Someone asked about my power setup so I figure this would be a good place to post it for everyone to see.....



okay, I got some pictures for you. Here is my setup exposed so you can see everything:



Getting the "on/off" effect from the Power Button

You can see that I have a relay involved, which is basically a electromechanical switch. When I turn the car on, the PSU gets power. A power spike for lack of a better term is sent via a wire to the relay causing it to trip. When it does, it simulates pressing the laptops power button. Same thing happens when I turn the car off. Relay trips, power button is pushed via the relay.

The black and white wires running from the relay to the male/female connectors, then into the laptop connect to the + and - on the power button.

Getting Power to the laptop without a direct solder

You can also see from the pictures that I hacked the end of my power cord off and put on male/female connectors to the + and - wires. This allows me 2 things. No soldering power wires onto mobo. Easily removing laptop from car for normal use.

I have another set of male/female connectors to the + and - power line coming from the PSU to the hacked-off end of my power cable. If this needs more explaining let me know but that part is pretty straight forward.

Auto on/off
Between the intelligent power supply's many different settings, and Windows XP power management settings, you should have no problems setting things up.

NOTE: I ran into this little tricky dick. There is a magnet in the laptop lid that, when within range of a magnet in the laptop base, causes the laptop to turn off/hibernate. Removing this magnet will allow for you to close your laptop lid and keep the laptop on. Otherwise, you have to roll around town with your laptop open which defeats the whole purpose of a carputer install.

Hope that helps.