Error-, Frozen-, Problem- Free PC setup

**llmask** · 07-20-2004, 12:07 AM

My carpc is always freezing on me. I just wanted to see who here hadn't experience any problems with their carpc and for how long.

ill start:

Epia M9000
256MB (16MB Video)
Jaton 64MB Video Card
80gb 5400rpm HDD
16x slim dvd
casetronic and bundled 60watt psu plugged directly into cigarette socket
mouse gps
mini keyboard
thumb mouse

windows xp pro
mediacar
frodoplayer
mappoint

1 day Problem Free

*Pls forgive me if this is a repost. I just wanted a thread w everyones configuration.

**Rob Withey** · 07-20-2004, 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by llmask

I just wanted to see who here hadn't experience any problems with their carpc and for how long.

I haven't experienced any problems with my carpc for nearly 5 years.

EM586 mobo
Pentium 233 MMX
128Mb RAM
6Gb laptop hard drive
20x4 VFD
Homebuilt UIR (Universal Infrared Receiver)
Homebuilt Power supply
Very small case (size of a desktop cdrom drive contains everything)
DOS 6.2 with NDIS network drivers
Custom software

**kgasso** · 07-20-2004, 03:06 AM

Had my first full day with mine running today (just a few things to wrap up cosmetically). Only issue I had was a fast, ****-poor wiring job for my battery isolator shorted and popped a fuse.

So far no problems. My hard drives are mounted vertically, with the platters oriented the same direction as the car's wheels. I drove pretty recklessly around a couple of our worst roads, and still no problems (and I'm on a stiff aftermarket suspension).

Hopefully it stays just as stable as it is now... Loving XP with a 12-second total boot time from pressing the button to having MediaCar playing MP3s

**ST34LTH** · 07-20-2004, 09:12 AM

I dont mean to threadjack but kgasso, can you tell me more about your low boot times.

Thanks

AdamR

**saikano** · 07-20-2004, 10:16 AM

werd. i wanna know about low boot times too...it's not nice to say...'oo, look i have low boot time, 12 seconds...yadda yadda' without sharing

**kgasso** · 07-20-2004, 11:20 AM

It probably helps a lot that it's an Athlon XP 2400+ w/ 512MB of RAM...

I also have a seperate drive for my OS/Programs and Media. Windows doesn't deal well when the drive it boots off of is pretty full. Once I had everything installed, I defragged the OS drive and pretty much left it as-is. Then went through and disabled just about every service I don't need, and turned off most visual goodies (window shading, themes, etc).

I pretty much followed along the lines of what was explained at http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindows.htm and it made a HUGE difference. I couldn't disable everything, since I'm still using LAN connectivity and 802.11 (wireless) services, however, even getting rid of the biggest memory hogs (indexing service, etc) helped a lot...

As for BIOS startup time, I configured my HDD parameters manually so it won't go searching for them every time I boot (shaves off about 5-6 seconds on my mobo) and have it set to do a quick POST and to only attempt to boot off of the primary drive (no searching for CD-ROM to boot from).

**llmask** · 07-28-2004, 04:34 PM

yeah i used that fixyourwindows thing and bootvis timed my power up from hibernation in less than 5 sec.

**brandon** · 07-29-2004, 04:04 AM

back on topic
llmask, I have encountered this about 3 times, once being tonight, so you are not the only one this is happening to. Since I'm not very familiar with windows I only assumed it was a configuration issue on my end.