Is You Geeked Up? | Technology Blog for the Computer Geek | isyougeekedup.com

After dealing with the numerous issues of my previous AMD Geode carputer motherboard, I decided to upgrade.  Some of the problems I had were hanging at POST, bluescreens due to driver issues, and overall weird behavior.  I also wanted more features, such as the ability to boot from a USB drive.  Not only that, but the board ran pretty hot in my glove box and lacked performance that I wanted.

Alas, the Intel D945GCLF2, based on the Intel Atom, is finally released.  One of the key features that caught my eye was the dual core Atom processor.  Not only is it dual core, but its power usage is outstanding.  It’s estimated to use 4 watts under load while consuming milliwatts (thousandths of a watt) when idle.  Being in a carputer, power consumption is a vital specification because you need to figure out how large of a power supply you will need.  The power consumption spec can also give you an idea of how much heat will be disappated, because after all, the power not  used for computing will dissipate into heat.

Intel D945GCLF2 Dual Core Atom Motherboard

The power supply I am using is an Opus 120.  It’s rated for 120 watts and has powered my previous build just fine.  I ran into one snag that I didn’t expect, however.  The motherboard uses a 12v P4 ATX connector (see pic below) as well as the standard 20-24pin ATX connector.   The power supply I have (and most that I’ve seen) do not have this connector incorporated into their harness.

P4 ATX Connector

To solve this problem, you can either purchase a molex to P4 adapter, or you can mod your existing wiring harness and add the P4 connector.  I chose to mod my existing wiring harness and add the P4 connector to one of the existing molex connectors.  Basically, I cut off the P4 connector from a regular ATX power supply, stripped the wires, and crammed them into an existing molex connection.  See the pictures below to see what I mean.

Closeup of P4 Connection

Closeup of P4 to Molex Connection

Molex to P4 Adapter

After everything was setup, I installed the full Windows XP Pro with SP3.  I opted not to use TinyXP because I felt that it could cause issues down the road with all the drivers it has stripped out.  After the installation, I installed the usual Winamp, VLC media player, SpeedFan, iGuidance, Centrafuse, and finally the drivers.  Instead of configuring Windows to hibernate after the car was shut off, I chose to shutdown completely because I’ve had lots of issues with hibernation such as it not resuming correctly.

With 1GB of RAM and a 2.5″ 80GB 4200RPM hard drive, the performance isn’t too bad.  You would think that a 4200RPM hard drive would be kind of sluggish, but I can hardly notice it.  Windows starts up from a cold boot quickly and so do all of the programs I use.  I’m never left waiting for the next song to load or a program to open.

The low power consumption of the board is also very noticeable.  With my old board, the CPU temperature would always be at least 45C upon boot, and rise to a little over 60C after being used for awhile.  On a cold morning, at about 55F, The Intel Atom managed to boot up at 30C and after 20 minutes, it had only risen to 35C!  Now, when I open my glove box, there’s no more hot air oozing out.  The air inside the glove box is almost the same temperature as the air in the cabin!  However, the temperatures will differ based on the ambient temperature inside the cabin, so the CPU will run hotter on a warmer day.  On an 80F day, the CPU boots at 30C and rises to about 55-60C, still not bad on a very warm day.

All in all, the Intel D945GCLF2 is a great buy.  At only $89.99 from Mini-box.com, you get tons of features, and best of all, a dual core processor.  With low power consumption, low temperatures, and high performance it seems as if the board was made explicitly for carputer usage, in which it excels.

Full Carputer Setup in Glovebox

Caputer without Fan Showing P4 Connection

After using a bluetooth TomTom GPS receiver for months on end, I got fed up with the slow satellite acquisition and slow bluetooth pairing every time I turned the device on.  I mainly used the bluetooth GPS receiver with my carputer and iGuidance 4 for GPS navigation.  However, it gets annoying when the receiver only connects half the time and waiting for satellites can take minutes, not seconds.

It was time to look for a new receiver that could acquire satellites quickly and require no user intervention to turn the receiver on and off.  A USB GPS receiver was the solution for me since it’s A) powered by the computer, B) turns on/off based on if the carputer is on/off, C) SiRF III chipset, D) waterproof.  I ordered a Globsat BU-353 USB receiver and I was wondering why I didn’t purchase one from the start.

Installation was extremely easy and iGuidance 4 reconized the receiver right away.  Being waterproof, the Globsat BU-353 can be externally mounted.  This is a plus because if externally mounted, the receiver has a better line of sight to the sky, which results in faster satellite acquisitions.  It also has a magnetic base so you could attach it to anything metal on your car (roof, door, hood, etc).  I chose to mount it externally, right outside the windshield where it meets the hood.

Globalsat BU-353 @ Amazon.com

The performance of the receiver is simply amazing.  By the time my carputer boots into Windows and iGuidance is launched, the receiver already has a lock of at least 8 satellites.  So far, I’ve never had to wait for the receiver to lock onto satellites, it is always instant.  I’ve never had it lose it’s lock on the satellites and I haven’t had any problems with it thus far.  Simply said, this is an amazing GPS receiver that I’d be happy to recommend to anybody.  The downside is that the receiver is USB, so it can only be used with a computer, not cell phones.

I bought my receiver at Amazon.com for $36.95, which is the best price I could find; even better than eBay.

After seeing a deal posted on Slickdeals.net for the 24″ Soyo Pearl LCD monitor for $229, I immediately ran out to Office Max. They had this monitor in stock, so I picked up two.

At first, both monitors had one stuck pixel each. After about a week, some random pixels (hundreds of them) started to “spaz” out and only flash a teal color. I ended up exchanging those two monitors for another two monitors, hoping that I won’t have this same problem again.

I got home and immediately hooked them up via DVI cable. The Soyo’s ended up being perfect. No dead or stuck pixels anywhere, although one of them has a small amount of back light bleeding at the bottom of the screen, but it is not apparent unless the screen is completely black.

For the price I paid, I cannot complain at all. The colors are absolutely beautiful once you adjust the color settings. Both monitors were a little too bright out of the box, so I turned down the birghtness about 5-10 notches. Another thing I noticed was that both monitors (and the previous two I returned) had too much red in the picture, so I had to turn down the red about 10-15 notches. Once the adjustments were made, the quality blows my old Westinghouse 22″ LCD monitor out of the water. Not only is the response time noticeably quicker, but the colors are not as dull. Oranges are extremely vibrant while the greens have a much “deeper” look. The Soyo 24″ has an advertised 2ms response time, which I believe is true. When playing Call of Duty 4, the difference between 8ms (my old Westinghouse 22″) and 2ms (the new Soyo 24″) is so noticeable, it took me a few days of getting used to and it has improved my game play by a slight bit.

Having two 24″ LCD monitors helps out productivity immensely. Rather than having one monitor and trying to put two windows side by side, use two monitors which will allow you to view both windows in their full size. One caveat of trying to view multiple windows with one monitor is that the resolution is too low. You’ll find your screen getting cramped and even if you do have a large LCD, such as a 22″ which displays 1680 x 1050 resolution, you still won’t be able to view multiple items without cramping the windows and therefore, messing up the formatting (such as web pages).

Now, even though the Soyo sports a TN panel, I wouldn’t shy away from it just because of that. My Westinghouse 22″ LCD also used a TN panel and with the continuing development of technology, it’s blatantly apparent that the TN panel has improved. I’ve seen top quality Dell MVA and IPS panels and I have to say, the TN panel in the Soyo comes extremely close. With the fact that the Soyo is about 50% cheaper, the choice is clear.