"ZPC" - Car Computer Install (No 56k)
03-03-2007, 02:05 PM
#41
Update...
It's been a few months so I thought I'd post an update of how things are going and some things I learned the hard way...
The cold weather had not been kind to my setup. I found that one big mistake in my initial setup was that I wired the screen directly to the car rather then powering it through the m2-atx which powers the computer. I initially chose this route because I was concerned about how much power the m2-atx would be able to supply. What I found out was that the Xenarc 700TSV has this little thing it does where once it's powered on it looks for a signal. It looks for this signal for, i'd say, about 5 seconds. If it doesn't find the signal it powers off. In normal weather I had no problems since the computer booted right up and would pass the signal. Unfortunately once the weather got into the 20's a few weeks ago the computer booted up much more slowly. As a result, the Xenarc would power up, look for a signal, and then power down. I could rarely get the two to communicate. What made matters worse was that I had the computer set to go into standby after poweroff with no switch to totally kill power to it so I could not reset this process. Basically I was without the computer for a few weeks. In addition, between the draw from from the computer when in standby (more on this below) and the cold *** weather, my battery died so while it snowed and the z was under covers I just pulled the fuse to my sound system/computer and let it think about what it did for a while.
Fast forward to today... weather was beautiful - flirting with 60's - so I decided to rewire. I installed an Optima yellow top D35 and now have the Xenarc powered by the m2-atx. It's too soon to see if this will solve my cold weather problems but I have a hunch it will since the Xenarc won't power on and start looking for a signal until the computer powers on as well. Next week it's supposed to get back down to the 20's so I'll test the cold weather performance.
One interesting thing I found out today by having the screen always on with the PC is that now when I turn off the ignition and pull the keys out the computer says it's "preparing to standby" and goes through the motions and shuts off. Then a second or two later it starts up again! I'm not that familiar with Windows and its power management but I suspect a device or driver is now causing it not to standby. I also suspect that this didn't start today (it used to work ok though) and I figure that it was doing this before when it was cold which was causing my battery to drain). I just couldn't see it happening because the screen would turn off with the car. I'll have to research this one but for now I changed Windows' preferences to shut down when prompted to turn off and it seems to be staying off.
One very cool addition I got working was Sirius. I previously was using a SIR-Alp1 tuner connected to my Alpine head unit. Lo and behold I found a guy who makes replacement boards for the Alp1 which connects to the PC through USB. Roadrunner has built in support for Sirius and this board, at least most skins do. I finally have it working and it's pretty awesome. I can see all the channels (with channel logo!) and see whats playing on them through the screen. I can then switch around at my leisure. One great feature of the skin I'm using is a "favorite song" button. I like Sirius because it let's me hear music I might not otherwise hear. When I hear a song I'd like to buy from itunes or pick up the cd, I just hit the favorites button and it adds the song to a text file I can view later. Very cool.
Anyway that's where I'm at now. Happy again!
Once again, I've gotten quite a few PM's in the past with questions about the setup or problems people are having. I'd be more then happy to help out anyway I can but I ask that you post the question here so I and others can answer it publicly so I don't have to answer the same PM 5 times. =)
The cold weather had not been kind to my setup. I found that one big mistake in my initial setup was that I wired the screen directly to the car rather then powering it through the m2-atx which powers the computer. I initially chose this route because I was concerned about how much power the m2-atx would be able to supply. What I found out was that the Xenarc 700TSV has this little thing it does where once it's powered on it looks for a signal. It looks for this signal for, i'd say, about 5 seconds. If it doesn't find the signal it powers off. In normal weather I had no problems since the computer booted right up and would pass the signal. Unfortunately once the weather got into the 20's a few weeks ago the computer booted up much more slowly. As a result, the Xenarc would power up, look for a signal, and then power down. I could rarely get the two to communicate. What made matters worse was that I had the computer set to go into standby after poweroff with no switch to totally kill power to it so I could not reset this process. Basically I was without the computer for a few weeks. In addition, between the draw from from the computer when in standby (more on this below) and the cold *** weather, my battery died so while it snowed and the z was under covers I just pulled the fuse to my sound system/computer and let it think about what it did for a while.
Fast forward to today... weather was beautiful - flirting with 60's - so I decided to rewire. I installed an Optima yellow top D35 and now have the Xenarc powered by the m2-atx. It's too soon to see if this will solve my cold weather problems but I have a hunch it will since the Xenarc won't power on and start looking for a signal until the computer powers on as well. Next week it's supposed to get back down to the 20's so I'll test the cold weather performance.
One interesting thing I found out today by having the screen always on with the PC is that now when I turn off the ignition and pull the keys out the computer says it's "preparing to standby" and goes through the motions and shuts off. Then a second or two later it starts up again! I'm not that familiar with Windows and its power management but I suspect a device or driver is now causing it not to standby. I also suspect that this didn't start today (it used to work ok though) and I figure that it was doing this before when it was cold which was causing my battery to drain). I just couldn't see it happening because the screen would turn off with the car. I'll have to research this one but for now I changed Windows' preferences to shut down when prompted to turn off and it seems to be staying off.
One very cool addition I got working was Sirius. I previously was using a SIR-Alp1 tuner connected to my Alpine head unit. Lo and behold I found a guy who makes replacement boards for the Alp1 which connects to the PC through USB. Roadrunner has built in support for Sirius and this board, at least most skins do. I finally have it working and it's pretty awesome. I can see all the channels (with channel logo!) and see whats playing on them through the screen. I can then switch around at my leisure. One great feature of the skin I'm using is a "favorite song" button. I like Sirius because it let's me hear music I might not otherwise hear. When I hear a song I'd like to buy from itunes or pick up the cd, I just hit the favorites button and it adds the song to a text file I can view later. Very cool.
Anyway that's where I'm at now. Happy again!
Once again, I've gotten quite a few PM's in the past with questions about the setup or problems people are having. I'd be more then happy to help out anyway I can but I ask that you post the question here so I and others can answer it publicly so I don't have to answer the same PM 5 times. =)
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
