Show Laptops - opinions?

[swamidog]

the case i used is only 15" deep. not too bad.

Nice list! I wish 'Short rack' really meant it though. I've looked often, since making a 1U silent machine based on CF cards, fanless, with case depth just 170mm. Finding a rack cabinet short enough for it isn't easy either. Worth it though, perfect match for Layla boxes too, even with full size plugs inserted back and front.

My aim for a new machine is 1.5U (to allow mounting of a standard backplane widget), silent cooling with bigger external heatsink, and still have it no more than 170mm from back to front. I know laptops are smaller, but for a portable system this is still great, size and weight likely not a lot more than a fisherman's bait box in a 3U rack box. Could be a lot smaller with a tiny DAC box instead of Layla. Room to fit a full size standard keyboard, too.

[The_Doctor]

I'd take 6.5 of those inches.

The picture shows a part success... The long PCI cable worked with one card, but not with the one I fitted. Sometimes it did, but 'sometimes' wasn't good enough.. But the machine is sound, I'll find a way to make good use of it.

[swamidog]

that's cute! very nice.

I'd take 6.5 of those inches.

The picture shows a part success... The long PCI cable worked with one card, but not with the one I fitted. Sometimes it did, but 'sometimes' wasn't good enough.. But the machine is sound, I'll find a way to make good use of it.

[The_Doctor]

that's cute! very nice.

Thanks. Might be harder to get that small if I want a new board with more RAM though. Maybe MiniITX has shrunk some stuff to make room for it but I stopped upgrading in favour of buying a few of those boards before they quit showing up cheap on eBay. I didn't mention that those mainboards are 1.2Gz, so likely to last me a while yet. Some tasks want more, but few seem to need it.

[norty303]

I use T series Thinkpads or higher end Lenovo.
The T series are running XP and kept as show machines. 2GB RAM is just fine.
T series are really robust and have waterproof keyboards and a nice little led over the keyboard.
I have no problem running Beyond on mine.

[Bradfo69]

Humm... while building essentially a desktop in a rackmount case and subsequent road case is mildly appealing, I have a few desktop machines that could be put to use as effectively the same thing. It still sort of defeats the purpose of portability - needing to lug along a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Or am I missing something?

[discothefunkyhippo]

The new 15" MacBookPro's from Apple are pretty darn awesome...

You can run Windows via BootCamp or VMWare.

[norty303]

The new 15" MacBookPro's from Apple are pretty darn awesome..

And totally stupid budget for a show machine.

[swamidog]

there are rack mountable monitors and keyboards.

it all becomes more luggable than portable, but it's really nice to pop the front and back panels off the rack case and have everything ready and all wired up.

Humm... while building essentially a desktop in a rackmount case and subsequent road case is mildly appealing, I have a few desktop machines that could be put to use as effectively the same thing. It still sort of defeats the purpose of portability - needing to lug along a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Or am I missing something?

[Bradfo69]

I agree there are plusses and I'm sort of giving it consideration. I've been running through your parts list and checking prices online. Can a QM fit in something like that? I see you have a .net box sitting on top of the rack.