So my Opus PSU is on the way ... now I have been plotting and planning the development of this car-puter and some thoughts/questions have occurred to me.
Here are my system specs:
EPIA M10000 Nehemiah
512MB Corsair DDR
Western Digital 40GB 7200rpm HD (desktop)
Slim/Slot CDRW/DVD
DSCUSTOMS 7'' Touchscreen LCD
Opus Solutions 150W PSU
On to the questions:
1.) If I opt to put the PC into sleep or hibernate mode instead of shutting it down, what kind of power would that draw? I'd hate to have it drain my battery.
1a.) Depending on the answer to the above question, would a second battery be good? Or would it just be overkill. I'd really rather not worry about draining the battery.
Ideally, the car will never sit longer than overnight in sleep/hibernate, but I'd hate to go away for the weekend and forget to turn off the PC and come home to a dead battery.
2.) Cooling. Do you think it's neccessary to keep airflow across the system AT ALL TIMES? Bearing in mind I live in south Florida, and I know the temp in the car during the day (while I'm at work) will get over 140-150F.
2a.) If it IS neccessary, how much power would a couple of 50mm fans require to run at all times?
Sometimes, while shutting down a PC, Windows will hang at the Shutting Down screen, and simply not shut off. I would imagine that it's drawing full power still, and that if that were to happen when I get out of the car after work, and it sat like that all night, I would have a rather dead battery in the morning, SO ...
3.) Is there some kind of option for detecting the ammount of power the system is drawing PRIOR to engine shut-down, so that if, say, an hour has passed and the system is still drawing full power, it simply cuts all power and shuts off the PC?
I'm really starting to favor the second battery option, but if it's not neccessary, that would be good too!
Thanks for any help or suggestions you may have
1) I would get a second battery. You'd want to connect the OPUS to a deep cycle battery. If you never heard of one.. its the types of batteries on a lot of boats.
2) i always think its a good idea to get good airflow on any system.
2a) not much at all.. you'd be fine.
3) not a clue
'98 Explorer Sport
http://mp3car.zcentric.com (down atm)
AMD 800mhz 192megs RAM 60gig hard drive 9 inch widescreen VGA
80% done
oh ya.. also i think the opus has a low voltage sensor.. so if your battery is getting low it'll turn everything off also.. not so sure about that.. but i think it does
'98 Explorer Sport
http://mp3car.zcentric.com (down atm)
AMD 800mhz 192megs RAM 60gig hard drive 9 inch widescreen VGA
80% done
yep thats right
How much power does a computer require when it's 'sleeping' or
'hibernating'? I have to confess to ignorance of these things. I can build a computer no problem, but this electrical stuff just eludes me
If I were to hook up that deep cycle battery as an extra batt, would it be able to run the comp in hibernate for a good length of time with the car NOT running? Ideally that's what I'd like to do, so that the comp returns to usability just a little quicker when I get in to drive somewhere
in hibernate.. it'll probably be under 10-15 watts.. I don't have an epia but its not gonna be much.
Yes if you use a deep cycle battery you'd probably go over a week in hibernation without the battery dying. Of course hooking a second battery into a car is some pretty good work.
'98 Explorer Sport
http://mp3car.zcentric.com (down atm)
AMD 800mhz 192megs RAM 60gig hard drive 9 inch widescreen VGA
80% done
if you need help on the second battery I think there are pretty good instructions at www.the12volt.com.
92 Taurus SHO - Daily driver - Epia M10000 80GB 512mb 7" touchscreen, Opus PSU etc
93 Black SHO - 30mpg cruiser
90 Silver SHO - 419whp fun/project car, CarPC to come (for tuning)
dont they support suspend to disk? then you can turn it completely off and resume just as hibernate
Using hibernate does not draw any power, it writes to ram and leaves it there...I use hibernate everyday and it works great...I went to europe for three weeks and came back and started right up. Standby will draw some power so you will need to start your car on a regular basis. At least once every 2-3 days.
USE hibernate..the only drawback of hibernate is that some of your USB stuff may not always work correctly after coming out of it...i.e. hubs, sometimes touchscreens...
they do have a low voltage senor...so that usually takes care if business.
I would say you Don't need an extra battery...I personally have seen three people who live near me that don't have an extra battery with an opus, and it just fine. I don't either.
BossTone74
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