definatly have heat issue, also have silicone encapsulant

**bramlet** · 05-05-2010, 04:33 PM

Everything works fine except when the car has been sitting in the sun. Location= Raleigh, NC
The failure always presents itself as a hung BIOS screen. Eventually it will boot up maybe 10 minutes later. The hard drive is spinning but nothing is booting. Power is clearly getting to all the components. I have an unorthodox setup with most of my components exposed. (my budget was and still is very small) The motherboard is a foxconn 45CSX which is an atom 330 board. PS is OPUS 150 watts. OS is Windows 7. My commute is very short so having this issue is very annoying. Will getting an SSD solve my problem, or could it be something to do with the motherboard? I have this stuff called sylgard 164, which is a silicone elastomer, which is supposed to shield electronics from the environment including temperature and vibration. Has anybody messed with encapsulants/pottants. my buddy received the stuff in error from dow corning and nobody in his lab wanted it so he gave it to me, due to my mad science predilictions.

this is what I got for free
and I have a picture of what my setup looks like. I have since taken off the rubber jacket and rolled it up and put it between the screen door handle and the top of the hard drive to no avail. (i found a non right angle sata to molex. yay) I am going to put the drive in this enclosure i got now that i can fit the sata cable in it....see if that works before i try anything crazy with silicone.

**jpinkerton** · 05-05-2010, 04:52 PM

Without temperatures from the devices...I'd first suggest some active cooling. Get a fan on the heatsinks there. Fans are cheap - and you likely have some laying around or that you can pull from another machine.

**OldSpark** · 05-05-2010, 05:12 PM

Maybe the board has flexed and broken tracks etc - especially if mobile with insufficient mounting standoffs etc.
Lack of shielding from PSUs and other emag sources.
Dirty sockets & joints.

**Bugbyte** · 05-05-2010, 05:45 PM

Okay, try this: Take the hard drive off, take it into the house with you. When you are ready to take your trip, take it out of the house and plug it into the computer setup.

It's possible that the hard drive is not liking the heat in the car when it is sitting in the sun. Trying it with a cold hard drive will eliminate that as a possibility.

**bramlet** · 05-05-2010, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by OldSpark

Maybe the board has flexed and broken tracks etc - especially if mobile with insufficient mounting standoffs etc.
Lack of shielding from PSUs and other emag sources.
Dirty sockets & joints.

it does work fine eventually and mostly every other time which leads me to believe this cannot be true

**bramlet** · 05-05-2010, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

Okay, try this: Take the hard drive off, take it into the house with you. When you are ready to take your trip, take it out of the house and plug it into the computer setup.

It's possible that the hard drive is not liking the heat in the car when it is sitting in the sun. Trying it with a cold hard drive will eliminate that as a possibility.

this has been suggested to me before...and I do see the value as it can isolate the problem between the hdd and the MoBo. I will try it and report back. If it is the hdd I'm thinking an ssd should speed up my boots and provide reliability. I would just hope the mechanical hdd wants to play music right away. I'm still hoping somebody will dare me to use this silicone elasotmer.

**soundman98** · 05-06-2010, 08:16 AM

are you sure it is a hard drive causing the hung bios? if it is, a hard drive test is in order to double check if the drive is still good..

otherwise, try unplugging some usb devices-- it is also possible one of them is causing it.

**HiJackZX1** · 05-06-2010, 09:41 AM

OK, can I put my 2 cents into this? I am very anal about cooling, especially since my setup has so many heat generating components. Your amp is very close to the PC and I think its helping to contribute to the over heating issues. Build a box for around the PC only, then what your going to do is put 2 small or medium fans on one side that force air into the box, then place 2 small or medium fans on the other side to pull the air out. I use this method for my Car PC and its a instant 10 degree drop when they turn on. You will not see that drastic of a drop, because yours is in the trunk, but it will be enough to get the PC to normal tempature.

Here is a picture. I built mine into the framing of my middle seat. Then the center console which is also the case goes over it.

See on the first top picture, you can see the fans to the left hand side (front) and then fans to the right hand side (back). The front pulls air in, sending it across the PC and PSU, then the rear fans pull all the air out. No heat has time to build up.

**bramlet** · 05-06-2010, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by soundman98

are you sure it is a hard drive causing the hung bios? if it is, a hard drive test is in order to double check if the drive is still good..

otherwise, try unplugging some usb devices-- it is also possible one of them is causing it.

I can't be sure it the hard drive. I unplugged the bu-353 GPS at lunch today. I was parked in the sun and it was hot as

when i came back out at 5pm. the carputer did still seem to hang at the bios screen but not for very long at all(still longer than a reference boot). During lunch my roomate thought that pressing buttons on the mouse seemed to help. I was trying it and it booted. I will try similiar things over the next few days i guess and really try to nail down the culprit. I may have to unplug the mouse all together. maybe it is the mouse...or the gps and not the hard drive. I also have a powermate and the touchscreen. Have you heard of any of these products causing this.

**bramlet** · 05-06-2010, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by ZX1Cruizer

OK, can I put my 2 cents into this? I am very anal about cooling, especially since my setup has so many heat generating components. Your amps is very close to the PC and I think its helping to contribute to the over heating issues. Build a box for around the PC only, then what your going to do is put 2 small or medium fans on one side that force air into the box, then place 2 small or medium fans on the other side to pull the air out. I use this method for my Car PC and its a instant 10 degree drop when they turn on. You will not see that drastic of a drop, because yours is in the trunk, but it will be enough to get the PC to normal tempature.

so you think that fanning the parts for the few seconds while its booting could solve it? I will probably try something similiar if needed. The board is supposed to be totally passive and it does survive road trips with the music loud. I have a bunch of wires laying right on the amp and they do not melt. I assume they are made not too. I think the heat has something do with my issue based only on observing the conditions when the bios hangs, but I feel its worth noting the setup has in fact survived these long duty road trips just fine.