Thread: Will a 300mhz computer work??

It CAN work, but not well. Xp will run but it will take a bit to load up media and folders being the speed it is. Packard Bell sucks ***, always falling to crap after 6 months, so daon't waste your time. You can build an excellent carputer for about $400, or $150 using old parts that suck.

Originally Posted by lominono

hey my packard bell is tight. lol i know its a piece. its reliable though. absolutly no hardware problems except my floppy disk eject button broke. other than that it hasnt had one problem.

so i should look to get a more capable puter. k

what programs are there that will make this work? like that ones that look like the navigation systems in oem cars?

There's a whole forum here on GPS units, software and whatnot.
Read there and you'll find out about all the software options, as well as popular GPS receivers that people are using.

Originally Posted by lominono

hi this is my first day in carputers and my first post on this subject. first saw a carputer recently and i have to have one.

okay i have an old packard bell 300 mhz 256ram(i think) 2.7gb(a bigger hd is obviously needed). its all messed up from viruses spyware all that good stuff, but im pretty sure it would work fine after a reformat(has been working fine for like the last 37 years. lol more like 5 years).

2 questions
-can this work as a carputer? if not what would the minimum that would be needed?
-If the packard bell does work can this computer run xp?
-The main use for this will be audio playback but am very interested in gps. it has a video chip but its a piece of $h!t will i need to get a video card?

Yes this can work.

Don't bother with XP, OK it will run but will be pretty slow. If you ARE determined to use it, then use nLite to cut it down. I would recommend looking for Windows 98 with 98Lite. The important thing is reducing the OS overhead.

Road Runner is likely to be your best choice of Front End, though I would recommend removing any flash elements replacing them with simple graphics.

All navigation software is going to be slow - Although Destinator works fine on a 220Mhz StrongArm it will be slower on a 300Mhz Intel, partly due to the overhead of the VB interface with MapMonkey or Freedrive, but mainly due to the fact ARM processors use RISC (says the guy who remembers his ARM-based 12Mhz Archimedes being faster than a DX4-100).

If you keep it all simple, lose any background processes then you *should* be OK. Give it 6 months and you might yearn for something faster, but it's worth a shot isn't it, and if you can get it doing what you want that's a feather in your cap, and partly the good thing about this hobby.

Originally Posted by lominono

2 questions
-can this work as a carputer? if not what would the minimum that would be needed?
-If the packard bell does work can this computer run xp?
-The main use for this will be audio playback but am very interested in gps. it has a video chip but its a piece of $h!t will i need to get a video card?

If you are thinking about Win XP, your machine would be able to run it. I believe the minimum system requirements is 200 MHz for XP. My first carputer was a 400 MHz running Win XP Pro.

It was an old emachine and I still have it to this day. If you are looking to upgrade your machine, you may want to think about how practical it is. You might spend almost as much money buying a brand new hard drive, older style ram, etc....just to upgrade that old machine.

You need to weigh your options, and determine if you can just afford to get another used machine that is slightly newer. There's always deals and trades in the For Sale section.

You may think your machine is dependable, but it's a whole different story in the car. My eMachine works great, but vibration caused it to lock up, reboot, etc.....even with a new hard drive. Parts would wiggle loose, short out, etc.

If you are interested in a completely set up used system, PM me. I have an Epia 800 complete setup for sale for $500. Includes, case, power supply, 80 gig hard drive, in dash touch screen, and more. It's a system I got using some of my old carputer parts that I've upgraded along the way.

If you would like to see pics of my install, with the 400 eMachine tower (done years ago), check out my car. It's a www.mobile-effects.com
In the image gallery, under Mobile-Effects Install/Project -> Ford Aspire.

If there's anything specific you want to ask me, just shoot a PM, I sometimes lose track of all the different threads I post in and might not see a response posted here. Good luck w your system!