Planning my first (cheap) system

**antirush** · 08-13-2004, 09:42 PM

Ok, I'm new to these forums, as well as to the carputer concept. I'm a rather cash strapped student right now, with a 1995 Toyota camry. I'm planning on building a carputer into it, but I need to do it cheaply, at least at first. I want the quickest route to getting it up an running, and then I can upgrade it to a more professional/multi-featured system over time. The basic's I'm looking at right now are:

http://store.mini-box.com/ituner/epia800kit.html

EPIA 800 Mhz M/B
PW-60A DC-DC Convertor
12V/5A AC Power Adaptor
Power Cord

from mini-box.com. I'm going to add a laptop harddrive, dvd rom, and some memory I have lying around. Does that kit have everything else I need to get started? Do I need to put it in a case immediately?

I can't afford a touchscreen lcd right now, hopefully someday I'll be able to upgrade, but for now I'm just going to have to do with an alternate form of control. I'm looking to get a 7 inch lcd off of ebay right now, from looking through these forums it seems that vga is not the way to go. If anyone has any suggestions for a screen under 150$, it would be greatly appreciated. I thought about going with a 5.* incher, but I don't know if that would be big enough to even function. Any opinions on that are greatly appreciated as well.

As far as interfacing with my cars sound system, I think I'm going to go with a tape adaptor for the time being. I hear that fm modulators are a good way to go, the wired ones, but I'm not sure how expensive they would be.

I want to go with one of the carnetix CNX-P1260 DC-DC power supplies, but that is a little out of my league for a while. What would be the cheapest way to get this up and running until I can upgrade to one of them? I don't mind manual on/off or rebooting during startup for the time being.

Since I can't go with the touchscreen, I'm looking for a remote control similar to the ones that come with many aftermarket headunits that I can control my pc with. I haven't had much luck finding one though.

As far as the software side of things, I'm going to run some form of windows or another along with most likely frodoplayer. It seems to be quite a nice piece of software. I don't know which version to go with, although I've heard that a windows 98 lite install can be very small and quick booting. If you could point me to more information on that, I'd appreciate it.

Well, this has turned out to be quite long, I hope that somebody had the patience to drudge through all of this from a complete stranger and newbie. Thanks for all the help, even from all of the previous topics on here. I really tried to not repeat any questions too blatantly, as I know that can be rather annoying.

**podcake** · 08-14-2004, 04:00 PM

ok m8 here is what i think ( not the most popular opinion here but i think it)
if u want cheap DO NOT go for custom OR small bits

depending how cheap you are looking at i suggest these things:

1) get a 2nd hand/ cheap motherboard and chip ( preferably with onboard EVERYTHING)
2) buy a decent sized HDD ( not excessive tho) and other bits like dvd drives
3) put it all in a case
4) get a PSU
5) install OS

i plan to run my mp3 player without a screen ( i intend to have a setup using winamp where i can put my songs into albums and playlists, so i just select one with a set of shortcut keys)

mine has set me back £20 in total ( that i can save in a week by not drinking)
that is except the inverter which cost me another £20 for a 500watt version brand new ( not a bad deal i think)

a good place to start would be your local university ( they tend to throw out allsorts of stuff that could be of use to you) and put up adverts in the cafe type places in the uni area offering to buy up old pc hardware

i have found that there wiill ALWAYS be people selling stuff around universities
the next place to try is schools, they are usually less good pickings but still worth a look

the pc bit scroungers gold mine is a skip outside a place of buisiness or education FULL of computers ( i have come accross two of these) and the pickings are usually quite good

remember free is cheaper than cheap!

also screen wise one of the better ways if you cant afford LCD is to alphanumeric LCD a bit like u get on calculators these are much cheaper and can give you the required info from software plugins usually such as song title track length etc,etc....

98 lite is really good and DAMN quick to run BUT it has drawbacks 98 doesnt have the compatability of lots of newer OS's things such as wireless WILL NOT WORK with 98 lite ( unless you have a 98 se disk, and then it is REALLY tricky to work)

but good luck

**antirush** · 08-14-2004, 11:37 PM

You know, that sounds like quite a good idea. Thank you very much for the input, as this will allow me to get something up and runnining much more quickly. Probably next week or so. I work at a pc repair place, so I think I can probably get my hands on an old system quite easily. Thanks.

**podcake** · 08-15-2004, 11:56 AM

np, for a basic system keep a look out for socket7 and AMD k6-2's ( they are really cheap, and ppl tend to bin em

**antirush** · 08-17-2004, 12:35 AM

Alright! I got a laptop from work for 20$. It's a amd k602 600mhz with 128 megs of ram, 10.something gig harddrive. Now to install 98 lite. You're using winamp for a player, right? Do you have a link to the plugins you were referring to? I can't wait! Thanks for the help.

**podcake** · 08-17-2004, 04:49 PM

with that system you could run a newer OS if you wanted xp will be slower but has some improved features ( for what u want 98lite will probably be adequate) there are HUNDREDS of plugins for winamp and i have tried lots i cant remember which i stuck with in the end may i suggest you try the one that suits you most, try lots and play around with them, if you have the laptop i assume you will disconnect the screen to make it fit better, if you have done this another suggestion is that with a little work you could extend the connection and mount the screen somewhere?

but hey do u mind posting me some piks of this when u have done it?
i will post some of mine when i get to it

**antirush** · 08-17-2004, 05:06 PM

Yes, I will for sure post some pics. I think I am going to leave the screen on for now, and just put it under the seat until I get a more permanent installation set up. I've read a lot of threads about the laptop screen and detaching it, and it seems that it will be more trouble than it's worth. I'll probably just use it attached to the screen when I really need to do something, and other than that I'll use some controller to switch music, and my next purchase is going to be a usb lcd text display. Something like 70 bucks, and there is software written to display winamp track info. It's very small, so I can put that up in front where I can see it. www.crystalfontz.com

**MatrixPC** · 08-18-2004, 12:13 PM

If you want cheap and capable system, find one of those desktop P3 450MHz at least.
If you have one of those desktop ready for retirement, you can use it in car with an inverter.
All those, if size is not a matter to you, but I think you can stack 10-15 of those mid-tower desktop in the Camry and still have room for books and laudry

**Wrongway** · 08-18-2004, 12:53 PM

If you want cheap, go for a Celeron and 845 chipset mobo. I just picked up a 2.4 Ghz celleron proc, an Intel branded 845 mobo with onboard sound and video, 256MB PC2700 DRAM and chassis for less than $200 all new from Tigerdirect. Just my personal opinion but if you go with Intel procs and chipsets you are much less likely to run into driver and compatibility issues.