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Mobile Electronics Australia > Mobile Electronics Discussion > Car Computing Discussion
Pedrotski
All my friends used laptops in their car. Less power noise etc. Have all the outputs of a normal pc. Cheaper smaller etc. I see people are even going ITX.

Why not just use laptops :S.

Being a computer tech, i really see no improvement over this design.

Original post:

QUOTE
in reality, the laptop is actually sitting in the boot in a custom case i fabricated out of a work case i bought from supercheap for like $15.

its connected to an amp which is connected to a 10 or 12" woofer and splits in the front (which is enough speakers for a 2 seater 180sx).

the laptop vga out goes to a touchscreen at the front (also with a usb connection for the interface). its a 7" mechanical foldout Karputer brand LCD, native res is 800x480.

at the front i have an off/on button, and two toggle switches. the toggleswitches control the amp/lcd/tempcontrol/fanz/thingsiforgot.

since i have a 2bay DIN i have the lcd on the top, and a thermaltake hardcano 12 on the bottom one. the 4 temps go to: 1. outside ambient... 2. inside ambient... 3. inside carputer... 4. just before the throttle body for my engine.

the carputer is cooled by 2x thermaltake fanz. they are hardcore orange ones that spin at 99999999rpm and make an almost infinite cfm. well its plenty to cool the laptop anyway.

the carputer is modularised to connect via ETHERNET. haha yes. it has a patch panel on the rear of the case and if i want to remove it, i detach the numerous usb / ethernet / vga / audio and onbolt it from the car and i can just take it out, and put it back when i want. it rox.
Just like music
Laptops get too hot. They are too confined, you can't upgrade them.

I am using a HP Compaq S630D or something like that (Compaq is the HP model, not the brand compaq)
... and it's P4 2.8Ghz/1.5Gb/40Gb + add-ons (Sound card and usb accessories)

And the power supply for it is 180w. I can remove the cd player and floppy drive and replace that with a 140mm fan... but I am starting to realize more and more that heat is going to be an issue and the more I get rid of it the better my computer is going to run.

I have a Danfoss BD35 (40L Engel fridge) compressor I could always hook up in there... that would keep my amps cool and computer also. Wow... that is actually a very good idea.
TheyDontWantMusic
my laptop generally overheats when left in the car on hot days.

also, they don't have the processing power of a desktop (mainly when it comes to graphics) and a laptop with similar specs to a desktop will cost twice as much.
Arkhaeon
And laptop soundcards suck >.<
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