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I think we all exaggerating about PC requirements. Iām wondering those professional CNC equipment like Laguna Tools. Itās starting cost is over $15000, works with USB thumb drive to carry loaded NC code, Iāve seen processing board about half of the size of Laptop Motherboard. Howād they do that. And that equipment have 5 tool changer also.
My son happily runs VCarve Pro on his 1.5GHz Intel Atom netbook - an Aspire One D255. It recently got an upgrade to 2GB of memory thanks to Ebay, but ran perfectly OK until then on 1GB for design and toolpath creation. We use a separate machine to send the post-processed toolpaths so I canāt comment on that side of things, but I can tell you that a dedicated graphics card is not important at all - if you need to choose, go for extra memory then CPU speed.
I ended up buying a Toshiba Satellite and so far it makes me very glad itās just for VCarve use. Windows 10 looks like Windows 95 version 2, and in the first few minutes of setting up the machine I was reminded of how much I hate the stupid DLL errors. I was a PC user for years until 2009, and I see now how muchI donāt miss it.
It really makes me appreciate how beautiful & solid the Mac OS is. (for me, at least)
Windows 7 and 10 are really nice and stable and light. Unfortunately, the computer manufacturers are really good at messing it up with lots of junk. NOTHING gets into an Apple before it is sold unless it is carefully vetted and that makes it nice and predictable for the consumer.
If you wipe that hard drive and put a fresh install of windows 10, you will have absolutely no issues. Of course, you would likely have to find the specific drivers for your laptop. Iām still on Windows 7 - the best operating system ever imho. I am not looking forward to āgetting used toā Windows 10. I can only imagine what it is like coming from Apple world.
Iām actually doing a factory reset right now. I set up the machine and after writing down the password I used, that piece of paper got thrown away and I didnāt find out until after I rebooted and it asked me for a password to log in. Oops! LOL!
Oddly enough there is zero pre-installed software on this machine - only a 30 day trial of McAffee.
Iām gonna have to look to see if I can find some tips & tricks or something for 10. Although itās not just functionality to me that seems messed up, itās the fact that itās so crazy ugly. (my wife is a UX designer - sheās rubbed off on me)
Ha! I own an advertising agency. I know the feeling. Keep in mind, if you leave the password blank, I believe you can still get away without one. I would also get rid of the Mcaffee if it were me. Have fun downloading updates!
You canāt drive the X-Carve directly from V-Carve so why not throw the power of your MBP at it using VirtualBox and do the designing and CAM work from the comfort of a nice chair in your house?
My current setup is this:
Design and CAM in the house on a MacBook Pro with Aspire running on VirtualBox (free) on Win XP
Run the X-Carve on an old Late 2008 MacBook in the shop using ChiliPeppr or UGS or Easel.