VW Jetta

**mirciu** · 12-11-2008, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by dMand

My car puter project is alive again. It's time to share a few upgrades/enhancements that I'll be performing.

Up on today's list of things to do is replace the WD Raptor150 "D- Drive".

While the speed of this drive is great, the capacity is not large enough to hold my growing multimedia collection. Besides, BestBuy sent me a $50.00 rebate to use within two weeks, so I had to think of something soon.

What I had hoped for came through, their hard drives went on sale. The drive I wanted retails for $239, on sale it dropped down to $209. I then took another $50 off. I walked out the door with a Seagate Barracuda for $172 dollars, tax included.

Here's the drive that will replace the Raptor.

I couldn't resist, 172 dollars divided by (1.5TB or) 1,500 gigs, equals to approximately 00.11 cents per gigabyte! Anyhow, it's a steal if I'd say so myself with a 32MB buffer.

Next on today's agenda is to swap out the 8500GT video card

with a factory overclocked 8600GTS, sporting a 710Mhz clock that I had laying around collecting dust.

The two cards are next each other for comparison:

As seen in the illustration above, the 8600GTS has a "Y" cable, six pin molex, that requires a minimum of seventy-five watts of external power in order for it to work.

Here's where I need your technical expertise, I want this beast to function properly in my system since it's just laying around doing nothing.

In order to keep things within tolerance, BFG suggested a 450watt power supply on a dual core setup, however, my PSU is only a DCX6-320w.

I've not seen a vehicle DC power supply larger than 360 watts in the market. Is there such a thing? I've googled to no avail.

I was thinking along the lines of juicing the 12volt input on the dual molex connector with fused power directly from the car. Would It be safe doing this with a 7.5 amp fuse?

I've thrown in the white flag, but haven't surrendered yet.

"Where there's a will, there's a way."

What are your thoughts?

all i can say is that you can apply the same trick for the power just like with a normal pc. you can find on google, or www.bit-tech.net, people using multiple power supplies. you can use one just for your graphics card, so it doesn't have to be a high wattage one. all you have to do is connect the signal cable from your main power supply to the secondary. i may be wrong, but in any case, this is a viable solution for desktop pcs, and i don't see an inconvenient with a car pc. you should take it with a huuuuuge grain of salt. hope it helps

**dMand** · 12-12-2008, 09:10 PM

Hey mirciu, thanks for the tip.
What i'd like to know is: since this particular graphics card accepts 12volts DC external power via 6pin molex, will I blow up the card by feeding it unregulated power of 12volts - 13.75 volts DC, or, do i have to buy another external regulated DC power supply to be on the safe side?

**mirciu** · 12-12-2008, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by dMand

Hey mirciu, thanks for the tip.
What i'd like to know is: since this particular graphics card accepts 12volts DC external power via 6pin molex, will I blow up the card by feeding it unregulated power of 12volts - 13.75 volts DC, or, do i have to buy another external regulated DC power supply to be on the safe side?

graphics cards just like cpus are very piki concerning power draw, and tension used at the supply pins. if you look at you motherboard you can see a lot of power regulators. if you have an unregulated current going through your cpu it will make funny noises and eventually wearout. the same principle applies to a graphics card. if you look just next to the molex connectors on it you'll find some power regulators, this meaning that even a regulated power supply can often generate noise, which is bad for the sensitive components on the board. my advice would be to use a secondary power supply, you don't have to go high end with this one, just be sure that it will be able to turn on/off at the same time as the main power supply. get one which is a little big bigger in wattage that the maximum draw of your graphics card. and be sure you won't drain your battery with it.

best of luck

ps: here you can find the how to http://www.speedy3d.com/articles/cas...p3/index.shtml

**midnightrat03** · 12-12-2008, 11:37 PM

hmmm...is there that much difference in performance from the 8500 to the 8600 that an upgrade is warranted? Might be better off just sticking with the 8500. In any case, awesome install, definitely can't go wrong with diamond plate

**dMand** · 12-13-2008, 12:05 AM

mirciu, those are some very good pointers you brought up. again, thanks for the beneficial info.

With the car parked in the garage, I'm able to hook up a heavy duty battery charger for testing purposes. Right now, I'm almost approaching a level at that's reasonable as far as battery run time is concerned. The threshold is between three to fours hours on full load without starting the car. Right now, I can leave the pc on till the next morning while it goes into sleep mode and my car will still start up.

The ultimate goal with this project is a hi-fi multimedia experience for every passenger in the car to enjoy. Each will have an individual LCD display and separate controls mounted in the rear seating compartment. I hope to make this a reality on a single optima battery by choosing my parts right.

Anyhow, this graphics card with a 710Mhz core helps unload the CPU from having to work hard. It is almost twice as fast in rendering graphics as the 8500GT that It will be replacing. The second DVI output on the card is eventually for a second screen in the dash. The mainboard has another DVI and separate SVGA outputs, a total of four LCD outs all together.

