~Toughbooktalk~

I have 2 Deputies that are having strange issues in their vehicles that I have not been able to determine the cause of. One has a CF-52 and his screen blanks out from time to time when running off 12V in the patrol car, whether parked or driving. The other has a CF-53 where the screen goes snowy like a TV with no signal only when the car is stopped, but idling. When it occurs the computers are obviously still running and pressing the power button you can watch the hard drive light as the computer properly shuts down. The only common denominator seems to be they are both driving new GMC Sierra pickups.

I have run both for hours here at my desk with no issues, replaced power inverters, batteries, checked voltages, etc. It appears to be something related, but that is only a guess. Having exhausted even my wild guesses as to where this might be coming from I wanted to ask if anyone has had similar issues or has any suggestions at all?

EDIT to Add: I have 3 other officers that are driving the very same vehicles and are not having issues.

Can you install a temperature gauge on these? There are a couple of freebies out there.

As an aside (possibly heat too) I pulled a wireless lead loose from a CF-52 and the whole pad came with it. I couldn't believe it. Did the same to the other lead on the same pcb and it came loose too. BAD solder work. This is under the keyboard bezel where it says installed by Panasonic professionals.(words to that effect)

How about the lid closing sensor for the CF-52? Would it cycle the unit to stand-by if a cable was loose?

Did you say you replaced the inverter for the lcd?

Good luck,

Jeff....reaching here...

It could have t do with bad electricity...

Alternator whine can cause issues too (Especially with video or audio feeds!).

Try running them on just the batteries and see if the issues go away??

You mentioned Inverters... meaning you are taking the 12V power and converting it to 110V AC and then using the normal AC adapters? If this is the case, I'd recomend getting LIND adapters that go right to the DC of the vehicle, that way you aren't taking DC power, inverting it to AC, then back to DC with a normal AC adapter... Pointless that way.

Thanks!

I have actually tried both. The original power bricks where the Linds. I switched them out for the 120V ones and an inverter since I had those. I have a couple of the Lind power bricks on order so I have spares or replace these. I am at the point where I am trying to locate inline power filters, but not having much luck right now.

If you can, try swapping the laptops to one of the vehicles that works. This will begin to narrow the problem down to the power supply, vehicle or laptop itself.

Pull the "defective" laptop and supply...run it on the desk in the office and see what happens..

If you have a spare hard drive..install it with a fresh copy of the operating system..Win7 ???. It may be hibernation issues.
I ALWAYS set windows for Maximum performance in the power options. Microsoft REALLY dropped the ball in the power saving programming. It conflicts with the programing built into the Intel CPU.

I have a slight issue with this CF52. Every so often the things hangs for a couple minutes with the hard drive light lit. I used a different driver and it helped a lot, but it has not completely gone away.
Once in a while the screen gets corrupted. I close out a program or 2 and it usually clears up. Heat or failing ram???

I think it has been solved on the CF-53 and lesson learned. The lesson learned is to ask for more info than you think you need.

Yesterday afternoon after dropping off the CF-53 for me to run on my desk, the deputy took his vehicle to the shop to have wiring repaired because if he turned on all lights and sirens he had smoke coming from the dash! Turned out to be that he had several very badly burnt power wires. He is still in disbelief that the two could be related in any way! He just does not understand how much noise an arcing power connection can produce.

WOW!

I'm glad no one got hurt! Jeeze!