ricergribbs

iTrader: (3)

well i know the basic ones that are actually meant to be put in cars. but what about an actual computer... like taking a motherboard and screwing it in to your firewall, and building off that, then wiring up a screen where your stock HU is. how would this work for speakers? i mean how would you take the audio out of a pc motherboard and hook it up to car speakers? also, what would the sound quality be like? and would the sound quality depend on the quality of the soundcard in the pc?

free_refil

Go to MP3Car.com they have all the information you'd need. But basically, no, you won't screw the motherboard into the firewall. You'd build a miniATX board either in a case that can fit in the dash or under your seat, or in the trunk of the car. Then you'd use a 4.1 and up sound card and use the 1/4" mini jack to RCA adapters out of the sound card to your amp's or into a line-in on your stereo. SQ will depend on the sound card.

TeLLy

iTrader: (23)

Typically a carputer is actually just a home PC (or a laptop) that is adapted in a few ways to work in the car environment. The biggest problem is supplying power and turning it on and off. Opus Solutions makes several DC-to-DC power supplies that accomplish this, not to mention a few others described in great detail on www.mp3car.com. I highly suggest stopping by there and taking in some not-so-light reading, you'll find it very enlightening.

To answer your other questions:
- sound quality does indeed depend on your soundcard as well as your deck/amplifier. Your biggest problem is noise from the setup, much like alt whine. Introducing all this wiring and a DC-DC power supply will require careful planning of how you want to run your sound. Again mp3car.com is a great resource for this.
- all you need to hook up the sound from a PC mobo to car speakers would be to run a cable with RCA on one side and a 1/8" stereo TRS plug on the other. The RCA plugs into your deck's Line In (or your amplifier's if you eschew a deck), and the 1/8" plugs into your soundcard. Some soundcards, like the Soundblaster MP3+ that I use, have RCA outs.

ricergribbs

iTrader: (3)

kk, thanks for the info and i'll definetly read up on that site when i get out of work. eh, screw it i'm bored i'll start now lol