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Brilliant, thanks. A piece of bus bar sounds like just what I need.

Have you thought about a small/camp refrigerator heat exchanger?
maybe too big for your purposes, but easily found in a scrap yard.Uhm... IF anyone needs an aircraft wing stressed, I guess I'm your man...
Also reasonably knowledgeable about motorbikes.

Well I googled and got a rough jist. As with all things computers there seemed to be the usual amount if hedging: "This is what to do. But if that doesn't work then do this and if that doesn't work then do that. Now if all else fails then this might help but if it doesn't then do that" An imprecise science it would seem (is there any other type) And so it was to be.Yes, there were restore points neatly stacked up, logging what I was doing in installing and uninstalling various stuff. I made a new restore point like you said and was assured by Microsoft telling me that everything could be reversed should it be necessary. Then I uninstalled the printer software.I picked a restore point well back on the list and pressed the Go button. Reassuring sliding progress bars told me that files were being restored and the hard drive sounded like it was working feverishly to accomplish same. The system restarts and ping! "Restore could not be completed - no changes have been made"So I tried a restore one step closer to the point of failure. "No changes have been made. And another and another. Nothing. No changes made. Bugger."Well I need to print so I may as well get back to were I was" so I inserted the disc waiting for the usual stop start install and lo and behold it installed fine and the Hardware Wizard disaster messages don't pop up anymore.I don't know how, but mission accomplished.Thanks a mill Jazzns

So far, nothing; but yeah I'll be going with 3/8" hose and barbs. I build a few. Mostly I casemod.

3/8th tubing! What are you guys running there? I've got tubing twice that cross sectional area on my motorcycle which transports the heat to the radiator on a 150 brake horse power motorcycle!Its a friccin computer chip your trying to cool here not a nuclear power station

Not yet, anyway.

Well the liquid colling systems I've seen are either 3/8" or 1/4".Remember they are using 450 watt power supplies now. A little less than half power consumed by your average blow dryer. Think about that heat.*edit* missed a wordThis message has been edited by riVeRraT, 03-30-2006 08:04 PM

Hmmm. I'll answer legal chemistry questions or advise you on how to acidize your oil well.

Should I try to change the broken spoke on my dirtbike myself or just have my dealer do it?

There is no reason not to do it yourself - if you can get spokes.The basic fitment is straightforward enough: wheel off, tyre and tube off. There'll be a rubber band running around the rim which covers the spoke heads and stops them from fretting and puncturing the inner tube. These bands can often be quite tatty and fall apart when you try to remove it so it might be worth while purchasing one along with the spoke so that you aren't stumped on the day.Depending on the spokes 'lacing' pattern, you may have to fiddle to route the spoke into position but I've never had a problem on any pattern I've seen. Fit the spoke through the hub and up through the hole and tighten up the spoke nut hand tight. If the spoke is a little too long you might find that you can't get it through the hole. Gentle bending is okay but if more is required then trim down the thread a little. It shouldn't cause a problem tho. All that remains is to tension it properly.I take it the wheel itself is running reasonably true when you spin it freely. If not then I'll deal with it later if you need me to. First thing is to get back to pre-broken spoke condition.Start tightening up the spoke bit by bit. A suitable spanner will do instead of an easier-to-use spoke key. Lightly strike (as one would a crystal glass with a teasspoon) 5 or 6 spokes in the locality of the one you are working on as you go - you should find they are all indicating at least being tight - even if they are quite different in pitch.(they may or may not ring like a glass - but you should be able to hear a taut-induced pitch even if its damped out somewhat by contact with other spokesKeep tightening until your spoke is at the same note (tension) as the lower sounding ones of the few you are tapping around the area(if any spoke is sounding VERY dull compared to the others then its either broken or so loose so as to be having little effect in the wheel).At this point, give the spoke nut an extra 1/8th turn and that should have you back to where you were before it broke as near as you need it to be. Make sure the spoke thread isn't protruding through the nut - if so, file or grind the excess so that it is flush with the nut. Fit the rubber band, tube and tyre and away you go.Hopefully the wheel is running true. I say this because with trial bikes the spoke nuts generally seize up by being immersed in water and if you need to true up and try to turn the nuts they either round off on you, or they turn in the rim hole, twisting the spoke with them. Don't twist them too much if they are corroded to the spoke like this - you'll snap the spoke itselfIt'd be an idea to check that you have no other very dull or obviously loose spokes before you go buying stuff. If so, order enough to change these too - you'll probably find as I said above that the nuts are corroded tight and that the only thing to do is to cut these spokes and replace them afreshTruing up a wheel isn't all that difficult - unless its really thrashed - so if necessary, drop a post at the email address in my profiles signature or come back to the Citizens Advice ThreadHave fun....

