zootjeff's DC to DC power supply and hard drives

Squeezer · 09-30-2002, 10:02 AM

I got zootjeff's power supply wired in my car and working good, it boots up the computer and everything, but the hard drive loads the OS very very slowly. I'm using Red Hat 7.3 Linux 2.4.18 and when LILO pints the linux...... dot's it prints 1 dot about every 5 seconds(it should print all the .....'s in less then a second), and then the kernel would boot, it would try to mount the filesystem and then panic and crash. Do you think it may just be that my hard drive doesn't like his power supply? Its a Maxtor 6.4 gig hard drive. I'm going to reinstall Linux on it and see if that fixes it, though.

Anyone else had similar problems with hard drives not liking DC to DC power supplies?

CrazyLittle · 09-30-2002, 01:03 PM

What other components are you using in your mp3-car PC? Chances are that you could be overloading the 70w output of that supply. Regular hard drives take up a lot more power than laptop drives. My suggestion: email ZootJeff, and if no solution, try using a laptop hard drive.

Squeezer · 09-30-2002, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CrazyLittle
What other components are you using in your mp3-car PC? Chances are that you could be overloading the 70w output of that supply. Regular hard drives take up a lot more power than laptop drives. My suggestion: email ZootJeff, and if no solution, try using a laptop hard drive.

All I'm powering is a Shuttle FV24 with a Celeron 366 and that hard drive.

Twostep · 09-30-2002, 02:40 PM

You might try running an extension cord out to the car and powering the HD with a seperate normal powersupply. That should tell you if the problem is powersupply related.

Twostep

zootjeff · 10-03-2002, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Squeezer

Anyone else had similar problems with hard drives not liking DC to DC power supplies?

Did you get this figured out?

Squeezer · 10-04-2002, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by zootjeff
Did you get this figured out?

Haven't had a chance, the car has been at the dealership all week because of crap still not rigght form when a guy hit me a few months ago. They will have it next week also, and I'm on vacation for a week. After that, It is going back to the bodyshop to fix some stuff they didn't do right, as well.

Squeezer · 11-05-2002, 08:50 PM

Ok I finally got my car back not too long ago and tonight had a chance to play with it. The 6.4G Maxtor drive in my mp3car was dead. I hooked it up to my computer in my bedroom and tried to format it and it would sit there indefinitely. So I got a 8.4G Maxtor in there now and it is working fine. So it was a bad hard drive and not a PS supply problem. It boots up fine and plays mp3's great. Thanks for the awesome PS jeff!