Looking for advice on [H]ardware for a carputer

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Loki008

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Jan 14, 2001
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I am looking to build an in-dash carputer and am just looking for feedback on my planned hardware. I assume since this is a carputer it goes under mobile computing?

Hardware:

Mobo/cpu: VIA EPIA-N700 nano-ipx board with 1.5ghz c7 processor
RAM: 2GB DDR2 so-dimm
Harddrive: RiDATA 32GB SATA II 3.0Gb Solid state disk

will also be using a yet to be finalized USB radio tuner, USB GPS, and a sirius SC-C1 tuner connected via USB to the system.

As for software i am planning on an nlite'ed install of Windows XP and Centrafuse as the front end. My main concern is if with the cpu above if i can expect reasonable performance out of the system? I am not planning DVD playback or anything like that. Mostly Audio and GPS functions.
 
Make sure the SSD is SLC and not MLC, booting off a MLC drive is really paainfully slow.

here is an 8gb SLC sata drive that you could get nlighted XP and such on w/o issues and have a large 2.5gb sata notebook drive for music and such......


http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/SP...sd-solid-state-drive--80000720-1209539129.jsp


i am using a 4gb SLC drive in my eee pc and it boot nice and fast, i also have an 8gb MLC drive in it for storage and it is really slow to boot from, i know i tried.


I am using a vlighted vista on my 4gb w/o any issues
 
Unless you put alot of effort into vibration damping magnetic drives are a really bad idea for a carputer, and even then I'd advise paying extra for a model with a motion sensor to park the heads before they crash going over a pothole. Unless you need a really large amount of storage, you're better off using multiple SD cards or a large CF card instead. The advantage of CF is that its interface is electrically equivlant to PATA so it'll perform a bit better than a USB-SD adaptor. You can get a 32GB CF card for ~70 with a PATA adaptor for ~10-20 more, adaptors that will take 2 CF cards are available. If you're just using it for storing your MP3s there's no need to buy the fastest card on the market.
 
Adidas4275 said:
Make sure the SSD is SLC and not MLC, booting off a MLC drive is really paainfully slow.

here is an 8gb SLC sata drive that you could get nlighted XP and such on w/o issues and have a large 2.5gb sata notebook drive for music and such......


http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/SP...sd-solid-state-drive--80000720-1209539129.jsp


i am using a 4gb SLC drive in my eee pc and it boot nice and fast, i also have an 8gb MLC drive in it for storage and it is really slow to boot from, i know i tried.


I am using a vlighted vista on my 4gb w/o any issues
Click to expand...

Are you sure that is still an issue with the new MLC drives? i am looking at this one and the specs and reviews both look good to me.
 
Funny you should be asking about this now...
I have been playing/building using carputers for about 7 years now. I've gone though about 4 40gb hard drives. I have been trying to get xp onto a ide to SDHC adapter, but I haven't had ANY luck. I followed these instructions but with an SDHC 8gb card and I got nothing.... http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/faq-bootcf.asp

however I would recommend that site above and get a X300 CF card for fast boots, make sure it's "fixed" with UDMA mode. It's great to keep your image on there and then keep A LOT of files on a regular hard drive that you can easily replace.

How are you planning on powering things?

www.mp3car.com

that's the place to be!!
 
From what i have heard via can be a bit slow on releasing new products, however from what i have read its release is quite soon, which works well as it will be about a month before i get my holliday bonus through work which will pay for most of this build hopefully.

As for your recomendation of using a CF card over a SSD, is there a particular reason? for me a 32GB SSD is more than enough space for the OS and my mp3 collection and since this board has an SATA port i would prefer to stick to K.I.S.S for this build and leave out an adapter for space and simplicity sake.

As for power that is something that i will have to look more into when i am getting close to ordering the equipment. I plan on using a DC to DC power supply, i just havent researched them too much yet to know which one for this build.

Thanks for the recomendation for that site. I posted a very simular question over there, the replies just seem a bit slower so i figured i would see if anyone had any input over here..

Also since you seem to know a bit about the power needed for such a system, i assume that with your interest in the n700 that it should be more than powerfull enough to run as a carputer with good results?
 
No, and now that prices've gone down a real SSD is probably the better choice. CF's been the poor mans SSD for years so it was just a reflex comment.
 
Adidas4275 said:
Make sure the SSD is SLC and not MLC, booting off a MLC drive is really paainfully slow.
Click to expand...

That's a very sweeping statement.

Read here: It is an MLC drive but performs well. Just look at the graphs.
​
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1222354583fRZBRCf50A_1_10.gif




1222354583fRZBRCf50A_1_13.gif


This shows reading is good in SSDs, be it MLC and SLC.
 
alg7_munif said:
Nice project. I'm also planning to start a same project soon. Now I'm looking at these hardwares:

J&W MINIX 780G mini-ITX
AMD Athlon X2 45W, probably 4850e
160W DC PSU
Transcend 128GB SSD (Already have)

Btw do you know any good in dash LCD?
Click to expand...

I am probably going a slightly different approach, i am not going for a head unit type LCD but rather am going to try to fabricate it in dash. From what i have read, for the value the lilliput 629 is one of the better choices and one of the more popular touchscreens

http://store.mp3car.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MON-016
 
Loki008 said:
I am probably going a slightly different approach, i am not going for a head unit type LCD but rather am going to try to fabricate it in dash. From what i have read, for the value the lilliput 629 is one of the better choices and one of the more popular touchscreens

http://store.mp3car.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MON-016
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. From the experience with my EeePC 701, I think that the 800x480 resolution is too small. Sometimes you will have a problem with vertical viewing especially when the window is too high. I doubt that I can get a higher resolution with a screen that small :(

How about this:
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/721
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/924
 
alg7_munif said:
Thanks for the reply. From the experience with my EeePC 701, I think that the 800x480 resolution is too small. Sometimes you will have a problem with vertical viewing especially when the window is too high. I doubt that I can get a higher resolution with a screen that small :(

How about this:
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/721
http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/924
Click to expand...


The advantage is that you will likely be using a front end UI designed around touch screen and the lower resolution such as RoadRunnter or centrafuse so resolution isnt as big of a concern.
 
Is it possible to use the car's speakers with the PC? How are you going to connect the PC to the sound system?
 
alg7_munif said:
Is it possible to use the car's speakers with the PC? How are you going to connect the PC to the sound system?
Click to expand...

Most of today's head units have an input for an MP3 players, even a lot of cars come right from the factory with this option.

Now if your are ripping out the head unit and just putting an LCD and PC in it's place that wouldn't work and you would have to buy an amplifier to driver you speakers.
 
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