I got a 175 W for work lights and an Inspiron 8200. Works for me, but
that's pretty minimal.

Were I to go full bore and get updated weather charts, downloads via
wireless, etc., I would probably get a small tower for its robustness
and hardwire it into a bigger inverter, say 1500 watts or so. The draw
is mainly for hard drive spin-ups, fans and the monitor, so go LCD and
link it to all plotter/GPS/depth displays.

After all, a laptop is $2K, but an adequate sailor's PC tower could be
$500 or less (small HD, older processor, not excessive RAM). I would
suspect a decent flat-screen LCD of 15" or so would be more expensive
than an "under the nav table" minitower, particularly as a lot of the
guts could be salvaged from other PCs.

The amount of computing power required to display charts, weather data
and so on is greatly exceeded by the current crop of PCs, and the
current crop of proprietary "marine" systems are overpriced. You'd be
better focussing on the connectivity (Iridium, wireless, SSB, and so
on) than the computing power or need for a laptop. Laptops are easy to
steal and easy to take with you, although they don't travel well in an
open boat. Nobody will swipe a generic $500 tower...you could
wirelessly network to a heavily stowed second tower in the lazarette
and back up data and STILL pay less than a fragile laptop...

R.

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:30:37 -0600, "Rick & Linda Bernard"
wrote:

I would think that 20V * 4.5A = 90 watts. Small inverters are not real
efficient (some even have a fan) and the "brick" is not to efficent either
so:

Input power may be more like 90/.75 = 120 watts due to the efficiency of the
"brick".

and 120/0.75 = 160 watts for the inverter.

160 watts / 12 volts = 13 amps (are you fuzed for 10A? Probably need 20A)

This seems quite high. I run a inspiron (old style 266MHz) which only draws
about 5 amps on 12 vDC through an inverter and brick. Kind of cycles
between 2.5A to 5A. It could be all that horsepower of the 5100. Try
slowing it's CPU down (if possible) or at least charging up the batteries
prior to plugging it in.

By the way I use a Prowatt 250 or a real smaller one (size wise with fan -
whole thing plugs into the lighter) rated at 175W.


"Fred Miller" wrote in message
...
Slightly Off topic but I know someone here can answer the question.

I am trying to run a Dell Inspiron 5100 in my truck using a small inverter
but all I do is blow fuses in the truck. This is a 6 month old Chev 1500
in
excellent condition.

My "brick" 110 V power supply reads:

AC 100-240 V - 103-109 VA 50-60Hz
DC 20 V 4.5 A

What size inverter in watts do I need to use with this power supply?
Can a cigar lighter outlet supply the required power?

TIA for your help.