355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

my laptop is about to take a dump on me...the screen wants to shut off if i move or wiggle it at times and it has no battery so i cant dive around and log. Im lookin for a laptop but not sure what i need....i dont want to spend a lot of money and i dont want to end up gettin the wrong thing. Right now i also have the LC-1 with no gauge so i have been using the laptop to get the idle AFR right but cant drive and rear afr do to no battery haha.

MassD

iTrader: (1)

I am no expert on tuning but i do know computers pretty well, whats your price range becuase that is the only thing that will limit how much performance you can get out of your computer. For a maxium of 500 bucks i would suggest http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834107044 and there is a rebate on it right now. It has plenty of power to run what ever program you need and a good battery life. If you are willing to spend a bit more http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834115792 is a fantastic labtop, and if you play comp games this can play all the new games in Full quality.

1ADan

iTrader: (4)

check out some used stuff on ebay. when i was tuning on my GTP, i got a laptop that was formerly a business lease. $150 for something that was more than adequate for my software's needs. find out what you have for hardware requirements and browse ebay. use the extra money towards more mods!

ace_012

I'd go with 1ADan and check ebay if you need a serial port as well, you can get a old cheapy laptop that still has a serial port on it pretty cheap.
But if all you needed was usb I would say go with a netbook all the way. I've started using my netbook to datalog and figure out this whole tuning thing, and they seem perfect for the job if you have a good serial->usb adapter. They have very long battery life, adequate system specs for any tuning software you'll be using without any lag, and nice and small and portable for keeping around in a vehicle. I got my netbook and a 2gb stick of ram for it off newegg for around $250 at the time.

oldred95

For years I have been using the skeletal remains of an IBM Think Pad 600E. IIRC its a Pentium II 233 mhz 128 mb of ram with 32 shared so it actually runs on 96 mb, and something like a 6 gig hard drive. Both batteries are toast and I run it off the AC adapter with a power inverter. I bought a PCMCIA card to USB adapter so I could datalog with it and its always worked great. Its tough as nails. It gets its brain shook out all the time riding in the passengers seat on these glorious oklahoma roads but it keeps on working. That being said I would recommend a dinosaur like this to anyone even though its running just fine on Windows XP. Get something like an early 2000s Dell latitude or inspiron. They are good reliable machines and still are supported as far as finding parts and batteries and they are plentiful.

Since I got my emulator I've been using my Dell XPS since its nice to be free of the cord and move to and from the house to test driving and so on. I do have these weird log errors every so often while datalogging with scanner pro but it seems to be an issue with it running windows vista. Otherwise it works fine for everything else.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

whats the best deal? What about the dell mini....there like 200-250 on ebay and there nice an small!

http://boise.craigslist.org/sys/1912644409.html
http://boise.craigslist.org/sys/1913824976.html
http://boise.craigslist.org/sys/1912570355.html
http://boise.craigslist.org/sys/1911255922.html
http://boise.craigslist.org/sys/1906300229.html

ace_012

Out of the ones you posted I'd have to say the first one, seems to have the fastest processor, most ram, and hd space for the cheapest price out of all of them. The third one is about the same but with a "mobile" processor which is probably better on battery life but is priced higher then the 1st one.

I'd go with the dell mini though off ebay, something like this is a pretty nice deal:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-INSPIRON-Mi...=Laptops_Nov05

Cruzer Dood

Don't know if its best or not, but after buying my Autoprom, and some other goodies, my " Tool " budget was pretty low. I found a place in Delaware online, called Bob Johnsons that deals with bussiness trade ins. I wound up buying a Panasonic CF-27 Toughbook for $100.00. Figured it was built heavy duty enough for garage use. Might give them a once over to see whats available. HTH, Al

SMURFN' Z28

iTrader: (2)

I love my machine. I have an IBM T30 512 mb ram, 2 ghz pentium 4. It has usb, serial and parallel! (This means I can use my older pocket programer II) These were commonly business computers back 5 or 6 years ago and you can score them for cheap on ebay particularly if they are hardware locked. I got mine for free because it was locked and nobody could use it. After spending an evening with 10 bucks worth of parts from radio shack and a soldering iron it works great! Since it is older and was cheap i dont have to worry about boogering it up out in the garage.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

so if the dell mini has no disk drive then how do you load the LC01 programs and other stuff like that onto the laptop? The dell mini might not be the best for me if there is no disk drive on them.

