Mr. Fox

That's my assumption. I ordered new memory sticks that will be here Wednesday. As soon as I install them I will know for certain that is the case. Given that the issue affects the old (unflashed) BIOS in exactly the same way, I doubt that it is the motherboard firmware. If the new sticks also have no XMP profile, then it will be a mobo RMA. I am hoping it is the memory modules got written with rubbish and not a mobo swap. I think the product name and production date being changed is also an indication of SPD write during the BIOS flash. The release notes saying "fine-tuned memory compatibility" leads me to be suspicious as well. I'm not sure what approach they took to that. It is strange nomenclature, but sometimes Chinese to English translation is not very clean.

It would have to be unlocked, at least during the flashing process.

A60.

Well this is pretty sucky. The latest BIOS from MSI erased my memory XMP profiles and corrupted the SPD. The XMP profiles do not show in the BIOS or CPU-Z and manually overclocking the RAM is limited because it capped the voltage at 1.423V. The same condition is present on the second BIOS with older firmware and it definitely wrote/corrupted the firmware on the memory. I ordered replacement RAM. I am almost positive MSI will pull an ASUS and insist it's not their fault and refuse to take ownership of their own incompetence. I haven't contacted them yet. If the replacement memory has the same issues, then the board will need an RMA. I am almost positive it corrupted the memory firmware though. It worked flawlessly before I flashed the BIOS update for "fine tuned memory compatibility" and after rebooting it's messed up. I tested one stick at a time in each slot and what you see on AIDA64 data is what each stick show in each slot, so the messed up data follows the module. Flashing the previous firmware changes nothing. @johnksss if you haven't flashed tha firmware update, you might want to consider ignoring it. Not only is the XMP gone on both sticks, but also look how the device description, module part number and week/year data is different on the second stick.

Yes, absolutely. I do this all of the time, even if the CPU is not delidded. If the contact between the IHS and heat sink is good the liquid metal will produce much better results. If you travel with the laptop or move it around a lot, carry it in a backpack, etc. then you should consider building a barrier/dam around the perimeter of the CPU with some thin foam and use Kapton tape to bridge the space between the ILM (CPU retainer) and IHS. If you do not use an excessive amount of liquid metal and do not ragdoll the laptop it is not super dangerous, but the dam is cheap insurance to avoid a tragic mishap. The foam needs to be very thin and easily compressed to avoid causing contact interference. I used a few drops of SuperGlue on the Kapton tape to hold the thin outer foam dam in place while assembling things. The inner foam dam under the ILM is held in place by both the ILM and the Kapton tape. These photos are from the X170 cooling enhancements I did for zTecpc. I know that @electrosoftand @Clamibot are owners of that machine, but you can probably adopted some of this for your Alienware.

Yeah, Brother @JeanLegithat is pretty crazy. If it was proven to last as long as liquid metal (llasting years if applied in the proper conditions) and you were not frequently tinkering with things it might be worth it. For most that would be way too much money. As we all know, the problem with laptops is, what works good for desktop with parts that fit nice might be horrible for a laptop (because they are built so sloppy and parts don't fit nicely) and not last very long even if it works well at first application. And, what might do a nice job for a laptop might not be as good as something else in a desktop application. It can be very costly and time consuming playing the thermal paste lottery trying to find out what works best on a laptop. When you find it, even then you can only hope that it works as well on another laptop... it might not.

The problem I had with Gelid and NTH1 is that both were inadequate viscosity and not durable due to pump-out. Kryosnaut was marginally better. All worked close to the same when first applied, but didn't last long enough. NTH1 was the least durable. I have very good results with KPX on liquid cooled desktops, but not sure how durable it would be on a laptop. Someone should try Thermalright TF7. I used it for an experiment on one of my desktops to avoid wasting KPX and it worked quite well. Significantly better than I expected it to work. A tube of TF7 was included each of my 12th Gen Thermalright CPU frames. The TF7 was easy to apply, but I noticed when I removed it a couple of weeks later it had thickened a lot and was clay-like. It resisted wiping off the CPU and water block as easily as most thermal pastes do. It took at least twice as much effort to remove. It was not as thick as old IC Diamond, but impressively resistant to wiping off with an alcohol pad. My impression from that is that it might be very good on a laptop. Based on what I saw, I doubt it would be as susceptible to pump-out as most of the popular options.

