Small Car Computer ~ Recommendations?

[llbbl]

A friend wants a small computer he can boot BSD with that is reatively cheap 100-200 compelete system. The form factor and price is most important. He wants to use it for a MP3 server. Any suggestions??

[ECA]

Does he have the monitor??

I would look at salvation army, and find an old P or P2, even a P pro, even a celeron. and load it with linux.
OR
Find a rich person looking to upgrade and throw there other machine away. With a little comp work thrown in.

Its the monitor and Video card thats going to cost.

[llbbl]

I think he plans to control it through his deck somehow. Not sure how he will select which song to play.

Old P2's are too big.

I had recommened one of these cases to him...

http://designtechnica.shopping.com/xFS?KW=ARIA+Cube+LS-968&FN=PC_Cases&FD=1718

slap in some components and ur good to go, maybe slighty over budget....

http://designtechnica.shopping.com/xPP-Motherboards--micro_atx

[ECA]

But even at that.
The title says CAR computer.
Slamming one of these in a truck wont keep HEAT down, even a old laptop would suffer.
Let alone going out to the car, to turn it ON, just to send music to it.

Old laptop with a CD drive could be the answer, IF he can get the CD/net card and driver to work.

[llbbl]

He is going to mount it under the driverside dash in place of the glovebox ... I think that is the plan ... having good ventilation would be important as you suggest. Maybe one of those cases that are thin and square.

If he was going to use the cube than it would have to be in a different location I believe.

I sent him the link to this thread, maybe he will reply ... and since he doesn't have to be registered now its even easier.

[jfila]

A Via Epia would be a good way of doing it. With RAM and everything it would be more than $100 or $200 though.

I also have the following if he's interested:
Sony Vaio PCV L 620 small form factor
It measures 13.5 x 11 x 3.75" and has a Pentium III 500MHz. It can take 256MB of RAM and has 2 PCI slots. It has integrated graphics but you could also use a PCI graphics card. I got it from a client because the hard drive was failing. I recovered all of his data just before the drive failed for good and he told me to keep the computer. I wanted to use it as a Car-puter but haven't had the chance.

I don't have the monitor or keyboard/mouse that came with it though.
Here is some info:
http://www.epinions.com/cmhd-Desktops-All-Sony_VAIO_Slimtop_L620/display_~full_specs

http://ciscdb.sel.sony.com/perl/modelpage.pl?mdl=PCVL620&template=EN

[ECA]

I dont think theres any good way to make it in the 200 price range. Not as a complete system.
How is he going to hookup the car and comp audio??
How is he going to select the audio files in the car, without a monitor, even with one?
He might as well buy an IPOD style player and hook it up. Take it inside at night and program it, then install the next day. Then he wont need any networking, just USB.

[llbbl]

Nice computer Fila. I think something like that would work well. My initial response was to use an ipod since you can buy a 20 GB on ebay for under $300 and a 5 GB for under $200. Just as easy to add songs on a ipod versus a car computer because you can carry the darn thing into the house and selectively choose which songs u want to listen too. I think he said that he wanted to play songs direct from DVD's but I guess you could just stick em on the HD and delete them when it starts filling up.

[llbbl]

This board would work great since its the smallest one i can find ...

http://www.mini-itx.com/

Here is the smallest /high capacity HD i can find ...

"April 28, 2004 (TOKYO) -- Toshiba Corp introduced a new 100GB 2.5-inch hard-disk drive (HDD) MK1031GAS, with a height of just 9.5mm."
http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf?CID=onair/asabt/news/304834

[ECA]

but he IS talking price....
And at $200-300, he isnt geting anything.
find an Ipod style player and plug it in.... Thats simple.
Geting a WHOLE comp, setting up a display and KB, MOUSE every night would suck. and cost more.

[llbbl]

small car computer

[llbbl]

computers for the car

[ECA]

Hows the install going??

[llbbl]

no idea . adding words to the thread to expirament with the search feature on the forums

[Evileagle]

mobos:
http://store.mini-box.com/ituner/viamo.html

12vdc power supplies:
http://store.mini-box.com/ituner/posoformi.html

"ITPS"
http://store.mini-box.com/ituner/itps.html

Via's own site with links to many car pc's built around the mini-itx platform:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/carpc.jsp

Hope these links help a bit, if your friend hasn't already bought everything.

