sound card questions

Time for an upgrade but I would like some good advice first. I am currently recording on a Dell inspiron 6000 notebook with a pentium m processor and 1 GB of RAM. When I bought it, I discovered that the internal soundcard was not compatible with Cakewalk, so on a friends advice, I bought an external USB sound card: Creative SB Live external (in his defense, he's a computer guy and knows nothing about recording). It did fix my problem but it also presented me with a whole host of others. Now I am ready to move up to something that actually works the way it ought to. My main question is this:
While I realize that the EMU 1616 audio interface is also made by Creative, I have heard very good things about it. Would I be able to use this to replace my SB Live card or do I still need some sort of sound card as well? Also, any recommendations you may have as an alternative would be welcome.

You have firewire you might check out some units from roland like:
http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.asp?CatID=12&SubCatID=51&ProdID=FA-66
Then you could use it with a desktop or any pc with firewire.

Bill

If your Dell notebook has a PCMCIA slot, that's all that is required for the Emu 1616. It sure will replace your external SoundBlaster Live.

I have the 1616 and it will replace your internal soundcard, however, it will not play through the laptops speakers. YOu will need to use headphones or external monitors. It also works without the breakout box connected which is nice when you need to use the laptop for something other than recording or just for mixing. Hope that helps