How To Fix a Amp That Goes Into Protection Mode

All car amplifier manufacturers will integrate a protection circuit to protect the internal circuitry from getting damaged if a problem occurs. An car amplifier can go into protect mode when the volume on the head unit is turned up almost to its maximum level or can continuously be in protection mode regardless of the volume level. Most car amplifiers will have a red color 'LED' protection light to inform you that it's being protected. There are many reasons why this problem can occur to your amp, so check out the solutions provided to help your overcome it.

1) Check if the fuse is blown out. If the fuse on the car amplifier is blown out, it will prevent it from functioning and immediately will put it into protect mode. So look on the sides of your car amp and locate the blade fuse. Once you have located it, grab it from the middle and pull it outwards to release it from the holder. Look in the middle of the fuse, if the small is wire snapped or looks burnt, the fuse is blown out and needs replacing with a fuse of the same amps.

2) Check if any speakers wires connected are shorting each other out. Locate the speaker wires that are connected into the terminals on your enclosure and amp. Ensure that they are not loose and that the copper braids are not touching each other.

3) Check if the RCA leads are firmly connected. RCA leads are used to feed the amp with input signal from the car stereo. If they are connected loosely, it can cause the amplifier to see it as a major problem, so it will purposely put itself stuck into protect mode. So check that the RCA jacks are connected firmly into both the amp and headunit RCA sockets.

4) Check the grounding is solid. If you have grounded your amplifier to a weak spot, the amp will not be getting sufficient current to operate on. So recheck your ground wire, sand down the spot with sandpaper and ensure that it is connected onto a bare metal. This will provide the best conductivity with the car chassis.

5) Upgrade to power and ground wire that is a large gauge size. If your car amplifier only goes into protection mode when you turn up the volume really high, it is because the car amp can't get enough current to circulate around its electrical components. This is because the current power and ground wires you are using are below the required gauge wire size. So check out the user manual for your amp, find out what is the recommended gauge size is for both power and ground wires and buy a new amp wiring kit according to spec.

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How To Fix a Dented Subwoofer Dust Cap At Home

Subwoofers will have a circle shaped dust cap placed in the middle of the cone to protect the voice coil from getting dusty and dirt getting trapped inside. The dust cap is only cosmetic, if it is squashed in, it will not affect its performance or reduce sound quality in any way. Subwoofer dust caps are made from paper and are easily dented if pressed in my accident. If this has happened to your speaker, you can easily repair it yourself and restore it back to its original state.

1) You will require a vacuum cleaner to suck up the dent in the dust cap to bring the squashed part back out. This is the best way to restore it because you don't have to remove the glue and re glue it back on to repair it. So connect the vacuum cleaner into a wall outlet and switch it on. Then remove the current hoover attachment and connect the plastic pointy nozzle attachment.

2) Point the nozzle towards the middle of the dented area of the dust cap and switch on the vacuum cleaner. The suction power created by the hoover will suck out the squashed part and will pop it back out. You may want to increase the suction power, if the dent on the dust cap is not easily removable the first time.

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How To Get More Bass From Car 6X9 Speakers

6x9 car speakers have great potential to play subwoofer like bass because of the large cone area they have. They are straightforward to install in your car and don't take any trunk space up like with installing big subwoofer enclosures. Not only do 6x9 speakers have great bass response, but they also have integrated tweeters mounted in the middle to provide crisp treble. If you seem that your current 6X9 speakers in your car don't have enough bass, you might want to consider the following solutions that are provided.

1) Place the 6X9 speakers in a enclosure. Most people that are into car audio fit 6x9 speakers into the rear parcel shelf. However, fitting them both into a prefab 6x9 enclosure will increase the bass response because it allows the bass sound to duplicate. You can fit your 6x9 speakers into prefab enclosures and place them on top of the rear car seats or on the parcel shelf.

2) Tweak around with the equalizer on your head unit. If your head unit is aftermarket, it will have an equalizer setting which will allow you to increase the amount of bass. Each frequency listed in the equalizer will have the options to increase or decrease DB levels. What you want to do is increase the DB level for the '60'HZ' frequency to the maximum level for maximum bass response.

3) Amp up your 6x9 speakers. Powering your 6X9 speakers directly from the integrated amplifier in your car stereo will not provide sufficient power to drive the speakers to their full potential. Hooking up a 2 channel amplifier to your 6x9 speakers will provide you with stronger bass response and more volume. With installing a amplifier, you also have the option to switch on the low pass filter, set it to '80HZ' to filter out the midrange and high frequencies, so they only play boom boom sound like a sub.

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How To Remove a Speaker Grill Cover From a Car Speaker

Most car speakers are fitted with an mesh speaker grill to protect the speaker cone from getting damaged and prevent dirt to build up from everyday use. The speaker grill is made from a metal called aluminum and can be removed if you want to see the speaker cone. You might want to consider doing this if the speaker cone matches the color of your ride or if you want to see how much excursion the speaker cone can produce. If you decide to remove the speaker grill from the speaker, you can reattach the speaker grill back on, all you have to do is reverse the process.

1) A speaker grill is held in place on top of the speaker using screws. So you will need to remove all 4 screws located in each corner. So get a Philips head screwdriver and remove all 4 screws. Once you have removed them all, you might want to place them into a small plastic container so you don't loose them.

