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Mark Donovan
Tinkerer
Auckland
Soarer V8 Limited

Posts: 97
Reg: 07-2005

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Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 02:12 pm, by:  Mark Donovan (Mark_donovan) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mac Minis are a great idea and ship with laptop drives. As macs now run on Intel core duo chips, you can choose to run OS X or Windows (or both at the same time)
Justin Cook
DieHard
QLD
JZZ30 TT

Posts: 725
Reg: 07-2005

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 05:50 am, by:  Justin Cook (Justin) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah mac minis are ok, but you still need to mount it somewhere (can be easily stolen) aren't THAT small, and are more expensive than what I have made :-) but apart from that are cool.

Installed (will be finished today). I HIGHLY recomment the Zalmann sound card, outputs enough power to the amps to be well worth it. Also allows fade etc. As its also a computer controlled device has all your normal equalizer stuff with a software program :-)

Amps installed, one power wire to go for front speakers. OPUS installed, computer installed, wireless installed, sound card hooked up.

Was watching The Office and it all worked a treat :-)


Computer
Callum Finch
Goo Roo
WA
Soarer TT & Corolla

Posts: 2110
Reg: 09-2005

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 08:36 am, by:  Callum Finch (Sigeneat) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Haha i lol'd so hard at Dwight when he took Ryan on that sales metting ... "What was that?" ... "It was the tortured souulllsss" ... "Was that your cousin?"

MacMini is in my budget because i can rip it out and take it inside as a HTPC; however that may change now (Just bought a x360)
The theory is to either sit it in the centre console or glove box with the wires loose where it plugs in >.>
Justin Cook
DieHard
QLD
JZZ30 TT

Posts: 727
Reg: 07-2005

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 07:29 pm, by:  Justin Cook (Justin) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I also just bought a SupraStick and installed it, I was setting it up (it has a 9pin serial connection) on the in Car PC. So much better than a laptop, although the text is a little smaller :-)

WOOT, first use already. BE WARNED you need a kick ass battery. I believe I will be gettin an Optima Yellow Top, because it just SUCKS power. Also for some reason seems to suck power even when off. I might look into that, because I believe it shouldn't do that.

Callum I don't remember that bit in the office, but the show has just grown on me :-) Totally excellent stuff. Everybody loves to hate Dwight :-)
Justin Cook
DieHard
QLD
JZZ30 TT

Posts: 728
Reg: 07-2005

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 07:30 pm, by:  Justin Cook (Justin) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

BTW tomorrow is final install day, I finally sat down and did the ashtray thing, was harder than I expected, but has the dual usb device, 9 pin connector, 2 switches and IR for the screen.
Paul Fitzsimmons
Tinkerer
nsw
'97 soarer

Posts: 55
Reg: 08-2005

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 - 08:00 pm, by:  Paul Fitzsimmons (Oztif) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sounds like you need to have a way of powering the unit from a powerpoint when working in the garage etc. When downloading to my xbox which uses a 240v invertor i simply plug the xbox into an extension lead for the duration.
Callum Finch
Goo Roo
WA
Soarer TT & Corolla

Posts: 2116
Reg: 09-2005

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Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 08:32 am, by:  Callum Finch (Sigeneat) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Justin; PC hardware runs in a form of "Standby" or "sleep" when you soft-off (ie, shutdown or power off by the standard mainboard pin).
The reason for this is because of the ATX power standard or some which mandates wake on lan, wake on keyboard, wake on mouse, wake on mouse fart.. etc etc..

If its a fangled intel chipset as well, it will wake on sudden power loss. Ie, you lose power to your house, when it comes back the PC will power back up again@!!

See if you can rig up a switch to the external power source that turns off when your ignition does and connect to a turbo timer or some *Shrugs*

That office ep was the most recent; 3x05.
Tim Appleton
TryHard
QLD
UZZ31

Posts: 356
Reg: 07-2005

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Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 02:21 pm, by:  Tim Appleton (Timbo) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


Callum Finch wrote on Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 08:32 am:

See if you can rig up a switch to the external power source that turns off when your ignition does and connect to a turbo timer or some ••••• *Shrugs*


You're thinking of a relay. Just be careful that it will shut-down your PC when the car is turned off (I guess the reason for the turbo timer???). So maybe a switch to a relay is a better option, instead of hooking it up to the ignition. Or just a switch if the amp draw is low enough.
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 701
Reg: 07-2005

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Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 03:00 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm just about to buy all this gear to build up my car pc system,

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=010&item=200036778720&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEW A%3AIT&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=004&item=140045925271&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEW A%3AIT&rd=1

As well as a sandisk extreme III 4gb cf drive, a bootable cf to 2.5" adapter, 2x3.5" to 2.5" HD adapters, 1gb of kingston ddr2 533mhz ram, 160gb 5400rpm 2.5" HD and a USB wifi card. There is a couple of other items to get but these are the main ones to get me going. Also going to be using destinator 3 for my satnav and already have a garmin usb GPS for that, and its tested and works awesome.
Callum Finch
Goo Roo
WA
Soarer TT & Corolla

Posts: 2124
Reg: 09-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 10:33 am, by:  Callum Finch (Sigeneat) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why flash drive?
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 703
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 11:51 am, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Its more robust to boot and have the OS on solid state storage, especially in a high vibration and heat environment like a car. HD just stores the media.
Callum Finch
Goo Roo
WA
Soarer TT & Corolla

Posts: 2125
Reg: 09-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:13 pm, by:  Callum Finch (Sigeneat) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ahh good thinking. It will be slower to boot/shutdown though.

