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Laptop's off road?????? Laptop's off road??????
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  #1  
Old 22 Dec 2009
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Laptop's off road??????
Does anyone use their laptops when off road??

I`ve been using as Asus eee for a while & it`s great, but have started doing a lot of off road stuff on a KTM 690 Enduro.

Any thoughts on taking it on the dirty stuff? Any packing solutions out there??


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Old 22 Dec 2009
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Eee pcs
Colebatch mentioned protecting the screens properly (he got through 3 of them). The only other bit is harddrives but as you won't be using the laptop as you ride it's usually not an issue at all (paranoids can use SSDs instead).
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Old 22 Dec 2009
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I would put a thin piece of SOFT foam between the screen and chassis.

A SSS (solid state drive) is a must which your EEE will probably have already.

Keeping the whole affair in a neoprene case and pack it inbetween your clothes or sleeping bag will further minumise any shock.
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Old 22 Dec 2009
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Originally Posted by tedmagnum View Post
Keeping the whole affair in a neoprene case and pack it inbetween your clothes or sleeping bag will further minumise any shock.
I use a thin neoprene case and my Thermarest sleep pad ... with a long Velcro strap the Thermarest makes a nice cushy bundle around the laptop. Also have some bubble wrap taped on top of the laptop to help protect the screen.
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Old 23 Dec 2009
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I have an Advent 8212 which is now a couple of years old and has done, I think, five trips with considerable offroad sections. I used my older Dell Inspiron 8600 on three or four other trips. I carry a notebook PC primarily for GPS route planning and tracklog storage. I find a neoprene case is the easiest and slimmest and I then store the PC in the pannier on its side, or in a dry bag horizontally.

Corrugated roads are the most likely to cause damage but I rarely encounter long sections of these. The most likely component to fail would be the disk drive and it's important to fully power down the notebook before packing--you don't want it waking from sleep mode in order to write the hibernate image to disk just as you go over some massive bumps.
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Old 2 Jan 2010
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My Dell Inspiron 8600 had done over 270,000kms on ALL sorts of road surfaces before dying for other reasons. It always travelled in an ally pannier, vertically, opening side down, in a slim Cordura document case which I lined with solid foam (sleeping mat) panels on each side and a slim strip along the bottom. It also had a sheet of neoprene inside to protect the keyboard from marking the screen.

Then I bought an Asus F6 - let's just say no more on that!

Now I have a Toshiba notebook (Yea!!), which is packed, and travels, the same as the Dell. I always shut the computers down totally before travelling.
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Old 22 Dec 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edteamslr View Post
Colebatch mentioned protecting the screens properly (he got through 3 of them). The only other bit is harddrives but as you won't be using the laptop as you ride it's usually not an issue at all (paranoids can use SSDs instead).
Colebatch's Asus EEE screens seemed to suffer as a result of pressure/flexing when packed with other stuff in pannier bags, causing a layer to crack and the liquid to bleed. I took a new screen to him and later Terry joined us with another, but he also brought a leather type slip-on cover. This seemed to give the required amount of rigidity as there were no more problems after that despite us doing the roughest parts therefter The BAM Road - ultimate test of man and machine - ADVrider

Both Colebatch and I carried external harddrives to back everything up in as many places as possible. There were no problems with these.
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