[hpsdr] laptop recommendations and linux observations

[Erich Heinzle]

I will be getting a P4 2-3GHZ box with ~1GB of RAM in due course for little or no cost, but to allow mobile operation I am thinking about a laptop.

Can anyone on the list confirm if something along the lines of:

Compaq 620 XU333PA
CPU: Intel Core Duo T4500
RAM: 2GB DDR3
HDD: 320GB SATA
Graphic: Intel GMA 4500MHD
Screen: 15.6” LED (1366 x 768)

would be ok for GHPSDR or PowerSDR

The screen res may be the only problem if the CPU would be OK.


So far, I've figured out that:

a netbook 1.6GHz 1GB RAM is unable to run ghpsdr under ubuntu 9.1 and do anything useful

a desktop athlon ~2GHz a few years old now is unable to run ghpsdr under ubuntu 9.1, producing choppy meaningless audio, a fairly valid looking whole of HF spectrum, but can't generate a meaningful 192kHz wide spectrum for tuning.

although the Athlon managed with the SDR-1000 and powerSDR back in the day

Of note, and possibly of interest to HPSDR users generally:

OzyBulkRead read failed -1

errors seem to be due to slow USB ports.
The Athlon motherboard USB port did not raise this eror, but the ports on the front of the Athlon tower did.
The netbook ports did not raise this error.
So, older PCs may struggle to handle the USB data rates.


Thanks for any advice

Erich
VK5HSE