Author: patrick

I Made My Car Feel 10 Years Newer with One Simple Trick

I just couldn’t resist the obvious clickbait title. As you know, about two weeks ago, I got my car back into good shape and extinguished a few warning lights that had been illuminated all summer. This week, I decided to finally get to the bottom of a problem that had vexed me since I first got the car two years ago.

Here’s the build sheet for my car:

This lists the equipment the car rolled out of the factory with. I retrofitted the satellite radio shortly after getting the car, which doesn’t show up here. Of interest to me is the line labeled S322, comfort access. With this option (which I think was actually standard equipment for 2008+ cars), you leave the car key in your pocket and unlock it by grabbing the door handle. To lock, you touch the area near the keyhole. To start the car, you just depress the clutch and hit the start button like every modern car. This was pretty high tech for 2008, let alone 2004 when the car launched with comfort access as an option. The comfort access never worked on my car for some reason, so like a Neanderthal, I had to press the buttons on the remote to lock and unlock, and slide the remote into its slot to start the car. My friend with more BMW experience than me had me convinced that my car didn’t actually have comfort access.

On a whim, I decided to explore the issue in more detail earlier this week. I was able to determine that my car definitely has comfort access thanks to a forum post that shows the differences between cars with and without the system. The only real external difference is the key. On cars with comfort access, the key has an extra door on the back for a battery. My key has that, and in the past I’ve actually changed the battery. Now that I knew I had comfort access, I had to get it working.

Other forum posts described a series of voodoo button presses that didn’t work for me. One poster mentioned that while the E60 5 series can have up to 10 keys programmed to it, only two of them can be used for comfort access. I only have one key, but that didn’t mean more weren’t programmed to the car. I fired up my laptop with ISTA on it and read out the key information. It reported that 10 keys were programmed to the car. I deactivated every key except mine, and that did the trick.

I now have comfort access working on my car after somehow getting by without it for two years. It honestly feels like my car is 10 years newer. I’ve been looking for excuses to drive it around so I can feel more modern.

Finally Got My Car Fixed

Earlier this summer, and in fact starting in the late spring, a bunch of warning lights popped up on my car out of nowhere. A quick scan with my bootleg copy of Rheingold ISTA showed me there was poor/erroneous signal coming from the right rear wheel speed sensor. I couldn’t clear the code, which led me to believe there was probably an open circuit somewhere, even though no trouble codes from the car explicitly said that.

I started by swapping the rear wheel speed sensors from left to right and vice versa, hoping that the problem would be a cheap and easy to fix sensor. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I wanted to check the tone ring for the sensor next, despite it being unlikely that a damaged tone ring would cause an unclearable code.

On this car, a 2008 BMW 535xi, the tone ring is built into the wheel bearing, and you can’t see it without taking the axle out of the bearing. I knew it would be some work to get everything apart enough to look at the tone ring, so I figured for $50 or so, I might as well replace the bearing while I was there. I watched a couple videos on removing the bearing from the car, but I think all of the featured cars were automatics, and mine is manual (fairly rare in an E60). You would think that wouldn’t have anything to do with the rear axle and wheel bearing. You’d be wrong. On the manual cars, the axle is an extremely tight fit into the hub of the bearing. Every other car I’ve worked on, the fit has been tight, but loose enough to push the axle in and out by hand if it’s new and lubed up. On the manual E60s, it’s so tight I had to buy a puller to rip the bearing out of the spindle. There’s probably a special tool to install the axle, but I don’t have one, so I slammed it into the concrete floor of my driveway a few times. This whole thing turned into a multi-week saga because of the weather, waiting for parts multiple times and my constantly fluctuating levels of motivation. My car was on jack stands in the driveway for about three weeks. And at the end of it, I didn’t fix anything. The lights were still on. If I knew how huge a pain this job would be I wouldn’t have done it. On the other hand, now that I’ve done it once, I could do it much quicker in the future.

Next, I decided I wasn’t interested in fixing the car myself. I tried a used ABS module because it was cheap and quick. This didn’t fix anything either. I knew there was likely an open circuit between the right rear wheel speed sensor and the ABS module, but I thought that I didn’t have the right tool to probe the tiny pins on the electrical connectors, and I didn’t want to run new wires down the length of the car. The shop I took the car to seemed more interested in fixing minor or nonexistent problems than diagnosing and repairing the ABS problem. So that was $100 and change down the drain.

