and today i have mostly been...

[steve_earwig]

I should really sell it but at the moment it's nice to have proper garages, workshops and a refuge if living in Retardville gets too much. Maybe when Croatia joins the EU...

[Welly]

Is there any mileage in letting it out? or will you get clobbered for income tax, tenant tax, snow-clearing tax, tiled bathroom tax, apple tree tax etc

[steve_earwig]

I did look into that a couple of years back, there's no real legal problems in renting but the amount I would have got is pitifully small and I'd have to clear the whole place out, no more workshops or garages, it just didn't seem worth it. There's also no protection if, say, the tenants decided to demolish the house...

[steve_earwig]

I found that link for psu cables and connectors http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnec ... ctors.html which I found quite useful a year or so ago when I had to replace mine (as I knew next to nothing )

I'm still trying to sort out a new pc here, I rang up of one of the shops (the one with the low prices) last week regarding the amount of stuff they had listed but out of stock and the guy I spoke to said to email him a list of my requirements and he'd check with his suppliers. That was last week and I still didn't hear anything I reckon if that's how keen they are to deal with potential sales I don't really want to find out how they deal with problems...

[jonsowman]

That is very useful, bookmarked, thanks

That doesn't sound particularly promising with regards to getting components, hopefully he gets back to you soon. If any of the hardware did go wrong you always have the option of dealing direct with the manufacturer

[steve_earwig]

A swift update (i sem to have been busy this weekend, for some reason ) I finally gave up waiting for the guy to email me back so I called him again - "I didn't get your email." SO I sent him a test email while I was waiting, when that arrived he spotted my original (wouldn't you have denied all knowledge and waited for me to send it again, rather than look like you just don't give a toss?) Anyway, he went down the list "no, I haven't got that, nor that, nor that, nor..." It turns out the only thing he had got was the memory So I asked him what the deal was with the case, as no-one seems to have one and he said there's a problem with the importer. Just the Core 3000 or all of Fractal Design's case? All off them. Bugger So I had another look and came across Cooler Master's Silencio 550, more-or-less the same with filters plus it has massive amounts of sound deadening (Not really bothered about that, anything will be better than the swarm of hornets I've got going here) But it's another 20 quid-odd.

I also started wondering about the motherboard - do I really need an overclocking board when I'm never likely to overcclock? I've just been reading this http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/355 ... s#t2670996 which explains what all the various chipsets do. I've looked through it and compared it to what's available here (not much) and yes, I still want this board. Looking about, reading reviews etc. it seems to be damn good value for money and from a manufacturer that now has a very good reputation.

After reading the article though, I'm starting to think I don't really need a quad core cpu for what I'll be using it for, nor a dedicated graphics card.... The search continues

[lozz]

Hi steve,


if your not too fussed about Quad core,

ive got a M/board & dual core processor and Memmory, you can throw in a case ,

[steve_earwig]

Thanks but I'm still a bit iffy about sending motherboards through the post here. I've got the money to do this now, it just doesn't help that I don't know what I'm doing and I'm worried I'll either spend money unnecessarily or end up with something that doesn't do what I want.

[steve_earwig]

...finishing putting this new machine together Details above (somewhere...), I ordered them last week from another on-line shop I'd been investigating. After one place ignored my emails and another ignored me entirely, I thought I'd give these guys a try as I founds some good reviews of them. Not the cheapest but if they can actually get the stuff and not just ignore me... Ordered last Thursday, I got an email straight back to say the stuff needed to be imported and it would be with me from 3 to 5 working days. Yeah, right, I thought. I was watching my order details on their website and it went straight to saying it was all in transit, so I was wondering how long I'd be looking at that, but yesterday morning I got an email to say it was with the couriers. About 11 o'clock a big van pulled up outside, door bell, Scooter going bananas (he got unceremoniously grabbed and shut indoors) and there it all was. He even let me off 4Kn (about 50p). This is not the sort of service I expect in Croatia, I expect to be kept waiting, ignored, ripped off and basically f*cked about with, so I'm in shock because I haven't.

Anyway, I've been slowly sticking it together trying to get it all right. I've had a few issues with the case - why does everything seem to end up in the wrong place? Like the holes for running cables behind the motherboard, they seem to bring everything out so it gets in the way. The side-saddle HDD slots don't make much sense to me either, they're right in front of the fans but, instead of the air flowing past them, the cage sits across it so it blocks the air. Also, it means I need to buy another load of SATA cables (from, umm, somewhere) with right angled ends so they clear the covers. There are also some bits and pieces in the kit that are on he part's list but not in the instructions, what are they for?