1ADan

iTrader: (4)

flash drive! since no netbook comes with a floppy any more (nor do almost any laptop), just use a small flash drive. you can usually pick up a 4gig for under $20 these days

ace_012

Yep, since I have a desktop also if I ever need to install something from a disk I just shared the dvd drive on my desktop and made it a networked drive on my netbook. Or a flash drive/external hard drive will work as well like 1ADan said Or get a external dvd drive since they're pretty cheap.

I think if you need a serial port and want a really cheap laptop then go with some old business laptop like a few have mentioned off ebay, but if you don't need a serial port and have the money to spend go with a netbook, imo

280zwitha383

You can also always email it to yourself.
The only thing I've come into slight inconvenience with running Tunerpro on an older laptop is the resolution. I have to resize the categories on the left to view large tables (fuel and spark). This is with 800x600. My old laptop is 266mhz with 160mb ram and a 10 gig hd. I've run Winaldl, tunerprort, willem programmer software, freescan (for my 94 lt1 which is "obd 1.5"), and my obdII software, Scantool, on this laptop. Freescan is the only one I've had problems with, the program refreshes horrendously slow. I need to hook it up to my newer laptop and see how it acts. That said, my obdII software Scantool runs great so I don't think it's the speed of the computer but rather the programming of Freescan.
That said, I've got a serial, parallel, and single USB port. And my battery still works fine. Regardless, I would think you should be able to score something faster than that for around $100 and I would advise it. Booting windows XP on a rig this old gets.. old.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

Well looky what i just won today!! I hope it works with tunerproRT/ostrich good for real time tunning! I hope to get it up and running in the next two weeks so i can get my dyno tune done and make it to the track befor the cold weather gets here.....One thing i have had problems with it gettin my laptop and my girlfriends new laptop to pick up my ALDL cable. Im not sure how to set the com ports.....i think thats my problem.

ace_012

Saweet, what laptop did you end up getting? You can set com ports from the device manager, when you right click my computer and go to properties.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

oops forgot to post the link.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...K%3AMEWNX%3AIT

ace_012

Awesome! Yea just right click My Computer from the start menu, click properties, click the hardware tab, start device manager, and open up the usb to serial adapter and you can change the com port. Let us know if you have any problems with the aldl cable!

On a side note, I'm sure you'll love the battery life and portability of the mni with the higher resolution!

Werewolf SS

iTrader: (3)

When it comes to simple computer tuning and logging you don't need anything special at all. I was tuning and logging off HP Tuners on an IBM A21M. To understand that the laptop was made in 1998. PIII at 800mhz 512mb ram and 60gig hard drive. Logged and tuned with out issues ever. Was a reliable unit till I sold it a year ago. If I could run HPT on that dinosaur you can get just about anything and have no issues.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

dont i have to do something in tunerpro also for the com ports?

ace_012

Yea go to tools > Preferences > ALDL/Emulation tab and from there you can set the cable type and com port.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

OK so what cable type do i have Max232/2-Trans/ap.... or Auto Prom, or Translator Pro? and if i set the com port number to COM1 then i just make sure the laptop end of the ALDL cable is in the USB com1 port? Sorry if they are stupid questions. I dont have anyone to help walk me though it and i have never done this befor so its new to me.

ace_012

Probably the first option, for the type of cable. Those other options, like autoprom is for products that you buy from like moates for like realtime tuning and such. And first you have to go to device manager, double click your serial>usb adapter and verify what COM port that says first, and then thats what you set the com port to in tunerpro. When referring to com ports with a usb adapter they are more like virtual com ports then as opposed to real physical ones, or at least that's my understanding of it. Either way you set the com port (well, find out what it is) in device manager and then set the com port in tunerpro to that

And most of the time the only stupid answer is the one you didn't ask

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

well i do have a moates ostrich for real time tunning in the truck. I can get the laptop to read that one on my old laptop but its the ALDL obd1 under the dash cable i have trouble with. Once i get the new dell mini ill try these steps and see what happends......i might be bugging you again soon haha Thanks again for your help! cant wait to get it up and runnin right so i can hit the dyno and then the truck! Would be nice to get it done for cold weather sets in.

355tpipickup

iTrader: (5)

So i got a usb to serial adapter off ebay and it came with a cd. What i plug in the usb to serial adapter the dell mini sees what it is but when i try to open logworks for my innovate Wideband it says "no serial port". i cant get the dell mini to pickup the serail port connection to read my AFR and log it. I hate being computer stupid.

ace_012

Did you install the drivers off the cd first?