New small SAC rig (with pictures)...

[Wurst Werner]

Mind telling us the tweaks you had to do?

First I installed Windows Xp and all the drivers, then I did all of Bob Windows XP tweaks. At first the small M55 seems to run fine, stable till 90% CPU load and you could switch very fast beetween differnent views. But when you switching between views like a maniac and simultaniously move more than one fader on the BCF2000 (what is not real world scenario, but I can do that on my other SAC rig as well without any problems), you will first face some strange artifacts ( http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21028604/SACsawFail.rar ) on the SAC gui and shortly after, SAC crashes repeatably!
So I was up all night and tried all combinations of tweaks and finally found one, that works. Surely it had to do with the onboard graphics.
First off all I had to run the PC with one single core, so I switched off one core in the boot.ini.. In addition the video hardware acceleration slider in XP had to be notched down one step and "write combining" has to be checked. In SAC you have to check the option "Force real time priority class". These tweaks did the trick, if I change just one of these steps, SAC crahes in the scenario mentioned above. Anyway, now it is very stable:-)

And like Anton said, this thing is dirt cheap but performs really nice. The same mix session, that runs with 60% on my C2D laptop runs on this tiny machine with 40% and I use even more VST plugins, because on the 22" monitor I have more space for placing plugins than on my 15" laptop.

Christian

[Paul Henry]

Thanks for the info.

[Mattseymour]

Plus of course because it's so cheap, and small, you can carry a space.

[Rein]

Why don't you put in a low profile graphics card? It would take some of the load of your cpu as your having (minor) problems with crashes when switching views. They can be found new for about €25 and maybe you can buy a used one. I'm looking for something like you have as host for myself but I want to put in a RME 9652 and that's likely not going to fit in such a small case without some modding with pci risers and stuff.

[Wurst Werner]

Why don't you put in a low profile graphics card? It would take some of the load of your cpu as your having (minor) problems with crashes when switching views. They can be found new for about €25 and maybe you can buy a used one. I'm looking for something like you have as host for myself but I want to put in a RME 9652 and that's likely not going to fit in such a small case without some modding with pci risers and stuff.

My small Lenovo has only one PCI slot (full size) where I put in the Hammerfall PCI card for the Digiface. So, there is no slot left for an graphic card.
BTW: I did about ten shows with this new system, works like a charme. The only strange thing is, when I connect a remote via Lan, the CPU Load sometimes jumps about 20% up, stays at this high level for about five minutes and than out of sudden goes back again to the normal level. It slipps no buffer, neither that you can here other artifacts...it is just an odd behaviour I can't figure out. Any ideas or comments on that?

Anyway, it turns my way of mixing upside down:-)



Christian

[Rein]

My small Lenovo has only one PCI slot (full size) where I put in the Hammerfall PCI card for the Digiface. So, there is no slot left for an graphic card.

So it has a full size slot! Too bad it doesn't have a pci-e slot for graphics. I should've thought about that, because you probably would've installed a graphics card. Where did you and AntonZ get these Lenovo's and for how much €€€? Do you have pictures of the back of your pc? I need two full size pci slots for my 9652 but the second card of it only needs the space and not a slot on the motherboard.

[AntonZ]

I got mine at Itsco, bought two. One was a tad over €100, I think the other was €79. Different amount of RAM, different size HDD. Space is *very* tight in this box, different from a regular pc case. Not only is it low, it is also very shallow. Mine sits in a 35cm depth rack, plenty of space behind the case to run cables. I think there will be no room for the second card of your 9652 inside the case. With some creative tinkering you can mount it outside the case. Make an opening for the flatcable and mount it on some L brackets. It won't be pretty but it can be done

[solarex]

Christian: Which shade are you using for your SAC ?

[Wurst Werner]

Christian: Which shade are you using for your SAC ?

http://www.heirapparent.com/sac.htm

The Evol Shade...

[Rein]

I got mine at Itsco, bought two. One was a tad over €100, I think the other was €79. Different amount of RAM, different size HDD. Space is *very* tight in this box, different from a regular pc case. Not only is it low, it is also very shallow. Mine sits in a 35cm depth rack, plenty of space behind the case to run cables. I think there will be no room for the second card of your 9652 inside the case. With some creative tinkering you can mount it outside the case. Make an opening for the flatcable and mount it on some L brackets. It won't be pretty but it can be done

What's the name of that Lenovo exactly? Seems Itsco doesn't have them in stock anymore, at least I can't find it. Thanks for the pic and yes, that was my idea too; to fix the second 9652 card outside the pc case somehow.