Thread: Another newbie looking for advice on hardware

hey everyone. great site. in the course of a day i went from "carputer, WTF?" to at least somewhat knowing what's going on. credit your faq section and all of the informative posts on here for that.

so basically, i'm trying to get an idea of what to go with for my mainboard/mobo+processor. i'm digging the idea of just the mainboard with an embedded processor, but i thought i'd ask for some advice from y'all on what to buy.

ok, so to be completely honest, i'm not going to be doing any really high level PC type of things with my car setup. i basically want it to do three things:

1. GPS navigation
2. Control other mods (lighting, etc) via LPT port.
3. Have video/ DVD capability so the wife or other passengers can watch something on long trips.

i don't really have any interest playing games in my car or controlling my audio- i've got a decent system that already plays MP3 discs in the HU, so I don't really care about that. not saying i won't possibly move to it later on, but right now i'm just sort of "meh" about it right now.

i would say if i really get into this, i would probably trade out whatever i get now for a higher end system, so forward compatibility isn't really that big of a concern for me.

i'm looking at an EPIA 5000 fanless because i think it will give me the horsepower to do what i want and it's really cheap. before i pull the trigger on anything, i wanted to see what y'all thought.

by the way, i've been working on computers since 1998, so i pretty much know what i'm doing. i also know my way around my car's interior pretty well, and my last job was a college instructor who taught in the discipline of industrial electricity and electronics. not bragging or anything, just saying i think i can handle the install no problem, just need some advice on what all to buy.

Thanks!

oh, and here's some boobies.