I finally got around to diagnosing the problem myself with some help from some male to male jumper wires for hobby electronics. It turned out they’re just the right size to fit into the tiny pins on the electrical connectors. I quickly discovered an open circuit on one of the wires going from the sensor to the ABS module. Yesterday, I finally got around to replacing the wire, and it fixed my problem. At first, on the ABS light was extinguished, but after quickly calibrating the yaw rate sensor, they all disappeared. I took the car for a test drive, and everything seems normal now. The next step is to get a fresh inspection sticker for the car, and then hopefully I’m done with fixing it for a while. I do want to do an all wheel drive service, which I have the fluids for, but I really need a lift for it. I’ll have to see if my friend with the shop could lend me some lift time for it.

Here’s How Much I Hate Epic Games

Up until the last month or so, you may not have heard of the controversy surrounding Epic Games unless you were a PC gamer. The PC gaming community has been sharply divided over Epic Games and their practice of buying up games and their publishers to secure their exclusivity to the Epic store. I personally hate this. Pretty much any PC game worth playing is available on a few storefronts, usually Steam, GOG and/or Microsoft. Probably 95% of my games are on Steam, and I try to buy there when I can. It’s a good system for game purchasing and management. Epic isn’t. They don’t even have a shopping cart feature. They bought Psyonix, developer of Rocket League, and pulled the game off Steam, and canceled the Mac and Linux versions of the game. As of a day or so ago, you can’t play Rocket League without an Epic account regardless of where you bought the game originally. I hate it.

Epic recently started a practical nuclear war with Apple over an issue with Apple terms and conditions for developers on the store. Ars Technica has some good coverage of it. Honestly, Apple doesn’t look amazing either, but Epic is just getting damn scummy.

Anyways, my first anniversary and my wife’s birthday are coming in the next week-ish. My wife wanted Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (developed by a studio nearby in Albany, to my surprise) for her birthday, which did come out on PC. But only on Epic, with no word on when or if a Steam release would be available. The game is only $40, a price that is more than worth it according to every review I’ve seen. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay Epic that $40 though.

My wife suggested we get a PS4 as a kind of anniversary present. If coronavirus wasn’t happening, we’d be taking a small trip like a long weekend for our anniversary, but that just isn’t a good idea today. I took a look, and found out we could get a used PS4 Pro with games for less than we’d spend on a long weekend. She’d get Tony Hawk (and hopefully some more stuff eventually), and I’d get to play the PS4 exclusives I missed by being a PC gamer. So I got one. It was about $350 for a PS4 Pro, controller and several games, all of which except Horizon: Zero Dawn will likely be going on eBay this weekend.

I got Tony Hawk for my wife, which she loved. I also got Ratchet and Clank, thinking that we could both play a fun 3D platformer. She loves Tony Hawk, and I’m extremely happy with Ratchet and Clank. For me, Ratchet and Clank alone was worth the price of admission. It has a really beautiful, Pixaresque style with a humorous, unreliable narrator presenting a kind of unoriginal but interesting enough story with some self references sprinkled in. The PS4 offers remote play, so I can play on my PC in the office or bedroom if I want. My plan is to buy the handful of Playstation exclusives I want either used on eBay or from the Playstation store on sale, plus any games that are Epic exclusives on PC, like SnowRunner.

So that’s how much I hate Epic games. I’d rather pay $350 for a used Playstation than give them $40 for a fabulous game.

Resurrecting an Old Laptop

I really enjoy bringing old computer hardware back to life. For instance, I used to run a previous blog on a Frankensteined computer composed of old parts from a couple Dell desktops. This time, I brought back my brother’s old laptop. My dad asked me to take a look at it because his current laptop is a dinosaur over 10-years-old and it’s just not cutting it for the work from home stuff.

The laptop in question is an Asus Q501LA, which I feel like was refurbished when we got it a while ago. According to the stickers inside, it was made some time in 2014. It has an Intel Core i5 4200U, 8GB of RAM, a 1080p IPS touch screen, backlit keyboard and originally, a 750GB hard drive. It was a pretty good mid-range laptop back in 2014, or whenever we got it. Along the way, it broke down for some reason, and got put into the attic because my brother needed a working laptop for school immediately. The most obvious problem was cracked glass on the display, which was duct taped to the lid. My dad bought a new piece of glass ages ago, which I was planning on installing.

