Car PC

[Kelvrick]

I guess there really isn't a purpose. I might replace that with temperature readings or something, but they're just specs I'm always wondering about.

 

Helps to see if theres something going on in the background if they're too high and all you're doing is playing music.

 

Once everything is finished, I'll probably post the skin up on mp3car, but otherwise, feel free to give me a PM and I'll send you what I have now.

[BMac1203]

So, just thought I'd tease you guys with a bezel that Im about to finish for an EXTREMELY patient fellow user here (You know who you are)

 

With school going on, this has been over a month in the making. Just finished the filler primer today, and hopefully the last sand. Should get the final black and textured coats on tomorrow, Ill take more pics.

 

 

[jazzymt]

Impressive - nice work. I still want to do this some day, but you guys don't do much to make it look easy. I say leave it red though.

[BMac1203]

Hah, well if it wasnt for one of you guys, maybe I would. But, Im doing it for someone else.

 

It's black and lightly textured now, looks pretty darn good actually.

[f1anatic]

BMAC I got a question for you.

If you run Centrafuse as a system shell; and then you want to exit to the desktop and use Windows as a regular PC (say you add more songs) how do you do it ? Simply exiting Centrafuse will make Explorer load up ? OR do you need a keyboard and need to hit the Windows Button, hit RUN, type Explorer.exe and wait for it to load ?

[noam]

With the newer versions of Centrafuse, simply exiting will make it load explorer. With the older versions, you have to force it as you have described.

[BMac1203]

noam is close, but not totally correct.

 

If you have selected it to run as system shell from within CF, then exiting will automatically load explorer.exe

 

BUT, if you have forced it to run as shell via the registry hack method (as I have), exiting CF will not load explorer.exe, I have to load it myself. Hope that helps.

[noam]

noam is close, but not totally correct.

 

If you have selected it to run as system shell from within CF, then exiting will automatically load explorer.exe

 

BUT, if you have forced it to run as shell via the registry hack method (as I have), exiting CF will not load explorer.exe, I have to load it myself. Hope that helps.

Is there an advantage to the manual registry hack or is an artifact of before CF had a working run as shell option?

[BMac1203]

The advantage is mostly speed.

 

If you boot to CF instead of explorer, you're only running CF, not explorer. This keeps less things running on top of eachother.

 

Also, you don't boot into Windows interface first, so it looks like its truly booting into CF.

 

If you clear you desktop of all icons and set a plain black background, it will look as if its booting right into CF, more OEM persay.

[f1anatic]

So BMAC what is your boot time?

 

I have been editing services and GUI for ever and I am at 1m30s boot time; going thru the Desktop and then automatically loading Centrafuse (created a shortcut in the Startup foldeR). BUT this is wa too long and it got so long after I installed the wireless adapter. Which I do not want to take out nor disable. So I am stuck with a long boot time. I would hope to take it under 1 min but I do not know how. The PC at home boots in like 24 seconds (2200 GHz AMD Athlon 64; 1500 mb Ram; SATA 10,000 rpm C drive and loading shit like firewall, anti virus, calendar etc) but this one in the car running nothing is a "killuh" ! (1.1 Ghz Intel P3, 512 mb ram). I know it is old...but come on...!

 

I am not sure what fake gimmick the Centrafuse system shell is...but it did shit for me. Boot time seemed even slower but when using a stop watch it was virtually identical (an improvement of 2 seconds).

[BMac1203]

lol dunno right now.

 

Sad story. I went home for a week after I finished my finals here at school. Went out and bought a case of beer for the weekend with some old friends.

 

Obviously, took a turn too sharp, the beer slide harshly sideways into my carpc enclosure and shattered/broke the acrylic/plexiglass front which everything was mounted too.

 

Soooo....my comp is all spread around my trunk.

 

Seems that the parts are still fine and fully functional. Its actaully kinda of nice. I rushed the first enclosure to get it done and in the car, now I can think it a little better.

