lol that's actually one of the great parts! I'm using the built in sound card, which then the audio out has a 35mm microphone jack on one end, and two RCA jacks on the other end... that then plugs into a special plug for my headunit. So literally straight out from the motherboard to the headunit. The sound is great, and actually amplified a little more than the regular headunit was. Before, I considered 20 to be loud enough, and now I rarely put it higher than 17 or 18. A lot of people go on about buying USB audio cards or external audigy cards, but truthfully I'm quite impressed with how well it's working on it's own.

 

OK. I just recently tried the best sound card I had, a $150 Hercules Game Theater and I didn't like the sound quality at all. I doubt I would like the onboard sound chip of the VIA mobo's as well. I imagine I'll need something that would be used in a competition setting so I've been looking at Pro sound cards. I'm trying to find a high end 2-channel card that isn't too expensive. So far I've found the ESI Juli@ at about $140.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/esi-julia/

I'm still looking around, though. Thanks.

 

black carpets thats all you need for the sickest interior around.

 

Haha, that's one of the many things to do this winter.

Surprised about the sound card, though, Jason. I don't know if I'm just not picky, if I just don't hear the difference, or what, but it sounded pretty darn good from the Via sound card, definitely comparable to the headunit's quality.

 

Cha-ching! I received the new power supply today, mp3car.com's store was kind enough to exchange the power supplys even though it was the ebay seller that purchased the power supply from them. In any case, I took the power supply straight out of the box, plugged it into my car, turned the key and... IT TURNED ON! Words can't explain how excited I am and relieved that the carPC is finally fully operational and in-dash; no more ugly inverter and standard power supply sitting on the passenger side floor. I then went and grabbed a female IDE plug I had laying around in the basement, soldered the power supply for the screen to the 12v and ground wire of the ide power plug, and tada it worked great. We're getting about 8" of snow tonight, but after it's all removed from the driveway, I'll back the car out and take an updated picture of the carPC with natural light, that will change a lot of how those pics look. The flash just ruins the justice to coloring and such.

The audio, also, sounds great by the way. There's no static in the background anymore, so it truely was just a problem with using the AC/DC inverter. I blasted the sound and it sounds great. Now I just want to

 

That's good news.

I'm using an inverter on my temperary setup now and it creates wicked ground loops which causes hums in the background. Sucks big time. I figured a good DC-DC PSU would do the trick.

Where are you putting the PSU, in the dash, glovebox?

 

Jason WW tried ground loop isolators ?

Congrats on the finished install meissen, cant wait to see pics, and hope to see it in person one day

 

I actually just set the power supply on the inside of the bezel, so it's all enclosed inside the dash. I'll try taking a few pics now, and then maybe photoshop a darker carpet so people won't bitch about the ugly gray.

Edit: Ok, definitely come to the conclussion that using flash on the inside of a car while it's in the garage SUCKS. The only pic that looked relatively decent was this one:


The wires that are visible I didn't even notice until after I took the pic, the dang flash shows so much that you don't see under normal lighting. But, aside from the wires that are going to my headunit in the glovebox, there's no carPC-related wires.

Here's a little view of the weather outside right now (this just started within the past hour and the ground is already covered)

 

I plan to get an Opus 150w just like Meissen has so I haven't really tried anything besides various grounding straps between all the parts in different combinations. Nothing worked. I may try the ground loop isolators as I think I have some around here somewhere.

BTW, I found a Chaintech AV710 sound card locally for $30. I used the high sampling rate on channels 7 & 8 and I have to say the sound is amazing. Easily as good as my Clarion HU. Plenty of volume as well.

I also forgot to mention that I created a thread on the MP3CAR forum that has all the f-body installs I could find. Hopefully this will give you guys some ideas of all the different ways you can put a PC in your car. Enjoy:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=63949

 

Looking good.

 

Lookin' forward to some pics! We got slammed with snow here in PA as well last night into today! I feel your pain!

 

well I probably won't be posting pics until later tomorrow. Got caught up working on vbulletin for my website, so i didn't get a chance to take the car out of the garage.

