New notebook: BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD

May 31, 2013August 29, 2015 jeremy12.04, 17cl45, audio, bto, clevo, express, expresscard, firewire, gt650m, laptop, linux, lts, lubuntu, notebook, nvidia, optimus, pangolin, pci, precise, ubuntu, w170er2 Comments

Yay, got a new notebook, a BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD! I visited BTO last Tuesday and placed an order for a custom built notebook and it arrived yesterday. It’s quite a monster if you ask me:

Intel Core i7-3630QM Quad Core Processor (6MB Cache, 2.3 GHz, Turbo Mode 3.3GHz)
16GB RAM
120GN SSD
1TB HDD
Nvidia GT650M

One of the reasons I chose BTO besides the fact that they offer custom built notebooks is that they also offer the choice to have your custom built notebook come without an OS. Unfortunately it came without a license, in other words, when I first started the notebook it booted into a Windows 7 installation procedure. No biggie, created a bootable USB stick with the Ubuntu 12.04 mini ISO and wiped all partitions. 20 minutes later I could boot into a fresh Lubuntu installation. And you know what? All the essential stuff worked out of the box! So far the following things just work:

Network, both WiFi and wired
Sound
Webcam
Fn buttons
Display
Suspend to RAM

The only real challenge is probably getting the Nvidia Optimus configuration to work but I already found some very specific documentation. Yes, the BTO is actually a Clevo W170ER housing with custom hardware.

BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD/Clevo W170ER

Other than that the BTO was a breeze to set up and it happily runs Lubuntu 12.04. Booting into a complete desktop takes less than 15 seconds at the moment. Next up is configuring it properly for real-time, low-latency audio. If I want to get the most out of it I’ll probably have to start looking for a decent USB2.0 audio interface. The BTO has no FireWire or PCI Express ports. A sign of the times, guess FireWire is basically dead technology.

Ik wilde een BTO (en misschien nog steeds wel)

October 1, 2012 jeremy12.04, bto, firewire, linux, notebook, pangolin, precise, ubuntu, via2 Comments

Wil graag een nieuwe notebook en mijn oog was gevallen op een BTO. Dat is best een duur apparaat dus wilde weten of Ubuntu 12.04 er op draait en wat voor FireWire controller er in zit.

Kreeg al vrij snel een mailtje terug. Ze hebben bij BTO géén ervaring met Linux en ze wisten me ook niet te vertellen wat voor controller er precies in zit. Ja, een Via, maar wat voor Via dan? Probleem met Via is dat bijv. een VT6315 wel goed werkt voor audio en een VT6306 een stuk minder of in sommige gevallen zelfs helemaal niet.

Misschien kom ik uiteindelijk wel op een BTO uit maar vooralsnog ga ik verder zoeken naar een andere goeie kandidaat.

New notebook – Doing real-time audio

January 21, 2024April 13, 2024 jeremy83AR0045MH, 83AR004CMH, amd, ideapad, lenovo, linux, linux_audio, real_time, ryzen, xruncounterLeave a comment

Configuring this new machine took some effort but it can now run reliably with a few milliseconds of latency. First thing I did was installing a liquorix kernel as I have a good experience with those. Added the threadirqs kernel option to /etc/default/grub and updated the Grub configuration with sudo update-grub. After a reboot I […]

New notebook – The day after

January 12, 2024April 13, 2024 jeremy83AR0045MH, 83AR004CMH, amd, ardour, babyface, bto, debian, ideapad, lenovo, linux, linux_audio, liquorix, notebook, rme, rtirq, ryzen, udev-rtirq, xfceLeave a comment

Everything seems to work, network, audio, external monitor, display brightness. And this is the first notebook I’ve ever come across to that has a touch pad with an actual real middle click! Love it! Keyboard is nice too, backlight works fine and it has a nice array of function keys that are almost all mapped […]

New notebook – Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5

January 11, 2024April 13, 2024 jeremy83AR0045MH, 83AR004CMH, bto, debian, ideapad, lenovo, linux, linux_audio, notebookLeave a comment

After long consideration I ended up with a Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 16APH8 (83AR0045MH) or actually a 83AR004CMH, which are exactly the same models. For a while I was eying a BTO P•BOOK 16P1390 that got a good review from an old colleague of mine from the UvA. That’s actually a TongFang ID6H2 but by […]

Balancing act

October 14, 2023October 15, 2023 jeremyardour, audio, bto, debian, dragonfly, linux, linux_audio, liquorix, mixbus, snap, ubuntuLeave a comment

At the moment everything seems a bit like a balancing act. First on a physical level, as I’m currently recovering from surgery one of the things I have to learn again is to find my balance, literally. While recovering I can’t do very much hobby stuff in the analogue domain so I swayed a bit […]

rtcqs released

December 27, 2021December 27, 2021 jeremyconfiguration, linux, python, real_time, realtime, realtimeconfigquickscan, rtcqsLeave a comment

rtcqs v0.3.1 is now available on Codeberg and Github. rtcqs is the continuation of the realtimeconfigquickscan project but then rewritten in Python. It comes with a Qt GUI and a few extra checks. Dear all, I’d like to announce rtcqs, the continuation of the realtimeconfigquickscan project. It’s a port to Python with some added extra’s, […]

