Any of you guys run with a gaming pc onboard?

I work in the oilfield and I have an enclosed trailer with computers in it. There was one computer that was a special one off proprietary machine that cost over 100k. The trailer is plugged in to a generator and the manufacturer of the expensive computer provided a 12 volt deep cycle battery, a special charger for it, and a xantrex pure sine wave inverter. They wanted their fancy computer running off the inverter as they said it would be pure clean power with no spikes. So if you get the right inverter I am sure it will run your computer.

The other ting is the above mentioned computer was specially designed and shock proof and even was mounted on these vibration dampeners but we also had a regular old desktop computer in the trailer. Nothing special about it at all and that thing bounced around in that trailer for years on the rough lease roads and never gave us any problems.

 

experience

 

Even with a 10 hour break?

If you need 7 hours of decent sleep a 10 hour break is not long enough.
How many other jobs in the trucking industry, or any other, only give 10 hours from signing off for a day and starting again?

It is especially not enough if you want to shower, do laundry or cook a decent meal as well.
Or watch a couple episodes of Doctor Who, or whatever.

My normal minimum is 12 hours.
I might, but very rarely, make an occasional exception. Once or twice a year.

 

I have the ps4 and gaming laptop on board and play them every night..never had any power issues but I make sure to turn off the ps4 when turning the truck on/off.

I imagine the only problem with a desktop would be the vibration and shaking....just make sure it's stable and on a cushiony foundation and I wouldn't see a problem.

 

I don't carry any gaming machine's on board nor install on my phone. Don't have a smart flat screen.. tv .. lap top I mean absolutely nothing, I'm boring.

In the past everything had a short life span on board. a cb constantly falls out of the company truck I'm in now.

Even so, I do consider carrying some of the above these days for down time. I do spend time on the Internet via my phone.

cant see a desk top on board

 

No remodles allowed in a co/trk

 

Generally a laptop can withstand travel.

A desktop would be a bit much for a tractor cab and sleeper. It will consume too much electricity. The one I built, one of several that I have built over the years require about 15 amps at 1500 watts 125 volts. You are not going to find that off a generic inverter unless you can find a really big purpose built inverter. Then you have a problem of heat disposal. There is a 360 mm liquid radiator that cools the cpu under there and it raises the temperature of my living quarters around 8 degrees in summer and maintains it without heating in winter with the door closed in that one room. It will sweat you out of a big truck cab when gaming at full power.

There are laptops sold today which you can get after major events such as E3 is one particular on the ebay for 500 dollars or so in a usual bidding war and it will have been used during the event to demonstrate newest game products to the public with two or more video cards inside of them. Retail on new units will cost you thousands.

Considering that gaming has transitioned to a pay to play (Or free to play with carefully crafted barriers or temptations to cause you to pull out your credit card) and via a cell phone or tablet with no problems, PC desktops are rapidly considered a dinosaur. They are dead already except for the most powerful units driving certain computing tasks or building games and then discarded for the next build the following year as technology continues to evolve. The one I built a few years ago was pretty much the best availible for the money but the video cards and hard drives plus ram is the weak obselete points. All of them will have to be replaced with modern versions for even more money. I expect 5 years at a minimum before I have to start replacing the three componets which will have fallen in price by then.

Earlier systems that were built in the last few years no longer can be built, replaced with same parts because those parts have been pulled off the retail and second hand market, they are no longer profitable to sell or in demand. So, PC computers can also be considered "Disposible" I have a closet filled with cases and parts out of which I could probably slap together something that will boot and run windows. But it will not be a very good machine. Cheaper to throw it away and spend a couple hundred at walmart or something for a better one.

 

I guess 12v pure sine inverters on the.market are a waste of money and thought. how many batteries would it take for several hours of uninterrupted bliss? didn't have any issues with a lap top, it was old, the battery died, haven't replaced it.. yet

 

Check out the Acer Predator G9 laptop. 17 in IPS 1080P GSYNC screen that can be oc'd to 100hz, i7, gtx 1070, 256gb m.2 ssd raid, 1tb 7200 storage drive .... all for 1500 bucks if you pick it up from a Microcenter. I've had my eye on it for a month now. Havent gotten close enough to a store to make it work.

Much better option than a full system in the truck imho ...

 

I used to use a gaming laptop with a 980. It was an i7, quad core and very power hungry. After fighting a losing battle trying to use it in a tractor, I figured out the solution. Those high level games only require an i5, dual core to run. This takes it from a laptop with a monster appetite to a notebook that sips energy. My notebook has 16 gig of ram and a gtx 950. Can't tell the difference in any game. Bought a 12 volt adapter for it on eBay and it runs at a very cool temperature. Never pulls the truck battery down (no inverter needed).