Nevertheless, I'll use this GPU as a guinea pig so to peak, I hope not to burn it out... I am performing a shortcut by powering it with unregulated car voltage to see if it will survive. I'll kick myself in the arse for doing this if it goes awry and fries the mainboard. But yeah, ummm, my fingers are crossed.

*pulls out the Sound Blaster PCI card.

**drutort** · 12-13-2008, 01:27 AM

i would never put unregulated voltage to electronics as such, its not designed for that, you might run into some serious issues while idling and what not and when crank, and not to mention when you get a lot of power draw from other things such as sound system headlights, blower etc... you will probably also introduce a lot of AC and other electrical interference and that alone the card would not like IMO

i would look at the forums here, there is a guy who is making a auxiliary power supply for 12v and 5v for usb stuff, you should really look into that, for the price that he has it and the amps that you get its worth and you can sell your old card to get something for it instead of frying it and your other components

either way you can simply create a simple relay circuit with another powerfully which doesn’t have to be a mobo power supply but simply a 12v and have it power when your main PSU goes on, that is a best way to get more power IMO

also have you considered a 9500? or 9600? that should be faster then 8600 (at least hte 9600) but the 9500 draws a lot less power not sure about 9600 its about 2x as much as 9500 though i think, while reading some reviews; have to watch which ones as some have total power and dont break it down for the video cards

look at newegg they have good prices, maybe wait for next gen video card and stick with 8500?

**drutort** · 12-13-2008, 01:35 AM

also if i was you, if you want high performance computer, i would have gone with intel cpu, either the e7300 or for more power and more money the e8400, you get 2 cores but you get 2 more virtual as well as 2x more cache then the e7300 all with same power draws, you can undervolt that cpu and get it to 45w probably, bot these cpus will run circles around amd's

dont get me wrong im an amd guy, but thats only because in the past the athlon was soo good, not anymore, i would be going for intel any time money was not an issue and even then i would save up cause in the long run its soo worth it

get the mobo that has the 9300, then put your 8500 and have hybrid sli

you can have physx or sli that will bump the performance up a bit, not only that you will save on power consumption

**HiJackZX1** · 12-13-2008, 02:16 AM

Have you maybe thought of using 2 power supplies? Well first off, why do you need such a massive over powered graphics card? I mean my setup is massive and even runs Vivanono perfectly, but I went with a MoBo that is mobile and has a descent GPU. I can max it out to 256mb of RAM and what not, it has a Radeon Xpress1250 Graphic Core which has Four Active pipelines delivering better graphics performance. Also I didnt read your setup, but unless you have a large screen, you wont really notice any diffrenece, unless your playing 3D games.

Anyways, if you really want to use this GC, use a second power supply for the GC. The same hack that you do to a desktop powersupply to make it power on without a MoBo can be done to a DC-DC powersupply. Then run the 12v rail of the second supply to the GC.

**dMand** · 12-13-2008, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by drutort

i would never put unregulated voltage to electronics as such, its not designed for that, you might run into some serious issues while idling and what not and when crank, and not to mention when you get a lot of power draw from other things such as sound system headlights, blower etc... you will probably also introduce a lot of AC and other electrical interference and that alone the card would not like IMO

i would look at the forums here, there is a guy who is making a auxiliary power supply for 12v and 5v for usb stuff, you should really look into that, for the price that he has it and the amps that you get its worth and you can sell your old card to get something for it instead of frying it and your other components

either way you can simply create a simple relay circuit with another powerfully which doesn’t have to be a mobo power supply but simply a 12v and have it power when your main PSU goes on, that is a best way to get more power IMO

also have you considered a 9500? or 9600? that should be faster then 8600 (at least hte 9600) but the 9500 draws a lot less power not sure about 9600 its about 2x as much as 9500 though i think, while reading some reviews; have to watch which ones as some have total power and dont break it down for the video cards

look at newegg they have good prices, maybe wait for next gen video card and stick with 8500?

I looked into it, the 9600GT will be a downgrade, it has a 650Mhz processor core. This factory overclocked 8600GTS runs at 710Mhz, with a little more head room to spare.

I've seen the exact make and model video card overclocked to 1Ghz when connected to an evaporator core using Freon134a from a five gallon water chiller/freezer. So something tells me it may have a robust voltage regulator. We'll have to find out!

It's time to kick the switch....and maybe myself in the

!

**HiJackZX1** · 12-13-2008, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by dMand

hey kensby thanks for the kudos. unfortunately there isn't really much space elsewhere in the dashboard to mount the hard drive. Besides, longer wires= more lag in response time, such is critical in a computer environment. I do have a stubby 2inch sata cable that I picked up from a friend who works in a computer store, I hope to use it if I can, because it makes a difference.

Nevertheless, I can still put back the stock dash cover if I take the time to recess the diamond plate cover. I'm still debating whether I should do it. I plan on entering the car in a local car show next summer.

I use SATA extension cables with my setup. Seems to work ok. I think the original cable is like 6 inches, and the extensions are like 12 or 15 inch, so thats about 21 inchs. I was able to hide the HDD and DVD rom better now that I had such long length. It was a PITA to run the electrical though.