Philster i could spend u8p to 100 pound maybe this is a little scimpy i dunno?
madness
Started by
Podcake
, Jul 18 2005 01:21 PM
150 replies to this topic
#47
mattvallins
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Posted 20 July 2005 - 10:25 PM
The best place, if you know anywhere local, find a skip. The best ones are the PSUs which are cheap. You can rip off the heatsinks and make new ones which fit around the other gubbins inside your car-mounted PC.
#48
Podcake
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Posted 20 July 2005 - 10:34 PM
ok people i cant talk much online at the moment because i'm on holiday in sunny france ( just found a phone line for the old lappy tho)
basically i'm gonna tell you about getting a cheap system.
the best way is to find someone who either doesnt know what they have and doesnt know what it is worth or the better option is to find someone who doesnt care.
for your money its NOT usually worth buying this kind of stuff second hand on ebay ( because of the posting costs)- ok so i bought my power supply off there, but only becuase it was a good deal, ( i needed a small power supply that would work off mains)
mains is not your freind really in a car because its buggy to work with ( and can be dangerous) but i needed mine to work in the house too so mains was the only real option to go with
how much it will cost you all depends on what your budget is, what you can scrounge, and what you have. mine cost virtually nill because i was lucky enough to acquire all of the parts from cheap/free sources.
to do it cheap you need to find:
a motherboard ( u need it to be small- mini AT, micro ATX, and mini itx are all small ( usually 3 slots only)- the former two being cheaper as they are out of date and mass produced respectively) mini AT is usually good because they tend to use ' headers' which are connectors that clip onto the board and come out on the back of the case wherever you want them to - hence more versatile try and get as many on board features as possible ( even if the board is bottom end and REALLY BAD the sound quality will be more than usable and probably better than CD quality)
a power supply of some sort- some guys i know will spend $300 on a psu ( i wont) i paid £6 including delivery for mine- see what you can find
a processor- the cheapest for what they do are probably AMD K6-2 chips ( like i run) they are ten-a-penny and becoming too slow for modern operating sysems ( unless you know how to tweak them
) arround the 400-450 Mhz mark should play music/video happily but still be fairly cheap
ram- u dont need a lot of this to play music ( say 128-256 meg of ram is ample- mine has run off 64 before it all depends what you need it to do)
and a hard drive- ( obviously the bigger this is the more music/video/etc.... you can hold) BE WARNED - older motherboards usually ahve limits as to how big the hard drive can be- so as someone was asking 10 gig is probably a good size to start with
the estimates of sizes and the such are not exact requirements ( you can get xp pro running on a 233 with 64 meg of ram- for goddsake ive seen a 486 running xp pro, but they are what i advise for non- experienced users)
you can ( if you 'shop' arround and ask people) do something like this for nearly free but it could cost say upto £100 to build mine from parts off ebay- if you are doing that perhaps you might like to spend a little bit more and get a brand new system?
anyhow, not sure what the admin/moderators are like about this, but here is a link to another website with forum ( plz shout at me if there is a problem with me posting this:)
www.mp3car.com
enjoy
oh yes. please forgive BAD spelling and the such i'm paying by the min and its costing a small fortune :S:S
ttfn people ( and dont worry i'll try and reply when i get a break in sitting in the sun
PoD
basically i'm gonna tell you about getting a cheap system.
the best way is to find someone who either doesnt know what they have and doesnt know what it is worth or the better option is to find someone who doesnt care.
for your money its NOT usually worth buying this kind of stuff second hand on ebay ( because of the posting costs)- ok so i bought my power supply off there, but only becuase it was a good deal, ( i needed a small power supply that would work off mains)
mains is not your freind really in a car because its buggy to work with ( and can be dangerous) but i needed mine to work in the house too so mains was the only real option to go with
how much it will cost you all depends on what your budget is, what you can scrounge, and what you have. mine cost virtually nill because i was lucky enough to acquire all of the parts from cheap/free sources.
to do it cheap you need to find:
a motherboard ( u need it to be small- mini AT, micro ATX, and mini itx are all small ( usually 3 slots only)- the former two being cheaper as they are out of date and mass produced respectively) mini AT is usually good because they tend to use ' headers' which are connectors that clip onto the board and come out on the back of the case wherever you want them to - hence more versatile try and get as many on board features as possible ( even if the board is bottom end and REALLY BAD the sound quality will be more than usable and probably better than CD quality)
a power supply of some sort- some guys i know will spend $300 on a psu ( i wont) i paid £6 including delivery for mine- see what you can find
a processor- the cheapest for what they do are probably AMD K6-2 chips ( like i run) they are ten-a-penny and becoming too slow for modern operating sysems ( unless you know how to tweak them
) arround the 400-450 Mhz mark should play music/video happily but still be fairly cheapram- u dont need a lot of this to play music ( say 128-256 meg of ram is ample- mine has run off 64 before it all depends what you need it to do)
and a hard drive- ( obviously the bigger this is the more music/video/etc.... you can hold) BE WARNED - older motherboards usually ahve limits as to how big the hard drive can be- so as someone was asking 10 gig is probably a good size to start with
the estimates of sizes and the such are not exact requirements ( you can get xp pro running on a 233 with 64 meg of ram- for goddsake ive seen a 486 running xp pro, but they are what i advise for non- experienced users)
you can ( if you 'shop' arround and ask people) do something like this for nearly free but it could cost say upto £100 to build mine from parts off ebay- if you are doing that perhaps you might like to spend a little bit more and get a brand new system?
anyhow, not sure what the admin/moderators are like about this, but here is a link to another website with forum ( plz shout at me if there is a problem with me posting this:)
www.mp3car.com
enjoy
oh yes. please forgive BAD spelling and the such i'm paying by the min and its costing a small fortune :S:S
ttfn people ( and dont worry i'll try and reply when i get a break in sitting in the sun
PoD
#49
philster
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Posted 20 July 2005 - 10:47 PM
Okay if your going for new this is what you are looking at minimum
VIA EPIA 5000 Eden Mainboard (onbaord 533mhz porcessor, sound and tv-out) £60
Kingston Low Profile 128MB PC133 SDRAM £20
80gig 7200 rpm hardrive £35
12V 55W Epia, V & CL/PD "Plug In" Power Supply Board £30
£145
This is the basics to get you started, you'd need to borrow an optical drive to install the o/s and also make some sort of case for it all to be mounted in. You'd also need some sort of input device like a keypad and still need to buy a tft.
If you're not bothered about it being a little bigger there are other options like using a small atx board. You can pick these up with a pentium chip 400mhz plus for pocket change.
VIA EPIA 5000 Eden Mainboard (onbaord 533mhz porcessor, sound and tv-out) £60
Kingston Low Profile 128MB PC133 SDRAM £20
80gig 7200 rpm hardrive £35
12V 55W Epia, V & CL/PD "Plug In" Power Supply Board £30
£145
This is the basics to get you started, you'd need to borrow an optical drive to install the o/s and also make some sort of case for it all to be mounted in. You'd also need some sort of input device like a keypad and still need to buy a tft.
If you're not bothered about it being a little bigger there are other options like using a small atx board. You can pick these up with a pentium chip 400mhz plus for pocket change.
#50
philster
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Posted 20 July 2005 - 11:11 PM
Just had a scoot on ebay and computer places and found these
433mhz CPU, FAN, Mobo Slot1&370 + 32mbRAM, video, sound
motherboard
£11
128MB PC100 SDRAM FREE P+P
memory
£6
NEW! Sapphire Radeon 7000 64MB DDR AGP TV-Out (although you could get a lot cheaper at a computer fair s/h
graphics with tv-out
£29.90
40GB Samsung 7200rpm 2Mb Cache IDE Hard Drive OEM...
hardisk
£28.89
Ituner PW200M
PSU
£29.32
Total £105.11
Of course this could be made a lot cheaper with s/h hardisk and graphics if you can find any good ones.
433mhz CPU, FAN, Mobo Slot1&370 + 32mbRAM, video, sound
motherboard
£11
128MB PC100 SDRAM FREE P+P
memory
£6
NEW! Sapphire Radeon 7000 64MB DDR AGP TV-Out (although you could get a lot cheaper at a computer fair s/h
graphics with tv-out
£29.90
40GB Samsung 7200rpm 2Mb Cache IDE Hard Drive OEM...
hardisk
£28.89
Ituner PW200M
PSU
£29.32
Total £105.11
Of course this could be made a lot cheaper with s/h hardisk and graphics if you can find any good ones.
#51
binge
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Posted 20 July 2005 - 11:27 PM
How are you controlling these PCs. For instance. Do you have moniter, Mouse and Keyboard.
I can see how you can get away without a keyboard. But what about the moniter and Mouse?
Ok, Its only media player or whatever, but how do you upen up that programme when the PC boots.
Also, When you turn the keys off, do you have to make sure you shutdown the PC first?
<|Ben|>
I can see how you can get away without a keyboard. But what about the moniter and Mouse?
Ok, Its only media player or whatever, but how do you upen up that programme when the PC boots.
Also, When you turn the keys off, do you have to make sure you shutdown the PC first?
<|Ben|>
#52
nag1_uk
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 07:20 AM
Is that power supply up for the job? It just seems a bit cheep! I was looking at the opus based ones but they are closer to £120! Will that recomended suppy work while engine is cranking etc? this one looks ok http://www.itx-wareh...x?ProductID=347
I must admit I was aiming to put a laptop in the car but with this sort of price it my be worthwhile building up an old pc!
The screen I am looking at is a 8" lcd screen from Lin itx. About £200 but it is supposed to be good. If you look at the forums on mp3car thay do slate the cheaper screens so beware. I must say I have not experienced any screen but I know what i will be invesing in very shortly!
Mike
I must admit I was aiming to put a laptop in the car but with this sort of price it my be worthwhile building up an old pc!
The screen I am looking at is a 8" lcd screen from Lin itx. About £200 but it is supposed to be good. If you look at the forums on mp3car thay do slate the cheaper screens so beware. I must say I have not experienced any screen but I know what i will be invesing in very shortly!
Mike
#53
philster
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 09:56 AM
If you look at the forums on mp3car thay do slate the cheaper screens so beware.
Yeah the screens do vary a lot, the one i have is a 7" tft from maplin, its not the greatest in the world but its a couple of years old now and was very cheap at the time, it works through the tv out on the graphics card which just goes onto the line in on the screen. I'm not really gonna use it as a pc it will mainly be for video and mp3 so i don't need to use a mouse and will be using this software mediaengine
wether that power supply is any good i honestly can't say as i've never had one but will be ordering one in next few weeks.
How are you controlling these PCs. For instance. Do you have moniter, Mouse and Keyboard.
I'm using a 7" TFT through the tv-out on the graphics, to control it i'm using a 19 digit keypad and will also be using a remote through ifra-red. The keypad can be programmed through media engine to do any specific task and i'm also gonna change the bios so that i can use a password to boot so i can just type a number in through the keypad and i don't need to switch it on manually, i'm also gonna get a small wireless keyboard with a trackball thingy for if i want to do anything else.
#54
mini_sam
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 11:00 AM
433mhz CPU, FAN, Mobo Slot1&370 + 32mbRAM, video, sound
motherboard
£11
would that do the job then? it doesnt seem to state how large it is though
#55
philster
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 11:45 AM
it looks like a small atx board to me, like i said this is a compromise really and will be a fair bit bigger than a standard mini itx board i think they are about 7" square wheras a small atx board is about 10" but its very cheap.
You ideally need 256mb ram as well which will make it run a fair bit quicker although you'll probably need 2 slots of 128 for a board that old.
The board i'm running is a bit of a wierd one theres not a lot of info about it on the net either, its out of a small desktop patriot pc.
The spec is
celeron 400mhz processor
256mb ram (2x128)
4meg onboard graphics with tv-out
10 gig hardrive (to be replaced with 40 gig 7200rpm)
2 usb slots
This runs the media engine no slower than my home pc (2.6gig athlon xp, 512ram, 80gig 7200rpm drive) so i don't really need anything quicker.
You ideally need 256mb ram as well which will make it run a fair bit quicker although you'll probably need 2 slots of 128 for a board that old.
The board i'm running is a bit of a wierd one theres not a lot of info about it on the net either, its out of a small desktop patriot pc.
The spec is
celeron 400mhz processor
256mb ram (2x128)
4meg onboard graphics with tv-out
10 gig hardrive (to be replaced with 40 gig 7200rpm)
2 usb slots
This runs the media engine no slower than my home pc (2.6gig athlon xp, 512ram, 80gig 7200rpm drive) so i don't really need anything quicker.
#56
mini_sam
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 02:28 PM
do you have a screen for this? the ones i have been looking at are a fair few bob! :erm:
#58
mini_sam
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 03:22 PM
crikey, the screens dont half cost a bit of money!! and that is what i will need...
i have, a 10gb hard drive, 256mb RAM, various cables, will be buying one of those motherboards off ebay, and i have a graphics card!! i just need a power supply and a TV Monitor to use it with! :erm:
i have, a 10gb hard drive, 256mb RAM, various cables, will be buying one of those motherboards off ebay, and i have a graphics card!! i just need a power supply and a TV Monitor to use it with! :erm:
#59
philster
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 03:38 PM
if its a normal graphics card make sure the monitor can take a vga input.
There are cheaper ones but you'd need a tv out to use with it plus you get a tv-tuner aswell which is a bonus.
http://cgi.ebay.co.u...5788752650&rd=1
There are cheaper ones but you'd need a tv out to use with it plus you get a tv-tuner aswell which is a bonus.
http://cgi.ebay.co.u...5788752650&rd=1
#60
mini_sam
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 03:46 PM
ooooh ok, i suppose i could put it together now, and wait till money for a screen!! what sort of cases do you use, home made ones?
:grin:
:grin:
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