I haven't experienced much problem with just leaving everything running since installing XP SP3 here. Of course, that doesn't take into account some of the bloated antivirus programs out there. I use Avast! here, there are at least two others that I've heard to be not all that intrusive in DAW work. I wouldn't recommend Norton or McAfee antivirus for anybody trying to do anything *grin*.

I leave my network connected. Sometimes that's because I want to be able to retrieve files from other puters on my network that are needed for the project, or trade projects from another machine, or even have to go online to download audio files from others, etc. I've never encountered the network itself causing audio problems. This is when using XP laptop with 2g ram. The ramcount you have - or rather, don't have - seems to be the real culprit. Put 2g in any laptop running XP where you want to do audio work, also upgrade the XP to SP3. That's been my observation and it generally works well.

I think your biggest problem when using a laptop will be the fact that most laptops have only one internal hard drive bay and slower rotation speeds. That said, you can still get quite a lot done, but it may not keep up with what can be done with same OS on a desktop with at least two separate 7200rpm or faster hard drives in it.


--Mac

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