stevie_b

1A1 but I'm biased.

Mmm, I'm getting loganberries and aged leather. Joking aside, I taste watery leaks to tell if it's water, coolant or screenwash. I wouldn't know what gearbox oil tastes like, so I'd have to dab a bit on my finger from the bottle first.

Chris88, what car is that? It's not a supra, I know that much.

Chris Wilson might make speed converters these days. I think I've read a thread on it here. If he does, you could ask if he could make you one with a bigger adjustment range. It's possible I'm thinking of fuel cut defenders though.

I know the Thor converter/delimiter has a small potentiometer inside it for fine tuning. I don't know if it allows as big a changes as you require though.

Sounds like a good craic.

Best post this week! - - - Updated - - - Best post this week!

I've never tried it, but how about gaffer tape applied briefly to the seat, and then pulled off (like getting your legs waxed)? You must have loads of tape in the dungeon.

The speed reading is modified at the speedo cluster itself, not the odo. Usually with combined speed converters & delimiters, there's 2 output wires: a 5:8 scaled-down output that you feed into the speedo cluster so the speedo reads in mph. There's also another output from the converter that's a clamped signal, that gets fed into the ECU to fool it into thinking the car's never going faster than 110mph, even if it is.

I want to fit a towbar to my 1999 Ford Fiesta. How hard is it to do it yourself? Despite searching for it, I can't find any instructions online, so I don't know whether to order the parts only and fit it myself, or just pay ££ for someone to fit it for me. Any hints on what's involved? Any specialist tools I'll need? I've got the usual car maintenance tools, jacks, axle stands etc etc.

I think stainless steel isn't as good a conductor as normal steel. I would swap the bolt back to stock and see if it makes a difference.

Nice one. Did the tape drive's PSU have capacitor plague?

Looks like you've sorted it! I've not heard of VisualBCD, but I don't tend to do much power-user stuff with Windows these days. It's not much of a check, but I don't see anything in your new screenshot that looks obviously wrong.

Tricky one. I've got no experience of this but I googled it too: this is one of the google hits: http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1084593-move-system-from-d-to-c/ As often happens, the people answering in the thread spend most of the time skirting around the problem without fixing it properly. The tenuous consensus at the end seems to be to disconnect all but the C: drive (i.e. your SSD), boot the PC into repair mode (using the Windows 7 DVD I presume), and let it put the system files back onto C:. I would *definitely* make sure I have a good backup of my data before doing any of this. In my experience with older versions of Windows (XP etc, caused by issues like "DLL Hell"), swapping the function of drives between each other (e.g. moving the System partition to another drive/partition) can get problematic, with software occasionally searching on the wrong partition for some files. Maybe it's got better with Win7, maybe not. Well-written software doesn't hard-code paths to system folders (instead using variables like %System%). Less-dligent software writers, on the other hand.... What I would do: 1) Make a backup of my data 2) Turn off computer, disconnect all hard drives but the SSD, boot into repair mode using the Win7 DVD (don't know the details of this, a little googling should tell you how to access the repair mode and what's available in it). 3) If that doesn't work, reinstall windows.

"overnight pants from Japan" ?

Mods: can we have a section of the forum dedicated to fruit-based headwear please?

It's a miniature computer. They started out as hobbyist devices to help children to learn to program. You plug in your own hard disk, monitor, keyboard and mouse. They're cheap, small and fairly capable, but not an out-of-the-box solution. Until now, you had to install something like Linux on them, and it's this sort of thing coupled with the need to source and set up your own peripherals (OK, not hard with basic stuff like a keyboard, but less trivial with hard disks) that still makes them hobbyist devices IMO. I've heard that the latest model can run Windows (not sure which version), but you still need to be a tinkerer in order to make it worthwhile.

IIRC the comparison sites are being investigated by the competition commission. They're quite a crude tool, even before they promote specific insurers who give them the best commission.

Do you have any error codes showing up? If you do this smells like a code 42, my specialist subject. The workshop manual says code 42 is a speed sensor error, but it's very, very rarely caused by a problem with the speed sensor. More than likely it's a faulty speed converter/delimiter as Ellie said, or that the buffer circuit in the odometer has decided to stop working. Both causes are easily fixed.

The depiction of the meets in the F&F films make me smile. I'm still waiting for someone to turn up wearing shiny hot pants to the Basingstoke meet on a chilly Sunday in November.

If you're not a power user (not into macros, or very specific formatting, or other deep stuff), you could install a free office package: LibreOffice is pretty good. It can read and write MS Office file formats. Some more unusual features of MS Office don't get imported exactly how they might appear in Office itself, hence me asking if you're a power user. Another "problem" with LibreOffice is the user interface: things are laid out slightly differently to MS Office, not radically, but it could get annoying if you're very used to Office. If it has to be Microsoft Office, student editions are much cheaper. You need to be a student though.

Sounds like your CPU is an Intel E6600 Dual Core. A quick google showed that it is 64-bit compatible. You can't deduce anything from the memory: you've probably got 4GB installed but your system only recognises a maximum of about 3.5GB: not surprising because you're currently running a 32-bit OS. I'd need the exact computer model to look up if it'll definitely support 64-bit. The CPU is only a part of it. The motherboard (chipset etc) also needs to be considered.

I see. For long-term offline archiving, I would also recommend tape. As Digsy said, over a timespan of years you'd need to keep a weather eye to check that support for the tape format that you choose is still readily available. I researched this several years ago, and like you, found that CDs/DVDs have questionable long-term stability. I came across archive CD/DVDs but as you pointed out, their capacity is small. I don't know much about SAS, but I would think that if your motherboard doesn't support it, you'd be able to add support by fitting a SAS controller card for that.

If they sack him, they'll have to change the format of TG radically. The current TG "is" JC and vice-versa. I've read rumours that JC is planning to present a new show about farming.

I'll bet you've got a code 42 error logged. The 50mph thing is one of the "code 42" conditions, if I'm right then it's nothing to worry about (but good to get it sorted, if only to make the worrying warnings go away). Does your odometer still count up? If it doesn't, that pretty much proves you have code 42. If it still counts up, it doesn't prove anything either way. You said the CEL doesn't flash when you turn on the ignition, but it won't anyway. To make it flash the error code(s) at you, you need to bridge a couple of contacts in the diagnostics port with a paperclip. Have a search on here or hover over the "error code" words to get specific instructions. Code 42 is a speed sensor error, but the fault is rarely with the actual speed sensor: usually a dodgy speedo converter, or a fault on the buffer circuit of the odo. There's loads of threads on it here. Post back on here the results of the error code reading using the paperclip trick and whether your odo counts up, and once you've established it's code 42, I can describe how to fix it.