How to power pc of Battery

**Drevil** · 04-28-2009, 02:02 PM

My problem is that I can not seem to power my pc from a battery.

My PC is one that I bought from from mini-box.com

PC Specs:
Voom 2 Case
Intel D945GCLF2
M2-ATX-HV DC
2 Gig DDR2
160 Gig SATA HDD
SlimDVD SATA

I first wanted to get Windows 7 Beta on the HDD so I grabbed a spare PSU I had laying around and used that to get the OS installed and verify all computer parts are in working order.

I am now at the point where I am tryng to get this to work with a battery outside of the car. I am trying to use my ATV battery as it is much easier to take in an out for testing.

The documentation on the mini-box site SUCKS. It is so old the pictures do not even apply and it seems to skip the whole connect to the battery part. I guess it because each situation could be slightly different.

I am considering going with a convertor to save me the effort of trying to figure this out but I blew $80 on this M2-ATV-HV convertor, I would rather see it work.

BTW does anyone know of the support number for Mini-box.com?

Thanks for the help!

Edited the post to clear any confusion sorry!

**skeet2331** · 04-28-2009, 02:39 PM

Originally Posted by Drevil

I am now at the point where I am tryng to get this to work with a battery outside of the car.

If you have it working outside the car attached to a 12v battery then how are you having a problem in the car? I guess i'm a little unclear from your post.

http://resources.mini-box.com/online...-HV-manual.pdf

Here is the manual for the M2-atx.

**skeet2331** · 04-28-2009, 02:42 PM

I miss read, you don't have it working at all yet. The manual should help but if you want to power it on your workbench then this thread should help you. http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq-...workbench.html
It does not involve a battery outside your car just another PSU.

**Drevil** · 04-28-2009, 03:11 PM

If I understand the thread about using a spare PSU to fake a battery. Then that leads me to believe that there is no way to use a phyiscal battery and get it to power my pc on unless that battery is in a working car/truck

**rogerdugans** · 04-28-2009, 05:38 PM

I am not too familiar with the M2-atx, but you SHOULD be able to power it from any 12v source, I would think.

There SHOULD be three terminals:
12v POSITIVE or IN
Ground
Ignition

If you connect the Ground to the negative terminal, the 12v + to the Positive terminal and then run a short piece of wire from the 12v + to the Ignition terminal on the porwe supply, you SHOULD turn on the computer.

I will now look at the manual to see if there is anything weird that makes my statement false.

Yup, that should work:
in the PDF diagram in section 1.2

Terminal J1 goes directly to battery positive
J4 goes to negative battery
J3 is the ignition switch- all this one does is tell the M2-ATX that the car is now ON when it sees 12 volts, so it turns the power supply and computer on.
If you run a jumper from J1 to J3, it should turn on.

**2k1Toaster** · 04-28-2009, 05:41 PM

No that is correct. Any 12v source with sufficient power will work. But a battery outside a charging environment will NOT last the entire OS installation processes and for sure will not last through configuration. When the battery gets low, it will hard-off the computer.

Just use an old spare PSU, all geeks have them.

**rogerdugans** · 04-28-2009, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

But a battery outside a charging environment will NOT last the entire OS installation processes and for sure will not last through configuration. When the battery gets low, it will hard-off the computer.

Very good point: windows takes a LONG time to install and would likely drain a car battery during an install, never mind something smaller.
For a quick TEST, a car, bike or atv battery is fine, but unless you are installing of of the quicker linux distributions (15 or 20 minutes), jumping a power supply on is easy, and works well.

**MindDrive** · 04-28-2009, 06:08 PM

if you are looking to use the M2 ATX as a power supply like the power supply you use for your home computer, you need to remove the jumpers 1 2 3 4 so that will put the M2 into "dumb power supply" mode. which basicly, is when there is 12V power supplied (red and black wires ONLY) then the PC will turn on.

now IF you wish to use the ACC option, then the mini-box.com website DOES have instructions linked to a PDF file for the M2 that will tell you which power on cycle to set the jumpers to for proper operation
LINK:
http://resources.mini-box.com/online...-HV-manual.pdf

for windows "7" (which is still vista) the boot times on that pc are going to be kind of lengthy so for installation and troubleshooting, i would just remove all of the jumpers from the power sceme settings

make sure that that battery is in fact a 12V battery and not a 6V battery, use a volt meter to make sure that it is fully charged

i use the m2 atx to power my car pc and it works fine on a much more power hungry setup than what you have listed (as seen in the seville work log in my sig)

just make sure that you have the wires (red/black) connected to the proper terminals, that the battery you are using has enough power to supply and sustain at least 5Amps at 12Volts, and that you have all necessary power connections made

the M2 does not come with the 4 pin accessory power connector that would essentially make it a 20+4 pin ATX power supply, if you are missing that then you will not get a boot as that intel mobo you have listed requires additional cables:
http://www.intel.com/Assets/Image/pr...D945GCLF2D.jpg
look just up left of the fan that is plugged in- thats where the 4 pin plugs in at from the m2-ATX----- again its not supplied - *EDIT* made me royally !@#%$!@ mad when i found that out!! so i made one

hope anything i listed helps

**dyne** · 04-28-2009, 11:13 PM

The ATV battery is 6v, isn't it?

**Drevil** · 04-29-2009, 03:35 PM

After some time spent examining the pictures, in the thread about using a spare power supply to fake a battery install. I was able to get that working, the best part is that it doesn’t even ruin the power supply. The only modification is a jumper wire for the motherboard power connector leaving the power supply.

I would also guess that my ATV battery is a 6V not a 12V and could not ever be used since the PC needs 12V to kick off the boot process.