Low Cost, High Performance, Traktor Stable HP Laptop

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Low Cost, High Performance, Traktor Stable HP Laptop

Hey guys, just wanted to share an awesome setup I just stumbled onto.

First I bought an HP ProBook 4320s, with the i5 450m proc, and 4 gigs of ram, and a 500 gb hdd.

It has 4 usb, HDMI, eSATA, no firewire…

I picked it up for $500 new in box from an ebay store, and if I knew then what I know now I would have gotten the least expensive build with the Celeron, and small hard drive.

For $130 I bought the fastest processor you can get this model with (Core i7 620M). The laptop is a breeze to disassemble, and I replaced the processor. Then I bought two 4gb ddr3 sodimm’s for $80 on ebay. And the new Samsung SSD with TRIM support, 120gb for $150.

So now I have a Core i7, 8GB DDR 3, 120GB high performance SSD all for $860, and I could have gotten the $420 flavor of the laptop and done it for $780.

If you can find a laptop out there with those specs for $800 please, let me in.

And the reason I invested in all these upgrades, is it is the most stable PC laptop I have ever owned with Traktor. And I have gone though A LOT. I bought this one as an upgrade to my ProBook 5310m (it was also remarkably stable with Traktor) just for the new i-processor.

What I mean by stable…

41000hz at 1.5ms latency (not a measure of actually total system latency, just the setting in the audio 8 dj control panel)

96000hz at 2ms latency!
(don’t even use it here, but I did a couple gigs and pretty close to 20 hours of testing to finally decide I really couldn’t tell the difference with my mp3’s)

This is all with the 2.0.15 Audio 8 Driver, not the newest one that breaks stuff.

I also use a Kontrol X1, and am about to add two DN-SC2000’s, and the USB’s hubs have been up to snuff.

Not to be a flame war started…

But an equivalent MacBook Pro, with that i7, 8GB of ram, and a 120GB SSD is like $2600!

Thats over 3 times the price!!!

You cant honestly sit here and tell me thats you get 300% more performance for that dollar.

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Nice one dude :slight_smile:

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Wow nice. Even though at the 500 point you were still pretty good but not a bad upgrade def!

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do the celeron mobile and i7 620m share the same socket size do they?

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Nice mate, thats something to think about for all the MBP advocates. :wink:

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I doubt it…the i7 is 4 cores…but dont quote me on that

And nice review…I should do something like this with my hp..but idk if i trust my soundcard that much lol

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thats quite rad dude, i thought i had it pretty good with my hp dv9000 that i got on the equivalent of craig’s list here in canada lol. I’ve always been a little skeptic with trying to open up my laptop and messing around with the insides…

do you have online resources or are you actually a trained tech?

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I’m getting very stable performance out of a gateway craptop with 2gb ram (maxed out), a dual 1.4 ghz processor, a 5400 rpm hdd and vista sp2. I have to stop some bad drivers from running to get it stable in traktor but that’s about it. Just more evidence that spending g’s on a macbook is wholly unnecessary… but if you’re a tech savvy person you already knew that. Why pay more for the same hardware?

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Nice find but good luck with that. I say so because LED feedback on the Denons cause all kinds of crackle/pops on Windows systems, especially when changing FX. Actually too much LED feedback/MIDI data sent to devices causes all sorts of problems on Windows.

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as a mac fanboy i agree 1stly you got a top deal, and yes maybe the equivalent mac isnt 300% better , but i run a macbook 13" 2009 i picked up new for £599 and with a £50 ram upgrade its got 4gb, i think thats better value for money , its just the reliability of the system , i was constantly scared playing out on a windows pc

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too bad it has integrated graphics

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That’s good setup that you have their. My concern is the laptop heating up being that the i7 run hot. I would check to see how hot it gets. Keep in mind that it my run great outdoors and at home, but in a club that doesn’t have great ventilation it may cause some issues.

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Well, for the question to the celeron.

The hp ProBook 4320s only comes with one motherboard, that supports like 7 different procs. One is a Celeron, there are a few i3’s, a few i5’s, and one i7.

I am not a “certified” tech. But I started building my own computers when I was 7 years old, and laptops really don’t scare me, I learned on an old macbook, and everything else has been a breeze by comparison (disassembly I am speaking of). As long as you take some step for static discharge prevention, and you are very delicate, most PC laptops can go through many full disassembly/re-assembly cycles. I just used the HP website to see witch processors were compatible with that model, and when I found it only came with one motherboard type, it was pretty easy, I could choose any processor that they sold it with.

Interesting note on the midi LED feedback. I run the X1 right now and have never experienced an issues.

And as for the heat, the actual i7 I got is an slightly under clocked engineering sample version of the 620M. So I get the new direct CPU to RAM bus that the i7 supports, the higher L3 cache, and about a 10% frequency boost over the replaced i5.

But the actual thermal properties of the Engineering Sample are identical to the i5 I replaced.

Checked Intels web-site just to be sure of that. But that makes sense, as HP only sells the motherboard in one configuration, so the heat-sink/ fan combo has to be able to support all processors they plan on selling the model with.

And it already runs a bit cooler with the SSD, so I’m not really worried.

And as for the integrated graphics comment.

This PC is specifically detailed to be, and was bought for, one specific purpose.

Audio processing.

I fail too see how graphical processing even comes into the picture.

Although the i7 uses the DDR3 system ram as the ram for the on-core graphical processor that runs at 700mhz clock, and is directly on the cpu, eliminating the graphics bus completely, and also eliminating another extremely hot chip on the board, focusing all the heat in one area, making it easier to direct cooling solutions in a more efficient manner.

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i use an AMD Turion II based HP laptop. Works like a charm, I have tossed all i could at traktor for over 2 hours sometimes and it has no dropouts or anything. then again im used to AMD since thats the only company I understand how to work around problems with.

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i asked cos it sounded iffy.. that laptop i7620m processor is only 2 cores by the way.

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Yep, 2 physical cores, 4 logical.

Hyper-Threading FTW.

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the heat issue is the reason i went with the envy line, 2 fans, aluminum body. and those fans sound like a 747 when they kick in under extreme heat. they really get the job done at keeping it cool.

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all this envy talk makes me want to consider buying one… after the dramas i had with my last hp i dont think i could do it.

well they weren’t dramas i guess.. just not happy with the build quality (although the envy seems to have stepped up this dept. a little), and the fact that it died at about the 2 year mark - and that it was a common problem for hp’s of that age.

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if youre considering it and want a pc over a mac, jump quickly. i dont imagine these will stay badass in the next couple of years.

the guy that designed them, rahul sood is no longer with hp and is now working for microsoft.

heres other pc’s that raul designed. i hope to god microsoft goes into the pc business with him there. would be a shame for this guys talent to go to waste on the next xbox or something like that.

450×450 16.8 KB

338×379 23.6 KB

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^^^^ dems sum guud shits

all tasty pieces of kit… very tasty.

didn’t microsoft say years ago that they’d never make computers, just software and peripherals (zune, etc i’ve filed under peripherals before the trolls start trolling)