noobie planning question

spyrule · 10-17-2009, 05:32 PM

Hey,

I've been reading into setting up a decent carpc setup for my Subaru Impreza.

First off, I Live in Canada, so I have to plan for very cold temperatures (7 months out of a year) when planning the pc layout.

So, I am considering getting a ByByte Black Box ITX indash case and the required ITX hardware (not yet chosen)... OR...

Getting a mini-itx pc, and set it up in the trunk... The problem/question I have with this setup is rather simple... How in gods name do you get all your controls to the front of the car? I'm presuming I would need a very long sheilded video/audio/usb cable (or a high quality usb kvm)... but I havn't been able to find any specifics on how to wire a pc from the back to the front of the pc.

Now, you may ask why I mentioned that I need to consider tempurature... it's quite simple. If it's a DIN pc, I have a gut feeling that when I run my car's A/C to heat up the cabbin, it may get too hot for the pc itself... which means I would need better ventilation, which means more noise. In the trunk, it would stay colder, longer which means the pc may actually have problems starting from being TOO cold.

If anybody else has experience running carpc's in very cold weather (I'm talking -40' c & f !)

At that kind of tempurature, would I have to worry about the LCD not working because of the cold?

Any, and ALL help / suggestions are welcome...

thanks in advance,

Spyrule

Larzfromarz · 10-19-2009, 07:51 PM

MOVE!
Just kidding- I'm from Florida.
Larz

soundman98 · 10-19-2009, 08:44 PM

There are a couple other members from Canada, so your not completly sol. The biggest thing is that you should try to get a led backlit monitor to reduce the time it takes it to turn on, but it will still take a while. The other thing is to get a solid state hard drive. This will reduce the chance that the lubrication in the drive will freeze.

spyrule · 10-19-2009, 09:43 PM

What about recommended mounting location?

If I put a sub in the trunk will that potentially screw up with a pc being in the trunk?

soundman98 · 10-20-2009, 09:01 AM

what ever works best for your install. for subs, there are alot of installs here that the pc is mounted next to the sub, and it is fine, as long as the pc is securely mounted. some have lasted through numerous car totaling wrecks.

Bugbyte · 10-20-2009, 09:09 AM

Read through the FAQs at the top of the forum and also check the Wiki. Many of these questions have been asked and discussed quite often. Also, do a search for "cold weather" or "cold temps" or "subs affecting pc" and so forth.

You can run a wireless solution from back to front using a USB dongle for VGA and one for a USB hub if you like. A little pricey, but it will work.

My install uses 16 feet of VGA cable and a connector in the middle. It works pretty well. When I had the monitor running off of the Carnetix 2140 it worked great. When i switched it straight to the car's system I get some faint wavy lines on it. Nothing huge, but I did notice the difference.

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