[ECA]

NOW, if you can find a 12 volt(car/battery) to 12 VOLT computer power supply...
I will BOW to you....
I looked for one about 2 years ago, and couldnt find SKWAT...
DID find 48 volt

[Evileagle]

If you mean a power supply for a standard atx pc and not a mini-itx psu, there are some out there. Here's one I just came across, but good luck finding a vendor: http://www.opussolutions.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&topic_id=7&sid=6

[ECA]

nice but I'd need 3 to power my system..
It aint a distrib, I'd worry about...but PRICE.

[Evileagle]

nice but I'd need 3 to power my system..
It aint a distrib, I'd worry about...but PRICE.

3?! I think you might be better off building your own then. Here's another page with links to a few other dc atx psu's: http://linear1.org/links/power-supplies

[jfila]

Yeah the Opus is the best... of course it costs more than the epia computers themselves.

[llbbl]

nice but I'd need 3 to power my system..
It aint a distrib, I'd worry about...but PRICE.

When it comes to mini-itx I think you need less power to keep the thing up. 150W is enough to power the system from the ones I looked at.

[llbbl]

VIA EPIA TC 10000 1Ghz Motherboard with Onboard DC-DC Converter


Finally available - The EPIA TC is the first Mini-ITX motherboard from VIA with an onboard 12V DC-DC converter, allowing the board to be powered from a regulated 12V supply or silently with an external power brick (up to 60W). 1Ghz Nehemieah C3 Processor and heatsink, onboard Apollo CLE266 graphics with MPEG2 acceleration, Stereo Audio, 10/100 Ethernet, 2 x USB 2.0, Serial Port, PCI Slot, 2 x IDE Ports, 12V DC-in Jack.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=2#p1611

[ECA]

When it comes to mini-itx I think you need less power to keep the thing up. 150W is enough to power the system from the ones I looked at.


True, if you dont wnat a NOW vidoe card, or audio..
And are satisfied with 1 CD, 1 HD, and maybe a floppy.

[openbsd-flipp]

The car computer design has been modified and is almost ready to be installed. There is some minor circuit work to be done but besides that stage one is damn near complete. What I have for the system is a VIA 1ghz. mini-itx mother board (old Clark connect router), 512 ram, 4x dvd drive, on board AC'97 compliant sound card, 6 gig hard drive, floppy, a 10/100 nic. The system will actually sit in a cubby hole behind the drivers seat on a '99 blazer 2 door. I have a 3000 watt power inverter sitting in the cabinet on the other side and the power cord runs under the rear seats. A friend and I are building a start-up/shut-down circuit (one button powers on inverter 30 sec. later the system boots up, 30 seconds after that the aux tape deck switches over to the computer. The sound is pre-set to maximize the stereo and eliminate hum. The shut down circuit just halts the machine with power down, switches aux back to tape(this is also a rocker switch in case i ever want to pop in a tape with the computer running) then after 90 seconds the power inverter turns off.

Phase two involves a 5" LCD display, GPS navigation, Orinoco gold, kismet, and a 2 foot elipiticial Wi-Fi reciever dish with the db booster on it. This dish is tits. Unboosted it gets a 5 mile line of sight(if it crosses the radio wave it picks it up) range at 24 db. With the booster i have it gets 15 miles at 60db! :rock

Phase three is the speaker upgrade. I am going to replace all the stock speakers with high quality one and I am adding subs. The final system will have 4 remote controlled amps (dial resistor type) running to an AI equalizer that adjusts each amp based on a stored eq file for the mp3/ogg file. 1 amp is just for the tweaters, 1 for the mids, 1 for the pair of standard subs, and 1 for the ultra low subs (<45HZ). I plan on running 2 fareds of capacitor power so that I'll never have major drain. Stage 3 also add a severly beefed up altanator to the Blazer and possably a second battery in the rear.

Thanks for the advice guys and sorry it took so long to get back to you.

[llbbl]

car computer

[openbsd-flipp]

True, if you dont want a NOW video card, or audio..
And are satisfied with 1 CD, 1 HD, and maybe a floppy.

The system does not need a now video card. And as far as a sound card I still have a sound blaster 16 in my most used computer. I do not plan on playing <insert hot new game here> in my Blazer. That would defeat the whole purpose. The main thing I care about is the fact of *BSD audio drivers. X-win will run fine on a generic driverset and as far as having a HD I plan on using solid state media. SS has a lover power requirement if I recall correectly. This also keeps me from having to replace the HD every six months due to crap roads. For a home system this setup would be no good. For a mobile media station this would work more then needed.