After a quick diagnosis, I decided it needed a new motherboard to hard drive connecting circuit board. Mostly because it broke when I pulled it out. I surmised that the connector that broke was probably already in bad condition before removal because while the computer’s BIOS loaded, the hard drive wasn’t spinning. Luckily, that part was only about $10 on eBay. I convinced my dad that it’s practically criminal to not have an SSD in a computer these days, so I ordered a 500GB Western Digital Blue SSD.

While waiting on the parts, I decided to take a crack (see what I did there?) at the glass on the screen. I quickly discovered two problems: firstly, the glass is glued to the display behind it really well. I probably wouldn’t be able to separate the two. Secondly, on this computer, the display assembly attaches to the lid with a system of snap-fit connectors, similar to car interior panels. Probably 90% of them were damaged beyond use. My dad decided he was willing to shell out for a replacement screen, thinking that this laptop would still be better than a comparably priced Chromebook or Windows laptop.

When the parts finally arrived, I put everything together ready for some success. Unfortunately, the backlight of the new screen was dim, and flickered rapidly while on the charger. Off the charger, the screen was only barely bright enough to read with total concentration. I thought maybe getting Windows fully installed would fix it up, but it made no difference. I was fairly convinced it was a problem with the motherboard because the screen was bought used from a reputable seller on eBay. Both my dad and I were disappointed. For the last couple days, the laptop sat on my dining room table, waiting to be parted out.

Today, on a whim, I decided to try out the old, cracked screen to verify the new screen was at fault. To my surprise, the new screen looked perfect (other than the broken glass of course). I cleaned off some exposed copper parts on the motherboard where the hinges screw in, thinking that may be part of the problem. Even if it wasn’t, clean parts are better than dirty parts. I screwed the new screen back down, and after a little flickering, it came back and it’s now totally normal. The touch screen stuff doesn’t work, which is a tad disappointing, but my dad doesn’t care. I’m pretty happy that it kind of fixed itself, but I wish I knew exactly what the problem was. So it’s mission accomplished I guess. I’ll drop it off to my dad this weekend and I’m sure he’ll be really happy with it. I don’t think he’s used a computer with an SSD for any length of time, so he’ll probably be blown away by the boot up time.

Website Downtime

On Thursday afternoon, I updated the server hypervisor and restarted it to apply a new kernel update. When it booted up, I couldn’t get to this blog or a couple other web services I run for some reason.

All but one of the broken services used the same virtual network bridge, so I tried switching to a different bridge with no change. I also tired unplugging and replugging the ethernet cable from corresponding port on the network card. The made no difference either.

I took a look at my reverse proxy settings on my router. It appeared that my problem was HAProxy because changing HAProxy settings made some difference. When I disabled the health checking in HAProxy, the sites would load, but very slowly. I thought maybe the router needed to be restarted, so I did that. Unsurprisingly, that made no difference either.

I figured the slow page loading had something to do with the Apache server having a messed up configuration or an incorrect module activated, even though I didn’t change any settings earlier. All the config files looked correct, and all the right modules were loaded. I looked a resource usage and noticed very low ram usage during page loads compared to working services. I tried updating the virtual machines, but that didn’t do anything.

Then I tried updating the working services to see if they’d break. That made no difference (probably a good thing). Finally I tried updating my database server. It couldn’t reach its update server or ping anything. Finally, a problem that could be solved. The DNS server setting was incorrect. I set up a Pi-Hole for my server subnet and I must have changed the DNS server setting in /etc/resolv.conf. Ubuntu uses /etc/netplan to set DNS servers, and I was unaware of that. I corrected the DNS server setting and everything was back to normal.

I just finished up my first week of the new school semester about an hour ago. So far, things are going well. It’s only the first week though, so we’ll see if it stays that way. I’m taking four classes: operating systems, networking 2, and a class each on Excel and Access. The operating systems class seems like stuff I’m already somewhat familiar with and it’s going to end with setting up a homelab-esque network with Windows server and active directory. I have no experience with that, but I’m looking forward to learning. Networking seems like mostly a review of the second half of networking 1 from last semester. Cisco shuffled the curriculum around I guess. I’m not even mad. These two classes are the regular self-paced online class where there isn’t any face-to-face with the teacher. The Excel and Access classes are taught by the same person, which is neat I guess. Those are going fairly slowly so far, but I’m sure they’ll pick up as the class gets more comfortable with the programs. Those classes were planned to be on campus, but due to the pandemic, they’re also online. We all gather in a Zoom meeting instead of a classroom. I don’t really mind the virtual class thing, but I don’t think it would be anyone’s first choice.

