J7SC_Orion

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...at first, I thought I was looking at an older BMW M5 V10 block ?

...nice, that should help. But in case things still get toasty in a small / confined enclosure, this all-in-one block/res/pump is kind of nifty (though I hope they'll make a D5 version down the line)

I love the NFS series ? ...even driving around in Cyberpunk2077 is fun (other than controls). Some 4K RTX Ultra and/or Psycho settings screenshots...including for my fav pastime in CP2077: Roaming

...getting all misty-eyed:

...it's a military base, with plenty of satellite connections - and big Hercules aircraft for transport. In-flight service may lack, though

...not so hasty ! Check out the average temp at Alert and think of a massive folding (and similar use cases ? ) setup re. cooling. Also, your food freezer is as big as you want and won't take away any precious Watts from your computing endeavors...on the other hand, I don't think you can get Ueber Eats deliveries up there

...and yet - as Franklin's ill-fated expedition to find the NW Passage showed - when it gets to avoid being eaten up there, you might have more to worry about re. your crew-mates...

...or you could just move to Alert on Ellesmere Island, would be easier / quicker than waiting for The Netherlands moving North significantly... ...see map above, think seal meat with your potato fries (but avoid becoming polar bear dinner yourself).

..the previous X5 Diesels had sequential twin turbos (each of a different size)...traffic light getaways were fun, especially in the rain and snow, when those Merc AMG drivers were just watching their traction light flicker... ...off to pick up the butter chicken Sunday dinner ?

...yup, my friend's Exige is a hardtop (ouch). There's also the intrusion of the wheel wells in that thing...and one foot hits all three pedals at the same time (I'm sorry officer, I wasn't trying to go faster, i was trying to brake...) ...the X5 is a great handler btw, never mind for its size...technically, it is a SAV, not a SUV - at least according to BMW marketing (SAV = Sports Activity Vehicle). This one has the 3L Turbo gas engine, but the prior ones had the twin-turbo diesel...drove one of those straight across much of Canada and back (Vancouver-Toronto-Vancouver, in the Canadian winter...the white one below, during that trip, Crowsnest Pass). Torque is king...

...I went for the black electrical tape cover-up option before ? ...but now that I got my static Cherenkov Blue happening, I kind of like it - just hate that extra steps of kicking in the GSkill software, then unload it, after a cold boot - I'll try that open source software mentioned above...

...same here - I was taller than my dad when I was 15 or so ...a few drawbacks though. The other day when having the beemer serviced, I went to the showroom and ''''got into'''' a BMW i8. Getting in was bad enough w/ those butterfly doors, but getting out was, ahem, not gracious...same with a friend's Lotus Exige

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...it's almost 4 years old now, but drives and looks (incl. the interior) like new. As mentioned, I might pick it up at the end of the company lease in the late summer. BTW, when we got it, I had the dealer throw two bottles of special leather cleaner into the deal (no kidding ). ...'back in the day', my own personal cars were things like used TransAms and Corvettes I had rebuilt and modded myself...but squeezing my broad, 6'4'' frame into those isn't that much fun anymore as I get older (and a wee bit wider). Besides, traffic and speed limits these days call for a more spacious, relaxed way for us to get around, while having room for cargo. Also, within 15 min next to the city are a series of mountain ranges > rain, snow, forests service roads, ski trips...

Tx ?, I tried s.th. similar before, but that also seemed to have to run / stay open, at least re. RGB RAM - the only real cold-boot challenge left, per above. I'll give OpenRGB a try though

...it's retro time again ?

