Big Al's CarPC Build

For a long time, I've been wanting to build a carPC, and I've actually gone so far as to acquire a few components here and there, but I've never really sat down to do it...until now! (Insert dramatic music)

Here's the parts list:

Motherboard- ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe
Case- Minibox M350
Hard Drive- Samsung 500GB SSD
Blu-Ray Drive - Panasonic UJ-265 Slot-loaded Blu-ray Burner
Power Supply- M4-ATX 250w Intelligent DC-DC Power Supply
Capacitive Touch Screen- 7" Black Frame Capacitive Touch Screen
And Misc. other cables and parts...so far, I've spent about $520 on the PC itself

There's the motherboard installed. I wrapped the cables with split-loom to protect them from sharp edges and the heat sink fins
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...ab032fd-me.jpg
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...d1f55ce-me.jpg

I also bought a Mini-Box Pico-PSU, but it was too tight of a fit and only had one SATA power connection. I opted to go with the M4-ATX in an external configuration in its own case. I will paint it black to match.
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...4f9c037-me.jpg
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...a38d2bf-me.jpg

Here's the cables coming out the back.
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...c0fb463-me.jpg

I don't really care for it, so i think I'm going to cut out the yellow shaded section
http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...e2f4ba6-me.jpg

Well, that's it for now...I'll mod the case, re-run the cables and put power to it.

This is going to be awesome! Capacitive touch screen FTW!

If want to add fans I would recommend Noctua fans they look like shit but they are the best fans around and dead silent.

This fan should fit your PSU case :D http://www.amazon.com/Noctua-60x25mm.../dp/B009NQMESS
Specs: http://www.noctua.at/pdf/infosheets/...tasheet_en.pdf

On thing that I don't like about the touch screen design is that they adhere the board directly to the back with the connectors facing down. When you have the cables plugged in, you have a pretty tough bend to get the cables coming out back...so I had the wonderful idea of cutting thru the double stick foam tape stuff and mounting the board at a 90º angle to the back.







Unfortunately, as I was cutting...

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...a839b47-me.jpg


:whimper::fail::banghead:


I've got another ribbon cable ordered from Mouser Electronics that I hope will work.

the joys of DIY. Bet you wont do that again.

That poor ribbon cable :pout:

What about using a 90 degree adapter?
http://www.amazon.com/Afunta-90degre.../dp/B00IZYIYX8

That cable had it coming.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bobditts

the joys of DIY. Bet you wont do that again.

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Nope

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psyko

That poor ribbon cable :pout:

What about using a 90 degree adapter?
http://www.amazon.com/Afunta-90degre.../dp/B00IZYIYX8

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The input is mini HDMI

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Notloudenuf

That cable had it coming.

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Notcutresistantenuf

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigAl205

The input is mini HDMI

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That's a right angle mini HDMI to full size female HDMI adapter look at the link :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psyko

That's a right angle mini HDMI to full size female HDMI adapter look at the link :p

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Well, so it is :facepalm:

Oh well, I have other reasons for wanting to do it this way, and I'll explain when I get to that point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigAl205

On thing that I don't like about the touch screen design is that they adhere the board directly to the back with the connectors facing down. When you have the cables plugged in, you have a pretty tough bend to get the cables coming out back...so I had the wonderful idea of cutting thru the double stick foam tape stuff and mounting the board at a 90º angle to the back.







Unfortunately, as I was cutting...

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...a839b47-me.jpg


:whimper::fail::banghead:


I've got another ribbon cable ordered from Mouser Electronics that I hope will work.

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This looks like something I would do. :)

Great looking project. Pity about the breakage.

Do these pcs have the same slow startup times of a home PC. ( sorry if that is the stupidest question ever )


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ben54b

Great looking project. Pity about the breakage.

Do these pcs have the same slow startup times of a home PC. ( sorry if that is the stupidest question ever )


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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I honestly don't know yet...it's going to have a solid state hard drive, so it should be pretty fast. I have a Microsoft Surface Pro which boots up pretty fast, and that's with the pre-installed bloatware.

on my last build with dual Samsung 840 evos in raid0, the longest bit for booting was POST. after that windows popped up real quick. board was an asus, I think some others POST faster

Just curious, does RAID have any effect on boot time itself?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigAl205

Just curious, does RAID have any effect on boot time itself?

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It can the system must initialize the RAID controller on start up depending on the controller and motherboard the amount of time can very a bit. Even with a UEFI boot loader your RAID controller will still load at start up.

CarPC's in general are unique because some features included with your motherboard you will most likely never use. I would go through the BIOS and disable any controllers you’re not going to use like esata :p disabling these will speed up the post process. You could also strip out services included in Windows that are useless in a CarPC. Using a UEFI loader will also speed up boot time too although UEFI has some trade-offs it shouldn't be a problem in a carPC. Overall you should end up with a quick start up time sadly I'm unfamiliar with this chipset and CPU. If I had to guess I would say you should be able to get sub 10 second boot times without too much trouble.

like psyko aaid, I think raid would actually slow it down, the raid controller probably takes longer than the speed gains you get. with that said, i never tried it without raid, it was purely for combining the drives into a single partition. :)

usually windows startup times come back to the 4k read capability of the ssd. Raid usually doesnt help with the performance at that file size, so I would guess that startup times would suffer a bit. I would expect startup times to be pretty good as it is

Just to clarify, I wasn't looking at doing RAID, I was just curious in general.

I have 2 identical ssd's and dont raid them for the fact that boot time is slower. You can gain some transfer speeds if you are moving files from another similar speed raid setup. and can gain some read speeds, but dont think that matters for what you are doing

you have or are you getting one of these?

http://www.rcjoycon.com/base_3/menu_...m_board_idx=14

Not yet

Well, it turns out I ordered the wrong memory, and it isn't compatible. After checking the compatibility list in the manual, I found the G.Skill Ripjaws at Amazon that looks to get good reviews. I could have bought it $10 cheaper at Newegg, but with Amazon Prime, it will get here Sunday (as opposed to Newegg's lame-assed FedEx Smartpost, which would get it here some time in August :nono:).

So, the new memory worked and the PC is working on the bench. The tiny case I was using was just way too tight, so I went with a larger case. It's about 4x the size, but gives me a LOT more room to run stuff and it should run cooler also. Here it is with a temporary 120v ITX power supply.

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...8335bef-me.jpg

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...1e64955-me.jpg

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...6701d16-me.jpg

I also got the replacement ribbon cable in and it works like a charm. I fabbed up an angle bracket to mount the control board at a 90º angle so the cables come straight out the back and to also give support to the cables.

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...3309d26-me.jpg

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...644c026-me.jpg

Here's a couple of crappy night time pics of it in use

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...b17d80e-me.jpg

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/galle...48a4e41-me.jpg

Wow, that is awesome Mr. Al!

Very cool

Will the larger case fit your build as well.

I'll make it fit somehow ;)

this will help squeeze it in there

http://www.couponaholic.net/wp-conte...ky-intense.jpg

Electrical KY:

https://www.acklandsgrainger.com/ima...1JU21_AS01.JPG

Yellow 77 is the only way to go

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigAl205

Yellow 77 is the only way to go

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I think I just had flashbacks to a feeder pull a couple years ago....

I remember two of us covered in that shit from damn near head to toe and saying "If we both walk out of this room at the same time people will wonder."

Your project is looking great Al.