The problem is the perceived importance of being energy efficient and consuming less electrical power to avert an imaginary cataclysmic event and the notion that disaster will follow if they do not. That irrational hoax guides more cockamamie ideas than we can imagine. It is remarkable how often claims of "science" are used to justify an agenda and even more incredible how so many sheeple blindly embrace heresy because somebody that seems smart told them it was based on science.

I can relate to that and I've done that more than a few times myself. When you want something and it's within your means to acquire it sometimes it just doesn't matter whether the price is reasonable or not. That has nothing to do with whether or not it is reasonably priced. Most important is what you expect to extract from it. When the price is high, the bar on minimum expectations goes up with it, as it should. Congrats on the beast GPU, bro.

That, plus their crappy GPU drivers and related software, no DLSS and lousy ray tracing. I am actually surprised that they released it. I think it was a very bad business decision. I think they should have known/understood that is was going to be an unattractive purchase for many, if not most, of the people that are willing to spend a massive wad of cash to own the best overclocking enthusiast GPU. The lack of a waterblock makes it totally out of the question and a product of zero interest to many of us. And, it would be an almost insane waste of money for anyone that already ponied up the cash for a 3090 KPE. NVIDIA releasing the 3090 Ti was a kick in the nuts to all 3090 owners and EVGA releasing the 3090 Ti KPE (and FTW3) was like a slap in the face to customers, and kicking themselves in the nuts.

I wonder if that would actually matter to a lot of people. Maybe it's just how brain works, but I know what I want and don't care about competing products. I will wait for what I want rather than settle for something different. So if, for example, I wanted a 4090 then I wouldn't care about what AMD was doing or when they were doing it, or whether 4090 came before or after 4080, etc

The best thing that could happen would be that millions of performance PC enthusiasts and gamers would be so disgusted with what is happening that they simply elect to not buy anything at all for 2 or 3 years and just continue using their existing products, not upgrade anything in terms of hardware as well as refuse to allow any of the latest Micro$lop OS cancer version and "feature" updates and remain in a semi-permanent holding pattern financially and physically so that the big tech Nazis can get a long, hard and painful look at how it feels to be patently rejected by an entire segment of a target market they thought the could rely on to continue bending over and taking it in the posterior orifice. I'd love to see them all squirming, soul-searching and reflecting on their recent crimes as they look for ways to earn back the trust, respect and admiration that they used to be worthy of, and used to make them filthy rich.

There was an MSI "980" that was a tiny bit longer than a 980M standard MXM that might work. Everything about the form factor is MXM and the fit of components should not be a problem. Heat sink fit is fine, etc. The 980M is also a normal MXM and should work with the form factor and heat sink because it is the same as any other "normal" MXM card. The big Clevo 980 shown in the photo won't fit in the chassis AFAIK. I do not remember if the die is in the same location, but the normal 980M heat sink won't fit.

That is a lot of money, so whatever it is she has not spoken into existence yet could be worrisome if it involves spending an equal amount. Maybe she wants a hand-me-down upgrade. It feels strange to not have anything I want in my EVGA queue, and to not be waiting and hoping for a notification. Strange, but in a good way. The X570 Dark has been available since the week of the product launch day, but ignored because it is obviously of no interest. I added it to my queue when I was hoping to make a silk purse from the 5950X sow's ear, but made the decision to wash my hands of it before the X570 Dark became available. The 3090Ti FTW3 HydroCopper and 3090 Ti KPE were in my queue and I manually removed them. The weird thing is, I do not remember adding either either of those GPUs to my notify list. Maybe I did and forgot that I did.

Yes, I also prefer using pads when it doesn't require a lot of guesswork. They are much easier and cleaner to deal with. The wildcard is how sloppy laptops are made. There is almost no precision involved, and so much variance in models and brands. Even too much variance within the same model thanks to the "heat sink lottery" and you can't always trust that pads that fit on laptop #1 perfectly will also fit on laptop #2 perfectly. On desktops this it almost never a concern because the variance is less and the contact pressure is usually much higher and you can "crush" pads that are just a little bit thicker than ideal by the use of force. With laptops there is little or no force most of the time, and very little wiggle room. If the pads are too thick they are going to interfere with die contact pressure, even if they are very soft and squishy.

