Arniel's Endeavor

Part One - Dwemer Cog
Arniel Gane of The College of Winterhold has tasked you to find 10 Dwarven Cogs, which are actually called Dwemer Cog in game.

You must complete this quest prior to looking for the Staff of Magnus or you will have to wait until you are done with Staff of Magnus (Quest).

Originally he will not tell you what he wants them for.

Part Two - Warped Soul Gem
After turning in the Cogs, Arniel would like you to speak with Enthir about delivering purchased goods. After a discussion with Enthir, you are tasked to find a staff from Boulderfall Cave and return it to Enthir as payment for a Warped Soul Gem which is "warped beyond the ability to capture a soul with." Note: the location of the staff may change based upon if you have explored it yet.

Part Three - Dwemer Convector
After speaking to Arniel Gane again, he claims his project is going terribly. He claims to have forgotten to take into account the heat gain and destroyed his only working model.

It is at this point that he reveals he is attempting to discover how the Dwemer dissapeared "instantly, and completely" by recreating the event. The parts the Dragonborn helped recover were made into a Dwarven Convector, which broke in his last attempt to recreate the event. When asked if he wants to build another, he says that he would rather have you find the Convectors, throughout Skyrim, made by the Dwarves themselves. Arniel Gane offers to teach you the spell to heat the convectors. "Three seconds burn is all that is necessary."

Arniel postulates that by doing this, the Dwemer may possibly be contacted again.

To complete this portion, three Convectors must be found and used on the Warped Soul Gem. Arniel teaches you Arniel's Convection which is considered a Novice Destruction spell. (Note, this is the only spell that will work to complete the objective.)

Dwemer Convectors are marked on your map, and have no fast travel marker when explored:
 * Two North East of Markarth, straight east of Solitude
 * Two near Mzulft.
 * One is in the Dwarven Store Room South of where you arrive when fast traveling to Mzulft.
 * The Second is inside Mzulft, in the first room after the hall. You must have opened Mzulft with the key to get to this one.
 * One West of Shor's Stone
 * One South of Ivarstead

After turning in this section, Arniel Gane thanks you and lets the Dragonborn know the final piece will be arriving soon.

You cannot start part three until the quest "The Eye of Magnus" is complete.

Part Four - Keening
After leaving The College of Winterhold for a few days, after the Dragonborn drops off the modified soul gem, conversing with Arniel Gane(possible to find him in Hall of Countenance) will reveal that once again Enthir is hassling him. When you go speak with him however, he tells you that this time it isn't actually his fault. He claims he did not keep close tabs on this package, as Arniel Gane set it all up himself. Enthir Suggests you look for the courier, and directs you to north of Ivarstead. Once here, then you go to Tolvald's Cave, where he suspects the Courier with Arniel's package got lost. (Other known possible spawn points are Mistwatch, Morvunskar, Treva's Watch, Cranvangr Cave, Mara's Eye Den, Lost Knife Hideout, Cragwallow Slope and Faldar's Tooth.)

Once you retrieve the package, which turns out to be the dagger Keening, return to the College and give it to Arniel Gane. He will briefly monologue about what he's attempting to do, then proceeds to whack the soul gem with the dagger. Eventually there's an explosion of energy, and his body vanishes leaving you with a completed quest, Keening, and a Conjuration spell to summon Arniel's shade for all your hard work.

