Stereo Sub Vibration Causing Pc To Reboot!

knightmare007 · 07-29-2007, 11:42 PM

i thought it was the hard drive at first, and because of heat on top of that, i decided to get an external drive and move it far far away form the trunk, turns out you cant run vista off a usb drive, so i took the drive apart and its a 2.5 sata drive. so i ran some sata cables and extended the power too.

now the drive is in the back seat and i hold it in my hand to make sure its not the drive crashing due to the bass vibration, and when i crank a song the pc reboots. i have my pc in my trunk where the spare tire was under the floor. it lays in a regular pc case on its side, on top of carpet cushion stuff for a little added vibration dampening. and i just dont know how the hell im going to stop the virbation from crashing the pc short of remove my amp and subs.

i have a rockford 800 with 2 12" kicker comp subs. the subs fire up and are above the pc and a little in front of the pc, not directly above it.

ANY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO SOLVE THIS???

i have seen other installs with the car pc basically bolted to the: sub box...how the hell is that????

rijndael · 07-29-2007, 11:55 PM

im not so sure its the vibrations as it is the power. how is your PC set up for power? the cable from the battery goes to where? if you have it inline with the amp, you may be pulling too much power to the amp for your sub and strangling your PC for enough juice.

i dont know if thats really what the problem is since i dont know how its wired, but that's my guess...

rijndael · 07-29-2007, 11:57 PM

double post...sorry...not sure what happened

2k1Toaster · 07-30-2007, 12:06 AM

If the harddrive were to be the culprit, it should freeze. For example, in Toshiba notebooks when excessive acceleration in any direction or excessive rapid changes in acceleration (vibration), the harddrive spin down. The computer can function just fine without the hard drive. However if it was in the middle of a read/write cycle, it would freeze or BSOD.

Power on the other hand, would seem more likely. When a big blast of bass happens it draws more power. Your ### Watt amp will not draw ### watts all the time. It draws more the harder the hit. When a PC gets too low of power, it will freeze, or in extreme cases reboot.

It really does sound like power.

knightmare007 · 07-30-2007, 10:34 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by rijndael

im not so sure its the vibrations as it is the power. how is your PC set up for power? the cable from the battery goes to where? if you have it inline with the amp, you may be pulling too much power to the amp for your sub and strangling your PC for enough juice.

i dont know if thats really what the problem is since i dont know how its wired, but that's my guess...

i thought about that, but im running it off a 1 farrad cap, and it has a digital readout of the voltage which even with the bass hitting, stays between 13.3 and 13.7 volts.

but maybe it is the power, what do you think is the best way to go about fixing it? a 2 farrad cap?

when it was the hard drive crashing fromt he bass the thing would blue screen or the audio would skipp out and the pc would freeeze, now it just reboots like someone yanked the power, thats why i thought it might be the power as well.

knightmare007 · 07-30-2007, 10:36 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

If the harddrive were to be the culprit, it should freeze. For example, in Toshiba notebooks when excessive acceleration in any direction or excessive rapid changes in acceleration (vibration), the harddrive spin down. The computer can function just fine without the hard drive. However if it was in the middle of a read/write cycle, it would freeze or BSOD.

Power on the other hand, would seem more likely. When a big blast of bass happens it draws more power. Your ### Watt amp will not draw ### watts all the time. It draws more the harder the hit. When a PC gets too low of power, it will freeze, or in extreme cases reboot.

It really does sound like power.

right, i konw it isnt the hd becuase i am holding it away from the bass, i thnk it might be the pc becuase i have no idea how a pc would react to extreme vibration. but i guess if it was that bad it would cuse major damage and not just reboot. so maybe it is the power the more i think about it and with you guys agreeing.

any thoughts on the easiest remedy other than removing the system?

mst · 07-30-2007, 01:03 PM

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knightmare007 · 07-30-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by mst

http://cgi.ebay.de/KONDENSATOR-IMPUL...QQcmdZViewItem

thats insane....anything more realistic/cheap?

