I'm rocking a DELL here, it's now 3 years old and I haven't had a single problem with it whatsoever, has always run beautifully. I clean the dust out of it every now and then and that's all. Sometimes it's left on for days at a time. It runs Sonar great. I was an anti-DELL snob for years until I realized how much bang I could get for my buck. I don't play games or anything like that. My next computer will definitely be custom made for audio, but right now I just couldn't justify spending the money when this trusty little bugger is still running so well. 

Sitemester


Hi again from Denmark.

I have located the source of distortion from a very unexpected part of the chain.....

Everything was connected to a Furman power protection unit. I use Furman protection on all my gear from studio to amps, home cinema, computers... You name it. 
But this particular unit apparently has a defect so instead of filtering noise from the electric system in the building it was generating some sort of noise but only sometimes....
I was very frustrated because i didnt understand why i couldnt get rid of all the artifacts in the sound including distortion.....

But by pure instinct i bypassed the Furman, and now it works great. 
Unfortunately the ZED R-16 has suffered some damage in the firewire section but it seems that solutions are in sight....

Rgds
Bruno

Hi Bruno,
 
Glad to hear you are nailing down the problems.
Not so great that equipment is damaged, but at least you are now on your way to a solid stable working system.
 
Thank you for keeping the forum updated.
This information can help others who come to the forum looking for solutions.
This is good information to have logged away for future troubleshooting.  
 
Hope you are able to get this completely nailed down and it doesn't cost too much.
 

"I clean the dust out of it every now and then and that's all."

That's one of the keys right there that is often overlooked. If I wait too long between blasting out the CPU fan with compressed air, my CPU idle temperature can get way too high and actually cause audio crackling in Sonar when using heavy soft synths, etc. I check the temp periodically with monitoring software and as soon as it gets to about 60 degrees idle I blow the dust out and it goes back down to about 36 degrees. I have to do it about every three months. My apartment's pretty dusty.

robert_e_bone

Heroics


The Dell I owned could not even handle USB audio !

I was soOOoOooOOo shocked , I spent alot of money on my first laptop .....1300

If you wanna be super sure --get ADK laptop or Rain PC laptop -----

ALso 4 real HP seem 2 work for many freinds I know who work on audio

I used Sonar on a Dell for YEARS without any trouble whatsoever.


I also concur with other posters in my disagreement with the notion that Dell computers cannot run Sonar, and that as long as the posted Sonar system requirements are met, and even sometimes when they are not quite met, with PROPER configuration and decent drivers Sonar runs just fine.


I do not know the percentage, but I believe it to be HIGH, that most of the time problems are caused by one or more of the following (certainly not all cases, but a high percentage):


User error
Ancient hardware
Mismatch between ASIO sample rates in Sonar and interface
Not using ASIO drivers
Using the wrong/outdated drivers
Having NO drivers (like for Windows 7 or Windows 8)

I am sure I am missing many, but the general theme of the above is user and/or configuration errors causing a high percentage of the problems seen.

To be sure, there are legitimate bugs and those will exist in many if not most cases, regardless of the hardware situation.

But to blame Dell for issues across the board is unwarranted.

Bob Bone

I use PC since 1988
 
 
 
got used to its "tasks"