Antec Aria case, bluetooth, podcast and car pc project
Even amidst my stressload of trying to sell my home, trying to buy a new one, a 6 hour commute (total) every day as well as the other crud i talked about lately I have been able to actually get some geekyness done. I splurged on something for myself. The price of Geforecd FX6600GT cards dropped down to below $120.00 at newegg so I got myself one for the gaming /linux machine I built over the past 2 months. No it's not speedy by many gamers definition and it only on a Athlon FX3000+ processor it plays everything nice. (Yes even doom3) i wante it portable so I put all of that in an Antec Aria case. looks nice, and doubles as a toaster oven! Yup I'm getting temperature shutdowns and crashes.... crap. well time to make it not quiet anymore. I added a pair of 50mm fans at the front of the case behind the Bezel cutting out a fan sized hole on each side of the CF card reader for the small 50mm fans, and those pump some air in the case now, I replaced the anemic processor fan from AMD with a high velocity one and cut out the fan grille in the back covering the power supply fan. coupled with that I threw out the blower that Antec gives you with the case and replacedit with an identical unit that runs at full speed pushing 3X the air and is next to the GF6600 to pump that heat out.
It seems to be working, and no, it's not quiet anymore. after letting it sit to warm up for 15 minutes for the first time the system temperature is lower than the CPU temperature! This is a good thing. CPU hovering at 37degC system hovering at 33degC I think I'll stress the heck out of the cpu and see how it handles high temps. but without making the case look like a ugly monster I was able to increase it's cooling with only a few fan changes. Finally glad to sort that one out.
Bluetooth is much cooler than I initially though it was. IT might be simply that the technology has matured to the point that it is useable. MY phone with a BT headset is rock-on cool. driving down the road you can answer the phone without finding your phone or digging it out of your pocket. I can buy a BT dashboard display/handsfree setup so I can see the caller ID information which further makes the whole system utterly cool. Also I found t hat it works great with my work laptop that run's windows, I cant wait to work with BT on linux. I strongly suggest that if you have not played with it, get a BT adapter for your PC and a cheapie Headset. MSI FT200 is typically around $30.00US and is of pretty decent quality. I was able to record from it while wandering my house and it sounded as good as most headset microphones.
I am FINALLY going to get a podcast recording up. I was going to put a "filler" first podcast on with me rambling and showcase a single Creative Commons song, bit that is like a blog post that says "look my first post!" nahh... This weekend is the Celtic festival at Rockford michigan, I'll put the audio I record at that festival up as my first podcast. I will be trying to record an event or something once a month and put it online. After this festival, the next item will be the Holley REN-Faire in Holley michigan... I might even try to make it somewhat of an audio magazine, trying to interview people as I wander.
I have settled on a plan for the LinCarPC project. I am going to use python for the frontend, it's the best choice espically coupled with pyGame for doing SDL goodness for screen graphics and controls. All functions will be required to have 2 parts. 1 the frontend interface and 2 the Daemon that does the work in the background with no gooey. GPS will be gpsd, I will write a python mp3 player app (or use mpg123 in a daemon mode.. not sure yet) as well as data gathering from various serial devices that gather info from the car. I am going to use a standard NTSC lde for the display because I'm a cheap bastard and no touchscreen but a row of buttons down each side of the screen. This should make it much easier to get shoehorned in a smaller car as well as reduce the cost barrier to entry for many people wanting to duplicate my efforts.
It seems to be working, and no, it's not quiet anymore. after letting it sit to warm up for 15 minutes for the first time the system temperature is lower than the CPU temperature! This is a good thing. CPU hovering at 37degC system hovering at 33degC I think I'll stress the heck out of the cpu and see how it handles high temps. but without making the case look like a ugly monster I was able to increase it's cooling with only a few fan changes. Finally glad to sort that one out.
Bluetooth is much cooler than I initially though it was. IT might be simply that the technology has matured to the point that it is useable. MY phone with a BT headset is rock-on cool. driving down the road you can answer the phone without finding your phone or digging it out of your pocket. I can buy a BT dashboard display/handsfree setup so I can see the caller ID information which further makes the whole system utterly cool. Also I found t hat it works great with my work laptop that run's windows, I cant wait to work with BT on linux. I strongly suggest that if you have not played with it, get a BT adapter for your PC and a cheapie Headset. MSI FT200 is typically around $30.00US and is of pretty decent quality. I was able to record from it while wandering my house and it sounded as good as most headset microphones.
I am FINALLY going to get a podcast recording up. I was going to put a "filler" first podcast on with me rambling and showcase a single Creative Commons song, bit that is like a blog post that says "look my first post!" nahh... This weekend is the Celtic festival at Rockford michigan, I'll put the audio I record at that festival up as my first podcast. I will be trying to record an event or something once a month and put it online. After this festival, the next item will be the Holley REN-Faire in Holley michigan... I might even try to make it somewhat of an audio magazine, trying to interview people as I wander.
I have settled on a plan for the LinCarPC project. I am going to use python for the frontend, it's the best choice espically coupled with pyGame for doing SDL goodness for screen graphics and controls. All functions will be required to have 2 parts. 1 the frontend interface and 2 the Daemon that does the work in the background with no gooey. GPS will be gpsd, I will write a python mp3 player app (or use mpg123 in a daemon mode.. not sure yet) as well as data gathering from various serial devices that gather info from the car. I am going to use a standard NTSC lde for the display because I'm a cheap bastard and no touchscreen but a row of buttons down each side of the screen. This should make it much easier to get shoehorned in a smaller car as well as reduce the cost barrier to entry for many people wanting to duplicate my efforts.
Comments
Post a Comment