red dwalf Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 not sure if i should have put this in the equipment help or not, but here goes.i`m looking for a laptop suitable for imaging with a webcam and a canon 1000d when i buy it for myself a christmas, the trouble is i`m not sure what spek i need i.e. processor, graphics card and so on, i`ve also heard that the latest 64 bit laptops can cause problems with some older programs but not certain of this, i`m using wx astrocapture, registax along with a philips 900 webcam at the moment, would i be better of getting an older reconditioned laptop or pay a bit more for a new faster one, been looking at the dell studio 15, i`m hopeless with the constant changes of computers so any help please.many thanks Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgs001 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I've been using a laptop that's probably 18 months old now, and it doesn't break a sweat (I keep a towel over it ), once I get a PCMCIA USB 2 thingy I'll be using one that's probably 5 years old, whilst guiding or controlling the mount. I really don't think you need significant CPU performance... but whatever you get, try to get something that has oodles of USB ports... Ideally 3 at least.Something like http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/xplorae16.html would, I expect, work very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin66 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I've got two laptops which run and drive all my gear. CCD cameras, DSLR, HEQ5 and Lx mounts etc.They are a Dell Inspiron 6400 and an ACER Aspire 5670.The trick I've found is1. Use WinXP2. Use KEYSPAN usb>serial adaptors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red dwalf Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 cheers John,that looks ideal, i was looking at a site that sells reconditioned Dell 600`s but they are around £240 alot for a second hand i thought, so the one you surgest looks a good buy, do you know how long the battery lasts on these, some can be down to 1.5 hours which could be a pain if out in the field so to speak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red dwalf Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 yes the ACER`S do look a nice machine.i`m used to running old machines, the desktop i`m on now is still p3 500mhz so i`m not up on the latest tech at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin66 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 A 20Ah gel cell battery and a 120W computer 12V-19V car transformer will keep the computer going as long as you will!Get another one ( and an electronic charger) for the mount and there's no more power problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgs001 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I've no idea how long the power lasts on the one sorry... I've been getting 2 to 3 hours out of my dell, but have started using the mains now... so have eliminated the problem (my mount was draining my Maplin powertank, whilst guiding, in under 3 hours....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red dwalf Posted October 23, 2009 Author Share Posted October 23, 2009 do you need a good quality, seperate graphics card or would a onboard graphics card cope well for this type of imaging, want to make sure i get the right machine and looking to buy second hand unit for under £200any help please,cheers Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinvek Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 rob, are you planning to proccess your images on it or just use it for capturing and then proccess the data on a desktop pc?if you're just going to use it for capturing data the graphics card is a non issue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red dwalf Posted October 23, 2009 Author Share Posted October 23, 2009 cheers mate,yes i want one so i can use in the field to capture with webcam then use regisatx or eqivalent to process, i dont know alot about laptops so do you think an old dell d600 will do ?also i want a canon 1000d from santa to image do`s in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arad85 Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 TBH, I think £240 for something that's 6 year old technology (if I'm reading it right) is a lot. Additionally, second hand batteries last significantly less time than when new.I have an old IBM 1.4G machine and it runsd everything I want it to (DMK acquire at 30+fps is the most processor intensive task it does). As for processing, it is about 10x slower than my desktop (E8400 3GHz based machine). As far as I can tell (I'm looking at a new laptop at the mo) you either have the choice of a small screen netbook (low cost, small, lightweight, long battery life) or a larger screen laptop (shorter battery life, bigger screen, higher performance). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 Rob how about a Netbook, small compact and the battery lasts 9 hours according to the ones I've seen. Thinking about one myself to take out to dark sites so I can run CduC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red dwalf Posted October 23, 2009 Author Share Posted October 23, 2009 haven`t thought about a netbook so will have to look into them, as for laptop`s the other reason i was thinking of getting an older one besides money was the fact that they run windows xp and lots of software like it, will software like registax and ax capture work with the new windows 7 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astromerlin Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 I just recently bought a laptop off ebay for less than £150 which does great it's a Compaq with 1.8ghz Athlon processor. It seems to work well with capture and processing although I havn't used it on battery yet as this one died along time ago and I'm waiting for a new one to arrive.The only problem occured when I started to setup a guidecam, I got an error message that said 'Not enough bandwidth' on the USB. This seems to do with my laptop only having one USB controller. So luckily I can get a 4 port usb cardbus adapter (each pair of ports share a controller in the card) to fit in the machine but another expense.So hopefully when that arrives I'll be up and running with guidecam at last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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