Ser James Acinonyx of Compactis

Alright, I've done some more tweaking, and I managed to get a stable 2101MHz over three loops of Valley, with no artifacts, with an offset of +135MHz. Due to a minor hiccup with drivers earlier, whatever fan curve I had was lost, so the fans ramped up to an audible 50%, with temps of right below 60C.
I will consider this a successful OC, for now at least. My only minor gripe is the sound level of the fans, but that could be remedied by tweaking the fan curve at the cost of slightly higher thermals (or if I win the lottery I might watercool the darn thing, lololol).

Screenshot from specs page of the motherboard: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-Z270-MARK-1/specifications/

The CPU is chosen with Win8.1 compatibility as first priority. If I were to go with Win10 I'd have chosen a newer CPU like you suggest.

I posted a similar query to this, in regard to my own case. For me, I'd need to remove the metal bars between the PCI slots to accommodate the 90 degree turn of the GPU.

I went on YouTube to find answers to the compatibility, and this video just so happened to have the exact case I have (model and colour), so I now know the metal bars must go. But I assume mounting PCI cards (NVME drives, audio cards, GPUs etc.) is still fully possible to do in the regular orientation if I later remove the bracket?

I think the X-R240 looks interesting. With the tubes close together both on the rad and block, it might look tidier than other AIOs.

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know. Because I can adjust the fan curve accordingly to deal with thermals, but I am a bit queasy about adjusting voltages without the security of knowing what I'm doing is safe.

Already tried that. Doesn't work. That's why I decided to try editing with regedit.

having to jam your fingers behind the motherboard to prevent it snapping when you wrestle in the 24-pin

I appreciate the help anyway, no matter how unorthodox this assignment task seems.

First, I interpreted it as them wanting me to run the VM as non-VM on the second server machine. That's what I asked about.
 
As for paragraph 3, when I think on it, it does sound a bit special. I will ask when I get the chance, because some tasks have been worded oddly. I am just not lucky to have the teachers being 100% available so I can ask them about the assignments I get.

24-pin ATX. If there was a mounting standoff right beneath the port, I'd be less worried about bending or snapping the motherboard.

24-pin ATX. If there was a mounting standoff right beneath the port, I'd be less worried about bending or snapping the motherboard.

24-pin ATX. If there was a mounting standoff right beneath the port, I'd be less worried about bending or snapping the motherboard.

We made sure not to connect any harddrives to ports that would disable the M.2. We even disconnected the extra drive altogether without luck.
Didn't say NVMe, and I'm asking you guys if the two work together.
The M.2 disk is gone. I got it refunded. I'm not going to test it, because I don't have it.
As I stated in the OP, I am looking for answer to whether there was a compatibility issue or a defective disk, not how to get the current one to work.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is seriously relaxing

So my question is this; Assuming I would decide to get a new motherboard, what kind of software prep would I have to go through? It'd be (not surprisingly) ideal to not have to do a fresh install of Windows.

Despite my case being a discontinued, rather cheap product, I managed to get most of the fan connectors behind the motherboard tray. I still need to fix the cable management myself so I can get the panel on and off more easilly.
 
Though, after seeing the case you talk of, there seems to be limited cable management space. Still, the best suggestion is to find space in a non-visible place.

I do consider the MSI/Corsair or EVGA hybrid cards if they really can go silent. I would rather not work with making a WC loop myself, as I abandoned the project a while back out of frustration with the stupid kit that seems to have incompatible tubes and fittings.

Also, rigid isn't pressed as hard as soft tubing, meaning you can pull it out with a little force, but it should be snug enough to not just pop out.

I fixed the issues I had by restarting Minecraft with a very crude (I don't recommend this) "crossbreed" between two versions of Optifine. For some reason the versions seem to alternate between two or three files that muck up shaders, which I do the ghetto approach to.