Car computer fun

**RazMan** · 13-11-2003, 10:39

Originally posted by evl69
I am trying to develop a hardrive less system that will not skip or damage the hard drive through the shock of the car

That's a valid point - it only takes a few G's to damage a spinning hard drive. One pothole in our UK roads will soon dish that out! It might be worth isolating the drive in a foam or something like one of the 'noise silencer' enclosures commonly used in the pc world.

**sham** · 13-11-2003, 11:00

some people looked into solid state memory-compact flash in particular- but you must remember most of these systems have a finite number of times you can write to them and if windows uses them for virtual memory on startup etc you will kill it pretty quick too. Im going for hopefully 3 10gb hdds as they cost nothing to replace and with 3 I can have a failsafe system so it doesnt leave me with no tunes. Also im going to mod the case with a foam mounted hdd bay I think to prevent hdd killage.
Id say for reliability use a lot of smaller hdds that only spin slowly-its not like you need the speed in car anyway.

**RazMan** · 13-11-2003, 11:03

Don't notebook drives have a better tolerance for shock? I'll try and find some specs.

**RazMan** · 13-11-2003, 11:19

That's confirmed - quite a difference in shock tolerance ...

IBM Deskstar (desktop 3.5") Operating - 55G, Non operating - 350G

IBM Travelstar (notebook 2.5") Operating - 200G, Non operating - 1000G

When you consider that gently placing a hard drive on a hard surface will give a shock of up to 20G's it would appear that the lappy drives are much more suitable

**sham** · 13-11-2003, 18:39

yep -if I could find laptop drives for a fiver a pop id use them (and if I ever put a drive in over 30gb itll prob be from a laptop) but for a 10 gig drive I dont really mind if I kill it cos i dont have tunes on and drive really hard at the same time normally anyway-cant hear all the noises me car makes then.

**sham** · 17-11-2003, 17:10

lol got my voodoo 5 5500 (£15

) today to put in the pc. I had assumed itd be a pretty small HS only affair like my old voodoo 3. two fans and the card is the size of a f@cking bus!! it even needs a 4-pin Power feed just to the card! oh dear. Ah well so much for the butchered small case idea anyway...

**alexjj** · 17-11-2003, 17:17

Get an old knackered Multi CD changer, cannibalise it and use the interior oil shock dampers for your HDD's

If its good enough for those damn skippy CD's should be enough for HDDs..

Good luck mr.

**evl69** · 17-11-2003, 21:09

Good idea about the stacker shocks!

I picked up a P200 with 5 gig HD for a nice sum of NOTHING. the other day so all is going well on the install of that. And it is not a big deal to get the prototype somputer into the car now.

EVL

**Stusy@Swaytech** · 17-11-2003, 22:29

Got so far:-

PC Case
250W PSU
ASUS mobo
1.4G P4 SK423
2x128 RDRAM
20G Maxtor 7200 RPM Hard drive
Network Card (interface with X-box)
Sound Blaster (interface with AMP)

300W Inverter, 240V AC power from 12v battery
Dual Input 7" monitor. Folds out from stereo.

Require:-

Software : What do I need?, really like that Nissan skin hint hint

DAB Radio Card
Graphics Card with A/V out (AGP Pro socket)
IR Remote, Bits and Pieces
PCI Wireless card

I was thinking about a track ball in the door and somewhere to plug a keyboard if required, could even be wireless with the sender hidden near the back of the car, but would have to be small

**moz** · 22-11-2003, 19:21

im interested in this

will subs be a problem for the HDs?

**evl69** · 23-11-2003, 23:10

I imagine they would be a prob. Since they can make you want to throw up your lunch, just imagine what they could do to the HD.

EVL

**Leviathan** · 23-11-2003, 23:21

Depends if you are using Laptop 2.5" ones or Desktop 3.5" ones, as laptop ones are a lot more resistant to shock.

**sham** · 10-12-2003, 19:24

right my trial pc is now in the car for testing. got a HUGE amount of noise from the inverter till I moved it to the back seat temporarily and earthed the pc PSU and removed the regulation circuit from it - now seems ok but I flattened my battery doing this so Itll have to wait till the weekend when my timing belt goes on properly. 7" touchscreen looks the nuts fits really nicely in the double din - need anti theft tho -currently got a service manual book over it.

Hope it doesnt set fire to me car overnight. so much wiring in the car now its mental. gonna need the 300bhp to keep up with a standard sx due to weight lol

**sham** · 10-12-2003, 19:27

advice to ppl considering this- dont go overboard on pc spec and bits - a 300w inverter when the car is off (12v) was struggling with a basic p3 with usb radio and usb touchscreen and dvd drive. Since I took the regulation circuit out of the PSU its much better but I don't think Im going to add much after gps...maybe wireless lan

I wish I followed my own advice

**Stusy@Swaytech** · 10-12-2003, 19:29

Waiting for my screen and my pc's not to healthy at the mo. I'll swap it with other bits and bobs to see if iits a RAM, CPU or board fault

What Graphics card will you be running, most of the ones I've seen have tv out in the form of svideo. Can this be converted to AV?

**sham** · 10-12-2003, 20:43

Im using a 8 quid voodoo 5 agp. No tv out but my screen has vga input and does 1024x768 with readable fonts

so I dont mind that. Its the lilliput they all go on about on mp3car.com -the tft itself and the touchscreen are amazing but the pratts who put it together aren't so I had to rewire most of mine-but its perfect now

**M pro** · 13-12-2003, 11:55

I had to make some changes to the controls as the Ired receiver needs a new part to work right so when that messed up on me I couldn’t use the car PC as I had no way of controlling the PC.

A little work later and we have a hardware controller that works very well and makes using the computer when driving very easy

You cant see the little icons on the buttons as the flash sort of took them out

**christopher** · 15-12-2003, 01:57

Love the way you've just labeled the controller "Ash Tray" for any thieves who aren't quite sure what a playstation-looking-button arrangement is doing next to the handbrake

That'll confuse em away.

I soooooo wish right now that I had a) money b) time c) a 200sx so I could copy you with this carputer idea

**sham** · 15-12-2003, 15:47

right that lilliput monitor when it works is amazing but it has died completely now so I have to recommend against buying one. the actual thing is fantastic but it seems it was built by a slightly deranged chimpanzee. I hardwired mine in after testing it worked for a week and then within 2 days it dies so I dont even have a bloody warranty now. not happy.

or a carpc that I can use.

**Munky** · 15-12-2003, 16:12

How do you boot up the computer?

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