Mat-man's Odd's and End's

OCZ Agility 3 Stuttering Fix

2011-12-11T00:11:00.000-08:00

I got a new net-book for Christmas and the first thing I did as throw in a 120 gig SSD.. Wicked fast right!!!...right.... yeah within a few hours it started to stutter like hell. My other netbook with the cheap 60 gig runs like a champ...weird.... the agility 3 should be significantly faster then it is. I trolled the OCZ tech forums for a day or two and had no answer to the problem. they just said to update to the latest firmware (2.15) which the drive came with. I stumbled upon another link that mentioned something about a "link power management" feature that i couldn't find in my power profile settings. I found a registry value that enables you to see it in the power profiles and upon investigating it the 60 gig had that setting turned off (Active means the power management is turned off). I applied the same settings to my new net-book with the 120 gig Agility 3 and its impressive speeds came back and the stuttering/hanging disappeared!!! It works perfectly now. as a side effect of the new drive the netbook never gets passed luke warm on the bottom and a full charge nets me about 9 hours of balanced power settings.

here is a link to the tweak to fix the stuttering:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/177819-ahci-link-power-management-enable-hipm-dipm.html

the fix is about 3/4 the way down the page under the green letters "HERE'S HOW"

An important tidbit from the page:

"NOTE: You will be able to set to use HIPM, HIPM+DIPM, or Active while "on battery" or "plugged in". The Active setting means do not have HIPM or DIPM enabled.

Easy Organizing Of Electronic Components

2011-07-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is something I did a while back but I wanted to put it somewhere in case someone else likes my idea and wants to do the same. I had one large tote and one small tote that I got full of electronic components. They were given to me and I have been scavenging from them for a few years. I have also bought components from time to time because I couldn’t find them in the totes or I didn’t have any of said items. You can imagine that I ended up with a very large mess. I decided to sort and inventory the stuff I had. So I ran out and got a bunch of small canning jars and started to sort everything. I soon realized that although they are a good size they are extremely heavy in any quantity. I also played around with several ways of storing them so I could easily get to everything but only had mild success with that (if anyone is interested I can post more information). I found something much better thought, Iris Photo storage containers. I have 9 large photo holders. Each of the cases holds 12 small photo cases. Well even though I have 108 of the small cases virtually all of them are filled up. I think that another 6 will finish off what i need. Here are a few photos of them full and a photo of what’s left in the small tote to give you an idea what I was up against.

UPDATE: yeah the cases cost a bit... I bough then slowly and every few months SpaceSavers has a 20%-30% code to use at the checkout.

Link for Boxes:
Iris Large Photo Boxes

Fix for Overhead Temp and Compass Dead on 2006 Tacoma

2011-07-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

My compass died a while back and even though it’s more of a novelty items it bothered me. The dealership wanted $2000+ to fix it and the only compatible aftermarket one I found was still $350. Well I pulled it apart today and started poking around.... and it’s fixed. I had a hard time figuring out how to get the thing off, but was eventually successful. Here are the steps I performed to fix the problem with mine (poor soldering of the components).

1.) Tools needed for this fix:

2.) Soldering iron and solder

3.) Philips screwdriver

4.) Star head screwdriver

5.) Flat tool (a knife or flat tip screwdriver will work).

1.) Open the glasses holder and remove the single Phillips screw in the middle.

2.) The end with the compass module has two posts the pop into a metal roof bracket. You need to apply firm and gentle pressure down until the two sides pop off.

3.) Slide the whole unit forwards an n inch and pull it down, being careful not to pull on the wires attached to it.

4.) Carefully unplug the two sets of wires plugged into the unit (one for the two lights and the other for the compass/temp module).

5.) Remove the three star screws holding the unit to the base.

6.) Carefully pop off the smoked plexi. I used two knives and had no issues.

7.) Look for anything wrong with the board. Mine happened to be a resistor that was literally hanging halfway off its solder pads.

8.) Re-solder the parts that need it.

9.) Plug it back into the truck and turn the truck to run without starting it. If it’s fixed then it will light up. Also note that you might have to press the button once or twice to turn the unit on (I had to press it twice).

10.) Reverse the order of the taking apart to put it all back together.

Here are some photos to go with this.

I hope it helps someone..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pic_socket/sets/72157627266180810/