From the advice I've gathered over time, Asus are one of the brands of choice for motherboards in desktop music PCs. But what about their laptops?

Edited by rjamesd (28/09/04 11:34 AM)

Asus' laptops are supposed to rock just as hard as their mobos. They always seem to get rave reviews and they also seem to be very well priced for what you get.

My company www.gamepowersys.com has been integrating Asus laptops since they fist came to market. We have had tremendous success with them. The "M" series, in particular, has been a pleasure to work with. Construction is very solid and, if your select the right components, performance is unequaled.

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www.gpsystems.ca

Hi!
I'm owner of a L2000 series ASUS laptop and I had lots of problems!! This laptop had serious problems with the cooling system (AMD processor on board...) and, at the end, it definitively died because of these problems... 2 other persons (who work me) have now the same problems... ASUS laptop are not a good choice, but this is my experience.

Bye,
Maurizio.

P.S.: I paid 1800 euro for a laptop died after 2 years... I didn't take it with me outside my home so often, in fact it was for a desktop replacement...

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I'm owner of a L2000 series ASUS laptop and I had lots of problems!! This laptop had serious problems with the cooling system (AMD processor on board...) and, at the end, it definitively died because of these problems...

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Although I am a big fan of both AMD processors and Asus notebooks I understand your comment very well. As a matter of fact, I am not in favour of any AMD based laptop; although their desktop environmnets are great. I would imagine you would have had similar experiences with any AMD based laptop as we regularly service notebooks [built by other shops ] that are AMD based and heat dissipation is a common issue. I am surprised the vendor didnt make any efforts to repair your L2000 and upgrade the cooling system though. Dont be turned off by Asus just give yourself a little better budget next time and get an Intel based Notebook.

I would strongly suggest that anyone looking at a laptop solution [from any manufacturer] nowadays stick to an Intel architecture and preferable a Centrino [Dothan]. I must again say that I definately like and use AMD processors [I dont want to start another Intel vs AMD bla bla bla bullshit session] but they are best used in workstations.

Cheers!

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www.gpsystems.ca

Quote rjamesd:

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From the advice I've gathered over time, Asus are one of the brands of choice for motherboards in desktop music PCs.

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Which has always struck me as strange seeing as there are so many better alternatives. You just need to open your eyes and look at higher end equipment. Half the problems people complain about have already been fixed... you just need to look at industrial and server solutions. {That's where the need to address those problems actually gets addressed... the home market gets the run off.}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

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you just need to look at industrial and server solutions

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Are you talking about dual Xeon and Opteron? If you are, I completely agree, too bad audio software can't work with more than two CPUs, as there are great platforms with 4 CPUs etc. And I still think you could squeeze server configuration within a price of a 'similar' Apple machine.

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote rjamesd:

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From the advice I've gathered over time, Asus are one of the brands of choice for motherboards in desktop music PCs.

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Which has always struck me as strange seeing as there are so many better alternatives. You just need to open your eyes and look at higher end equipment. Half the problems people complain about have already been fixed... you just need to look at industrial and server solutions. {That's where the need to address those problems actually gets addressed... the home market gets the run off.}

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Can you get such boards for single CPUs? I was looking at dual Opteron workstation boards a while back and having features such as three separate PCI busses and others that almost guarantee no possibility of conflicts I wondered if such things existed for a single-cpu workstation.

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http://www.jeremycorbett.co.uk

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Can you get such boards for single CPUs?

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It is quite common for people that want a more solid chipset/Mainboard architecture to use these Dual boards even if they can only afford a single CPU at the time.

A couple things one should be aware of if they go this route would be the single CPU is installed in a particular 1 of the 2 sockets, oft times these boards require ECC Registered memory , and it is very common that they us an E-ATX Power Connecter.

Now I havent seen any Asus laptops that use a Dual Opteron/Xeon mainboard though. I imagine heat dissipation would be a huge problem not to mention the weight of the unit

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www.gpsystems.ca

Quote milan:

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you just need to look at industrial and server solutions

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Are you talking about dual Xeon and Opteron? If you are, I completely agree, too bad audio software can't work with more than two CPUs, as there are great platforms with 4 CPUs etc. And I still think you could squeeze server configuration within a price of a 'similar' Apple machine.

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Duals... wider busses {'till recently}, more heavy duty components, more memory slots, better performance, etc... Options like plug in scsi cards, {scsi period} etc, etc...

Why can't audio programs use more than 2 processors? What if you're running 4 applications?

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote Mahoobley:

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Can you get such boards for single CPUs? I was looking at dual Opteron workstation boards a while back and having features such as three separate PCI busses and others that almost guarantee no possibility of conflicts I wondered if such things existed for a single-cpu workstation.

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Look at Supermicros and Intel's high end stuff... Even Tyan.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/matrix/
http://www.intel.com/products/server/motherbd/index.htm?iid=ipp_srvr+board s&
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/xeon.html

{Unfortunately, there are no low prices involved. :}}

You don't have to run two processors.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

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Why can't audio programs use more than 2 processors? What if you're running 4 applications?

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All the major audio apps are optimized for 2 CPUs (or one with HT). This doesn't mean that you can't run them on, for example, 4 CPU machine, but nobody can predict their behaviour and performance. And the other thing is that for 4 CPU machine you need special OS like Windows Server platform. I even read (on this and other forums as well) that there were problems with audio apps running on 2 CPU machine with enabled HT as this gives 4 'logical' CPUs. And it doesn't matter how much applications are running. I don't think that Steinberg or others were thinking about running their software on server machines

Windows servers tend to be more picky than workstations when it comes to hardware...Not to mention servers are noisy as hell, unless you have a suitable soundproofed place to store them.

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Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?