DodgeCummins · 07-31-2007, 10:20 PM

#1, maybe you should turn down the volume...I'll bet your neighbors love your choice in music...

...since I know you won't do that...

#2, maybe you have loose wires/parts that are being vibrated loose...like a PCI bumping out of its slot...or a wire shorting something.

What power supply are you using?

Opus will go down to about 8 volts until it shuts down...but it does shut down..not simply reboot.

Are you using an inverter and a standard power supply plugged into it?

knightmare007 · 08-01-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by DodgeCummins

#1, maybe you should turn down the volume...I'll bet your neighbors love your choice in music...

...since I know you won't do that...

#2, maybe you have loose wires/parts that are being vibrated loose...like a PCI bumping out of its slot...or a wire shorting something.

What power supply are you using?

Opus will go down to about 8 volts until it shuts down...but it does shut down..not simply reboot.

Are you using an inverter and a standard power supply plugged into it?

maybe i actually drive my car, so my neighbors dont hear it anyway. DUH

as for the pci coming loose, i got it screwed in pretty tight, and the pc reboots perfectly, and if that were the case, i would think that would cause a permenant failure, as pci cards are not hot swapable. the wires, i highly doubt as they are all tight as well, and again it works perfect after teh reboot, so i think its the power.

i ordered a 6 farad cap for 73 bucks shipped from ebay, maybe that or a separate cap for the pc will solve the issue.

i use teh M2 psu. no inverters.

tn6478 · 08-01-2007, 12:05 PM

run your pc with a separated power source from your system.

knightmare007 · 08-01-2007, 10:01 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by tn6478

run your pc with a separated power source from your system.

i got 4 gauge running from the battery to the trunk right now, you think i should run a separate line form to battery to the pc? instead of running it off a power block from the cap?

i was thinking, if the new bigger cap doesnt fix it, maybe running the big cap on the stereo, and the existing 1 farad cap off the bigger cap and then the pc to the 1 farad would be good.

DodgeCummins · 08-01-2007, 11:48 PM

I don't suppose you have thought about measuring the voltage during this?

Do you have a tiny stock battery and alternator?

Brycestro · 08-02-2007, 06:53 AM

capacitors often cause more problems than they solve... if possible, try running your system without the capacitor at all, seriously. See if that solves it. Also, have some bass heavy music running and see what the voltage drops to at the battery on bass hits (using a multimeter). If it's not dropping too much at the battery then the battery shouldn't be your problem.

Did you say a single run of 4 gauge running everything? What exactly is running from that 4 gauge cable? sub amp + computer? anything else? A single run of 4 gauge is probably a little on the small side to be running all of that. I'd be betting on your problem being a result of either the 4 gauge not being able to handle all the power requirements or the capacitor making more problems than it's solving.

There's a couple of basic steps to improving the power system in your car:

Upgrade under the hood cabling: basically run thicker gauge cabling between the battery negative post and the vehicle ground and replace some of the other thinner OEM cabling under the hood with thicker cabling (wire coming from alternator etc).
Battery upgrade: find a battery with a higher CCA rating/larger amp hours.
Alternator upgrade: use a higher output alternator.

Cabling is the easiest and probably the cheapest thing to upgrade, and can solve alot of problems with it. Same with battery upgrade, can solve alot of problems, a bit more expensive. An alternator upgrade is only something you'd do after upgrading cabling/better battery, but in most cases an alternator upgrade won't be necessary.

knightmare007 · 08-02-2007, 11:09 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by DodgeCummins

I don't suppose you have thought about measuring the voltage during this?

Do you have a tiny stock battery and alternator?

i thought about that, but im running it off a 1 farrad cap, and it has a digital readout of the voltage which even with the bass hitting, stays between 13.3 and 13.7 volts.

and yes both are stock