I’m disappointed that my school is using Zoom, because it’s a totally unproven piece of software whose owners/executives have bowed to Chinese pressure to silence dissidents who aren’t even in China. My school has some sort of deal with Microsoft for email and Office 365, which I have to assume comes with Microsoft Teams and involves some exchange of money. A Zoom package for a large organization also costs money. Why would you pay for worse software when you already have something perfectly functional? I’m really, really disappointed in my school.

But whatever I guess. I only have this semester and then one more before I graduate. Hopefully I won’t have too much trouble finding a big boy job in a year or so. I’m looking forward to making some real money so I can get a car. I’m tired my old salvage stuff and I’m willing to trade more money in exchange for a more solid car. On the other hand, I noticed that supercharged 2012 Range Rovers are in the $15,000-$18,000 range, which would probably be attainable. I would love a Range Rover, but it’s a Range Rover. Probably known more for its unreliability even more than its luxuriousness and off-road ability. I’m not sure if I want another car with a reputation like that.

In other news, my dad has asked me to troubleshoot my brother’s old laptop so my dad can use it. Currently, my dad is using a laptop that’s probably 10 years old at this point. It blows, in my opinion, but he soldiers on. My brother had a fairly decent Asus laptop that stopped working for some reason. He needed a laptop right away for school, so he just got a new one. I’ll be checking out the old Asus on the weekend. I hope I can get it going again because it’s fun to “supercharge” older computers I think. If I can get it running again, I plan to install some more memory (8GB at least, unless it already has that much), an inexpensive SSD and probably some fresh thermal paste on the surfaces that require it. Plus a thorough cleaning. My brother’s laptops get gross as hell very quickly. There will be more on this computer over the weekend.

Diagnosing my ABS problem

I finally got around to taking the wheel off my car to see where its ABS problem is, and I tracked it down in a couple minutes. There’s an open circuit between one of the ABS sensor wires and the ABS module. What a surprise. I took the car to a mechanic thinking this would be an very easy thing for them to take care of. I assumed there was probably an open circuit somewhere in the system and figured the mechanic could diagnose the problem and put in a new wire, but they were more interested in upselling me. So I’ll probably work on it some more tomorrow. I’m going to have to take out the passenger seat and some trim to run a wire from the back of the car to the front, which I’m not thrilled about. Hopefully this fixes everything. There’s also a problem with the steering angle sensor, which I’m really hoping can be with a good cleaning. I’ll get to that after the ABS problem is solved.

My car is back from the mechanic no different than when it got there. I was hoping they’d be able to diagnose the wonky right rear wheel speed sensor, but they didn’t seem all that interested. All it needs is to have the continuity and resistance tested on the wires from the sensor the the plug on the ABS module. Apparently their electrical whiz was out sick. I think it’s kind of hard to be a professional mechanic and not be comfortable doing such a simple electrical test. They also tried to get me to spend thousands of dollars on work the car doesn’t need. I was told the front and rear struts needed replacement and the tires were chopped. The rear struts might actually need to be changed, but I put the fronts on a year and a half ago, and the tires aren’t new, but they’re in fine shape. I was really disappointed in this place. Two former coworkers who I look up to worked there, and they’re both excellent mechanics, so I was expecting something better than the stereotypical upselling mechanic. On the upside, the manager of the place jogged my memory and gave me a place to start looking. Last summer, one of the sunroof drains got clogged and water pooled up in the right rear foot well. I suppose it’s possible it’s taken a year to do the damage. He also seemed confident it needs a new steering angle sensor, which I’m not totally sure about. I’m going to see if I can get the ABS thing fixed first and then see about the SAS because that wasn’t a problem until I decided to try recalibrating it.

I’ll have to figure out a way to diagnose the ABS problem myself, which I would have done earlier if I had the tools. Many of the electrical pins on connectors in cars are really, really tiny and need special adapters to be tested with a multimeter. Those adapters are really, really expensive. I’m thinking about ways to make some myself. It’s going to be pretty nice outside for the rest of the week, so I’ll see what I can get done.

In an unrelated matter, I polished and waxed my mom’s convertible and my wife’s car. It’s easy, but time consuming; I think each of the three cars I’ve done has taken about three and a half hours. The results are worth it though. The car comes out so shiny and smooth. I think the convertible came out with the most impressive results, probably because it’s black, which shows everything in the paint, good and bad.

