We have a Toshiba Tecra, and have had no problems. I made sure that
the port hole above the nav station was extra tight, so that ZERO water
would be able to come in and drip down.


I also have a couple of DVD players and an LCD monitor on the wall and
they say they are happy too.

I was on a Beneteau 50, and they had a full blown Desktop with CRT
monitor. They had had it for years without any problem.

I think the chalenges would be if you wanted to take the computer out
in the companion way where it would be more exposed to everything.

This Christmas Best Buy started selling some really striped down
laptops for $400. You might consider if they would work for you. If
all you want to do is check email, surf the web and perhaps plot a
course you don't need the latest and greates.

"Dan Best" wrote in message
...
Our laptop never left the nav station, but suffered corrosion of the
various contacts on the outside anyway (network, modem, etc.).

did you ever consider spraying them with some of the various sparys
availbale, contact cleaner most probably, or maybe inox?

They work fine until someone drops them on the dock, drives over them in
the marina parking lot (seen that), drops them down the companionway
ladder (that really does 'em in), etc.

Ive had quite a good experience with toshiba notebooks (though admittedly
mainly the older satellite pro's) and again it needs to be taken with a
grain of salt that i am a sample of one. I've destroyed so far through
abnormal use on land 2 comapq's, one sony vaio, and one thinkpad. I had two
of the earlier toshiba satellite pros that i put through various forms of
suffering including dropping numerous times and once accidentally driving
off with it on the roof of my car (it fell off at about 25km/h, closed. a
lot of scratching where it slid across the road, but still functions to this
day).

is
anybody opening up their laptop and sparying the circuitboards with
anything?

Keep your fingers out of it. Static electricity does in computers, like
spraying air across things....not good.

this seems to be a very common misconception to me..... Ive been into
computers since the vic 20, owned a commodore 64, an amiga 500, the first
ibm xt, then an at, then a 186, a 286, 386, 486, and so on.... my machines
started with 360k floppy drive, then twin 360's, then my first 1.44 drive,
untill the day i bought my first wopping double height 10Mb drive (I had no
idea what i would do with all that space in the days of machine code). i
built most of my computers by hand as did a lot of my friends, and despite
never owning a wrist grounding strap, ive never destroyed a component to
date. I do suffer from the odd static shock on my car door as a result of
living in a very dry climate and not being very selective about what i wear,
but i generaly ground myself with my hand as a matter of practice.

There are plenty of aftermarket PCB sparays that promise the earth, i wonder
how many of them are useful

You don't want to be opening up your laptop and spraying CBs. The system
will overheat. Buy a laptop that's designed for the marine environment
(rugged) or not use it as a primary device should the one you have fail
due to corrosion. I've known people to go for a long time with a regular
one without any problems. Probably one big problem is damage due to it not
being secured when the boat is in a seaway.

--
"j" ganz @@

I dont see too much relation between spraying the PCB with something, and
heat transfer. I was involved with PCB repair for 3 years, and learned a
bit about PCB production in that time. Most PCB's have a waterwash as part
of their production to help clear acids from soldering (the water is
treated) and are then sprayed with some from of antistatic or protection
spray, its the stuff that gives the board a greenish tinge. I still dont
see any reason that an additonal spraying of an anti corrosion spray over
the top would hurt.

Shaun

"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in
:

I still dont
see any reason that an additonal spraying of an anti corrosion spray
over the top would hurt.


It dissolves teh green stuff......yecch.

Larry
--
Stop answering and clicking email spammers, stupids!

"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in message
...

You don't want to be opening up your laptop and spraying CBs. The system
will overheat. Buy a laptop that's designed for the marine environment
(rugged) or not use it as a primary device should the one you have fail
due to corrosion. I've known people to go for a long time with a regular
one without any problems. Probably one big problem is damage due to it
not being secured when the boat is in a seaway.

