Think-car

[truk]

I've got a t40 (2373-8cu) that I got when somebody soaked it in mud. I was able to rescue most of it, although the screen didn't make it. I think this may have been a Katrina victim. Anyway, since it did not have a screen, I decided I'd use it for my extremely low-budget car-PC, running a 7" touch screen. I've got the plan fairly set, but I'm still working on the details on how to make it work. My worry right now is re-routing the power button. I am looking for a tap where I can wire a new power button in, without destroying my keyboard (this is the only t4x series I've ever had, so I don't have many parts for it.) I know there is a tap in for the port replicator, but does anyone know an easier way to power this puppy on? I've contemplated using a port replicator, but I don't really want to put in a lot of money.

Any ideas would be great. More details of the project are in my blog (check my sig.) I'll update here as I get further along and need more help.

PS- If anyone has a t40 battery they'd like to donate (I'll pay shipping) it'd be great. I don't care about battery life: I just need the electronics out of it.

THANKS!
Truk

[rkawakami]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0473699231 (Port Replicator II for $13 shipped)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0144315368 (Same for $12 shipped)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0565486354 (Same, for $11 if you are lucky enough to be the only bidder)

This works with the T4x systems and has a power button; which I suppose could be remotely located if you take the time to pull the port replicator apart and figure out how it's wired. That might also be the best way to figure out exactly which terminals in the T40's docking port is wired to the power switch. It beats taking apart the laptop.

[truk]

I was actually thinking about that. I've got a dock two at home, which would allow a PCI slot, but I wasn't going to use it since it crashes my t30 when the power goes out (and the power on this will fluctuate to allow it to act quicker, as if it switched to battery, to starting the car and such.) Would the port replicator have the same issues? (Someone wanna try unplugging their port replicator with the laptop on it? )

Thanks!
Truk

[truk]

Still haven't gotten the power system figured out yet, but I've got a few problems in the OS situation. I'm trying to run Ubuntu 9.10 off an 8gb flash drive for quick booting. I can get the drive to boot, but the swap space is now on the drive. This is not only bad for the drive, but slow as heck. I need about 250GB to store media, but the only 250GB drive I've got is SATA. (T40 is PATA.) I was going to use a USB-SATA adapter, but I'm concerned about speed. Would USB 2.0 be fast enough to listen to music and watch videos on? Would it be fast enough for the swap space?

I have three options really:
250GB SATA (USB) Swap and media
250GB SATA (USB) Media, 20GB PATA Swap/system extra
Go buy a PATA 250GB hard drive for everything (don't really want to do.)

Any ideas on what would be most cost effective with enough speed to be a car radio?

[schen]

Still haven't gotten the power system figured out yet, but I've got a few problems in the OS situation. I'm trying to run Ubuntu 9.10 off an 8gb flash drive for quick booting. I can get the drive to boot, but the swap space is now on the drive. This is not only bad for the drive, but slow as heck. I need about 250GB to store media, but the only 250GB drive I've got is SATA. (T40 is PATA.) I was going to use a USB-SATA adapter, but I'm concerned about speed. Would USB 2.0 be fast enough to listen to music and watch videos on? Would it be fast enough for the swap space?

I have three options really:
250GB SATA (USB) Swap and media
250GB SATA (USB) Media, 20GB PATA Swap/system extra
Go buy a PATA 250GB hard drive for everything (don't really want to do.)

Any ideas on what would be most cost effective with enough speed to be a car radio?

A few thought for your project. You can probably use one of those 2.5" adapters with the appropriate CF card which would give you decent performance w/o throwing lots of money at the situation. From there, you can get one of the UBS>SATA HDD adapters that come out of China (or HK) so you can put your media drive inside the machine

[Tasurinchi]

Go buy a PATA 250GB hard drive for everything (don't really want to do.)

I don't know your budget, but for a media Think-Car I think you will need plenty of space for mp3s and/or videos. I would go for a new WD 320GB drive, it's big, fast and silent. Last time I did check price was around 100 USD ...