My car still isn’t fixed unfortunately. I got the correct axle for it and installed it without too much trouble. It’s driveable now at least, but the ABS, stability control and brake warning lights remain on. I tried recalibrating some settings with ISTA on my laptop without success. The only thing I’ve managed to do is make the turn signals stop self canceling. The steering angle sensor now does not work. I find it unlikely that it’s dirty (a common problem on E60 and E90 BMWs) because the warning lights started out of the blue one day. Typically, a dirty sensor causes the lights to come on occasionally and the lights can be cleared. I’m starting to suspect the SZL, or steering column module, is faulty. It’s a little too expensive for me to take a shot at just popping a used one on for a test though. Tomorrow, I’m bringing the car to a local independent shop to see what they can tell me. I’m hoping it doesn’t take too much work, and thus time and money, to ferret out the problem.

On the brighter side, I bought a random-orbit polisher and polished and waxed the car this weekend. It looks ridiculously shiny. I’m very happy with the result, even though the car is silver, which doesn’t show the shine as well as a darker color. I’ll definitely keep up on the waxing because it looks so good. Tomorrow I’m going to clean out the interior so the mechanics don’t think I’m a total slob.

Here’s an update on a little bit of everything:

The computer stuff is working great. The TV set up seems to be working just fine, despite its Rube Goldbergian nature. In fact it’s probably working even better than the old set up. With the old set up, I’d have to restart the living room computer (containing the TV tuner) occasionally and often when I’d be getting comfortable in bed for the night. So far, no restarts of the cetonproxy virtual machine have been required. I suspected network performance might be degraded by having a network TV tuner, but it has not been impacted at all. I’ve been acquiring more TV shows and movies from a variety of sources and Jellyfin handles them with no trouble. I’m sure my system isn’t the sleekest out there, but it gets the job done for me. I’m sure I’ll make more adjustments in the future though.

On the car side, things are finally starting to return to normal. My car has been on jack stands in the driveway for two or three weeks now. I’ve been having a problem with erratic and incorrect readings from the right rear wheel speed sensor. I swapped the sensor with the left side and had no change. I decided to replace the right rear wheel bearing because it contains a magnetic wheel that the sensor reads to generate a signal. It’s not possible to see this ring without taking the bearing out of the spindle, so I decided for $50 or so, I might as well replace it if I take it out. So I got the new bearing installed in the span of a day, but had trouble putting the axle into the bearing. It’s an extremely tight fit, which I think is normal for my type of car. I tried hitting it cup portion of the axle with a hammer and pry bar to drive it into the bearing, but I poked a hole in that cup. So I need an axle. I took a chance on one labeled for an automatic version of my car for only $60. The flange on the differential side was 10mm too small to bolt up. So I sent it back and spend about triple the price on one that should fit my manual car. It should arrive by the end of the week I hope. I also hope it slides into the bearing easily like the automatic axle.

In the meantime, the air conditioning in my wife’s car quit working. I bought a set of manifold gauges to see what was going on inside the system. The gauge reading led me to suspect a broken expansion valve. My initial plan to remedy this was to have a local shop discharge the AC, then I would replace the valve myself, and go back to have the system recharged. I called a shop and they said it would cost $120 to do that. Way more than I was hoping to spend. So I decided to buy a vacuum pump and a few pounds of refrigerant for about the same price and do it myself. After draining the refrigerant, I set about replacing the valve. I was hoping I’d be able to take the valve out under the hood where the AC pipes go in and out of the cabin. Unfortunately, whoever at Honda designed that hole made it a few millimeters too small to get the valve out through it. So what could have been a half hour job took several hours (I did stop for breaks a few times). I had to remove the glove box, the cabin fan and a couple more pieces of plastic to take out the evaporator and then replace the expansion valve. Installation was the reverse of removal. Happily, the new valve did the trick, and the AC works again. I don’t think it’s quite as good as before though. With the car stopped in 90 degree heat, the air is cool but not cold. Moving along it’s fine. I’m so glad to have a car with working air conditioning again.

That’s it for now I guess. Computer things have been pretty static lately. I’m thinking about getting a Minecraft server going. I never really got into Minecraft back in the day, but I really want to. I’m usually a fan of open-ended games like Cities Skylines or No Man’s Sky, but maybe Minecraft is too open-ended. I did install a shader and neat texture pack, which makes a huge difference in the visuals. Maybe I’ll have to see if my brother can help me get into it.