So I got a laptop...

[DavidK]

now what?

Its old, obsolete and used, my parents gave it to me. Therefore there is no porn on it at the present time.

It has Windows 98, a USB port, a CD-rom ( no burner). I was thinking I could use this for very simple portable recording. It has 256mb RAM. I dont know the speed of the hard drive or the CPU, how do I find out???

Can I use this thing? I have an M-Audio firewire solo. I guess I will Google to see if it works on Windows 98. I have an old Copy of Cakewalk PA9 I could install. The Hard drive is 18gigs with 15 empty, this puter hasnt been used much.

How would I transfer audio from this computer to mine? Through the usb port???

 

[MCreel]

Generally you can right click on any component and choose "properties" to find out its specs. To do so for the CPU right click on the "my computer" icon and select properties. It should give you the chip type, speed, and RAM.

I'm not sure about finding the speed of the hard drive though.

My guess is that your programs will work with windows 98, they just won't be very strong. And if you're just recording one or two tracks (possibly as high as 5 maybe?) for a brief period of time (maybe no more than 5-10 minutes) then you should be fine. the best way to find out is to start with one and go up from there until you find out at what point you're really taxing your system.

A computer isn't like a lightbulb where if you give it too much it will explode. If you feed your computer too much it works just like your brain in physics class....it gives up and goes to sleep.

Push your limits and then make note of that a back off them a little.

 

[djhead]

It has Windows 98, a USB port, a CD-rom ( no burner). I was thinking I could use this for very simple portable recording. It has 256mb RAM. I dont know the speed of the hard drive or the CPU, how do I find out???

Two ways to check the hard drive speed. One is to crack the case open and look at the label on it, the other is to go to your BIOS during boot-up. This is usually done by holding F8 or F2 or somehting right after you start her up. Fiddle around in the menus until you find the hard drive specs. Another way is to go to Start--->Control Panel----->System---->Hardware---->Device Manager----->Disk Drives copy the model # down and look it up Also in the "system" menu, you should see your processor speed. ANOTHER way is to go to Start ---> Run ----> type in dxdiag ----> that will give you ALL KINDS of nifty stats. Actually this last one is prob the best

Can I use this thing? I have an M-Audio firewire solo. I guess I will Google to see if it works on Windows 98. I have an old Copy of Cakewalk PA9 I could install. The Hard drive is 18gigs with 15 empty, this puter hasnt been used much.

You will want to get a USB Hard drive to store you tracks on, and upgrade your RAM to AT LEAST 512. I'd do more, but i don't know if it can handle it.
Otherwise, you should be ok

How would I transfer audio from this computer to mine? Through the usb port???

Data stick, USB Hard Drive, Parallel Cable link, Ethernet connection, File sharing, Burn cd's......

 

[KonradG]

Regardless of the cpu speed, with the specs given, i can tell you that your speed will not be very good (obviously). I think with a simple program (any suggestions for him anyone?), you could run 1 simultaneous track through something like an mbox.

 

[DavidK]

Thanks!

it says

Geniune Intel
x86 family 6 model 8 stepping 6
256 MB Ram

Waht does that mean?? 686??

 

[DavidK]

Regardless of the cpu speed, with the specs given, i can tell you that your speed will not be very good (obviously). I think with a simple program (any suggestions for him anyone?), you could run 1 simultaneous track through something like an mbox.

Thats all I need.

I am interested in taking it to a nice venue for acoustics. I would only need to record one track at a time, and I would want to do a few takes so I would record maybe 5 tracks one at a time.

 

[Bulls Hit]

You won't be able to use your Firewire solo if it doesn't have a firewire port. You'll need to pick up a usb interface like a Tascam US122, or an M-Audio unit.

You should run with your old version of PA9 as this will likely work with 98 no probs

 

[DavidK]

You won't be able to use your Firewire solo if it doesn't have a firewire port. You'll need to pick up a usb interface like a Tascam US122, or an M-Audio unit.

You should run with your old version of PA9 as this will likely work with 98 no probs

Damn, I forgot about that. I was thinking it was usb. Drats.

 

[XLR]

David, I have an old IBM Thinkpad laptop, 166 megahertz, 3 gig hard drive, Windows 95 that I use with a 2 channel VX Pocket PCMCIA card. It records flawlessly - never a glitch. Great for tracking in stereo 24 bit/44.1. Not good for processing and mixing as you can't use more than one or two plugins before overload, but I just use it for tracking. I use an older version of Wavelab and Multitrackstudio (freeware and one of the few multitrack apps you can still get that work on Win95) on it. I download files from it with a Zip drive, since it doesn't have a USB port. The VX Pocket card is excellent re sound quality and stability.

So if you've got a more powerful box and Win 98 and USB I'd think it'd be pretty easy to get it going as long as you use low CPU stress software and don't have any non musical stuff on the system. Easy to transfer files between boxes that have USB by using a memory stick.

Tim