robstahl

Heya i've been reading on all the sections and learning a bunch on making a carpc. Realizing that for a quality setup its gonna cost some money I wanted to run a scenario buy all of you. I have a desktop p4 that ive been using for years. Its a 3ghz with 1gram and videocard -everything I need to run a carpc...except that its gonna run too hot and/or need alot of power. I also am in the videogames industry and it is time to buy a new machne to run this years games. Im torn between using the money to upgrade my home pc to a duo core 2 with all the necessary upgrades (motherboard, new ram, video vard and such) or buying a new low power setup for my new carpc. Besides being power hungry or hot, are there ways to overcome this if I want to use my current p4 3.ghz. From my understanding I would need a power inverter and a good quality one at that. Can I use a another battery for the cappc alone?
Thank you for your time,
Robert

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AngelOfLight

Heya Mate,
i am not so sure on the motherboard issue, haven't been involved into it for that long. However, I am sure that you do not want to run the system of an inverter. It would introduce a lot of noise into your system and is also very inefficient. The best thing to do is to use a DC/DC power supply.

Hope that helps a little....

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Moneyfink

you don't need lots of power in a car. If you do it right, you can strip out all the junk and run on a low power CPU.

If you want tons of processor power but low energy usage go with that core 2 duo IN THE CAR

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Nomader

my opinion is that a PC can never be too powerfull and since you have it why buy another to use as a car pc..
1. find your cpu's power needs.. (i am wondering how much wattage your current power supply is??)
2. if you can keep it all under 220 watts..then buy a DSATX (expensive but worth every penny.)
3. Avoid inverters (problematicand expensive if you want a good one..or a true SIN inverter...search for that)
4. upgrade your home desktop..
5. using another battery for carpc would lead you to use a battery isolator for charging both battaries..(search for that) and good ones are pricy..


I am powering an AMD sempron 2800+ with many many many stuff connected..

as for heat.. you can always add many fans.. i have 3 in my homemade case.. never run hot and i live in Greece..

just my opinion..

symon_say

Do you use that PSU, cause i want to make a system with that cpu???

A-day

What he said! i ran a p4 2.8 full size compaq tower in my van for 2 or 3 weeks before i got stuff to down size the setup, your not asking for to much, but i haven't had a itx board yet that will support over a 2.8 but there are some that will do it ! i use a coleman powermate 600watt inverter and it's 2 years old and still working, so replace your D-top and use those top notch part on a killer car computer ! really you would not notice the diff in the two when intalled in a car, haven't seen any itx mb's with pci express on them and without video demand i don't think the processor will go above 60% of power draw

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Nomader

yes i am using the DSATX..check my CarPC Specs on the left

MobiTekLink

People that use power inverters make no sense to me; if you think about it is a total waste of everything. Carnetix has a new PSU that should be enough to power your MB, if you need more just get a second PSU that's less expensive to run peripherals.

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