Laptop and Inverter?

**ecaandrew** · 10-20-2004, 02:21 AM

Quick question, Im getting ready to do my first carputer, and instead of using my computer I thought I would start with a laptop first, I have a compaq laptop (1.1Ghz, 256mb sdram, 20gb hdd, dvdrom, cdrw, blah blah), I was reading on how you have to be carefull so it doesnt restart when you turn the car on and off, etc...

Well I found a cool looking inverter (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...726482731&rd=1) 400 Watt Inverter

Can I just plug the laptop into that and it will be fine, and what settings would I use? Someone told me to have it hibernate, but when, and what BIOS settings to make it start up when the car starts, and do I need a laptop battery in the laptop, cause all I have is the Laptop Adapter, I lost the battery, thanks...

**ecaandrew** · 10-20-2004, 02:55 PM

wwill this work

**DarquePervert** · 10-21-2004, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by ecaandrew

Can I just plug the laptop into that and it will be fine, and what settings would I use? Someone told me to have it hibernate, but when, and what BIOS settings to make it start up when the car starts, and do I need a laptop battery in the laptop, cause all I have is the Laptop Adapter, I lost the battery, thanks...

Read the manual about how to set the BIOS to make it hibernate and also to come out of hibernate on power-on. Not all laptops will have this feature.
No, you don't need a battery in the laptop.

You'd do better to get a car adapter for your laptop (to power it off the cigarette lighter). It'll be more efficient than the inverter.
Also, I'd be less concerned with how the inverter looks than it's capabilities. Just my opinion. It's not a part that you're typically going to be showing off.
I've yet to hear anyone say, "Look at my cool inverter!"

**Matthew230** · 10-21-2004, 08:46 AM

You will need the battery, because unless you build some kind of relay circuit to control your power, then the laptop will go into a hibernate mode propoerly it needs power. So if you pull the power it will just shutdown like a desktop, and won't restart until you switch it on.

If you want to use a laptop the best way is to get a cigarette lighter adapter, and hardwire it to your fuse box with power that is switched by the ignition. You then set the power options in to go into a hibernate mode when battery power reaches say 90% (you'll have to experiment). And to resume once it goes back over that figure. Thus when you switch the ignition on it will power the laptop, when you switch it off you'll switch over to battery mode, and when it drops to a level it will hibernate, switch the igntion back on, and your back on with full power, the laptop will resume.

However, laptops are not the best option, the manner in which you power them means that it is difficult to add USB devices, therefore the sound is bad, and in my experience they seem to far less stable than desktops and susceptible to huge slowdown as they age. Oh, and you can't easily upgrade.