[WriteLog] Notebook Soundcard "Audition" Results

[jcullum]

Good advice!  Wish I had it before I bought my Inspiron 8000.  I picked this
model due to its generous supply of inputs (mic and line in, 2 USB, serial,
parallel, IEE1394, modem, ethernet, etc).  It, however, has the Maestro 3i
sound chip and scores low with SBrdChk 9as you found out).  I found that if
you use the drivers directly from ESS you can route the microphone directly
to the speakers, but the muting function doesn't seem to work (i.e. while
the WAV file is playing the mic in doesn't get muted).  You also lose the
hard volume keys on the laptop.  This isn't too much of an issue as you can
always load the Dell driver after the contest is over.  A friends HP laptop
with the 3i chip does the same thing.  So the manufacturers must be saving
themselves some tech support time by not allowing users to create feedback
using the "echo microphone" feature.  I need to spend some more time with
the ESS driver to see if it will function okay with WriteLog.  Kind of an
unfortunate band-aid for an otherwise good laptop.

Jim/K7MK

-----Original Message-----
From: Marty Tippin [mailto:ki0lo@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 11:59 AM
To: writelog@contesting.com
Subject: [WriteLog] Notebook Soundcard "Audition" Results



Having decided that my Dell Inspiron 4000 isn't going to cut it
for use with WriteLog (soundcard score 77, no way to route mic
directly to output), I went out at lunch and "auditioned" a few
notebooks at CompUSA by running the "SBrdChk.exe" program on
them (had to really hassle the sales people to unlock several
machines so I could get to the diskette drive)... 

Remember that a score of "7f" is the best you can get from
SBrdChk.exe, but as the program says, that's still no guarantee
the soundcard will work 100% with Writelog - however it's a lot
more likely to work correctly than one with a score less than
7f!

Also note that all of these machines were running Windows ME -
some of them won't even run Windows 98 without a lot of grief
(Sony in particular). 

Here are the results of my (limited) testing - I was interested
primarily in notebooks with 14" monitors, DVD and 128MB RAM, so
there were many models I didn't check (plus I only had an
hour..)

* H/P Pavillion N3370 - Scored 6f - has *no* serial port, only
USB. Didn't bother checking any other HP's
* Sony VAIO PCG-FX120 - Scored 7f - has one serial port + USB
* Sony VAIO PCG-FX150 - Scored 7f - has one serial port + USB
* Toshiba Satellite 2805-S202 - Scored 73 - No serial port, no
"Windows" key on the keyboard(!).
* Compaq Presario 12XL510 - Scored 7f - no serial, USB only
* Compaq Presario 18XL390 - Scored 7f - has one serial + USB

So hopefully this is useful to anyone who might be considering
purchase of a new notebook for use with WriteLog. My best advice
would be to run the SBrdChk.exe program on any machine you're
considering purchasing, before you take it out of the store!

73,

-Marty NW0L
 martyt@pobox.com


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