[JohnH]

Hi,

I have an old clunker of a laptop - an IBM Thinkpad T60 running xp - 2007 vintage.

I am having issues with the USB connections as I add/remove and reconfigure my imaging rig quite a bit. The issues result in devices not being recognised, warnings about speed and sometimes outright failure/crashing resulting in BSODs instability etc. I have had to re-install windows a couple of times in the last 6 months which is not much fun. So....

What is a good laptop machine to use with the following:

SBig ST2000xm/CFW10/AO8
Moonlite Focuser plus usb controller
Losmandy G11G via usb/serial (Belikin)
QHY5 guidecam

Alternate Configs

Canon20d imaging
Opticstar 616 (similar to QHY6) imaging
Opticstar 145 (similar to QHY2) guiding

Running CCDSoft, AstroArt 4 or ImagesPlus for data collection. Image processing is done elsewhere.

I do try to ensure that the same devices are always connected to the same ports but this is not always possible as I have to test individual components from time to time and do that with a single connection to the laptop whereas the real system has all devices connected to a hub at the mount and then back to the laptop in the house with a USB repeater cable.

I do not think data acquisition is much a strain on CPU or memory but the number and solidity of the USB ports is key here - the more the better. Also the USB support in the O/S is key - XP was not to greast in this regard - is Windows 7 better? Is it worth going for the 64 bit version? And will I have issues with any of my Astro programs in Win7, these includde:

ASCOM6
The Sky 6
CCDsoft 5
AstroAst 4
PHD
Guidemaster
ImagesPlus

Have you upgraded recently - and have you any recommendations for me?