# Thinking of building a in car PC



## welshtony (Jun 8, 2013)

Hi all,

To start of with I am sorry for this thread as I bet you get these kind of threads loads of times.
Had a look through the other threads and there are some pretty impressive builds on here.

I am considering building a in car PC and I will be honest in saying I have not got the 1st clue of where to start.
I have built my own gaming PC for my home office but I know power is a huge thing to think about with cars due to the 12volt power supply therefor everything needs to be thought through.

I have also been looking at double din stereo's and I keep going back and forth as to what I really want.


Ok what I want.

I would like a CD + DVD (possibly blu-ray) player built into it.
Ability to install a decent sound system to it so pre amp out puts are a must.
Sat Nav built in.
Radio (Ideally digital)
Hands free with the phone (maybe a bluetooth dongle and a small usb mic?)
Internet for when in the car parks board and waiting for people (maybe have a docking station for my Samsung Galaxy S3 and use the phones net?)

Hmm off the top of my head they are the only features I can think off.

I would also like it for the touch screen to go in place of my current double din screen.

Any help on what to look out for or where to look (I am in the UK) would be very much depreciated

Thanks


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## Wy2quiet (Jun 29, 2010)

All are doable. The hands free is the trickiest, and not really (as far as I know) properly implemented. So I would scratch that off for the time being and just use the speakerphone on your phone as I do.

I built mine for around $450, and it is infinitely more useful than any H/U or double din unit.

Best SQ, you are going to want a solid 7.1 channel card. Depending on the case size, the 1010LT or the Asus Xonar's are great options with very high signal/noise ratios and output voltages.

In my opinion, skip low power processors as they are trash if you decide to use the PC to run things active. My bottom of the line ($39) full power Sandy Bridge is about 3-4 times faster than the best low power Atom. We are now at a point where all the full size processors are very efficient and just use their multipliers to reduce idle/off throttle usage to near low power processor levels.

You will need an M2 or M4 ATX DC-DC regulator.

Besides that, build it like a normal PC.


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## welshtony (Jun 8, 2013)

Thank you for the reply.

Been looking everywhere for the M4 ATX DC-DC regulator sold in the Uk :worried:
I did how ever find this site with what I think I might need but unsure. Here is the page > Car Computer UK

Ah brilliant if I can build it as a normal PC I think I will go down the micro or mini atx route with on board graphics rather than a graphics card due to size.
And up to a max of 4GB Ram I think


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## Hi-FiDelity (Jan 22, 2013)

If you're going to go integrated graphics I would go the with an AMD APU as apposed to a an Intel unit. I know that you won't be doing any kind of gaming on this system but the lowest AMD APU still has a significantly more powerful GPU than any last gen Intel. Also as far as ram goes most mini ATX boards can support up to 16GB (2 slots + 2 8GB dimms = 16GB) and with memory prices the way they are I'd go with 8GB.


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## welshtony (Jun 8, 2013)

Thank you for your reply.

I prefer AMD over intel anyway. Had AMD computers for as long as I can remember. Intel ones just dont agree with me lol
Yeah saying that you are correct with the prices so yeah 8GB may be worth going for.
With the prices of HDD's I think a 1TB one will be handy also  Im sure that will come in handy with storing music lol


EDIT: actually thinking about it another question is how do people go about with disc drives be it CD,DVD or Blu-Ray drives?

Ideally I would like it to be in the dash. Maybe a flip down monitor be it manual or motorized with the drive behind it
Is that possible?


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## Hi-FiDelity (Jan 22, 2013)

welshtony said:


> Thank you for your reply.
> 
> I prefer AMD over intel anyway. Had AMD computers for as long as I can remember. Intel ones just dont agree with me lol


Same here. 



welshtony said:


> Yeah saying that you are correct with the prices so yeah 8GB may be worth going for.
> With the prices of HDD's I think a 1TB one will be handy also  Im sure that will come in handy with storing music lol


I would either go Solid state (I know capacity and price are a big issue there) or get a large regular HDD and pad the **** out of it to dampen shocks as much as possible.




welshtony said:


> EDIT: actually thinking about it another question is how do people go about with disc drives be it CD,DVD or Blu-Ray drives?
> Ideally I would like it to be in the dash. Maybe a flip down monitor be it manual or motorized with the drive behind it
> Is that possible?


It's possible just gonna take some work and a bit of trial and error. Personally I would get an external USB/Sata drive and hide it in the glove box or center console but the level of difficulty and complexity is ultimately up to you.


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## welshtony (Jun 8, 2013)

O yeah I didnt even think of the shock from the roads :/ 
I can get a 240GB SSD drive for about £100 (been looking into 1 for my gaming rig)

I have been looking around and found loads of old posts on different sites and videos on youtube where some screens have a built in DVD player on them. Only thing is I can't actually find 1 for sale or I jsut have no idea what I am looking for lol.

Can anyone recommend 1 of these monitors?


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