Post by thread:(OT) Re: Thanks for the Information

I've been thinking of a car computer as well, for playing MP3's, I thought of making control panels that connect to the LPT port (using a pic) to control what song and playlist etc but it looked to hard to do the windows software. So to ge t around it I've decided to get an (ntsc) 4" LCD monitor from Timeline inc for about $70 - $80 and connect this to the video out of an AGP video card and to controll it I'll use a trackball therefore no custom written software, no hassel s etc Regards Stuart P.S. I've priced motherboards here in Aus and i can get a motherboard with AGP video, sound,100 baseT network card and a 56K modem all built in (making it very compact) for about $180 Mark Willis wrote: {Quote hidden}> Hey, I'm glad I found the URL etc. on those LCD panels, too. I'm > seriously thinking Car Computer, here... (Just what *I* need, Yet > Another Machine To Maintain <G>) > > Mark > > Panos Kenterlis wrote: > > > > For Mark Willis. > > > > Thank you Mark very much for helping me. I am sure the information you gave > > me will be very handy. > > > > \||||Y||||// Panos Kenterlis > > [.]~[.]-d) Technological and Educational Institute of Piraeus > > | U ||/ (BSc student) > > | '==' | Athens - Piraeus > > \_L_/ Greece

Stuart This sounds brilliant to me. I have been thinking of building an MP3 player for my lounge room and you have almost done the entire design for me. Where do I get this stuff ? Now what about a remote control. I was planning to make my MP3 player Linux based. I figured I could knock up a bit of code to read the parallel port to provide an external user interface but I suffer from chronic laziness and if I can avoid doing any work I will. What about fan noise. Is it possible to load this motherboard you have suggested with a processor that doesn't need a fan. I have discovered you can get away with less processing power doing MP3 stuff under Linux than Windows. This might help. Steve {Original Message removed}

Steve Ridley wrote: > Stuart > > This sounds brilliant to me. I have been thinking of building an MP3 player > for my lounge room and you have almost done the entire design for me. I've been thinking of having one for home as well, get it to run through my home automation system I'm slowly building up. That way I can do all the MP3 encoding at home and when I drive in I just run a network cable out to my car and drag and drop albums and playlists from inside to my car. > Where > do I get this stuff ? http://www.winamp.com for the player (for win95)Just computers magazine (in Australia) for the motherboard and other parts or a computer swap meet/market You'll have to design your own powersupply for the car > Now what about a remote control. I was planning to > make my MP3 player Linux based. I figured I could knock up a bit of code to > read the parallel port to provide an external user interface but I suffer > from chronic laziness and if I can avoid doing any work I will. I can't say to much about linux, I've tried running it at home but it's a steep learning curve on your own, you could do the code yourself if you can but i was trying to do it on the KISS principle > What about > fan noise. Is it possible to load this motherboard you have suggested with a > processor that doesn't need a fan. I have discovered you can get away with > less processing power doing MP3 stuff under Linux than Windows. This might > help. > > Steve I'm not to sure if you can get a processor without a fan these days. What sort of fan noise do you mean? wind noise or electrical noise. I'd say you could get away with less processing power under linux than windows (it also would save you buying a copy of windows) and if I was experienced enough in Linux I'd probably go that way myself. Ive mentioned this Idea to friends and if I got this working I think Iwould be making four of them rather than one. Regards Stuart

