i'm thinking about getting the bottom-of-the-barrell dell inspiron 2200 laptop with 1.7ghz pentium M and 512m ram. according to the online specs, it comes with 3 usb2.0 ports but no firewire ports. are there any downsides to getting a PCMCIA card with multiple firewire ports to use with an external hard drive and firewire interface (will probably be motu828) at the same time? my other question was how a pentium M does with recording. i've actually never heard of the "M" line, but i've been out of the loop for a minute. thanks

The Pentium M (mobile) is apparently closer to the Pentium 3 in terms of architecture which is supposedly a good thing. I've heard the Pentium 4 get a real slagging from some computery types I know; the M seems to be highly regarded. I have a 2GHz Pentium M in my lappy which is just fine for recording. IIRC, in real world terms, you add 50% onto the performance of the M to get its Pentium 4 equivalent; e.g. a 2GHz Pentium M would have similar performance to a 3GHz Pentium 4

I can't see why you would have any probs using a PCMCIA firewire card

Motu's will only work with PCMCIA cards of a certain chipset (you'll have to see their knowledge base to see exactly which ones), and cannot be combined firewire/usb cards.
Also, Motu firewire has difficulty with XP service pack 2, so you may have to uninstall sp2 altogether. You might not be allowed to do that if you're on a work or school network.

Yeah, it should be ok.

I'd check to see the motherboard brand of the laptop and if you can, find out the chipset for the PCMCIA - I seem to recall that if it is Intel or Texas Instruments then all is good. Dell generally use good parts though so don't worry.

If there was any conflict between an external disk drive and the sound card, then you could move the hard disk to one of the USB ports (if it has the appropriate connection).

You may want to record to the internal disk first to try things out before purchasing an external hard disk.

As Kayte R. says, the clock speed of the Pentium M processors should be gauged akin to the Pentium 3s rather than Pentium 4s which operate differently.

I have a P4 2.6 GHz and it does the job fine. My friend's last computer was a P3 1GHz which also did the job fine - eg. 32 tracks no bother.

I don't think people need to worry so much about computers these days.

Not about the Pentium M, but the firewire aspect.
Firewire has a 400Mbs transfer rate, and certain transfer functions (DV avi transfer for one) must occur at that rate to garantee correct operation.
This is important to bear in mind because the bandwidth available to a PCMCIA connection is actually only 200Mbs - so it's not inconcieveable that there MAY be problems. The Firewire chipset itself is another important factor, but FWIW the OX911 and TI chipsets do behave really well under all circumstances. In my experience the motu's aren't nearly as fussy as those nasty AVID-produced shitboxes with regard to the chipset.
If possible, get a lappy that ALREADY HAS FIREWIRE ONBOARD. It's not a thing that can be substituted for later on if the PCMCIA option is not a goer.
Brand-wise, check out the Asus-branded laptops too - they always have firewire onboard, and have two-year globally covered warranties. Unrelated trivia: Asus are the manufacturer of Apple iBooks.
With regard to recording, the CPU has essentially nothing to do with the process. It's all about the hard drive - get a 7200rpm drive installed and you're good to go.

thanks for all the replies. re: asus, what would be the most affordable option to come by one of these? in fact, affordability is a very limiting factor for me at the moment, so other suggestions as to affordable laptops with onboard firewire would be appreciated. i've always assumed that i should avoid celerons for recording apps, but if the cpu has so little to do with the process should i forego this conclusion?

dragnalus wrote:...affordability is a very limiting factor for me at the moment, so other suggestions as to affordable laptops with onboard firewire would be appreciated. i've always assumed that i should avoid celerons for recording apps, but if the cpu has so little to do with the process should i forego this conclusion?

I'd try and get something which is good quality hardware-wise.

Dell, Toshiba, IBM, HP, Sony, etc. are all big brand names and tend to have good quality parts - long lasting screens, good quality disk drives, etc. plus they usually have better chipsets - eg. Intel and TI.

Just list every computer available in your price range and do a lot of hunting. Larger screens are handy.

A Celeron should still be ok for tracking. The only problem could arise when it comes to using effects and soft-synths. Having said that, my friend's old 1GHz P3 was cool with handling plenty of plugins. Again, I wouldn't worry too much if it is a new PC you are buying.

i believe i've settled on an ebay refurb G3 800mhz 256mb ibook for around $330. pcs with onboard firewire seem to start around $450, and i've always wondered what working on a mac would be like.