Looking for help with LAPTOP as a music server

Mark W.

Nut house of the Universe
OK I have a Compac laptop that when my son joined the NAVY he bought to soon (not up to his needs) and when the HD crapped he left it here. I managed to reserect for a few months before the HD took a perminate dive.

With Laptop HD's dropping in price I'm thinking of putting in a new 30-40Gig HD and using it as a Music server and DATA type CD player for my system. It has built in sound but I would like to greatly upgrade that if possible.

My son who is an ET in NAVY suggested I get a USB-2 type expantion card for it then pickup some type of USB connectable Sound card (hopefully with RCA's)

I need to know what to look for along those lines if anyone has any experiance.

It currently has a Combo drive that plays DVD's (or at least it's supposed to but never would for me (may have been an issue with the junk HD) and will burn CD's. SO the next thing I would need to do with it is get the DVD player to work (I sure it is a software issue) For what a new Combo drive costs if software for this one cost much I would rather replace the drive and start over.

I assume that I can just use the current AC adapter to power it while it's playing jukebox so that part is covered. I will need to figure out a better way to power it in a car then the battery alone as the wife is getting interested in Geochaching with her little Garmin GPS so having a portable laptop would be nice with maps and the GPS interfaced into it. I assume one of the little 300-400 watt inverters that plug into a cigg lighter would do the trick.

SO any help, suggestions, or corrections???
 
Entering a bag of sticky wickets....

but, with patience and some $$, you can get what you want. Firstly, you'll need to get onto at least Win 2000 on the laptop - WinXP is preferable, though. Next, stuff it full of memory - as much as possible. Lastly, get a PCMCIA adapter with either USB 2.0 and/or Firewire. This will enable you to mount a outboard audio interface.

To start wtih, I'd suggest a USB-based device like the M-Audio Audiophile. Its relatively inexpensive, has the RCA outputs you're looking for. Make sure to download and install the latest driver udates for what ever card you choose. I've had mine for over 2 years and its been quite stable, once the drivers settled down. BTW, even though most older outboard audio interfaces specify USB 1.0, run them with a USB 2.0 port. I discovered that the USB and Firewire builtin ports on my Dell laptop - and the Compaq laptop before it - tended to cause system hangs until I updated them with a PCMCIA card.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

David
 
Thanks David the Laptop is an XP machine and I even own (OK my son does) the OS so current updates are easy for the XP.

My son suggested very simular use of a PCMCIA card with USB2 ports It currently only has USB1 ports.

Memory if I remember it has 512 of DDR 266 RAM (no idea If I can go any further)

The current HD is toast so I will most likely look for a 40 Gig with the same operating speed as the current HD which is I believe a 30 gig.

The sound "card" you mention is a bit out of my price range for right now but maybe this summer when the OT is flowing. So I will most likely look for a less expensive option if I decide to jump in to this project yet this winter.

First thing is to bring the lap top back to life.
 
Why can't you use the onboard sound? Get a 1/8" to rca adapter for connections to the amp. Then use foobar2k to play the music. that would be the cheapest route.
 
YOUR very correct BeerCan and I will certinly give that option a shot once I get it up and running again. It does have some form of onboard sound. And to be honest I have no idea what it is. It might sound pretty good for what I want to do with it. If not I'd like to know what options would make a good upgrade path.

One of the other things we want to use this Laptop for is maps to go along with the wife getting interested in GEO chaching It would be nice nice I have access to all the Oregon TOPO maps online to be able to down load those that cover the area we would be out hunting in.

I was just checking out what a Power inverter that would handle the 90 watt requirments of the power adapter and shoot they are now dirt cheap $30.00 will buy any of a dozen different one. So that solves the 3 hours it will operate on batteries when mobile.

Heck maybe I should sell off my 32 film cameras and buy a Digital SLR and about 3 lenses LOL I currently have 48 lenses just for my Canon Fd kit.

Just rambling
 
If you can swing it, I would also pop for an external 1394 (Firewire) hard drive. You can get 200GB for $150 or less. The reason I would go this way is that the small form-factor HDDs for laptops are typically low capacity, slow (5400RPM or less), and expensive.

I also second the M-Audio outboard card when you can afford it, as the onboard sound card is barely adequate.

For all the money you'll spend though, might I suggest you resurrect the laptop and just use it for portable computing use, and buy or build a desktop or rackmount computer to use as a music server? IMHO, building something like that out as a music server will be substantially cheaper in the long run, than will basing it on a laptop.
 
