Ive had a good look round and this is it folks, the very smalest, best build you can get your hands on, hell its not bad for teh office either

 

 

LN6388 IWILL ZPCgx Super Mini Barebone Black P4 533FSB i845GV + CDRW/DVD 24x10x24x8 Slim needs 2.5" HDD £199.99 £234.99

 

LN3634 512 Mb Corsair Value Select, DDR, PC2100, non ECC, Lifetime Warranty £40.89 £48.05

 

LN8393 100GB 2.5" Fujitsu Notebook HDD (4200rpm, 8M) £95.14 £111.79

 

LN7123 2.4GHz Intel Pentium® 4 S478 CPU "Prescott" (533FSB) 1MB Cache *Retail* £69.24 £81.36

 

 

 

TOTAL £487.93

 

Need a decent 7" pop out touchscreen and this will be able to mount with some fidling in the dash or arm rest

 

 

just need some cash spare. Anyone want any tennis lessons?

Dont forget your power supply. You'll need a Regulated supply, that can also keep the PC powered when the starter motor cranks (volts can drop to near nothing, and then spike when turning over).

 

Check out the Opus 150w (http://linitx.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_94_95&products_id=422)

 

Other handy Items

 

GPRS and/or WIFI Card (Internet access)

GPS Receiver (sat navigation)

Mini Keyboard (can hide under passenger seat)

Loads of USB extension cables !

 

How do u intend to handle audio ? Feed from Sound card to Headunit, or ditch the headunit and send output direct to Amp ?

 

p.s I may be selling my 7" touchscreen in-dash foldout VGA/XGA screen soon. Its not available in the UK, had to have it made to order from the U.S.

hate to spoil your fun, but a 150w supply isnt going to be anywhere near powerful enough to run a p4 system, maybe 2 of them, thats still pushing it a little though..

You would THINK that wouldnt you....

However, my laptop runs at 19v DC, at 3 amps, so that only draws 57watts

 

The feed INTO the transfomer for that laptop is rated at 100 to 240v at 1 amp.... maximum input of 240 watts but will quite happily plod along if you only shove 100 watts into it....(sure, until you start connecting USB keyboards, GPS etc)

 

I cant see a PC being much different really.....

 

Just MHO...

 

Steve

 

I'll await confirmation from Legrath on this, cos he's already done it.....

i sell 150w inverters all day long and specialize in power supplies for laptop and most of the very highest powered laptops are only hitting 150w max at the moment , even adapters for apple powerbook g4's are only using 120w!! so an inverter will run fine with a laptop but desktop pc's may be different

Not fogetting that an incar PC wont have as much his power stuff as a Desktop...

Lower spec graphics card for a start, drawing less power in itself, and less cooling

Processor will most likely have a smaller cooling fan, if any

 

You will possibly have a usb powered keyboard and mouse, and a USB gps receiver...

and possibly some device to send sound to the car stereo.....

 

Come on Legrath, where are you...

hate to spoil your fun, but a 150w supply isnt going to be anywhere near powerful enough to run a p4 system, maybe 2 of them, thats still pushing it a little though..

 

It does depend on which generation of P4 processor your using, as they draw different amounts, as to how many accessory devices can also be ran. But 150w would be fine, Hundreds of people use them with P4 systems within in-car systems.

 

It would also be wise to use a 2.5" CD/DVD Drive instead of the fullsize desktop versions. As power consumption is lower.

 

There are case's such as the Morex range that uses 2.5" slots.

 

I run a Opus 90w in my mini-itx system (VIA EPIA MII-10000) with :

 

- On-board video and sound

- 40gb slimline HDD

- 256mb

- DVD Slimiline

- USB GPS receiver

- Gprs & wlan Pcmcia card

- Haupage WinTV Card

- USB Keyboard

- Griffin Powermate mouse/volume control

- 4-port USB Hub

- Infra-red Webcam

 

I'd look at some of the Via Epia Mini-Itx boards instead though. You'll find they offer plenty of performance for in-car solutions, and they do draw less current. Effectively a similar setup as a laptop, minus the screen. (screen can be powered of its own direct feed....like a car headunit)

Screen gets it own pawer supply, Iwill system has on board graf and sound which is good for what it needs to be. going to run strait to an amp, amp to speakers. system is the size of a cd/radio player folks so will slot in a DIN (with a little help)

Sound can be upped by using a external 7.1 unit but cant be assed.

 

Power supply need to be mannaged, but I already have that all sorted and the system doesnt need much to poer it up. If i put it in the dash ill need to find an alternative place for the radio and guages.

bloody hell, that is small.....