Dell SX270 Info - Page 2

BimmaDrew · 05-10-2006, 09:27 PM

I'm using the Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006. The GPS mouse that came with it seems good enough (despite what some people say about it not being the newer surf III chip). I have it sitting under the windshield and I had 6 sats most of the time (varied between 5 and up to 10)!

The Audigy was about $80 or $85 at Circuit City. What car are you putting you puter in? (I'm guessing a Mustang from your name).

V6Stang · 05-10-2006, 09:39 PM

Oh yea, alot of ppl seemed to not be pleased with the S&T for 05 but supposivley its alot better for 06. Can it be interfaced with RoadRunner? Let me know what you think are the pros and cons for S&T

Thats not a bad price for the sound card, how much better quality will that deliver as opposed to whatever came with the optiplex?

Yea it's going into my mustang, I was just gonna hook up my mp3 player but I hate those stupid transmitters and this guy who always makes fun of everything i do was like you should just put a computer in your car and did some searching and lo and behold here i am with all of you other guys...i must say this site has been beyond useful and important especially this specific thread now lol.

BAHitman · 05-11-2006, 10:58 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by V6Stang

Thanks to the great write ups

so far I know how i can wire it for power straight to the battery just have to learn how to wire it with a fuse. Sorry for all the questions, just came to mind when I thought of what i had left to do with it.

You can buy a fuse holder from any auto supply store (pep boys, Autozone, etc...) You can see it from my pic of the battery connection. it's the orange wire from the b attery, the little black covered thing is the fuse, then the orange wire connects to a red wire that goes to the system through the firewall...

Make sure you get one that has a cap on it to somewhat protect it from getting wet... as for the wire connectors, you can either solder it and tape it up, or you can use a crimp on butt connector

V6Stang · 05-11-2006, 11:43 PM

Awesome, keep the updates and pics coming, very helpful in so many ways...but I was looking at the picture and got just slightly confused about something so I drew the diagram you see here let me know which one is correct. (The blue and green wires were substituted for black and white cuz it was just easier to see in my opinon). What did you ground the black and white to?

BimmaDrew · 05-12-2006, 12:03 AM

You ground them to the metal frame of the car. It usually means having to pull up some carpet or trim to find a bolt/screw on the frame. the key thing is...MAKE SURE THEIR IS NO PAINT where you are grounding it. if there is, sand it down until you see nothing but shiney metal just around the bolt/screw. It also helps if you ground it at the same bolt that your stereo amps are grounded to. it helps eliminate any noise (like alternator whine).

oh BTW. IT"S ALIVE!!!!!

It's all working. Now I'm installing software and tuning it.

Once I'm finished fine tuning it, I'll start posting all my findings.

But one key thing I found about the DSATX is that you need to trick it into supply power since you are not pluging it into a normal mother board. It would turn on, it just wouldn't output any power at all. I grounded a pin and it turned it all on (the pin with the green wire on a standard 20 pin ATX cable). It's labled "PSON#" in the DSATX instruction manual.

V6Stang · 05-13-2006, 12:28 AM

Thanks for all the help its been extremely helpful...please keep us informed with how it goes...btw i don't know how fast your sx270 lods up but mine is alil slow, do you know how to speed it up if its possible?

BAHitman · 05-13-2006, 02:56 PM

OK. You don't use the brick at all. you cut the cable between the brick and your battery...

you make the following connections from that wire...

BLACK wire - Ground this one
WHITE wire - Ground this one
YELLOW wire - tape it up - don't use it.
GREEN wire - tape it up - don't use it.
RED wire - connect this through a fuse to your battery
BROWN wire - connect to the same place as the RED wire

to tell you the truth, you don't need to connect the white or brown wires to anything, just tape them off so that they don't short against anything...

You will not use your brick in the car...

AS for the boot up, I would suggest installing a fresh copy of windows. if you have alot of programs running on it, i will take a while to boot. Mine boots in about 35 seconds or so from the time I stop cranking the engine...

V6Stang · 05-14-2006, 01:54 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by BAHitman

AS for the boot up, I would suggest installing a fresh copy of windows. if you have alot of programs running on it, i will take a while to boot. Mine boots in about 35 seconds or so from the time I stop cranking the engine...

