Mt Bromo, Java, 1989

Lovely blue sky out there, if a little rainy at times, and nippy. I suppose if I wore something over my T-shirt I might not feel the chill so much, but that would require me to get moving, something I try to avoid. 😉

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The saga of the Lenovo laptop continued yesterday. I phoned Lenovo support and after a short wait I was answered by a very nice Philippino sounding female voice. It turned out that yes, she is Filippina but resident in Malaysia, don’t know where. Her name is Jhoesly, pronounced Joshly. Very nice.

After I told her the problem, she got me to download and install a program called LogMeIn which, with a code she gave me, allowed her to take control of the laptop and do things just as if she were me. It was uncanny, seeing the cursor/pointer moving around on the screen, all controlled from Malaysia.

Anyway, she could bring the camera up and see the fault for herself – the blob (she was searching for a word to describe it for her report and I said, just call it a blob. I don’t think she was familiar with that fine English word.)

Finally she invoked a complete restart from scratch, which took some time because you have to go through all the Windows 10 setup steps. That meant she lost control and so we ended the support call after she initiated a case number and got my order number and so on.

Needless to say, after the long Win10 setup process, the fault was exactly the same. So I sent a fairly long email to Lenovo Support in Sydney (I assume that’s where they are) with a screen grab of the camera blob and asked for a return authorisation for a full refund. Copy to Keith.

So far I’ve had a fairly prompt acknowledgement of my email, but nothing more, which is a bit annoying. It’s been 24 hrs now. I’ll send another email saying, “Please respond” and see what that produces.

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Back to the problem of the Honda not revving when I put my foot on the accelerator – what did we ever do in the days before Google? (Answer: took it to the service station, or the service station mechanic would come here in the case of an immobile vehicle, maybe… )

Anyway, a search on Google for Honda MDX no accelerator response brought up plenty of listings. Obviously this is a fairly common problem.

The answer is that Honda uses a Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) and this often goes faulty. It seems to happen when the car has not been used for some time (my case) and produces symptoms just like mine, either no throttle response at all, or rough running, or poor idling. One listing said it has a battery in it which is not user replaceable and has a life of about 5 years, and that the TPS should be replaced every five years. A battery?  Seems a bit incredible.

There are plenty of YouTube clips showing how to replace it and warning of the high cost of getting a dealer to do it. It looks straightforward so I did a search and found the part is available from AliExpress in China for A$50 plus $10 freight plus GST, about $67 all up. So I ordered it at about 9pm last night and was surprised to get a reply email about 30 mins later to say that my order has been processed and the part is being dispatched. At 9.30pm!

I just have to wait now – maybe next week for delivery? Lucky I have another car … or two.

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Meanwhile, I’ve finished making up the adapter wiring to match my Pioneer A/V radio to the Mitsubishi and it’s ready to go in. But first I have to stick the digital antenna to the windscreen and thread its cable down the left A pillar, behind the dash to the radio position. It seems difficult, so I’m hesitating, but these things often turn out to be easier than you think they’ll be. Just do it!

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All the time I’m sitting at this PC and writing this, I’m listening to music on a pair of “computer speakers” I bought a couple of years ago when they were “on special” and which have turned out to be marvellous! I’m a hi-fi nut and I’ve been listening to good loudspeakers for many years – KEF, JBL, Tannoy, B+W, Wharfedale – so I reckon I know good sound when I hear it.

These computer speakers are bloody lovely! They’re a Chinese brand, Edifier, which is a bit embarrassing. Chinese speakers? Well, I’m happy with these.

They have a 20W per channel amplifier built in and you can stream audio to them using Bluetooth if you want to. I don’t.

Clean, uncoloured sound, a surprising amount of bass, all the volume you’ll ever need, for $149 the pair. Since that includes the amp, it’s a bargain. You can still buy them from Altronics but not at that bargain price I paid. Recommended.

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Speaking of Altronics, I need to go there now to buy a cigarette lighter socket to add to the Verada while I’m installing the radio and all the guts are out. The socket in this car is in the arm rest cubby hole and that’s too far from the dash for me. I’m not lighting cigarettes but I’m feeding power to my GPS and it’s too far for the cord. I need a socket further forward. I’ll do it today.

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