Up until now I have been using a specifically designed carputer with shutdown controller etc etc so the carputer would resume from hibernation when ignition was on and go into hibernation when ignition was off. However I have decided to upgrade as the m1000 carputer was just to damn slow.
I am now using my old laptop which up until now has been collecting dust under my couch as I got a new one over 12 months ago. My laptop is a 1.5GHz celleron which is perfect for car pc application. After getting everything working I came across the problem of turning the laptop on or resuming from hibernation and shutting it down or hibernating it.
After researching several different methods I though how cool it would be to have the laptop start up from my remote central locking! So I did it. Not sure if how many people have thought about doing this or even done it, but it was easy as. Like 99% of laptops mine uses a momentary switch which I desoldered and ran some cables to a relay. The relay is then wired into the unlock power rails of my central locking. This works wonderful as the laptop now gets a head start to its startup way before I am even in the driver seat.
My screen and amplifiers are wired to a separate power supply that doesn’t come on until the ignition is powered up. My laptop (acer aspire 3500) turns on from by a momentary press of its power button (or my central locking remote) but once started up does nothing when this button is momentary pressed… if the button is held down for more than 5 seconds it hibernates or restarts (user defined via control panel) so once the laptop if triggered to turn on unlocking and locking the doors a million times does not interfere.
To turn my laptop off or hibernate it I use an application I found here
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/othe...hibernate.html Which works great as occasionally we do need to unlock our cars for the purpose of getting something out of it etc and have no intention of driving away in it, therefore don’t want the carputer running unnecessarily. As this application works by hibernating or shutting down (user defined thru a settings file) the laptop when running on batteries if I unlock my doors but don’t start the car before it has fully booted up or resumed the laptop will immediately shutdown/hibernate once fully resumed as its running of its batteries.
Hope this all makes sense and helps someone out, feel free to ask questions feedback etc.
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