Suggestions plz

kuwupt · 10-21-2004, 01:29 AM

Firstly I'm a noob at this, but I have to thank everyone on this site for the amazing information I've gotten during this process. Now that we've gotten the *** kissing out of the way... I seem to have run into a problem. Initially I had measured my mobo, lilliput slimline cd etc and I thought I had everything figured out until this. As in the pic I had molded a slot for the slimline right under my Lilliput and I test fitted it out etc and everyhing was great so I went ahead and molded everything and then I installed the mobo, heatsink etc etc as shown in the pic.Once everything was connected I connected the VGA connector to my mobo and because of that 1 inch height of the VGA my mobo cant sit all the way inside and so it is at an incline, this pushes my heatsink etc out which gets in the way for where I had planned on putting my slimline cd, any suggestions on how to get past this? Also my mobo seems to be acting up when I change the ACPI in the BIOS to S3 settings the Windows fails to load. This is by far one of the hardest boards I have had to setup. Instead of registering a 2400AMD it registers it at 1800 and when I go into the BIOS and change the MHz tfrom 100 to 133 it registers 2400 AMD but again have problems loading windows.. and my setup is :

Car : 99 Camaro
Mobo: Shuttle MN31L
Processor : AMD 2400
RAM: 256 (takes almost 2min to load windows)
VGA: Dual 32Mb Nvidia VGA built in
Interface: Lilliput touchscreen, Flexible keyboard.
GPS, NAVIGATION: Yet to buy. Was thinking Routis with Deluo GPS.. suggestions??
Rear Camera: Future mod.. taking suggestions on that too..

brooksware2000 · 10-21-2004, 02:28 AM

Probably not what you want to hear but if you get a mini-itx board it should all fit with no problems and you will likely not have to worry about heat issues.

mushin · 10-21-2004, 02:36 AM

So the large size of the VGA plug is causing you problems? One option is to cut it off and make your own with a DB15 plug from radioshack - it won't be appropriete for connecting/disconnecting alot, but it'll be alot lower profile. Or leave the existing cable alone, and make a short extension cable out to where the large size of the plug doesn't cause problems. I've taken that route on a (non-carPC) project, and it worked well.

kuwupt · 10-21-2004, 04:24 PM

The DB15 low profile plug is an option thanks for that mushin.. any wiring schematics on that I can use and by any chance you know the part number for the DB15 plug at radioshack? And brooksware2000 I considered an ITX board except I had an AMD 2400 and a 256MB DDR ram lying around so it was just a board issue and I've seen on this forum how someone has done the same except his mobo was 4cm shorter so everything fit perfectly for him. Heat for now isnt an issue..bought a huge copper based heatsink with the shim etc for better heat transfer and I've put power cut off temp at 65 degrees C and till now it seems to be running without a hitch got some electrostatic paper and covered up the inside area so that as much as possible the heat will reflect back down and wont cause condensation where the AC vents are and behind the static paper I have some absorption pads if any condensation does happen..

Anyone here using the shuttle MN31L board? I could really use some help cause the board seems to be very iffy about its settings etc. Thanks for all your inputs. And plz keep em coming especially on the navigation software and GPS receiver.

mushin · 10-21-2004, 05:16 PM

You can find the connector here. As for a schematic, well... pin 1 -> pin 1, pin 2 -> pin 2, etc, etc

If you're making an extension, it should just be straight through. If you're replacing the existing connector, just make sure each wire is connected to the same pin as the orignal.

edit: I use the MN31N board in my home system (incidentally, also the one with the extended VGA ports.) I've had no problems with mine - what problems are you having?

kuwupt · 10-21-2004, 11:18 PM

well hmm.. it took me a long time to get the settings right, but it was giving me probs from the get go.. firstly hooked up everything it was booting up and I plug in the ethernet cable to find that the board doesnt recognise the ethernet.. and I needed to get online to download the new drivers for usb.. chipset, vga, etc.. loaded up all the drivers from the cd still not recognising ethernet port.. well got on my pc at home downloaded all the new drivers.. copied them to cd and installed it.. nothing.. even flashed to the new bios which gave me more problems so I reset the cmos and returned everything to factory. Couldnt figure out the ethernet port issue so after I got the usb drivers installed just connected a wireless network usb card and got online and downloaded SP1 for windows etc.. Well got everything working now.. except AMD registers as 1800, for some reason windows restarts on me if I put the setting to 2400.. and with 256Mb pc2100 ddr ram, windows xp takes me almost 2 minutes to load up.. tried to find out whats going on with that.. uninstalled all unnecessary components from windows.. nothing on startup except for the lilliput touchkit for the touchscreen so I dont understand why it is taking that long.. and dont know what to do..??

mushin · 10-21-2004, 11:35 PM

Wow, sounds like you're having a whole host of problems. I'm afraid I'm not going to be of much help. Incidentally, I don't think clearing CMOS memory will undo a BIOS flash... The restarting when the processor is clocked at 2400 seems like either a heat or voltage problem, ie the symptoms of an overclocked chip, but if the chip ran 2400 on another system, that can't be it. Dunno, I'd need to be at the machine to really debug it. If you have other components, you could try swapping everything around to see if it can be isolated. Bad HD, bad RAM, these can both cause slowdowns or reboots. And finally, you may want to try RMAing your MB.

kuwupt · 10-21-2004, 11:54 PM

RMAing my board?? how do I do that? and yeah I'll probably try the swaps .. have a feeling it might be the HD .. the chip ran fine on another pc.. so its not that.. its cooling fine.. the only two things I am doubtful of is the RAM and HD ...have to wait till the weekend to try it though.. will let u know how that goes.. but let me know about RMAing plz..

mushin · 10-22-2004, 12:11 AM

"RMAing" was refering to getting an RMA (return merchandise authorization) to return a defective product for a replacement (I'm assuming the MB is new).

kuwupt · 10-22-2004, 02:03 AM

oh yeah.. hmm I read it as raming for some reason.. yeah its a new board bought it from ajump.com already requested an RMA# from them just in case it is a technical issue with the board. I've been reading some good reviews on the asrock K7S41GX micro ATX board it is also a smaller board 2inches less in its height so that will fit perfectly in the area behind the screen and the board costs $44, I bought my shuttle for $67 hmm.. fingers are crossed.