Z60m firewire help (irq)

not sure how many people have these z60m laptops, they seem to be scarce in the UK at the moment. I was thinking about preordering one, as it seems to push all the right buttons for what I need it for, but haven't been able to actually see one yet. Therein lies my problem....

I'm a musician using laptops in live performances, and need the laptop to work well with a certain firewire soundcard. I have found in the past if the firewire port is sharing the same IRQ resources as other hungry components, such as graphics card, onboard soundcard, it spells disaster for stable use of a firewire soundcard.

Is it possible for anyone with one of these machines (maybe abaxter?) to check in the device manager to see if the firewire port is sharing IRQ and if so, with which components... This would help me alot TIA....

Also, how good does the display look on these machines... I've had glossy screens before and like the vividness of them... are the colours on the z60m vivid, and the screen sharp?

Thanks

A

 

Perhaps you could ask Leveno. They will know for sure whether it is sharing an IRQ. The Z series are matte screened as are all ThinkPads so they won't be as vivid as a glossy screened notebook. Abaxter's Z was probably a loner from Leveno. Not sure if he still has it.

 

I did call Levono first and they said that they do not have that sort of information!

 

hey Wheelie, unfortunately my Z60m got shipped back to North Carolina 3-days ago as my loan period was up with Lenovo. I'll send my contacts at Lenovo an email with your question, but my success rate on technical information with the contacts I have is only so-so. I'll post back here if I get anything.

I can speak for the screen, it's matte and I was very pleased with the brightness of the WSXGA+ screen. It had two backlights, which really helped with the brightness. Battery life was great too, even with the screen cranked up to full brightness I got 3 hours.

 

thank you for your help and for asking your contacts abaxter....

in terms of the screen i don't mind matte screens (the ones on powerbooks look really good, if it looks like those I'd be happy!), its just i went into the shop to check out Thinkpads the screens didn't look that great (i'm not sure what models I was looking at, if they were high speced or not), but I guess with WSXGA+ the resolution is really good so they are sharp...

 

hey Wheelie, here's a copy and paste of the response I got from Lenovo:

"This is the response I got from our Development team. I hope this helps out and if you have any other questions, please let me know.

IRQ of IEEE1394 device is shared with a USB controller
( Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2659).

Since we don't have 1394 sound card, we can't confirm it, however, the customer may be able to use sound card with USB disabled.
Z60m has three USB port and USB controller-2659 is assigned to the USB port at rear.
He can disable USB controller-2659 in device manager. Even though one port is disabled he can use other two USB port."

 

Excellent news, I think then that I will be able to use my firewire soundcard without too much trouble...

A big thanks to Abaxter for getting this information...

I've now ordered a z60m, but it seems that they aren't in the UK at the moment, they say maybe this week, so hopefully it'll only be a short wait...

 

Hi Wheelie! It's been a couple of months since the last post in this thread, and I was just wondering how you were doing with the Z60m and the firewire-soundcard? I'm a musician myself and thinking about getting a Z60m. It will be used with an M-Audio Firewire 1814 soundcard and Cakewalk Sonar 4 (or 5) with some soft-synths and audio recording.

I've tried the same setup on my T41, but this stupid thinkpad shares it's IRQ 11 between video card, firewire pcmcia card, usb-controllers and a couple of other things. The results are catastrophic. Pops and cracks when recording audio, and with the sudden CPU-peak and dropout as a result after a while.

So my main point is basically, will the Z60m perform well with a firewire soundcard? And if so, what are the specs on your model? RAM, CPU, hdd, video card...?

Thanks a lot

 

Ok, is anybody out there using an IBM Thinkpad (any model) for audio-recording with a firewire soundcard? I'm desperately in need for a laptop that will do the job, without leaving me completly broke...