Thread: getting started

Welcome!

Many are willing to forgive, but the longer I've been on here the harder it gets especially when people, like me, start out knowing nothing but then answer other questions that you see 5 of every day.

You'll need RAM, motherboard, power supply, hard drive, and optical drive j5ust to get running. If you want to hold of on the display, you can still hook up to any old monitor until you got the cash for the Xenarc or Lilliput.

Check out the FAQ emporium...it really is helpful...it'll tell you things like:

** Power supply: Can be an AC-DC Inverter (less efficient, generates heat, easier setup) or a DC-DC converter (more efficient). For the DC-DC, the big names are Opus, Carnetix, M1-ATX. Amount of power needed depends on how much you plan on plugging in to it. Many use the Opus 150W, the newer 120w is probably sufficient for most people's needs. You'll also want to look into a startup/shutdown controller as well.
** Motherboard: Via Epia M10000 - onboard CPU, audio, video; mini-itx form factor(for small applications) and low power use
** RAM: 256 MB or 512 MB - depending on case this may need to be "ultraslim" The M10000 takes DDR266 MHz ram
** Monitor: MUST BE VGA. Lilliput or Xenarc. There are threads dedicated to which one and why. There are cheaper ones and these are also on Ebay.
** CPU: If you get the Via, the chip is already on the board. If you go with AMD or Intel....well, you don't need the fastest out there and most are using their leftover parts.
** Optical Drive: For dash use, get a slim/slot load. Panasonic makes a good one.

Most of these parts are available at the mp3car.com store. Check it out. Also check out he FAQ emporium.

Good luck!

NeckPayne,

Thank you so much! This gives me a good idea where to get started. I've looked at the faqs before, but my searches were way too random to be effective. I had no idea where to start and maybe I over looked it, but I didn't see anything that covered the very basic questions like what do you need at a bare minimum to get started. In any case this gives me a solid starting point to begin making plans. Thanks again.