psu idea!!

eldoland · 06-18-2008, 10:45 AM

ok,
i was wondering if anyone on here can help me out. i have a pico psu 120w to power my mini itx carputer but have the problem of long boot up times.
Beacuse of this i had an idea i could set my pc to hibanate when it gets turend of, connect the pc to a 12v 12AH battery and then connect a 12v charging system on my ignition so that it only charges when the car is on.
what do people think of this idea???
i use my car everyday and do quite a bit of driving so it would have time to chaarge its just that i do alot of starting and stoping and waitng for 1 min 30 while it boots kinda gets annoying.
any oppionions appreciaed!!!
thanks

kibble · 06-18-2008, 03:27 PM

You can set the pc to hibernate without requiring external power, I think you mean standby. Standby requires the 5VSB line to stay on while the rest is off.

This would work just fine if you have something that completely isolates the power supply and second battery completely from the main battery so there's no drain on it and you don't have problems starting the car later. If it's only going to be for a few minutes at a time though, I don't think it would affect your main battery much, as long as you completely shut down the pc or put it into hibernate when you're going to be leaving it sitting there for longer periods of time.

eldoland · 06-18-2008, 05:40 PM

ok,
thanks for the advice i will do some exspermenting

nobb · 06-18-2008, 07:41 PM

If you are going to use standby I dont think a 12AHr auxiliary battery would be enough. Standby uses approx 5 watts, might be less depending on your setup. You would be draining the battery significantly (and damaging it) just by letting the car sit unused for a day.

Best to go for a deep cycle 50AHr+, or just use hibernation.

Punky · 06-18-2008, 08:28 PM

or get a faster booting mobo?

eldoland · 06-19-2008, 07:36 AM

ok,
thanks for all the advice.... so am i right in saying that to hibernate my pc it wont need a constent power supply. so that would improve booting time? but isant there a max amount of time that a pc can stay hibenated?

Rob Withey · 06-19-2008, 09:13 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by eldoland

ok,
thanks for all the advice.... so am i right in saying that to hibernate my pc it wont need a constent power supply. so that would improve booting time? but isant there a max amount of time that a pc can stay hibenated?

<jk>Not long - after winter passes it wakes up pretty hungry and has to go hunt some electricity to eat.</jk>

PCs can stay hibernated for a long time - the machine state is stored to disk and everything is powered down.

nst6563 · 06-19-2008, 11:32 AM

I have the Intel Little Valley board (with the 1.2Ghz Core2 based celeron) and from power on to RR takes about 12seconds. That's using hibernation. Takes 18-20 seconds if I do a normal boot-up though (using a stripped down Server2003 setup).

I think Hibernation is the way to go if you want a fast bootup. Using standby for long periods of time may end up killing your battery pre-maturely as the others have said.

kaynohtee · 06-19-2008, 12:41 PM

I have the pico board with the M3-ATX power supply, it can be jumpered to provide the 5v bus for up to 2 hours before giving the hard off:

Check out the manual, download from:

http://www.mini-box.com/M3-ATX-DC-DC...=8&category=13

Your idea is reasonably sound, but reality is you probably already have the whole system you need... if you are concerned with running your battery down add a small solar trickle charger like this one ($13.99!!)

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=44768

colin · 06-19-2008, 02:13 PM

Hibernation can last forever basically. You can hibernate, take the whole system apart and put it into boxes, take it out 10 years later and set it up and guess what happens, itll resume from hibernate.

Sounds like a fun experiment acutally...

kibble · 06-20-2008, 10:56 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by colin

Hibernation can last forever basically. You can hibernate, take the whole system apart and put it into boxes, take it out 10 years later and set it up and guess what happens, itll resume from hibernate.

Sounds like a fun experiment acutally...

I haven't done "10 years later" but I've done the other stuff while in hibernate.