 

RIP old CarPC, hello new one!

[f1anatic]

I s'pose I never showed you my enclosure...did I ?

[BMac1203]

Nope...negative...nuh uh....

[andrew.anderson]

What is the advantage fo the CF Drive? Is there concern that the Laptop drive may be damaged by bumps?

 

Also, when are you gunna get rid of that damn bunny in your avatar. I hate that thing

[BMac1203]

Nice case

 

1st - You could prolly get away with the audio being in he same connector, dont think the signals are strong enough to interfere. If you were trying to run them in the Power connector, that would be a whole 'nother story.

 

2nd - Use the 20gb HDD. CF is nice, but less space. Unless you were to throw the operating system on the CF slot, and use the HDD for media. That could be an idea. Quick boot, large storage.

[BMac1203]

What is the advantage fo the CF Drive? Is there concern that the Laptop drive may be damaged by bumps?

 

Also, when are you gunna get rid of that damn bunny in your avatar. I hate that thing

 

Nah laptop HDD's are the most stable. CF is compact, and faster (depending on the interface of the HDD mentioned). Windows is show (in theory) to boot much quicker off of a solid state flash drive such as the one mentioned.

[andrew.anderson]

Nah laptop HDD's are the most stable. CF is compact, and faster (depending on the interface of the HDD mentioned). Windows is show (in theory) to boot much quicker off of a solid state flash drive such as the one mentioned.

 

OK, that answers my question. I drive rather agressivelly at times and was concerned that a laptop HD might get damaged. I am still 6+ months away from starting on a carputer fro our 05 LGT but I have been loosely following this thread so I will at least have a semblence of an idea as to what I am doing when I begin.

[andrew.anderson]

4 GB is not that large of a drive. I am assuming you would just use it as the OS and still use a laptop drive for storage?

 

Let us know how/if/when you fix the ghosting issue.

[BMac1203]

Thats really weird. Ghosting generally isnt caused by interference within wiring....I can understand interference being visible on screen, but ghosting?

 

Glad you got it working a bit though! Im just not sure that I see the connection between those things and ghosting...

 

Maybe shield your wiring?

[BMac1203]

That seems more understandable than the ghosting though.

 

Video interference will be easier to diagnose than ghosting, because GENERALLY ghosting is a monitor thing, not a video cable being too close to power, usb, etc.

 

Could very well be though!

[NSFW]

I bet the ghosting is related to the wiring... I've actually been wondering if ghosting is often an issue with carpcs.

 

I've had issues with ghosting on desktop monitors when running 1600x1200 with a long VGA cable, or 1280x1024 with a cheap switchbox. I don't know if the cable itself matters, or just the connectors, but nicer cables helped a lot in my case. Given the long cable runs needed for cars I am not surprised it happens even at typical carpc resolutions.

 

Sometimes the layout of the cable can make a difference (looping around itself vs draping it over stuff, etc). If you have a nice VGA cable lying around, it's worth trying. But I wonder about the connections on either end of the short run between the big connector and the VGA connector... Even with a great job of soldering, there's probably weird RF stuff going on at each end of that short run.

[BMac1203]

Which is what makes me think it's not related to wiring.

 

If you shielded the VGA, it shouldn't be happening....(in theory)

[NSFW]

Was that shielded video cable plugged into the motherboard's VGA connector, or is it attached to the big white connector you wired up?

[BMac1203]

It has to be issues at the actual white connector itself.

 

If I remember correctly, the shield gets grounded when creating a connector like that, but I could be wrong....

 

Im just thinking of Audio XLR cables. Theres a L-Audio, R-Audio, and shield prong (3 prongs).

[NSFW]

I wonder about the connections on either end of the short run between the big connector and the VGA connector... Even with a great job of soldering, there's probably weird RF stuff going on at each end of that short run.

 

Emphasis added. I don't think shielding will help.