The life and times of Chris Jones

Driving around with a camera

Finally, enough time, petrol, and good weather to go out and get some interesting objects from around Wales.

DIY and Punctures

Hurray! A mighty aerial! Me and my brother and father put this up, primarily so I could recieve TV Signals on my PC again, but it’s usefulness now gives freeview to all the houses TVs.

Oh no, structural failure! After two weeks, high winds made short work of it.

The first attempt held for a record breaking two weeks. A similar attempt last year lasted a few more. A dent in the mast we bought seems to have weakened and then bent right over in high winds the other night. No worries, though, in less than 24 hours, a replacement mast with a larger diameter tube was sourced and again, it stood tall.

If you look to the left of the wall mount, you can see last years attempt’s remnants, when the wall mounting failed. This year, the wall mounting is sound, but the mast broke. Now I’ve bought a stronger mast, and bolted it myself, while my brother held it straight, both of us in very high winds.

My car has returned from the garage! Good, except the day I took it there, I had a complete tyre failure as there appears to be a nail in the tyre, with the help (well, he did all the work) of a trusty work compadre, the tyre was changed, that night I did a soapy water test on the tyre, and the nail is the source of the troubles.

The spare tyre has seemingly never seen any use, as it is still emblazened with the original bar code, and “RTFM” markings from GM. I’ve forgotten it’s there a few times and go over 50mph, but I usually remember and slow back down again.

I have also been helping my brother to install some flourescents in the attic. The attic has always been a no-go area as fumbling around with a torch can be dangerous while also trying to climb over the trusses.

The Car is back.

It has a few replacement ECUs fitted, and a new ignition system.

Totally free for me, no charges incurred at all.

One problem is that the key I kept here in the house now doesn’t open the car remotely or start the engine. The immobiliser transponder chip must not be working with the new systems.

Fixage

Remember that car that broke down on me last week?

Apparently it has a problem with the Engine management system, telling all four fuel injectors to turn off when the car is moving, preventing fuel and air from entering the cylinders and cutting off the engine. Apparently a problem with the ignition system is causing the computer to think the engine is off, so off the engine goes.

A new ignition system should do me fine. The cost is free as the car is still under warranty. Evans Halshaw (a Ford garage) just took the car to a Vauxhall garage, and they know the car, so diagnosed it quick sharp.

On the downside, insurance is renewed this month.

£91 a month for Fully comprehensive with Admiral, with a hire car and personal injury benefits added.

Car is broke.

Remember that post I made last week about being late with getting that issue fixed?

Now the car is broke.

There are lessons to be learned somewhere.

Cars

Remember how may car was recalled for free repairs last May, or face possible explosions?

I got that fixed last month.

I like to dice with danger.

Woo Scotland

So…

It’s February. Possibly the worst month of the year, because it doesn’t have the Christmas/Holiday stories that frequented January, or the promises of a new year, or any bank holidays. The same goes for March. April is when the shit hits the fan. Budgets renew themselves and a new Quarter begins, meaning loads of new films and games to immerse myself in.

Besides this, a few interesting things happened. Firstly, I went for a drive to the peak district, over Snake pass, however got lost, and turned up in Sheffield. I discovered there are trams there. It snowed while I was there, and all of Monday. Not as deep as other parts of the country, but enough to excite everyone.

My year of AA membership is over, and has been renewed. Hard to think that a year ago next month I drove my car into a sizeable mass of water, with no working engine or electronics, and no phone coverage, with a three mile walk back to Llangollen, or over the hill to Coedpoeth while drenched. Fortunately the nice AA man who came to fix the other car fixed mine too, prompting me to join that evening.

Thinking back, I was a complete arse at driving the Rover. Trying to look cool by speeding over blind hills on single track roads and around bends in complete darkness, cutting people off and running through amber traffic lights when they had actually gone red. Thank <your deity here> that I changed my ways, else I might be dead, or worse, without a license. It’s now been almost a year since my last incident in any way, although on Tuesday I did a rather long skid on a roundabout in the ice. Skidded at a chicane, too. Nasty stuff, ice, but still gave a cheap thrill.

However, tonight I drove my dad’s Red 2008 Mondeo. It was totally illegal, of course, having no permission from the owner (a leasing company), but I had my dad in the car, so I didn’t go joy riding or anything like that, just drove it back from town.

This weekend we go to Edinburgh for two nights, to watch the Six Nations game Wales vs Scotland. The last time I went was around the same time two years ago, I remember because the Rover was having major issues with the HT leads, halving engine power, and couldn’t drive it. We also lost spectacularly. However, after last years Six Nations win, we are going again this year, except this time I shall be driving my car up there with us all in.

It’ll snow again tonight and tomorrow, hopefully enough so work may send us home. I’ll turn up if I can, because I want to keep 100% attendance this year (I had a single day off last year, and so didn’t get the usual end of year £100 for full attendance.)

Tonight, I have been experimenting with dual booting Windows 7! I am very impressed with it initially, and believe it to be a huge improvement over Vista, but I hope the anti-trust laws against Microsoft defaulting to Internet Explorer are enforced before it’s release, so I don’t have to put up with it ever again.

