Opus in eternal reboot

Pale Rider · 03-08-2004, 11:42 PM

My buddy and I this weekend were putting together our car computer. Everything seems to be going well except that we cannot get the computer to say on. We have all the wires (ground, iginition, power) hooked up correctly and the power switch wire (green and white) is connected to the mobo correctly. When we hit the ignition the computer comes on like it should. However after about 5 seconds or so it just reboots. This process just repeats itself and it never actually makes it to Windows. I have no idea what would make the computer go into this 'eternal rebooting' problem but it sucks

any help would be appreciated

cheers

i

'd the forums but never found someone with this issue

gospeed.racer · 03-08-2004, 11:57 PM

Has the computer been working indoors? I have had issues with just throwing in a old hard drive and it will do that looping reboot (or sometimes just blue screen). I have also had that happen when there was not enough power, might make sure you routed the recommended size wires and such, so the power supply has adequate power to work off of. Just a couple generic thoughts.

By the way, just noticed this thread....http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...threadid=22865

Pale Rider · 03-09-2004, 12:20 AM

Yeah, I bult the computer indoors. I dont think its a power issue or a hardware (pc hardware that is) because inside I installed the OS and such using a 100w power supply. Had no problems. I can take the machine inside and fire it up.. works just fine. However when I take it out to the truck and hook everything up all i get is the god forsaken eternal reboot.

Could it be from my fuse in the power cable? My friend put the inline fuse pretty close to the machine. I read somewhere back awhile ago that the fuse is actually suppose to be within 3 feet of your battery or something. Oh well i will try that tomorrow along with making sure the ground is grouned REALLY REALLY well, as suggested in another thread. If all that fails.. back to the drawing board

gospeed.racer · 03-09-2004, 12:23 AM

Fuse position, in theory, should have much less to do with transmitting power as it does keeping your car from burning down! The reason to keep it close to the battery is just so you dont cut thru/arc out/ect a unfused section. I witnessed a car burning to the ground at the theater by my house due to a person trying to steal the stereo and dropping the pos cable to ground when he took off. Not gonna have a good day

I would make for sure that all the wire is the proper guage and especially that you have a good ground, or better yet redundant grounds. If it works well inside, it is definately power related! Somewhere...

Confused · 03-09-2004, 04:50 AM

The Opus isn't getting enough power.

I had this "problem" when I tried it in my house, hooked up to an old 350W ATX power supply on the 12V rail. It was fine once I hooked the Opus up to the car's battery.

Garry

Enforcer · 03-09-2004, 05:25 AM

Get a spare car battery and set it up inside with the opus.

Or get a regulated 12v 3A power supply and hook the opus up that indoors, thats what I'll be doing before the new board with the opus goes in the car.

P4_2.66GHz · 03-09-2004, 09:25 AM

What gauge wires did you use to wire your PC?
It seems that your power supply does not get enough voltage/current.

Cherub211 · 03-09-2004, 10:37 AM

You didn't mention trying anything in the trouble-shooting section of the Opus intructions. Have you tried anything there?

Pale Rider · 03-09-2004, 05:08 PM

ok thanks for the advice,

im going to try out moving the inline fuse and possibly trying out a different one.

I'm not sure on the gauge of the wire. Ill check and see what my buddy ended up using.

And as far as the Manual goes, the trouble shooting section is rather short. It consists of two questions ("computer does not turn on" and "computer does not turn off") along with the flash codes. Nothing about constantly rebooting itself

ill go mess around with it someone tonight and see what i can come up with. Thanks again.

cheers

tejesh83 · 03-10-2004, 02:16 AM

I had a similar problem in the past. For me, it was a hardware issue. The xenarc serial touchscreen and mobo com port did not behave correctly with the Opus. My guess was it depended on the deprecated -5v rail for its logic. The -5v rail is no longer required by ATX spec and is not available on the Opus, while my old testing AC/DC PSU I used indoors did report -5v (bios power menu). It caused alot of frustation, and I spent many weeks/months trying to track down the problem.

A USB->Serial adapter took care of the problem.

Ricky327 · 03-10-2004, 04:17 AM

Try to go for minimal configuration and see how stable it runs. Disconnect the HDD, CDROM and other stuff you dont need...just boot up the motherboard as bare as possible.

If all is well connect your HDD and see how it goes.

Im suspecting the OPUS is having problem supplying enough current to all your devices. Probably the reason why it reboot after few seconds because the devices start getting switched on by the motherboard.

The possible problems are :

Your battery is not supplying enough to OPUS.
Bad connection to the OPUS and battery.
Faulty OPUS.
You are overloading the OPUS.

Pale Rider · 03-10-2004, 06:38 PM

I used my multimeter and the opus is getting a constant 13.86-13.88 Volts, and we already booted it up with the minimal amount of hardware connected.

Enforcer · 03-11-2004, 04:29 AM

can I re-suggest that you try it indoors on a car battery with the opus, or get 110vac to 12V supply and try it indoors again with the opus.

also check that the ACC supply that you are using from the ignition is supply a constant 12V and isn't fluctuating.

Also check your connections to make sure something isn't shorting to ground.

EBoundEE · 03-11-2004, 02:14 PM

Are you having the same problem as I am??

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/power-supplies/22865-opus-90w-power-action.html

Pale Rider · 03-11-2004, 05:09 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions and what not.

Last night I finally got our car computer to run and stay powered on longer than 5 seconds. We called Kris at Opus Solutions and he recommended we get a motherboard that had the 12V connector on it. So we got in the new board, installed it and made a new ground. We are not sure if it was the new mobo or the better ground that made the difference, although personally i think It kept rebooting in the truck due to a poor ground.

Either way the problem has been resolved and everything seems to running fine for now. Thanks for all the suggestions and advice.