Installing webrtc2sip on Ubuntu 12.04

Note: this page is unmaintened and could contain incorrect information. As I am no longer involved in the telco business I won’t update this article anymore. I will also not respond to any personal e-mail with regard to this article. Contents Introduction The hard way: building from source 2.1 Prerequisites 2.2 ffmpeg 2.3 doubango 2.4 […]

Resolved JACK issues on notebook

December 29, 2013 jeremyaudio, bluetooth, bto, bus, clevo, connection, driver, generic, hub, hyperthreading, interface, jack, jack1, jack2, jackd, jackd1, jackd2, kernel, kit, linux, matching, notebook, onboard, rate, sound, tree, unbind, unbinding, usb, webcam, wifi, xruns1 Comment

Finally got around troubleshooting the issues I was facing with JACK on my notebook, a BTO that is actually a Clevo W170ER. Somehow I couldn’t go lower than -p128 with USB audio interfaces. When I thought I had tried every option, even disabling hyperthreading, I noticed two unidentified entries in my lsusb output:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:07da Intel Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 5986:0401 Acer, Inc

The first entry is a Bluetooth adapter and the second entry is a webcam. Both devices are unnecessary when making music so I thought, why not unbind them. First I had to figure out their respective bus ID’s:

$ tree /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
??? 1-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1
??? 1-1.3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.3
??? 2-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1
??? 2-1.6 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.6
??? bind
??? uevent
??? unbind
??? usb1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1
??? usb2 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2
??? usb3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3
??? usb4 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb4

Since the Bluetooth adapter sits on bus 1 and the webcam on bus two their respective ID’s should be 1-1 and 2-1. So I echoed the ID’s to the unbind file in the same directory:

$ echo -n "1-1" | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
$ echo -n "2-1" | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind

Good riddance:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Then I started JACK again with -p64 using an USB audio interface connected to bus 3 (so no rate matching hub in between) and no more xruns, not even with a generic kernel and using WiFi and all. Next hurdle is the onboard sound. Below -p128 I get bursts of massive xruns and so far I didn’t manage to pinpoint the culprit.

Edit #1: I’ve found out that the Bluetooth adapter is the main bottleneck. Also, by echoing the aformentioned ID’s (1-1 and 2-1) you disable the whole USB bus apparently. To disable just the USB device echo the last ID in the respective path names, so for the Bluetooth adapter that’s 1-1.3 and for the webcam 2-1.6. This way you can still use the USB bus on which these devices are residing. In my case disabling the whole bus is not an option, this would mean I’d have to connect all my USB interfaces to bus 3 (bus 4 doesn’t have any external inputs) which could result in these devices getting in each other’s way with regard to bandwidth. After echoing the ID’s the output of the tree command looks like this:

$ tree /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
??? 1-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1
??? 2-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1
??? bind
??? uevent
??? unbind
??? usb1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1
??? usb2 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2
??? usb3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3
??? usb4 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb4

The lsusb command still shows the devices though.

Edit #2: unbinding drivers like described above won’t persist across reboots. If you’d like to make the unbinding persistent you could add the unbind command to /etc/rc.local or create a script that runs at login. There are other options of course like blacklisting the Bluetooth drivers.

New notebook: minor issues

June 17, 2013 jeremybto, card, cardreader, clevo, dkms, horus, notebook, reader, realtek, system76, udisksLeave a comment

“My keyboard seems a bit loose on the lower left side, is that something that could be fixed?”
“We’ll take a look at it, should be no problem.”

So I paid a visit to BTO again, had to be at a Horus meeting anyway, and within 15 minutes the tech guy returned with my notebook from the workshop.

“Could you try it out?”
“It’s perfect, no loose spots anymore, what did you do?”
“Oh, I just replaced the keyboard with a new one.”

He just replaced the keyboard with a new one. Now that’s what I call service. With any mainstream brand you will have to do without your notebook for at least 3 weeks and in the worst case they’ll start nagging the faulty keyboard is not a warranty case. Not at BTO. Fixed within 15 minutes, ready while you wait.

At the Horus meeting one of the items on the agenda was “Jeremy’s new monster notebook”. Did I really have to show off my notebook? Yes I had and soon 2 or 3 people were like I’m going to get a BTO too and told me I should become a sales rep. More on the Horus meeting in a separate blog post.

I did find out the card reader doesn’t work. But fortunately System76 apparently uses Clevo parts too so after installing their dkms package the reader immediately started working as the udisks package already contains the needed udev rule for this card reader.

autostatic.com

Linux Audio Ramblings

Search Results for: bto