Now that would be a monster of an engine if all of those cylinders fired under one hood. Those are the combined numbers if I put our two people haulers together. All that power and torque for transporting a handful of people at average speeds of around 35 mph!
I'm always amazed at the technology and reliability of current day internal combustion engines. I'm not even taking about those super advanced engines in an exotic German or Italian car. This is just our day-to-day, run-of-the-mill, mass produced cookie cutter cars.
Both of these cars can go around 12,000 miles between oil changes. The don't need water or any other fluids added on a regular basis (well, besides gas of course).Both these cars are categorized as ULEVs (Ultra Low Emission Vehicles??). The only routine maintenance I perform on them (every month or so) is check and fill any air in the tires if needed. They are not new either. One of them is over 5 years old and other around 3.
Hell, the 5 year old one can even turn off 3 of its 6 cylinders when the engine computer determines it doesn't need all the power! Yeah, I sound like a baby in awe, but as I said, whenever I think about how often I don't have to think about whether or not the car will start the next time I crank the engine, I continue to be amazed...and thankful!
Thank you technology. Thank you human brain. Thank you mother necessity.
(If Murphy has his way, one of them is going to breakdown tomorrow)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Guess where I'm posting this from?
Nope, I'm not sitting on the throne while posting this.
Yes, I fixed my graphics card! After multiple failed attempts at being able to de-solder the bad caps, after giving up on the whole project a couple of times and after finding that this card still sells on eBay for north of $50 used, I went the brute force approach to de-solder and clean up the holes.
Finally at 2:00 AM yesterday I managed to de-solder the old caps (~20 effort hours), solder on the new ones (1/2 hour), installing the card (2 mins), hitting the power button (20 secs) and waiting for things to show up on the screen (20,000 hours), it happened. I finally got this card to work!
I had to literally drill the solder out of the holes after failed attempts at trying to get the solder off with solder sucker and desoldering braids (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy). The older solder won't come off easy and when soldering the new caps, the new solder won't stick on easy! (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy...wait didn't I already say that??)
In the meanwhile, last week, due to unknown/unrelated cause, the power supply also went kaput. eBay came to the rescue and I managed to snag one for 15 bucks.
So, I now have a working 7 yr old desktop....wooohooo!!!
Yes, I fixed my graphics card! After multiple failed attempts at being able to de-solder the bad caps, after giving up on the whole project a couple of times and after finding that this card still sells on eBay for north of $50 used, I went the brute force approach to de-solder and clean up the holes.
Finally at 2:00 AM yesterday I managed to de-solder the old caps (~20 effort hours), solder on the new ones (1/2 hour), installing the card (2 mins), hitting the power button (20 secs) and waiting for things to show up on the screen (20,000 hours), it happened. I finally got this card to work!
I had to literally drill the solder out of the holes after failed attempts at trying to get the solder off with solder sucker and desoldering braids (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy). The older solder won't come off easy and when soldering the new caps, the new solder won't stick on easy! (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy...wait didn't I already say that??)
In the meanwhile, last week, due to unknown/unrelated cause, the power supply also went kaput. eBay came to the rescue and I managed to snag one for 15 bucks.
So, I now have a working 7 yr old desktop....wooohooo!!!
Monday, November 15, 2010
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