The rest of it was fairly straight forward, it was all together by noon and then it was switch on time... I've put a fair few machines together before but only out of parts that wouldn't matter if I messed something up (which I have...) so I was a bit worried - would it a) start up, b) not do anything at all, making me spend days figuring it out, or c) go fizzle pop bang!! because I'd done something wrong...

But it fired up ok, I've installed Windoze 7 on it and I'm in the process of moving stuff over from the borrowed machine. I'm also "enjoying" my fist proper hands-on experience of Wondews 7 - what moron designed this? Where's the fecking classic view then??? Gawd, I guess I'll get used to it eventually

[lozz]

Ihate some computer cases,

itake it youve got what they call a Gaming case?


Windows 7 im not impressed with, iprefare xp (Black -edition)

[steve_earwig]

I dunno, it's not got clear panels or flashing lights or anything, it's just a black box. The only reason I bought it was it has filters.

And the Wunders 7 installation DVD my bother sent me is... Moody So on goes Linux

[steve_earwig]

,,,clearing snow again. Boring

[jonsowman]

Not sure how I missed your updates Steve, glad the PC stuff appears to be going reasonably well

I know what you mean about the laterally mounted HDDs, they do seem a bit weird but are a) easier to insert and b) take up less space (leaving more for longer graphics cards). I've found the airflow to be surprisingly good - mine stay more than cool enough.

It is always a fiddle getting cable routing right, but it's worth it.

[steve_earwig]

Yep, all systems go, thanks for your help Jon

The right-angled SATA cables turned up yesterday, the shop here only did two sorts - 75cm and 22cm, thinking that the 22s wouldn't be long enough I ordered the 75s, knowing that they'd be insanely long but I reasoned I could get something saner later off ebay. Unfortunately they sent me an email to say they couldn't get the 75s, so after a bit of careful measuring I had to order the 22s which were just long enough, although I had to mount all 4 drives facing the same way rather than one one way, one the other, which I was planning to do to stop all the cables being in the same place. I guess it's neat enough now anyway.

[steve_earwig]

Wow, I've resisted the urge to add to this thread since February So anyway yes, as the Yoyo's emissions system went tits up yet again, we approached the guy who rebuild the catalyser on the grounds that the lambdas were new so this was probably at fault. I think I probably waffled on about this before but he had to restuff the cat clean the injectors and then said the top lambda had gone batshit crazy and he couldn't progress any further with the fault without a new one. I ordered another new one (80 quid ker-ching!) but, as this was heading up to when we had all the white stuff, I decided I'd rather drive the piece of cra... sorry, thing as it was, rather than risk the Pug. Why have a dog? So anyway, it went back a month ago, he had it for 3 weeks and (drum roll) couldn't fix it - hooray!! I can see where he's been prodding about with the loom and the engine has some shiny new earth straps but the emissions and engine management lights still come on all the time. As he'd not managed to fix it all he charged me was 340Kn (about 40 quid) for fuel and a couple of emission tests. The odd thing is, it now passes the emissions tests, lights or no lights. His advice was either to send the ecu to Austria for testing and either pay for its repairs or, if it tests ok, to buy a proper cat from Toyota (the best part of 1,000€) -or- stick some tape over the lights and ignore them

I got it back Monday and ordered up stuff for a service, as well as a set of brake pads for the front as I knew the disks were quite rusty on the insides and in need of machining. That all came to 600Kn, about 80 quid. I gave the outside a quick clean, the cleaned and dried the inside as it smelled like a dead dog in there and the carpet was starting to turn into a mushroom farm. I also pulled the clocks out with the intention of giving them a spot of rewiring, only to discover that it has no light bulbs in it at all All the lights are absolutely tiny smd leds, all soldered onto the circuit board. So I got some black tape...

Also, I have noticed that there is corrosion starting on the front suspension turrets I'm not sure whether I should get this welded (suspension will have to come off) or just hammer it flat and stick some lob in there...

Today I took it to the workshop to have the service done, have the tyres changed over and sort the brakes out. Mika, the mechanic, had a hell of a job getting the disks off, they were firmly rusted onto the hubs. They looked fine from the outside but inside they looked like something brought up from a shipwreck, they were so rusty. We were a bit dubious whether they had enough meat left but the machine shop I took them to seemed to think they'd be fine, so 100Kn (about 12 quid) later back they came. They look a bit thin but hey, it's not the Pug, so who cares.

Unfortunately Mika ran out of time today, he had a few other small problems come in, but a 307 1.6 HDi came in needing the remains of it's broken dipstick removed from the sump, so I said I was in no rush and let him do that. The dipstick's only plastic but it was blocking the tube (it's kind of Z-shaped at the bottom) so the replacement couldn't go it. It looked a right pig of a job getting that sump off, I just wonder if it'll ever seal again