ra204: os re-install + soundcard questions

[phosphor]

howdy.
I bought the ra204 and love it. couple of questions.

has anyone wiped and installed xp pro or win2k.. any driver issues or gotchas?

I need to insert my delta 66 sound card - any one have any experience of this hardware combinations?

what is the existing soundcard? i loaded cubase but playback is not smooth, the sound is slow and jumps/stutters. anyone have experience using recording tools on vaio desktops.. tips greatly appreciated.

[bluenote]

Hi,

I'm using Vaio PCV-RS704 with Cubase SL 2.2 end E-MU 0404 sound card. Works perfectly well here without any additional tweaking.

rob

[jammold]

With the Operating Systems it is best to stick with XP Home if thats what came with it and get XP Pro Upgrade if you need it (under £100 if you get SP2 as well) as the recovery DVD will not work with XP Pro if this is not the operating system on the disk. LOL Confused?

All the original drivers for Windows XP should work with XP Home + Pro with no problems - Win2K could be a little tricky but try the XP drivers first... If not get the Win2K manufacturers drivers from their respective websites.

[phosphor]

Does the recovery DVD return the OS to the state when I purchased it? Say If I replace a faulty hard disk - can I expect the recovery disk to rebuild xp home complete with sony vaio and third party apps?

(I've never owned an 'off-the-shelf' machine, but have always pieced systems together from components, recovery disks are new to me!

p

[jammold]

Yes it does and it has two operating modes:

1. Standard Recovery: Formats the HDD then installs Windows XP. VAIO applications are added next and the system is rebooted.

2. Partition Manager: This tool is used to manage the size of the hard disk(s). Best not to use this - leave it alone.

Be warned any recovery will erase the data from drive C so backup your computer first...

[phosphor]

ah, thanks for the info. The info about the recovery dvd is reassuring.

I'll avoid the recovery cd partition manager. I used the one supplied with mandrake 10.1 and it fared admirably (shame about the lack of ati drivers in that distro)

I think the cubase problem _may_ be that there are no ASIO drivers for the supplied soundcard. I'll install the delta card tonight and see how that fares.

bluenote: did your system come with an onboard soundcard, if so did you disable it when you inserted your E-MU 0404?

again, thanks for the advice guys.
p

[kee-lo_]

I would disable the on-board sound.

[jammold]

If you want Linux BTW then try SuSE 9.1 - another user has road-tested it on 8 VAIO's and has even given us a guide! SuSE is very inexpensive now as well!

Be back soon to post the ClubVAIO Internal Link...

Stay tuned....

EDIT: Here is the link as promised...

Guide written by toddncl
ClubVAIO: Linux SuSE on Sony VAIO Notebooks

[kee-lo_]

An RA series with SuSE sounds interesting

[jammold]

Worth the experiment if you can't stand M$ - our Uni now use SuSE on two RA204 systems but I am not that optimistic these will be rolled out into the library - all the nice Sony VAIO software would of course be missing - they'd use a Windows XP Student image instead:smileycry: