# Carputer users: power supply?



## speakerboy (Oct 2, 2007)

I am thinking about doing a carputer for the flexibility in my car, but what are you guys doing for power supplies? Are you running those 12V carpc power supplies, a converter, or something custom?

My holdback from buying the 12V one is the power cap: only a max of 160watts, and I don't want to be limited to a mini-itx board with no growth potential.

Let's hear what's in your carputer system, and what you're doing about power.


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## NaamanF (Jan 18, 2006)

You don't want a power hog for a carputer. Unless you plan on adding a couple extra batteries. 120-150 watts is plenty if you plan it right. I am using a 120 with no problem on a ITX w/pentium centrino 1.7.


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## speakerboy (Oct 2, 2007)

I want to be able to run an audio card, and enough RAM to make it usable. I know it's not really an audio question, but what about a video card. Is that completely out of the question?


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## NaamanF (Jan 18, 2006)

Trust me when I say you want to think about small low power cool running computer. Ram isn't going to eat up the power. CPU will. I am runing the 1.7 with 1gb ram 7200rpm HD, and a PCI audio card with out problems. I still plan on changing it again to something that runs cooler with a newer large 3.5" HDD. Think small and cool for a carputer. Keep Crysis on your home computer.


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## speakerboy (Oct 2, 2007)

NaamanF said:


> Trust me when I say you want to think about small low power cool running computer. Ram isn't going to eat up the power. CPU will. I am runing the 1.7 with 1gb ram 7200rpm HD, and a PCI audio card with out problems. I still plan on changing it again to something that runs cooler with a newer large 3.5" HDD. Think small and cool for a carputer. Keep Crysis on your home computer.


Haha, no Crysis. Just for (gulp) DVD playback, and a nice audio card, maybe Auzentech or something. I want something that I can do T/A, crossover, and EQ through without using another piece in the chain.


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## NaamanF (Jan 18, 2006)

speakerboy said:


> Haha, no Crysis. Just for (gulp) DVD playback, and a nice audio card, maybe Auzentech or something. I want something that I can do T/A, crossover, and EQ through without using another piece in the chain.


Audio cards don't use a lot of power. 120 will be fine if you use a mobile low power CPU. Check out MP3Car.com for more info.


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## chongl (Jan 8, 2008)

You can get a DC-DC power supply which is what I have at 250W. You can go the inverter to regular PSU route but I ditched that since I had ground noise issues. You can get the "smart" supplies made by OPUS or the DSATX. You can read about more of those on MP3Car.


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## bretti_kivi (Dec 3, 2007)

... a normal 3.5HDD? they eat 1A at startup!

Anyway. Why you need power? DVD is done in the background with a real processor, so a dualcore should be mooooore than enough. What OS? What Display?

A centrino / dualcore with 1GB RAM and 2 PCIs taken is more than enough; if you can stretch to a 2.5" 160GB SATA then all the better. I'm personally mildly worried about my P III 1GHz with 512MB RAM, WinXP, Foobar, Nav and some other toys... that should still work, but i'll test offloading some of the EQ. More than that processor power should be plenty.

Bret


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## NaamanF (Jan 18, 2006)

Sorry I actually meant 2.5" now that 500gb are just around the corner I see no reason not to use one now. I don't see the need for using a dual core CPU since no software made for car use is going to take advantage of the second core.


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## mulletboy2 (Aug 17, 2006)

I was running a DS-ATX in my last car (220W).. 20 minutes worth of capacitance at full load IIRC, programmable shutdown controller etc.. it's expensive as anything, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. I probably never needed anywhere near 220W (it was a desktop PC with about 1GHz non-mobile high current consuming processor, 512MB ram, 2 5.25" hard discs, DVD drive and a DMX 6Fire soundcard), but it was nice to not have to worry about it.


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## Megalomaniac (Feb 12, 2007)

I have an m2atx DC psu i have sitting here unused. I had a carputer for a while but lcd fried so i ripped carputer out of car. if you want it pm me and we can work something out. 

I'll tell you this the m2atx is rated at 160watts, not max. it can power a lot of things.

i powered my lcd with it, dvd rom, and m10k mobo. worked like a champ imo.


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## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq...rt-psu-model-power-supply-work-my-system.html

^Great link. Search for power calculator or power supply calculator on there. There are a few out there. Video cards need power from the 5V and 3.3V lines IIRC.

Mobile Pentium4's should be able to use the M2-ATX. IF you need more current on the 12V line for the processor look at the DS-ATX or the Opus320.

A regular Pentium4 is noisy and power hungry. The Dual Core's from Intel and AMD both get the power from the 12V line but run cool and are lower wattage than the older P4's. P=VI Take the Wattage of the processor/12 and figure out if you've got the current on the 12V line to handle it.


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## Megalomaniac (Feb 12, 2007)

durwood said:


> http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq...rt-psu-model-power-supply-work-my-system.html
> 
> ^Great link. Search for power calculator or power supply calculator on there. There are a few out there. Video cards need power from the 5V and 3.3V lines IIRC.
> 
> ...


Listen to this nerd he knows his shiz, ive read most of his posts on mp3car ^^

onlything i dont agree with him still is sacrificing ac blowers for SQ : that we spoke about in the past lmao(inside joke)


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## bombledmonk (Jul 7, 2007)

Use a processor like this and you should have no problems building a carputer with a 120W DC PSU. It has got more power than most people need in a multimedia setup and is a power sipper at 35W full load. (most of the time it will be in the single digits idle.) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116038

If you feel the need for a a dual core in the car (not sure why you'd need it) you could still fit in the small PSU bill with a 45W (again much lower at idle) beauty. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103204



durwood said:


> http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq...rt-psu-model-power-supply-work-my-system.html
> 
> ^Great link. ......
> 
> Video cards need power from the 5V and 3.3V lines IIRC.


All modern discrete video cards are primarily powered by the 12V rail.


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

im using a carnetix p1900 at the moment with a 1.8 or 2 something ghz celeron.. works fine for most things.. i think i may step it up to a dual core mac mini and run windows on it later. i believe carnetix also makes a p2400 or something that has higher power ratings, but is quite similar to the p1900 i have.

as for sound.. usb or firewire will probably be the way i am going if i upgrade...

currently i have:
Xenarc PC w/celeron
2.5" 45gb hd.. for OS and programs
3.5" 160gb hd for music and media
USB laptop CD/DVD drive (powered by external 5v supply)
USB peripherals (hubs, touch screen, wifi, etc also powered by 5v)
USB Sound (powered by another 5v supply) 
also 12v for 7" touchscreen. and any other devices i may have...



Another alternative is to use a circuit in which shutdown and poweron by an inverter is controlled by the ignition. this will let you use any sized household supply. but you should probably be good at building these things before attempting.


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## sedtc (Jan 26, 2008)

as stated earlier, low power is the way to go. low power consumption=less heat to dissipate=quiet pc. try to use laptop parts if possible for the cpu, hdd, and dvd drive. you may also want to consider using an additional POL to power some of your peripherals. 

after reading countless horror stories that were usually associated with PSU deficiencies, i was a more than a little paranoid about the power issue. my solution, although a bit overkill, was to use two m2-atx PSUs. One powers my MB and CPU while the other runs the 3.5" HDD, an additional external HDD, USB hub, dvd drive, LCD, fans and anything else that may need 12v or 5v. needless to say, there are no power issues with my setup and the 2 m2s were more cost effective than any of the 200w PSUs that were available  

whatever you decide, do your research. mp3car definitely offers the most info on this subject. i would also encourage you to take a look at a htpc forum, they can give good info on building a quiet pc.

and please, no inverters. in general they are more trouble than they are worth.


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

most people overshoot actual power demands. i will probably sell my p1900 and xenarc pc for a mac mini and a p2400 just for a little more beef.. my current pc blows up my VIA MII by a long shot.. i have all that stuff sitting.. for sale. including an M1ATX psu.

but im running a ton of gear off of that tiny power supply i have. the only one i had issue with was the 5v line, which i had to buy an additional psu (huge 10-15 amps or so). everything works great though.


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## durwood (Mar 7, 2007)

Megalomaniac said:


> onlything i dont agree with him still is sacrificing ac blowers for SQ : that we spoke about in the past lmao(inside joke)


Those will be back in action this year. "Stereo" begone! poof! Hello ambiophonics.


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## moparman79 (Jan 31, 2008)

I use the opus 150w m-atx power supply since I use a micro-atx board. You kinda have to figure out what type of setup you want. MINI ITX or micro-atx or atx motherboard. then the appropriate PSU for that setup. like I use intel micro-atx board which I use the opus 150w psu. My processor is intel core 2 duo 1066mhz, 4MB cache, 1.86mhz and it uses 65watts. my setup never have problems running several program at the same time. the important thing, never has any overheating issues, runs cool even during the summer. I know personally I had some shutdown issues with the 150 psu(1st generation one's) lately when the car is setting when the engine is off, the carputer would shut off then reboot. I think the power supply is going dead. I have had the power supply for four years. So I will be getting the opus 180w psu which will have the amp turn on w/ anti- thump. Now I get the thump in my speaker when the carputer starts up. that will be fixed with the new power supply


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## moparman79 (Jan 31, 2008)

sedtc said:


> as stated earlier, low power is the way to go. low power consumption=less heat to dissipate=quiet pc. try to use laptop parts if possible for the cpu, hdd, and dvd drive. you may also want to consider using an additional POL to power some of your peripherals.
> 
> after reading countless horror stories that were usually associated with PSU deficiencies, i was a more than a little paranoid about the power issue. my solution, although a bit overkill, was to use two m2-atx PSUs. One powers my MB and CPU while the other runs the 3.5" HDD, an additional external HDD, USB hub, dvd drive, LCD, fans and anything else that may need 12v or 5v. needless to say, there are no power issues with my setup and the 2 m2s were more cost effective than any of the 200w PSUs that were available
> 
> ...


I use only a opus 150w psu and I use 8usb ports, 3.5hdd, slim dvd drive, 2 fans 1gb ddr-2 memory, xenarc 7'' tsv monitor and external soundcard. All of these are power off the 150w psu. 
You would only need that much power from two psu for processors that are pushing 120w +. Mine is only 65w for a desktop processor.


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