They should do something really simple like the Thermalright CPU frame. No need for a complex mechanical ILM with moving parts. I have one of those on both of my systems and it is the perfect CPU retention mechanism and works on the same principle as a RockitCool bare die frame except that it accommodates the IHS. Where it would suck is trying to use an aftermarket IHS. The aftermarket IHS would need to have identical physical dimensions as a stock IHS or come with its own custom CPU frame. It could still be a better IHS though. It could be made from a better material (such as solid silver, or gold plated copper), flatter, and you could keep your stock IHS looking new and unused. They are not as hard as the high thermal rating Fujipoly pads, but they are not as soft as the squishy silicon pads. If you are using the Gelid pads on a laptop with already very weak contact pressure the Gelid Extreme pads could still be harder than ideal. For something like the X170 with screws and no springs, the Gelid Extreme pads should be very good. Not as good as the K5 Pro, but not as messy.

It depends on who their friends are and what they want to believe. If their playmates on Facepoot, Twatter, Discord, TeamSpeak, Instagram and similar social circles are AMD fanboys, that's what they'll go with. If their preference is Intel, they'll go with that. It won't have anything to do with anything truly meaningful or relevant. It's all about being a groupie and gaining the approval of the leaders of the clown possee they want to run with.

That's the story they sold the gamerkidz... single-threaded silliness. That also makes it easy to sell them on low core count consumer CPU junk that enthusiasts don't want, and cheap motherboards with wimpy VRMs and fewer phases. Mediocrity made awesome... Ah, the magic of marketing bullcrap. The sheeple drank the Kool-Aid.

The last can of compressed air I purchased was before I purchased that blower in 2017. I also have an air compressor in my garage, so there is no reason for me to purchase a can of compressed air. The moisture canned air produces is also an unnecessary point of caution that no longer exists. For the really nasty jobs when I have to work on somebody else's computer that has not been properly cared for, I use the air compressor and do the dusting in the driveway so I don't have a mess to clean up inside the house. For my own stuff, the dust has rarely ever accumulated to an extent that blowing it off makes a mess because the amount of dust is so minimal.

This looks like exactly the same one that Brother @electrosoft linked only a little bit less money. Financially, this makes a lot more sense. The one I have is good, but not worth the extremey stupid price it is fetching today. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KKN4T3N

I have no idea, bro. It definitely wasn't that much when I bought it, but that was quite some time ago. That seems pretty steep. If I were buying one today I certainly would not pay that much for it. What I paid for it back in 2017 was borderline too much, even though it is a pretty high end product. https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Powerful-Electronic-Environmentally-Friendly/dp/B01FWSYOME

This is the one I have. I purchased it 4 or 5 years ago when Brother @johnksss recommended it. It is very powerful. You could easily damage something if you were to use it in a haphazard manner. The first time I turned it on it actually startled me for a moment. https://www.amazon.com/Metro-DataVac-500-Watt-0-75-HP-Electric/dp/B001J4ZOAW

Update 8/31/2022: Both are sold now. Price: $35 USD each (one of each available) Condition: Used by like new... these are not wear and tear items, LOL. Warranty: None Reason for sale: They don't work with 12th Gen CPUs and I don't own 10th/11th Gen any more. Payment: PayPal, Zelle Item location: San Tan Valley, AZ Shipping: Lower 48 US - First Class Package $5 USD International shipping: Actual cost plus any taxes, duties, VAT, etc. I am unable to estimate these costs. Handling time: Next Business Day Feedback: eBay Profile; OC.net MarketPlace Specification: One of each is available. The 11th Gen frame works perfectly for 10th Gen CPUs, but not the other way. (You can't use the 10th Gen on 11th Gen because the rectangle for the die is too small.) These are no longer available from RockitCool, or not in stock.

I tried using an Indium foil sheet, and even on my lapped IHS and perfectly flat water block the temps were higher than using ordinary thermal paste. I even ran an extended load test to "melt" the Indium foil and still wasn't good enough, and the foil either never melted or if it did it turned solid again after cooling and had no evidence of melting. It looked the same as when I inserted it and there was never any good result with it. Graphite sheets were even worse compared to the Indium.

You should give it a try.