I bought a bunch of stuff over the weekend. When doing a project, I like to lay my hands on things. I wanted to see and touch a Via M10000, I wanted to install WinXP and Linux on it and see how fast/slow it was. This was a test run to see if I could get by with a M10000. I also wanted to play with a Griffin Powermate and see how it felt, how fast the computer reacted to it, etc.
So, I went to my local Fry's Electronics (shut-up, how many stores actually carry Via EPIA motherboard?) to have a look. Fry's doesn't always have the best prices, but they have a good selection of wierd items, and their return policies are very liberal. I went home with (all prices after tax):
- Via EPIA M10000 ($182.94)
- 512MB PC2100 Mushikin RAM ($70.36)
- 80GB 2.5" Fujitsu hard drive. ($172.12)
- 44pin-to-40pin IDE adapter ($7.00)
- 250W ATX power supply, ($32.46) I need to power this in my house for a long time before I actually install in my car.
I also went to the Apple store and picked up a
Griffin Powermate and a
Contour ShuttleXpress.
I got home, played with this for a while, struggled a bunch with updating the motherboard BIOS with a CD-ROM and the updated BIOS .bin files on a NTFS partition, and just felt out the whole system. I loaded centrafuse, and started mapping buttons and actions from the shuttlexpress to things like page up/down, left/right/up/down arrows, etc. I know about girder and all, but it's a bit much for testing. I just wanted to see what the whole thing felt like. I was thinking about using a non-touchscreen LCD and using just a powermate or shuttlexpress for control. Was the shuttle-thing at all in the right ballpark?
The good news is that I'm hooked. I'm definitely installing a system in my car. Hwever, I'm not sure either the shuttle or the powemate is the right way to go right now. They might work, but they feel like improvements I can do later rather than right away, I'll just use an LCD touchscreen like everyone else.
Then, I started shopping for cases on the mp3car.com site. I liked the small C134 case quickly realized that I would need low-profile RAM. Damn! I start comparing prices and find out that low-profile RAM is pricey. It's also really hard to find non-ECC low profile RAM. The target market for low-profile modules is 1U rack-mounted servers and you generally want ECC RAM in those boxes. While doing this, I notice a pretty big price difference in what I paid for everything (after sales tax) and what I could by the same gear for from mp3.com (even after shipping). So, I got all obsessive and tried to find the best total deal on the motherboard, the memory, and the 2.5" floppy even if I bought from different stores. I ditched the low-profile/C134 case idea and went with regular RAM. I tried to use mp3car.com, just to pay them back for hosting these forums. I decided that if they were close to the price of some other place (after shipping), I would buy from them. I also tried to use Amazon.com, since I have a bunch of "Amazon points" with them. Amazon was a bust, they made it hard to find the right parts and they were from partners that charge a bunch of shipping and don't redeem Amazon gift certificates. Mp3car.com lost out too, the places I ordered from had much lowers shipping plus lower prices to begin with. I'll probably end up buying the M1-ATX, the case, and the LCD from Mp3car.com just to get rid of some guilt.
The end result? I replaced the motherboard, ram, and hdd. I saved $110.18!
The motherboard and RAM (slightly faster, PC2700 is cheaper than PC2100?) came from monarch computers. A samsung 2.5" hard drive that mp3car.com and logicsupply.com have came from directron.