--
"j" ganz @@

I dont see too much relation between spraying the PCB with something, and
heat transfer. I was involved with PCB repair for 3 years, and learned a
bit about PCB production in that time. Most PCB's have a waterwash as
part of their production to help clear acids from soldering (the water is
treated) and are then sprayed with some from of antistatic or protection
spray, its the stuff that gives the board a greenish tinge. I still dont
see any reason that an additonal spraying of an anti corrosion spray over
the top would hurt.

Shaun

Well, you asked about spraying them with "anything," and it seemed like you
didn't have much experience with this sort of thing, so I answered on the
safe side. If you spray the inside of your computer with stuff that will
insulate the PCB, you're going to increase heat retention on the board.
There's a big difference between antistatic spray and coating the PCB with a
think layer of stuff. You'll also void whatever warranty you might be able
to claim if there's a problem.

If you know more about it, then why did you ask?

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

I have two notebooks that id like to carry permanently on a thunderbird
26,
mainly for navigation use, so they'll be on most of the time and id like
them to last at least a couple of years if possible....

Get a couple of the exact same model, used even. That way you can do the
install once and then copy the drives. Even keeping a backup of the drive
image to ease reloading it later should it fail. For navigation it's not
like you need much in the way of computing power. Something with a 1gHz
processor would be about right for the task. Trying to make it pull
double-duty as a DVD player is probably a bad idea. Considering how cheaply
portable DVD players are these days that's usually a better solution.

I had the idea of
separating the screen and the motherboard/HDD, encasing most of it in a
waterproof container, nolting the screen to a bulkhead and using an
external
keyboard.... a bit over the top?

Bad idea. The wiring that connects from the motherboard to the displays is
not designed to be extended. Sure, it "might" be possible but then you'd
have to deal with the *Extremely* fragile connectors on each end. Don't
bother. If anything, just use the VGA output from the PC and feed it into a
regular monitor.

Is anyone shockproofing their laptop, or just sitting them on a table?

The drives in most laptops are more that capable of dealing with typical
use. It might be worth considering use of the sort of hold-down straps and
clips you'd use on other gear. It really depends on if you expect to use it
in rough conditions. If that's the case then you might be better off use a
fixed-mount monitor. That way the laptop's screen isn't going to be
'flapping around' when going gets rough. It might then be handy to use a
waterproof mouse and keyboard. The laptop then becomes somewhat akin to a
plain old desktop box, but one that can be easily disconnected from the
cables and used above decks in good weather or onshore.

-Bill Kearney

On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:02:11 -0500, "Bill Kearney"
wkearney-99@hot-mail-com wrote:

It might be worth considering use of the sort of hold-down straps and
clips you'd use on other gear. It really depends on if you expect to use it
in rough conditions.

I've had good luck using strips of "super duty" velcro for holding
laptop PCs and flat panel monitors in place. You can buy packages of
it in West Marine. I believe it is a 3M product.

Shaun Van Poecke wrote:
Im sure heaps of people out there must be carrying their laptops on board
when they are cruising for navigation/internet.... what is the general
consensus on life?
Thanks all
Shaun


In 1987 I bought a Korean laptop. It was a real cool one: 286 with 2meg
HDD. I think it had DOS 3.1 or maybe DOS Shell 6.0. I payed $1500. I
was working on boats then. I drug it all over the Bering and East
Pacific. I wraped it in plastic bags and it got the occasional bump. I
loved it!

It lasted 13 months with 8 months of that at sea. When it died while I
was at work I was screwed. Never again I thought.

Last year I bought a Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook. Its heavy and not that
fast. Whygo to the tripple expence? Much rather have one that can be
droped from 6' and keep on working.And Im hopping to have a few years
of relible use. But I have a $100 used Dell in a pelican case for
backup........... I'll let you know if the panasonic was worth the
extra money in three years.

"Bob" wrote
I'll let you know if the panasonic was worth the
extra money in three years.

If it's not worth it, you'll probably be able to let us know even sooner...