laptop for 2D drafting, enercalc?

[SLTA]

I am looking into getting a PC laptop that is inexpensive but has a large enough screen and enough oomph for running DraftSight, a free cad program, for 2D only. I'll also need to run Enercalc and a few other more lightweight structural programs. I don't know the first blasted thing about PCs, cause we're a Mac family, so can anyone get me started? I looked at Cnet and PC Mag but it's totally overwhelming.

1. What do/don't I need in terms of memory, etc?
2. Good/bad brands?
3. If you have such a setup, what do you use?

thanks!

 

[DRWeig]

I do DraftSight on an older Toshiba Satellite with a quad core Intel processor (2nd gen), 4 GB RAM, and a 17" screen. No problem.

I have no idea about EnerCalc, but I do Heat6 and a couple other 2-D heat transfer programs that are kind of intense, plus eQuest energy modeling that can really get out of hand. The laptop is slower, of course, than my desktop. I don't have a high-dollar workstation at the office, but I do have a pretty good machine that was designed for gamers. A lot of computer power for the buck. Hence, I'd look for a laptop advertised for gamers, and look at the low end.

If it were me, I'd scroll down the list in the link below by price and pick the first one that has 4 GB RAM or more, and the screen size I like. 17" is nice. The Dell Inspiron at $649 really caught my eye...

Gaming Laptops


Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[DRWeig]

And yes, I did mean $629 not $649.



Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[Ron]

slta...I run RISA 3D and AutoCad lite on my laptop. It is a Sony VAIO and has 4 GB of RAM, a 160 GB hard drive and an Intel Core 3 processor running at 2.27 GHz. I like it because it is extremely durable. This is my second one. The first one I dropped on pavement twice...no problem and this one has hit the floor in my family room multiple time because I get my feet tangled in the charger cable!!

I just got a Samsung Chronos, so I'll see how it goes. The Sony is starting to slow down a bit....not sure why, but have had it happen to multiple computers with age. Like me I guess!!

 

[IRstuff]

Costco has the HP 17", 6GB laptop for $699:

http://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-17t-Select-Laptop,-Intel®-Core™-i5-3230M-2.6GHz.product.100053599.html

which has a faster i5 processor and a bigger hard drive

TTFN
faq731-376

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[MikeHalloran]

Well, you don't need a PC to run Draftsight; it's available for OS X.

As for the other stuff, recent Macs are Intel-based, and can run a lot of PC software with PC software emulators, whose cutesy names I forget; I'm not a Mac person.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[GregLocock]

Boot Camp or Parallels may offer you the Windows experience on Mac hardware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp_(software)

Since it is a clean boot on intel hardware i would guess it is a stable and fast solution.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[SLTA]

Right now I have a fancy new mac with a windows partition and I use parallels, but it's technically my family computer... so there are little boys wanting to watch PBS Kids when I need to draft something. I get frustrated with the blasted thing because every time I start the windows side, it hangs up both sides while all the windows updates are installed. I figured with a PC laptop, a) my family would get its computer back, b) I'd be able to take it with me, and c) I'd at least have the mac to work with until the windows updates were done on the laptop. Plus, I'd have the laptop on more so the updates could go at night, not just once a week or so when I need the specifically windows programs.

Mike, I tried the DS for mac version first and it was massively annoying. Every piece was a separate window and it froze all the time. The windows one works much better.

Thanks for all your help, folks!

 

[MikeHalloran]

I've got Draftsight on this old Dell laptop running (only) CentOS6 Linux.
Updates come along as frequently as for Windows, but they don't bring the machine to its knees, can be done in the background, and only kernel updates require a reboot.

I've got another laptop, a still older ThinkPad, that dual boots WinXP and CentOS5. It's a _lot_ faster and much less glitchy when running CentOS.

Were I in your positiion, I'd find a used Thinkpad that can hold at least 4Gb of ram, max out the ram, give it a big new hard drive, transfer XP to half of it, and load Linux on the rest. I'm partial to CentOS, but you may find it easier to install Draftsight under Fedora. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu, but a lot of people like it, so the user community is huge.

... but that's me.

If you prefer newer hardware with Windows, I'd look for something with Win7.
I tried Win8 in a store, and couldn't make sense of it.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[SteelPE]

I would think any old laptop would do. I am running STAAD, RAM and AutoCAD lt on a Dell I bought 2.5 years ago. When I bought it I bought it with 8GB of RAM and Windows 7. I use a dual monitor set up (a 25" monitor with the 15" laptop screen) and I have a wireless keyboard/mouse combination. Email is on the laptop and engineering/drafting work is on the monitor. As of right now it works pretty well.

If you are having issues with family members trying to use your computer why don't you buy a tablet and let them use that (although I am not sure that would work with kids)? I bought a tablet for Christmas and it has basically replaced the need for a house computer (I don't have kids yet). I bought my wife a new laptop a year ago and it now rarely is used because she can do most of her computing needs on the tablet.