ION overkill for CarPC?

**DarquePervert** · 09-15-2009, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by upspace

yeah but i am scared about having 10-20 watts in idle to full load compared to 30-40 watts on a car battery when engine is not on.

Why?
36w @ 12v = 3a.
That's three LCD monitors right there. 30-40w isn't all that much. Shoot, my CPU by itself draws up to 45w, and it's a mobile AthlonXP. Factor in the HDD, the cooling, USB devices, etc. and my power draw is probably close to 4 times the max draw of the Ion board at idle.

No power issues to date!

Get over you fear. As long as you're not trying to run a CPU with 125w TDP (like some P4s and high-end quad-cores), you shouldn't have any issues, so long as you plan your setup thoroughly.

**bratnetwork** · 09-15-2009, 08:23 PM

36w / 3amps.... ur headlights take more power than that when you turn them on....

**SFiorito** · 09-15-2009, 08:50 PM

I'm running a Zotac ION board. It's great, no power issues I've found. And to be honest I really didn't spend the time to figure out my exact power requirements.

I just dusted off some old parts I had laying around and just got the mobo and low-profile RAM. I'm running the board fanless with just 2 low-power fans in the VoomPC 2 case. It survived a 12+ hour round trip in August without probs (no overheating either). Performance is great too.

**hailrazer** · 09-15-2009, 09:07 PM

Originally Posted by soundman98

overkill is very relative-- as was pointed out to me before(the member name escapes me), some members prefer to play blueray in their car, so they don't have to buy 2 different discs of every movie-- one for the car, and one for home.

That would be me

But yea an Ion with the Geforce chip like I have in the Acer Aspire Revo does a wonderful job.

**Muttz** · 09-16-2009, 12:02 AM

Hello. I've been lurking for awhile and I'm just starting to shop. I have an Intel D945GCLF so far and not a big deal if I don't use it.

I've been looking at the AsRock ION 330 and the Acer Revo R3600 and wondering if either of these would be good to use. I'm not concerned about the power draw. I am wondering if I am going to be sorry down the road due to the lack of a PCI slot. The Revo is so small and Tiger Direct Canada has a great deal on them right now. (I don't see it on the US site) It includes a wireless keyboard and mouse and free upgrade to Win 7 in October. It's like the AsRock 330, same board, chipset but smaller hd and no optical drive. It's about the size of the Asus eee nettop, so it's a lot smaller that the AsRock.

Lol, I guess it just goes against my grain to buy a desktop off the shelf. I've never done it before.

Am I going to be sorry later on if I don't have a PCI slot? I am planning on GPS, possibly XM radio and I'd really like to have ODD-II.

Thanks.

**Dexamenus** · 09-16-2009, 03:13 AM

would love to do an install with the zotac ion, simple 12v input and on board everything, do we really need it? probably most of us dont.

**DarquePervert** · 09-16-2009, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by Dexamenus

would love to do an install with the zotac ion, simple 12v input and on board everything, do we really need it? probably most of us dont.

The users that are running a C2D probably don't need that much computing power, either.
So?

Hell, you don't need a PC in your ride at all.
You also don't need a radio, air conditioning, a sunroof, tinted windows, leather seats, a turbocharger, satellite navigation, or heated mirrors either. Yet so many people have these luxuries in their rides.

None of this is about NEED.

**afterdigital** · 09-16-2009, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

Why?
36w @ 12v = 3a.
That's three LCD monitors right there. 30-40w isn't all that much. Shoot, my CPU by itself draws up to 45w, and it's a mobile AthlonXP. Factor in the HDD, the cooling, USB devices, etc. and my power draw is probably close to 4 times the max draw of the Ion board at idle.

No power issues to date!

Get over you fear. As long as you're not trying to run a CPU with 125w TDP (like some P4s and high-end quad-cores), you shouldn't have any issues, so long as you plan your setup thoroughly.

what power supply runs your system?

**Dexamenus** · 09-16-2009, 06:36 AM

Originally Posted by DarquePervert

The users that are running a C2D probably don't need that much computing power, either.
So?

Hell, you don't need a PC in your ride at all.
You also don't need a radio, air conditioning, a sunroof, tinted windows, leather seats, a turbocharger, satellite navigation, or heated mirrors either. Yet so many people have these luxuries in their rides.

None of this is about NEED.

good point, and you are right, so OP, if you can afford it, go for it :P

(we dont seem to be agreeing much tonight do we DarquePervert)

**upspace** · 09-16-2009, 07:48 AM

DO WE NEED A CAR PC

well i need a car pc because no other handheld device, mobile, itune, iphone, video player does mp3, flac, ogg, aac, wma, wmv, and all those avi, mks etc.

i used to have a couple of years back a pinnacle receiver for my living room. great device but could not play all medias, so i had to go pc/htpc.

i don'want to converrt all those nice music and vids just to be playable in the car which keeps me busy for years. though you need a pc (linux or windows os) which can handle all those formats/codecs.

DO WE NEED AN IRON BOARD

i want to be ready for 3d mind blowing google earth like navigation software (if it is ever released for normal os). i used to have the little valley intel which was great but graphics sucked.

BEING GREEN

not because i am into green politics but i like the idea of energy efficient technology. it safes you from a lot of hassles (heat, fans, noise etc.). especially in a car environment with 12v which was designed / specified at a time when you had manual :-) ignition

NOW THE PHYSICS

is it easy like that (even if only theoritical): battery of 60 ah (amperehours) means that i could draw (theoretically) 20 hours of 3 ampere to run the computer (or 1 hour of 60 ampere) till the battery is fully discharged. sorry occupied a windows seat at physics:-)