Bugs

 * A bug occurs when you attempt to hand in Part 2, if you have already retrieved the staff before. You will be able to receive the warped soul gem, but the staff will not be removed from your inventory. Arniel will thank you, and say he has much to do, the quest will finish -- but you won't receive the next part in the quest chain. (Whether the next quest starts after 'The Staff of Magnus' quest is finished, is unknown)
 * A bug occurs if you put the staff on your weapon rack instead of giving it to Enthir. Even if you put it back in your invintory, you won't be able to continue the quest.
 * You find Arniel just outside of the college, on the snow close to the river. After delivering the dagger he will attempt to start his experiment but nothing will happen
 * If you dual weild the convection spell on the convector, the quest glitches saying to go to the final convector, rendering you unable to complete the quest.
 * In Part 3, there is a bug that the causes the warped soul gem not to heat up when using the Arniel's Convection spell. So be sure to save before starting part 3 of this quest. [PC Fix]- Use the console command: setstage MGRArniel03 20. This will allow you to heat the warped soul gem in any convector.
 * In Part 3 there is a bug that Duplicates the warped soul gem and doesn't trigger the quest complete dialog. [PC Fix]- Use the console command to remove duplicate warped soul gems from your inventory until you're left with one: player.removeitem 0006a10a 1. If that ID code doesn't work one of the following will: 0006a106 / 006a107 / 0006a108 / 006a109/ 0010e44b.
 * In Part 3, if you find you have duplicates of the warped soul gem you can also deposit the extras into a Dwemer Convector to remove the extras from your inventory. Make sure you keep one! Once you've gotten rid of the extras, return to Arniel Gane to progress the quest. (xbox360)
 * The bug works like this: [This was not true at all. There is no "exact amount". You can sit there one-handed casting the convection spell all day, it won't "undo" the fact you heated it up]
 * If you are still stuck on the first convector you use in Part 3 of this quest, always getting the message to "place the gem in the final convector" that indicates that the quest is bugged, keep retrying until you encounter the duplicate soul gem bug. Even though you will still get the message to use the 'final' convector, you will be able to use a second convector and continue to a third. This seems to be because the part where the game switches goals and tells you to heat the gem already in a convector will not trigger on adding the first gem, but it will trigger on adding the duplicate second gem. This should allow you to use 3 convectors: the initial one and two more, the latter two using a pair of gems each. Don't forget to leave the duplicate gem in the final convector so you can complete the quest.
 * Encountered a big where after completing the quest and Arniel disappeared, none of the quest reward items were left behind.
 * There appears to be a bug in this quest that stalls progress in Part 4 if Keening has already been discovered and claimed from the courier's body. The quest marker will be attached to the courier's body, but will not acknowledge possession of the dagger, Keening. It cannot be given to Arniel unless it is taken from the courier's body as part of the quest.
 * THERE IS A WAY!!! I was very determined to find away around this bug. All i wanted to do was get the keening. I looked on almost every website and found no help :(. So i thought and it occured that there was one thing that no one tried. So i was like F this im walking... For the Bug in part 3 there is one way around it that I have found with my Skyrim character "Goina-Smash-yo-Nuttz" all you have to do is save before you start part three then talk to Arniel. After saving wait for 48 hours. then go find Arein and get him to give you the spell and warped gem, make sure the spell is in your left hand. Then exit the college and DO NOT FAST TRAVEL. I REPEAT DO NOT FAST TRAVEL. I'm pretty sure this is what triggers the bug. Maybe the Skyrim Makers made it this way to act like how it was in Morrowind (lightbulb). Either way you have to travel by foot to the marker on the other side of the map and DO NOT FAST TRAVEL or it will bug the quest! the marker you are headed for is near "DEEP FOLK CROSSING." All you need to do is put the warped gem in the convector and cast the spell Arniel taught you. Then wait before getting the gem and it will tell you to deliver the gem to Arniel. Then save your game again this may be important to you. Open the convector and take the warped gem. It will still say take it to the FINAL CONVECTOR, but this time it is telling you the truth. AGAIN DO NOT FAST TRAVEL. All you need to do now is head to the marker SouthEast of your possesion and heat the gem in that convector. Save once more for just in case. Finally it will tell you to Deliver soul gem to Arniel. Still DO NOT FAST TRAVEL or he will not even bother to talk to you. So just walk to the college without fast travel and Deliver the gem. This should work, it worked for my dude. NOTE this worked on my xbox 360 not sure if it will work on Ps3 or PC but goodluck -AcidJoker420
 * Only needed to use one Convector to fix the gem. Had been stuck on the "skip the middle Convector" bug for a while and had been reloading saved games and trying again. One time it just said to take the gem back to Arniel after one cooking. Quest completed.