---BEGIN TRANSMISSION--- It's been a busy period building and configuring new (and updating existing) systems over the last few months. These days, that means grappling with RGB, one way or the other - some of it cannot even be turned off w/o using software after every single (cold) boot (looking at you GSkill...) Now, I don't mind a bit of RGB, as long as it is 'static' and in a colour somewhere between 'Cherenkov Radiation Blue', blue-purple or turquoise... ...at the same time, I try to be security-conscious and hate low-level software that needs to run (and call 'home'...) for control, never mind the huge big-data sucking that is going on with it as well as OS, social media and so forth. With that in mind, on to the latest two AMD 16c/32t builds joining an existing but updated TR 2950X w/RGB (all btw doing productivity as well, thus even more aware of security issues)... The latest builds involved an Asus Crosshair VIII Hero wi-fi / 3950X and the 'Dark' variant of that Asus X570 board with a 5950X. Asus has some control in bios re. RGB, but it really pushes its 'armory crate' big-and-broad software (replacing the older, smaller Asus Aura), even in the bios ! I found 'armory crate' to be, well, more than troublesome when installing it on the 3950X system. In fact, it hung during install - and as it is a HAL-type app, Windows 10 Pro couldn't even boot correctly anymore. No amount of 'safe mode', 'repair' and so forth worked over several days (I'm not a newbie re. this) so I had to reinstall not only Win 10 Pro, but the 150GB to 200GB of apps I had just loaded ?. I just turned off as much RGB as I could after the reinstall, though the four sticks of GSkill RGB kept on happily doing their rainbow thing... Right, onward and upward. Next up was the Dark Hero / 5950X build, also with identical GSkill memory...I tried to track down the older, smaller 'Aura' but on Asus' sites, even if you find it, they substitute armory crate for it - no thank you. I did find an older version of Aura that '''worked''' elsewhere re. mobo RGB, but no cigar for the GSkill control. I then loaded GSkill's latest RGB control software. I have learned that at least with some of the mobo software, you can choose the colours and display-type you want and it seems to make appropriate adjustments in bios / win - to the point that you can actually completely uninstall it but keep your colour pattern. I have had similar experiences with Gigabyte's RGB Fusion on the MSI X399 Creator 2950X / dual Aorus 2080 Ti setup... This time however with the Aus Dark Hero / 5950X, things get reeeaaallyy interesting... Everything 'worked' (boot, all apps in Win 10) w/o any problems, BUT the Q-Code on the mobo went haywire...initially, it kept on displaying 'FF' - a Q-code 'reserved for future use', though some folks call it the Q-Code of death...well, since performance and stability wasn't impacted, I knew it had to relate to the two RGB packages I had just installed - they were probably not 'playing nice' with each other. So I uninstalled the first one (Asus) and to my great happiness, it kept the 'Cherenkov blue' settings even from a cold boot. But now, the Q-code - while everything was working fine in Win 10 pro - would jump around between '33, 34, 36 39' and back and forth and back and forth continuously while fully booted up . WTF ? ? I then uninstalled the GSkill software as well, and voila Q-code of AA (or 40 after a sleep-reboot), the way it is supposed to be. I then reinstalled the GSkil RGB control package and unloaded it after booting into Windows 10. Even an uninstall will work, unless the system is doing a cold boot - at which point in time you have to activate the GSkill RGB package again, rinse and repeat... The moral of the story ? Run sever boards or Get Linux (haha), and/or buy non-RGB RAM. But this is high-bandwidth, low CL binned Samsung-B I already had, so that doesn't apply here. Given that most of the new consumer mobos, CPUs, RAM and many peripherals come with 'RGB' whether you like it or not, the solution I have now is palatable. Still, the various RGB software you need to control it all are just 'another brick in the wall' --- END OF RANT---

...pics from when it was on the showroom floor before pickup (company lease, 4th beemer, not counting my youth in Europe). Lease is coming up and giving serious thought of buying it out w/ extra BMW warranty - it's been completely trouble free so far...only one issue: Ivory-coloured leather is very nice to look at, but it requires a lot of regular cleaning ?

...currently, I'm listening to V10 and V12 ?

...may be it was because 'Frank' didn't make it past face control ?! ...anyhoo, more beautification tools - not for Frank, but for 'Project Raven' and its 5 gazillion wires and tubes

...Peekaboo ...progress ? ...entering the final appearance mod stage (pics of that soon) after everything is wired, setup and stress-tested. CPU and GPU are both good samples (nothing worse than a good-looking sloth when it gets to building a performance system).