Which laptop brands use Texas Instruments firewire chipsets?

[Baykush]

I'm about to be a RME FF800 user. I'm searching for a good laptop. Dell M90 seems to be a nice one but as far as I know the firewire chipset on the laptop should be Texas Instruments to have the lowest latency. Does anyone know which brands uses Texas Instruments firewire chipset? I made a search but couln't reach that info on the net.
Also I will need an Express Card to use FF800 with 1394b since Dell has none. Is SIIG fine?

[Ashofapheonix]

Belkin and ADS. ADS is one of the Best FW Card makers out, top Choice for DV Systems... ADS Pyro 1394DV. Siig's are good but not all Siig's implimen Ti FW only some of them so you have to becareful
Best of luck ~

[Baykush]

Thanks Ashofapheonix,
I have another question. If I use ADS or Belkin express card do I still need a built-in Texas Instrument firewire chipset in laptop?

[jcschild]

HI,
the Dells do NOT have built in TI chipset. becasue of the Ricoh chipset they do use your performance will be poor.

you can buy a TI chipset Express card and this wil help but not by much.

your best bet is buying a laptop that has built in TI chipset.

Scott
ADK

[Baykush]

Ok,
So which brands use TI chipset? I can't find a way to reach that type of info. Digidesign suggest HP nw9440. Does this mean it has TI chipset.

[Henchman]

My HP nc8430 uses the TI chipset, and works great.
I had to send my dell back, because firewire simply would not work properly.

[Baykush]

What about HP nw9440? That looks like a good piece. Actually HP claims it would work as a workstation. But what about the firewire chipset. Does it also use TI?

[Ashofapheonix]

>ADK Pro-Audio (JCSchild's company) has Ti Chipset. Probably not in his best interest to recommend them. Their Q1s around 1600$-1700 $ with 2 gigs of ram or so, and a Core 2 DUO. I'd go with that, it'd be configured for audio, and you can send him what ever software or interface your planning to use and he'd configure it for you.

Another option is buy something that is Digidesign Certified for Firewire interfaces.

HP's Work Station line of notebooks a lot of times have texas instruments chipsets. I'd look closely see if you can find advanced technical specifications

Theirs also always the Mac book/Mac book pro.


A laptop is a good candidate for serious audio if it has a Texas Instruments All in One Chipset. and If it has built in firewire Texas instruments Firewire.

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by Baykush

Ok,
So which brands use TI chipset? I can't find a way to reach that type of info. Digidesign suggest HP nw9440. Does this mean it has TI chipset.

I'm pretty sure it does.

[Baykush]

Thanks everyone,
Once again I see that if you have a question about pro audio, you find your answer in Gearslutz..
As I stated before I'm looking for a laptop to use with RME FF800. Since RME doesn't recomend one I'll go with what digidesign recomends.

I'm planning to record live performances with this laptop.. I hope I won't be disapointed.. will notify you guys when I buy my toys and start pushing to see the limits..

[Baykush]

I saw you are from Canada. I'm about to produce a band from there.
'Sweet Papa Lowdown'. Have you heard of them?

[mr. moon]

Originally Posted by Baykush

I'm about to be a RME FF800 user. I'm searching for a good laptop. Dell M90 seems to be a nice one but as far as I know the firewire chipset on the laptop should be Texas Instruments to have the lowest latency. Does anyone know which brands uses Texas Instruments firewire chipset? I made a search but couln't reach that info on the net.
Also I will need an Express Card to use FF800 with 1394b since Dell has none. Is SIIG fine?

Here's a post of mine from the RME forum which describes my recent laptop purchase for remote recording with my FF800:

RME User Forum / FF800: Functional Laptop

Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

-mr moon

[Ashofapheonix]

>I'm pretty sure it does.

Yep Digidesign only recommends texas instruments FW.

[Don S]

I also use the FF800 and read that statement about TI Firewire. Does anyone know what brand apple uses in the titanium G4 powerbooks? I occasionally have CPU overloads with any program I use with the FF. Wondering if the FW was the problem.

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by Baykush

I saw you are from Canada. I'm about to produce a band from there.
'Sweet Papa Lowdown'. Have you heard of them?

Can't say I have.

[morebutter]

Do the new Macbook Pros use TI Firewire chipsets?

[jcschild]

yes

[morebutter]

excellent

[pjplayer]

i'm after a new laptop, and the ADK machines are among the most competitively priced i have seen. but, as with every other audio computer company in the US (and there are lots), they don't seem to ship to the UK. is there really no way i can get a laptop from ADK (or rain, or anyone who isn't dell or other non-specialist company) shipped to the UK?

[jcschild]

HI,
we have shipped 100's of systems to EU.

so yes we can!
and yes our's have texas instruments firewire

thanks
scott

[Hard2Hear]

ADK Ships to the UK all the time.
'doh, he beat me to it.

[pjplayer]

yep, i was being an idiot and not reading the website fully!

[SAC]

Pardon my curiosity, but is this a new issue with TI IEEE1394 chipsets?

There has been an historic issue with other Firewire interface chipsets going back 4-6+ years where the general recommendation has been:

"Choose a TI Firewire (1394) Chipset. You need a machine that uses the Texas Instruments (TI) 1394 Chipset. Nearly all of the manufacturers of Firewire Audio Interfaces clearly state that their hardware ONLY works well with this chipset. Many of the other chipsets out there (VIA, NEC, Ricoh) seem to have problems..."

which has been well known and well documented**.

But this was with a variety of NON-TI IEEE1394 chipsets....


**Such as: a b - and too many others to list from the Google query...

[Jeezo]

i have an hp 8710W , ricoh chipset and i'm runnin my fireface + duende maxed out without a hick !

So morer than chipset i think it's the quality of the integration that sucks on some laptops ...

Had a acer with TI chipset , way worst ....

got 35us dpc latency also witch is a critical test to run ...

I was very septical at that time (early 2008) when i recived the laptop , said to myself ...damn ricoh but i sent back all the otha laptops i received then (dell precison M6300 , MBP , Clevo D901C) and kept the HP because it was the clear winner in heavy test , even if it has the poor T7700 CPU vs (clevo Q6700 , MBP 2.8Ghz, and prcision X7900 processor)