Audio and Video folks use firewire.
Occasionally.
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post #11 of 20
3/23/07 at 9:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmwrob
Occasionally.

Yeah. My typing sucks.
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post #12 of 20
3/24/07 at 7:28am
I use my M90 with a Focusrite setup that is firewire no probs. I have read other places there are problems however. Perhaps I just got lucky...
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post #13 of 20
3/25/07 at 9:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henchman
Reading is hard, isn't it. I said stay away from them for auido and video becaseu of their crappy firewire implementation. Most pro Audio and Video folks use firewire.
i bet a lot of people dislike you
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post #14 of 20
3/26/07 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by operaman
I use my M90 with a Focusrite setup that is firewire no probs. I have read other places there are problems however. Perhaps I just got lucky...
Are you the only one who got "lucky" on these forums. Because if its just people with like XPS 1710's or M90's then there could be something different about those laptops against say like a E1505/9400/E1405. btw, nice avatar
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post #15 of 20
4/29/07 at 11:29am
Yeah, the M90 is designed for video editing and stuff, and it has Core 2 Duo, so this can't be right...
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post #16 of 20
10/15/07 at 7:42pm
My last laptop was a toshiba 2805 and I had trouble capturing video with the firewire port. Every other computer I did it on worked flawlessly. I would have Dell exchange it.
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post #17 of 20
11/5/07 at 9:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henchman View Post
I just spent 2 weeks trying to get my Dell latitude D820 to work properly with my presonus firewire interface. No luck. And I knowmy way around PC's abit. Further investigation showed that it is a known problem, and that Dell has no plans to do anything about it. Neither the internal firewire or the Siig 2-port firewire Expresscard (which uses the TI chipset) would work properly. Dell offers the Siig for sale on their website. A USB VS Firewire test showed them underperforming using a HD, quite significantly too. This simply shows me that it is badly implemented hardware via the BIOS. I have read a ton of reports with people having the same issues form various other Dell laptop lines, and strongly suggest to stay away from them for any kind of Pro-Audio or multimedia type applicationswhere high firewire throughput is needed. I really like the laptop, and the features it has. Especially the media bay option. But I need this to work now. Not in a month or 2. Maybe the mod can sticky this so no one else wastes their time like I did.
we had the same exact problem. i think dell should do something about this.
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post #18 of 20
11/10/07 at 11:44pm
Whoops! You got a dell! :P
After my insp 5150 and its many defects still in new laptops, no more dell for me (unless its free)
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post #19 of 20
11/26/07 at 5:51pm
Yeah this makes no sense at all...
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post #20 of 20
11/30/07 at 4:44pm
I only love Dell because of the "accidental" warranty :]
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