Question Computer in a car???

[Clarabet]

I would like to ask what is the best possible setup to build for inside a vehicle. a car build but will be moved into a van after camper conversion

my plan is to place a second car battery for leisure in the boot somehow safely wire a computer hooked up to an inverter somehow.

my question is how can i build this pc. anti vibration hopefully. i plan on only using it when well ventilated only so using while driving is a no no.

what components would be best to use for this, id like a medium low powered system with ok graphics for when im not home. btw i dont like laptops.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Anything that uses an ITX Case and SSD (no moving parts)
Depends on how much money you want to spend. AMD Ryzen 2400G so you use iGPU should be good enough for basic gaming

 

[AllanGH]

"Medium to low power and vibration resistant" suggests a Raspberry Pi, which has very low power requirements.

 

[Satan-IR]

I would use a laptop or a tablet. Unless the "vehicle" is a hovercraft doing 10 KM/h back and forth on an airport runway.

I can't imagine a scenario where there won't be vibrations in a vehicle like a sedan or a van. Use of many things would be out of question things like HDDs (with moving parts as ElectrO_90 said).

Anything heavier than a stock CPU cooler. Many air coolers (even mid-range/performance) have heat sinks that weigh around 1Kg or more. Put one of those on a motherboard, hit a bump on the road the the motherboard is gone!

Using a car battery to power a switching power supply though "inverters somehow" is not safe I think.

I wouldn't do it and would advise against it. There's a reason there are mobile computers such as laptops and tablets and such.

 

[USAFRet]

"btw i dont like laptops "

In what way would a "PC" mounted in a car differ from a laptop?
I have an Asus Transformer that would serve perfectly in this use case. Long battery life, low power consumption when running off the vehicle battery, no moving parts.

A "laptop" with an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor is indistinguishable from a "desktop".

What performance are you hoping to get? What are you planning to run on this?

 

[g-unit1111]

"Medium to low power and vibration resistant" suggests a Raspberry Pi, which has very low power requirements.

You could also use an NUC or a Compute Stick. But anything that uses a full size or even an ITX PSU is going to face serious power challenges.

There's plenty of different ways you could go about doing this: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-mini-pcs,review-2760.html

 

[jsmithepa]

Depends what u are going to be doing with it.

Will it be permanent mounted? 'cuz cars can get very hot.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Not sure why so many people think this is complicated.
Back in late 90's we installed a PC in a 2 seater sports car, so the guy could run all his MP3's (way before mp3 players)
There were no problems and were using hard disks.

 

[USAFRet]

It's not that it is complicated. Just that there are way better options.
(for the unstated use case might be)

 

[g-unit1111]

Not sure why so many people think this is complicated.
Back in late 90's we installed a PC in a 2 seater sports car, so the guy could run all his MP3's (way before mp3 players)
There were no problems and were using hard disks.

Hard drives don't use a whole lot of power, it's the CPU and GPU that take most of the power. If there's no GPU being used then it would be relatively easy. I think a Compute Stick would be the easiest way to go about doing this.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Hard drives don't use a whole lot of power, it's the CPU and GPU that take most of the power. If there's no GPU being used then it would be relatively easy. I think a Compute Stick would be the easiest way to go about doing this.

The OP hasn't come back, so we're just debating between ourselves. Just to me it sounds like he wants a half decent gaming machine - I don't see the problem. Monitor will be a pain, but that's about it.

 

[tennis2]

What's the intended usage?

A Rasberry Pi with Libre (Kodi) for movies/ shows is the best choice of that's what you're looking to use it for.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Are use a computer in the car all the time it’s called Apple CarPlay