laptop sound cards etc

**distortion** · 06-25-2004, 11:43 PM

have finally come into some cash and can start buying components...

have a few issues to worry about...

i want to use a laptop as my carputer - have it sitting under the seat in a custom built housing. first, should there be any issues with this? the laptop i'm looking at is a celeron 1000, 256mb ram, 40 gig hdd, with a dvd rom which i wont use

second, how good/bad are the standard laptop sound cards nowdays? should i be looking for a USB soundcard?

thirdly, i have read a few people using the slot loading apple dvd drives, how compatible with PC hardware are they?

found a kit that will handle the power for the laptop so that isnt an issue thankfully.

hopefully using a laptop and the new in dash lcd from digitalww will work, though im not sure whether the laptop will remember the display settings/ that the lcd is the master screen when the power isnt on to the screen!

sorry for the long post!

**chris in nh** · 06-27-2004, 02:33 AM

i think as long as the laptop pieces are held down well and you have adequate cooling, it should be fine.

as far as the sound card, you can go to device manager and find out which card you have and find the specs on the web. the ultimate test will be listening to it in your car to see if the sound is acceptable to you. if it is, you're good to go. if not, pick up a usb sound card. today i just saw a SoundBlaster usb sound card for $40. you can probably find them much cheaper on ebay or elsewhere on the web.

not sure about the apple dvd drives, sorry.

as far as the screen settings, i just use the "auto" feature on my lilliput.

good luck!