Lyrics to the song “clean the fan”:

If you want to clean this stupid fan,
It’s not as easy as you plan…
You see, the battery and the screws should be removed,
And then three pannels with more screws,
Behind them, now it gets involved…

Start to slide the optical drive out,
“He means the DVD drive”
Take out the hard drive and this plug,
“Just grip the tag and pull upwards”
Look how they hide the screws,
Under parts that we remove,
I think it’s pretty clear, that we’re not welcome..


Why’s it have to be complicated,
All I wanted to do was clean the fan,
“Clean the fan, as good as new,
But spic and span is hard to do”,
I just wanted a simple pannel,
So I can get to the fan without the fuss.


But I guess they made it like that so that you can’t clean it and then it runs out of warranty and you end up having to by another one because it’s broken… Great.

Disconnect the wifi cables,
“All of this just to clean a fan”
Undo these clips to free the RAM,
“RAM means; Random Access Memory”
Now we flip the whole thing over,
Take the top half off,
I’ll show you how,
To take it all apart,
But don’t go yanking on it because there’s still cables attached to it..

Turn the screws to free the keyboard off,
“unplug it before you go tugging it off”
Then start unplugging all the plugs,
“Plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug, plug”
Now the battery case and speakers,
Bare in mind that speakers have a magnet,
So just keep them free,
From any piece of circuitry.


Why’s it have to be complicated,
All I wanted to do was clean the fan,
“Clean the fan, as good as new,
But spic and span is hard to do”,
I just wanted a simple pannel,
So I can get to the fan without the fuss.


Now we reach the sad part of this song,
“Sad part”
A choice to make before we can go on proceed,
“That doesn’t rhyme”
See, if you want the fan to part,
From processor and graphics card,
You’ll have no choice but to remove,
Some thermal gel, you can’t reuse,
But you’ve come so far, so why refuse,
To buy a tiny tube of thermal gel?

“Lift this up,
Don’t forget about the plug,
Then a couple more screws,
And we can finally begin to..”

“Clean the fan as good as new,
But spic and span is hard to do..”

“So much fluff,
Gets stuck inside the heatsink,
Why is there no easy way to clean this?”

Clean the fan, clean the fan,
Clean the faa, aa, aaaa, aan yeah,
And then improvise yeah,
And say lots of phrases that don’t make sense,
Do some twiddly bits,
And, and go really high,
Yyyyeee, eee, eeh, ehh, yeah,
Oooh baby,
Make sure you say baby,
Cos everyone says baby,
Yeah, baby yeah,
Bay, bay, bay, bay, baby.

It’s finished! It’s finally finished!
Here is a video about how to open (take apart, dismantle, get into..) your HP Pavilion Dv5 laptop computer!!
Enjoy!

Disclaimer:
This is NOT a definitive maintenance video. I disclaim any responsibility for damage caused to any computer that has been taken apart, using this video as a tutorial, manual, explanation or guide.
Do not attempt to open your computer if you are not a qualified computer engineer.
Opening your computer can invalidate the warranty.
You open your computer at your own risk!

…Also, over-tightening screws or using the wrong size screwdriver can damage the screw heads.

Keep your most treasured files safe and locked away on this steam-punk style key! “But Joe!… My life sucks, I’m really ugly and I’m really poor… I don’t have the kind of fortune needed to buy one of those…” That’s the best part! You can make it YOURSELF!* “-Huff-… But I’m dumb and depressed… I don’t have the kinda knowledge to work out how t-” I will show you how RIGHT HERE! FOR FREE! “But I could never build-” Shutup.


First you will need a pendrive/flashdrive/memorystick/flashdisk/dongle or whatevertheheck you wanna call it. Open it up and de-solder the 4 or in some cases 8 connections (there are 4 main connections, but you will have to also un-solder up to 4 other connections of the metal casing). Then get five other wires (or a piece of cable that already encases the 5 so it’s neater or tidyier) and solder them onto where the connectors went. Basically you’re extending the connections via 4 wires (and 1 earth) to the usb head connector.










Do the same at the other end.
It should then look something like…










This!
Now, none of my inventions would have worked without a ‘key’ ingredient… It’s Cellotape time!
(to protect the bare metal components from the epoxy resin stuff – not sure if it’s conductive) — see below…

Here I also wrapped some pieces of thin wire in a circlet around the drive part (I twisted various wires to give the epoxy something to stick to like in modelling, but it might have been better to use very thick stuff, and just leave it bare – not cover it with epoxy…)




Now cover the thing in a 2 part epoxy resin, like “Chemical Metal” or something and wait for it to harden. Then sand, sand and sand it. Paint (first black) and then a highlight of your choice!





