mp3car.com - Very cool car electronics site

[RaceMX-M3]

I've been planning to put the factory navigation system in my M3 and the more time that goes by the more dated it becomes. I'm going to look into getting a pc based system with a touchscreen, which will let you do virtually anything you want - including plugging into the OBDII port for real time data streaming. Lots of other cool stuff as well.

www.mp3car.com (http://www.mp3car.com)

[calintexas]

The problem with electronics is that what is cool now will be obsolete in a couple of days. I bought a fairly nice Garmin (765T - a little over $200) 6 months ago. It works really well and is very easy to use. It has traffic monitoring, blue tooth, spoken directions, and lane guidance at freeway splits. Plus you can take it when you travel and use it in a rental car. When it breaks or something else catches my eye in two or three years it won't be any pain to replace it. Car manufacturers are fighting a tough battle. With their lead times, integrated vehicle infotainment systems are already a couple of generations behind as the cars they are in are coming to market.

[MisterTwo]

mp3car.com is a great site! I used their resources to build a car PC around 1999 using a custom copy of win98 (p2 266mhz!). Things have changed drastically since then, but I would recommend you buy a pre-made media solution. There is way too much hassle with a custom solution. It seems like everyone I know who has attempted a car pc ends up working on it all the time and gives up. It gets annoying waiting for windows to boot just to drive to the store :sleep: Also, PCs don't like turbo boost, hard shifts, or really anything fun. Just my disclaimer... :)

If you do it, get a fast SSD hard drive (intel or ocz) it will take all the bumps of the road and boot very quickly. It looks like winxp is still the most popular OS, you can use nlite to build a custom winxp image that strips out everything you don't need to increase speed and stability. In Texas cooling is a major issue too, I had tons of problems with mine in the front trunk of my MR2 during the summer. If you decide you want to do it, I have a spare VIA ITX Eden pc you are welcome to use. The key is how well you setup and tune your windows install, its annoying when your car blue screens!

[Zinia]

its annoying when your car blue screens!

:thumpdown:

Oh that would SUCK.

[RaceMX-M3]

mp3car.com is a great site! I used their resources to build a car PC around 1999 using a custom copy of win98 (p2 266mhz!). Things have changed drastically since then, but I would recommend you buy a pre-made media solution. There is way too much hassle with a custom solution. It seems like everyone I know who has attempted a car pc ends up working on it all the time and gives up. It gets annoying waiting for windows to boot just to drive to the store :sleep: Also, PCs don't like turbo boost, hard shifts, or really anything fun. Just my disclaimer... :)

If you do it, get a fast SSD hard drive (intel or ocz) it will take all the bumps of the road and boot very quickly. It looks like winxp is still the most popular OS, you can use nlite to build a custom winxp image that strips out everything you don't need to increase speed and stability. In Texas cooling is a major issue too, I had tons of problems with mine in the front trunk of my MR2 during the summer. If you decide you want to do it, I have a spare VIA ITX Eden pc you are welcome to use. The key is how well you setup and tune your windows install, its annoying when your car blue screens!

Thanks for the info, just starting to look into this. :thumbsup2:

[Qship5]

The dreaded BSOD... Just what you need when you are trying to follow the nav system or select some music.:banghead::banghead:

[RaceMX-M3]

From what I've read the current gen car pc's are a lot more car friendly. There's fanless models that can withstand extreme cold/heat/shocks/etc. I'm going to buy one soon.

[nullsign]

The dreaded BSOD... Just what you need when you are trying to follow the nav system or select some music.:banghead::banghead:

"I'm sorry officer, I didn't realize I was speeding because my windows crashed."