Well you have a point about going the desk top way except. I already have two computers one I use as a glorified telephone doing this stuff (the web)it's 30 gig Gateway with a celeron 700mhz processer and 512 RM. The other is a home build monster that does nothing but Photography work. It's based on a 2.8 Gig HT Pent IV with 4 Gig of RAM and two 120 Gig SATA HD's spinning at 7200. It has enough room in it to drive my Dump truck around in and never find a corner.

If I do set up the Laptop it will become one of about 8 sources going into my Main system including

Pioneer TX-9100 Tuner

Philips GA-209 S Auto turntable

Pioneer CT-F900 Cassette deck

Pioneer CT-F500 Cassette deck

Pioneer PDR-509 CD Recorder

Pioneer PD-M552 CD 6 Disk Player

Philips TV/DVD Audio

To this list will be added later a higher end turntable

So since it will be only one of many building something dedicated would be a bit of a PIA as there is no where near my main system for such a computer. especially not when you add in the keyboard and monitor. While the lap top is so compact that it can fit in a drawer no more then 2.25" deep right under my turntable. And can be pulled out flipped open when I want to use it. I'm thinking it would also make a great catalog for my music collection as I build it. Yet when I want to go out and about I can unplug it from the power and sound card and in a couple seconds be headed for the door.

I'll start out with the onboard sound then build up from there if I get to the point where a big assed dedicated desktop is required then I'll dial up Newegg and build one but for now I just want something that will read any computer generated disk download files when I want. And act like a seachable card file for my music collection. MAYBE do a little recording cleanup in the future.

BUT I have been keeping track of all advise and fikling it awy for the future.
 
I use a laptop to play music on the stereo. The laptop serves as the "jukebox" and actually pulls music (lossless flac files) off a server in another room. PC audio can be done very cheaply. It does not to be expensive to sound good. I use a M-Audio Transit as my soundcard. It connects to the stereo via an 1/8 inch mini plug to RCAs. The DAC's in the Transit are very good. You will notice a difference between the onboard mini-jack and those of the Transit. Most onboard audio is not very good. I can walk you through the steps to setting up good PC audio. PM me and I can call you and help. I still use an old P166 with 128MB RAM and Win2000Pro and a "jukebox" in my bedroom. It runs Foobar2000 and FLAC with no problems.

John
 
Well, I powered up the Laptop today even though the HD is toast or was toast or will be toast again. All I wanted to do was measure how wide it was with the tray open so I could figure out where I have room to put it and be able to type at it while hooked to the stereo.

Next thing I know I have XP loaded AOL loaded and XP reregistered. And the silly POS is working again. I have no doubt it is very temp and I won't do anything with it until I get a new HD. But 6 months ago when it crashed nothing I could do would get it back up. Now the only thing I have done to it that could have made an effect on it was to remove the HD and replace it twice (needed to see what model it was) I doub that a connection went bad and that was the problem but stranger things have been known to happen.

I also made a discovery today my photo computer has a built in sound card (paid no attention to it don't even have speakers on it as It is only used to process photos) Turns out the silly thing is Dolby 5.1 capable!!!

I might have to rip some music on to the backup drive and see if I can pull it through my network to the laptop and on to the stereo!

TO many toys that's it I'm sure.
 
Preamp inputs?

Does your preamp have digital inputs? I don't see it listed in your components.....

I own three external sound cards for use with my laptop:

M-Audio Sonica Theater (USB; about $60 used/ebay) - it has a coaxial digital output that I use for connecting to my main system. I don't use the 24 bit DAC and RCA outputs that it has, but I'm sure it is a good one, and probably comparable to the Transit.

Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook (PCIMIA card; also about $60 used/ebay) - I use this at work w/ headphones and am very happy with it's DAC.

Creative Soundblaster MP3+ - (USB; only $20-30) - if all you need is a digital optical output, I recommend this inexpensive solution. The 16 bit DAC (~90db s/n ratio) is not nearly as good as the 24 bit cards (s/n > 100db), but would still provide bettr analogue output than the integrated audio.
 
The only Amp I have is a 1974 Pioneer SA-9100 (it's an intergrated amp) and they don't have any Digital connection. Only line level inputs and of course the two Phono connections. The only thing I have with a digital connection in my sysyem is the PDR-509 CD recorder and the PD-M552 CD player.
 
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