Et Voila! Le Chan! Torre Eifel!
A SteamPunk key / flashdrive!
Make sure you study your computer’s usb connections before-hand to make sure it’ll fit…
Have fun destroying your device, and please don’t come crying to me… Unless it worked! Let me know if anyone out there in the CyberNet has dared risking kooking up their memorystick from this tutorial!
Let me know!

Joe!

*Joe!™ will not be held responsible for you or anyone else frying, snapping or otherwise ballsing up their own or anyone else’s pen/hard/flash/floppy/memory stick/drive/drove/driven of any kind.

For those of you who are running cubase on a HP laptop and wondering why you are getting this message come up, even when you’re only recording one track, I think I might have the answer you are looking for.

A while ago, me and my brother (Joe!) were filming a pilot episode, for a series that we want to do, called ‘The Jayme G Show’.
Seeing as we didn’t have any money to fund it, we couldn’t afford to buy the proper equipment for the job, so we had to be creative with what the equipment we already had. Luckily ‘Joe!’ recently got given a boom mic for his camera, as a birthday present. But we still needed something to record the audio on to, and plugging it into the camera’s mic input means that your boom-mic guy is tied to the camera man.
So, seeing as I already had a portable audio interface (the one that we did the video about) ‘The Session I/O‘, we decided to use my laptop.
Here is my setup:

As you can see I have two bags; One with the audio interface in and the other one with my laptop in.
I would set up a project in Cubase, using the ‘Session I/O‘ as the audio device, then press record, shut the laptop and put it in the bag.
The first time I tested this setup, I ran in to a little problem…
After doing a short test recording, I opened up the laptop to see how it went. I then saw an error message in Cubase; (I can’t remember exactly, but it was something like..) ‘Error-too many record tracks’.
What does that mean?
It means that too much information is trying to be recorded at one time for your hard drive to handle.
Now, when doing multi-track recordings it’s understandable for this to happen because if you have a lot of tracks, recording at a high bit rate and sample rate, it can be too much information for the hard drive to handle. (depending on the speed of the hard drive)
But this seemed crazy, I was only recording one 24 bit mono audio track @ 44,100 Hz! That’s nothing!!! How slow must my hard drive be!?
So I started looking for information on the hard drive that I have in my laptop, to see if it was actually this ridiculously slow or if it was something else…

It was something else.

Upon reading up on my hp hard drive I found out that it has a built in:
HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
This little thing does this:
“Built-in HP ProtectSmart detects if your laptop has been dropped, and during that split-second journey to the floor, it automatically locks your fragile hard drive. This safety mechanism helps prevent the loss of your files and media library from damage caused by the fall.”
Which is great if you’re a cluts with an expensive piece of equipment, but not so great if you’re trying to record audio with the laptop in a bag that keeps setting off the damn ‘HP ProtectSmart‘ because of the movement!
So that was it! Cubase must have thought that the hard drive wasn’t recording fast enough, because when the hp protection thing was triggered, the hard drive wasn’t spinning at all! So it must have assumed that it was because of too many tracks being recorded at once!

All I had to do then, was go to; start menu, control panel, Hp 3D Drive Guard and then disable it! (And also be extra careful not to bump or knock the laptop much, while it was disabled!)

Hope someone finds this useful..

Today I thought I’d do quick rundown of the basic things you need to set up a fairly efficient home studio, for those who are interested in setting one up.
So…

-First you’ll need a computer.
Desktops are usually more stable and powerful than laptops, plus you can upgrade parts later on.
Now the dilemma…
P.C or Mac? Well, this is a tough one:
1: Mac= supposedly better than a P.C
2: P.C= CHEAPER!

…Once you have your P.C, you’ll then need a DAW.
Digital Audio Workstation. This is where all the music is going to be put together. There are lots of diferent ones; Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live, Pro-tools, e.t.c..
To me the DAW is like another instrument. It plays a big part in the way I write music, purely because I am able to manipulate whatever I’ve record, until I like the way it sounds!
Moving on…

-Then you’ll need some sample libraries.
Sampled pianos, organs, drums, e.t.c…

-A midi controller. (Keyboard) To trigger the samples.

-A microphone, or microphones.
Essential for recording vocals.
I would definitely recommend at least one condenser microphone for acoustic guitar and vocals because it is more sensitive than a dynamic one, so you’ll get a much clearer sound.

-An audio interface.
This is basically a sound card.
Choosing the right one depends on what you’re going to be doing.
If you need to use microphones for acoustic guitar recordings and more, then you’ll definitely benefit with more than 1 XLR input (a high impedance mic input). If the audio interface has phantom power as well then even better because some microphones, like condenser microphones, need it.
I used to use a mackie onyx 400f, but I don’t think that it’s available anymore. Now I use a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56.