The Computer score would be higher than Vista’s if it weren’t for the e-SATA drive I used to install it on giving it a 3.0. I recently bought two sticks of 1GB RAM, apparently one of the fastest DDR2 sticks available, which has greatly improved GTAIV, although for some reason, the more memory added to Vista, the worse the Memory subscore gets, where this is fixed in Windows 7.

Hopefully I can get rid of the e-SATA drive once I buy a 1TB SATA drive, my next purchase. After that, it’s another high end Graphics card, as my now 2 year old 8800GTS is chugging away on the newer games.

Until next time, Cheerio!

A new desk

I was growing bored with the cluttered appearance of my old desk, so went on down to IKEA, and bought a table top and four legs, and got a new one.

Here it is.

Now, all that is required is to neaten up the rest of the room. I have too much large furniture in here, all of it is empty, really.

A before and after!

Just cos I can.

BEFORE

AFTER

Isn’t that tidier? It runs cooler, and is almost silent due to the speed of the large fans being lower than smaller fans, so there is less vibration.

Hello again, and Merry Christmas

This Christmas, for me, has been one of trying to make things colder. Why? Because I’m in a relatively small room that overheats even with the windows open. The source of this heat always was my computer. So, I needed to fix that.

The case PCSpecialist.co.uk supplied me was always too small for the job, and the 700W PSU came with an abundance of wires that were being unused, so were left dangling and consequently cut off vital air flow. As my PC is currently down in a relatively tight spot, It often seems to take back in the exhaust warm air, leading to it getting warmer. Throw a bit of dust into the mix, and the thing was cutting out whenever I tried anything CPU intensive.

So, enter the HAF 932 computer case. I chose this because it boasts three 230mm fans, enough to move air away. I also chose this as it takes in air from the front using one of them, so avoiding the heat recycling happening with side intake fans. Moving the computer was easy, apart from noticing I was not given a Q Connector, so had to find where the power and LED pins were from the manual. Afterward, the PC wouldn’t detect my soundcard, but I rectified that with a removal, blowing the PCI slot and reinsertion. Also below is a comparison with the old case for size. Click the images to enlarge.

The main source of heat inside the computer was the CPU, each of the four cores often hitting 57-60C when ide according to SpeedFan. To overcome this obvious problem, I bought theZalman CNPS9700 NT CPU Cooler. I was not sure whether to get this to begin with, as my current motherboard, the ASUS P5N-E SLi, has a massive fanless Northbridge heatsink, which is extremely wide and tall. Thankfully, after installation, it does clear it with a good gap between also.

The cable management on the new case is excellent. A “crawlspace” underneath the motherboard allows all cables to be routed in this way, preventing precious airflow blockage. Any unused cable can be stuffed around the back or at the bottom, where they do no harm.

All in all, these two additions have completely altered the temperature situation in here, with nothing really ever goes over 47C, as the Speedfan screenshot from after a GTAIV game shows.

Next, I wonder if I should OC the CPU…

Chris and Owen take on Bournemouth

So, me and orudge (Owen) went to see Sigur Rós in Bournemouth last night. orudge drove practically the length of the country, and I only went half way!

Well, I’m a convert. The whole event was awesome. The support band was okay as well. I didn’t get any pictures because the iphone camera is a bit backwards, and I didn’t bring my camera as people who own DSLRs get arrested under terrorism laws these days.

Now to buy some albums over iTunes!

When I returned I had computer issues. Dust has completely damaged the CPU heatsink, and when I cleaned and reseated it, it wouldn’t seat properly, and the computer would turn off by the time the logon screen finished. Reusing my old, original CPU heatsink worked a wonder, and now it all works again, but I’ll need a new CPU heatsink for the long term. Suggestions people?

Camera additions

After the photos I took a few weeks back of the Alwen Dam, on Oct 5th, I think, I noticed the sun glare could easily be stopped with a lens hood. Just holding the one from the 55-200mm lens over the 18-55 doesn’t really work because the field of view just includes a dark circle, so I invested in the HB-45 lens hood. This is designed for the 18-55, and fits on the end quite nicely. I also bought a Hoya UV filter on a recommendation. I did, and after attempting to use it the wrong way for a while, the results can be seen in photos I took yesterday, here. But unlike that Jessops link for the lens hood, I didn’t pay £10.99 for one, I paid around £7.99 from Amazon.co.uk, who were using some other company. Now though, they’re using another dealer who is selling for £19,99!

I also bought an ML-13 remote, which will allow for less button mashing when using a tripod, and self portraits. Amazon seems to have stopped selling this altogether. Must have been when the company who were selling for them withdrew.

Run up to Christmas

Why does everyone start talking about Christmas when Summer ends? In the past few weeks I have heard or been in many Christmas related conversations. The nights are drawing in and getting dark, before we know it it’ll be Halloween and then bonfire night. My only real aim is to not crash my car over Winter, like last time!

Things are getting darker quick.

What to do? Where to go?

I have a week off on the week of the sixth. I am currently at a loss at what I should do. If I stick around the house for a week, sleeping patterns are bound to become mental and days and nights will merge and become a single blur I shall Christen either Dight or Nay.

So, I’ll need summat to do. If the weather keeps up like it has for the past three days, then I may want to go camping somewhere. Somewhere further away than I’ve ever been. I’d probably go alone, as there’s nobody I know who’d alsobeup for a pointless camping journey. I’m currently thinking either Scotland or Cornwall.