[truk]

I hadn't really thought about using CF for the main drive, as I was going to use a USB flash drive, but I think that might work even better. I already have the SATA USB adapter, which is how I was going to hook it up. My concern was the read/write speed over USB is slower than the speed off the hard drive. Since you've mentioned it, I'm guessing that bottleneck wouldn't be much of a problem? The only problem with throwing $100 into a hard drive is that I'd first need to find the $100 to throw, although the extra hundred gigs would be nice! I've been looking into a used drive, but I worry about how long it would last under stressful conditions of post-thaw potholes...

Thanks for your input!

Edit: After looking into CF cards, I've decided the speed/price ratio isn't worth it. I'll stick with the USB flash drive, since it will only really write to that drive during updates anyway.

[schen]

Edit: After looking into CF cards, I've decided the speed/price ratio isn't worth it. I'll stick with the USB flash drive, since it will only really write to that drive during updates anyway.

I have one of the RiDATA 233x cards (8Gb) in an adapter w/XP loaded on an X20 and it was fine, so I've decided to try it with something bigger. based on reading the posts from sjthinkpadder about it in the X2, X3, X4 conference, I decided to see if I could find a bigger RiDATA 233x card that's in my fairly meager budget. I was able to pick one up for $71, which although, not "nothing", certainly less than what you'd find an equivalent SSD for! And it's a fairly competitive price for a similar sized flashdrive as well.

[truk]

I seriously though about doing it, but right now I don't have barely any money to put into this project, especially since I found out why I was having problems. Last night I noticed that my symptoms were those of the notorious GPU issue. I'm going to attempt to fix it, but I most likely will have to scrap the idea until someone drops another motherboard on my doorstep.

Thanks for responding!

[schen]

You know, I think what I'd do in your situation would be to target the T30 for your Think-Car project. Here's my reasoning:

* At this point, they are CHEAP. I saw one on the local Craig's List for $60 (read- "I'd like to get $50, so I'll list it at $60).
* They are relatively robust really only susceptible to the one bad DIMM socket issue.
* From a functional standpoint, for what you are trying to do; they may very well be just as useful as any of the T4x machines.
* They also have the UB2K which means that you can get into a lot of cheap generic 12.7mm optical drives like my NEC 6500 which just needed a notch cut, and the adapter parts from a dead CD drive.
* Did I mention that THEY ARE CHEAP!

You might be able to get rid of the T4x that you have for parts and move the money over to finding an inexpensive T30 and go from there. A cheap HK 2.5" adapter, decent 8Gb CF card, pretty much anything you want (can afford) in the UB2K drive and you're ready to go!

[truk]

I already have a t30, as it was my original plan for the computer. The only reason I'm not using it is that it's restricted to USB 1.1 (even the 2.0 over PCMCIA is slower than the standard) and all my drives are usb. I absolutely loved my t30 (more than even my t400,) but it just won't do for this particular project.

Thanks for the input!

[emtee3511]

I recently purchased a lid/screen/antenna for my old T41 here on the forum -- (well about three months ago -- it took me that long to get up my nerve to replace the lid -- never opened any of my TP's except for ram and hdd) -- so I just replaced the the screen and added a bluetooth card and actually didn't kill my machine But after I replaced the lid/screen, I found the original problem (static increasing with hdd use) was still there While replacing the lid/screen, I noticed my wireless card has a bad aux connection -- did my best to manipulate the connection, but guess it wasn't good enough -- still occasionally shows static on the screen -- for the time being, I just push down on the palm rest in the area of the card and it must close the connection because the static disappears --

So I have a spare and obviously working lid/screen/antenna setup I no longer need -- it's clear and bright -- no dead pixels -- I also have an older/original battery that holds probably half charge -- If you decide to scrap your car project and want to use my lid/screen and battery, you can have them for shipping costs. Not sure if you need a modem card, but I have the one I replaced with bluetooth/modem card -- My lid/screen came without screws, so don't have any screws to share --

[truk]

Thanks, but my motherboard is the problem, so having the rest of the computer wouldn't help much.

[emtee3511]

You're welcome -- if you find a MB and want the other parts I have, ship me a PM