-Some loudspeakers and amplifier.
For mixing, it’s better to use loudspeakers than headphones.
You’ll also need to treat your room so that you don’t get sound bouncing all over the place and bass collecting in the corners, giving you an inaccurate reading. Bass traps are good for this.

-And finally some headphones.
For recording guitar and vocals, e.t.c.. But don’t expose yourself to loud volumes for long periods of time cos you’ll damage your ears!

Introducing my brand new Desktop Power-Pack.
It’s Rubbish.
Its 4+4 12v CPU cable connector is wrong. If you have a powerful CPU you probably won’t be able to plug-in the extra 4 pin connector as it has the wrong shaped pins.
So… I had to cut mine off…
And replace them with an 8 pin connector that does fit.

So now the CPU has the extra 12v it might need when put to work, but the fan still spins at 6000 RPM!

I then found out why… It seems the motherboard – regardless of CPU temperature sets the general fan speed to very fast – ranging up to over 6000, but once I had plugged in an auxillary fan it then went down to 4700! The amount of fans plugged into the motherboard is relevant to how fast they spin!
Q: Is your processor fan spinning too fast?
A: Try plugging in another auxillary fan.

So, I sort of got distracted the other day, with this song..
It’s going well and I have all the lyrics done already! I’ve also done the drums, guitar, bass AND recorded the main vocal track, all in a weekend!!!! When I’m inspired and motivated, ideas come so fast!!
The trouble is that it uses up a lot of my time. Sometimes I get so involved that I go passed the hunger stage and then start feeling sick! But I’m a bit more conscious of it now and don’t let it happen as much…

Anyway, hopefully this new song shouldn’t take long. I’ve already started on the harmonies.
I’ve decided to call the song ‘Clean The Fan’ because it’s about my computer fan. Look at how dusty it is!

I had quite a job getting to it, that’s why I’m writing a song about it. I know, I know, the subject sounds petty, but me and ‘Joe!’ have got an idea for a video, that goes very well with it and it’s going to be a funny song that also has a little dig at ‘HP’, for a stupid design! So there’s that, for you all to look forward to!!!

The Tall One has just bought me the components for a Super-Video-Editing-Monster! But now after putting all the pieces together – the whopping cuad-core processor, massive Ati Radeon graphics card and fast and strong Gigabyte motherboard, and waiting for a hefty lightning storm to bring the beast alive, I’ve found it’s too alive! The processor fan spins at a staggering 6000 revolutions per minute (RPM) and I don’t know why!?? (the cpu temp is only at 30-40ºc).
So I’ve been going here a great forum, with really helpful people – to try and sort it out…

Not sure if Frankenstein had this kind of trouble… What would he have done?…
Probably would have dunked it in a tank of electric eels…

No… That’s not gonna work…

Today I thought I’d do quick rundown of the basic things you need to set up a fairly efficient home studio, for those who are interested in setting one up.
So…

-First you’ll need a computer.
Desktops are usually more stable and powerful than laptops, plus you can upgrade parts later on.
Now the dilemma…
P.C or Mac? Well, this is a tough one:
1: Mac= supposedly better than a P.C
2: P.C= CHEAPER!

-Once you have your P.C, you’ll then need a DAW.
Digital Audio Workstation. This is where all the music is going to be put together. There are lots of diferent ones; Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Ableton Live, Pro-tools, e.t.c..
To me the DAW is like another instrument. It plays a big part in the way I write music, purely because I am able to manipulate whatever I’ve record, until I like the way it sounds!
Moving on…

-Then you’ll need some sample libraries.
Sampled pianos, organs, drums, e.t.c…

-A midi controller. (Keyboard) To trigger the samples.

-A microphone, or microphones.
Essential for recording vocals.
I would definitely recommend at least one condenser microphone for acoustic guitar and vocals because it is more sensitive than a dynamic one, so you’ll get a much clearer sound.

-An audio interface.
This is basically a sound card.
Choosing the right one depends on what you’re going to be doing.
If you need to use microphones for acoustic guitar recordings and more, then you’ll definitely benefit with more than 1 XLR input (a high impedance mic input). If the audio interface has phantom power as well then even better because some microphones, like condenser microphones, need it.
I used to use a mackie onyx 400f, but I don’t think that it’s available anymore. Now I use a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56.

-Some loudspeakers and amplifier.
For mixing, it’s better to use loudspeakers than headphones.
You’ll also need to treat your room so that you don’t get sound bouncing all over the place and bass collecting in the corners, giving you an inaccurate reading. Bass traps are good for this.

-And finally some headphones.
For recording guitar and vocals, e.t.c.. But don’t expose yourself to loud volumes for long periods of time cos you’ll damage your ears!