USB 1

[gary1968]

Howdy,

I was gifted an old Dell CPx lappy the other day, it is in very good condition. It is a P3 with 128Mb ram at the moment, I'll put more in of it is going to do what I want. I have installed XP onto it, it did have Win2K.

Blinky mentioned that it might be USB 1 as it is so old and suggested that because of that it might not do. ( I have since ofund out it is USB 1 ).

So, what do you guys think? It is purely for imaging purposes. I intend to control my CG5GT through it, guide with it using a Meade DSI pro, image with my Orion Starshoot DSI, and perhapse image planets with my Nximage.

Will it do the job or should I give it back and wait for a USB 2 machine to come along?

Thanks on advance,

Gary

[blinky]

You might get away with buying a USB2 laptop card for it (If it has any slots free) but TBH I would not bother as I think you will find it too slow to do any imaging through.

Did you get my mail BTW?

[brendant]

I have an old Dell CPi Pentium 166 MMX with 128 MB ram and a 2 GB hard drive. As you have found out it is only USB1.1, no point in buying a USB2 card because the chipset will not support it and it will default to USB1 (I have tried), I also run a very cut down version of XP.

I currently use it to guide with and it just about copes with the QHY5 @ 2-3 Sec per frame, goes to 100% CPU useage then drops to around 30% then back to 100% as the next frame is captured but works ok.

I would not spend any money on it as it is too old and slow, has no capability for upgrading, keep your pennies and buy a better / faster laptop one once you have enough saved up - that's my plan.

Brendan

[Whippy]

I use an aincent USB1 laptop for my imaging and I bought a PCMCIA USB card (like this one: My-Link 4 Ports USB 2.0 PCMCIA Card Adaptor For Laptop: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo ) so I can use my QHY5 for guiding and it works just fine.

[brendant]

Just the same as the one I have but even though it is USB 2.0 the laptop chipset does not support 2.0 so it runs at 1, very handy for adding extra USB ports though, pity no speed advantage for the QHY5, one disadvantage of the larger chip is bigger downloads each time but it works nevertheless.

Brendan

[Whippy]

Interesting, I tried using one of the three USB1 ports on the machine and the QHY was slower than swimming through treacle, hence the purchase of the PCMCIA card.

AFAIK, the PCMCIA bus hasn't got anything to do with the USB and has a higher clock speed so it should work.

Tony..

[gary1968]

Cheers guys, I guess its a case of try it and see. I dont have to spend any cash to try it I suppose.

One up side to the Dell is that it has a pukka Serial port so the mount can connect directly without the need for an adaptor.

Gary