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34696

General Discussion Area / Re: look at this

« on: 04 July 2007, 17:08:04 »

Whats rare about it?

Was going to say, could have sworn I drove to work in one this morning. Same colour, same model, 2 years newer, less mileage 200cc more engine. No one appeared to stop and stare and say how "VERY VERY RARE" my car was.  

Kevin

34697

General Discussion Area / Re: Blue screen of death

« on: 27 June 2007, 11:37:40 »

Does drive make matter?

Yep. Some are better than others. You'd need to ask someone who uses lots of them for current recommendations.

Some drives will last for years, some will pack up after a year or two. Thing is, they're cheap relative to the data you have on them so you may as well change them well before they get into the steep part of the MTBF curve! My experience is that, after 3 years, it's not worth keeping them as they may fail at any time (they may go on for another 10 years, of course), especially if you're rebuilding the system anyway.

I certainly wouldn't rely on a 10 year old drive in a server  

Kevin

34698

General Discussion Area / Re: Blue screen of death

« on: 27 June 2007, 10:21:48 »

Yes it is, Kevin. It's a doddle to physically change the drive, but copying everything over is something I do not relish (gone are the days of COPY *.*!)

Yes, I know what you mean. However, if the system has started to become unstable as a result of a failing hard drive, I'd say you may have some corrupted files on it. These will be copied to the new drive if you just ghost it so you may still have problems. It might be worth a try, but it might also be a good opportunity to rebuild the system from scratch. This isn't a bad thing to do every so often anyway. Depends how much software you'd need to re-install and if you have the original media.

Documents and the like you can obviously just copy over by installing one of the drives as a slave.

Kevin

34699

General Discussion Area / Re: Blue screen of death

« on: 27 June 2007, 10:01:18 »

Any unusual noises from the Hard Drive?

If it's starting to go bad I'd be inclined to get a new hard drive ASAP and copy everything over to it while you still can! Modern hard drives have internal strategies to remap bad blocks and this is transparent to the OS. If the OS is starting to see hard drive issues it's bad news. Could still be the drive controller or another hardware issue though.

How old is the drive? If it's more than 2 or 3 years old it's on borrowed time.


Kevin

34700

General Discussion Area / Re: Decisions - what shall I do?

« on: 29 June 2007, 16:13:53 »

and take plenty of gaffer tape.....

.. and a fire extinguisher...  


.. Suitable for electrical fires....

 

34701

General Discussion Area / Re: Decisions - what shall I do?

« on: 29 June 2007, 10:02:11 »

He was a well loved member of the forum until his untimely demise at the hands of his girlfriend!  

... and after surviving all those gearbox change-induced injuries and proudly soldiering on, a little slip like this turns out to be his undoing.  

Kevin

34702

General Discussion Area / Re: Tuesday night quiz

« on: 03 July 2007, 23:42:34 »

I know i used to run a server 24/7 as well......it was doubling my leccy bill....

I built myself a nice Mini-itx machine. Fanless (fans failed after first year so I fitted some bigger heatsinks..). Only takes 20 watts and that's with a decent hard drive. OK, OOF would be a tad sluggish if it were hosted on such a POS and there's minimal fault tolerance bit it's fine for serving mail, as an MP3 dumping ground, etc.

I have a little gadget (they are on special offer from Maplins every so often for about 12 quid) that you can plug an appliance into and it gives you the power consumption - Watts and VA, power factor, mains voltage and frequency. It will also tot up units consumed over time so you can stick it on a fridge for a week and then calculate the average consumption. A nice little toy that has caused me a few eye openers.

Did you know a Sky box takes 20 watts on standby? And pretty much the same when it's not on standby. There's absolutely F.A. point in switching it to standby All so it can turn on immediately on demand and not spend 30 seconds syncing to the satellite, and so that it can phone home in the night and spill the beans on your viewing habits (not that mine is anywhere near connected to a phone line).

If the environmentalists found out about that it would take the pressure off the 4x4 owners a tad!

Kevin

34703

General Discussion Area / Re: rear fog lights? - heres why.....

« on: 03 July 2007, 23:25:55 »

Was driving along the M3 this evening, just after a very heavy shower (read: thunderstorm), driving west into the sun and thought to myself that I could barely see the tail lights of the car in front through the spray yet the reps in the fast lane were driving awfully close to each other. Backed off a little and made some extra space.

I was bloody glad I did. Cascade of brake lights up the fast lane, BMW locks up then cuts in front of me to find himself some more stopping distance. I hit the anchors to see the bloke in the mirror locked up and clearly not going to stop. Luckily my extra space was still available so I eased off the brakes and all was well.

Still, nobody was speeding so that's alright, then.

Kevin

34704

General Discussion Area / Re: RESULT!

« on: 03 July 2007, 13:48:19 »

It's not necessarily just 2nd hand tyres either.

My dad bought a brand new Corsa 6 months ago. A few days later he took it on a long motorway journey, stopped off at a services and, as he was about to set off, had a little walk aroud to check all was well. One of his tyres had a huge bulge in the sidewall.  

That could well have been an outside lane blowout if he hadn't checked. I think he's still arguing the toss with Vx for a replacement under warranty!

So, even 200 mile old tyres can ruin your day. It's well worth keeping an eye on them, and a check before any high speed driving is a good idea IMO.

Kevin

34705

General Discussion Area / Re: Owt else I can do here?

« on: 03 July 2007, 13:39:07 »

Blocked breathers may have caused the gasket to fail so be sure to clean them out.

Kevin

34706

General Discussion Area / Re: i should really put the decent tyres on the ba

« on: 02 July 2007, 23:18:17 »

LSD probably doesn't help under power either. It will cause the rear end to break away if pushed too hard rather than a relatively benign inner wheel spin. Probably why VX dropped it as standard fitment once traction control was standard.

Fitted one to the kit car about 18 months ago and it now demands a lot more respect when negotiating roundabouts in the wet. Much improved traction in the dry though. With the levels of side impact protection a Westfield offers it pays to experiment with these things off the public roads with plenty of runoff area  

Kevin

34707

General Discussion Area / Re: i should really put the decent tyres on the ba

« on: 02 July 2007, 19:59:26 »

Depends if you prefer oversteer or understeer I guess?

How does it handle when cornering if balanced on the power and not being provoked?

If the back end tends to break away I'd be inclined to swap them. If it corners fairly neutral I'd leave it.

Kevin

34708

General Discussion Area / Re: Very strange noise from a Punto....

« on: 02 July 2007, 10:04:24 »

I suspect a totally unmaintained car

Why is it always Fiats?

I got a lift from a mate in a Fiat once and had to explain that it wasn't normal for the oil light to come on every time she went round a corner, and that, if she drove very gently to the next garage I would top up her oil level and save her a large bill for a new engine!

Kevin

34709

General Discussion Area / Re: insurance!!!!!! grrrr!

« on: 02 July 2007, 09:35:33 »

So, they'll insure you on a V6 Omega but not an XR3i?  :-?

I know what I would do more damage in!

They're a law unto themselves and deserve no loyalty. If you don't like what they quote vote with your feet, or play them off against each other if you can be bothered.

Kevin

34710

General Discussion Area / Re: Botch jobs!

« on: 02 July 2007, 11:30:24 »

Isopontiac!

ROFL! I like it.  

the scary thing was that I drove it 250 miles home from Blackpool like that

Burt Reynolds would have been proud!  

Kevin