all-in-wonder 128 pci

Joshua · 11-20-2001, 10:10 PM

I just got a pentium 200 lap top for 90 bucks, working. Also, a week or so ago I had won an ALL-IN-WONDER 128 PCI video card. Is there any way I can hook up my video card to the lap top so I can have my 4" LCD display work in my car? I also plan on having a DVD ROM in the future so would this lap top be able to handle DVD's, VCD's and DIVX's?

I decided to go with a lap top because it's going to be a lot cheaper then buying all the parts I need for what I already have.

Yeah, I'm pretty new to all of this stuff, so please try to resist calling me an idiot if this question is beyond simple.

dos4who? · 11-20-2001, 10:20 PM

I'm guessing your best bet is to find a scan converter.

Anyone know the best place to get one?

PS - Welcome to the club :}

~m

Telek · 11-22-2001, 08:35 PM

The problem with a laptop is that it's too big to easily mount anywhere and have it accessible and look nice.

P200 will NOT be able to handle DivX or DVD. It will be able to handle VCDs though.

I don't understand, you can't plug an PCI video card into a laptop. What is it exactly that you want to do?

And how do you plan on hooking up a DVD rom to it? I'm confused. and what 4" LCD do you have?

Joshua · 11-23-2001, 04:39 PM

Heres what I'm doing. I'm rebuilding my center console, so I can have all the "guts" to my system in there, and still have it easily accessible:

I don't want to use the laptops display. I wanna have the laptop itself inside my center consol, and then have a line from the laptop to a 4" LCD. That way I can easily just unhook the line from the laptop to the LCD, and bring my laptop inside and transfer files, or whatever I need to do with it.

What do you mean how do I plan on hooking up a DVD ROM to a laptop? If I wanted I could go out and buy a laptop with a DVD ROM in it already. I'm just wondering if a p 200 could handle DVD, which telek you yourself have already answered that.

Maybe what I should have originally asked is, is there any video card I can put into a laptop with TV out, something similar to my all-in-wonder 128 card.

I apologize for the confusion.

Telek · 11-23-2001, 05:02 PM

You can't change the video card in most (if not all) laptops

, and the only way to add a DVD would be via a PCMCIA card system which would be very expensive

, not worth it IMHO. A P200 definitely won't be able to do DVD (MPEG2) or DIVX (MPEG4), but it can do VCD (MPEG1).

How big is your center console? It's gotta be pretty huge if you expect to be able to "hide" a laptop in there, no?

[ 11-23-2001: Message edited by: Telek ]

Joshua · 11-23-2001, 05:10 PM

I rebuilt my center console so that it would fit just about anything including a fricken elephant.

so, really I should just continue to build my PC instead of using my laptop?

Couldn't I just disconnect the original display from the laptop and extend it a little further and hook up a 5" LCD?

Falcon62Travis · 11-23-2001, 05:38 PM

Well, $90 for a P200 laptop was a great deal so you're not out much!

SkinnyBoy · 11-23-2001, 06:27 PM

I don't know, you might be able to play divx movies on a P200...

my friend can...

So, give it a try....

mtmsol · 11-23-2001, 07:13 PM

Do a search on E-Bay on "PCMCIA DVD". It comes up with lots of PCMCIA DVD decoder cards, lots of them for $35. This will allow you to play DVD on your P-200 laptop (provided you have a DVD drive for the laptop). This will NOT help you to play DIVX - DVD decoders are for DVDs and MPGEG only (so VCD would be OK).

Telek · 11-23-2001, 08:24 PM

The one that I saw for $35 is only supported on 95/98, only supports mpeg-1 (can't do DVD, or else the specs are wrong), needs to use an external screen only (can't view on internal screen), and only works in a few gateway and HP models.

I see a DVD drive going for $110 currently, (buy-it-now for $135)

hahaha

"Using the latest 32 bit Cardbus technology, double the performance of the 16 bit PCMCIA's"

hahahah... good to know that they (don't) know what they're talking about.

However the Margi DVD-To-Go? cards look pretty decent, and have sound output as well integrated. Seem to work with any computer and with windows 2000 too (not tested with winXP, most likely becaues they're all obsolete cards). They're about $83 buy-it-now.

so you're probably looking at $240 delivered to get DVD into your laptop, and it'll use up both PCMCIA slots, and what exactly do you hope to accomplish with it? Is it really worth it in your car? Since you can't watch it, and the screen will be crappy so for anything that you would want to watch you can watch at home instead. I was thinking about this too, but for me with a desktop PC the DVD drive is $25 more than the CDrom drive, so I might as well get the DVD instead of the CDrom, and then I can play DVDs (PIII/733 can handle it)... But is it really worth it for you?

Joshua · 11-24-2001, 12:06 PM

okay, forget everything about dvd, divx, and vcd for now. I'll worry about all that junk later once I get everything working and in my car.

As of now, all I need to kno is:
Couldn't I just disconnect the original display from the laptop and extend it a little further and hook up a 5" LCD?--just so I can get the system working, mp3's is really all I'm concerned with right now.

Telek · 11-24-2001, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Couldn't I just disconnect the original display from the laptop and extend it a little further and hook up a 5" LCD?--just so I can get the system working, mp3's is really all I'm concerned with right now.

LCD displays on laptops don't work like your monitor does. They're all different connectors, requiring different control hardware, and the physical restrictions on the length of the cable attaching the screen to the controller is very small. You also can't just take out one LCD and replace it with a different one. I'm afraid that in all likelyhood the current LCD that you have on your laptop is the one that you're stuck with, and you won't be able to extend it very far either away from the laptop itself. If you want something else, you're going to have to deal with an external screen that works off of the VGA output from the laptop itself.

You could, I suppose, buy the control hardware for the LCD itself seperately that would allow you to put the LCD anywhere, controlled by the new hardware which would give you a VGA interface to plug into the external VGA port, but if you're going to go through all that trouble you might as well just buy a premade external LCD.