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29327
January 30th, 2009 03:00
DPC latency with DELL laptops.
Hi for all !
I'm a music composer and i trying to work with DELL productions becouse i dont have a lot of money to buy a mac :)
So, the main bad thing in laptops ( no problems with old notebooks and mac's) is DPC latency problem.
I'm living in Lithuania and here is very difficult to get some tech support from DELL.
DPC latency is NOT just DELL laptops problem.. Many laptops has this problem. The best laptop for music creation is with no Wirelles adapters and other integrated tools :) But for nowdays it's hard to find something like that.
So I was testing few laptops from DELL:
DELL studio 1525 - This is the first laptop i had from DELL. It's cheap but to work with music and reall time video it's impossible! So don't buy Studio series laptops if you want to work with music or video! I was testing it with windows Vista/Xp sp3... no differents. Always RED spikes on DPC test! i was trying to update BIOS, remove devices, disable devices, but no good effect :(
DELL Vostro 1510 - It works perfectly when Microsoft ACHI battery is disabled and laptop always on DC power supply. Also it works good with wirelles adapter.(With windows Vista - bad results. With Xp it's working FINE!).All green spikes on DPC test.
DELL latitude E6500 - Now i have this computer and i will keep it for me :) With Windows VISTA it works really bad! Every time red spikes on DPC test. But With windows XP sp3 it works really fine when some setup was changed in BIOS. So try to minimize all non needless laptop recources in BIOS... Now It working fine with wirelles adapter and other enabled devices in device manager! every time green spikes. Sometimes few yeallow but it's no different in sound and latency. Yeallow appears when opening CD-rom drive :) It's not a problem :)
So I think the best choise for music production - DELL vostro. (from DELL cheap production).
i'm working with Presonus Firebox FireWire interface.
musicman2000
5 Posts
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February 12th, 2009 17:00
Hi dohm,
I'm a fellow compose working with an Inspiron 1525 + Profire 610 firewire card.
I had the same issues as you, but managed to solve the issue.
The problem stems from the Ricoh firewire chipset in the notebooks - it has compatilibility issues with a number of interfaces on the market.
The key is to purchase a firewire expresscard with a Texas Intruments chipset. The soundcard manufacturers tend to program their drivers for the TI chipset. Luckily, an add on firewire card is not an expensive proposition.
Once you install the expresscard firewire, you'll have to disable the internal firewire option.
Run DPC latency checker again - if you are still experiencing spikes, you might have to turn off the wireless using the switch on the side of the notebook.
Cheers,
MM2k
dohm
2 Posts
0
March 26th, 2010 11:00
Hmz.... yes this the issue to set "desktop computer, but o dont need to reinstall all windows to do that :) U can easy to do this in control panel :)
thanks for information of acpi.sys
petesejt
1 Message
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March 26th, 2010 11:00
Hi there,
Unfortunately I do not agree that all Vostro notebooks works fine. The Vostro A860 still has latency problems, even if I turn off ACPI battery, or wifi.
I would like to share some more information:
- DPC latency tool and RATTV3 investigations showed up that a system driver called acpi.sys causes the DPC latency error. Some people managed to resolve the problem by disabling temporarily the acpi.sys process using software tools -- but it's not really recommended option because fans may stop, CPU may overheat, etc.
- I installed XP by hitting F5 at the beginning of installation. Choosing 'Standard PC' kernel there ends up in a completely different XP system, where (1) there is no DPC spikes at all, only green coloumns! (2) installing Intel integrated VGA driver gives blank screen -- in this situation the driver can be removed using an external monitor (3) audio pops and clicks still occurs just like any other cases!
- Using Windows 7 causes the usual spikes, and a bit more overall CPU load, but surprisingly works quite stable at a lower latency setting (4&8 ms) than on XP (8&32ms). I mean latency settings under using Native Instruments Traktor Scratch Pro v1.2.
Does anyone know if Dell working on an updated BIOS release to the Vostro A860 notebook?