Originally posted by WildChild:
The inventory
Intel D865PERLL motherboard (purchased)
Intel 3.0GHz Socket478 800MHz FSB CPU w/1mb catch (buying)
SATA 80GB hard drive (buying)
SATA 160GB hard drive (undicided)
2GB 4x512 (type undicided)
sound card (undicided)
video card (undicided)
External modem for downloading and upgrading (purchased)
Windows XP Home Edition (purchased)
External DVD-ROM (type undicided, will mount somewhere in the car for easy access)
Antec Super Lanboy mini tower (purchased, has plenty of room and a plexy glass side for show)
Monitors (undicided, but I do want one touch screen some where around the dash and one 15" in the trunk)



I would actually look at the newer motherboard/processor combo that uses a pentium M processor since one of your bigger problems in the car will be heat and the Pentium M series run much cooler then the P4 series. If you can find the new i855GMEm-LFS
I would get something like that. That will be a little more expensive. For your boot drive you might want to look at laptop drives since the car is a bit harsher enviroment than your normal desktop computer. Some people have had good luck with normal hard drives in the car but other people have had many failures.

2GB is overkill for most anything in the car and will just make your computer take longer to boot up. 1GB should be enough I would think.

You need to decide if you want a dual head video card or not. With a dual head video card you can show either the same or different pictures on both screens. Without the dual head you would have to use some sort of splitter and just show the same thing on both.

For the touchscreen your two main choices are xenarc and lilliput there may be a few other options but I can't think of anything right now. Do you want a 1 DIN screen or do you plan to mold it into your dash somehow?

Also you should check out the forums on http://www.mp3car.com for more ideas about in car PC's.

Beaten - 2003 MazdaSpeed Protege 29K <- broken hearted Daily/Weekend Beater - 1990 miata 138K - AutoX every weekend = Adult driven on weekends