 

Doesn't this snow suck Meisse? Seriously, what the hell is the point of snowing 5+ inches just to all melt away the next day? I'm not complaining that it's melting, but wtf?? Such a big mess the roads were last night and this morning.

Anways, I don't want to hijack your thread, the carpc looks great and if I wasn't having so many mechanical problems I might have invested in that. BTW, I'm trying to sell my Kenwood ddx-7015 if you know anybody that's interested. Its mint, been in the car for one spring and one summer.

 

Ugh, I can't stand this snow. With the power supply finally working, and I finally got a redtop battery the day before, I could finally cruise if it weren't for all this blasted snow. I've driven her through two winters, and granted it went ok both times, with the recently fresh paint, I really don't want to get anything like salt or excessive road grime on the paint. Even with her sitting in the garage, I've been using the california duster on her everyday. PM me some specs on your Kenwood, I'll post it up on my website -- mifbody.com.

 

Thanks! PM Sent and I just signed up to your site!

 

Well, it's snowing and 30ish outside, but I shovelled the driveway, pulled the car out, washed her down (I was naughty and took my car for a cruise last weekend to a club meeting, I wanted to testout the carPC and make sure the opus works 100%) and then snapped a few pics in the daylight. The carpet atleast doesn't look so bad, hopefully Santa will give me new carpet for christmas.

Only bad part is that apparently my waffle weave microfiber drying towels weren't tested in the winter, cause they just won't dry the car, was just moving the water around. Anyway here's two pics of my wet car, and then some interior pics of the carPC.

 

exterior looks great, but you have too many red accents inside. id stick to black and CF

 

Yeah I know this is an old thread, I just wanted to ask where did you find the first set of pics of the CarPC in the LS1 camaro. I have been going to mp3car.com for a while now, I saw snootch's set up a long time back and I was impressed with how clean it was. I was just never aware there was a way to get the monitor into the dash without having to relocate the HVAC controls. Anyway, if you have more details on that let me know. Im in the process of getting my stuff together for my CarPC I bought a VIA EPIA 13000 a while back, been waiting on a good deal for a Lilliput monitor.

The main concern I have right now is what kind of crap Im going to have to do when I remove the stock headunit. I believe I should be able to just run a RCA/mic adapter straight from the mobo to the monsoon amp, although I dont know what kind of desireable or undesireable sound that may produce. I basically dont want to have to buy anything more than the basics, mobo, HD, PSU, LCD.

 

Depends on how much of an ear you have. I think I'm deaf from all the blasting music, my sound straight from the mobo to the headunit sounds great to me. I'm guessing Jason has a better ear though. I'm with you, though, I never had seen doing it without moving the HVAC controls; but 97+ people sure have the advantage with their interiors. When I rework my bezel in the near future, I'm going to try and make mine have the same shape as the 97+ radio bezel, more square.. dunno how it'll turn out since it's in the 93-96 interior, but probably will look better than how it is now. In Jason's thread on mp3car.com, I noticed there was the idea of cutting the hvac into two pieces, I think that's also a really interesting idea of molding two of the hvac dials into the console's cubby hole, while the third one that you don't use as much could go in the glovebox. In any case, it's never easy in our cars, regardless of 93-02.




Edit: As a side note for those of you in cold areas, I've been driving my car on and off through the winter and thus far no problems with startup on cold days. I think the coldest I've experienced has been like 10 degrees, computer still started up no problem. I did notice, though, that *apparently* the Opus still supplies power to the USB port even though the car is off, potentially draining your battery if you leave it sit for too long. I've replaced my battery twice already, and had to recharge the brand new redtop battery a couple times, and while the actual problem seemed to be a faulty capacitor draining my battery, my USB GPS mouse was still receiving power while the car and computer was off, might not be much, but something to keep in the back of your mind. Also, there's been reports of iGuidance not working well with USB GPS mice when you're booting up from hibernation, and I've actually noticed that since I got the Opus power supply (maybe because it's always supplying power???) I have experienced excellent GPS load time, usually the GPS is working by the time I leave the subdivision, whereas before it'd take 5-10 minutes for the GPS to work.

 

Did you read my post above?