Thread: Newbie Question???

Originally Posted by kingeorge36

O.k I been reading on this all day and my head is swollen!!! Just have to ask most likely to you guys a dumb question!!! Where exactly does the power supply connect to in the car itself??? Does it connect to say cigarett lighter???

No, not a good idea as some cars have their lighter socket circuit switched, which means that it is unpowered when the key is off.

It's like you are working on your home PC and someone pulls the plugs, not the greatest way to turn off a computer.

The best way to connect is throught a fuse (Escuse my spelling, English is not my native language) to the car's battery. The Switching ON-OFF proccess on properly designed power supply will have a sense wire that is wired to a wire that is live only when the key is in the ON/ACC or IGN position.

This way, when you turn the key off, the computer would turn off properly.

Best regards

frenchnew

A DC-DC power supply with a built-in controller, such as Opus, connects to the battery and also to an ACC wire, so it takes care of powering up and powering down your system.

O.k next question... I read about the operating systems like xp lite and 2000 lite were can I pick these up???

Originally Posted by kingeorge36

O.k next question... I read about the operating systems like xp lite and 2000 lite were can I pick these up???

www.litepc.com

xplite is software, which removes unneeded services/etc from XP. You can find more information on their website.

O.k so I have the basics down I think, but clairify some other things while I'm thinking of it. What speed processor and how much ram would be sufficient to run a machine like this???

Depends on your budget I guess. I use an XP 1800 with 512DDR, only because I had it available.

If you're looking for the absoulte minimum that would handle this, I can't help with that. But try searching, I'm sure someone has asked this before

O.k next question!!! Is a standard Desktop drive durable enough to use in a carputer or are Laptops drives better for this environment???

Standard desktop drives are durable, however, I would recommend it to be put on some kind of "suspension".

I don't follow??? If the drive is properly screwed in place why would you need a suspension???