equate975

Hey, I am researching on what I am going to do with my carpc. I have an older laptop laying around that I am going to use to drive the whole thing.

One thing I want is the laptop to be "on", when I am parked. That way I can have it auto connect to my wifi so I can upload new music.

Problem with that is I can't figure out a good way to do that, without killing the laptop or car battery.

What I have come up with is this: I have a keyless/remote start system in my car now. What i was thinking was to disconnect my trunk pop wiring (or if my fob has more functions use one of those), and use that to press the power button on my laptop.

That way, when I park and come inside, If I want I can hit the button on my fob to turn the computer on and off to sync music to it.

Has anyone done this? Or is there a better way to go about this?

Thanks!

FusionFanatic

I think you're making it too complicated... unless your battery is no good, then the laptop should be able to run for a couple hours on it's own battery. when you park, just leave the computer on, and you'll be able to transfer everything you want. when the battery gets low , the laptop will shut itself down.

NOTE: make sure you have the laptop power supply wired with a relay, so it doesn't get power from the car when the engine is off (otherwise you'll kill your car battery).

...or you could use a USB stick to transfer files instead of transferring over the network

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current carPC setup
previous carPC setup

chiptuner

I have the wifi thing too, and i prefer the usb stick, its faster for me.

ArtVandalay

Another suggestion would be to set the laptop settings to power down after a specific time while it is on battery. Under the power settings in Control pannel (assuming the laptop is running XP) you should be able to set the laptop to turn off after 30 or so minutes of the laptop being on battery power. This should give you aenough time to transfer items.