Topic: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Hi to all,
I´m looking for a complete fanless laptop to go totally silent when I record on locations with my fireface UC.
So far I have read that the old Dell mini 10 are fanless. The question would be: will this laptop recognize the UC ? Could any of you recommend a totally silent laptop or netbook that would stand a 88.2/24 bits recording and recognize the UC ?
thanks for your help
Esteban

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

I've got a Mini 10V myself, and of course it "recognizes" the UC.
Haven't really been able to get it to record for long stretches without occasional DPC latency spikes and Lost ASIO Buffers in Samplitude or so. Haven't tried Digicheck's Global Record here, that might work even better.

I have used the thing for mixing, though, where the fact that is fanless does help indeed...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

thank you very much for the anwer !
what do you mean with "long stretches" ? 1 hour ?
I normally use sound forge, do you think it would work better, worse ?
Esteban

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Never tested SF. And haven't tested long recordings systematically, to be honest.
It's clear the Dell doesn't really meet the official system requirements for the UC, so it's essentially an experiment.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

I understand.
Any other fanless laptop that could be used with the UC with no problems ?
Has any member used as fanless laptop succesfully ?

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Nobody having experience with fanless laptops ?
how do you manage with the noise when you need to record on locations that are small with no possibilities to put the laptop in other rooms ?

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

I use Lenovo W520 and RME UFX, and the fan noise of the W520 can be controlled by the temperature setup in the power peformance control panel. Otherwise, I use a netbook (ASUS EeePC which doesn't have a fan at all), to control TotalMix, and use DUREC. Completely silent.

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Masaaki wrote:

I use Lenovo W520 and RME UFX, and the fan noise of the W520 can be controlled by the temperature setup in the power peformance control panel. Otherwise, I use a netbook (ASUS EeePC which doesn't have a fan at all), to control TotalMix, and use DUREC. Completely silent.

Hi Massaki, can you please comment on the W520? Which processor do you have? And how does the fan behave, is it possible to control it in a way that it's virtually silent? Are you using special software for fan control or the usual stuff included with the laptop?
Thank you for your answer,
Ulrich

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

I should have elaborated more, but W520 comes with "Power Manager" and it has many controls like, "System performance", "Fan control" which includes "reduce noise dynamically" option. It also has system temperature (just a prediction) depending on the option I choose in the Power Manager.

So, when I do the location recording, which requires quiet background, I use the "reduce noise dynamically" option in the Power Manager, and especially use lean DAW like Reaper to record tracks. I just don't use any plug-ins on location and channel count is usually 4-8chs, so the CPU usage stays around 5% all the time during the recording. I can say the fan noise is almost dead silent. If I still hear the fan noise, I use long mic cable to put them far away from the mic, and also put the computer in a large carrying bag, and operate inside the bag. By the way, I also run DPC latency checker at the same time, just to make sure this "reduced" power setup doesn't cause any spikes.

My CPU is 2820Q i7 processor with 8GB RAM.

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Thank you for your report!

Re: Silent laptops & Fireface UC

Thank you very much for the detailed answer!
I will think about the Lenovo w520.
If there are other people having the same experiences with (silent) laptops and recordings on locations, please share them to us.