Carputer 101

[snoopdan]

Ive got the M2atx and I absolutely hate it, its horribly noisey to the point that the noise bothers the LCD and the DVD player's power supplies, even with an added stiffening capacitor on the main bus power for all three devices. I wish i would of stayed with an inverter

[Megalomaniac]

Ive got the M2atx and I absolutely hate it, its horribly noisey to the point that the noise bothers the LCD and the DVD player's power supplies, even with an added stiffening capacitor on the main bus power for all three devices. I wish i would of stayed with an inverter

You may end up frying your cpu,wih engine cranks. The so call "noise" is due to a bad ground. find a spot that is metal with no paint and the best place would be the actual chassis because a lot f the other places arent grounded well because of plastic welding joints. try that before you give up carputers all together, its just like car audio, 90% is install and planning.

[snoopdan]

You may end up frying your cpu,wih engine cranks. The so call "noise" is due to a bad ground. find a spot that is metal with no paint and the best place would be the actual chassis because a lot f the other places arent grounded well because of plastic welding joints. try that before you give up carputers all together, its just like car audio, 90% is install and planning.

yeah man, thanks for that insightful information there, id of never been able to figure that out myself.

[Megalomaniac]

yeah man, thanks for that insightful information there, id of never been able to figure that out myself.

glad to help

[.::DuD3::.]

you are lookin around $935 just for what i have without the soundcard(i did not add the HU price either) so $935is a lot cheaper than paying like $1000-$3000 for the kenwoods,pioneers, and eclipses dvd screen units.

I can watch movies while i drive(if i wanted too) gps works well,the fact that all my music is on a hard disc thats great. I even wired my startup to my remote start so when i remote start ,i come to my car and windows is booted already. But if you install tiny xp your computer will boot in 5seconds flat9tiny xp is windows xp,except cut down to like i think 240mb,uses 64mb of ram. add a usb wireless card for $10 also go surf the web.

yeah i've always wanted to do a carputer in my suv. i try and tell people not to buy those stupid dvd indash units when you could have something 398734xs better. i have no money to work with this summer, but i'm definately doing one next summer. a lot of the guys on mp3car use the opus power supplys, which do you think would perform better?

[Megalomaniac]

Opus is great,I have a friend who has an Opus. I juts dont have deep pockets to get an OPus. But i am running pretty much the same setup as my friends,and I only paid $80 for mine,and it does the job fine. Even my screen is powering through that,the screens uses 8watts(cut the adaptor wire it to the ,i think it was the 12v line,i have to check.).

[.::DuD3::.]

never thought about the laptop hd, thats a really good idea. but i was always confused on what mb to buy.

[Megalomaniac]

never thought about the laptop hd, thats a really good idea. but i was always confused on what mb to buy.

Mini Itx are the best IMO, they are small and compact,take less power,and my M10000 has a 1ghz processor, thats enough to run Gps software,play music, run windows with a frontend, and play dvds, what more could you ask for in your car. Now if you really want to go tiny, search for the Nano ITX, FYI they are expensive.

[dkguitarist]

i just sold off my carputer as i rushed the idea and lack the funds. this time i'll start from scratch tho this one was already loaded and ready to go. just not ts monitor and the fact i didn't kno how to splice the molex to wire it up. when i get the cash, i'll reinvest and do my homework first.

[.::DuD3::.]

Mini Itx are the best IMO, they are small and compact,take less power,and my M10000 has a 1ghz processor, thats enough to run Gps software,play music, run windows with a frontend, and play dvds, what more could you ask for in your car. Now if you really want to go tiny, search for the Nano ITX, FYI they are expensive.

yeah i see a lot of people running the m10000. man why did you have to start this thread! i want to buy one now! lol

[Megalomaniac]

I was searching,VIA came out with an even smaller one called Johns Technology,they arent released yet,but jeez,real space saver
Mini ITX



Nano ITX


Johns Technology

[Megalomaniac]

yeah i see a lot of people running the m10000. man why did you have to start this thread! i want to buy one now! lol

Started it because,i recomennded it to someonelse thread,and some other guy started asking questions,and i did not want to hijack his thread, so i started this hehe

[Megalomaniac]

i just sold off my carputer as i rushed the idea and lack the funds. this time i'll start from scratch tho this one was already loaded and ready to go. just not ts monitor and the fact i didn't kno how to splice the molex to wire it up. when i get the cash, i'll reinvest and do my homework first.

Just like car audio as i said before, 90% install and Planning.

[snoopdan]

glad to help

you're worthless.

Anyways, from what ive found so far from testing in a true SPL vehcile, its difficult to properly burp your setup via a carputer. It became way too inconvienent to screw with a touchscreen during a run...plus everything in the vehicle was vibrating so much, you couldnt keep your finger on the touchscreen in the right place to start/stop the track your were burping on.

I ended up getting a 50 foot remote for doing burps, and it still became a problem. I also went thru several sound cards and never did find anything I liked, I had the M-Audio USB MIDI interface, the Turtle Beach usb dongle, and onboard audio and all of them were fairly noisey. The one device I found that I did not buy, which i sitll might is the Silverstone DAC usb converter for the audio output. They're only $110 but unfortunately only have 2 volt outputs.. and their tech support people are terrible, I had to teach them about their own product.

I mainly ended up using my carputer as a portable Termlab, which has actually worked out great. I highly suggest this to anyone with a Termlab as it comes in real handy.

[Megalomaniac]

worthless.

You Bass Hoar!!