PCMCIA slot on a Compaq 6910p Laptop

[txshonk]

I am hoping I can find some help on this. Its not really a SAC/SAW questions its more a WIn7/Audio Interface question.

I have an older laptop that I was running XP on. I use it for live sound/recording with SAC/SAW. I wanted to try and get it to Win7 so I could try running ProTools 10 in addition to the current software. So I tried an install of Win7 64. Win7 installed fine and all appeared to be running fine (all devices found drivers etc).

For my audio interface I use an RME Hammerfall PCMCIA cardbus witha Digiface. On XP I could run 52 mono audio channels into the PCMCIA card and all worked well. When I went to Win7 64, once I exceed 41 mono channels the audio becomes distorted. PT doesnt allow you to deactivate audio devices in/out I can't stop the distorted audio in there. If I run SAW/SAC/Reaper I can have 26 in active and 14 outs, once I choose 16 outs I get distorted audio. Being all worked well in XP I am guessing either the drivers for the Ricoh Card or into the PCI bus are causing a bottleneck.

The PCMCIA adapter shows as Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) in device manager

I would sure like to find a way to get my hardware to play well on Win7.

Any ideas?

Dave

[operationwhat]

hi there.
you shoul try the i5 with some faster ram's.that's a preaty old config for win7 and i asure you that you've pushed it to it's max.my dual core inspiron dell 1705 was not ment for win7 but i was a smartass and a instaled it and also regreted.you need at least 2gigs of faster ddr2 ram and 3ghz proc to pull 40 channels of.Also,laptops were not made for this kind of torture...get a desktop or a rack PC and ease yor problems.

[905shmick]

There's also an RME forum you could try asking for help on as the problem doesn't seem to be SAW or PT related.

[txshonk]

There's also an RME forum you could try asking for help on as the problem doesn't seem to be SAW or PT related.

I have posts in several forums as well as some others. Since it really a windows 7 issue that I doubt I will find a solution to I figured there was no harm in casting a wide net. I have had good success in the past with the knowledge base of the brain trust on the SAC forum, so I included my question here.



Thanks.

Dave

[txshonk]

hi there.
you shoul try the i5 with some faster ram's.that's a preaty old config for win7 and i asure you that you've pushed it to it's max.my dual core inspiron dell 1705 was not ment for win7 but i was a smartass and a instaled it and also regreted.you need at least 2gigs of faster ddr2 ram and 3ghz proc to pull 40 channels of.Also,laptops were not made for this kind of torture...get a desktop or a rack PC and ease yor problems.

I hear ya - but the laptop has enough of power to handle 64/1 buffers on XP - 24 live in channels, 6 monitors mixes, SAW running backing tracks, and Reaper recording the entire performance. Total CPU usage based on the Windows resource manager hovers at 45%.

But I have been thinking of a used HP Elitebook 8460p - if I go there I have to change my RME cardbus to an express card. So thats an added cost, as well as I really like the form factor on the old cardbus from RME that uses the locking propiatary cable.

Dave

[hkmorgan87]

I have an older dell m6400 that works well for a 24 channel portable rig. It has the old cardbus slot.