Thread: Intel D945GCLF2 Dual-Core Atom

Hi Paul,

First of all, make sure that usb DVD is bootable. Try it on a different USB port (you never know).
I was using a usb-powered slot-loading slim samsung dvd-rw and it took about 10 tries to get the damn thing to boot (it uses 2 usb ports for power, doesn't matter which ones are used).

Turns out, most of the times the slot-loading mechanism would take longer to position the cd correctly than the board took to reach the boot selection stage, giving a "no bootable devices" error.

Since you've already tried IDE drives and these don't turn on either, check your cabling? If your psu uses one of those 20pin-to-20pin-to-atx-to-atx-to-floppy all-in-one cables, try connecting it in a different configuration.
Mine didn't include any instructions regarding the directions and order (and logically they shouldn't matter), but the order that worked best in the end was this:
20pin on psu ---> 20pin on mobo which then splits to ---> standard atx peripherals.

Since my psu also comes with out a 2x2 p4 connector, I used the free atx plug for that. Make sure you don't make the mistake of plugging a 5v (red/orange) line to the 2x2 p4 connector, but rather the same yellow pin to both yellow wires on the p4 connector (you would notice the 5v wire will heat up very fast if you do, which will eventually fry your mobo or psu or both).

Nothing else I can think of beside that...



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As for the switching PSU posts...

I don't know about you guys, but I don't really trust my cheapish PSU to (a) protect the mobo/psu and (b) protect the battery sufficiently well, not to mention not giving me any controls short of installing a switch on the power lines themselves, which is rather crude.

An integrated circuit to control on/off features for the computer shouldn't cost more than $10 in total for the parts, shouldn't really draw any significant amount of power, and in the version that I'm currently designing for my build there's also a power saving feature to turn it off when it's not needed. Along with a bunch of additional kill and override switches, including another PC power switch (same as the one on the front of the box, just sends your mobo a pulse signal).

The general idea is for this controller to:
1. turn pc on if car is turned on and pc is off (unless overridden)
2. turn pc off if pc is on and car is off (unless overridden)
3. delay pc on for a pre-set amount of time after ignition (5 seconds for my car, for those extremely cold mornings after a week of not driving)
4. PC PSU gets power directly from battery constant
5. controlller also cuts power to the PSU--AFTER the PC had completed the shutdown process (i.e. PC POWER LED goes off). This is in order to protect the battery in case of a faulty mobo/psu/settings/whatever could cause it to keep drawing power

6(a). controller shuts itself down once pc and car are both off
-OR-
6(b). controller goes into power saving mode once pc and car are both off

Additional control switches:
1. Main kill switch -- cuts power to controller and PC PSU completely.
2. Shutdown override -- turns off the controller, allows pc to run while the car is off (can be switched on the fly even after the computer was turned on by the controller)
3. Remote pc power switch so PC could be turned on and off as if it was plugged to a wall adapter (only works with the shutdown override).

Basically, this makes sure your PC is off so long as the car is off, and it makes sure that it shuts down properly using the windows shutdown, even after you turned off the ignition. I'll probably throw in 10 minutes timer to cut power after shutdown signal just in case the pc hung on shutdown.

I'm probably going to redesign it to allow control of a few more peripherals (i.e. monitor, externally powered devices such as ext. sound cards, usb drives, powered antennas, whatever else), and fabricate some sort of wiring harness so I can just plug everything else to this board. This will also protect the measly psu I'm using from overloading since it won't be powering any peripheral devices.

Any comments/suggestions/requests?

The design is unfinished so far, and I haven't picked up any of the components, but since this is an old-school op-amp based circuit, component cost shouldn't go over $10-15.

I'll post a circuit diagram and parts list once I'm done.

(I would have posted this part in a new thread, but I can't open threads yet But feel free to move it to another thread if it's a problem here.)