Is it costly to do that?
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 704
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:43 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

190 for CF card, 24 for adapter. Its a 4GB CF card.
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 705
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:44 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Also you use Winxp Lite to speed up boot time. The CF drives are actually pretty quick. The one I have is 133x which is 22mb/s which is pretty quick in HD terms.
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 706
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:54 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The only prob with CF drives at the moment is there not UDMA drives like normal IDE when in the adapter, there PIO. There is a new chipset out that is able to do UDMA for CF drive, so there'll be adapters soon with this chipset on them (I'm still waiting) They'll be very quick then, as the access time is like 0.1ms compared to 5400rpm 2.5" which is like 10ms.
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 707
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 02:02 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Here we go, found one, only works with sandisk CF cards,

http://www.acscontrol.com/Pages/Products/CompactFlash/IDE_To_CF_Adapter.htm

This makes th CF card use DMA, ie very fast.
Adam Barry
DieHard
WA
UZZ30

Posts: 506
Reg: 08-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 05:44 pm, by:  Adam Barry (Acdchook) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


Benjamin Burgess wrote on Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:44 pm:

Also you use Winxp Lite to speed up boot time.


Any variant of XP is ultimately sub-par for a small, specialised system like that. A stripped down, specialised *nix kernel would be far faster booting, and would also help alleviate cooling issues, as a much lower-spec CPU could be used to achieve the same tasks.
Justin Cook
DieHard
QLD
JZZ30 TT

Posts: 733
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 05:51 pm, by:  Justin Cook (Justin) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah I was going to do the whole windows on compact flash thing, but decided against it because of the added cost I don't need currently. Damn thing was expensive enough :-)

Down the track wouldn't mind getting a SATA one of those boards and a 4GB compact flash card!

When I am richer...because I am poorer right now.
Benjamin Burgess
DieHard
NSW
Toyota Soarer GT-TL

Posts: 708
Reg: 07-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 06:49 pm, by:  Benjamin Burgess (Jampac) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

well you can boot windows xp in a carpc setup in around 7-10 seconds once its fully opimized. Why would you want to screw around with *nix when all the software is already available and working on windows xp?
Callum Finch
Goo Roo
WA
Soarer TT & Corolla

Posts: 2128
Reg: 09-2005

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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 09:57 pm, by:  Callum Finch (Sigeneat) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

XP Lite is a pain in the ass and ultimately not really worth for trying to get XP to start up quickly

Try WinCE.

As for your CF speeds, is that the burst speed? And how does it go for multiple concurrant reads? Cos when you get windows starting up and loading all those dlls.. =P

As Adam said; if you really want to go super light and optimised then complie a specific linux kernal and shell.

Standby ultimately would be better =P
Matthew Sharpe
Goo Roo
North Island
JZZ31

Posts: 1629
Reg: 10-2005

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Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 08:30 am, by:  Matthew Sharpe (Madmatt) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


Benjamin Burgess wrote on Friday, October 27, 2006 - 01:44 pm:

Also you use Winxp Lite to speed up boot time. The CF drives are actually pretty quick. The one I have is 133x which is 22mb/s which is pretty quick in HD terms.




Yup, and unlike hard drives, its sustained, and no seek time or rotational latency on random reads, so most likely it'll be quite a bit faster than an IDE setup.
Rehan Bandara
Tinkerer
NSW
TT

Posts: 12
Reg: 10-2006

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Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 09:34 pm, by:  Rehan Bandara (Parsec) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Great setup. I've been meaning to do this myself.

A couple of ideas i've had for my system (not sure if they've been mentioned):

You can set up your power switch to put your computer in standby mode quite easily, so you could either just be sure to hit the standby button before turning your ignition off, or have the computer power supply hooked straight up to the battery so the computer is always running until you manually put it into standby mode. You could also rig up a system to do this automatically when your turbo timer kicks in (if you are a TT owner)

You can download the UBD non routing product off torrentspy to do a gps tracked street directory. Its not full blown sat nav, but i like it better as the map detail is exceptional and that sat nav b1tch is crazy stupid anyway.

Give it wireless lan! that way you can load mp3s onto it straight from your computer. Just set up an access point in your garage or near your driveway or something :-)
Rehan Bandara
Tinkerer
NSW
TT

Posts: 13
Reg: 10-2006

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Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 09:39 pm, by:  Rehan Bandara (Parsec) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The other thing is, i was thinking of going for a full blown PC (not a mini motherboard) in my boot. That way i can use leftover pc parts from household computers in the car.

It also seems less likely to get ripped out of the dash, and gives you a lot more room to move in mounting the touch screen lcd, etc.

It also means its quite easy to run an amp straight off the soundcard in the boot onto the rear deck (could probably just run the front speakers off a powered soundcard straight up).

I envisioned having a wireless keyboard sender on the rear deck and just have a keyboard floating around the car. Also means its very easy to add a digital tv card and other things to the pc.

my only concern is, does anyone know the maximum length of monitor, keyboard and mouse cables?

There may be problems running such a long length from the boot to the centre console.
Adam Parisi
Tinkerer
SA
UZZ30

Posts: 28
Reg: 07-2005

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Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 10:33 pm, by:  Adam Parisi (Kooks) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You could just go usb for keyboard and mouse cables, and I believe I saw a usb to vga adapter somewhere, for if you want to add an extra monitor when you don't have any extra outputs on your video card. Or, something even better, if you have a pda, use that as a remote for everything, just connect via bluetooth or wifi.
Adam Parisi
Tinkerer
SA
UZZ30

Posts: 29
Reg: 07-2005

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Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 11:41 pm, by:  Adam Parisi (Kooks) Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

But, there's also this, a 10m kvm extender, so should have no worries between boot and dash

http://www.mgram.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=17&products_id=1581

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