Thread: Intro/Plan/Info and suggestion request (expert needed)

no love? no welcome? no nothing?

Originally Posted by Hijinx

Hi, This being my first post (after a week of solid browsing 3-4 hours a day at work) I figure I'd introduce myself and thank everybody for the time they spend assisting noobs such as myself.

Wow. Some appreciation. I appreciate your appreciation.

I'm trying to keep it as low in the Watts as possible. I'm planning on having many devices connected at the same or different times. I Need 100% stability as far as power goes.
I need the VIA 8237 chipset, SATA ports. This to me is more important than anything. I need to have with the flip of a switch 2 different hd combo's. Lets just say its for "mobile computer repair"
Here is my idea. Let me know if this seems possible.

Well, let's see what you've got and see how we can improve.

MB: Jetway Versa J7F4K1G2E Fanless (179.95 at http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.99/.f )
Power: m2-atx ($87 shipped from ebay)
Screen: Lilliput 619 ($250 shipped from ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Lilli...spagenameZWDVW )
Optical: External USB slot load dvd r/rw drive ($85 ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/External-USB-Slo...QQcmdZViewItem )
HD1: ~80gb laptop drive (converted to IDE)
HD2: 10gb IDE

Do you have those hard drives lying around in a pile of pieces parts that most geeks seem to have lying around? If not, I suggest getting one large hard drive. Two hard drives means more power draw. (Note: I added this before reading your plan below.)
Also, you didn't specify the 10GB drive. Is that a desktop (3.5") or laptop (2.5") drive? I think you're already well aware of this, but a lptop drive will draw far less power.

Also, there have been reported issues with the M2ATX power supply and Jetway brand motherboards. I don't know what it is specifically, as I don't have a Jetway board OR an M2ATX. I'd do some investigation on that. It may or may not be an issue for you.

by my calculations those parts alone are going to run around $650. (PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS OR BETTER DEALS!)

You're on your own for comparison shopping.

I plan on installing almost everything the standard way - Of course I'm going to fabricate a mount ect ect..

Point of order. There is no "standard" way to install a PC. It's pretty much an individual endeavor.


Little more detailed plan

I want to be able to have the carpc system setup - run gps, mp3's ect ect - a fully functional carputer (no internet needed) Will need to have an available SATA connector and Power. Will call this HD1 mode (Ill need to mount an external sata drive on occasion)
Flipping a switch (with the system powered down of course) I want to switch to the 10gb drive. HD2 mode :-) (With the 10gb drive I am going to boot to a usb drive and plugin a new (10gb) drive and clone one to the other them.)
My plan for that is to have a switch that controlls 2 wires. (I think its called single pull double throw or something). So basically I'll need a 4 connector IDE cable.(all devices in cable select mode) Ill connect the 5v and the 12v to the switch. In one position it will power the single drive and the empty sata power, and the other position it will power the 10gb drive and the empty connector.

Ooooh. I think we've hit a snag here.
I think I understand what you're saying here, but I don't think it's going to be as simple as you outline.
What's the point of cloning the hard drive in-car? Is that a drive for holding music and movies and stuff? I'd think that would be better served by putting the HDD in a USB enclosure and have it be removable so you can take it inside to add/remove files and such. Another, more convenient option is to use a WiFi adapter and add/remove/change files across a wireless LAN.

I think you're making this waaaaay more complicated than it needs to/should be.

Here are my questions..
Maximum length of a SATA cable?

2 meters (about 6.5 feet)

Maximum length of a USB cable?

5 meters (about 16.5 feet)

Will all of this work? I am very good at soldering and that sort of stuff. I am not an electronics expert. I can get resistors and whatnot if you tell me to, but as far as knowing what they do - I dont.

The basics of the PC are pretty sound. The only thing that I see as a hurdle is the switch to booth from one HDD or the other. I think you're going to run into trouble with BIOS and such, particularly if one drive is SATA and the other is PATA. That would require a change in the BIOS on some motherboards, and as such a simple physical switch liek you proposed wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by Hijinx

no love? no welcome? no nothing?

Better?

The basics of the PC are pretty sound. The only thing that I see as a hurdle is the switch to booth from one HDD or the other. I think you're going to run into trouble with BIOS and such, particularly if one drive is SATA and the other is PATA. That would require a change in the BIOS on some motherboards, and as such a simple physical switch liek you proposed wouldn't work.

Yea, I've thought of that. I'm pretty sure that if the drives are connected but not powered they wont recognize in the bios, and therefore not boot. So really I would only technically have one drive connected at a time. The only problem I see is that I may get the screen everytime that says "boot devices have changed press f1 to continue." which is going to get annoying, but i'll survive.

I'm glad you were the one to respond. Looking at your worklog has convinced me to eliminate my headunit and go with a three.1 or the like eq, and amps. This is going to be perfect because I can use my 1 din space for the slimdvd, and the eq.


Anyhow.

Yes, the 2nd drive is a standard IDE drive. The data is irrelevant since I wont be booting that drive, I will boot a usb flash drive(with norton cloning software on it). But I need to do a complete clone of that drive.
I cant keep both drives running all the time because the MB only supports 2x ide drives.
I guess the only way to find all this out for sure is to do it.

Thanks for the heads up on the M2 problems. I'll look into other options.