There is no way you could run any processor without a cooling device I don't think. Certainly not a SLOT chip, they have fans built onto the chip. You could replace the fan with a peltier device but these chew a wack of power which is bad in the car. But it'd be nice for the home model to have silence (although I'm not sure how quiet Peltiers are). Also, MP3 decoding should take the same ammount of processor regardless of platform but of course the processing overhead of Windoze will crank abit of heat. But just MP3 decoding will push even a low end pentium. A 486 would be pushing it, although Winamp has options to tailor decoding for a 486. Or you could build an ISA decoder card and use a 286 (need own software to pump to card but that's it). Certainly a P100 could do the software decoding and run Windoze. AU$770, that's a bit excessive (both in terms of an MP3 player and in terms of what you're getting). Try this for a similar system: $140 for Celeron 366 (or $170 for a celeron 450) $285 for 13gig ($215 for 8Gb) $50 for 32meg (or $80 for 64) Totals: C366/32Mb/13Gb - $475 + $260 (M/B + display) = $735 (same price but 13Gb with celeron 366 (don't know what you had) and 32 (again don't know what you had)) All these prices are from the TPO (http://www.tpo.com.au). But that's a good desktop let alone Mp3 decoder. If i were you I'd be heading to a bargain computer store and saving yourself a good few hundred bucks by buying a low level pentium with 32Mb (or maybe only 16Mb) and a seperate sound card and video card. It may not fit under the seat but you'll have a couple of hundred dollars to build a place for it in the boot and upgrade your car stereo. Tom. ----- Original Message ----- From: Stuart O'Reilly <spam_OUTpigTakeThisOuTAR.COM.AU> Subject: Re: (OT) Re: Thanks for the Information > > What about > > fan noise. Is it possible to load this motherboard you have suggested with a > > processor that doesn't need a fan. I have discovered you can get away with > > less processing power doing MP3 stuff under Linux than Windows. This might > > help.

I meant the wind noise of the fan. I really notice it late at night. Of course this wouldn't be a problem in a car and probably not at all when the music is playing. I am just learning to use Linux myself and I agree the learning curve is steep. However, I have already discovered things are just that much more reliable than on Windows. This has been very apparent when ripping CD's. I decided to go this way because after years of use I had the impression that Windows couldn't run long enough to play a whole CD. Not in one go. <straight face> > >> What about >> fan noise. Is it possible to load this motherboard you have suggested with a >> processor that doesn't need a fan. I have discovered you can get away with >> less processing power doing MP3 stuff under Linux than Windows. This might >> help. >> >> Steve > >I'm not to sure if you can get a processor without a fan these days. What sort >of fan noise do you mean? wind noise or electrical noise. >I'd say you could get away with less processing power under linux than windows >(it also would save you buying a copy of windows) and if I was experienced >enough in Linux I'd probably go that way myself. >Ive mentioned this Idea to friends and if I got this working I think Iwould be >making four of them rather than one. >Regards >Stuart >

>There is no way you could run any processor without a cooling device I don't >think. Certainly not a SLOT chip, they have fans built onto the chip. You >could replace the fan with a peltier device but these chew a wack of power >which is bad in the car. But it'd be nice for the home model to have silence >(although I'm not sure how quiet Peltiers are). Also, MP3 decoding should >take the same ammount of processor regardless of platform but of course the >processing overhead of Windoze will crank abit of heat. But just MP3 >decoding will push even a low end pentium. I tried using just a large heatsink on both a P90 and a K5-75. It works fine at room temperature with the covers off, but inside a case there's just no way. It locked up after 20 minutes. If you used a peltier device without a fan you would need a very significant heatsink. The sound of a processor fan is about the same as a hard disk anyway. Full decoding is possible on a 486 or 586 @ 120 mhz but almost anything will cause it to glitch. A K5-75 or Pentium 75 is perfectly happy. I can play tunes while shoving files to the player about 1 megabyte/second through ethernet, and it is smooth with a P90, and glitches a bit with a K5-75. Partly that might be due to bus speed, 50mhz on the 75 and 60mhz on the 90, since it's a throughput problem(or maybe just need to "nice" the ftp task). If you need a power supply you can copy mine: http://www.bobblick.com/bob/projects/yamm/ If you use a motherboard with on-board audio, you might want to look at my fix for crappy sound: www.bobblick.com/bob/computer/cmi8330.html It applies to the cmi8330 sound chip and also the HT1869 which is the same thing. Cheers, Bob