Thanks, I think I'll give it a shot.Its a new bike so the wheel should still be true and there isn't any corrosion or anything.I knew I would have to take the wheel apart and don't know anyone who has changed a spoke before so I just wanted to know if it was too much of a pain in the ass to do it myself. From what you type, it doesn't look like it will be that hard to do.I like the idea about checking the tightness by the tone, thanks for the hint.

I was just having a think on the way home (on my spoke free cast wheels). A trial bike might have thicker spokes that the stuff I used to work with and you may find yourself getting caught up existing spokes during initial insertion and find you can't bend yours out of the way to guide it past these.Whilst you wouldn't do it with a cylinder head nut, there is no problem with removing the nut from an offending spoke or two and pulling it out of the way to enable getting yours into position. Before loosening these offending spokes, find a spoke elsewhere whose note matches the one(s) your are going to remove and mark them. Replace the original ones first bringing them back up to noted er..note - then work on the new oneOne of my first jobs after school was in an old time motorcycle workshop where they used repair anything at all from first principles: reboring, crankshaft rebuilds, wheel lacing, shock rebuilds. I used to love building a wheel from scratch: a mass of loose metal turned into a taut, true wheel.When you land off a ramp from a height realise that the whole bike is hanging suspended at the point of impact from about 20 spokes in tension in front and back wheels!Steel. What a wonder

Thank you Jazzns,My mother in law has an attachment to this old computer. Her comfort zone. I think it was their first one.They have 2 new computers (one a laptop) but they hardly use them. This may just force her to use the new one if I can't fix it easily.I have one of their "old" ones a windows 2000 I think (I forgot, I have it down while redoing the office). It likes to turn itself on by itself. I checked all the maintenance items. I was discussing it this forum one night. I think we came to the conclusion it might be the power supply. I put games on it. Very strange.Thank you for your advice though. The commands are very helpful. I might be able to salvage it yet.Have a great weekend!

You must encounter this problem occasionally in plumbing:If I hook up a copper CPU waterblock in a cooling loop with something like a steel or aluminum radiator (plus other components) I'm going to wind up with a weak battery if the cooling fluid is elecrolytic. That's going to result in galvanic corrosion of the components.However, being married to a biologist and working for the USDA has some advantages. I have an essentially infinite supply of nanopure water (which is not, as I understand it, electrolytic). I could probably "borrow" as much 95% ethanol solution as I wanted. I might have access to other compounds, as well. And I've got an old jug of radiator coolant in the back of the car.I don't know much about chemistry or electricity, though. I've heard that alcohol cools better than water and radiator fluid probably cools best of all, but I'm concerned that the alcohol and radiator coolant will be conductive. Are they? Or is there an additive I can use to prevent that? Or can I somehow ground the WC system so that galvanic corrosion isn't an issue? (Or would that make it worse?)

Hi, Crash. I'm late to this thread, so forgive me if I'm less than useful.But why not go with glass? If you have reasonable access to lab supplies, it seems to me that Pyrex glass tubing (which is easily heated and bent) could run to a glass distillation condenser coil--the sort with an internal coil for fluid to be cooled and another inlet-outlet setup to bathe that coil with cooler fluid, usually water. I use one on my still...uh, distilled water setup. I just use a tap to bathe the coil and let it flow out the other end and down the sink, but you could run a reservoir with an aquarium pump.A case with glassware and visible flow would look cool, too, imho. Of course, you could use glass tubing no matter what sort of radiator gear is involved.BTW, are you overclocking your CPU, and thus the heat issue?