Wow so only two wires to connect, thats an awesome/easy setup.

Well I have windows server 2000 on it but took that off formatted the drive and put windows xp on there...mine probably takes about the same amount of time to boot probably just feels longer compared to other computers i use i should time it.

So the frontends you guys use(roadrunner, frodo, etc) do you buy them or download them?

V6Stang · 05-14-2006, 02:10 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by BAHitman

OK. You don't use the brick at all. you cut the cable between the brick and your battery...

You will not use your brick in the car...

Ok you kind of confused me there with the not using the brick and the u cut the cable between brick and battery soooo....where's the cut go at A, or B?

Computer---A---Brick---B---Wall Plug

CdRsKuLL · 05-14-2006, 02:51 AM

I think he means hes not using the brick, but connecting the lead from the brick to the sx270.. he has chopped this and connecting this to a shutdown controller / voltage regulator.. he is NOT connecting this direct to his car battery.. Connecting this directly to your car battery will defo blow something..

CdR

BimmaDrew · 05-14-2006, 12:20 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by V6Stang

Ok you kind of confused me there with the not using the brick and the u cut the cable between brick and battery soooo....where's the cut go at A, or B?

Computer---A---Brick---B---Wall Plug

I cut the wire at poit A. I am not sing the Brick. I have it hooked up to the DSATX.

It sounds like a few people have been hooking it u to the car directly, but CdRskull is right, you shouldn't. You can easiy fry something because the voltage in cars fluctuate like crazy. Especially when you have a kick butt stereo system in your car (like me).

On a side note, I'm in my car tying this!!!

And CdRskull... Love your skins (RAD is my fav)! If only you had XM as part of it, I wouldn't use anything else! lol Thanks for sharing it with us! I'd post all this in a show off your project thread, but my main computer HDD just crapped out on me yesterday...once I get that fixed, I'll get this done right.

rpatel10 · 05-15-2006, 08:41 AM

i cant seem to find the audigy 2 nx at circuit city in the store or online

BimmaDrew · 05-16-2006, 12:23 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by rpatel10

i cant seem to find the audigy 2 nx at circuit city in the store or online

You can find it on Ebay for sure. about the same price too (well, last i check was a couple months ago when i got mine). lol Just make sure you download the lastest drivers/firmware for it. otherwise it'll give you heart attack when it starts up at FULL VOLUME when you resume from hibernate! lol

Major_Disaster · 10-22-2006, 07:35 PM

BAHitman,

I am going to use a SX270 also for my CarPC. Initially, I was going to use a laptop, but ran across a good deal on a used SX270.

I need some clarification on your setup simply because I am very confused on several issues:

How do you initiate hibernation on your setup or do you simply shut the system off just prior to shutting your engine off?

Did you ever create the fake UPS that your were talking about?

BTW, I retired from the AF just over a year ago. Never was assigned to Warner Robins.

Quote: Originally Posted by BAHitman

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...n/ug/index.htm

Click on Removing the cover to get directions on how to do that...

on the wiring, all you need is the RED and BLACK wires. you can just tape up the others. Use a 15A fuse and you are good to go...

on my truck, I have the BIOS set to power the machine up after power loss. simply cranking the engine drops the power enough to cause the PC to think it has lost it's power, and it turns on. I plan to use the fakeups method to shut the PC down.

BimmaDrew · 10-23-2006, 07:26 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Major_Disaster

How do you initiate hibernation on your setup or do you simply shut the system off just prior to shutting your engine off?

I simply shut the system off with the power button. I had the power option set to Hibernate when the power button was pressed. Then I simply soldered to wires to the power push-button and ran those wires to the front to another push-button in the dash.

But, you could always get a start-up controller that simulates the push of the power button when you lose ACC power. just make sure it can supply enought power to this power hungry machine.

Quote: Originally Posted by Major_Disaster

BTW, I retired from the AF just over a year ago. Never was assigned to Warner Robins.

You're lucky. It's horribly humid and the town is full of strange people

...but the actual base is pretty good. I suppose whatever your AFSC was is why you didn't get assigned to this base.