New comp...

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:37 pm

Friend of mine's dad has an older Miata, dude, with the top down, you can see literally ANYTHING around you. It's crazy

Ryan from Ohio · Post by **Ryan from Ohio** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 9:02 am

Damn thread jackers...

My Alero is hard to see out the rear good also...

I thought the Monte had a blind spot...

Now I look and crank my head around on the side mirrors to make sure nobody is hiding in that blind spot.

geolemon · Post by **geolemon** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:32 pm

The Alero IS a Grand Am...
Basically the same car I rented. I can't believe how high the rear end of that car sits - it's like peeking over a wall, looking out the rearview mirror.

Best car for visibility I ever owned: 1987 Honda Civic wagon (aka "wag-o-van").
It was the little one with all the glass, and a hood that sloped down just as much as the windshield?

Nothing could be easier to drive than that car - I thought you could make a better comparison to a greenhouse, than to a minivan, with that car.

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:42 pm

Ryan from Ohio wrote:Damn thread jackers...
My Alero is hard to see out the rear good also...
I thought the Monte had a blind spot...
Now I look and crank my head around on the side mirrors to make sure nobody is hiding in that blind spot.

Hey hey, we stole this thread fair and square! Give it back!!

Ryan from Ohio · Post by **Ryan from Ohio** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:19 pm

Anyhow back to this computer...

Im not up to date with the current stuff. Every time I build a comp I need to really brush up as it changes so fast.

I know I need a CPU, Memory, Hard Drive and an optical drive... No problem...

But what works? Whats the best bang for the buck? I see it says XP based processors. If Im correct them XPs were coming out about 2 1/2 years ago... So its kinda scary right away IMO... I remember having a 3000+ XP built for my Ex's dad before we split...

I got a 40 gig HD at home and I got about 30 on it and tons of trash I cant seem to find and delete (Its a real bitch).

So if anyone can help me out or direct me that would be cool. I would like to try and buy everythign at one place, but I know thats not always possible...

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:32 pm

I'm going to advise against it unless you can change the motherboard out later on. XP processors are practically dead now. For future upgradability, you want a motherboard that supports 64 bit. I'm not sure what socket would be more upgradable though. 939 seemed to be the future, but then half of the Opterons have 940.

You'd be able to build something fairly inexpensive if you stayed with it though. You can get large hard drives for fairly cheap nowadays. As for ram, get corsair value select. Best cheapest ram you should get. As for hard drives, I've liked Seagate recently.

Ryan from Ohio · Post by **Ryan from Ohio** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:40 pm

Its been my experience that I dont ever upgrade Processors, Motherboards or Video Cards...

I make an informed decision and buy the best I can without going broke and call it a day. The comp I have now I bought like 5 years ago I think...lol

If you think I can do somethign decent for cheap thats cool. They make that same deal but with an Intel platform also...

One reason for this case is because the volume is on the left side, like I need it in the car... Ergonomics

I have next to no problems doing anything I want, well except I need to wipe the HD and start fresh... Or figure out how to repair this HD...

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:51 pm

Yea, I'm too much of a geek, I can't go 3 years without upgrading :)

Intel chips' only advantage is in applications (over AMD). But IMO, it's not worth the extra cash for the second or two of rendering time you could save (saying as if you were rendering a video after editing).
So in other words, you want AMD, lol.

You may want a new hdd. I tend to stop trusting them after 5 years. I have had some last 10 and 12 years though.

What is your budget for the cpu, ram, and other possible drives?

geolemon · Post by **geolemon** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:55 pm

Check out that manufacturer I linked... a couple of their models were very reasonable, less than $300 if I remember right - and specifically built for a car.

I'd safely assume you aren't going to be "power computing" in your car, or doing any serious gaming- and that being the case, you could probably run a computer with 10 year old technology and not be bottlenecking yourself one bit.

The machine I have LEAP and LMS set up on at my house is at least a 10 year old machine... in part has to be because of the old-school card required for my version of LMS.

Plus the biggest benefit of that site I linked: operating system.
Are you going to want to wait for that computer to "boot up" every time you get in your car? You'll probably be halfway there by the time it does, particularly if you have an older (or older-style) machine - Windows is a pig, simple.

That software that runs on those machines I linked is again built specifically for a car - I'd guess (although I haven't seen it booted up, just saw it running at CES, and in the old Stinger Electronics CES demo vehicle - that sick Dodge Magnum wagon with the waterfall and projector screen?) it would boot up much faster than a Windows machine.

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:10 pm

What exactly are you looking to do with it? A PLC may be able to do what you want it to, it's more rugged and easier to program. Plus you can make a really cool switchboard to control it