Hello
Looking at the D270 specs you may ask: Why struggle with a very old and outdated hardware instead of buying a decent laptop for ~400€?
Firstly
Well, the D270 has 3 USB 2 connections, HDMI, VGA and especially electrically separated connections for analog audio. The sound chip is superb; linear from 20Hz to 20KHz, which is essential for the development and measurements of my speakers. In addition, the RAM, hard drive, network card and battery are easily replaceable.
Secondly
Of course also my personal ambition to make the impossible possible.
Thirdly
I hesistate to throw away old, working hardware just like that.
This little beauty was running under Windows 7 - x86 for more than 10 years but Microsoft's (extended/prolonged) support for W7 definitely did end on Jan. 1st. 2023.
Ah, forget to mention: There only have been drivers for x86 although the CPU - Intel Atom N2600 - can handle a x64 OS. But there is no chance finding 64bit drivers!
To my surprise: A legally little modified Windows 11 ISO installed without any complains.
The embedded graphic chip, an Intel GMA3600, HDMI-Graphics/Audio, Bluetooth weren't recognized but I can live with that.
W11 installed a generic graphic driver with an unchangable native 1024x600 resolution but sharp and crispy to watch.
Sleep option is not displayed. Either you choose Hibernate or Shut Down. Also I can live with that. Why sleep while playing audio?
On W7 I often had a frozen audio player syndrom (not BSOD) with jriver and musicbee and had to stop/end/kill the corresponding process via task manager but not anymore. I never could figure out the reason.
Specs: Atom N2600, 4 GB RAM (2,93 GB usable) Graphics GMA3600, 1TB SSD.
Musicbee Wasapi exclusive to Phiree U2S to DXC2496-AES to Sony ST-BR-1070 6-Multichannel to 3-way loudspeaker.
Average CPU-load while playing audio - 7% at lowest CPU load with balanced power plan, 47°C CPU temperature, memory constantly at 79% (1GB system occupied)
Average latency ~ 500usec.
No glitches, drops, freezes or so.
5.1 Flacs I now stream over home network to the second up to date Dell-Laptop and via HDMI to a Denon receiver.
Additionally I installed a RAM-Disk (ImDisk) to use the remaining 1GB RAM and changed Windows temp environment variables and Edge's cache accordently to drive R:\.
Nils Frahm (All Melody) is flawlessly playing while writing this and I'm still in testing phase - looks very promising. Such a fulfilling result.
Have a nice weekend - and kind regards
P. S. I always did a full backup before doing any changes. That's, in such cases is essential. But obviously you know this.
Looking at the D270 specs you may ask: Why struggle with a very old and outdated hardware instead of buying a decent laptop for ~400€?
Firstly
Well, the D270 has 3 USB 2 connections, HDMI, VGA and especially electrically separated connections for analog audio. The sound chip is superb; linear from 20Hz to 20KHz, which is essential for the development and measurements of my speakers. In addition, the RAM, hard drive, network card and battery are easily replaceable.
Secondly
Of course also my personal ambition to make the impossible possible.
Thirdly
I hesistate to throw away old, working hardware just like that.
This little beauty was running under Windows 7 - x86 for more than 10 years but Microsoft's (extended/prolonged) support for W7 definitely did end on Jan. 1st. 2023.
Ah, forget to mention: There only have been drivers for x86 although the CPU - Intel Atom N2600 - can handle a x64 OS. But there is no chance finding 64bit drivers!
To my surprise: A legally little modified Windows 11 ISO installed without any complains.
The embedded graphic chip, an Intel GMA3600, HDMI-Graphics/Audio, Bluetooth weren't recognized but I can live with that.
W11 installed a generic graphic driver with an unchangable native 1024x600 resolution but sharp and crispy to watch.
Sleep option is not displayed. Either you choose Hibernate or Shut Down. Also I can live with that. Why sleep while playing audio?
On W7 I often had a frozen audio player syndrom (not BSOD) with jriver and musicbee and had to stop/end/kill the corresponding process via task manager but not anymore. I never could figure out the reason.
Specs: Atom N2600, 4 GB RAM (2,93 GB usable) Graphics GMA3600, 1TB SSD.
Musicbee Wasapi exclusive to Phiree U2S to DXC2496-AES to Sony ST-BR-1070 6-Multichannel to 3-way loudspeaker.
Average CPU-load while playing audio - 7% at lowest CPU load with balanced power plan, 47°C CPU temperature, memory constantly at 79% (1GB system occupied)
Average latency ~ 500usec.
No glitches, drops, freezes or so.
5.1 Flacs I now stream over home network to the second up to date Dell-Laptop and via HDMI to a Denon receiver.
Additionally I installed a RAM-Disk (ImDisk) to use the remaining 1GB RAM and changed Windows temp environment variables and Edge's cache accordently to drive R:\.
Nils Frahm (All Melody) is flawlessly playing while writing this and I'm still in testing phase - looks very promising. Such a fulfilling result.
Have a nice weekend - and kind regards
P. S. I always did a full backup before doing any changes. That's, in such cases is essential. But obviously you know this.
suggest me some good music server for my intel arc laptop, am a music composer looking for diy composing setup. earlier i tried bossbadi's server and Dooocord.
Last edited by a moderator:
removed commercial link in #2.Forget about Windoze. Throw Ubuntu on there and you can keep your old hardware without any silly OS tricks.
Have you checked the hardware is supported by windows 11? Older hardware generally isn't.
Also, if you're running W10 then it's continued support and no rush or reason to upgrade. IMO.
Finally, I know of a few people who've tried to upgrade from 10 and eventually had to reinstall.
So why make the change?
Also, if you're running W10 then it's continued support and no rush or reason to upgrade. IMO.
Finally, I know of a few people who've tried to upgrade from 10 and eventually had to reinstall.
So why make the change?
Win 11 = either external TPM 2.0 and an approved cpu. Boot from a media source , setup will allow TPM 1.2 and just about any 2010+ CPU.
My Xeon E5 (V4) , has TPM 2 and is as powerful as a modern I7 intel , but online upgrade says the CPU is not "approved" M$ just wants you
to spend $$$.
My Xeon E5 (V4) , has TPM 2 and is as powerful as a modern I7 intel , but online upgrade says the CPU is not "approved" M$ just wants you
to spend $$$.
Atom was a pretty stripped down chip....will not work very well on most programs.
This version was launched in December 2011.
I would use a i series CPU, with 8 or even 16GB RAM if the Microsoft OS was needed.
Otherwise, there are many flavors of Linux, check which one suits, the new ones need lots of processor power and RAM, which defeats the purpose of a light weight OS.
That will start a new debate here...Ubuntu, Manjaro, Knoppix (very versatile for fault finding), Puppy and many others.
There are sites which tell you the popularity of those, Ubuntu was the clear leader a long time back.
You can try most of them in live mode, before installing on hard disk.
This version was launched in December 2011.
I would use a i series CPU, with 8 or even 16GB RAM if the Microsoft OS was needed.
Otherwise, there are many flavors of Linux, check which one suits, the new ones need lots of processor power and RAM, which defeats the purpose of a light weight OS.
That will start a new debate here...Ubuntu, Manjaro, Knoppix (very versatile for fault finding), Puppy and many others.
There are sites which tell you the popularity of those, Ubuntu was the clear leader a long time back.
You can try most of them in live mode, before installing on hard disk.