Help me get started

**mstaedt** · 12-06-2007, 04:44 PM

Howdy,

I have been interested in the concept of putting a pc in a vehicle for years. Now it seems (economically) feasible. This forum has been a great source of information and inspiration.

I have a desktop PC that I'm thinking about gutting and resurecting into a carPC. It has an AMD XP 3200+ 2.2Ghz chip and a pair of 512 DDR mem modules. micro-ATX motherboards seem readily available at reasonable prices. Does this sound like a decent starting point? This system will be going into a custom pickup truck, likely behind the seats, so space is not a major concern.

Here is a link to a magazine article on my truck..
Custom Classic Truacks magazine

Thanks for your help!

**mstaedt** · 12-07-2007, 02:09 PM

UPDATE!!

The above stated plan was because I thought my original motherboard had taken a crap, but I discovered the problem was actually the switch on the back of the PSU, so it's back in service as my main desktop.

BUT!.. another PC I have that is nearly unusable is an old Compaq presario with a Pentium III 933Mhz CPU that I just discovered uses a socket 370 mobo. A little Googling led me to the fact that this is the preferred socket for the mini-itx boards.

Is the Pentium III 933Mhz a good chip for car PC??

Thanks...

**DarquePervert** · 12-07-2007, 02:36 PM

It's a fine start to a PC.
It's certainly no performance powerhouse....
for music playback and GPS navigation, it should work nicely. DVD & video playback might be sketchy, but would proably be OK if you tweaked the OS for performance.

**mstaedt** · 12-07-2007, 03:11 PM

You're right about not being a performance powerhouse. Right now it's doing duty as my 9 year old's internet/game PC, and it's slower than crap. I just ordered a couple of 256MB SDRAM's for it (the max the system will take) in hopes of speeding it up a little.

What kind of OS performance tweaks are appropriate? Right now I've got XP in there. Would it help to back down to Win98?