Laptop Startup

prophet · 07-08-2004, 08:14 PM

Hey everyone,

The laptop I used for my install has been working great - except for one "minor" detail, which is proving to be rather irritating. We need to open the trunk, and manually turn it on everytime the car is started. It does not know how to turn on by itself, when external power is given.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could wire something to start the laptop when the car is turned on?

Thanks again everyone.

Kato · 07-09-2004, 04:02 PM

Search the forum for a startup relay circuit

zPilott · 07-10-2004, 12:17 PM

I don't know how well this will work in practice, but with my laptop, I plan to put it in suspend mode, instead of turing it off. The bios for the laptop supports coming out of suspend when it regains power. On a full charge, it can go for over four days in suspend. Of course I don't have the computer all set up yet, so I don't knwo how practical this will be.

MoFo · 07-10-2004, 12:53 PM

I ran an external switch that connects to the motherboard.
Open the laptop and get to the power switch. Find the leads that will turn it on and solder 2 wires to it. Then you can run the wires to a momentary on push button switch from radioshack. If you are interested, I'll take pics of my power button extention.