Over the next month or two Im gonna pull out my PS2 and wellll..

put in an AMD K62 300 PC, will have a 9gig HDD, Floppy Dirve, 32x CD Rom, Sound Card, Video Card w/ TV out running to my dash mounted LCD screen.

Will have one of those mini folding keyboards under a seat for when/if its needed. a trigger style track ball that I have in center console, I will hard wire it to my system so when I choose "Aux" on my head unit I play MP3's and will also hardwire it to my ALDL Port so I can always run WIN ALDL or something similiar whenever necessary.

 

I would try and get a Notebook Hard Drive.
They are much more durable than the regular ones, and should withstand a little bit more of a beating.....

 

yeah I know, but Im gonna be dumb at try it for a lil while with a desktop Hdd and see how long it lasts.

 

Mine lasted for about 2 months of daily driving.


The laptop HD has lasted for about 1.3 years now...
And still running strong. Knock on wood.
The only prob with senstive eqipment is, that it is sensitive.....


Have fun with the project....

 

maybe it'll last, it will no longer be a daily driver

 

Just make sure to back it up on a regular basis, just incase. Plus laptop hdds are quite a bit more than standard desktop hdds.

Brian

 

Not anymore.

You can get a 40 Gig Laptop HDD for about $140
That's pretty cheap....

 

That is pretty cheap.....for a notebook hdd. But when you figure that you can get a 40 gig for your desktop for $60, you have $80 to spend on something else. But then at the same time if the $60 hdd is going to crap out becuase of the use in a car then it is well worth the extra cash to drop on the other.

Brian

 

Exactly...

 

I don't know if it's the best idea to have a computer right next to a 12" speaker???

I could see the potential for something breaking.....

 

As lond as the Memory or the HDD arnt near the Magnent.....

 

Memory can sit right next to the magnet. The only problem there might be from an electrostatic discharge. Which is possible if your pumping enough juice into the sub. However in order for a spark to bridge the distance the sub would have to be extremely close to the RAM. 6" of distance should provide adaquate protection. You could also ground the speaker casting to the frame of the car.

However, the HDD will die quickly if its not magnetically shielded. Either the speaker has to be shielded or the HDD must be. A distance of 2 1/2 feet, or 3 feet should be enough to prevent the HDD from being polarized.

With the price of Durons and such I'd consider getting one of them, along with a shuttle Micro AT board. It would save you some serious space. Plus just about everything will be on the mobo. That will cut down on power consumption, and heat production.

 

I've heard that the desktop hdd will last longer if it's mounted on it's side... that's how mine is mounted, and it's lasted almost a year so far....

 

GREAT! cause thats how its gonna be, computer has all parts and is all ready to go in, I just have to figure out how/what to use to "mount" everything. What did you guys use. Did you fab up some kind of frame or something?

Heres the specs:

AMD K6-2 300
96 Megs Ram
ATI Rage II w/ A/V out/In
FX Plus 3d Sound Card
2 Gig Hdd
32x CD Rom
USB Trigger Style Mouse
(Dont know about Keyboard yet)
Windows 98
Sony USB Memory Stick Reader/Writer

probobly more that I am forgetting!

 

Well, I wouldn't mount a Desktop HDD on its side(vertically) because it puts unnecesary strain on the flat motor bearings. They should be mounted flat. Over time operating a drive like that my cause some problems.

But it won't fail in a day, it'll fail in about 1 or more years of use.'

If you still need a drive get the one with the highest density platters, and the least amount of platters. Less weight, heat, and energy use. Also less moving parts so it won't wear out as fast.

HDD's are usually stacked like records on top of each other. The more platters there are the more heat is generated while the HDD is active.

 

That's cool, I'll be doing something similar in the not so distant future, only it'll do more and it will have much more hard drive space

 

i never heard that about computer hard drives..

 

Yep, we all know that less rotational mass is better. Same concept applies to hard drives. Take apart and old useless hard drive if you want to see it. Its pretty interesting.