2) Now that the screws holding the speaker grill are removed, the speaker grill can now move freely because there is nothing holding it downwards. So using both hands, grab both sides of the speaker grill and carefully push it upwards to detach it.

3) Now that the speaker grill is removed because you removed its screws, the speaker will now have nothing to hold it down. This can cause the speaker to move about when you are driving your car with the music bumping loud, which can causing rattling sounds to occur. So insert all 4 screws you remove earlier on back into there screws holes and using your Philips head screwdriver, tighten each individual screw to eliminate this problem.

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How To Change The Car Camera View In Forza MotorSport 4

Forza 4 is currently the best racing simulator that is released for the Xbox 360 console that provides the realistic racing simulation experience all at home. With cutting edge graphics and a wide range of super cars that you can choose from, you will never get bored with playing this particular racing game. If you have a racing wheel setup, along with a seat, you might want to change the car camera view in the game to cockpit mode. This is to make you feel as if you are sitting in the car and actually driving it. Not only is there cockpit view to choose from, there is also a bumper camera, so you can try out which one to suit you the best. No mods or jtag console are required, all you need to do is adjust some settings from the main menu.

1) Press the 'Eject' button so the disc tray comes out and insert the Forza 4 'Disc 1' into the Xbox 360 console. Press the 'Eject' button again to close the disc tray so the console can read the disc.

2) Once you see the game load up on the dashboard, select it and press the 'A' button on the controller to start it.

3) From the homescreen, select the 'Play Career' mode and press 'A' to enter into it.

4) Go through the list of different options provided until you find 'My Profile'. Once found, select it and press 'A' to enter into it. Then find the 'Hud' option and press 'A' to enter into it.

5) The first option on the list will be called 'Camera View'. Press the left and right directional buttons on the controller to browse through the different camera views that are available for you to choose from.

6) Once you have selected the camera view you want to proceed with, press the 'A' button to save the new changes that you have made. The new camera view you have just selected now will be enabled in the next race.

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How To Boot Into Recovery Menu On PS3 FAT/SLIM Console

The PS3 has a special recovery mode, also known as safe mode that is integrated into the operating system, which provides you with numerous tools and options to manage the system with full control. The recovery menu allows you to update system software firmware, repair corrupted files on the hard drive, restore the PS3 settings back to factory default, restart the system and much more. You can't access the recovery menu from the XMB menu, which is why you have probably not already discovered it already. There is a special method that Sony has created that only allows you to enter directly into it. 

1) When your PS3 console is in standby mode, the 'Red' led indicator is on, press the 'Power' button down, the system will automatically power on and you will hear a system beep. Keeping holding it down, you will hear second system beep because the video settings are being reset, followed by the third system beep when the console is powered off. Only then you can let go of the 'Power' button. Do not proceed onto the next step if step 1 is not successfully done the first time.

2) Press the 'Power' button and hold it down again, you will hear a system beep. Keep holding it down and you will now hear a second system beep, along with a very quick double system beep. Once you have heard all the system beeps cycles, you can let go of the 'Power' button.

3) Now obtain your 'DualShock 3' controller and connect into any of the available USB ports on the PS3 Console. This is by getting the USB lead and connecting the small end into the mini usb port found on the top part of the controller. Followed by connecting the remaining regular sized USB plug into a USB port, which is found on the front of the console.

4) The recovery menu will now be displayed on your television screen. You will be provided with a wide range of different options that allow you to manage what you would like to do with the system. Use the up and down arrows on the D-pad to navigate through the different options that are provided in the list and press 'X' to select them.

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How To Test Car Spark Plugs Without Using a Multimeter

If you are noticing that your car is giving poor fuel consumption and the car struggles to pick up speed, then you might consider yourself to replace the spark plugs. But before buying replacement spark plugs, it is always ideal to test which spark plugs are bad and test which ones are good. Testing them out could save you money because it is likely that all of the spark plugs in the car engine will not need changing,  just a few bad ones really. You could go to a local garage to get each spark plug checked out, but you can also check them yourself and save additional money.

1) Insert the key into the ignition and start up the vehicles engine. Once you have started it up, leave the engine running for about 5 minutes. 

2) Wear a pair of handy rubber gloves on both hands. This will protect you from get an electrical shock when you are touching the spark plugs while the car engine is running and will also prevent your hands from getting dirty.

3) Pop the hood open and locate were the spark plugs are located in the car engine. Two common places that are seen in most cars are either on the top or on the sides of the car engine. Once found, you will see a wire that is attached to each spark plug. So what you need to do is disconnect it from all of them individually, not all at once.

4) Once you have removed the wire from one spark plug, listen carefully do the sound the car engine makes. If the car engine makes a different noise, different to the noise when the spark plug wire was inserted into the spark plug, this shows a good sign. This indicates that it is not necessary for you to replace it.

5) If you don’t hear any difference from sound the car engine makes, when removed and it sounds the same before you removed the spark plug wire from the spark plug, it is faulty and will need replacing. Carry out step 4 for all of the spark plugs, applying this testing method to each spark plugs. This will allow you to identify which spark plug is bad and which is good, without using any special testing tools.

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