Stuart O'Reilly wrote: > > Steve Ridley wrote: > > <snipped> > > What about > > fan noise. Is it possible to load this motherboard you have suggested with a > > processor that doesn't need a fan. I have discovered you can get away with > > <snipped> > I'm not to sure if you can get a processor without a fan these days. What sort > of fan noise do you mean? wind noise or electrical noise. > <snipped> One local store has a fanless CPU heat sink that's for P100 or so machines (Made by Micron), it's a nice "Top Hat" shaped aluminum dealie, about $5 or so. I think if you put a nice heat sink atop the CPU, and thermally attached that heat sink to the Case - or Car Chassis, you could do without a fan (or at least without much of one.) Something like a steel or aluminum strap, say 2" wide, 1/4" thick, should carry a lot of heat to the case. Thicker is better, here <G> If you had a Celeron or something, I'd try a heat sink that was on the outside of the case, maybe, and pretty darn huge (say 10" square by 1" tall fins, and keep it clear of anything that'll clog up the air flow?) A CPU fan really doesn't use up that much power, though, compared to a CPU's use of power, and if your CPU overheats it's not going to work right. I have laptops that have CPU fans, with all the power you have available on a car, I'd just run a CPU fan, probably... And don't worry about electrical noise (The switching electrical power supply {DC-DC converter} generates more noise than any fan CAN generate, methinks...) Mark

<x-flowed>Jut an FYI... Any Processor CAN run without a fan. Case in point. I'm currently banging on a stock Compaq Deskpro with a slot one Celeron 400mhz. No fan at all. The heat sink is large and the case is large but, the heat build up is not bad at all. BTW. The users here love them because they are soooo.. silent. Regards {Quote hidden}>From: Bob Blick <.....bblickKILLspam@spam@SABER.NET> >Reply-To: pic microcontroller discussion list <PICLISTKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU> >To: .....PICLISTKILLspam.....MITVMA.MIT.EDU >Subject: Re: (OT) Re: Thanks for the Information >Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 21:56:17 -0700 > > >There is no way you could run any processor without a cooling device I >don't > >think. Certainly not a SLOT chip, they have fans built onto the chip. You > >could replace the fan with a peltier device but these chew a wack of >power > >which is bad in the car. But it'd be nice for the home model to have >silence > >(although I'm not sure how quiet Peltiers are). Also, MP3 decoding should > >take the same ammount of processor regardless of platform but of course >the > >processing overhead of Windoze will crank abit of heat. But just MP3 > >decoding will push even a low end pentium. > >I tried using just a large heatsink on both a P90 and a K5-75. It works >fine at room temperature with the covers off, but inside a case there's >just no way. It locked up after 20 minutes. If you used a peltier device >without a fan you would need a very significant heatsink. The sound of a >processor fan is about the same as a hard disk anyway. > >Full decoding is possible on a 486 or 586 @ 120 mhz but almost anything >will cause it to glitch. A K5-75 or Pentium 75 is perfectly happy. I can >play tunes while shoving files to the player about 1 megabyte/second >through ethernet, and it is smooth with a P90, and glitches a bit with a >K5-75. Partly that might be due to bus speed, 50mhz on the 75 and 60mhz on >the 90, since it's a throughput problem(or maybe just need to "nice" the >ftp task). > >If you need a power supply you can copy mine: >http://www.bobblick.com/bob/projects/yamm/ > >If you use a motherboard with on-board audio, you might want to look at my >fix for crappy sound: >www.bobblick.com/bob/computer/cmi8330.html >It applies to the cmi8330 sound chip and also the HT1869 which is the same >thing. > >Cheers, >Bob ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com </x-flowed>

On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Cranston Grey wrote: > Jut an FYI... > Any Processor CAN run without a fan. Case in point. I'm currently banging on > a stock Compaq Deskpro with a slot one Celeron 400mhz. No fan at all. The > heat sink is large and the case is large but, the heat build up is not bad > at all. > BTW. The users here love them because they are soooo.. silent. No power supply fan either? Is this in an igloo? I agree, fans are no fun, but PC power supplies are not designed for convection cooling. You can put a quad-size heatsink on the processor and get away with no fan as long as there is decent convection, but the power supply is a different story. PC power supplies are crap and need all the air they can get. Just my .02 -Bob